And here she was. Actor Stavia, trying to make the best of it. While inside the silly, sentimental, loving part of her howled for her own lost childhood.
And then he smiled, like the sun rising, suddenly, without warning. She saw it on his face: capitulation, a decision not to be angry. What she saw was not an emotional need to reconcile himself to her but a conscious decision that anger would do nothing for him. She could not see to the reasons behind that decision; she saw the mind at work, however. “You’re right, Stavia. I behaved like… like one of those ancient peoples in Beneda’s book. Like a barbarian. Let’s start over.” And smiled again.
She perceived the coldbloodedness of it, the chill manipulation of it, but decided to ignore it. They were new to one another after all. She let everything within her melt and flow and reform again in a new and softened shape.
Actor Stavia was waved off into the wings.
“Oh, Chernon,” she said, opening her arms.
STAVIA HAD NEVER had a lover before, so she had no one to compare their lovemaking with. She did compare him with other men she knew, however. With Joshua. With Corrig. With her surgical instructor in Abbyville.
Chernon seemed anxious, rather than eager, to give her pleasure and sometimes succeeded, though it happened more often by accident than it did through Chernon’s understanding of what he was doing. He was so engrossed in his own feelings that he wasn’t able to pay much attention to her. She was soon adept at pleasing him, which was not very complicated. He needed little arousal and did not tolerate long delays. He reminded her a little of the ram lambs she had seen in the meadows around the camp, suddenly hungry, butting at their mothers’ udders with fierce determination, only to become as suddenly satiated. Everything was now. Nothing was later. She remembered what Beneda had said about him, years ago: “When he comes home, he eats all the time, everything, just gulps it down and doesn’t even bother to taste it….”
Which, she reminded herself, her studies had informed her was a frequent state of sexual affairs among very young men. Chernon was twenty-four, but that was still very young in garrison country, where a man counted for little until he had been tested in battle, even though he might have fathered sons before then. In Women’s Country one was adult at sixteen or seventeen. Stavia thought about this, between times, bemused and a little sore from the unaccustomed lovemaking, though Chernon did not call it that. In Women’s Country it was generally thought that the best lovers were older men who had given up being carnival cocks and who enjoyed intracarnival wooing—letters, verses, gifts—to stir up their own passions, and their partner’s affections. Stavia thought that some between-fuck wooing might be rather nice, but she did not suggest it. She had come to the conclusion that just meeting Chernon’s demands would take more of her energy than she had expected. She would have enough left over to complete the task at hand only if everything was kept as simple as possible. Sentiment, too, took energy. She had no extra energy. Sentiment would have to wait. She made this decision coldbloodedly, almost in retaliation for what she had seen in his face, without recognizing that a large part of their emotion toward one another was hostile.
They worked their way east, and then south, making each night’s camp in late afternoon, leaving it in mid-morning. The collection of herbs grew, notations on Stavia’s maps became denser. Chernon was only mildly interested in what she was doing, mildly interested in the collection.
“I should think you’d be very interested,” she chided him tiredly at the end of a long day’s travel. “You told me once you thought wounded warriors deserved better care. Some of these herbs may be excellent wound dressings.”
“How would I know?” he shrugged.
“You’d test them. Surely men get minor injuries in weapons practice? You could test different herbs to see which ones had healing properties.”
“We do well enough with moldy bread poultices,” he said offhandedly. “Bread is always available. Some of these herbs might not be growing when we needed them.”
She gave him a tired half-smile and dropped the subject. His desire for books had probably been more a desire for dominance than a lust for learning, so much was clear. Perhaps forcing her to bring them to him had been more important than what was in them.
Though he still carried the book he had stolen from Beneda. What did books mean to him?
“You once wanted to borrow my biology books,” she ventured.
“I wanted to know the secrets,” he blurted. “The ones you women know, that’s all.” He had been wondering for several days how to approach the subject; now it popped out of his mouth like a frog into a pool.
Leaning across their evening fire, she struggled with this. Did he think that what was in the books was somehow magical? That the same information, discovered for himself, would not have the same efficacy? Perhaps it wasn’t knowledge he wanted. It was magic he coveted. Magic and the power it would bring.
“You know,” she ventured, “the books were written by people. Just people.”
“Preconvulsion people,” he averred. “They knew things we don’t.” His tone was dogmatic, vibrating with the power of prophecy. “They knew about… about weapons. And things.” He waited for her to say something, extend the conversation, make it possible for them to discuss weapons, and things.
She said nothing. She wasn’t thinking of weapons at all. She thought he was partly right, of course. Preconvulsion peoples had known things the women didn’t. But he was partly wrong, too. Many books were newly written, newly printed, and they contained information that preconvulsion people hadn’t known of or thought important enough to record. She wondered whether it would be wise to try to convince him of this,
