The Gate to Women's Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Shortly after dawn, Joshua came back in the empty wagon. Morgot and Stavia got up beside him, and they set out again.

  "Do you think we'll be home in time for supper?" Stavia asked, folding the bloody blankets into a neat pile at the rear of the wagon and carefully not looking at her mother or at Joshua. Whoever and whatever he really was.

  All she could think of was Myra's saying, "Fine lot of help he'd be. A servitor."

  AT THE SUMMER CARNIVAL when Stavia was twelve there was a new and highly touted magician who came all the way from Tabithatown. There were the usual two shows a day at the summer theater as well, plus street dancing and rowdy roistering in the taverns. Before carnival Myra had gone off to the medical center and returned with a scarlet stamp on her forehead and an implant in her upper arm. She had looked pale and worn, but was strangely hectic, or so Stavia had thought, though Morgot had said nothing about it.

  "The doctor says my hormonal balance is all screwed up since Marcus came," she complained to Stavia. This gadget is supposed to keep me ticking."

  "They're very effective devices," Morgot murmured. "I'm glad Doctor Charlotte thought of it."

  Stavia had scarcely listened. Midsummer carnival was starting, and Chernon would be home.

  "Stavia, you ought to get some new clothes," Myra complained. "She should, Morgot. She's twelve now, but she dresses like a child. All long undershirts and plain shirts. Nothing pretty."

  "Whatever Stavia wants," Morgot said. "If she's comfortable the way she is. that's all right."

  Stavia did not want any new clothes. Her well-worn trousers and thigh-long undershirts were smooth from many washings and as familiar as her own skin. Her shirts, linen for summer and wool or leather for winter, were comfortable and still large enough. She didn't want to be different or wear anything different. Nothing should change or be changed. Chernon was coming home and if he liked her at all, he liked her the way she was.

  But the Chernon who came home for carnival had become strangely secretive and shy. He was a Chernon with a deeper voice, with a sprinkling of beard on his face, a Chernon who looked at Stavia with a new intentness, as though she had something he wanted. She felt it. She told Beneda his intensity made her uncomfortable.

  "It's because he'll be fifteen soon," said Beneda. "Mother counted up."

  Oh, Chernon. Fifteen! Time to choose whether to become a warrior or return to Women's Country. What would he choose? She hadn't even thought about his being fifteen. Now all the easy apologies she had been making to herself for breaking the ordinances, all her complicated excuses were suddenly invalid. How could she rationalize giving books to a warrior? What justification could there be?

  But he wasn't a warrior yet. Not yet. There was still time for him to decide to come home, and she must use that time, what little there was.

  He would ask. Being Chernon, he would ask. She had to be ready when he did.

  And it took him only until the second day. "That last book you brought me had something in it I'd like to know more about, Stavvy. I've written it down." His voice was cool and preemptory.

  She gulped, clenching her jaw until her ears hurt. There would be no later, it had to be now. The words she had rehearsed came out in a spate. If she had waited even a moment, she would not have been able to say them at all. "I can't bring you any more books, Chernon."

  His expression was of surprise, perhaps of shock. Later she thought it was shock. As though he had not thought her capable of saying it. "No... no more books?"

  "You're going to be fifteen. You choose at fifteen. If you choose... if you choose one way, you choose to do without this kind of books. If you choose the other, well, you can have all the books you want. I mustn't mess up your choice for you." She had practiced it, over and over. It had come out cleanly and simply, just the way she had planned it.

  Then why this agony?

  His face. So white. Then pink, then red, then white again. He turned his face away. Finally, he said, "That's not fair."

  She writhed. How could he say it wasn't fair? Yes, she had broken the rules for him, but it wasn't fair for him to think she would always do so. He had to make his own choice. "Chernon?"

  "Leave me alone." Hard and obdurate.

  "Chernon!" Hurt and horror.

  "Just go home and leave me alone." In that moment he did not even think what Michael would say. In that moment, he did not care. What had just happened should not have happened. He had not liked it.

  She was too paralyzed by confusion to argue. She went. The residential streets were quiet, separated from the carnival throngs by street barricades and watchful groups of older women, but she could hear the sounds of music and laughter from over the hill. It was Chernon who wasn't fair! Did he think that because she had broken the ordinances once for him she would go on doing so forever? Didn't he care what happened to her?

  She was in the kitchen, huddled over the ache in her middle, when Myra came in.

  "Where's Morgot?" she asked "Upstairs," Stavia mumbled.

  "Stavia, Barten says there may be a war!"

  Stavia jerked, splashing the tea onto the table. The terrible word was nonsense. "War! What do you mean, war?"

  "With Susantown. The garrison at Susantown plans to attack us."

  "That's ridiculous. We have a trade agreement with Susantown."

  "But the garrison thinks the agreement is a ruse, or something. Our garrison has spies there, and they told Barten's Commander."

  "Michael? Vice-Commander Michael? Jerby's father?"

  "Stavia. Are you paying any attention? I'm telling you there may be a war."

  Morgot's voice came from the doorway, calm and calming. "I'd heard something about that, yes."

  "But we have a trade agreement, " Stavia asserted again, telling them both how nonsensical the idea was. "An agreement!"

  "Sometimes these things happen," said Morgot in a weary voice. "We make agreements, treaties, we do our best, and somehow, everything goes wrong. I suppose the Commanders had spies in Susantown?"

  "Barten told me that his centurion, Stephen, did."

  "Most of the garrisons do maintain their own intelligence systems. Well, just be thankful we have strong men to defend us. We are thankful, aren't we, Stavia?"

  Stavia nodded, scarcely aware she had moved. Oh yes. She was thankful they had warriors to defend them. Before her, on the table, she moved the cup of cooling tea, stretching the spilled liquid into a long, curved shape, like a knife. Chernon. And war. Except that Chernon was too young. They wouldn't make him fight. Not yet. He had ten years yet before he would have to fight. Or he could come home....

  "When," Morgot was asking, "do they anticipate an attack?"

  "No one knows exactly. Sometime within the next few months. Whenever they find out, they'll march on Susantown at once. Before the Susantown warriors can get here and threaten us."

  "Very wise. The garrison Commanders are excellent tacticians, Michael and Stephen, particularly. Well, I suppose Barten can hardly wait for his first action."

  "Why... why Barten won't go," Myra faltered. "He's not... he's not twenty-five yet."

  Morgot nodded briskly. "Oh yes. Twenty-five last month. I know because we were straightening out some garrison records a week or two ago, and it came up then. There were more than a hundred boys born in the year Barten was, too many for a century, so a few of them were put over into the year following. Some of the twenty-fours are actually twenty-five and eligible for battle. No one pays any attention unless there is a threat of war, but then, of course, the Commanders want every available man."

  "But he's too young," cried Myra in a panicky voice.

  "Myra, you're not listening. Surely you realize that there are not precisely one hundred little boys born every year. One year in my mother's time we even had two centuries with the same number, we had so many. Barten is twenty-five, even though he's with the twenty-four century. Come now. You don't want to spoil his pleasure by being negative. You'll need to find out fr
om him what device you should make for him to wear into battle."

  "Device?"

  "Hasn't he asked you to sew him some device to wear over his breastplate? I thought all lovers did that. Ah well, maybe things have changed since my youth, I remember making one for Michael. Three wasps on a field of gold. For speed, you know. And endurance." She shook her head and wandered out of the kitchen.

  "You'll need to ask him what device he'd like to have," Stavia said, breaking the silence, breaking the frozen concentration on Myra's face, breaking her own pain and preoccupation.

  "I don't think he realized he'd be going with them," faltered Myra. "He said how much he wanted to, of course."

  "Of course!" Of course.

  "I must go to find Barten. He was going to meet me later, but I must find him. Now...." She was gone, half running, her hands dangling in front of her helplessly, like flippers.

  Stavia went to find her mother. "Did you really sew a shirt for Michael?" It was not the question she wanted to ask. It wasn't even what she wanted to talk about, but the thing she needed to know was too close, too dangerous even to mention.

  "I did. I was seventeen years old, and he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life. He was just twenty-five. He told me I was his love and his heart's delight."

  "Michael did?" Stavia was disbelieving.

  Morgot laughed. "He did. Of course, he was younger then. More given to romantic excess."

  "Is he Myra's father?"

  "Oh, my dear, no. No, I didn't get pregnant with Myra until a year or two later, and Michael wasn't her father."

  "Who was her father?"

  "Stavia!"

  "I'm sorry. I just...."

  "You're curious, I know. However, we don't consider it good manners to discuss our fathers, Stavvy. It has no relevance in Women's Country. You know that. We don't ask. It was decided a long, long time ago that we'd all get along better here in Women's Country if we just didn't talk about that. Who Myra's male biological progenitor was doesn't matter at all unless she gets involved with some warrior who's too closely related to her. If that were the case, of course I would tell her." Morgot sounded stilted and rehearsed, and Stavia realized that this, too, was a speech she had planned to give, if not to Stavia, then to Myra. "Or, if I didn't, the assignation mistress would tell her. We do keep records."

  "Myra's gone to find Barten." But she, Stavia, could not go to Chernon because he had told her to go away. Though he would not make her go away if she brought books, if she did what he wanted. He would be nice to her if she always did what he wanted.

  "Well, of course Myra's gone to Barten. She'll want to spend every possible minute with him." Morgot's voice became suddenly strange, shut up, as though there were an almost closed door between them.

  The last two nights of carnival Myra stayed up all night sewing Barten a shirt. It had two green trees and a mountain on it, symbolic of the wilds, Myra said. Where there was no Women's Country, though with rare tact she didn't say that.

  For days after carnival, Stavia went to the wall, hoping to see Chernon, hoping to hear from him that he hadn't meant what he said, but she did not find him there.

  CHERNON WAS SPENDING a lot of his time at the Gypsy camp with Michael and Stephen, loafing with them as they sat around the open fire, ready to run to Jik for another pitcher of beer or to fetch a burning splinter to light a pipe of willow, listening as they planned the possible battle with Susantown and harkening to their advice about women.

  "Let her sweat a little," Michael lectured. "She'll come around. You act kind of like you're aloof and hurt and a woman just can't stand it. Every woman in the world is ready to believe anything is her fault if you just tell her it is. She'll have to make it up to you. Just wait, you'll see...."

  It was late, and the fire was burned down to coals so that the men's faces glowed red in the dim light. The beer made them logy and disinclined to move, and they turned slowly as Michael was hailed by someone just entering the encampment, a cadaverous man disfigured by sword cuts across both cheeks and brows. Chernon had never seen him before, but he greeted Michael and Stephon familiarly.

  "So, Besset," murmured Stephon, "we wondered when you'd be back."

  "I damn near didn't get back," the man complained, seating himself beside them and giving Chernon a significant glance.

  "That's Chernon," Michael told him. "Very useful lad, Chernon. He knows Commanders have to have information, so you can say what you need to say. He's all right. What do you mean you almost didn't get back?" He offered the three-quarters-empty pitcher of beer and a mug.

  The man addressed as Besset drank deeply, sighed, wiping his mouth on his arm. "After you arranged for me to get killed off, and that, I joined up with that Gypsy bunch the way we talked about."

  "Hell, Besset, that was over two years ago we said you'd died."

  "Well, I haven't been anyplace close. The bunch I got in with moved around. We went up to Tabithatown and that, and then down the coast and cut back over to Annville. We picked up a man here, a man there. More'n half the men wanderin' around with those bunches are from the garrisons, you know? And some of 'em are just gone without leave and that, and some of 'em are like me, keepin' in touch to let their Commanders know what's goin' on and that, so everywhere we went it was them tryin' to find out what I know and me tryin' to find out what they know."

  "And what did you all know?" drawled Stephon in a bored tone. "Not much, from the sound of it."

  "Not much," Besset assented. "That's true enough. All the men I talked to feel pretty much the same way. They all think the women've got some secret or other they're not tellin' and that. Most of 'em think it's somethin' religious. Like the Brotherhood of the Ram, you know? Only for women."

  "We don't talk about the Brotherhood, Besset. Chernon here may be useful, but he's not a warrior yet."

  "I was just comparin'."

  "Well don't."

  "All right. That's just what some of 'em say, anyhow. There's talk here and there about takin' over and that, but nobody's doin' anything about it. Up north, toward Annville, they don't even talk about it, because of that other time and that."

  "So? Where have you been?"

  "Well, then we worked back east for a while, and it was pretty much the same thing."

  "You don't look like you've been eating all that well," observed Michael.

  "We're not exactly welcome in itinerants' town, are we? On the road it's what we can take, not what they give us. We had a couple of lucky bits, took over a wagoneer's family for a while, but he tried to get away and then she acted up and that, so we did them, and then one night their kids run off with the animals. Well."

  "So!" said Michael again, impatiently.

  "So, I'm tellin' you. We were east of here. It was sometime back, before the Marthatown carnival and that, and we saw this wagon makin' for Marthatown. We thought it was some wagoneer family. One man and one woman and a kid."

  "Yes."

  "There was seven of us, so Challer, he's the one from Melissaville called himself the boss, Challer decides we should have a few games and that with the woman and kid, then take the animals over and sell them at the donkey market in Mollyburg. We followed along until it got dark, then waited while they made camp and settled down." The man called Besset drank deeply from his mug, the foam making a white ring around his dirty mouth.

  "You didn't see who it was?"

  "No, just that at least one of 'em was a woman. We heard her talkin', but it was too dark to see anything. Then we rushed the camp, or I should say they did, because I hung back. I thought maybe if they was from around here, they might recognize me, you know?"

  "What difference would that have made?" Stephen asked in an interested tone. "You didn't intend to leave them alive, did you?"

  Chernon flushed red, unnoticed in the fire-glow. They were talking about murder! And Michael wasn't even surprised!

  "I guess I wasn't thinkin', to tell you the truth. Well, so the men ru
shed the camp, and all of a sudden there was fire all over the place and that and this silver thing whirlin' around, and I heard Challer scream and then his head came bouncin' down the hill where I was, and I took off."

  "A silver thing?" Stephen asked in an ominous tone. "That's all you can tell us is some wagoneer had a silver thing?"