“Have you talked to him since he came back?” Stavia asked, wondering if he had told Beneda any part of the truth.
“Once,” Beneda confided. “Just from the wall. I told him how you’d been hurt, and he got this strange expression on his face. I just know he was kicking himself for not staying with you and protecting you, Stavvy.”
“I doubt he could have done anything,” said Stavia through dry lips.
“Mother’s pretty broken up over this whole thing,” Beneda said. “I mean, she sent him away that time, and then he came back. And then he chose to stay in the garrison. And then he went after you and stayed away, and we thought he was dead, but he came back. And now he’s going to battle….”
“It must be very hard for her,” said Morgot, who had come into the room during this confession. She laid her hand upon Stavia’s shoulder, comfortingly, warmingly. “Tell her she has my deepest sympathy, Beneda.”
Beneda nodded, “Oh, I will.” Then she launched herself at Stavia, hugging her close, cheeks together as she murmured, “It isn’t just mother. It’s me, too. It seems like I keep on mourning over him…. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Stavvy. You’re my best friend. Next to Mother and Chernon, I love you the best….”
When she had gone, Stavia stared after her, her mouth working, tears welling.
“Stavvy?” Morgot put her hands on Stavia’s shoulders again, shaking her.
“Let me alone!” She got up, turning away, dragging at her shoulders with her hands as though she would uproot her arms. “How in hell am I supposed to feel? I can’t say anything I want to. Not to Beneda. I can’t tell her things. I hear her going on and on about Chernon returning from battle, and I… I feel like a filthy hypocrite. Like a traitor. I hate myself.”
“Sylvia is my friend, too, Stavia. Often I feel unworthy of her friendship. But what else can I do? Have friends only among Council members? Then people would think we’re clannish, and if Council members appear to be clannish and not to have friends among others in the town, it would lead to a failure of confidence.”
“It’s like we were two people,” Stavia said. “One who thinks. One who acts. Acts a part, as in a play.”
“Yes,” her mother nodded. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”
THE MARTHATOWN GARRISON marched out two days later, at dawn, twelve hundred men, down to the last noncombatant foundryman and cook. Even the twenty-four century went along to serve as messengers and in other noncombatant roles. All night the Council members had kept vigil beside the Gate to Women’s Country, praying for those who might yet return through the Gate to Women’s Country, praying that some would return. None had.
Morgot and Stavia stood among the other blue-robed Councilwomen, ranged at the easternmost end of the wall above the armory, to watch them depart. It was the first time Stavia had worn the robes. She felt self-conscious in them, and yet there was an inevitability about their substantial weight. She remembered thinking once long ago that she was a kind of Morgot, a younger copy. Now the copy was even closer than before.
At the far end of the wall, Sylvia and Beneda stood, both weeping and waving.
Down on the parade ground, many of the young men displayed devices or surcoats, or bright banners on their spears. Chernon wore a coat of green and blue which Beneda had made for him. He was not looking at Beneda, however. His eyes were searching the women, ranging across them again and again. When at last he found Stavia among the Council members, his eyes went wide and his nostrils flared. He had not thought to look for her there.
“Wave to him,” instructed Morgot. “Sylvia and Beneda are watching him and you. Wave to him and smile.”
Stavia waved and smiled at a point just above his head. She saw faces she knew, an amusing man she had spent parts of two days with during carnival just after she got back from the academy, another who had sung sagas in a tavern while the roisterers, she among them, had banged their cups upon the tables. She had enjoyed them both. She waved at them also, and smiled. Morgot was not looking at the men but at the women, searching the faces ranked along the wall, stopping to examine this one and then that one as they waved. Mothers of men in the garrison. Sisters. Lovers.
The trumpets blared. The drums banged. The numbered centuries, with their gaps where men had fallen or returned through the gate, consolidated with others until there were twelve full centuries for the march, the officers striding ahead, making a long column with guidons slapping and honors lashing in the wind, all the honors a garrison had been given in all its years of service.
Behind them, in the plaza, the women’s band struck up its song, “Gone Away, Oh, Gone Away.” Silently the words, as sung by the Councilwomen, ran in Stavia’s mind.
“Where has my lovely warrior gone,
the one who made me sigh?
the drums have beaten him away,
he’s gone away to die,
he’s gone to fight for honor,
he’s gone to fear and pain,
Gone away, oh, gone away,
I’ll not see him again.”
Sylvia and Beneda were still there on the wall, their arms moving in endless farewell. Far down the road, almost as an afterthought, Chernon turned back, sought his mother and sister, and lifted his hand. Beneda redoubled her efforts, arms blurring in an arc above her sturdy form.
On a hill to the west, Stavia could see several figures mounted on donkeys. There were more along the line of march. Outriders. Servitors. There to see that none of the warriors left the line of march and sneaked away to join the ranks of the lawless.
The women began to leave the walls. Stavia and Morgot delayed until they could delay no
