The Gate to Women's Country

  IPHIGENIA Well, Patroclus has gone on down to Hades along with all the rest of the dead Greeks.

  HECUBA And Trojans....

  IPHIGENIA And Trojans. You'll have company enough when you come there. I've been there and I know.

  POLYXENA That's true! For you were slain ten years ago.

  IPHIGENIA Ten years, such little time. But long enough to learn the way to Hell and back again.

  "Stavia," said the director uncertainly, seeing her stagger. "Are you all right?"

  "Of course," Stavia said, feeling the flood of momentary emotion depart. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

  It had been ten years from the time she had taken Dawid to the warriors until the night a few weeks ago that he had chosen to remain with the garrison. Time enough to learn the way to Hell and back again.

  STAVIA'S HEAD INJURY had been worse than they thought. The chief surgical officer had drilled holes in her skull and lifted a piece out, like the lid of a teapot, removed the clot which pressed against her brain, then laid the bone back with the scalp neatly stitched across it and white bandages to cover it all. Through it all, Stavia dreamed again of the deer, over and over again.

  There was a long time during which voices spoke in other rooms, a time when everything was far away and nothing was important enough to look at or listen to. She did not really hear the conversation between Septemius and Morgot as they sat by her bed, watching her breathe, breathing for her when she forgot to do so, though the substance of it entered her, as the dreams had done.

  "How did you find out?" Morgot asked.

  "Ah." Septemius thought about this. "I would say through the innocent eye, madam. Through untutored observation, in which we do not perceive the fabric of your lives, worked into the pattern you are accustomed to showing others. We are therefore free to make other patterns from the threads we see. We unraveled all your threads and from their substance remove the truth. Our attention focused, for example, on the amount of medical attention given women before and after carnival...."

  "To prevent disease," Morgot said quietly.

  "There was rather more to it than that. After all, we itinerants have had experience with what you do to prevent disease. We've been in the quarantine house, and it's no lengthy process. No, all this doctoring was to do something more, to prevent pregnancy during carnival, to assure pregnancy afterward. I assume the servitors chosen to father children provide the necessary... ah... wherewithal."

  "Yes. They do. Willingly."

  Stavia imagined his lips curving. "I did not think you took it by force. Then, too, madam, I am a magician. Magicians understand misdirection. We do it all the time. We say, watch my left hand, and then the right hand plays the trick. So it was easy for us to see the misdirection in what you were doing. You women were saying, 'Watch us bringing sons to their warrior fathers, watch us weeping,' and all the time the trick was going on somewhere else."

  "Surely you weren't sure," Morgot said. "You're not supposed to know anything about it."

  "There were other clues." Septemius nodded. "Firstly, everyone said that more men came back through the gates in each succeeding generation. That argued for something, didn't it? Selection, perhaps? Tonia and Kostia are attending classes in Women's Country, and they bring their books home. Remarkable how many books in Women's Country refer to selection. 'Even Chernon had a book with something in it of great importance to Women's Country. Put there as a clue, I'm sure. Put there, so that those with eyes will see it. Needless to say, he couldn't see it. He sought the secret of Women's Country, and it was there before his eyes....

  "And then there's the matter of the servitors. Some of them, of course, are like Sylvia's Minsning, fluttery little fellows who are simply happier in Women's Country as cooks or tailors or what have you. For the most part, however, the servitors are more like Joshua or Corrig, highly competent, calm, judicious men, and they are highly respected, particularly by the most competent women. It argues that both their status and their skills exceed what is generally supposed."

  "Skills?"

  "You know what I'm talking about, Councilwoman. We need not play games with one another. I am too old for that. They have martial skills to be sure, I saw that in action down in the Holylands, but something other than that as well. My nieces have it, too. I've known a few others who have it. It's a valued trait among showmen, this ability to hear trouble at a distance, to know where people are, to know what's going to happen. The old words for it were telepathy, clairvoyance. They are very old words, from before the convulsions, though I think they were only theoretical then. Tell me, did you women plan it?"

  She shook her head. "It just appeared. Like a gift. A surprisingly high number of the men who came back had it, that's all."

  "Perhaps because they had it, they chose to come back."

  "We've considered that."

  "And, of course, you've bred that quality in."

  "We've tried," she admitted. "We had hoped many women might turn up with it, but there are very few women with the talent. It does tend to breed true in sons. I am glad to know about your nieces. For a time we worried that it might be sex-linked." She rose to look out the window, turned to stare at Stavia's pale face, then sat down once more. "I suppose Kostia and Tonia know all about this."

  "They do. And all three of us are as safe as any secret holder you may know, Morgot. We would not do anything to endanger you or Stavia or Women's Country. Believe me, we understand it far better than... well, than this poor child lying here on the bed. She had worked so hard all her young life, being good, being womanly, arguing every point of it with herself that she had not had time to understand the whole of it at all."

  "She broke the ordinances," Morgot said, her voice very cold.

  "She did not understand them. She did not see them as one thing but as many. She thought she could break one without touching the others. Also, I have a feeling that she did not so much break them as bend them, and it is likely you should be glad she did," he said. "She found out about the planned rebellion, something you otherwise might not have known until too late." He had told Morgot about Stavia's terrible secret almost as soon as they had arrived.

  "As for the rebellion, we have known about it since it began. Women's Country has been here for three hundred years, Septemius. How long could we have survived if we had not known about rebellions? How many rebellions do you think there have been? Every decade, every score of years there is a rebellion. Some faction in a garrison begins to feel aggrieved. Some group of women begin to play the fool. Rebellions! They begin like a boil, swelling and pestilent, and we let them grow until they come to a head. Then we lance them, and there is pain, and the swelling goes down. Until next time. It is true, we didn't know precisely when it was planned this time, and that information is good to have. But the servitors knew about it, long before you told me. It was more difficult in the early years. Then we used spies...."

  "Stavia didn't do what she did out of any unworthy motive," he suggested.

  "Out of ineptitude," Morgot suggested bleakly.

  "Misplaced nurturing," Septemius corrected her. "The biggest chink in your female armor. The largest hole in your defenses. The one thing you cannot and dare not absolutely guard against, for your nature must remain as it is for all your planning to come to fruition. You dare not change it. Still, it is hard when your own female nature betrays you into believing the ones who abuse you need you or love you or have some natural right to do what they do."

  "There is also misplaced passion," Morgot said. "When we fix ourselves upon objects unworthy of us." She sighed, remembering.

  "Maybe the selection ought to be working the other way as well," Septemius sighed. "Maybe you ought to be weeding some of the women out."

  "There are a good number of sterilizations done every year," Morgot said. "Tubal ligations. Hysterectomies. It should not surprise you to learn that we do just that, does it, Septemius?"

  "Little surprises me, madam. I do wonde
r, though, sometimes...."

  "Yes?"

  "Whether you ever feel guilty over what you do? You few who do all the doing."

  She sat for a time without answering. At last she shifted in her chair and said, "I'll tell you what we call ourselves, among ourselves. That will answer your question."

  "Ah."

  "We call ourselves the Damned Few. And if the Lady has a heaven for the merciful, we are not sure any of us will ever see it."

  ONE MORNING Stavia opened her eyes to see Morgot still sitting by the window but wearing different clothes and with the light coming from a new direction. On the windowsill a glazed blue pot held bright flowers in a tight, self-conscious knot. Stavia looked at them with a half-conscious, musing gardener's eye. She had gone into the southlands in the spring when the wild iris bloomed in the dry meadows. These flowers were shaggy asters and bright buttons of chrysanthemums. The pot was her own, from her own room. Beside it was a tiny basket of blue-stained willow, filled with tiny cakes.

  "I've been asleep a long time," she said with a dry mouth.

  "We've been giving you various things to keep you asleep, but you're right. It's been a very long time, Stavvy. Corrig sent you the flowers and the cakes. And he says to tell you that the funny white dogs have had puppies."

  "Ah." Puppies. Stavia had never seen puppies. That would be interesting. "Why was it so long?"

  "It seems that bash on the head had caused some bleeding on the brain. And then you already had an infection in those wounds on your back. We've had quite a time bringing that under control. You've used up more than your share of antibiotics, Stavia. Your head is healing clean, however. There'll be a considerable scar, but your hair will cover it when it grows in again."

  "They shave the women's heads," said Stavia, a bubble of screaming hysteria rising inexorably in her throat. "They... they..."

  "Shhh." Morgot sat on the bed and gathered her up, holding her as softly and firmly as Corrig had done, as Joshua had done. "Shhh, love. We had to shave it all over again, and so it doesn't matter. Shhh, my Stavvy. It's all right."

  Stavia calmed a little, recalling what had gone before. "Back there, with the Holylanders, I kept thinking, that was how it used to be, wasn't it? Before the convulsions. Before Women's Country, that's how it used to be for women. To be shorn like sheep, and bred whether they wanted to or not, and beaten if they didn't...."

  Morgot rocked, murmuring. "No, no. Not that bad as a general rule, I don't think. Love existed, after all. Some men and women have always loved one another. Not all cultures oppressed women. Some did shave heads. Some allowed beating. Other cultures were quite advanced, at least in principle. And we have to remember that many women did not resent their treatment because they'd been reared to expect it. Of course, it was even worse than that for individual women or in certain places. The Council keeps some old books in a locked room under the Council Chambers. I've read some of them. There's a phrase they used to use, 'domestic violence.' "

  Stavia raised her eyebrows, questioning.

  Morgot responded. "I know. It has a funny sound. Like a wild animal, only partly tamed."

  "What did it mean?"

  "When a woman's husband beat her, sometimes to death, it was called 'domestic violence.'" She paused, breathing heavily. "In some parts of the world, they cut off women's external genitalia when they reached puberty, not the breasts, though they might have done if they hadn't been needed to feed babies. Compared to ancient times, you got away virtually unscathed. Your hair will grow back. Your back will heal." Her voice was shrill. She was talking just to make noise, to distract them both. Why was she crying?

  "Morgot...."

  "Yes, Stavvy."

  "I was trying to be nice to him. Trying to make it up to him. I felt guilty over what I'd done before. I was so stupid. As though making another mistake could correct the first one. I was so dumb."

  "Yes. All of us are. From time to time." Morgot rocked to and from. "All of us. We would be fools not to admit it. We try and we try, but we betray ourselves."

  "Sometimes I wanted him so! So terribly! And other times I almost hated him. Did hate him!"

  "I know." Morgot fell silent lost in memories, then shook her head impatiently, wearied of that. "While you were sleeping, you kept mumbling about reindeer. Over and over. I couldn't figure out what you meant."

  "It was in Beneda's book about the Laplanders. Chernon stole it from her. He had it with him. All about how they selected the bulls that were herdable and castrated the others...."

  "Oh. So that was the book Chernon had. The Laplanders selected the bulls that didn't fight. They selected the bulls that didn't try to own the cows. They selected the bulls that were cooperative and gentle. They castrated the rest. We're kinder than that. We don't castrate anyone. We let our warrior bulls believe they father sons."

  "It's hard to accept that it's that important to them."

  Morgot looked at her pityingly. "Remember Chernon and his knife, Stavia. Then look at the monument on the parade ground. Then think of the Hollanders. And believe. That's been your problem all along, child. You saw. You had the proper information. You fed the proper language back to your teachers, but you didn't understand! You couldn't believe." She sighed. "No, we don't let the warriors know they don't impregnate us. It's better so."

  "And all the children that are born, all of them are fathered by... by servitors?"

  "Joshua is your father, Stavvy. He's Habby and Byram and Jerby's father as well. And, of course, since there is only about one fertile servitor to every three fertile women, and since there's only one of Joshua's quality for every twenty, he's also fathered children for other women here in Marthatown and in other cities. I am at considerable pains to make myself take pride in that fact. It does not come naturally." "Does Myra know?"

  "Of course not. As a matter of fact, Myra was born before I knew. That pregnancy was by artificial insemination, of course. Later, after I was on the Council and had been told, I took the trouble to find out who he was. Not anyone I'd ever met, and, as it later turned out, not a satisfactory sire. Almost none of his boy children return. We've stopped using him." She might have been discussing the breeding of sheep or the crossing of grain. Her voice was as unemotional as a wind on a distant ridge, her light eyes fixed on something Stavia could not see. "I believe, however, that he was Chernon's father as well."

  "How many of the women know?"

  "Very few, actually. The women on the Council, of course. Very few others. We put clues here and there, for those with the wits to see them. Most women don't know anything about it. We can't risk telling the ones who talk too much. Or the ones who drink a lot during carnival. Or those who are still young and silly. Who fall in love with warriors...."

  "How have you kept it a secret? How can you?"

  "We medical officers work very hard, Stavia. It's all in our hands. Who bears, who doesn't. And when. And by whom. Haven't you noticed that almost all of the Council members are medically trained? Most of the women don't know what we're really doing. A very few figure it out for themselves. Some are told, but not usually when they're as young as you."

  "But you're telling me."

  "When I found out you were pregnant, I told the Council they had to allow me to tell you. I told them I would resign otherwise. They fussed about it, but in the end they said to tell you the truth and demand your oath to be quiet about it, just as we all do when we're told. You had given your oath once before, and kept it, so I knew we could risk your doing it again."

  "And if I didn't?"

  "You would never leave this room, Stavia. Because you've broken the ordinances and endangered us all." And those strange light eyes were fixed on her now, filled with so much pain Stavia could hardly bear it.

  "You would let them kill me, wouldn't you?" she said.

  "I wouldn't 'let'. " Morgot answered. "There would be nothing I could do. I might choose to go with you, but.... Oh, Stavvy, we've taken so long, worked so hard, s
acrificed so much, our lovers, our sons...."

  "You have my oath," Stavia said quickly, without thinking about it, needing to get the words out if only to bring Morgot's pain to an end. Later this would seem strange and bewildering. Now, in this soft bed, with whatever drugs they had given her, it felt right. Dreamlike, but right. "On my citizenship in Women's Country, I swear. But why did they let you tell me?"

  "They felt that since you had been forced and were carrying a warrior's child, you should have the right to know the truth in order to make a choice whether to abort or not. That was over a month ago, however, and we're afraid to do it now, even if you want to. It's this infection.... we're not really sure we have it stopped. I'd love to know what they beat you with. Something dipped in dung no doubt...."

  "Why does carrying a warrior's child make a difference?"

  "One chance in twenty of a son returning if a warrior is his father. One chance in five if a servitor fathers him. Roughly. Given Chernon's heritage, probably less than that."