Shortly after dawn, Joshua came back in the empty wagon. Morgot and Stavia got up beside him, and they set out again.
“Do you think we’ll be home in time for supper?” Stavia asked, folding the bloody blankets into a neat pile at the rear of the wagon and carefully not looking at her mother or at Joshua. Whoever and whatever he really was.
All she could think of was Myra’s saying, “Fine lot of help he’d be. A servitor.”
AT THE SUMMER CARNIVAL when Stavia was twelve there was a new and highly touted magician who came all the way from Tabithatown. There were the usual two shows a day at the summer theater as well, plus street dancing and rowdy roistering in the taverns. Before carnival Myra had gone off to the medical center and returned with a scarlet stamp on her forehead and an implant in her upper arm. She had looked pale and worn, but was strangely hectic, or so Stavia had thought, though Morgot had said nothing about it.
“The doctor says my hormonal balance is all screwed up since Marcus came,” she complained to Stavia. “This gadget is supposed to keep me ticking.”
“They’re very effective devices,” Morgot murmured. “I’m glad Doctor Charlotte thought of it.”
Stavia had scarcely listened. Midsummer carnival was starting, and Chernon would be home.
“Stavia, you ought to get some new clothes,” Myra complained. “She should, Morgot. She’s twelve now, but she dresses like a child. All long undershifts and plain shirts. Nothing pretty.”
“Whatever Stavia wants,” Morgot said. “If she’s comfortable the way she is, that’s all right.”
Stavia did not want any new clothes. Her well-worn trousers and thigh-long undershifts were smooth from many washings and as familiar as her own skin. Her shirts, linen for summer and wool or leather for winter, were comfortable and still large enough. She didn’t want to be different or wear anything different. Nothing should change or be changed. Chernon was coming home and if he liked her at all, he liked her the way she was.
But the Chernon who came home for carnival had become strangely secretive and shy. He was a Chernon with a deeper voice, with a sprinkling of beard on his face, a Chernon who looked at Stavia with a new intent-ness, as though she had something he wanted. She felt it. She told Beneda his intensity made her uncomfortable.
“It’s because he’ll be fifteen soon,” said Beneda. “Mother counted up.”
Oh, Chernon. Fifteen! Time to choose whether to become a warrior or return to Women’s Country. What would he choose? She hadn’t even thought about his being fifteen. Now all the easy apologies she had been making to herself for breaking the ordinances, all her complicated excuses were suddenly invalid. How could she rationalize giving books to a warrior? What justification could there be?
But he wasn’t a warrior yet. Not yet. There was still time for him to decide to come home, and she must use that time, what little there was.
He would ask. Being Chernon, he would ask. She had to be ready when he did.
And it took him only until the second day. “That last book you brought me had something in it I’d like to know more about, Stavvy. I’ve written it down.” His voice was cool and peremptory.
She gulped, clenching her jaw until her ears hurt. There would be no later, it had to be now. The words she had rehearsed came out in a spate. If she had waited even a moment, she would not have been able to say them at all. “I can’t bring you any more books, Chernon.”
His expression was of surprise, perhaps of shock. Later she thought it was shock. As though he had not thought her capable of saying it. “No… no more books?”
“You’re going to be fifteen. You choose at fifteen. If you choose… if you choose one way, you choose to do without those kind of books. If you choose the other, well, you can have all the books you want. I mustn’t mess up your choice for you,” She had practiced it, over and over. It had come out cleanly and simply, just the way she had planned it.
Then why this agony?
His face. So white. Then pink, then red, then white again. He turned his face away. Finally, he said, “That’s not fair.”
She writhed. How could he say it wasn’t fair? Yes, she had broken the rules for him, but it wasn’t fair for him to think she would always do so. He had to make his own choice. “Chernon?”
“Leave me alone.” Hard and obdurate.
“Chernon!” Hurt and horror.
“Just go home and leave me alone.” In that moment he did not even think what Michael would say. In that moment, he did not care. What had just happened should not have happened. He had not liked it.
She was too paralyzed by confusion to argue. She went. The residential streets were quiet, separated from the carnival throngs by street barricades and watchful groups of older women, but she could hear the sounds of music and laughter from over the hill. It was Chernon who wasn’t fair! Did he think that because she had broken the ordinances once for him she would go on doing so forever? Didn’t he care what happened to her?
She was in the kitchen, huddled over the ache in her middle, when Myra came in.
“Where’s Morgot?” she asked.
“Upstairs,” Stavia
