The Gate to Women's Country (48 page)

“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 Stephon 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.”

T
HE EVENING BEFORE SUMMER CARNIVAL, IN
Stavia's thirty-seventh 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 Stephon 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.

Adding together Council members and servitors, there had been many who knew the truth, but the truth had not been spoken. A myth was spoken instead. In time, what was spoken became the truth. “The Lady,” the Council had said, “will distinguish the guiltless and the
honorable from the traitors. Their honors will be paraded in heaven.”

A song had been written about the lost garrison, a song about betrayal of trust and broken ordinances and shame. It had been commissioned by the Council, but it became popular and widely sung, despite that.

A few months after the disaster, Susantown had sent two centuries of young men for Marthatown's defense. Later some of the other cities had sent men of their own, enough to make up a small though respectable garrison. Though they were all young men, they were tried men, men who had no patience with deviation from the ordinances, and they had soon whipped the fifteen-to twenty-three-year-olds into shape.

Beneda and Sylvia had never stopped talking about Chernon, any more than hundreds of other lovers or sisters or mothers had stopped talking about their lovers or brothers or sons. Stavia had learned to join in the talk, as Morgot did, holding the center of herself quiet, letting the actor Stavia do all the work.

And now the actor Stavia stood on the stage of the summer theater as Iphigenia. In the morning, at dawn, summer carnival would start. There would be drinking and laughter and sex. There would be jokes and singing. Before all that there had to be this, this reminder for those who could see what was in it.

Such as those on the stage with Stavia, or those sitting in the first few rows—the Councilwomen. Tonia. Kostia. Old Septemius. Behind them a select group of servitors. Less than two hundred in all. What Morgot called the “Damned Few.” Those who kept things running. Those who did what had to be done.

And behind them were all the other women of Marthatown. Beneda and Sylvia were there, on the aisle, where Stavia could not help but see them. During the early stages of the play there had been laughter and catcalls, giggles and whispers in the audience. At the end, however, a hush had fallen, the rattling of candy baskets had stopped, and the eyes of all the audience were fixed upon them where they stood halfway up the walls of Troy, Stavia and Joshua: Iphigenia and Achilles.

From the high plinth beside Iphigenia, Achilles asked the question, “What's it like, this Hades?”

A
CHILLES
What's it like, this Hades?

I
PHIGENIA
Like shadow with no sun, like dark with no day. Like the mating of ghosts.

A
CHILLES
Riddles! Only riddles!

P
OLYXENA
I think she means, Achilles, that in hell we need not damn ourselves by trying to defend ourselves.

I
PHIGENIA
That's what I meant, yes.

A
CHILLES
It makes no sense! What has defending yourself to do with it?

P
OLYXENA
I pled for my life, Achilles. When they said they would kill me, I wet myself. My bowels opened and the shit ran down my legs. I screamed and groveled. I hated what I was doing, but I did it. Achilles, I wanted to live! I wanted to live, but they killed me, stinking like a dung-covered animal. I was slender and still young, Achilles. I loved to dance, Achilles. But they killed me there in the mess with my skirts hiked up and blood and shit mixed like a stinking stew, damned to forever remember myself like that—like that….

In Hades, perhaps I'll dance. I won't have to beg for my life, Achilles. I'll have no life to lose.

A
NDROMACHE
I saw my father slain. The spear went into his chest where he'd cuddled me, sometimes, calling me his sweetheart. The blood came out and he grunted like a slaughtered pig, a kind of squeal. He was surprised, I think. My brothers came running, but you and your men slaughtered them. Now, here at Troy, you've done it again, hacked my husband to bits. I keep seeing it in my sleep, arms, legs, fingers, thighs, all mixed in this terrible clutter. I keep trying to sort them out, calling, “Daddy, Hector, where are the parts of you I loved…?”

And Hector's baby? My baby, his baby, our son. Thrown from the walls like rubbish. I heard him cry as he fell. He made a sound like a hunting bird, falling into the sea…. I can't think of anything else.

When the ship that takes me gets far enough from shore, I'll leap out into that sea. I'll be damned for taking my own life, but that's all that's left to do. I can't risk loving anything else to see it slain. In Hades there's no life and there's no pain. The dead are dead. They can't be killed again.

H
ECUBA
I had a knife in my skirt, Achilles. When Talthybius bent over me, I could have killed him. I wanted to. I had the knife just for that reason. Yet, at the last minute I thought, he's some mother's son just as Hector was, and aren't we women all sisters? If I killed him, I thought, wouldn't it be like killing family? Wouldn't it be making some other mother grieve? So I didn't kill him, but if I had, I might have saved the baby. I'm damned to think of that, that I might have saved Hector's child. Dead or damned, that's the choice we make. Either you men kill us and are honored for it, or we women kill you and are damned for it. Dead or damned. Women don't have to make choices like that in Hades. There's no love there, nothing to betray.

A
CHILLES
(Shaking his head, still weeping)
I ask you yet again, Agamemnon's daugher. What's it like, this Hades?

I
PHIGENIA
What's Hades like?

Like dream without waking. Like carrying water in a sieve. Like coming into harbor after storm. Barren harbor where the empty river runs through an endless desert into the sea. Where all the burdens have been taken away.

You'll understand when you come there at last, Achilles….

Hades is Women's Country.

Stavia leaned over Joshua, putting her cheek against his own, her
eyes
fixed on the half-empty garrison ground, seeing in her mind the thousands who had marched away. Gone away, oh, gone away. Wetness ran between her face and his as he—servitor, warrior, citizen of Women's Country, father—as he wept.

Wept for them all.