The Shore of Women

by Pamela Sargent

  She grimaced. “Beauty’s useless here.” She picked up a deerskin shirt and pulled it over her head, then hung a necklace of feathers around her neck.

  “I’ll wear this one.” I picked up a shirt that had been made for me.

  Nallei pulled on a pair of leather pants, then straightened. “You’re not going with me, Birana.”

  “But I thought…”

  “You’re not going. This is something I must do alone. The men will be told that your duty is to commune with invisible aspects of the Lady during this time. They’ll believe me.”

  “But why…”

  She grabbed my arm, twisting its flesh so hard that it hurt. “You’ll do as I say. I’ll decide things here.”

  “Very well,” I muttered resentfully. I had hoped I might see Arvil in the camp, but knew there would be little time to speak to him during a ceremony, and tried not to feel too disappointed.

  Nallei had drunk half a jar of wine by the time the men came for her; I wondered how she would stay awake while the Prayergiver prayed before her in his hut. Her voice was fuzzy and slightly slurred as she told the men why I would be remaining on the island. I watched as she walked with our guards toward the boat; the distant camp was already ablaze with torches.

  I was now completely alone on the island for the first time, for the guards would remain in the camp until these ceremonies were over. I hurried to the cove, delighted at the chance to swim and lie on the rocks without worrying that a man might try to glimpse me there. Perhaps Nallei had sensed that I might want this time alone; I was grateful to her then, sorry that I had tried to argue with her.

  It was dark when I returned to the hut. From across the bay, I heard the songs as the men chanted. I set wood on the fire, ate my supper, and sipped some of the wine Nallei had left. As the wine warmed me, I found myself wishing that I had asked for Arvil to be sent here now; we might have spoken freely with no one to overhear us. I could have shown him the cove.

  I shook myself. It would have been mad to take him away from a ceremony of such importance to these men. The wine was going to my head. I closed my eyes and imagined that Arvil was with me, sitting with me by the fire. I seemed to feel his hand on my arm. I remembered how he had looked at me, how he had pressed his lips on mine, how I had felt for a moment.

  My eyes shot open. I clutched at my belly, afraid I might be sick. I had felt some longing for him in that instant. I heard his voice as he spoke of the images in shrines, of the pleasures I might show him, and nearly cried out. I hated myself as I struggled with my thoughts; my time among men was making me unnatural, perhaps even insane. I had to root out this sickness, destroy it before Arvil saw me again.

  I crawled toward the mat and stretched out until sleep came to me.

  I tried to keep busy during the next day, but by afternoon, my solitude was growing oppressive. I cleaned out the hut, rearranged our belongings, aired out the hides we used on the mat. I could not keep still, afraid that if I did, more disturbing thoughts would come to me. I cleared the hearth of ashes; as I carried more wood inside, I heard voices out on the lake.

  It was nearly evening. I lit a fire, cleaned my hands, then stood by the door, ready to greet Nallei and hear of the ceremony.

  Yerlan soon appeared on the trail below; he was carrying a torch. A short, dark-haired man was at his side; he had dined with me in Yerlan’s dwelling, and now he carried a basket. Nallei walked behind them; as she looked up at me, I saw the strain on her face.

  The shorter man set down his basket, then bowed. “I greet you,” I said, feeling that they expected some words from me. “I rejoice to see My companion again.”

  Yerlan’s mouth tightened. I could not look at him and turned quickly toward Nallei. She swallowed; her eyes stared past me.

  “Fellow aspect,” she said, “go from here to Our cove, and commune there with the unseen spirits. You shall be summoned later. It is Yerlan I must summon now.”

  I stepped back, apprehensive at the look in her eyes. She and Yerlan clearly had important matters to discuss.

  “Go!” she shouted. I stepped back as she went inside. Yerlan set his torch in the ground, then followed her.

  I began to walk down toward the cove. The other man was following me. I spun around. “Leave Me.”

  “Holy One.” He bowed, pressing his fingers to his forehead. “I am here to serve You.”

  “Go back to your boat.”

  I came to the cove and sat down on a rock. The night spread slowly across the bay; the disk of the moon sailed on the black, calm waters. I sat there for a long time, waiting for someone to call me, wondering what business Nallei had with Yerlan. At last I got up. Their talk might concern me, and what happened in this camp was now my business. I had been learning how to tread over the ground silently and had surprised Nallei a couple of times; I would test myself and see if I could overhear part of their discussion. Nallei was keeping secrets from me; I did not think of those I had kept from her.

  I crept cautiously up the slope toward our hut, circling around until I was among the trees overlooking it. I moved silently past the ditch, then hunkered down in a dark place under the trees where I could see the door. Yerlan’s torch had nearly burned out; there was no sound from the hut.

  The hide hanging in front of the door was suddenly lifted. I held my breath as Yerlan came out. He was bare to the waist; he reached down to adjust his belt. He threw his shirt over his shoulder and stumbled down along the trail as if intoxicated.

  When he was gone, I hurried to the door and peered inside. The fire was burning low. Nallei lay on the mat, one arm flung over her eyes. Two empty jugs lay by the hearthstones. Nallei was naked. I stared at the disordered hides around her, at her bare, golden skin, at the tiny bruises fingers had made on her thighs.

  I nearly screamed. I ran from the hut, heedless of the tree limbs that slashed at my face as I stumbled down the hill. When I was above the cove, my chest began to heave; I retched until my stomach was empty.

  My feet carried me toward the rocks. I knelt to wash my face. I would leave this place, ride out on Flame and never return. I would not let the men stop me; I did not care where I went. I could swim out into the bay until I was too far from the island to swim back, then let the waters of the lake close over my head.

  “Holy One,” a voice said.

  I turned, startled. Yerlan’s companion was walking down the slope toward me. “Holy One,” he repeated as he came to the rocks. “The Headman has passed through the holy state and now sleeps soundly in the joy of that blessing. He sent me to guide You back to Your house.”

  I got to my feet and stumbled toward him. My arms flew out as I struck him hard with my fists. He did not hit back but cowered as I punched at him. I wanted to hurt him, to hurt all of his kind; my nails bit into his arms.

  “Lady!” he cried.

  I stepped back, struggling for control. “That’s so you will understand your place,” I gasped. “My kind could sweep you from the face of the earth.” Tears stung my eyes; I wiped them away.

  “I have angered You with my evil thoughts. I cannot hide them from You. I dreamed of the holy state with You while Yerlan was with the other Holy One, saw You before me, thought of joining…”

  I hit him again. “Forgive me, Holy One!”

  I panted for breath. “Never think such thoughts again.”

  “Yerlan will find out I’ve angered You. He will punish me.”

  My anger was gone. I gazed down at this frightened man, despising him. “Yerlan won’t learn of this from Me,” I said at last. “Get away from Me now. Go back to your Headman.”

  He scrambled up the hill as I sank to the ground.

  I remained by the cove until the eastern sky was gray with light, then stood up and walked along the shore.

  The men were sleeping by their boat. I prodded the dark-haired one with my foot; he sat up quickly. Yerlan slept on.

  “Holy One,” the man whispered as he passed his hand protectivel
y over his face.

  “My companion and I have matters to attend to,” I said. “I do not want either you or the Headman to come anywhere near Our dwelling until We summon you. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “I shall offend You no more.”

  I walked up the trail, took a deep breath, and entered the hut. Nallei was waking; she raised herself on one elbow and stared at me. I sat and stirred the embers of the fire with a stick, then put on more wood from our pile.

  She said, “You know.”

  I said nothing as I went through the motions of preparing tea. “Listen to me,” she went on. “I wanted to tell you before. I knew you would have to find out, but I couldn’t say it to you.”

  “What you do is disgusting.”

  “Keep your voice down. The men might hear.”

  “I told them to stay where they are until we called them.” I picked up stones and put them into the cups. “So this is how you’ve lived, degrading yourself.”

  “This is how I have survived.”

  “And this is what I’ve come to.”

  She sat up and pulled on her shirt. As she crawled toward me, I saw that her eyes were red and smelled the sour odor of wine on her breath. “When I came here,” she said, “I had to tell them they could no longer seek blessings in shrines, but they still wanted them. Some of the bolder ones were soon saying that I must have come here to give them such blessings. The mindspeakers have taught them that the Lady seeks their embrace and rejoices in it. They’ve been conditioned to long for and respond to a woman’s form and to want that even more than they want each other. Our cities have done their work all too well.”

  My tea was nearly ready, but I could not swallow any.

  “One day, a man came to my hut and tried to take me against my will. I called out, and his companion beat him so senseless for the deed that he died soon afterward, but I knew someone else might try the same thing and discover I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t change their impulses, I could only try to control them. Yerlan was one of those who was saying I had come to grant the band blessings. He became Headman two years after I came here. I knew I had to act then.”

  “It was you who started the full moon ceremony,” I said.

  “It was that, or finding a way for the healer Wirlan to bring me poison. I considered that—I could have told Wirlan that such poisons would have no power over me. But I couldn’t give up my life even then.”

  She had been carried into the camp for the first ceremony, and there she had entered the Prayergiver’s hut and had joined with him. She had fortified herself with wine and even then the Prayergiver was too old to do much more than lie upon her. But Yerlan, as Headman, also expected to be summoned, and she had brought him back to the island. He had been quite different from the Prayergiver, strong and young and fueled by the potion he had drunk. Even the wine had not blurred the torment of meeting his demands.

  Nallei soon realized that she would have to call others of the band from time to time. What had begun as an evil and sordid necessity soon gave her a stronger hold on the men. Those who had been called worshipped her all the more; those who had not could hope to win her favor.

  “The wine dulls my senses,” she said. “The man drinks of the potion the healer prepares, and I become all women to him. The wine makes my mind rise from me until he is only touching a body while I watch from afar. It makes it easier to endure, and sometimes I can drink enough to forget.”

  “It’s horrible,” I whispered.

  “I’ll tell you what I hate most about them. I can no longer seek love with anyone and take pleasure from it. I couldn’t lie with you without thinking of them.”

  I set down my cup. “I have to get away.” I glanced wildly around the hut. “They’ll expect the same thing from me.”

  Her hand clutched my arm. “I told you that you’d be safe. I said at the ceremony that you would summon no man, that it’s your task to commune with spirits and not with them. I said this before all of them, so even Yerlan must be bound by it. He was angry, though he tried not to show it. His thoughts were turning to you, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. If he hurt you, his men would see that he suffered for it, and he knows that.”

  I had despised her; now, I was moved by her. She had thought of protecting me from what she had endured, and I had not thought of her at all.

  “It may be that fewer of the men will seek our blessing,” she said. “The younger ones, those who were boys when I came here or who were brought here from other camps, have never known these things. They want to be with me only because it’s an honor, but it’s other men they desire. They haven’t had the cities and shrines to instruct them. I’ve summoned few of them. They drink their potion, but only lie at my side and have no memory of what happened later.”

  My gorge rose. “How could you do this?”

  “I’m alive. One lives how one must, you foolish girl. You would have been forced to the same thing if you had been alone.”

  I thought of Arvil’s old band and how they might have dealt with me, then remembered how I had imagined Arvil sitting with me in the dark of the hut. I had no right to condemn Nallei. She only endured the touch of a man, while I had, however fleetingly, responded to Arvil.

  I drew up my legs and pressed my forehead against my knees, tormented by these thoughts, then raised my head. “But what do you allow… how do they…” I could hardly say the words. “You must have found some way to keep from having a child.”

  Nallei picked up her cup of tea, swallowed a little, and set the cup down. “Surely you know how to chart your cycle, Birana. Women have to know when they’re most fertile and ready for the insemination of sperm. You must have learned how to use a scanner to detect the time when you’re ovulating. Here, I must use similar methods to avoid a pregnancy. I keep a bit of hide with me always, and chart the days of my cycle on it. I don’t have a scanner now, of course, but I can know when my fertile time comes and allow for it.” Her mouth twisted. “It doesn’t often happen that I have to endure a man during that time, but when it’s necessary, I find other ways to satisfy him.”

  I pressed a hand against my mouth, not wanting to think about what those ways might be.

  Nallei straightened. “You might as well hear the rest. You won’t despise me any more than you do already. I was as careful as I could be, but in spite of my precautions, I became pregnant ten years ago.”

  “But the child…”

  “There is no child. I aborted it. Do you understand? I couldn’t have a child here, couldn’t let them see.… As soon as I was sure, I aborted it. I had to use a stick. I began to hemorrhage; I thought I would die. Somehow I found the strength to bury it and sent one of the guards for Wirlan. He came and gave me some of his potions for three days. I told him that an evil spirit had struggled with me but that I had won over it, and then swore him to secrecy. He has never spoken of it since.”

  This was more horrible than anything else she had said. I knew that in ancient times, when our biological sciences were not as advanced, abortions had occasionally been necessary, but none had been performed for centuries. Women chose a time to give birth; defects in newborns or fetuses had been eliminated long ago.

  I thought of Nallei, alone here, of how helpless she must have felt when she realized her condition. No one could have helped her, not even the healer. She could not have given birth without showing the men the truth about their existence; she could not have raised the child here. She could not even know what sort of child it might have been, whether it would have been strong enough to live. I could not condemn her for this.

  “I was even more careful after that,” she said, “and it never happened again. Now I think I must have destroyed my ability to have children. I couldn’t have borne them here, but I hate the men for that, too. I suppose I should be grateful that, in a few years’ time, my monthly bleeding will be past.”

  I lifted my head. She had reminded me of how quickly we would age.
/>   “Now you know about me,” she said. “Despise me if you must, but I’ve done what I can to keep you safe. And think of this as well. You found your way here—perhaps some other woman will. You spoke of finding another refuge, but it may be that you’ll have to create one here instead.” She paused. “If you can no longer bear to live with me, I’m sure that the men will build you another hut.”

  I moved closer to her. “I won’t do that. If you hadn’t done as you did, there might not have been a safe place for me.” I put my arm around her. “You are my mother now.”

  I knew I would have to go to the camp again, but the thought of doing so repelled me. I knew what the men had done to Nallei; I would understand their thoughts only too well when they looked at me. Yet I had to go to the camp to learn the skills I might need.

  I did not speak of this to Nallei, but I had not given up hope of an escape. A stranger might come to the area outside the camp with some tale of a possible refuge. I could leave on horseback, and the band would be at a disadvantage if they followed me on foot. I did not plan to leave Nallei behind; I would find a way to take her with me. I could not believe that, with all she had suffered, she would not willingly leave this camp.

  I rose one morning and announced to Nallei that I was going into the camp. I did not want to go, but it was becoming too easy to while away the days in swimming and talk, accompanied by jugs of wine. If I did not go to the camp soon, it would be difficult to bring myself to go at all.

  I boarded a boat with one of the guards, commanding the other one to remain. The man with me protested when I sat in the prow and took up a paddle, but I silenced him. I had watched the men in their boats and was able to use the paddle, however awkwardly. My shoulders ached when we landed below the camp, but I refused to sit in the litter and walked up to the clearing. A boy fetched a mat for me; I sat down a few paces from the Prayergiver’s house.

  “Where is your Headman?” I said to the boy.

  “He rests, Holy One, for he returned with hunters only a short time ago.”