Sheri Tepper - Gate To Women's Country

by Gate To Women's Country(Lit)

  Septemius laughed, sincerely and convincingly. "It seems to me I've heard of secret meetings in garrisons! Isn't there some kind of secret society, some group of initiates? The Brotherhood of the Ram? Haven't I heard about oath taking at the foot of the monument on the parade grounds?"

  Chernon flushed. "That's different. That's very much like the women going to temple. More... more religious."

  "Well, maybe the Councilwomen are religious, too, but I don't think that's why they have secret meetings. The reason is simple enough, I'd guess. It's the Council that has to allocate the food and scarce' supplies, Chernon. They try to do it fairly, so far as I can see, and that probably takes a good deal of discussion which is better held in private so that people don't get upset. It isn't unlike the meetings your officers hold. Your Commander makes his decisions in private, too. He doesn't ask the centuries what they think before he decides how he'll go into battle."

  Chernon thought this over, wrinkling his nose and upper lip. It sounded plausible, but then many womanish things sounded plausible. He was of no mind to accept it. "If you say so," he said, not believing it. If it were that simple, Michael would have known it. One thing all the warriors were agreed upon and most of them resented: The women did things and knew things that were secrets. Powerful secrets.

  Septemius watched the boy's face, his heart sinking within him. He had expected... well, what had he expected? A youthful romance? An infatuation fueled by separation and imagination into something transcendent? A joyous fling?

  None of the above. Something calculated and chill, though powered by lust which was probably honest enough.

  Septemius sighed. Oh, he did not want to be involved in this at all.

  It was a three-day ride southwest along the shore to Emmaburg, under the best conditions. The fortified sheep camp which Stavia had specified as the end of their southern journey was two days' farther south and east. At that point, they would be south of the desolation, and a four-day trip toward the northeast would take them around it to Peggytown. Fortuitously, Peggytown would be having carnival shortly after they arrived. The shore route was very little longer than the more usual route, east from Marthatown to the Travelers' Rest, east and a little south to Mollyburg, and then southwest to Peggytown. All roads in this part of Women's Country made a circle around the desolation, with Tabithatown and Abbyville away in the north and Melissaville and the other cities more toward the east.

  Septemius had no real worries concerning the route as far south as the sheep camp. He did not like the idea of the four days from there to Peggytown. There was a road, but it was one not much traveled. There were forests and hills and broken lands. To the north was the desolation, and to the south were people he remembered as unpleasant. So he fretted as he drove, wondering if this were not one of those times when any bargain was a bad one, a time of no good choices. From time to time he had to look into the back of the wagon, at old Bowough's rosy cheeks, to convince himself he had behaved even halfway ethically.

  THE SHEEP CAMP where she would have met the servitor from Tabithatown if she had not sent him word not to come, Stavia spent her spare time treating several of the women and servitors for various conditions either brought about or exacerbated by their daily occupations. She told one rash-pied woman to return to Emmaburg and stay away from sheep in the future because she was allergic to the oil in the wool. She treated abrasions and cuts received from thorn and rough stone. She had a look at the animals, as well, though there were medics better trained than she in animal troubles, none of them had been south recently, and suggested salves for eye infections and treatments for insect bites. Then, when that was done, she inspected the gardens and fortifications and wrote a generally laudatory report to be sent back to the Council at Emmaburg. The Emmaburg Council had set up the camp, and if all went well the camp would expand and grow into a daughter-town.

  "Any trouble with bandits?" she asked.

  "Somebody spying on us," the camp manager told her, rubbing the wrinkles on her forehead as though she might rub them away, then taking a swipe at her graying head where unruly locks broke out of the sensible braid. "South of us. We catch sight of them now and then, shadows sneaking around behind the bushes, mostly around about dusk. A few sheep have disappeared, too, maybe a few more than we can account for. I think we can say definitely more than we can account for. Most of them have been young rams."

  "Could be coyotes?"

  "We see coyotes every now and then. They don't bother the flocks too much in the daytime. They'd prefer to be night raiders, but we bring the sheep back into the folds when it gets dark. No, the sheep that vanish are the ones that graze at the edge of the flock, wander off a bit, then suddenly they aren't there anymore." She didn't sound disturbed by this.

  "Ah," said Stavia unhelpfully.

  "Way I figure it is, the ones that get picked off are the ones that don't stay tight, which are the ones we want to be rid of anyhow."

  "Ah," Stavia said again, in sudden comprehension, half remembering something she had read, years ago. "Selection! You're selecting for herding instinct."

  "I'm selecting for sheep that get very uncomfortable if they aren't jammed up against about four more of their kind," the manager admitted, still rubbing away at her forehead. Speaking of which, I've got something to show you." She opened the door at her side and went through into a yard Stavia had not yet seen. Against the wall was a pen, and in the pen were some strangely shaped sheep.

  "Dogs," the manager said, giving her a sidelong look.

  "What?" Stavia stared at them in disbelief. They were dirty white, wooly, with the convex noses and loopy ears of the sheep she had been staring at for days.

  "Dogs. I don't know where they came from, but one of the herders came in the other day and here were the three of them, mixed right in with the sheep."

  "I thought they were sheep!" Stavia leaned over the pen and the animals stared at her, tails wagging slowly.

  "Look almost like sheep, don't they? Let me tell you. I got real curious, so I kept one female and the male here and let the other female go out with the flock. Told the shepherds to keep an eye on her. Long about dark, they were coming back and a coyote ran out of the bushes, trying to grab off a lamb. That dog was right there, between him and the lamb. Couldn't budge her. Every time he shifted, there was this dog between him and the lamb."

  "They're not herders?"

  "Didn't try to do any herding. Nope."

  "Up north they've got some herder dogs. I've heard about those."

  "Me, too. Lots of times wished I had some."

  "But these are something else? Sheep protectors, sort of. Strange."

  "Before the convulsion there were sheep here, we all know that. Otherwise we wouldn't have them now. So maybe before the convulsions there were different kinds of sheepdogs here, too. Herding dogs and this other kind. They look all soft and babyish, like puppies!"

  "You think they survived all that time back in the mountains?"

  "The deer did. The bear did. Foxes, too."

  "Two females and one male isn't much to breed from."

  "I've told all the shepherds to keep their eyes open. If they see any more of them, they're to let me know."

  Stavia shook her head, reaching a tentative hand into the pen. A pink tongue came out and licked her fingers. Dark eyes completely surrounded by white woolliness blinked at her. "Tame," she said. "Completely tame."

  "Which argues people close by, don't you agree, Stavia? That's what we all think. We don't think they're wild survivals. We think they belong to people. Not bandits. Not Gypsies. Settled people, somewhere."

  "There was a showman came to do carnival in Marthatown,! Septemius Bird. He'd traveled down this way years and years ago. He told me there were settled people south of here. In the valleys, beyond the badlands. But that would be quite a long way south. They shouldn't be within miles of you."

  "I was told to stay out of there and keep the flocks out of there, but no one eve
r said...."

  "According to Septemius, the people living there are not the kind of people we'd want to... well... take in."

  "Ah. From the way you sound, not the kind we'd like to take over, either."

  Stavia nodded. "I gathered their way of life wouldn't be anything we could either change or much approve of. I'm trying to remember what Septemius said. Something like 'sparse and unprofitable'. Whatever he meant by that."

  "It tells me where the spies are probably from."

  Stavia nodded, thinking hard. If people from the south were within spying distance of the sheep camp, it would be foolish for her to make a two-man foray in that direction. An immediate report on the spies should go to Emmaburg, for the Town Council, and to Marthatown, for the Joint Council. Probably the dogs should be sent as well. Women's Country couldn't lose this chance to add other animals to the limited number available to them. Septemius would be arriving within the next few days, and she could probably get him to carry both reports and dogs.

  Chernon would leave the wagon before it came within sight of the camp, go east and make a smoke to guide her to him. She had told those at the camp she was meeting her co-explorer elsewhere. Even though he would be disguised as a servitor, it would be better if no one from the camp actually saw him. She didn't want his name mentioned in some future report, or for someone to be so put off by his manner that it would cause problems later, when she was back in Marthatown and he in the garrison.

  Or, later, when he'd returned to them through the gate. He might. It was possible. After the few weeks or months of traveling together, he might stop this garrison-but-no-garrison flailing about and come back. As for her, it wasn't really a breach of trust. She'd be doing the job she'd been sent to do. No guilt, she assured herself. No one cheated. The exploration would get done, just as she'd promised. Her mind ran over this well-worn track without convincing herself. If she were being honest, she'd admit the whole thing was a risky, possibly dangerous bit of foolishness.

  Meantime, however, since it would probably be several days before Septemius would arrive, she could spend a day or two reconnoitering the lands south, edging up on the badlands, getting some ideas. Something was going on here. Something the Council would need to know about.

  SUSANNAH'S THREE TEENAGED BOYS, Capable, Dutiful, and Reliable, known to themselves as Cappy, Doots, and Rel, were committing one of the major sins known to the Holylanders, that of going out into the devil's country on a bit of exploration and pillage. Though, as they had pretty much convinced themselves, they might well be doing All Father's work of justice and recovery. Three of the dogs were gone and it was likely the devil-spawn women had taken them for demonish reasons of their own. Their determination covered no small amount of guilt. It was they who had taken the dogs with them in a previous foray, which had included spying on a sizable herd of sheep and making off with one good little he-lamb, not even weaned yet. They'd been milking one of their own mama sheep for the critter ever since, though they'd about got him onto grass by now. Hard though it had been for the Elders to accept, Holyland ewes bred by the rams from devil's country had healthier lambs than they did when dutifully served by Holyland rams. Everyone just had to admit it because it was true. Just the last five or ten years there'd been all these sterile ewes or ewes dropping dead lambs. Then Retribution had found a young ram wandering around in the badlands. He'd brought it back, there'd been this big yelling match among the Elders about whether they could use it or not, and finally they'd put it in a pen with just a few of Elder Brome's ewes to see what happened. What happened was healthy lambs, and another yelling match about whether the devil was trying to trick the Holylanders or not.

  Well, Elder Brome won that one. Since then it'd got to the point the Elders didn't even fuss about using outside rams anymore. Whoever brought one in got rewarded; the Elders did a service over the ram to make it fit and dedicate it to All Father's purposes. Evidently the devil's country rams hadn't caught any demonish diseases, because they got the job done. The general opinion among the Elders now was that all animals were made divinely immune to devilishness because they couldn't sin anyhow.

  Which wouldn't help the boys any if the Elders found out the dogs were gone. The dogs might be immune from wickedness, but the boys weren't; the scars on their backs attested to that fact. Trouble was, they hadn't even known the dogs were gone until the three of them got back. Cappy thought Rel had them. Rel thought Doots had them. Doots hadn't even thought about them, and nobody saw where they went.

  "I'll bet they got into that flock," Cappy had admitted at last, after they'd spent most of one evening denying it could have happened. "I'll bet they did."

  "We wasn't supposed to take 'em," said Doots. "We wasn't supposed to go ourselves and we sure wasn't supposed to take those dogs. Papa's gonna chastise us half to death."

  "Well I wasn't exactly gonna tell Papa what we done," Cappy said. "I may be wicked, but I ain't dumb."

  "Everybody's wicked," Rel announced. "Everybody's got the devil in him, specially women. We ain't no wickeder than anybody else. Specially not if we get 'em back."

  They lay now behind a long ridge of wind-gnawed stone at the northern edge of the badlands, observing the sheep which moved on the grasslands below. There were three flocks, each guarded by three or four shepherds with horns hung around their necks for sounding alarms, spindles twirling constantly in their hands. The flocks were tight as a virgin's duty place. The dogs might be right down there in the middle of a flock, but from here nobody could tell. All they could see from where they were the flowing blots of dirty white and the dark figures of the guards, robed down to their feet and with their hoods up over their heads, hiding their faces. Could be devil women. Could be some of their captives, cursed men bound as servitors to the devil forever. Nothing to do with one of those but kill him, if you caught one and had the chance. Devil women, though, you could tie them down and tame them after a while. Drive the devil out with duty and chastisement, so the Elders said.

  A motion to the west, toward the fortified camp, drew their attention, and they saw a woman striding toward the flocks, leading a donkey along behind. No question about this one being a woman. Hair halfway down her back, uncovered, little light shirt on her showing her shape, no decency to her at all. Decent women didn't permit themselves to do anything that'd stir a man, and they sure didn't do it on purpose. Decent women hid themselves and shaved their heads and walked kind of bent over. Not this one. She stopped at the westernmost flock and spoke for a time with one of the shepherds, then moved eastward to stop at each of the others before leading her pack animal on toward the east and north.

  "Holy All Father," breathed Cappy. "Wouldn't you like to have the chastisement of that one?"

  "Have to keep her hid," whispered Doots. "Papa'd have her in a wife-house before you'd even got your cock up."

  "Would not," Cappy snarled, pointing at himself. "Got it up already, just watchin' her walk across there."

  "That's wickedness in you comin' out," Rel commented, adding hopefully, "you think she's comin' back?"

  "Probly. I think if she's around, she's probly lookin' for somethin' out there. Probly be lookin' for whatever it is tomorrow. Next day maybe. Maybe for days. We could get out there, ahead of her."

  Doots shifted uncomfortably. "Have to keep her hid!"

  "Well, sure," Cappy acknowledged breathlessly. "I may be wicked, but I ain't dumb."

  STAVIA FELT EYES on her. It was a prickling, unpleasant feeling, and she wanted to turn and scan the stony ridge to the south of her to see who might be watching from there. However, if she did so, particularly if she used her field glasses (for exploration use only, and heaven help the woman who broke a pair), whoever it was would know that she knew. Better pretend she was unaware, scout off away from them, circle to the north and reenter the camp well before dark. She moved purposefully on, eyes on the ground, stopping here and there to dig up things that looked either collectible or totally unfamiliar. There
was a particular weed the shepherds had recommended as a possible insecticide, and another one that sick sheep seemed to seek out. A vermifuge, perhaps? These she took with plenty of soil, wrapping the entire plant in oiled paper to retain moisture. She'd pot them up when she got back to camp and have the next wagon transfer them to the botanical officer in Emmaburg, if any. If not, they could go on to Marthatown.

  Morgot had told her to keep her eyes open for something called "costimy." Triangular leaf, yellow cinquefoil blossom, trailing habit, reputed to be an excellent treatment for lung congestion. It was also, from what she had been able to find so far, invisible and possibly nonexistent. Or it bloomed in the early spring or late fall when no one was around looking for it.

  She still felt eyes. Resolutely, not looking behind her, she moved toward the north. Away from them. She had gone a full mile before her skin stopped prickling. Either they couldn't see her at this distance or they had gone away. She turned, casually, scanning the horizon. Nothing there. She moved behind a bush and used her glasses. Still nothing. No movement. There could have been an army up there in those pinnacles, completely unobserved. Canyons, towers, boulders, everything wind-smoothed and carved into fantastic shapes. She tucked the glasses away and went back to the donkey.