THOUGH EVERY SCHOOLGIRL IN WOMEN’S COUNTRY learned Iphigenia at Ilium, it was actually produced and acted by the Councilwomen of each city. Thus it was Councilwoman Stavia who stood on the stage of the winter theater at Marthatown’s center with half a dozen of her fellow Council member-players, working their way through the first rehearsal of this year’s production. The evenings were still too cold to rehearse outdoors in the summer theater, so here they all were in the wide, low-ceilinged room which had been designed to be warmed by bodies alone. With only the cast and stage crew present, there weren’t enough people to raise the temperature noticeably, and Stavia shivered under her coat.
They had tried Cassandra’s entrance three different ways, none of which pleased the director.
“Enter Cassandra from stage left,” the director said plaintively. She was an old Council member but a new director, and she had not yet come to terms with the job.
CASSANDRA Mother! Andromache! I’ve come to say good-bye.
HECUBA Cassandra! You? Still here? Oh, girl, I am so weary of farewells—saying good-bye to living and to dead! Long, sad farewells when there’s no good to come. There is not sleep enough to heal farewells, and now you’re here when I had thought you’d gone.
CASSANDRA Others have gone, but Agamemnon stays. He says he has some trouble with the sails, so long left furled upon this Trojan shore they’re full of rot.
ANDROMACHE Any housewife could have told him that. All seaside towns hold mildew like a sponge.
HECUBA Such a humble thing to thwart a tyrant’s purpose.
IPHIGENIA Strength often comes from unexpected sources, perhaps most often from the humble things….
ACHILLES Is that Polyxena?
IPHIGENIA That is Cassandra, great Achilles. Look closely. That one is still alive.
CASSANDRA Ghosts! Who are these ghosts?
ANDROMACHE You see them too?
CASSANDRA Is that Achilles? And the child—Andromache, is that your son?
ANDROMACHE It was my son. Odysseus had him slain.
CASSANDRA (Weeping) Alas. Such is the fate of warriors’ sons….
VERY FEW MOTHERS IN WOMEN’S COUNTRY EVER spoke of their boy children as “warriors’ sons.” Myra had been an exception. When her first baby had been born, Myra had used the phrase on every possible occasion. She never spoke of him as “my little Marky,” or even just as “Marcus.” He was always, “My little warrior son….”
He had been born with a full head of dark hair and deep blue eyes. These resemblances to Barten had been mentioned to everyone at least ten times a day. When within a month all the dark hair fell out and the eyes turned hazel, Myra had considered the change a personal affront, arranged by some human agency.
Morgot seldom lost her patience as completely as she did over this issue. In such chilly weather as they were having at the time, the family spent long hours together in the big, warm kitchen, listening to Myra’s continuous complaints. When Margot could bear it no longer, she said, “Myra, if you say one more word about that baby’s hair or eyes, I’m going to go to the Council and suggest it be given in fosterage. If you’re going to go on and on like this, the poor child will grow up self-conscious and unhappy and it will be your fault.” Morgot was pale and thin lipped with anger.
“I only said….”
“You only said that the midwife committed some kind of scientific indecency by modifying the child’s heritage—though that is utterly impossible—or that the birthing center mixed up the babies. Which you know is ridiculous, because Marcus never left the room where you were from the moment he was born, and you brought him home yourself a day later!” Morgot opened the iron door on the front of the tile cookstove and put two split logs inside, positioning them carefully, obviously trying to gain control of herself.
“Besides,” Stavia offered, “Marcus is a very cute baby.” She picked up the broom and swept bits of bark from the tile hearth, turning to warm herself at the exposed coals before Morgot shut the door and narrowed the air supply. The kettle on top of the stove had begun to steam and the air in the room was almost summery with moisture and the scent of herbs. “The baby looks a lot like Jerby. There’s a definite family resemblance.”
“This family,” snorted Myra in disgust.
“Yes, our family. The Margotsdaughters! And what’s the matter with that? Barten is good-looking, but he’s a rattlesnake. I’m sure he’s fun to have sex with, but otherwise he’s a serpent. Everyone says so….” She burrowed into a cupboard among the herb-tea cannisters, looking for the one with fruit peel in it.
“Chernon says so, you mean,” Myra sneered.
Stavia felt herself turning red, heat rising inside her as though she had a furnace in her belly. “Chernon says everyone in the garrison says so. What I mean is, if Marcus doesn’t look like Barten, maybe Marcus won’t act like him, and you should be happy over that.” With shaking fingers, Stavia measured tea into the pot and poured boiling water over it.
Myra subsided into outraged and sulky silence. Her romantic dream of motherhood had been riven into sharp-edged fragments by late-night feedings, constant diaper washing, and a baby who persisted in looking and acting like a baby, not like a young hero. She had more than half convinced herself that when she took this child to his warrior father at age five, Barten would probably reject it.
Morgot shook her head and went back to packing food into a heavy canvas sack. She and Stavia were to leave on the following morning for a short trip in the direction of Susantown. “Stavia, are your clothes and necessaries packed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then Joshua said he’d like your company while he does the shopping.”
“Is Joshua going with us tomorrow?”
“I think it’s a good idea, yes. There have been a few Gypsy attacks on the road to Susantown within the last few months.”
“Fine lot of help he’d be,” snorted Myra. “A servitor!”
“Are you quoting Barten again?”
