The Gate to Women's Country

  Morgot spoke again. "What you just saw? We call that one of our mysteries, Michael. Something the women warriors and the servitors learn and practice together. Martha Evesdaughter knew of these mysteries, and she taught them to her daughters. You have been asking our daughters about it. It and the other mysteries have their own honor. Never to be used for anything trifling. Never to be used for anything slight. For self-defense only, and always to rid Women's Country of those who are not and will not be part of it...."

  She rose from her place and came toward him. "Stephen, you think I am mad. I see you do. Pick up your shield, Stephen. Pick up your shield and come to me. See if you can use your dagger on me. See if you can catch me and stick your little dagger in me as you would have done with the helpless women of Marthatown."

  Stephen stared at her. She was slight, small, shorter than he, obviously without the strength of arms he had. He did not bother with the shield. He was no longer surprised or afraid. He could counter the weapon he had seen by catching the wheel on his sword. He was in control of himself. He crouched to make a smaller target and lunged toward her, repeating the mistake Patras had made.

  Something flashed across the distance between them and buried itself in his face. He screamed, dropping his weapons, his hands went up to push the blood out of his eyes. Through the dark curtain of blood he could see a silver glimmer as the wheel spun. He fell. He had no leg on that side.

  "Never to wound," said Morgot sadly. "Always to kill. We try to be merciful." He did not even feel the blow which finished him.

  Michael had seen, almost without believing. The thing that hit Stephen in the face was a toothed missile thrown from the hand. The silver wheel which cut off Patras's leg was a curved blade at the end of a chain, whirled by a short handle. A blade heavy in the middle, sharp at the edge. A blade that would whirl flat, with the sharp edge foremost. A blade that would need a shield to counter....

  "You wondered what weapons we had," Morgot said, stepping forward into the firelight. "You wondered, Michael. You set Barten on one of my daughters and Chernon on the other, trying to find out. Barten ruined one of my daughters and Chernon almost killed the other."

  "Morgot...."

  "Yes. Morgot."

  In the woods the other shadows stirred restlessly. Michael dropped his weapons. "I will not fight a woman." He licked dry lips. "I will not fight the mother of my sons."

  "Michael, murderer of Sandom, conspirator with thieves and murderers, greedy, ambitious, destroyer, it was men like you who brought the devastations upon us. Do you think I would have had you as the father of my sons? You did not father any of them!"

  He scarcely had time to comprehend what she had said, scarcely time for the rage these words created to fill him with bloody violence before there was another figure beside her. It, too, stripped its hood away. Michael didn't recognize the face, except that it was a servitor's face, with a servitor's braid. "We would not ask the mighty Michael to fight a woman," the servitor said. "But you may wish to fight the father of her sons...."

  They were the last words Michael heard. He moved as he had been taught to move. For a moment or two he thought he might prevail, except that the dark figure was never where he thought it would be. The blade that slit his throat came from a direction he was not even looking.

  Silence fell.

  Somewhere in the woods a bird made a sleepy sound. Far off on the plain a coyote yipped and was answered by a chorus of others. Beside the fire several black-clad figures moved, looking at the carnage three of them had made.

  "Now," said Morgot softly. "Leave Patras here. The coyotes and the magpies will make meat of him. The other two still have their heads. Two will be enough to stir the garrison."

  "I wish you had let me fight him," said Corrig.

  "I needed to do it," said Joshua, as others came quietly out of the woods to pack the two corpses upon donkeys and lead them away. "In Women's Country we learn not to have jealousy, Corrig. They teach us and themselves to be calm, to take joy in the day, to set aside possessiveness. And yet, despite it all...."

  "Despite it all, you needed to kill him."

  "Yes," said Joshua with a shamed face. "I did."

  THE REST OF THAT NIGHT and a day and a night went by.

  As chance would have it, it was Chernon who was first on the parade ground, near dawn of that next day. He had not slept well since he had returned to the garrison. All day, every day, men asked him about the Holylanders and how they lived. Chernon had seen Resolution Brome with half a dozen wives; he had not noticed how many men there were with none. He had not seen much of the women, and it was not his intention to tell the whole truth in any case. What he had seen was enough. It was proof, proof enough that men could do what they pleased, that men could have their own ordinances, run their own society, make the women do their will. This he said, over and over, speaking mostly of those he had seen who had many wives to wait on them, to do their pleasure.

  He should have been elated, but he could not sleep well after he had finished talking. Whenever he drifted off, he saw Stavia's face, as it had been when he had first seen her, as it had been while they had been together, as it had been when he cut out that thing, whatever it was, as it had been when he had seen her last, white as bleached linen, bloodless, the eyes shadowed like skull eyes. Four faces. Excitement. Joy. Horror. Death. Those eyes seemed to follow him wherever he went, whatever he did. Interest. Delight. Anger. Death.

  He had a good mind, as Tonia and Kostia had noted. It was not beyond him to draw inferences. Was what he had seen what he really wanted? In all his dreams of journeying, all his dreams of heroic quest, he had not seen faces like those last two faces, and yet there must have been many faces like that when Odysseus was finished with his quest. He had killed and ravished everywhere he went. It sounded well in the sagas. They did not talk about the women's faces. Why was it that the sagas never spoke of the women's faces? Odysseus said, "The wind took me first to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to the sword. We took their wives...."

  "Put the people to the sword." That meant they'd killed the men, killed the children, too, likely. And then they took the women, but Odysseus didn't say anything about their faces. Nothing.

  Why? Why didn't Odysseus say how the women felt? How they looked? Why didn't any of the sagas talk about that?

  The questions plagued him, kept him awake at night, wakened him early in the morning to go out onto the parade ground and stalk about, trying to tire himself out so the faces would go away.

  And as he strode by the victory monument, he saw another face, a bloody face, upside down, and thought for the moment he had dreamed it. But this was Michael's face. Michael's body, and Stephen's body, hung by the feet from the victory monument, dead.

  His harsh scream, half shock, half stomach-wrenching panic, brought the men on guard duty, and within minutes every man in the garrison knew what had been found.

  As for Chernon, he was in his dormitory, huddled under his covers, sick with fear. It had something to do with Stavia. He knew it did. And if it had something to do with Stavia, he would be next.

  By noon, the Heads of Council requested audience with Centurion Hamnis, the next highest in command, and informed him that they had discovered who had committed the atrocity. Spies from Tabithatown had done it, to render Marthatown helpless against an attack, to destroy morale.

  The garrison raged as it prepared itself for war.

  IT WAS BENEDA who brought the news to Stavia.

  Stavia's hair had grown out into a wavy crown, mostly hiding the scars where Cappy had hit her with the shovel and where the doctors had drilled holes in her skull. The lash marks on her back had faded, leaving only a few vague stripes to show where they had been. She had been able to leave the hospital and was back in her old room at Morgot's house.

  Beneda was in and out of that room almost every day, bringing a few flowers, bringing freshly baked cookies. Someti
mes Sylvia came. No matter how often Stavia tried to pick other topics of conversation, they always wanted to talk about Chernon. Now they wanted to talk about Chernon and war.

  "Have you talked to him since he came back?" Stavia asked, wondering if he had told Beneda any part of the truth.

  "Once," Beneda confided. "Just from the wall. I told him how you'd been hurt, and he got this strange expression on his face. I just know he was kicking himself for not staying with you and protecting you, Stavvy."

  "I doubt he could have done anything," said Stavia through dry lips.

  "Mother's pretty broken up over this whole thing," Beneda said. "I mean, she sent him away that time, and then he came back. And then he chose to stay in the garrison. And then he went after you and stayed away, and we thought he was dead, but he came back. And now he's going to battle...."

  "It must be very hard for her," said Morgot, who had come into the room during this confession. She laid her hand upon Stavia's shoulder, comfortingly, warningly. "Tell her she has my deepest sympathy, Beneda."

  Beneda nodded, "Oh, I will." Then she launched herself at Stavia, hugging her close, cheeks together as she murmured, "It isn't just mother. It's me, too. It seems like I keep on mourning over him.... I don't know what I'd do without you, Stavvy. You're my best friend. Next to Mother and Chernon, I love you the best...."

  When she had gone, Stavia stared after her, her mouth working, tears welling.

  "Stavvy?" Morgot put her hands on Stavia's shoulders again, shaking her.

  "Let me alone!" She got up, turning away, dragging at her shoulders with her hands as though she would uproot her arms. "How in hell am I supposed to feel? I can't say anything I want to. Not to Beneda. I can't tell her things. I hear her going on and on about Chernon returning from battle, and I... I feel like a filthy hypocrite. Like a traitor. I hate myself."

  "Sylvia is my friend, too, Stavia. Often I feel unworthy of her friendship. But what else can I do? Have friends only among Council members? Then people would think we're clannish, and if Council members appear to be clannish and not to have friends among others in the town, it would lead to a failure of confidence."

  "It's like we were two people," Stavia said. "One who thinks. One who acts. Acts a part, as in a play."

  "Yes," her mother nodded. "That's exactly what it's like."

  THE MARTHATOWN GARRISON marched out two days later, at dawn, twelve hundred men, down to the last noncombatant foundryman and cook. Even the twenty-four century went along to serve as messengers and in other noncombatant roles. All night the Council members had kept vigil beside the Gate to Women's Country, praying for those who might yet return through the gate to Women's Country, praying that some would return. None had.

  Morgot and Stavia stood among the other blue-robed Councilwomen, ranged at the easternmost end of the wall above the armory, to watch them depart. It was the first time Stavia had worn the robes. She felt self-conscious in them, and yet there was an inevitability about their substantial weight. She remembered thinking once long ago that she was a kind of Morgot, a younger copy. Now the copy was even closer than before.

  At the far end of the wall, Sylvia and Beneda stood, both weeping and waving.

  Down on the parade ground, many of the young men displayed devices or surcoats, or bright banners on their spears. Chernon wore a coat of green and blue which Beneda had made for him. He was not looking at Beneda, however. His eyes were searching the women, ranging across them again and again. When at last he found Stavia among the Council members, his eyes went wide and his nostrils flared. He had not thought to look for her there.

  "Wave to him," instructed Morgot. "Sylvia and Beneda are watching him and you. Wave to him and smile."

  Stavia waved and smiled at a point just above his head. She saw faces she knew, an amusing man she had spent parts of two days with during carnival just after she got back from the academy, another who had sung sagas in a tavern while the roisterers, she among them, had banged their cups upon the tables. She had enjoyed them both. She waved at them also, and smiled. Morgot was not looking at the men but at the women, searching the faces ranked along the wall, stopping to examine this one and then that one as they waved. Mothers of men in the garrison. Sisters. Lovers.

  The trumpets blared. The drums banged. The numbered centuries, with their gaps where men had fallen or returned through the gate, consolidated with others until there were twelve full centuries for the march, the officers striding ahead, making a long column with guidons slapping and honors lashing in the wind, all the honors a garrison had been given in all its years of service.

  Behind them, in the plaza, the women's band struck up its song, "Gone Away, Oh, Gone Away." Silently the words, as sung by the Councilwomen, ran in Stavia's mind.

  "Where has my lovely warrior gone, the one who made me sigh? the drums have beaten him away, he's gone away to die, he's gone to fight for honor, he's gone to fear and pain, Gone away, oh, gone away, I'll not see him again."

  Sylvia and Beneda were still there on the wall, their arms moving in endless farewell. Far down the road, almost as an afterthought, Chernon turned back, sought his mother and sister and lifted his hand. Beneda redoubled her efforts, arms blurring in an arc above her sturdy form.

  On a hill to the west, Stavia could see several figures mounted on donkeys. There were more along the line of march. Outriders. Servitors. There to see that none of the warriors left the line of march and sneaked away to join the ranks of the lawless.

  The women began to leave the walls. Stavia and Morgot delayed until they could delay no longer, but still Sylvia and Beneda waited for them in the plaza below, tears staining their faces. Sylvia threw herself into Morgot's arms.

  "I can't bear it," she wailed. "I've mourned for him too many times...."

  "Shhh," said Morgot, her face as bleak as a winter cliff. "There, there."

  "He'll be all right," Beneda said bravely. "Mama, come on. We thought Chernon was gone before, you know? And he came home perfectly safe. Come on, now. Morgot and Stavia have things to do. Come on." She hugged Stavia, her tears moistening Stavia's face and making a hard, hideous lump come into Stavia's throat.

  They turned and went up the hill, two women supporting each other, among a hundred other such.

  Morgot wiped her eyes as she looked after them. It was as though she had wiped all expression from her face, leaving it blank, like a manikin's. Like the face of Hecuba in the play. She and Stavia started up the hill, slowly, letting the mourners go on ahead.

  "Exactly what was the agreement with Tabithatown Council?" Stavia asked. "You haven't told me."

  Morgot's voice was as expressionless as her face. "We have been watching the messengers sent by Michael and Stephen for some little time, ever since the servitors warned us that rebellion was actually brewing. Michael had been in touch with three other garrisons. We have identified the troublemakers in each garrison, and members of the fraternity in each town have taken care of them."

  "And?"

  "Unfortunately, Michael's plans have pretty well permeated the Marthatown garrison during the last few months. And, of course, Chernon's propaganda swept through the warriors like wildfire." Her hand went to her eyes, pressing in, as though to keep captive some dangerous intention which threatened to break free. They went on a few steps in silence before she finished the thought.

  "Yes," said Stavia.

  "When our garrison reaches the battle site, they will find that the Tabithatown troops have been joined by the full garrisons from four other cities. We have met with representatives from all their Councils. Their massed garrisons will outnumber ours at least four to one."

  "Ah!"

  "Even with the good harvest, the Councils agree that all five of the garrisons arrayed against us need to be reduced in size."

  "And?"

  "And we have agreed that none of those from Marthatown are to return at all."

  IT WAS THE EVENING before summer carnival, in Stavia's thirty-sev
enth year.

  During performances of Iphigenia at Ilium, the actors who stood upon the walls of Troy, Iphigenia herself, and Achilles, could look out across the gathered audience and the green of the park to the garrison ground, still echoing and empty-seeming, though it had been almost sixteen years since the Marthatown garrison had been lost. When the news of that loss had come, there had been shock and panic and hysteria in the city. There had been grieving, but no graves. There had been no warriors left to bring home the dead.

  Among the boys and men under twenty-four, after the shock had passed, there had been a need to seek causes and lay blame. It was the Women's Council who told them that Michael and Stephen and Patras had betrayed their men for pay, that they had planned to lead them into a trap. Someone among their fellow conspirators had undoubtedly killed them in an argument over the spoils. Council had not said, not then, not since, how many garrisons from how many different cities had formed that trap. It was forbidden to parade the honors of any in that lost garrison since none knew, so it was said, who had been among the conspirators.