Corrig took a wad of straw to dust off the stove. “If you’d like, I’ll dye some willow that color,” he said, pointing at the deep blue glaze on the bowls, “and weave you a wood basket.”
“Do you do that? Weave baskets?”
“I taught myself while I was with the garrison. There’s a great deal of waste time in garrison. Every minute not spent on drill or housekeeping is supposed to be spent on sports, but some of the men take up one craft or another, just to keep their hands busy. Carving’s a favorite, of course. The barracks are one solid mass of carved beams and carved wall panels and gables and doorposts. Basket making’s acceptable, and weaving. I’ve seen some decent pots made by old warriors, too.”
She sat on the edge of her bed and waved him toward the only chair in the room. There was something she was trying desperately to understand. “Corrig, tell me about garrison life.”
He, with an odd smile, seated himself, folded his great, graceful hands in his lap, and complied.
CHERNON, now a member of the twenty-four century and within a few months of the twenty-five, learned of Stavia’s return from Michael, though when Beneda repeated the news he pretended he hadn’t known about it. He had made it a habit to come to the armory roof to meet his sister every week or so. It would have been considered undignified for a mother to come, but warrior mythology expected sisters to be almost as sentimental as lovers were, and it was a way of keeping in touch.
“How long has she been back?” he asked, trying to sound offhand about it and dismayed by his inability to do so.
“You still care about her!” exclaimed Beneda.
“I was always fond of Stavia,” he returned stiffly. “I never made any secret of it.”
“You certainly didn’t act fond, telling her to leave you alone just because she didn’t want to break the ordinances anymore.”
“It was best for both of us. She was only a child.”
“She was twelve, almost thirteen, and when she went away, she was still mourning over you. She’s twenty-two now. Do you want to see her?”
He didn’t answer this. He didn’t know what his own feelings were in the matter, but he was quite sure what Michael wanted. Michael wanted Chernon to meet with Stavia. Michael wanted it very much. Commander Sandom had been dead for over a year. He and his cronies had been coming back from the Gypsy camp when they had been set upon by bandits. Only one of the armorers had escaped to tell the story. Michael was now Commander.
Michael was now Commander and his agents said the other nearby garrisons would either take over their own cities when Marthatown garrison did or turn a blind eye on the whole thing. This year could possibly have the best harvest anyone could remember. The warehouses would be bulging.
“Things,” Michael had said, “seem to be coming together! We may be taking over very soon. So what happened with that letter you wrote to Stavia, Chernon? Did she ever answer?”
Almost a year before, Michael had instructed Chernon to send a letter to Stavia in Abbyville, a letter begging her to go away with him when she returned to Marthatown, not away to the Gypsy camps but on some romantic, memorable escapade. She had never answered—a fact which Chernon had found embarrassing.
“Not so irresistible as we thought he was, our Chernon,” Stephon had chuckled.
After that Chernon had decided for a time that he hated her, but hating her had seemed pointless since she was not there to notice it. He didn’t even hate Habby anymore, and he never thought of his mother at all. Time had passed, and the trumpets and drums no longer evoked quite the emotional frenzy they had done at the ceremonial when he was fifteen. Though his heart still surged when the centuries were paraded, and though he still carried Casimur’s ribbons, plus the ribbons of another dead warrior from the fifty-five—honors he would carry for fifteen years until they were retired to the repository with the rest of the seventy century—the splendor of it was spasmodic, brief orgasms of emotion separated by long periods of calm, almost of depression, relieved only when Michael or Stephon or Patras involved him in the plans for the upcoming rebellion.
Michael said three other garrisons planned to move against their cities at the same time—Mollyburg, Peggytown, and Agathaville, away in the east—though he didn’t sound as sure about the details as Chernon thought he should.
“We’ll attack after harvest,” Michael said. “Late fall or early winter. After the grain is in the warehouses, and the year’s fish have been smoked and put away, and the fall trading is over. That way, there’ll be stocks of everything right here, where they’re needed. Once we decide to move, we’ll only need a few days to let the other garrisons know and get our own men worked up and properly enthusiastic! One night the women will all go to bed in their own houses, and when they wake up, every house will have a warrior in it!”
“Then there’s no real point in my getting Stavia away before then,” Chernon had objected.
“Every point, boy. We still don’t know about that weapon Besset claims he saw. Stavia’s older now. She’s more likely to know the women’s secrets now than when she was a kid.”
“If there are any secrets, I’ll bet nobody but the Council knows them,” Chernon had sulked. “Besides, we haven’t heard a word about that weapon since. I think Besset was drunk.”
“Possibly. Just in case, however, we’ve got men courting every Councilwoman young enough to be courted,” snorted Patras, “and every Councilwoman’s daughter as well. Don’t worry about Besset. Your assignment is that girl.”
It was true that Chernon still dreamed of journeying, of adventure and heroism. However, she had not
