With all the men over twenty-five gone except for a few armorers and cooks, the younger warriors and boys left behind were more or less free to wander about the garrison territory as they liked, and Stavia found Chernon waiting for her on the armory roof the next time she and Beneda went to the wall. Her heart slowed, then hammered, and she felt terrified.
“Benny, let me talk to Stavvy alone, will you?”
“Stavia’s too young for assignations, brother,” said Beneda, pretending that she had not brought Stavia to the wall at his request,
“I’m not talking assignations, now get lost, will you?”
Beneda flounced off, pretending to be annoyed. All her hopes for Chernon revolved around Stavia’s influence on him. Or so, at least, she thought.
“Stavvy.” His eyes were so clear. The skin on the hand he reached up to her was as clean and soft as a child’s.
She wanted him to touch her. Hold her. “I’ve missed you,” she faltered. “I wish you hadn’t gotten mad at me.”
“I… I wasn’t mad at you. Not really. I know what you were trying to do, Stavvy, and that’s why I came today. I have to explain, you know?”
“Let her know you’re not going to do what she wants you to, boy,” Michael had said. “Make it clear that she’s not that important to you. Then shell break her neck trying to become that important. Women are like that.”
“Stavia’s pretty… well, she’s independent,” Chernon had objected.
“I don’t care how independent, “Michael had laughed. “They’re all the same.”
“You have to explain what?” asked Stavia, trembling.
“The fifteens have to choose in a few months. I have to explain to you why I’m going to stay with the garrison.”
Stavia heard him without real surprise. Well, there it was. What was the point of standing here listening to anything else? She might as well leave now, go home, get her grieving over with. Morgot said one had to do that, over and over. No sense drawing it out.
“Stavvy!” There was something withdrawn in her face which frightened him. Michael could be wrong. He could be. He didn’t know everything. Michael couldn’t get Morgot to talk, so he didn’t know everything. “Stavvy!”
“Yes.”
“Don’t look like that.” He temporized, trying to make it sound less bare and incontrovertible. Michael would not have played it this way, but Chernon thought it necessary. “Don’t you see, if it wasn’t for the war, I could have done it? But I can’t do it now! Not with the war. Not with so many probably getting killed, not with men coming back wounded who’ll need our help. I’ve got ten years left to make up my mind, Stavvy. I can return to Women’s County later. After the war, when everything’s settled down.”
“I don’t understand what it is you can’t do.”
“I can’t let my friends down,” he said in a dedicated voice, as though he were taking the oath of a defender. “Not now.”
“But you think you will later?”
“Well… I wouldn’t even then, Stavvy, except for the books. There are so many things I want to find out. Things you know. I know I have to come to Women’s Country to do that. But I can’t be selfish, either.”
“I see.” Her tone made it clear she did not.
“You don’t see. But I hope you will. And respect me for it.”
“We respect the warriors,” she answered formally, a faint far ringing in her voice, like a knell. “Are you going to do that terrible thing to your mother? Tell her she’s insulted your manhood?”
The question caught him off guard. With a good deal of anticipatory satisfaction, he had planned to do exactly that. “N-n-no,” he stuttered. “It’s not obligatory. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“But you will go on bringing me books, please. Please, Stavvy. I can’t make it without. I really can’t!” His eyes were full of tears, his lips trembled. He really couldn’t. He meant it.
Though every part of her longed to tell him yes, she shook her head. She didn’t know. She would have to ask someone. Maybe Joshua.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure the war should make any difference. There are always wars.”
THE GHOST OF POLYXENA APPEARS ON THE BATTLEment,” called the director. “Slowly, she descends the stairs.”
Councilwoman Stavia, in her character as Iphigenia, with the doll representing Astyanax cuddled in her arms, turned and looked up the stepladder that was doing duty as a battlement. The woman playing Polyxena was crouched at the top. For a moment Stavia couldn’t remember the line, then just as the prompter began, she recalled it.
IPHIGENIA So, you have come at last, Polyxena. Please take this child from me.
POLYXENA I am not fond of children. Girls perhaps, who have some hope of life, but not of boys. Boys play with death as though it were a game, cutting their teeth on daggers. No. I am not fond of children.
IPHIGENIA Be fond of this one. It is your brother’s child.
POLYXENA Hector’s son? Well, and so they killed him, too.
Stavia tried the next speech, but something caught her just below the ribs, as though a knife had been inserted. “Well, so, they killed him, too,” she said, repeating Polyxena’s line. She heard her voice with dismay, a rising, unconscious keening.
The director gave her a look, then called the rehearsal to a halt, waiting until the others got out of earshot before asking, “What is it, Stavia?”
“It’s just… just that line is the same thing my sister said a long time ago. Lately I’ve been all muddled up. Too many memories.” She tried to laugh, unsuccessfully.
The director sighed. “You’re tired, that’s all. I’m
