Days passed. Susannah hung her kerchief upon the door latch, then Chastity did so. Weeks went by, then Susannah again.
“You haven’t had your uncleanness,” Susannah said to her.
Stavia had been thinking the same thing. “Why no,” she said. “I told you. I’m pregnant.”
“They thought you ’uz lying,” the woman said. “Papa did. I’ll tell him you wasn’t.”
The following day they sent her to the old tumbledown wife-house at the edge of the compound where she found Chernon awaiting her. “Well, wife,” he said, with an expression that was almost a sneer. “So you’re going to give me a son after all.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
He shook her angrily. “Perhaps?”
“It could be a daughter,” she whispered. “Had you thought of that?”
He turned away with an expression of disgust. “Can’t you tell? You women? You can tell everything else!”
“I think there were tests, back before the convulsions. They aren’t done now. We haven’t the equipment.”
“Then I’ll just have to wait to find out,” he said. “Assuming they decide to let me live.” He was looking out the window of the rickety house, and she followed his gaze. Under a small tree Vengeance was sitting, whittling at a stick. She walked through the other room of the house to look in the opposite direction. Cappy. So. They were still being watched.
“What do they want from us?” she asked carefully. “I can’t do much healing for them without medicines and equipment. Don’t they understand that?”
He laughed, a short burst of laughter. “They want you to lose the baby, Stavia. Then you won’t be pregnant. Then, if they kill me, you’ll be a childless widow, and they can give you to one of the boys. It’s a two-way race between Vengeance and Retribution. Poor Cappy’s out of it.”
“They could kill you anyway.”
“But if you have a baby, nobody else can have you.”
“Ownership,” she said with heavy irony. “Whoever impregnates me, owns me, is that it?”
“That’s it!” he blurted, his face angry. “Yes. That’s it. And no cheating. No saying yes then no. You have my child and you belong to me, and that’s it. Once you’ve had the child, there’ll be no point in killing me, either. If they can’t have you, they might as well let me. I can help them get more women.”
“From the sheep camp.”
“Exactly,” he sneered. “I’ve already told them about that. It’s what Michael and Stephon are planning to do anyhow, take over the city and the women. And not just Marthatown. Peggytown and Emmaburg, too. And Agathaville. And if it works there, there are other warriors ready to do it from their garrisons, too.”
“Why?” she gasped, horror-struck. “Why, Chernon?”
“Because…” For a moment he could not think why.
“Don’t you have a good life in the garrison? Plenty of food? Plenty of clothing? Amusements? Do you really want to grub away as shepherds and farmers?”
“You’ll do that,” he said uncertainly, seeing the look in her eye. “You’ll go on doing that.”
“Will we?”
“You will or else. They know about that here. The women do it or else.”
“What was it you used to tell me about honor?” she asked.
“I haven’t done anything dishonorable.” He turned to stare out the window once more. “I’ll go back to the garrison. In time.”
“With or without me, Chernon?”
“With my son,” he said. “You can depend on that.”
IT WAS OLD REJOICE who pointed out that having Stavia and Chernon living together in the compound was an evil thing. Plentitude agreed with her.
“Her head’s not shaved,” Rejoice advised her son. “None of the proper things’ve been done, so far’s we know.”
“How do we know whether they was really married or not?” Plentitude harangued. “If she wasn’t proper married, then she can’t be a proper widow, can she?”
Vengeance and Retribution carried this word to Papa, and after due thought, Papa agreed that Stavia and Chernon should be married according to Holyland custom.
Chernon was taken away by the men, Vengeance and Retribution staying behind only long enough to tie Stavia down on the ancient bed frame in the derelict wife-house.
Plentitude, Cheerfulness, Rejoice, and Susannah saw to the rites. Plentitude shaved Stavia’s head. Then Rejoice, Cheerfulness, and Susannah beat her. They were using whips of willow, whips which cut the skin, leaving long, ugly welts. Rejoice would have gone on doing it for some time, but Susannah stopped her.
“She’s carryin’,” Susannah said in an exhausted voice. “Don’t do it no more, Rejoice. Let her go.”
“You did me worse than that,” Cheerfulness said.
“I know. But you wasn’t carryin’.”
“So. She loses it. That’s what they want, isn’t it?”
“Maybe it’d kill her, too.”
Silence then for a time before the ropes were loosened. Three of them went away. Stavia was silent, immobile, so consumed by fury and a sense of violation that she could not speak, would not move.
“Reason they do it,” Susannah was saying in her weary voice, “is that you should know ahead of time. That’s what your husband will do to you if you fail in duty to him. You should know how it feels, so’s not to provoke him.”
“And my head,” grated Stavia. “What’s the reason for that?”
“So’s you don’t look like anything to stir up lust. Man’s got to do his duty, but he’s got to do it as duty, not because he likes it.”
“Besides,” Stavia said, turning on one side with a yelp of pain. “It violates the woman, doesn’t it? It diminishes her. It makes her feel shame. Which is what they really want.”
“Hush,” cried Susannah. “Oh, Stavia, hush. I kept them from doin’ it too hard. I did what I could.”
“Get my kit,” Stavia instructed. “There’s some salve in there….”
“They
