She dressed herself. It had not been correct for them to say that she had no clothes on. She had been wearing a long shirt and knitted socks. She pulled on her trousers, slipped her feet into her boots, then put on her padded vest, a voluminous garment which effectively hid her torso. She braided her hair and tucked the ends in. “Even your mothers,” she offered, “get undressed sometimes.”
“In the bathhouse,” said Doots. “And that’s all. Never in bed. That’s not decent.”
She cast a horrified look at Chernon to find him staring at the three with the most perfect focus of concentration she had ever seen upon his face. It had occurred to Chernon that the adventure he had so long sought had come upon him. “What do you want with us?” he asked, his voice calm and interested. “You’ve been following us, haven’t you?”
“Saw your fire,” Doots mumbled, at which Chernon quivered, only slightly, realizing the indictment without acknowledging it. “We saw her and decided to take her. These devil women, you tame ’em down and they’re pretty good wives.”
“Tame them down?” asked Chernon, still in that interested voice.
“Tie ’em up,” said Cappy. “Break their legs, maybe. They heal crooked and they can’t run.”
Stavia could not believe what she was hearing. What she was hearing was not as bad as what she was seeing, however—an expression on Chernon’s face which was frankly collusive. He understood these animals. He understood them from a place inside himself which empathized with them. In that instant she comprehended much that had been unclear to her before.
“She’s already a wife,” Chernon said, still in that calm, interested voice. “Mine. She’s carrying my baby right now.”
“Oh shit,” said Cappy, throwing the thick branch to the ground in a frenzy of frustrated purpose. “Oh shit.”
“We’re goin’ to take her back anyhow,” said Rel. “We’re goin’ to take you, too. If’n she has a baby, well, maybe the Elders’ll say she ’uz married and maybe they won’t. Maybe she’ll drop it afore time. Women doesn’t have a baby isn’t really married, that’s what they say.”
“And if she does?”
“Maybe they’ll say you wan’t no real man to have a wife nohow. Widow woman with a baby, nobody else can have her. But maybe she ain’t a widow and maybe she won’t have a baby, neither one.”
Cappy nodded, bending to pick up the stick again. “And the devil women know things,” he said. “Secrets. Like healin’. Things like that.”
“Oh, this one knows secrets, all right,” Chernon said. “But she’s got a little magic thing in her arm that keeps her from telling. That’s all right, though. I can cut it out if you want to know anything.”
“Chernon!” she gasped, shocked and surprised by this, though not at all disbelieving.
“Stavia,” he mimicked. “Better let me do it now.” He wrestled his way closer to her, dragging his two captors along, reaching out to rip away the sleeve of her shirt. “There,” he said. “See that lump on her shoulder?”
They stared at one another. After a time, Cappy nodded, and they handed Chernon a knife, holding fast to him the whole time. When he cut her shoulder, the surprise of it broke a scream from deep in her lungs. It was surprise more than pain. Blood ran down her arm and dripped from her elbow through the fabric of the shirt.
“See there?” Chernon crowed. He was holding up the implant, a tiny sliver of translucent material, the size of a matchstick.
Stavia shivered, holding herself tightly together, refusing to speak or scream. It was Rel who ripped off the sleeve of her shirt and bound it untidily around her upper arm, stopping the flow of blood. It was Cappy who took the implant from Chernon and buried it in a pocket, Cappy who urged her to her feet.
“We’re goin’ back,” he said.
“We takin’ him?” Doots asked.
“For now,” Cappy replied. “We’ll see what Papa says.”
Stavia went haltered, a rope around her neck. Chernon’s hands were tied behind him, as though he represented a greater threat. Despite the fact that Stavia had injured Cappy in the initial encounter, none of the brothers could think of her as a real threat, simply because she was a woman. Stavia realized this, took note, set the fact aside for use at some later time.
She set aside Chernon’s complicity until later, as well. She told herself she would not feel what she knew she felt; she would not venge herself upon him, not yet. He had probably saved his own life by assaulting her, and he might have saved hers as well, though this had not been his intention. Aside from the small wound on her shoulder, he had not really hurt her. All in all, considering it coldly, it might be best to go along with him for the moment. Real Stavia hid in a deep, horrid cavern of hate and let actor Stavia go on with it.
The men, including Chernon, wanted her secrets. Secrets she didn’t know, didn’t have. Were there secrets she could pretend to have? Her life might depend on that. And since Chernon was already convinced that she had them….
She walked, lost in furious thought, devising a strategy for her own survival, setting her anger aside, refusing to feel it. The best bet might be to agree with Chernon. Claim to be his “wife.” Claim to be carrying his child. Seemingly, the customs of these barbarians did not permit them to take the wife of another man—and wifehood was demonstrated by production of offspring.
Well, in fact, she thought in dismay, she might be able to demonstrate just that. Sperm
