“Yes. They do. Willingly.”
Stavia imagined his lips curving. “I did not think you took it by force. Then, too, madam, I am a magician. Magicians understand misdirection. We do it all the time. We say, watch my left hand, and then the right hand plays the trick. So it was easy for us to see the misdirection in what you were doing. You women were saying, ‘Watch us bringing sons to their warrior fathers, watch us weeping,’ and all the time the trick was going on somewhere else.”
“Surely you weren’t sure,” Morgot said. “You’re not supposed to know anything about it.”
“There were other clues.” Septemius nodded. “Firstly, everyone said that more men came back through the gates in each succeeding generation. That argued for something, didn’t it? Selection, perhaps? Tonia and Kostia are attending classes in Women’s Country, and they bring their books home. Remarkable how many books in Women’s Country refer to selection. Even Chernon had a book with something in it of great importance to Women’s Country. Put there as a clue, I’m sure. Put there, so that those with eyes will see it. Needless to say, he couldn’t see it. He sought the secret of Women’s Country, and it was there before his eyes….
“And then there’s the matter of the servitors. Some of them, of course, are like Sylvia’s Minsning, fluttery little fellows who are simply happier in Women’s Country as cooks or tailors or what have you. For the most part, however, the servitors are more like Joshua or Corrig, highly competent, calm, judicious men, and they are highly respected, particularly by the most competent women. It argues that both their status and their skills exceed what is generally supposed.”
“Skills?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Councilwoman. We need not play games with one another. I am too old for that. They have martial skills to be sure—I saw that in action down in the Holylands—but something other than that as well. My nieces have it, too. I’ve known a few others who have it. It’s a valued trait among showmen, this ability to hear trouble at a distance, to know where people are, to know what’s going to happen. The old words for it were telepathy, clairvoyance. They are very old words, from before the convulsions, though I think they were only theoretical then. Tell me, did you women plan it?”
She shook her head. “It just appeared. Like a gift. A surprisingly high number of the men who came back had it, that’s all.”
“Perhaps because they had it, they chose to come back.”
“We’ve considered that.”
“And, of course, you’ve bred that quality in.”
“We’ve tried,” she admitted. “We had hoped many women might turn up with it, but there are very few women with the talent. It does tend to breed true in sons. I am glad to know about your nieces. For a time we worried that it might be sex-linked.” She rose to look out the window, turned to stare at Stavia’s pale face, then sat down once more. “I suppose Kostia and Tonia know all about this.”
“They do. And all three of us are as safe as any secret holder you may know, Morgot. We would not do anything to endanger you or Stavia or Women’s Country. Believe me, we understand it far better than… well, than this poor child lying here on the bed. She had worked so hard all her young life, being good, being womanly, arguing every point of it with herself that she had not had time to understand the whole of it at all.”
“She broke the ordinances,” Morgot said, her voice very cold.
“She did not understand them. She did not see them as one thing but as many. She thought she could break one without touching the others. Also, I have a feeling that she did not so much break them as bend them, and it is likely you should be glad she did,” he said. “She found out about the planned rebellion, something you otherwise might not have known until too late.” He had told Morgot about Stavia’s terrible secret almost as soon as they had arrived.
“As for the rebellion, we have known about it since it began. Women’s Country has been here for three hundred years, Septemius. How long could we have survived if we had not known about rebellions? How many rebellions do you think there have been? Every decade, every score of years there is a rebellion. Some faction in a garrison begins to feel aggrieved. Some group of women begin to play the fool. Rebellions! They begin like a boil, swelling and pustulent, and we let them grow until they come to a head. Then we lance them, and there is pain, and the swelling goes down. Until next time. It is true, we didn’t know precisely when it was planned this time, and that information is good to have. But the servitors knew about it, long before you told me. It was more difficult in the early years. Then we used spies….”
“Stavia didn’t do what she did out of any unworthy motive,” he suggested.
“Out of ineptitude,” Morgot suggested bleakly.
“Misplaced nurturing,” Septemius corrected her. “The biggest chink in your female armor. The largest hole in your defences. The one thing you cannot and dare not absolutely guard against, for your nature must remain as it is for all your planning to come to fruition. You dare not change it. Still, it is hard when your own female nature betrays you into believing the ones who abuse you need you or love you or have some natural right to do what they do,”
“There is also misplaced passion,” Morgot said. “When we fix ourselves upon objects unworthy of
