The fire burned down and they settled into their blankets, reaching for one another like well-practiced raiders, stealing familiar treasure, grabbing it all by huge handfuls, not bothering to sort it. Nothing between them seemed to carry the implication of “later,” as though this was all there ever was to be. There were lovers in Marthatown who were together every carnival for decades, as faithful as though they had been “married” to one another, but nothing in Chernon’s words or behavior said that he intended them to be lovers again. She said to him once, “Next carnival,” and he had turned on her angrily. “Not carnival,” he had said. “Not then.” Now, their assault on one another left them gasping, and she cried out, a muted howl that lost itself in the tree-waving wind.
“You’ll bring me a son, won’t you!” he demanded, lying with all his weight upon her, growing flaccid within her, his teeth at her ear. “A son.”
“Perhaps, someday,” she said without thinking, wit-lessly, hate-loving him, both at once.
“Now!” he demanded. “Soon.”
“I can’t,” she murmured, still carelessly. “Not on this trip, Chernon. I’ve got an implant to prevent it.”
He rolled off of her, sat up, glaring at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I have an implant to prevent my getting pregnant on this journey,” she said, suddenly aware of what she’d said. These things were not discussed with warriors. She remembered that now. They couldn’t be expected to understand.
“And who, may I ask, did you expect to protect yourself from? Your ‘servitor’?” He made the word an obscenity.
“No,” she said honestly. “Of course not. I’ve never even met the man. But there are bandits about, and Gypsies, and women have been captured or raped. Don’t be silly, Chernon.”
“What’s his name,” he growled at her. “The one you were supposed to be with.”
She stared at him, at his face, reddened both by anger and firelight. “His name was Brand, I believe. He’d made quite a study of botany, up in Tabithatown, and it was thought he’d be a considerable help in collecting plant material.”
“How old is he?”
“I haven’t any idea. I never asked.” She hadn’t. She had assumed he would be one of the rather special servitors, someone like Joshua, with some of Joshua’s strange and unspecified talents. Morgot would hardly have let her go off with him alone, otherwise.
“And you’ve never seen him,” he jeered at her.
“No, I never have. And if you don’t stop this behavior, Chernon, I may not see you anymore, either. What are you angry about?” Stavia felt fury beginning to boil in herself.
“It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come,” he said between tight teeth. “To have a son. One I was sure was mine.”
“One you were sure was yours?” She shook her head at him incredulously.
“Yes, damn it. One I was sure was mine. Not one you’d send to me when he was five that might be mine and might be anybody’s. Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying. Everybody in the garrison knows that you women do it with everybody. Sometimes three or four different men during a carnival. How do you know who the father is?”
She smiled, a tight-lipped smile. “You’ve given a blood sample to the clinic, haven’t you, Chernon? Yes, you have, and so has every other warrior. That’s all we need. We take blood from the baby, from its cord, as soon as it’s born, and we can tell who the father is. That’s why sometimes we bring boys to the garrison whose fathers have died, and we say this is the son of so-and-so, even though he’s dead. By my Gracious Lady, Chernon, but you men are sometimes impossible.”
She rose, her naked skin glowing like a ghost light among the dark trees. She dressed herself and took her blankets, leaving him alone.
“Where are you going?” he demanded in a tone of anger blended with pain. “Where!”
“Where I can get some sleep,” she replied. “I’m tired.”
He bit his tongue, so angry he could hardly speak, remembering Michael and what Michael would want to know. “I’m sorry, Stavia.”
“So am I,” she said, thinking that he did not sound sorry enough. “But I’m still tired, and I don’t care to discuss it anymore.” As she moved away, Stavia realized that the movement was both actual and symbolic, that she was leaving Chernon, the Chernon she had thought she knew. In that same moment she realized she had broken the ordinances for no good reason and wondered, with a surge of deep, nauseating guilt, whether Morgot would ever forgive her for it—whether she would ever forgive herself. Only one thing was certain. She had parted from Chernon and would not return. So far as she was concerned, he was dead.
STAVIA HAD STARTED THEIR VENTURE DETERMINED to stay well away from the badlands to the south and equally well away from the observers who lurked there. She had worked toward the east, following this fold of hills and that valley as the days went by, tallying those days in her notebook each evening when she wrote up the day’s discoveries or lack thereof. On the morning following what she thought of as her coming to her senses, the fifteenth day of their travel, she told Chernon they had to start back. She was not sorry to say so. She would have ended their journey immediately if there
