Sighing, she crawled onto the ledge where the twins slept, stretched out beside them, and closed her eyes. Beneath her superficial calm, she felt terror. But then, Enforcers often felt terror, often went in fear of their lives. That’s one of the first things she’d learned at Academy, how to handle terror. Beyond all terror and pain was always the simple fact: One would live or one would die. One had only to find out which and do it with élan, whichever it was. The only real challenge, as Zasper had often said, was to be sure one didn’t wiffle around.
Dark came on Thrasis. The province seethed as Derbeck had done. It was said foreign persons, including at least one man, had invaded the towers. The Prophet was enraged. Men gathered to plan retaliation for this dishonor. The ship on which the interlopers had traveled was anchored out in the river. On the morrow it would be boarded and the people taken to the court for trial before they were beheaded. Until then, it was sufficient merely to describe what vengeance each man would exact when the strangers were captured. Guards were set to watch the ship, but no one thought to set extra guards on the towers.
Those on the Dove went to their cabins to lie sleepless, considering various unpleasant futures, while on shore the guards fell into profound, inexplicable slumber. The gates of the tower nearest the river opened and Haifazh came out carrying her child upon her shoulder. She stood for a moment all alone before the opened gates, then she cried out once—only once. It was like the sound of a treble trumpet, silvery and remote, sounding equally everywhere, near and far, as though it came from or was augmented by some other throat than hers. Everyone in Thrasis heard it, but only the women knew what it meant. They came out, women and girls, some eagerly, some reluctantly. They carried their babies and daughters, all of them there were. They had been given the choice. The choice would not be given again. There was evil coming, and this was the only chance they would have. Choose. Even the reluctant ones could not lose this one chance.
Some, mostly old ones, fearful of change, chose to stay, but none chose to have their babies or daughters stay. Mothers and daughters stood in argumentative clots, pushing and dragging at one another. The Houses of Retribution opened their doors and their inhabitants poured out. In the Houses of Retribution only a few remained behind, old women all, those who had ruled the others with their canes. In the Courts of Removal the departing women picked up all those still living and carried them along.
In the houses of the town, where women were kept in their so-called bowers, windowless cells emptied themselves down hidden stairs to high-walled gardens, and over those walls into the night. No one saw the women go. It was almost as though something hid them, preventing them from being seen. Here and there locked doors stood between women and the outside world, doors to which women had no keys, but the doors opened long enough for the women to come through, then locked again behind them.
Here and there in the gardens women crouched, weeping, waiting until the gate was locked once more with themselves inside. These were too frightened to go. These would rather die than take action themselves. Passivity had gone too deep.
Those who went, went in darkness, first to the banks of the Fohm, then westward along the river to the great wall that separated Thrasis, westernmost of the provinces, from the unknown lands beyond. The wall stretched from the depths of the river as far to the north as any man had ever gone. It had been there when the first settlers came. There was no way around it or under it or over it. Still, as the women waited silently, the wall began to fall, stone by stone sliding silently down from the top, stone by stone piling at the bottom, stone by stone heaping up to make a giant stairway over which the women could clamber. No sound as they went, no sound as they climbed, tugging one another from above, pushing one another from below, the dozens and hundreds and thousands of them finding their way in the dark as though a way were illuminated for their eyes alone.
As the last of them climbed, a few more came running, weeping, those who had delayed, who could not make up their minds until the last minute, until they thought of remaining here almost alone.
West of the wall they found a road shining vaguely in the moonless night, and the women went down that road, hastening as they could, helping one another along. When all had passed over the wall, the stones rose up once more, stone on stone until the wall stood as it had always stood, massive and impassable. The border of Thrasis was unbreached, secure. Beyond the wall, as the last woman passed, the road furred itself with green grass and herbs and small flowering trees that sprang up like mushrooms. A road reached on before, but there was no road behind. No tracks were left, no trail. There was no way back.
The false light of dawn whispered at the edge of the world. A tiny wind came from the east, betokening, so the early-rising sailors on the Dove said, a stronger breeze with the morning. The captain woke and argued with Asner whether it was safe to cross to Beanfields or whether it would be better to do as Jory had asked, avoid the southern bank altogether and head upriver at the best possible speed.
On
