The Gate to Women's Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Sheri Tepper - Gate To Women's Country

  STAVIA SAW HERSELF as in a picture, from the outside, a darkly cloaked figure moving along a cobbled street, the stones shinned with a soft, early spring rain. On either side the gutters ran with an infant chuckle and gurgle, baby streams being amused with themselves. The corniced buildings smiled candlelit windows across at one another, their shoulders huddled protectively inward though not enough to keep the rain from streaking the windows and making the candlelight seem the least bit weepy, a luxurious weepiness, as after a two-hanky drama of love lost or unrequited.

  As usually happened on occasions like this one, Stavia felt herself become an actor in an unfamiliar play, uncertain of the lines or the plot, apprehensive of the ending. If there was to be an ending at all. In the face of the surprising and unforeseen, her accustomed daily self was often thrown all at a loss and could do nothing but stand aside upon its stage, one hand slightly extended toward the wings to cue the entry of some other character, a Stavia more capable, more endowed with the extemporaneous force or grace these events required. When the appropriate character entered, her daily self was left to watch from behind the scenes, bemused by the unfamiliar intricacy of the dialogue and settings which this other, this actor Stavia, seemed able somehow to negotiate. So, when this evening the unexpected summons had arrived from Dawid, the daily Stavia had bowed her way backstage to leave the boards to this other persona, this dimly cloaked figure making its way with sure and unhesitating tread past the lighted apartments and through the fish and fruiterers markets toward Battle Gate.

  Stavia the observer noted particularly the quality of the light. Dusk. Gray of cloud and shadowed green of leaf. It was apt, this light, well done for the mood of the piece. Nostalgic. Melancholy without being utterly depressing. A few crepuscular rays broke through the western cloud cover in long, mysterious beams, as though they were searchlights from a celestial realm, seeking a lost angel, perhaps, or some escaped soul from Hades trying desperately to find the road to heaven. Or perhaps they were casting about to find a fishing boat, out there on the darkling sea, though she could not immediately think of a reason that the heavenly ones should need a fishing boat.

  Near the Well of Surcease, its carved coping gleaming with liquid runnels and its music subsumed into the general drip and gurgle, the street began its downhill slope from the Temple of the Lady to the ceremonial plaza and the northern city wall. At street level on the right a long row of craftswomen's shops stared blindly at the cobbles through darkened windows: candle makers, soap makers, quilters, knitters. On the left the park opened toward the northwest in extended vistas of green and dark, down past the scooped bowl of the summer theater where Stavia would play the part of Iphigenia this summer. Not play, she thought. Do the part. As someone had to do it. In the summer theater. In the park.

  A skipping sea-wind brought scents of early spring flowers and pine and she stopped for a moment, wondering what the set designer had in mind. Was this to remind her of something? All the cosiness of candle flame and gurgling gutters leading toward this sweet sadness of green light and softly scented mist? Too early to know, really. Perhaps it was only misdirection, though it might be intended as a leitmotif.

  The street leveled at the bottom of the hill where it entered the Warrior's Plaza, unrelenting pavement surrounded on three sides by stories of stolid and vacant colonnades. The arched stone porches were old, preconvulsion structures. Nothing like that was built today. Nothing so dignified, so imposing, so unnecessary. The ceremonial space seemed far emptier than the streets behind her. The arches wept for spectators; the polished stones of the plaza cried for marching feet, the rat-a-bam of drums, the toss of

  Plumes, and the crash of lances snapped down in the salute, ker-bam. The plaza sniffled in abandonment, like a deserted lover.

  Oh yes, the journey had been meant as a leitmotif, she could tell. The plaza made it clear.

  On three sides of the plaza, the colonnades. On the fourth side, the towering wall, high-braced with buttresses, glimmering with mosaics, pierced by the Defenders' Gate, the Battle Gate, and the Gate of the Warriors' Sons, which comprised a triptych of carved timbers and contorted bronze depicting scenes of triumph and slaughter. The Defender's Gate was at the left of this lofty arrangement, and she stood close to it for a long time, perceiving herself before it as though from a front-row-center seat, the compliant lines of her cloak melting before the obdurate metal, before reaching out with her staff to knock the requisite three times, not loudly. They would be waiting for her.

  The small door at the base of the great portal swung open; she walked with every appearance of calm down the short corridor beyond. In the assembly room she found an honor guard. And Dawid, of course.

  How could she have forgotten he was fifteen? Well, she hadn't. She was thirty-seven, so he was fifteen. She had been twenty-two when... when everything. All this pretense that the summons was unexpected was really so much playacting, a futile attempt to convince herself that something unforeseen might happen despite her knowing very well what the plot required. Despite Dawid's ritual visits on holidays, his twice-yearly home-comings during which the initial shyness of the original separation had turned to fondness, then to shyness again, finally becoming the expected, though no less wounding, alienation. Despite all that, she had chosen to go on thinking of him as she had when he was five and had gone into the hands of the warriors.

  So, now, she must guard against speaking to that child, for this was no child confronting her in his polished breastplate and high helmet, with pouted lips out-thrust. No child anymore.

  "Dawid," she said formally, bowing a little to indicate the respect she bore him. And "Gentlemen," for the respect she bore these others, also. One had to grant them that; one could grant so little else. She risked one raking glance across the ranked faces above the shining armor, subconsciously thinking to see faces that she knew could not be there. Those that were there were young. No old faces. No old faces at all.

  "Madam," intoned one member of the host. Marcus, she thought, examining what she could see of his visage between the cheek and nose guards of his helmet; Marcus, probably, though it might have been another of her sister Myra's sons, all three looked disconcertingly alike and had, even as babies. "Madam," he said, "your warrior son greets you."

  "I greet my warrior son," the actor Stavia said while the observer Stavia annoyed herself by weeping, though inwardly and silently, as befitted the occasion.

  "I challenge you, madam," said Dawid. His voice was light, very light, almost a child's voice, still, and she knew he had been practicing that phrase in the shower room and in corners of the refectory, no doubt listening with heartbreaking attention for the vibrant echo of command. Still, it quavered with a child's uncertainty.

  "Oh?" she questioned, cocking her head. "How have I offended?"

  "During my last homecoming", he gave the word the aversive twist she had believed only a mature warrior could give it, "homecoming," as though it were something dirty; well, perhaps it was, "you made a suggestion to me which was unworthy of my honor."

  "Did I, indeed?" The actor Stavia was properly puzzled. "I cannot remember any such."

  "You said," his voice quavered. "You said I would be welcome to return to my mother's house through the Gate to Women's Country."

  "Well, and so you would be," she said calmly, wishing this farce were done with so she might go home and weep. "So are any of our sons."

  "Madam, I summoned you here to tell you that such a suggestion offends my honor! I am no longer your son. I am proud to name myself a son of the warriors. 1 have become a Defender!"

  So, and well, and what had she expected? Still, for a moment
she could not respond. The observer Stavia held the actor in thrall, just for this moment, seeking in that face the face of the five-year-old Dawid, mighty hunter of grasshoppers, thunderer on the toy drum, singer of nursery rhymes, leading contender in the skipping race from home to candy shop. That level-browed, serious-eyed, gentle-lipped child. No more.

  No, it was all bronze and leather now. The Marthatown garrison tattoo was on his upper arm. He had a cut on his chin where he had shaved himself, though his skin looked like a baby's. Still the arms and chest were muscular and almost adult, almost a man's body. Fit for love. Fit for slaughter.

  Get on with it, wept the observer Stavia.

  "Then I relinquish all claim to you, Dawid, son of the warriors. You need not visit us again." A pause for the words which were not obligatory but which she was determined upon. Let him know, even now, that it cut both ways. "You are not my son." She bowed, believing for a moment that the dizziness which struck her would prevent her getting her head up, but then the actor had her up and wheeling about, finding her way almost by instinct. Women could not return through the Defender's Gate. There was a corridor here to the left, she told herself, remembering what she had been told and managing to get into it with level tread, not breaking stride, not hurrying or slowing. Even the hiss behind her did not hurry her steps. A serpent's hiss, but by only a few, possibly only one set of lips, and those not Dawid's. Stavia had played by the rules since Dawid was born, and all those metal-clad automatons knew it. They could not hiss her in good conscience, and only zealots would do it. Despite them, she would not hurry. No, no, and no, the thing must be done properly if it had to be done at all.

  And then, ahead of her at the end of the narrow corridor she saw it for the first time, the gate that all the fuss was about, narrow and quite unprepossessing. The Gate to Women's Country, as described: a simple sheet of polished wood, with a bronze plaque upon it showing the ghost of Iphigenia holding a child before the walls of Troy. On the right was a bronze latch in the shape of a pomegranate, set low, so that even a small woman could reach it easily. Her eyes sought it, her thumb pressed it down, and the door swung open smoothly, as though well used, well oiled.

  In the plaza arcade, where the gate opened, old Septemius Bird was waiting for her with his nieces, Kostia and Tonia, their twinned exoticism long since become familiar and dear. Though not friends of her childhood, they were neighbors now, and Morgot must have told them the summons had come. Beneda was there as well, even though Stavia didn't really want to see her, not right now. But Beneda was a neighbor, too, and she had found out about Dawid somehow. Well, she had a right, in a sense. Besides, Beneda always found out about such things.

  "Alone?" she now asked. Beneda had become fond of rhetorical questions and purely exclamatory phrases, needing to fill all silences with little explosions of sound, like a string of firecrackers which once lit could not keep itself from popping, set off no doubt to keep her own demons away. So she repeated herself, "Ah well, Stavia, so you return alone, as I have done, as we all have done. We grieve, Stavia. We grieve."

  Stavia, who had loved her dearly once and still did, wanted to tell her to be quiet for heaven's sake, but instead merely smiled and reached for her hand, hoping Beneda would silence herself for lack of anything to say. What was there to say? Hadn't they all said it to one another, over and over again.

  Septemius, on the other hand, knew how to be comforting. "Come on along, Doctor. I'm sure it's no more than you expected, and these girls of mine have been to the Well of Surcease for a kettle-full. There's a nice cup of tea waiting." His arm around her shoulders was firm and wiry, as though it belonged to someone half his age. Next to Corrig, who as a servitor could not appear in the plaza with her, Septemius was the one she found most comfort in.

  As they returned through the empty streets, the observer Stavia, now in command of herself once more, noted the quality of light. What she had thought was nostalgic and sweetly melancholic was now livid and bruised. The light was a wound, and like a wound it throbbed and pulsed. If it had not been for the old man's arm about her shoulders, Stavia might not have managed the last few steps into her own house where Morgot and Corrig waited with the tea, where Stavia's daughters, Susannah and Spring waited with questions.

  "So Dawid chose to stay with the warriors, Mother." Susannah was thirteen now, her face already firming into a woman's face, with serious dark eyes and a strong jaw.

  "Yes, Susannah. As we thought he would," said Stavia, telling them the truth she had refused to tell herself. She had not really let herself think he would stay with the warriors, even though both Joshua and Corrig had known that it was certain.

  "I wish for your sake he'd come home to us," Spring said, repeating some adult comment she had overheard. Spring was only eleven, still a little girl. She would be slenderer than Susannah, and prettier. For Stavia, looking at Spring was like looking into the mirror of her own past. Now the girl added her own perceptive comment. "I knew he wouldn't come back. He never really cared about us."

  She knew more than I, Stavia thought, looking deep into Spring's eyes.

  "What are you thinking?" Corrig murmured into her ear as he warmed her tea.

  "Of me when I was almost Spring's age," she said. "Long before I knew you. Of my first trip to the Warrior's Gate when we took my little brother, Jerby, to his warrior father." She turned to her mother, murmuring, "Remember, Morgot. When you and Beneda and Sylvia and I took Jerby to the plaza."

  "Oh, so long ago," Beneda, overhearing, interrupted with a little explosion of breath. "I remember it well. So very long ago."

  "I remember," said Morgot, her face turning inward with a kind of intent concentration. "Oh yes, Stavia. Of course I remember."

  STAVIA HAD BEEN TEN. She remembered kneeling in the kitchen, picking at her bootlace to make it lie absolutely flat. It was a bargain that she had made with the Lady. If she learned the whole Iphigenia play, word for word, and if she cleaned up her room and did the dishes by herself and then dressed perfectly, without one dangling button or wrinkled bootlace, then they wouldn't have to give Jerby away. Not ever. Not even though her older sister, Myra, was already standing in the doorway, impatiently brushing the five-year-old's hair to get him ready.

  "Stavia, if you don't hurry up with those boots, Myra and I are going to leave you behind." Morgot had arranged the blue woolen veil over her head for the tenth time and had stood before the mirror, running her fingers over her cheeks, looking for lines. She hadn't found any lines in her beautiful face, but she had looked for them every day, just in case. Then she had stood up and begun buttoning her long, padded ceremonial coat. Time to go.

  "I'm hurrying," ten-year-old Stavia had said.

  "Stand still," Myra commanded the little boy she was brushing. "Stop fidgeting." She sounded as though she were about to cry, and this took Stavia's attention away from her boots.

  "Myra?" she said. "Myra?"

  "Mother said hurry up," Myra commanded in an unpleasant voice, fixing her cold eye on Stavia's left foot. "We're all waiting on you."

  Stavia stood up. The arrangement she had made wasn't going to work. She could tell. Not if Myra was almost crying, because Myra almost never cried except for effect. If something was bad enough to make Myra cry for no discernible advantage, then Stavia couldn't stop it, no matter what she did. If she were older, then she could have tried a bigger promise, and maybe Great Mother would have paid attention. At age ten one didn't have much bargaining power. Of course, Morgot and Myra would tell her there wasn't any reason to make promises or seek changes because the Great Mother didn't bargain. The deity didn't change her mind for women's convenience. Her way was immutable. As the temple servers said, "No sentimentality, no romance, no false hopes, no self-petting lies, merely that which is!" Which left very little room, Stavia thought, for womanly initiative.

  This depressing fatalism swelled into a mood of general sadness as they went down the stairs and into the street. Her mother's friend Syl
via was there with her daughter Beneda, both of them very serious-looking and pink-cheeked from the cold. Sylvia's servitor Minsning stood to one side, chewing his braid and wringing his hands. Minsning always wrung his hands, and sometimes he cried so that his bulbous nose turned red as an apple. There were other neighbors, too, gathered outside their houses, including several serving men. Joshua, Morgot's servitor, had gone away on business, so he wasn't able to tell Jerby good-bye. That was sad, too, because Joshua and Jerby had been best friends, almost like Stavia and Beneda were.

  "Our condolences go with you," a neighbor called, dabbing at the inside corners of her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.

  Morgot bowed, receiving the words with dignity.

  Sylvia said, "Morgot, are you going to be all right?"

  Stavia's mother nodded, then whispered, "As long as I don't try to talk."

  "Well don't. Just bow and keep your veil straight. Here, let me carry Jerby."

  "No!" Morgot stepped away, hugging the little boy through his quilted coat. "Sorry Syl, I just... want to hold on to him as long as I can."

  "Stupid of me," Sylvia dithered, turning red. "Of course."

  The six of them went down the hill in a quiet procession: Morgot carrying Jerby, with Sylvia alongside, then Myra by herself, then Beneda and Stavia, who was trying not to cry and to look dignified at the same time, and failing at both. Beneda giggled, and Myra cast them an angry red-eyed glare over one shoulder.