“It surprises me that you do.” There was more asperity in Septemius’ response than he had meant to allow. This time he refilled Chernon’s cup.
“Oh, we’re not stupid, Magician. I’ve thought about it a lot, you know? I had books there for a while, before Stavia decided to play me false by not letting me have any more. I managed to get away with one for myself. It belonged to my sister Beneda, and I swiped it from her. She didn’t miss it. Beneda is not much for reading, anyhow.”
“Do you still have it?” Septemius asked, curiously.
“Oh yes. I have it with me. It tells all about animals and people, before the convulsions. I have read of elephants and crocodiles, of Laplanders, tropical islanders, and people who lived on boats on great rivers. At one time, life was varied, Magician. It was not all alike as it is now.”
“It may still be varied,” the older man replied. “Across the desolations, who knows what may exist?”
“Who cares, if we can’t reach them? Here it is all the same. Women’s Country inside the walls. Garrisons outside the walls. Gypsies and bandits moving among us like the jackals I read of in those books. And itinerants, of course, like you. Showmen. Magicians. Actors and acrobats. And scavengers who dig metal out of the ruins of old cities and wagoneers who seem to spend most of their time transporting things from place to place.” He clucked again to the donkeys and smiled, a cynical smile. “I’ve thought about it. It seems very simple on the surface, but there’s more here than we can see, Magician, though we’ve no way to get at it.”
Septemius shivered, without letting it show. When Chernon said “we,” was he referring to the warriors? “I don’t understand what you mean.”
Chernon smiled again, disagreeably, Septemius thought. “Well, there’s this, for example. The women depend upon us to defend them, don’t they?”
The old man nodded, unwilling to trust his voice.
“So, they should be interested in our keeping the garrisons up to strength, right? I mean, we’re their shield. Without us, they’d be overrun by the garrison of some other city, or chipped away at by bandits.” He stared at Septemius, waiting for the answering nod before going on.
“Well, they should be most concerned about keeping us strong, but they aren’t interested in that. All they’re interested in is getting us to come home. Whenever I think about it, I think of two wheels, turning in opposite directions. These big, big wheels, one inside the other, whirling, making a kind of deep, humming sound. Sometimes I can almost hear it.”
Septemius cleared his throat. “Isn’t what you’re seeing the inevitable conflict between personal and societal needs and desires? The society of women needs you to defend them, yes. But the individual mothers and sisters in that society want their own sons and brothers home, where they’ll be safe. So, they do the best they can with both. They honor the warriors, but they do everything they can to urge their own loved ones to come home. It seems perfectly understandable to me. As a system, it doesn’t work badly, does it?”
“It weeds out the ones who wouldn’t be much use on the battlefield,” the boy agreed. “Or most of them, anyhow. And that gives the women in the cities some men to work for them. I suppose they need that. I remember Minsning, my mother’s servitor, from when I was a kid. He made me cookies and played horsie and I can’t imagine him being any good at fighting. But that’s not what I meant. I mean, there’s more to the system than we know about.” He hiccuped slightly, unaware that the wine was making him say more than he should. “The whole garrison thinks so. Michael… Stephon… they say the women have these secret meetings all the time, Council meetings.”
Septemius laughed, sincerely and convincingly. “It seems to me I’ve heard of secret meetings in garrisons! Isn’t there some kind of secret society, some group of initiates? The Brotherhood of the Ram? Haven’t I heard about oath taking at the foot of the monument on the parade grounds?”
Chernon flushed. “That’s different. That’s very much like the women going to temple. More… more religious.”
“Well, maybe the Councilwomen are religious, too, but I don’t think that’s why they have secret meetings. The reason is simple enough, I’d guess. It’s the Council that has to allocate the food and scarce supplies, Chernon. They try to do it fairly, so far as I can see, and that probably takes a good deal of discussion which is better held in private so that people don’t get upset. It isn’t unlike the meetings your officers hold. Your Commander makes his decisions in private, too. He doesn’t ask the centuries what they think before he decides how he’ll go into battle.”
Chernon thought this over, wrinkling his nose and upper lip. It sounded plausible, but then many womanish things sounded plausible. He was of no mind to accept it. “If you say so,” he said, not believing it. If it were that simple, Michael would have known it. One thing all the warriors were agreed upon and most of them resented: The women did things and knew things that were secrets. Powerful secrets.
Septemius watched the boy’s face, his heart sinking within him. He had
