The Gate to Women's Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "He was a warrior?" Stavia's face was suddenly ashen.

  Septemius nodded. "Much decorated. Much honored. Retired from active duty, so he said, by his garrison. Allowed to travel as he would."

  "I have heard that warriors sometimes decide to travel," she said with an oddly furtive expression, "but they are never retired from active duty. Not even when they go to the Old Warriors' Home."

  "So I believe," said Septemius. "So you know. So these nieces of mine believe and know. But my sister, well, she wished not to believe it." Seeing the look in Stavia's eyes, he changed the subject. His nieces had been right. There was something eating away at this girl, and it was more than mere romantic wondering whether some young warrior would keep an assignation.

  On the following day, they moved the wagon to the edge of the plaza and set up the stage under the interested gaze of the plaza guards, afterward returning to the hostel with the donkeys. Bowough seemed to be profiting from the rest, and from the extra food. The cook at the hostel had made him his nog, and he had profited from that, as well. They had all tasted it. To Septemius it seemed that something was lacking. It was what was always lacking, some mysterious dimension of taste which his imagination could evoke but which his tongue or nose could not fulfill, some spice or flavoring that did not exist any longer, vanilla in this case, said the cook, referring to her ancient recipe books. "A tropical product, no doubt," she commented, sighing. "We have nothing from the tropics in this age."

  "Are all the tropics then dead?" Kostia asked, intrigued by Septemius's annoyance concerning the lack of spices and flavorings.

  "Who knows?" Septemius replied, moderating his tone somewhat. "We cannot reach them, if they are yet alive, nor they us. Who knows if they are dead or not?"

  "Have you ever tried to go there?" Tonia asked. "Has anyone?"

  "To go south? I remember a journey, long ago, when I was young. The troupe went along the coast, circling inland to avoid the gray devastations which lie along the water. My grandfather had heard rumors of inhabited lands there that are not part of Women's Country." He said nothing more about the inhabited lands. They were not lands he would want to travel to again, nor would he want Kostia or Tonia to come there, even in flight for their lives. "Our southernmost journey ended in a place where three monstrous devastations came together, a plain of glass beside a huge bay with twisted remnants of great bridges thrust up out of the stone. We could find no way around it."

  "Perhaps farther inland," murmured Kostia.

  "Perhaps if you had had a ship," murmured Tonia."

  "Well, perhaps," he said. "That was a quarter century ago. It is getting time for Women's Country to send their exploration teams. They do it every now and then, to see what has changed in that time. Perhaps they will find spices again."

  "We do not miss them," said Kostia.

  "Because we have never had them," said Tonia. "They are little things, after all."

  "A little spice may outweigh whole generations of potatoes," growled Septemius Bird. "None of us have ever had them. But some of us would weep over not having them just the same."

  REHEARSAL:

  CASSANDRA (Weeping) Apollo said you wouldn't believe me.

  HECUBA (Cuddling her) Well, old Apollo can go scratch himself, of course. Mother believes her little girl....

  ANDROMACHE Cassandra. What difference does it make if they believe? Perhaps it's better not if all you see is blood and splintered bone.

  CASSANDRA You don't understand.

  ANDROMACHE Well, stop crying and explain it to me.

  CASSANDRA I am Cassandra! To be Cassandra is to prophesy! But if they will not hear me when I speak, then who am I but some poor fleshless thing, a ghost that no one sees!

  HECUBA Shh, daughter. You are no less than Andromache. You are no less than I. At least the name 'Cassandra' is your own! One time I had the name of Priam's Queen. Once Priam died there was no Priam's Queen. Andromache was known as Hector's wife, but when her Hector died, whose wife was she? Our place was here at many-towered Troy, and when it fell, what place was ours to hold? All that we were, we were by others' strength; all that we had, we had because of place. Place gone, strength gone, we are nothing today. At least the name Cassandra means yourself.

  CASSANDRA (Thoughtful) There are worse things than having one's own name.

  AFTER HER nine-year's absence at the academy at Abbyville, Stavia had found it difficult to come back to her old place in Morgot's house and think of it as home. The idea of "home" summoned up the room she had occupied at the academy, scarcely more than a closet and yet a place very much her own, with only her own things about her. Once back at Marthatown, returned to the room she had occupied since she was a child, she saw it with new eyes as a cluttered, other-peopled space with too many things in it. Bits and pieces left over from herself as she had once been. Perhaps things left over from other parts of herself which she was not sure existed any longer or things other people had thrust upon her. Books she no longer wanted. Toys she could not remember ever having played with. Ornaments and oddities that had always been there, that could have belonged to unknown people long ago. After a week or two of discomfort, during which she circled, constantly, like a dog trying to find a place to lie down, she asked the new servitor who had taken Donal's place to find some crates and bring them to her room.

  "Is this enough?" he asked, thrusting a stack of empty boxes through the door. "I figured a lot of small ones would be easier to move than one big one, and the storeroom had lots of them."

  "I don't know," she said rather helplessly, looking at the room around her. "What was your name, again?"

  "Corrig. I came back through the gate with Habby."

  "Did you?! I left for the academy shortly before that." She turned to give him a closer look. Tall, slender, yet roped with long muscles; strange, light eyes almost like Morgot's and her own; thick, dark hair drawn up into the servitor's plait except for locks around his forehead and ears which had escaped; a wide, mobile mouth with the upper lip turned under so that one could only see the fullness of the lower one; huge, beautifully shaped hands. And a deep, vibrant voice which had already brought him to the attention of the choir director. "Where did you go? You didn't come here right away. Donal was still here when I left."

  "I was assigned to the house of a Council member who lived over by the eastern gate. I was there three years, until she died. Donal was being sent out of the city for some special kind of education, and I felt I already knew the family because of Habby, so I asked to be assigned here in Donal's place. It seems like home to me now. Does it seem strange to you?"

  "There have been changes in Marthatown," she said musingly. "People grown up. People gone. Commander Sandom dead."

  Corrig nodded. "With his Vice-Commander and several other officers, too."

  "Several of the older Councilwomen are gone."

  "I meant did the house seem strange?"

  "It's odd, but the house is wholly familiar. It's only this room that seems weird to me. Foreign, somehow. Do you like the place? Have you been contented?"

  "Your mother is strong and interesting. I enjoy Joshua enormously. The fraternity is supportive and understanding. Your sister was very upset at my coming. I think Morgot asked her to leave soon after that."

  "Yes," mused Stavia. "I heard."

  Stavia had run into Myra one day at the grain warehouse.

  "I didn't know you were back," Myra said rather coldly. "From your education."

  "Oh yes. Some time ago as a matter of fact."

  "I must say you've changed." Myra gave her a critical look. "You're a raving beauty. I suppose you know that."

  "No. I didn't. Don't. Nice of you to say so, though. How do you like where you're living?"

  "Better than Morgot's," Myra smirked unpleasantly. "No servitors, for one thing. Aunt Margaret is much more sympathetic than Morgot ever was. She understands how a person feels." "Well, I'm sure Morgot tried...."

  "She did not. I'l
l never forgive her for sending me away. Never!"

  "But you didn't like living with servitors, Myra."

  "Morgot had her choice who she got rid of," she said darkly. "And she chose to keep him and let me go. Never mind her. I've got my own life to live. Marcus has gone down to the garrison. Baby Barten goes soon, and there'll be only one left at home...."

  "You'll have others."

  "No. I can't. I had an infection after the last one. The doctors had to do a hysterectomy...."

  "I'm sorry," Stavia mumbled. "Truly sorry."

  "I'm not. Three boys is enough. Even Morgot says that. Now I can do what I want to do."

  Stavia did not ask what that was. The wounded expression on Myra's face reminded her too vividly of someone else. She did not want to know what it was that Myra wanted to do. She found it hard to think of Myra as a sister anymore.

  Now Stavia asked Corrig, "Does Myra ever come here to visit?"

  "Once in a while, yes. Once in a while she leaves the little boys here while she's doing something else. I like that, even though they're spoiled rotten."

  "Poor Myra."

  "Myra should have been born a man. She could have joined the garrison and been perfectly happy. She's like the warriors, living from carnival to carnival, game to game, and war to war, telling herself romances about honor and glory in between. She even watches the sports events from the top of the wall, cheering the century that Barten belonged to."

  Stavia nodded, saddened. "I don't know what she'll do when all the boys have gone down to the garrison."

  Corrig put his hand upon her shoulder, all at once in a familiar way as though he had known her forever. "She'll dance. I gather it's all she's ever wanted to do."

  It was true. Dance was the only thing Myra truly loved, and if she had been allowed to do nothing but dance, she might have done a lot with it. The ordinances required that she have a science and a craft to bring along with it, however, and Myra had found nothing to suit her even though Morgot had done everything she could to help her. Pottery, carpentry, gardening, construction skills, Myra had rejected them all along with medicine and engineering and chemistry. She had wanted to do nothing but dance. But what good would a woman be who could only dance? When she was old, what use would she be? So, Myra wove and halfheartedly studied mathematics, enough of the one to make simple blankets and enough of the other to teach kindergarten girls, hating every minute that she could not spend in the practice room.

  Perhaps if they had let her dance only, she would not have turned to Barten as she had. So hungrily. As though she were nothing on her own. As though she needed him to be anything. Perhaps if the ordinances had not been so demanding, Myra could have been happier with herself. It wasn't the first time Stavia had had these thoughts.

  "Myra is so, oh, I don't know. She got all those ideas in her head from Barten. It's strange how they stuck. Morgot and I always hoped she'd outgrow them, but she hasn't. Is she still being rude to Joshua? And to you?"

  He shrugged, smiling. "We ignore her, Stavia, which offends her sense of importance. Now, are there enough crates here for what you want?"

  "We'll see," she said, moving speculatively along the line of shelves as she began to take things down: an ugly ornament made of seashells; a bear, badly carved out of a chunk of driftwood; alphabet books printed on heavy cloth and obviously used by generations of children. Wordlessly, he opened the sack of straw he had brought along and began to pack the things she gave him.

  An hour later, the room was much emptier. She had kept a few books, the mirror in its carved frame, the fantastic dolls Joshua had whittled for her when she was little and the cushions Morgot had worked in multicolored wool. Everything else had been cleared away to leave the essentials of bed and chair, bare shelves, and a work table as naked as the walls.

  "Better," Corrig approved. "It looks like there's room for you in here now."

  She gave him a surprised look, meeting his eyes, letting her own drop away. My, oh my, but this was an unexpected man, here in her own house. Imagine his having read her need and intention so easily. She cleared her throat. "All the outgrown clothes and shoes should be taken to the salvage house," she instructed, as Corrig nodded, making a note on the crate. "The quilt makers will find some good material there. The books should go over to the main library. Most of them are in pretty good shape, and we haven't so many that any should be wasted. The other odds and ends should probably go down in Morgot's storage room. Label the boxes so she can tell what's in there. Some of this stuff must have belonged to women in the Rentes or Thalia lines, Morgot's mother's or sister's or even her grandmother's, and Morgot may want them someday."

  "Except for the curtains, it looks a bit like a cell in the quarantine house." He pointed at a strangely shaped stone she had left on the window-sill. "What's that?"

  "A boy gave it to me," she said, picking it up, running her fingers over and through it, smooth and weird, outside becoming inside, inside becoming outside. The shape had a name which she could not, at that moment, remember. Chernon had found it on the beach and had given it to her during a carnival. It was the only thing he had ever given her.

  "Are you going to leave the room as bare as this?" he asked in an interested tone.

  "Not exactly," she said, dragging in another crate which had been standing in the hallway. "I brought some things from Abbyville. Can you open this box for me?"

  The crate contained more books, bulkier and more densely printed than the ones she had put aside, a thickly woven blanket in sunset stripes of blue and mauve and salmon, two paintings of misty landscapes with ethereal towers looming in the remote distance, and several bowls with a deep, sky-blue glaze on terra-cotta clay.

  "The blanket was a gift from a colleague at the academy. Her craft is weaving. The bowls are from another friend. They've both gone back to Melissaville. I'll miss them." She arranged the blanket as a bedcover, then set the bowls on the shelves and hung the paintings on the hooks where others had hung before. "The paintings were done by my surgical instructor." When she was through, the room seemed lit with color, though still restfully bare.

  Corrig took a wad of straw to dust off the stove. "If you'd like, I'll dye some willow that color," he said, pointing at the deep blue glaze on the bowls, "and weave you a wood basket."

  "Do you do that? Weave baskets?"

  "I taught myself while I was with the garrison. There's a great deal of waste time in garrison. Every minute not spent on drill or housekeeping is supposed to be spent on sports, but some of the men take up one craft or another, just to keep their hands busy. Carving's a favorite, of course. The barracks are one solid mass of carved beams and carved wall panels and gables and door-posts. Basket making's acceptable, and weaving. I've seen some decent pots made by old warriors, too."

  She sat on the edge of her bed and waved him toward the only chair in the room. There was something she was trying desperately to understand. "Corrig, tell me about garrison life."

  He, with an odd smile, seated himself, folded his great, graceful hands in his lap, and complied.

  CHERNON, now a member of the twenty-four century and within a few months of the twenty-five, learned of Stavia's return from Michael, though when Beneda repeated the news he pretended he hadn't known about it. He had made it a habit to come to the armory roof to meet his sister every week or so. It would have been considered undignified for a mother to come, but warrior mythology expected sisters to be almost as sentimental as lovers were, and it was a way of keeping in touch.

  "How long has she been back?" he asked, trying to sound offhand about it and dismayed by his inability to do so.

  "You still care about her!" exclaimed Beneda.

  "I was always fond of Stavia," he returned stiffly. "I never made any secret of it."

  "You certainly didn't act fond, telling her to leave you alone just because she didn't want to break the ordinances anymore."

  "It was best for both of us. She was only a child."


  "She was twelve, almost thirteen, and when she went away, she was still mourning over you. She's twenty-two now. Do you want to see her?"

  He didn't answer this. He didn't know what his own feelings were in the matter, but he was quite sure what Michael wanted. Michael wanted Chernon to meet with Stavia. Michael wanted it very much. Commander Sandom had been dead for over a year. He and his cronies had been coming back from the Gypsy camp when they had been set upon by bandits. Only one of the armorers had escaped to tell the story. Michael was now Commander.

  Michael was now Commander and his agents said the other nearby garrisons would either take over their own cities when Marthatown garrison did or turn a blind eye on the whole thing. This year could possibly have the best harvest anyone could remember. The warehouses would be bulging.