“Somewhere between eighty and ninety, at least,” she mused. “I’ve got some stuff that will clear up his lungs, pretty surely, but it’s not on the open list for use on itinerants. Which means, Septemius Bird, that I must either withhold it from you or steal it from Women’s Country.”
He fumbled for words, not sure what she was leading up to, though certain she was leading up to something.
“She wants something,” Kostia had said an evening or two before. “That medic wants something from us, Septemius.”
“Something she can’t get otherwise,” Tonia confirmed. “She’s a very troubled woman. Something strange going on there.”
“One thing,” Kostia murmured, “she doesn’t have a child yet, and her in her twenties.”
“Some of them don’t,” Septemius objected.
“A few don’t,” Tonia agreed. “But damn few.”
“She’s been several years at the medical academy at Abbyville. She hasn’t had time for childbearing,” Septemius objected.
“Even so. There’s more to it than that, Septemius. She wants something from us. We can both feel it.”
How many times had she run into them on the street? How many times had she invited them to tea? How many times had she questioned them?
“Tell me about your travels south of here,” she had demanded.
“Not a pleasant subject,” Septemius answered, trying to be politely evasive.
“I have a reason for asking,” she had said, as politely but firmly. “I’d appreciate it.”
Shrugging, he had complied. “South of here are two smallish Women’s Country towns, both fairly new, one on either side of the desolation, Emmaburg near the shore, and Peggytown inland. Neither are in any way remarkable. You probably know more about them than I do.”
“South of that?”
“I have heard there is a fortified sheep camp south of Emmaburg now. It was not there when I traveled south, once, long, long ago when I was a child. As I remember, one comes first to broken country and badlands, a fantasy land of pillars and carved towers, of wind that sings endlessly among the stones. This is a stretch of this, a mile or so wide, then there is a range of mountains that runs all along on the east and south. If one keeps along the coast, one comes to several great desolations. But if one goes along the foot of the mountains—which one would not normally do, because the land is very broken and full of little canyons—one finds people living back in the valleys, just the way they did before the time of convulsion, I suppose.”
“Unfriendly, from your tone.”
“Stavia, the population there is sparse, suspicious, and unprofitable. The river courses tend to be more like canyons than valleys, with precipitous sides of unscalable stone and no way in or out except at the northern ends or deep to the south where the watercourses fall from the heights. We didn’t go into the valleys by choice. We were driven to take shelter in one of those sheer-sided traps because of a great storm. It was many years ago. At the time we had my cousin Hepwell’s acrobatic troupe traveling with us, and there were a dozen strong men along. If it hadn’t been for that, we’d be there still, for the natives were strangely disinclined to let us be on our way. However, most of their older menfolk—their elders—were off at some kind of religious observance, so they hadn’t quite the force they needed to keep us against our will.”
“Fertile land, though?”
“Amazingly, from what I remember. Flat fields along the streams. Green pastures. Wooded along the streams, but not many trees elsewhere except upon the heights. They had sheep and goats and chickens, I remember that, and gardens. Fruit trees. I don’t remember it well, but then it was thirty or forty years ago, Medic. I can’t say I remember it rightly.”
“But sparsely populated?”
“As I remember, yes,” he had said, wondering both at her persistence and at her dissatisfied expression.
“She wants something from us,” Kostia commented later.
“Something to do with the places we’ve been,” said Tonia. “Or places you’ve been, Uncle Septemius, before we were born.”
So now he asked Stavia, “What is it you want, Medic? Is there a price for the medicine for old Bowough? Something you’ve a mind to trade?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know at this moment, Septemius Bird. Perhaps. But, whatever I might want, I wouldn’t like to say I’d trade the old man’s life for it. More, I’d like you to think that if I do you a favor now—and not an inconsiderable one, either—you might do me one later on.”
“So?”
“We’ll talk more on it again.” He could not pin her down. She was as slippery as one of those rare fishes that were showing up every now and then in the streams. However, that evening she appeared with a syringe and gave old Bowough an injection which seemed, by morning, to have made his breathing easier.
WHEREVER SHE HAPPENED to be working during the day, Stavia took her breakfast and supper at home with her family, Morgot, Joshua, Corrig, and very occasionally Myra and her little boy. The toddler was usually enough distraction to keep Myra from being rude to the servitors or from recalling old injustices and dissatisfactions.
Tonight there was, however, a new source for annoyance.
“I don’t see why it is that Stavia gets to do everything,” Myra complained, wiping applesauce from the little boy’s chin. “As she does, Morgot. You do have two daughters, you know?”
“I did not nominate Stavia for the exploration team,” Morgot responded calmly. “The nomination came about largely because she is medically trained.”
“Surely they’re not sending just people who are medically trained!”
“No, of course not. But they aren’t sending any mothers of young children, either. They prefer young people, without children, trained in some useful field. There won’t be a lot of people involved. The team going south will be only two people, one woman, one servitor, and a pack animal or two. It will have two purposes; finding botanical specimens and
