The Start of Time

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  I said, “You see, I ran to his death…to help him with his choice. I will never let anyone take me from you.”

  She agreed, “And I will never let anyone take me from you! Oh I see very clearly. Mark, this is a great way to live; a wonderful way to treat a mate. I don’t think that even the Warlord knew these things.”

  I said, “My love, I’m not the Warlord, but in a sense I am a hundred years older than he was. I hope that in a hundred years that we’re wiser than we are today.”

  She sighed again, “Mark, if there were a world to rule, I’m confident that you would rule it. If all men were sane, you would teach them to be wise.”

  As I watched the sun move toward the horizon I said, “I don’t want to rule a world.”

  She said, “Only a man who wants no part of it is worthy of ruling a nation. Nonetheless, it will make things…easier to accept.”

  We both laughed and I hugged her to my side. But there was that hint of secret obligation again. I decided to pursue it.

  I said, “Aeyli-ah, what is this secret? This obligation? I know that you want me to know, and that you don’t want to tell me. Are you certain that you have to carry this burden? Would it be better to just tell me and have it over with? I know that it can’t be anything that would hurt me or separate us, but it seems to trouble you. Why?”

  The girl turned into my arms and kissed me on the mouth.

  She said, “My Prince, I think that my secret will make you very happy. Though it will come as a great surprise, I’m sure of that now. Believe me, it makes me very, very happy. When the time comes, please don’t question it. Let it be what it is and be happy about it. It will make it much easier if you try to embrace it.”

  I asked, “Easier on who? Is it for my sake or for yours?”

  She smiled and said, “Yes! And since you know that my secret will be revealed only when I choose, that’s the end for now. Oh, it would be so nice to practice the swords here on the roof. Unfortunately, it’s late and we don’t want any more poor dumb beasts choosing to die today. We better go secure the…bed chamber,” and she winked at me significantly and smiled.

  We went down the stairs and back to the room and sealed ourselves in for the night. Aeyli-ah explained that the new fur would still need to be tanned and prepared and that couldn’t be done until we had reached her village, so it wouldn’t be on our bed for several days yet.

  She begged me to teach her more of the sword work before bed and we practiced for several hours.

  After we had been practicing for quite a while, she said, “Tell me more about customs on Earth. You say that mates are often false and might abandon each other. Don’t they mate for life like we do here on Barsoom?”

  I said, “Well, they vow that it will be for life, but about half the time, or maybe more, it’s not really how it works out and the vows are often broken.”

  She practiced her moves and said, “What happens? What do they do? Do they live alone for the rest of their lives?”

  I said, “I hate to say it because you will see it as more insanity, but often, many times, mates will be unfaithful and have sex with the mate of another person. Or, they simply grow to hate each other because of the problems caused by not knowing what the other one is saying, like I described before.”

  She struck my sword in the two-man practice and asked, “So, they do have just one mate at a time, except for this insanity of ‘loving’ someone else’s mate? Does a man ever take more than one mate at a time? Under one roof?”

  I said, “Um, there are a lot of nations on Earth and some will take more than one wife at a time. Three or four thousand years ago, when the population of the world was much less, it was more common. In those days, a man might take two or three brides under the same roof. In more recent days, in most parts of Earth, that’s no longer practiced.”

  She continued her moves, improving by the minute, asking, “Why? What changed? Why not continue to take more than one wife? Did they find that it wouldn’t work? That the man couldn’t love more than one?”

  I countered her current attack and said, “Of course, it’s almost impossible because of competition and jealousy and the fear that one would be loved more than another and it was just never possible to live happily. We have enough trouble with just one. I knew a man once who came from a country where they could have more than one wife and he told me that it just wasn’t worth the trouble.”

  She said, “So it’s because of the insanity. We have our own insanity here, but not when it comes to mating. Hardly ever.”

  I went on, “My understanding is that it was also in some ways a matter of difficulty over property and hardness of heart. In the older days, the mating was for life. Later, as men gathered in cities and laws were complicated, and as a man or woman wanted to separate from their mate, if a man had more than one wife, and they had built a house together, who would get the house? For some time, women on Earth couldn’t own a house by law, so the man kept the house and the woman was simply thrown out. But if the man was unjust, why should the woman be his companion for many years and then have nothing if he decided in his hardness of heart to discard her? So, over time, laws were made that when a man discarded his mate, she took half of the property that they had accumulated while they lived together.”

  She said, “That is crazy and complicated. If a man had three wives, then the one he discarded, or who was unfaithful, did she get one quarter of the property even if she were the one to break the vows and could she take his possessions to another man’s house?”

  I said, “Those were some of the problems. These laws were made about two thousand years ago and they settled on laws that said that a man could only have one mate at a time. In most places, anyway. If either of them wanted to dissolve their marriage, they went to a court, and a judge decided how they would split the property and they would go separate ways, and probably hate each other for the rest of their lives. It’s a bad situation and causes a great deal of pain on Earth.”

  She asked, “But, in the older days, a man would take three mates and they would be bound for life and they could be happy? As long as the wives agreed and their love was such that no jealousy arose between them?”

  I said, “Yes, it seemed so. Even today, there are small areas where this still happens. But the communication problems make it very difficult for people on Earth to be happy.”

  We continued our practice and Aeyli-ah seemed satisfied to accept my explanations without much comment. At the end, we crawled into bed and made love, much more tenderly than the night before. My princess did not experience a thousand deaths, but she did have at least a dozen, and we slept well in each other’s arms.

  Chapter 13 The Story of Babies and Brides

  Aeyli-ah woke me at dawn and we packed up our things and filled our water bags. We made a pack of the large sack with the fruit and the fur trophy and tied it with leather thongs onto my back. We were on the way within 20 minutes of waking up.

  Aeyli-ah ran and I matched her speed. It was cooler this early in the day, but it was still dry and at least 80 degrees. The village that we were headed for was called Tranna and it was where she had lived all of her life, when she wasn’t on duty at the shrine of John Carter’s Cave.

  As we traveled, we talked.

  I said, “Aeyli-ah, John Carter traveled to Earth from Barsoom and back at least once or twice and he wrote about life on Barsoom, but in some details, and maybe in the stories themselves, they were fictionalized and unreliable. I think he did that, or his relative or another author did, to hide certain facts. The location of the cave has been hidden for a hundred years.”

  She said, “John Carter traveled back and forth many times. They say that his habit was to do so at least once or twice a year during times of piece.”

  I said, “Once or twice a year? But I was told that the portal could only be used once every two years!”

  She said, “I wondered about it when you told me that you couldn’t return for two year
s. It was strange and I’ve been thinking about it. The portal recharges slowly and after it’s used, it disappears for a time. That’s how I knew that you had come through. When I arrived at the shrine, the portal was dormant. I knew that you must have come through within a few hours at most. The shrine takes two weeks to charge to a point where one man may travel, a month if two would go together. That’s what we were told. No one had ever come through during our service, so we only know it because that’s what they say.”

  I said, “But again, I was told that only one could go through. By a message written by Carter himself.”

  She said, “I can think of several reasons that he might say that to you. The woman of his house may have known about what he wrote to you and offered us clues when she trained us for the shrine. She told us that any travelers who came through would have to have a great commitment to the journey and that they would think that they were on a one-way trip. Because of the dangers, it most likely would be. She told us that any traveler would certainly have no mate or child on their home world. And, it was true. Telling you those things ensured that only the truly committed would try the journey to this world.”

  I asked, “Is it true that I couldn’t bring anything with me, or was that a test as well?”

  She said, “My understanding is that nothing but living flesh goes through the shrine. We were taught that John Carter took nothing between worlds.”

  We ran on in silence for a bit.

  I said, “Tell me more about the birth of children. They are hatched from eggs in a special solarium on the roof of the house?”

  She said, “No! Where did you come up with that? Is that how children on Earth are born? Hatched from an egg like a lizard?”

  I said, “No. I told you that some of what he wrote about life here was changed and maybe sensationalized. So, tell me.”

  She laughed, “So, I need tell you the ways of men and women, even though you know much more than I do and everything I know is what you have taught me? OK. When a man and woman love each other very much, they become mates. During the night, the woman takes the man’s penis inside her vagina. Her body releases a tiny egg and his body releases a multitude of tiny seeds. When the seed lodges in the egg, the child is formed. It’s very small, but it grows quickly in her womb. She cares for it inside herself for three months and then it comes out alive. The woman feeds the child from her breasts for another three months and it grows strong enough to live. Is that the story that you want to hear? Is it different on Earth?”

  I laughed and said, “Well, that is essentially the same story that we tell, but on Earth, the child grows in the mother’s womb for nine months and then has to be breast fed for two years or so. It will only be half its final size for five years, but it doesn’t reach full height for the first 14 to 18 years. A girl is sexually mature by the time she is 13 or so, the boy at 14 or 15, but mentally, they don’t reach maturity until roughly 23 to 25. In most places today, 23 is about the youngest age that mating will take place. Often not until 30 or more. A woman may only have children until she’s about 40 to 50 years old and most people don’t live more than 70 or 80 years.”

  She gasped, “Nine months! How big is the baby when it’s born?”

  I showed her with my hands and she said, “Here, a baby is born this big.” And she showed me something the size of her fist. “A womb can’t hold a anything as big as you say.”

  I said, “On Earth, the woman’s belly gets very large. At the end, she can hardly walk and she’s very uncomfortable.”

  She said, “When our first child comes, the day before his birth, I’ll still run as fast as I do today. That’s so sad. Such short lives. I could never bear it if my life with you were going to be so short.”

  I said, “But, that may be a problem I am afraid. You see, I am already 47 years old. My hair is turning gray. I’m afraid that you’ll outlive me by many years.”

  She laughed again, “You are a baby. I’m nearly twice as old. But, as for your ‘gray hairs and advanced age’, I think you fear too much. When I found you, your hair did have specks of gray, but you can’t see yourself. I can see that the color is returning to your head and the lines of age on your face and body are disappearing. I told you that my milk is very nourishing to you. I have no fear of you dying for many centuries. I plan to die a hundred million times before you do.”

  She smiled and stopped and said, “Are you ready for breakfast my handsome prince? I can eat the fruit you picked, and you can pick the fruit from your personal orchard at my bosom,” and she winked and thrust out her chest at me and cupped and rubbed her breasts and pinched the nipples gently.

  I smiled and we sat on the ground and opened the pack and ate a piece of fruit each. Aeyli-ah ate two more pieces, but kept gazing at me hungrily. When she was done, I lay her down on the moss and drank my fill of her nectars as she moaned and breathed heavily upon the moss, lying her back. We didn’t stay longer, but got back on our feet and continued toward Tranna.

  As we ran, we continued to talk about various aspects of life on Barsoom. The closer we came to Tranna, the more important it seemed to me that I find out about the secret that Aeyli-ah was carrying. I had an inkling of the subject of her secret, but I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I could get her to tell me without demanding it from her.

  I said, “Will we live in Tranna?”

  She said, “We will live wherever you want to. But to start, I think that we should have a base in Tranna. It will give us a place to come home to.”

  I responded, “Ah, a nice home base! I think that will be wonderful. Will it be a tiny cottage or a large house?”

  She said, “Oh no, quite large I expect. With many rooms and a good garden.”

  I said, “Oh, a small castle with one prince.”

  She smiled happily and said, “You will be the prince and rule your own small kingdom.”

  I slid in the question that got to what I was afraid to hear, “And, how many princesses in this kingdom?”

  She said excitedly, “Many, at least three before morning…” and her steps faltered and she slowed for an instant and I could see on her face that she had given away more than she had planned.

  I let us run on in silence as my companion frowned and thought about what she could say next.

  She finally said, “Ask me what you want. I won’t hold anything back.”

  I said, “Then tell me the story. I have promised to trust you. It is a surprise, but you had given me hints already. You told me that a man like me would be forced to take several mates. I didn’t know what you meant. Is that true? What does it mean?”

  She said, “I will tell it all to you, but let’s not stop. Let’s run along as if it was the same conversation that we’ve had all morning. Please, My Prince?”

  I agreed.

  She said, “It’s true. You told me that on Earth there are laws about how to dissolve a mating bond. In these days, we have laws about how many bonds must be taken. I told you that five women are born for every man that is born. And the birthrate is very low. A village of a hundred pairs will see just one birth per year. Or less. There’s a great expectation that people could disappear from the face of Barsoom. Besides that, I told you that a woman without a mate dies young, maybe living no more than a few hundred years. It’s sad and lonely. If each man takes only one mate, at least four are forsaken and die young. But many men are no longer courageous and some wander away and never mate at all.

  Every village may be somewhat different, but in Tranna, and in many places, each man is expected to take as many mates as he is able to…to…um, the number is complicated. You see, part of it is based on how many he can provide for…well, it’s all based on how many he can provide for…provide for physically, provide for emotionally, and provide for sexually.

  When a man is of age, he’s encouraged to find his first mate from the women in the village. He takes one mate. After a month, the woman appears before the council and tells how often her mate has been able to
satisfy her in that month. She also says if she’s happy and if they have enough to live on. Suppose that she tells the council that they have made love three times in the first month, or even five. That’s not her number of orgasms, but the number of times that the man has been interested and able to make love to her.

  The council will say that if she’s happy with him and well fed that because he makes love three to five, half that number is about two and therefore he should take two mates. After another 40 days, both women come and report the same way. The number reported is averaged and a new determination is made. If the number in the second month were roughly four or less, twice for each woman, no more are added. If the number is roughly eight or higher, a third mate is encouraged. This is repeated for a third month, and supposedly for as long as mates are still being added.

  If a man won’t take the number of mates that the council proscribes, he is encouraged to leave the village and move elsewhere.

  About half the men in my village have one mate. Another two-fifths have two mates. Another very few men have three mates. No one has four at this time.”

  I said, “So, you have to appear before the council and tell them how we are together and how many times we make love?”

  She said, “Yes, but I can’t tell them the truth, can I? Mark, if I told them how you pleasure me, I would have to say something like four or five times every day. I know that we don’t do that, the truth is only two or three, but we go for a very long time and you could satisfy at least three women each time. I know it. If I tell the truth and say that you could make love 160 times in a month, and based on the wealth of the gem you have already given me, you would take 80 mates!

  Fortunately, in Tranna, no house has more than three right now, and there’s a limit that they can’t force you to take more than nine.

  Mark, it’s an incredible honor for a woman to have a husband who can love three mates. I will be very happy. I’ve told you that. But I’m afraid that because of customs on your planet that you won’t do it, and though you have promised me your love that you’ll abandon me to find a place where the laws are different.”