The Lost Sisterhood

by Anne Fortier

It was Katherine Kent.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  We cannot live with your women. For we and they have not the same customs. We shoot the bow and the javelin and ride horses, but, for “women’s tasks,” we know them not.

  —HERODOTUS, Histories

  AS SURPRISED AS I WAS TO ENCOUNTER MY OXFORD MENTOR IN THIS remote and unusual place, I waited silently for her to finish the piece. What shocked me the most, I realized, was not so much Katherine’s presence here among the Amazons as it was her intimate manner of playing the piano. She touched the keys as if they were the sensitive parts of a living being; I had never thought her capable of such emotional subtlety.

  When she finally rested her hands, she sat for a few seconds with her head bent, then looked up at me with a wistful smile. “I did my best to avoid this moment. But I underestimated you.”

  From somewhere deep inside, I felt a rumble of advancing anger. “For someone who is rarely wrong about anyone or anything, you certainly choose your moments.”

  Katherine stood up slowly. “I thought it would be better for you not to know. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing—”

  “Not as dangerous as ignorance.”

  Otrera stepped between us. “Diana, you must understand that this has been a difficult situation for us. We have strict rules that forbid us from speaking openly about who we are, especially over the telephone. Under the circumstances, Katherine did what she felt was right: She kept a close eye on the developments without revealing anything. Keep in mind we didn’t know about your grandmother’s notebook until you met with Dr. Jäger in Kalkriese. You never told Katherine how you were able to decipher the temple inscription in Algeria in only five days. She was horrified that our secret language could be translated into English so easily.”

  Nick put his hand on my other shoulder, as if to assert his right to weigh in. “And so you decided to blow up the temple,” he said, his tone bitter, “and get rid of us both in the process.”

  “No!” boomed Otrera, looking at him with reproach. “The mission was carried out by our North African chapter. They obviously didn’t know you were down there. They specifically issued the bomb threat to make sure the site was evacuated first.”

  Katherine came around the piano. She looked smaller than I remembered her—less formidable, more human. “We’ve always known the temple was there,” she said, “and we’ve been on high alert since al-Aqrab discovered it. But it wasn’t until you left me the message about deciphering the inscription that we fully realized what a liability the building was to us.” She searched my face for understanding, maybe even forgiveness. “If it’s any consolation, the temple is still there. It’s just full of sand.” She walked up to me, and I almost thought she would reach out and touch me. “We never intended to hurt you, but you had to be stopped. You were unwittingly helping Reznik. Later, after his people stole your laptop in Crete, we had to get it back, in case it held the key to deciphering our language … just as we had to prevent you from using your phone, since that was how he was tracking you. I was convinced you would give up and go home after Nafplio. But as I said”—she smiled, and I saw a rare glimpse of admiration in her eyes—”I underestimated you.”

  “Excuse me for stating the obvious,” said Nick, “but why don’t you change your way of communicating with one another? Ancient symbols, paper pamphlets, no cellphones … it all seems so amateurish. Isn’t it time to go digital?”

  Otrera straightened with irritation. In her high heels she was as tall as me, and age had clearly done nothing to shrink her authority. “We have corresponded in this manner since the days of Gutenberg. You yourselves have seen the dangers of using telephones. If you want to survive—especially in this day and age of cradle-to-grave surveillance—you have to be analogue. Don’t tell me you’re unaware of the fact that your own government is tracking digital communication with impunity?” Otrera flared her nostrils, then held out her arms as if to make us aware of the room with its antique lamps and well-worn volumes. “It’s the printed book,” she went on, “not to mention the pre-computer car or the old antique pocket watch, which will live forever. Time and again, a mindless rush to modernize has displaced better methods. Never mind the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse that will fry all electronic circuits and leave anyone under twenty-five raving and drooling in a padded room, completely disconnected from the world as they know it.” Otrera looked Nick up and down with disgust, as if she was referring to him personally. “No, never mind the approaching apocalypse of which most people never give a second thought, but ask yourself this: Who is more amateurish, more vulnerable—those who rely on machines that need to be plugged in, or logged on, or in some other way connected in order to be more than a useless slab of plastic … or those who have learned to master life without?”

  Otrera paused to give us both a meaningful look. Despite all, she was evidently delighted at the opportunity to share her view of the world and went on in an almost gleeful crescendo, “You came here looking for a modern fortress with blinking machines and retina scanners at every door, didn’t you? Some pentagonal lair with people in orange uniforms driving around in little golf carts?” Her lips curled upward in a devilish smile. “Well, I’m sorry, but we’re not running an off-the-rack secret society the way men like to imagine them. Here, we chop wood to keep warm. If you think that’s amateurish, all I can say to you is this: You are more vulnerable than you think.”

  At this point Katherine stirred with impatience and said, to me and Nick, “Obviously, we’re always striving to improve our system, and very soon the catalogs will be obsolete. Our communications team has been developing a new system for some time now—”

  “Carrier pigeons?” proposed Nick.

  Otrera’s eyes narrowed. “The laughter of the ignoramus. We do use messenger pigeons to communicate, but only internally within the region.”

  “But the point is,” Katherine went on, her lips tight with annoyance, “that these past few weeks have been catastrophic for us. If the likes of Reznik get their hands on our classified memos and the means to decipher them, they will be able to document our activity in the past and possibly predict our future movements. When our elite team broke into Reznik’s house to steal back your laptop, Diana, we found a collection of our internal publications on his desk. This confirmed to us that he had indeed managed to tap into our private lines of communication.” Katherine gave me a grim look. “All he needs is your notebook and he’ll have exactly what he needs to decrypt our conversations.”

  “That night after Reznik’s party,” I said, “when your blond wunderkind was baiting me with my wallet and passport, what would have happened if I had kept going? Was it a trap?”

  Otrera and Katherine exchanged glances. Then Otrera said, evasively, “Our objective was to get you safely back to Oxford as soon as possible.”

  “What about Dr. Jäger in Kalkriese?” I went on. “Why didn’t she level with me and explain all these things? Or was she actually hoping to get me killed?”

  I knew Katherine well enough to see her cringing. “Kyme has lived in that house all her life. She will do anything not to compromise it. She was hoping you would simply go home to Oxford, leaving the explanations to me—”

  “And maybe I would have,” I pointed out, “if I’d been able to get in touch with you. But your phone—”

  “Is disconnected. Yes.” Katherine rolled her eyes with impatience. “I obviously couldn’t risk you calling me, asking questions. It would compromise my cover.”

  I shook my head. “Kyme could at least have hinted she was on my side.”

  “Believe me,” said Katherine, “she was extremely unhappy when we called to let her know you were being followed by Reznik’s hit men, and to instruct her not to let you go until they had been neutralized. If you hadn’t run away like that, everything would have been sorted out, and our German chapter wouldn’t have—” Her eyes strayed to Nick’s face.

  “Broken my nose?” he sugge
sted.

  “Yes, well.” Katherine took a step back. “Our German chapter hadn’t been briefed about you. They were there to rescue Diana, and they didn’t realize—” She glanced at Otrera, suddenly flustered.

  The sound of an old-fashioned bell cut short the awkward moment.

  “Dinner!” said Otrera, visibly relieved.

  Nick didn’t move. “Why did you invite us here tonight?” he asked them both. “I’m not really hearing an apology.”

  Otrera gave him a look that would have made lesser men wince. “You are the first male to ever have been invited into this house. Please bear that in mind, Niccolò.”

  Nick flinched at the sound of his real name, but Otrera merely turned to me and said, with the superior benevolence of an all-powerful despot, “Your grandmother’s notebook. I’m sure you can appreciate that we would like you to leave it here with us.”

  I felt a stab of disappointment. Ever since arriving, I had waited for the subject of Granny to come up. Not wanting to force the issue, I had let Otrera move through the past at her own pace. Now, sadly, it looked as if her only remaining concern was the notebook. It was time to acknowledge that my childish hope of being reunited with Granny tonight was just that: childish.

  “I understand,” I said. “However, Reznik has given me an ultimatum. If I don’t give the notebook to him, he will go after the people I love. Now, as it happens”—I took the water-damaged volume out of my bag and handed it to Otrera—”this notebook is no longer a dictionary of your language. The only message left in it is ‘Suomussalmi Vabu Rusi,’ and since Reznik already knows we’re here there’s really no point in concealing it from him. However, seeing that it’s now totally useless, he will be angry with me regardless of whether I give it to him or not.”

  Otrera leafed through the book, frowning. “This is disturbing news. I did not know he had given you an ultimatum, nor that he knows where you are.” She looked up at us. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because two cars followed us tonight,” said Nick. “We were able to shake them, but they’re still out there, looking for us.”

  “I see.” Otrera handed the notebook to Katherine. “This changes things. I’m sorry. We no longer have time for dinner.”

  THE DINING ROOM WAS at the back of the house, and in contrast to the meeting room and deserted library it was warm and abustle with activity. Its main feature was a table as long as those in Oxford dining halls, with space for at least fifty people seated on wooden benches on either side. At the far end of the table stood a throne-like chair with an ornately carved wooden back.

  “Normally the house is full of people,” explained Otrera, closing the door behind us, “but because of two separate emergencies on the Russian side and delays at Arlanda Airport, there’s only a handful of us here tonight. These are our trainees.” Walking ahead of us down the length of the room, Otrera gestured at a steady traffic of young women carrying steaming dishes and armloads of firewood from a nearby kitchen. “We rescue thousands of girls every year, and some of them choose to stay with us. Currently we have four hundred trainees worldwide, divided between our individual chapters.”

  She singled out a lanky young woman dressed in a pair of denim overalls, and nodded with pride. “That is Lilli. At seven years old she was stolen from an orphanage in Estonia and sold into prostitution. But we saved her, just as we have saved many others. I hope you will forgive her.” Otrera gave both Nick and me a meaningful look over her shoulder. “Lilli is forceful, but she means well. She is in training to become our next queen, which is why we occasionally send her on missions outside the region.” Perhaps realizing she had disclosed more than she should, Otrera frowned and added, “The queen is our most exposed operative—the one who takes the greatest risks. First into the field, last to retreat. If all nations held their elected authorities to this basic principle of leadership, I guarantee you we would have significantly fewer wars in this world. Look at Lilli.” Otrera nodded once more at the young woman. “We are not training her to hide in an air-conditioned bunker and lead her troops by pushing buttons. She will never declare war to distract us from her own cock-ups. Nor will she send her sisters into battle with insufficient equipment, for if things go wrong, she will be the first to die.”

  Puzzled by the long, ardent introduction, I took a closer look at Lilli. She wore a red bandanna around her head with two blond braids hanging out. It wasn’t until she cast a stolen glance at me across the room I felt a spark of recognition. “It’s her!” I whispered to Nick. “The mouse who baited me in Istanbul! The Rollerblade thief from Nafplio!”

  “Pitana! Penthesilea!” Marching impatiently ahead, Otrera approached four women standing at the head of the table, talking over a bowl of nuts. “We need to act. Reznik is closing in.”

  The women turned toward us with squints of suspicion. They were no taller than me, but there was something about their build and posture that gave away their unusual inner strength. One wore knee-high boots with a matching suede jacket. A pale scar through her left eyebrow stood out against her tan face. Another was dressed entirely in black, her trim body poured into shapely leather trousers and a tight turtleneck. The contrast between her dark, youthful body and the proud lines of gray at her temples was striking; she could easily have dyed her hair and passed for a woman my own age, but the artificial way was clearly not the Amazon way.

  All four carried themselves with the confidence of women in excellent physical shape, and the sight of them filled me with emotions I had not felt since Granny and I had traveled the Amazon world in fanciful drawings and thrilling tales. Those emotions were now so fused with real-life childhood memories that I could almost recall the actual smells and sounds of that golden realm of stamping hooves and rushing chariots.

  Skipping introductions, Otrera quickly drew up the situation and concluded, saying, “We assume it’s Reznik, but we have no proof.”

  The women exchanged glances. They were clearly upset by the news, but there was more to their silence than that. I could see in their eyes they were angry, not only at us, but at Otrera as well. They had never wanted us there, I realized; in all likelihood, they had advised against the invitation, and now reality had proved them right.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know Reznik was here,” said Nick, undaunted by the cool reception. “You’ve been watching us all day.” He looked at them one by one. “Who’s driving the KTM? Doesn’t it attract a little too much attention here in the winter?”

  His brazen manner accomplished nothing but to agitate the Amazons further. At length, the woman in the black turtleneck said, with heavy Slavic deliberation, “Finnish men are not afraid of strong women. Only weak men want women to be weak. What about you?” She ran her dark eyes over Nick’s body, pausing at all the major muscle groups. “Are you afraid of women who can kick your ass?”

  “I’d prefer that you kick someone else’s,” he replied. “Aren’t there people out there who deserve it more?” He cast me a poignant glance, as if to say, “Better not provoke these ladies any further.”

  “You may think of us as outlaws,” said the woman with the scar through her eyebrow. She spoke with defiance, in a canorous Swedish accent. “The truth is, we are the law. Not the whiny, counteractive, impotent law sitting around in big volumes on fake mahogany shelves, but the law that lives in the human heart. The law that says bad people will be punished. The law that says might is not right, and that murderers and molesters will not walk free.”

  “There are police officers out there,” interjected the woman in black, “who pray that we will find the creep before they do.” Her eyes narrowed in a menacing smile. “We don’t grant parole. And we’re not slowed down by a titanic, gluttonous bureaucracy.”

  “I’m all for limiting the power of the state,” said Nick, “but aren’t you worried that your vigilante justice is going to take down a few innocents?”

  At this, Otrera finally weighed in, speaking with unbending resolution. “We
may make mistakes, but not in that. Those who rape the rights of others forfeit their own. But now is not the time for political philosophy. Pitana—” She looked keenly at the woman with the scar. “We need a plan.”

  “It’s too bad,” said Nick, ignoring Otrera’s impatience, “that you’re missing so many people tonight.” He nodded at the throne-like chair at the head of the long dinner table. “Who sits there? Your queen? What’s her name, I wonder?” He looked intently at the Amazons. “Myrina?”

  His words were met by a silence so profound you could hear a drawer closing upstairs.

  “Come!” Otrera took both Nick and me firmly by the arms. “I have something to show you. Katherine, stay here.”

  As we walked away from the others, Otrera shook her head and said, “It is not easy for us to open our house to strangers.”

  I saw Nick frowning. “Is that what we are? Strangers?”

  Otrera gave him a long look. “Your father changed his name when he left Oxford. We had no idea who you were.” She broke off to let us through a back door with an old-fashioned bolt. “It wasn’t until Reznik’s masquerade that we began to suspect the truth. Someone noticed you in the crowd and thought you looked—”

  In the brief quiet of Otrera’s unfinished sentence, I was reminded of the cat woman who had glared at me with inexplicable hatred in Reznik’s powder room and who had later—according to Nick—been part of the break-in. Even then, in the flux of everything happening around me, I had found her dark, penetrating eyes eerily familiar. Now it finally dawned on me where I had seen them before. They were the eyes of the man walking right behind me.

  “But that didn’t stop your people from beating me up at the Idingshof Hotel,” Nick pointed out as we followed Otrera into a dark, musty-smelling corridor lined with overclothes and footwear.

  Otrera turned on the lights. “Our German chapter is very efficient. They did what they felt was necessary. At least, after that, we knew who you were.”