The Gate to Women's Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

  "I got me a wife," he said.

  "I know you do, son. All your Aunts and me, we was at your marrying. You got Humility Gavin for a wife."

  "She cries," he said. "She cries."

  Rejoice thought this over very carefully. There was things a woman could say and there was things a woman couldn't say. Questions a woman couldn't ask. "She cry all the time, or just some time?"

  "Some time." He flushed again.

  She decided to risk it. "Like, when you got your duty to do?"

  "Like then."

  "She cry like... like's she's hurt?"

  "Like that, yeah. She's got no business crying, and I chastised her for it, but it's like she can't help it, and it puts me off doin' what I got to do."

  Rejoice sighed. Oh, she thought, I wish there was some female in heaven a woman could pray to. I wish there was somethin' a woman could look forward to. "I tell you what, son. You tell Humility to boil a fat chicken. Don't let her put any salt in, or anything but just the chicken. You have her skim off the fat and put it in a pot someplace cool. When you got to do your duty, you smear that fat all around the duty place, you know, and likely she won't get hurt so bad."

  He thought for a moment. "Like a wagon axle, huh?"

  Rejoice nodded, unable to trust the voice inside her which was screaming, "Yes, you stupid, cruel ram-sheep of a man. Like a wagon axle, only you'd care more about the wagon." Instead, keeping her voice very quiet, she said, "You see, Humility's only fourteen years old. She's not quite grown yet. She's not... she's not really big enough yet."

  "Well, that could be," he said. "But she's the only one I got."

  "Well then, maybe you'd like to bring her down from your place to visit with your Aunt Susannah. Maybe she knows somethin' that could help some."

  "I don't hold with visitin' around," he said stubbornly. "Women visitin' around breeds mischief. That's what the Elders always say. You womenfolk get together at Holydays and Thanksgivin' time and at birthin' time. And you sister-wives are all the time chatterin' about somethin'." Though he did not realize it, he sounded exactly like his father, even to the intonation of individual words.

  "I just meant she might be lonesome," Rejoice offered. "Since she's got no sister-wives yet to be company with."

  "That's woman's lot," he said indifferently. "Because she's the spout and wellspring of error and sin, that's woman's lot."

  There was a short silence. "Have another piece of bread and preserves," said Rejoice. "The bees and the sugar beets both did real well last year. I made more preserves than I think we'll need. I'll send a jar home with you, for your... for Humility."

  SEPTEMIUS BIRD sat at ease on the wagon seat, letting Chernon drive the donkeys, which by this, the fourth day of their travel, he was doing rather well. Old Bowough Bird lay on a mattress in the wagon behind them, Kostia and Tonia beside him, stubbornly present despite Septemius's repeated insistence that they remain in Marthatown. He had remembered his former trip to the south, and he had been of no mind to risk the twins even to what little he remembered of that place. Women had been in short supply, as he recalled. By now, if things had gone on as it seemed they would, the situation might be growing somewhat desperate. He had intended to say something of this to young Stavia, but had not had the opportunity. He was still debating whether to try and warn her through this callow youth at his side. Septemius was slightly ashamed of himself, but he could not bring himself to much like young Chernon, though the boy was polite enough, within his rather self-engrossed limits.

  No, he decided, better to tell Stavia herself when they met. "Where will Stavia meet you?" he asked now, a question he realized came tardily. "You never said."

  Chernon roused from his musing, "Oh, we've agreed on a signal. I'll drop off before you get to the camp. When you arrive, you tell her how far back you left me, and she'll be able to find me." Stavia had started on the trip days before Bowough Bird had been well enough to travel, and by the time Chernon arrived, she would already have spent some time in the fortified sheep camp toward which they were traveling. She had assured Chernon that she had put off the servitor who was to have been with her, and that she would be alone. What good to her a servitor might have been, Chernon could not imagine. It was widely supposed in the garrison that returnees through the gate were gelded by the women doctors, and Chernon more than half believed it. At least, they got no sons, for every boy in Women's Country came to a warrior father. Some said the servitors were used to beget girls, but Chernon doubted it. His unauthorized reading had taught him enough elementary biology to make him question that supposition.

  Well, whatever use the servitors were, there wouldn't be one with Stavia.

  As though reading his mind, the older man said, "She didn't travel alone down here, did she?"

  "She told me she would be perfectly safe."

  "And you accepted her assurances?"

  "In Women's Country it is usual to do so," Chernon said, only slightly sarcastically.

  "But she'll be at this sheep camp we're headed for?"

  "That's what she planned."

  Septemius fretted. He didn't like this, not any of it. If only the twins had consented to stay where they were. They could have lived a time in the itinerants' quarters outside the eastern wall and attended the Women's Country schools. The Councils of the various towns encouraged such participation on the part of female itinerants, and did not even mind if the women passed on their learning to itinerant menfolk, though they did not allow the copying of books. Nonetheless, the girls had insisted upon coming, and he would not risk them by staying near the badlands for any length of time.

  "It may not be as safe as Stavia believed," he said at last. "When you are traveling together, take great care." He could not keep himself from sounding worried, at which the boy seemed to bridle, resenting it. They rode along for some time in virtual silence and increasing discomfort.

  "Would you like us to tell your fortune, Chernon?" Kostia called. "Can we lay out the cards for you?"

  "What cards are these?" he asked, drawn away from a continuing daydream in which he and Stavia were the central figures, glad of any excuse not to let Septemius's anxiety infect him with similar concerns. He had been uncomfortable since he left the garrison, but he did not really want to examine the causes of this vexing agitation. Thinking about it led him down roads he preferred not to travel. It had occurred to him, very briefly, that his manipulation of Stavia might be rather like things Barten used to do, but he had set the notion hastily aside as a fault which he could not possibly be guilty of. He was not tricking Stavia out of the city entirely for his own purposes; she had been going anyhow. He was not risking her life or health for his own gratification; he had no diseases, and had no intention of acquiring any. Michael had promised that when the time came that the warriors took over Marthatown, Stavia would belong to Chernon, if he still wanted her. Chernon supposed that he would still want her, and this assumption made his conscience clear. He was doing nothing, planning nothing which would not continue in the future time. In the end, she would be glad of it. Michael had assured him of that.

  That nine tenths of his conscious thought was occupied with lustful anticipation, he did not deny, nor did he make any effort, once darkness came and the physical effects of his imaginings were not so obvious, to curb fantasies which were inventive, expectant, and extremely pleasurable. Oh yes, he wanted her, wanted her for himself, to himself, with no interruptions and no preoccupations. He could hardly wait until the miles had rolled away between here, where he was, and there, where it would all happen. Until that time, he would prefer not to be worried unnecessarily with side issues and ethical nitpicking. "What cards are you talking about?" he repeated in a voice hoarse with tumescent longings.

  Tonia thrust her head through the open door at the front of the wagon, just behind the seat, and showed him the deck of cards, face up upon her hand. "The cards of fortune, Chernon. Haven't you seen them before?"

  "I'll tell you
about them," said Kostia, peering over Tonia's shoulder. "There are four sets in the deck, one for each season. Each set has a King and a Queen and one other as the Royal Triad." She handed Septemius a wine bottle and four cups, watching carefully to assure an equitable distribution. There was another bottle behind her. She and Tonia had decided to get Chernon slightly drunk.

  "In the spring set," Tonia said, "the King bears a flowered scepter and the Queen is heavy with child, while the Spring Magician looks both forward to fruitfulness and warmth and back toward the cold."

  "In the summer the King drives a pair of oxen," Kostia continued, handing Chernon a filled cup. She pointed to a card. "That's what these are, oxen. A kind of cattle. We don't have them anymore. The Queen carries a harvest cornucopia full of grain and vegetables and fruit. The Summer Priestess is naked within her thin robes. She wears a wreath of ivy and carries an incense burner before her. The smoke hides her face."

  Tonia took up the story. "The Autumn King has a gray beard and carries an oaken staff with red leaves upon it; the Queen holds out her hands and rain falls from them upon the fields. The Autumn Warrior leans upon his sword."

  "Finally," Kostia concluded, "in winter you see the King being drawn in his sled by reindeer. We don't have them anymore, either...."

  "I know about reindeer," mumbled Chernon, half draining his wine cup.

  "The King has a white beard and a blood-red robe. Then there's the Queen with her dark cloak spread before the stars, and the Winter Princess, clad all in furs, with eyes of fire which can freeze or burn, as she chooses. She has a knife in one hand and a sheaf of grain in the other, to feed the animals. The signet of spring is the fruit blossom, of summer the headed grain, of autumn the red oak leaf, and of winter the holly leaf. There are ten numbered cards in each set." She refilled Chernon's cup.

  Chernon handed the reins to Septemius and took the cards the girl offered him, leafing through them. They were beautifully hand painted and varnished, with only the edges slightly worn. He turned two of them out on the wagon seat. The five of holly, the one of grain. Kostia sighed.

  "That was a heavy sigh," Chernon jibed at her. "Did I pick unlucky cards?"

  "The one of grain is a card of destruction," she answered.

  "Why?" It showed a man with a sickle at his belt, holding a single sheaf of grain. The man's head was back so one could not see his eyes, but his mouth was open and the cords of his neck stood out as though he had just shouted or screamed. "It looks like a harvest to me."

  "He has cut all the grain, but he has replanted none," Tonia said. "The five of holly shows a five-branched tree weighted with snow against a gray sky. It is midway in the set, not early, not late. It has no people on it. It is a waiting card. A card betokening the passage of time."

  "You cannot stop with two cards," Kostia intervened. "You must lay out at least one more."

  "Why?" he asked again, stubbornly.

  "Three, five, seven, eleven, or thirteen," Kostia said. "Numbers which cannot be separated into even parts."

  "Odd and prime," Septemius offered. "Numbers divisible only by themselves. Evidently they have always been considered to have occult significance."

  "Oh, all right," Chernon said, laughing to show he did not believe or care. He pulled out another card and set it next to the two already on the seat. Kostia drew in her breath between her teeth and took the cards from him. "Well, you have chosen the Winter Princess, Chernon."

  "And what does that mean?" He drained his cup again and took the reins back from Septemius. "Something dreadful, no doubt."

  "No," she said. "Only that she is a woman and can be either loving or angry."

  "Crap," he said rudely. "This sort of thing. Of course time will pass, destruction will happen, and ill women are either loving or angry, sometimes both. You have told me only simple truths and inevitabilities."

  Kostia gave him an offended look and shut the door between them, silently, leaving the bottle on the wagon seat.

  Chernon laughed as he poured his cup full again. So much for fortunetellers. He gave Septemius a sidelong look, surprising a troubled expression on his face. "You don't believe in this stuff, do you, Magician? You, particularly? You make your living fooling people, don't you?" Chernon had long since decided that he need not worry about what Septemius might think or say or do. No one would give any credence to a traveling showman, and when the warriors took over, the old man and his girls would do what they were told.

  "Oh yes," the old man admitted. "I do. Making people think they see what they do not see. Making people believe I have done what I have not done. I know all the lies people tell themselves. I help them lie to themselves; it is my craft. And I, Septemius Bird, say to you, Chernon, that when Kostia and Tonia lay out the cards, they often tell more of the truth than 1 care to know."

  "Lucky for me, then, that I laid them out for myself," Chernon replied, clucking to the donkeys. He wanted to get where they were going. "Well, the cards are true enough, Septemius. Time will pass. I may have to cut some wood along the way, for our campfire, and this will no doubt fulfill the prediction of destruction. I should have turned up the Summer Priestess though, you know that? The one with the hidden face. When I meet Stavia, I will see her body" he laughed, a crapulent, lubricious sound which betrayed much more than he meant it to, "but maybe not her face. None of them in Women's Country show us their real faces, do you know that?"

  "It surprises me that you do." There was more asperity in Septemius's response than he had meant to allow. This time he refilled Chernon's cup.

  "Oh, we're not stupid, Magician. I've thought about it a lot, you know? I had books there for a while, before Stavia decided to play me false by not letting me have any more. I managed to get away with one for myself. It belonged to my sister Beneda, and I swiped it from her. She didn't miss it. Beneda is not much for reading, anyhow."

  "Do you still have it?" Septemius asked, curiously.

  "Oh yes. I have it with me. It tells all about animals and people, before the convulsions. I have read of elephants and crocodiles, of Laplanders, tropical islanders, and people who lived on boats on great rivers. At one time, life was varied, Magician. It was not all alike as it is now."

  "It may still be varied," the older man replied. "Across the desolations, who knows what may exist?"

  "Who cares, if we can't reach them? Here it is all the same. Women's Country inside the walls. Garrisons outside the walls. Gypsies and bandits moving among us like the jackals I read of in those books. And itinerants, of course, like you. Showmen. Magicians. Actors and acrobats. And scavengers who dig metal out of the ruins of old cities and wagoneers who seem to spend most of their time transporting things from place to place." He clucked again to the donkeys and smiled, a cynical smile. "I've thought about it. It seems very simple on the surface, but there's more here than we can see, Magician, though we've no way to get at it."

  Septemius shivered, without letting it show. When Chernon said "we," was he referring to the warriors? "I don't understand what you mean."

  Chernon smiled again, disagreeably, Septemius thought. "Well, there's this, for example. The women depend upon us to defend them, don't they?"

  The old man nodded, unwilling to trust his voice.

  "So, they should be interested in our keeping the garrisons up to strength, right? I mean, we're their shield. Without us, they'd be overrun by the garrison of some other city, or chipped away at by bandits." He stared at Septemius, waiting for the answering nod before going on.

  "Well, they should be most concerned about keeping us strong, but they aren't interested in that. All they're interested in is getting us to come home. Whenever I think about it, I think of two wheels, turning in opposite directions. These big, big wheels, one inside the other, whirling, making a kind of deep, humming sound. Sometimes I can almost hear it."

  Septemius cleared his throat. "Isn't what you're seeing the inevitable conflict between personal and societal needs and desires? The society o
f women needs you to defend them, yes. But the individual mothers and sisters in that society want their own sons and brothers home, where they'll be safe. So, they do the best they can with both. They honor the warriors, but they do everything they can to urge their own loved ones to come home. It seems perfectly understandable to me. As a system, it doesn't work badly, does it?"

  "It weeds out the ones who wouldn't be much use on the battlefield," the boy agreed. "Or most of them, anyhow. And that gives the women in the cities some men to work for them. I suppose they need that. I remember Minsning, my mother's servitor, from when I was a kid. He made me cookies and played horsy and I can't imagine him being any good at fighting. But that's not what I meant. I mean, there's more to the system than we know about." He hiccuped slightly, unaware that the wine was making him say more than he should. "The whole garrison thinks so. Michael... Stephen... they say the women have these secret meetings all the time, Council meetings."