by Eden Wolfe
“As ever a Commandante could.” It was the closest she could come to speaking the words the Queen seemed so desperate to hear. The closest she could say without boldfaced lying. “My Queen, please, I must speak to you about - ”
“And why is love so fleeting?”
Irene didn’t know what to say.
The Queen turned away from her and walked towards the window, seemingly not looking for an answer.
“How have we lost a love that used to be so pure, so innocent, so full of meaning? The very love I could never have.” She looked back at Irene, “Mother’s love. Irene, we are a nation of women and yet we have done everything in our power to dilute that very love most basic to our kind. We’ve reduced relationships to mandatory kinship. We remove children from the body that birthed them after a minimum period of basic care. And why? What for? To replace it with the love of Queen and country? And where has that gotten us? The settlers are frowning on us and it’s because of the decisions taken by those whose blood runs through me now.” Ariane, though smaller than Irene, took Irene’s cheeks in her hands as though she were a child.
A tear began to form over the Queen’s eye. It shone in the light streaming through the balcony door. “I witnessed it today, Irene. I witnessed a love so pure. Right there,” she pointed down to the square, “So pure, it could only come from a deviant. For we would never have allowed that to run in the veins of the common code of women.”
Ariane walked away from Irene one hand on her hip the other on her brow.
“The woman was radiant with it, it rolled off her like waves of the sea, and they crashed into me. I cannot be the same. She was the catalyst for the settlers’ message. I have to find her, Irene. I have to see her and the child. I have to understand what is different in her, and how we get it back.”
Irene couldn’t speak. She still had to tell the Queen about the girl still standing outside the door, but Ariane was not going to be receptive to the news.
Still, Irene had no choice. The timing was too critical.
“My Queen, I see how vexed you are. I will do as you command. I will find her - ”
“Yes? You could?” Ariane’s eyes lifted, something childlike in them.
“But my Queen, I must first tell you of news unrelated to this woman you witnessed today. And it is most essential that I have your attention.”
Ariane’s eyes narrowed. “News?” Ariane’s face clouded. “Yes, news. Fine. Though I fear I am not going to like what you have to say.”
“I also fear it.”
Irene walked to the door and opened it, gesturing with her head for Leadon and Gillian to enter. She was not going to endure the Queen’s reaction alone. “You already know Leadon, chief of the warrior priestesses of Gana. And this is Gillian, a young woman who traveled from the Dark Counties to see you.”
Ariane’s face tensed up, her brow bent forward and her jaw clenched. “What is this farce? You bring me a child from the Dark Counties? And you,” she pointed at Leadon, “Do you have the required authorization to be here? How dare you bypass the structures in place and burst in on me in such a sensitive time as this. I cannot allow this!” Ariane turned and walked towards the balcony, “Get them out of here, Irene. I’m not taking visitors.”
“My Queen,” Irene walked slowly, approaching Ariane from behind. “I’m afraid you must hear what she has to say. The girl was sent here by Gale.”
Ariane’s head snapped to Irene, an expression of shock across her, “Gale?”
“Yes,” Irene whispered.
Ariane turned and walked to her bureau. She slowly sat in her armchair.
She may have been trying to give the impression of calm and collected, but Irene knew her too well. The Queen’s eyes flicked from left to right. She was running every possible scenario in her mind.
“What is your name?” Ariane began, her voice low.
Irene nodded at Gillian to reply.
“Gillian, Your Highness.”
“Gillian.
“Gillian, my Queen. From the Dark Counties.”
“The Dark Counties.”
Ariane then looked at the girl, seeming to finally consider her in some detail. As she scanned Gillian, Irene thought she saw a flicker of recognition on the Queen’s face.
“Gillian. I know you. Gillian who came to Rainfields to beg the settlers for guidance and healing. Yes, Gillian,” Ariane’s eyes lit up, “I have seen your heart. I heard your pleading words, and I have seen your commitment to the vision of the settlers.” Ariane stood up from the chair with a jolt. She walked to Gillian and grabbed her hands, pulling the girl down to kneel with her. Irene and Leadon watched on. Irene saw the same incredulity on Leadon’s face as she knew was on her own.
“Yes, Gillian. You also feel how the seas of change are about to flood upon us. I heard it in you; I heard your desperation and your fear. Your loyalty and love. It is the gift of the settlers that you have come to me today. Come, tell me everything,” she placed her hand on Gillian’s face, a movement so tender. Irene had never seen anything like it in the young Queen before.
Like a mother’s hand on a child’s cheek.
She has been deeply affected by the mother she witnessed this morning. What is this Queen becoming? She is transforming right in front of me.
“Tell me how it is that the settlers have brought you to me now. Tell me how they have put my friend, Gale, into your path. Tell me everything.”
Irene watched the whole scene in curious detachment.
Gillian recounted the horror stories from the Dark Counties. The Queen embraced her, showered her with caresses. Ariane’s affection overflowed as Gillian fought back tears. And then Gillian told of Gale.
The situation became clearer to Irene.
So Gale was mad with the illness, but managed to survive it. I never thought I would hear that name again, and now it’s at the center of everything that is sending our world into a spin.
Gale. Naïve, arrogant, and shrewd Gale.
She lives on.
Ariane was careful not to give away any sense of emotion anytime Gillian uttered Gale’s name. Her face went blank at each mention. Irene guessed it was intentional, likely to hide something very dark growing in the Queen at all of this talk of Gale.
“Hush, hush. I’ve got you,” Ariane enveloped Gillian and the girl sobbed into the Queen’s velvety shoulder. Irene looked up to Leadon. She knew Leadon was thinking the exact same thing.
Ariane flips at the snap of a finger. From defiant and angry to nurturing comforter. There is nothing natural in her way. And she has said nothing of Gale. It will come. It will most certainly come.
“Leadon, Gillian.” Ariane opened her arms. “You must stay in the lodgings of the fortress for this night. I will have it no other way.” She opened the door and screeched, “Waiting-woman! Where are you? Show yourself and immediately take our guests into the lodgings of the north wing.”
She turned back into the room with a spin.
“There. But let me be clear, you will both stay in the fortress; you will not leave it. For, while you are welcome, I have many issues of critical importance to which I must attend, and I can’t have you wandering in my city just when I must make some very brave decisions. Tomorrow you return to Gana and I will not see you unless I call for you. Am I understood?”
Leadon bowed her head and Gillian replied, “Yes, my Queen.”
“Now leave me.”
All at once, there was no more sign of the tender Queen who had been on her knees, holding the young girl as she sobbed.
Ariane was back in her own skin.
Once the door was closed behind Leadon and Gillian, Ariane finally turned to face Irene. The Queen’s breathing accelerated, her shoulders lifting and dropping with the effort.
“We must lock the city down.”
Irene started. This was entirely unexpected. “Lock the city down?”
“Immediately. No one in or out. Curfew in place. By nineteen hundred hours all
citizens must be in their dwelling, on risk of arrest by the Guard.”
“My Queen, I can’t see how this will address - ”
“Close the supply lines. Nothing else in or out of the city.”
“But the Outer Counties are dependent upon - ”
“No one and nothing in or out! Is there anything ambiguous in what I’m saying here, Commandante?”
The Outer Counties will lose access to their stores if we close the supply lines.
Irene’s temper was beginning to boil in the base of her stomach. A lockdown wasn’t going to help anything. It would only make so many other things worse. “No. Nothing ambiguous at all.”
“No, what?”
“No, my Queen!”
“Do not challenge me now, Irene. There are greater things stirring around us than you can dream up in your Ganese imagination.” The whites of her eyes glared. “There are undercurrents running beneath the surface in every corner, every commune. Every heart in Lower Earth is weak to its ways. Demon-like it rolls on the wind through the streets. The women breathe it in. I know it, I’ve seen it. I watched it grow in Gale’s own eyes.”
Ariane ran at her faster than Irene could see and grabbed at the collar of Irene’s shirt.
“Gale should have died. She was supposed to die. No spreading illness, no recovery and no enlightenment. She was to be dead. Dead. Slow and painful. Dead. And yet she walks among the Dark Counties, a living ghost. And worse than that,” she pulled Irene into her, whispering as air wheezed from her chest, “The only antidote is in her blood. It should have killed her. There is no other antidote. It’s the settlers, punishing us again for the world we’ve become. And now they are putting Gale back in my path.”
Ariane let go of Irene’s shirt and paced.
“The Sisters will want the antidote; we can’t let them have it. We’ll need it here in Geb. The illness is likely coming for us already, the way the Sisters have worked themselves into the city. It should have all stayed contained. I got that part very wrong. And now - now they may have even planted it in the water supply. Daphna and her water supply.”
Irene couldn’t keep up with Ariane’s logic. The Queen was marching madly from one side of the room to the other, muttering. She stopped and pointed at Irene.
“Get me Gale, Irene. The antidote is in her blood, so I will suck the blood out of her myself. We will put her on a machine in Cork Town, where no one will find her. We will keep her alive as long as it takes to bleed her dry, whatever it takes to save the women of Lower Earth.”
Ariane turned, placing her head in her hands. Irene watched as her shoulders continued to rise and fall at a speed that wasn’t human.
Without raising her head, Ariane spoke just loud enough for Irene to hear, “Set the Guard in place for the lockdown. Send Roman to me immediately. You must go for Gale. Start preparing immediately for any possible eventuality. The Guard must know how to manage in your absence.”
Irene didn’t wait a moment longer. She marched for the door.
“Irene!”
Irene stopped, turning to wait for the Queen’s instruction, though she feared hearing the words. As it was, everything was swimming in her mind and Irene had to make sense of it before she herself became implicit in a total disruption of their society.
The Queen’s voice hissed out of her, “Don’t you dare come back until you have Gale gagged and hogtied in a barrel rolling behind you.”
31
Roman
Roman tried to control his steps. It was a battle within himself. His body wanted to run, it was desperate to run, but his feet kept him walking. A correct pace. A pace like everyone else.
Meanwhile, his insides were on fire.
How could she know? How is it possible the Queen could have perceived the slightest of difference in the child, and in the crowd of thousands?
The Queen’s words repeated, incessant in his head.
“There’s a child,” she’d said, “A deviant child and her mother. I want them brought to the fortress.”
“There are hundreds of deviant children. How can I know which one you want?”
“This one is not like the others. I’m sure that once you find them you’ll be able to determine the deviance of the child. There is something unusual in it, indeed. I imagine it will be a scientific curiosity for you, for I believe it might have some traces of the common code of men.”
“That’s not possible.” His head had been swimming, trying to understand the Queen’s agenda, trying to understand how the child could have been found out. There had been no obvious answer.
“Imagine, you could perhaps restart your Male Program. If you take this aberration and build from it, you just might have the foundations of a sequence that could work.”
Roman didn’t believe her. The Queen was smart, cunning, and above all, a liar. Her charade of scientific interest didn’t fool him. She would kill the child, perhaps mother too, just for the fact of her existence. He should have guessed it was only a matter of time. Geb was not safe for them, even if they were in the Cork Town commune. The Queen had a habit of sniffing out any anomaly.
“I want to see the mother. You want to see the child. Bring them here. The woman they were with was older, she walked with a limp and had some kind of vision impairment. That should be enough for you to identify them. The coming lockdown will ease your mission. I have no doubt you can find them, Roman. You were the Great Geneticist, after all.”
He had to accept. He had to find them. If he refused, it wouldn’t do any of them any good. The Queen would just send Irene to do the job, and Irene also abhorred deviance. The Commandante did the Queen’s bidding. And even more so, Irene hated Roman. He was certain that any mention of the Male Program would incite Irene to such lengths as to smother the child on the spot. He had watched her kill Lucius, destroy his body. There was no sign of humanity in her then. Lucius had been one of the greatest gifts to Lower Earth, even if Roman did hold a deep-set dislike for the man. He’d never deserved that. No one deserved that. Naked and bleeding before the crowd of shocked onlookers.
Yes, Irene was capable of killing a child. And she would do it on the Queen’s command. Roman had to get to Anna and Arin first.
He’d looked up at Ariane, “What you say is most incredible, my Queen. I shall seek them out at once.”
Ariane had nodded her approval, “See the Commandante first, and quickly before she travels to the Dark Counties. Obtain a pass. I don’t want to find out that the guards have arrested you for violating the lockdown. I want you to find them as soon as you can. And bring them to me.”
“I understand, my Queen.”
Ariane had cocked her head and stared at him.
He’d tried to steel his resolve, not to let her see any sign of hesitancy in him. She had to believe he was committed to the task. He gave a small smile that he hoped appeared genuine, “The Male Program could certainly use an injection of energy.”
“Yes!” Ariane had clapped her hands together, “That’s exactly what I thought. I knew you would be pleased to hear this news. So go on then, first Irene and then to Cork Town you go.”
Roman had bowed, and then gotten out of there as quickly as he could. He’d felt the Queen’s eyes following him out.
He had the authorization now in his hands, hesitant though the Commandante had been to provide it. His explanation of scientific purpose didn’t seem to convince her in the least. It was only when he spoke of Ariane’s command to find a child and mother that she took notice.
Irene is a dog. A vicious, protective dog. They belong together, the Commandante and the Queen, they are both constructed of evil and self-preservation. Nothing more.
He walked through the city, the apartment buildings and alleyways fading in his peripheral vision. Scores of people rushing to get home as Mary spoke.
“This is temporary, women of Geb. It is for your protection and well-being. You should already have provisions for the next seven days, per the policy
on home stocks. Therefore, most of you should have what you need for the initial period of this lockdown. If necessary, the Guard will distribute rations. But for now, let me be clear: Get into your lodgings immediately.”
Even as his feet drove him towards Cork Town, his mind sought strategy. He couldn’t just show up and walk Anna and Arin out of Cork Town. Definitely not with the lockdown underway, not with so many eyes watching. The fact alone that it was him would draw attention. He couldn’t blend.
But the Sisters could.
That was it.
He had to convince the Sisters to take the child. Perhaps even the mother. But why would they believe him? Daphna knew he existed, though he hadn’t thought then that such extreme measures would be necessary… still, he was certain she would see the importance of saving the child. But he couldn’t directly meet with Daphna again without it being monitored.
He had to find a Sister, and hope that she understood well enough what he was asking them to do. And why.
He made his way to Cork Town; he had to be seen there, in case the Queen came asking. He made a point of signing in at the entry to the commune. At least his entry would be documented.
And once he found a Sister? And once he didn’t return to the Queen with the child and mother? What then? Roman had been walking in a trance, but suddenly his feet stopped him.
He was signing his own death warrant.
Save the child, sacrifice himself.
He paused only a moment.
He was ready for that.
A woman walking past watched him for a few moments too long. She was like any other woman, except that she wasn’t. Roman couldn’t put his finger on it, but he didn’t need to. He could tell she was a Sister. He walked in her direction without making eye contact. Coming within a foot of her, he spoke.
“Sister, there’s someone who needs your help.”
32
Trudith
Trudith huddled close to Anna. Anna held Arin and Trudith held Anna. Together they walked away from the market, which was temporarily on a rations program, as Mary announced over the screens.
