theyâll probably assign you to a supervised labor team to clean the assignation houses.â
Myra slammed down the bowl of peeled potatoes and stalked down the hall to the sanitary closet.
âSheâs hiding in there,â said Stavia.
âI know. Poor thing. Sheâs all mixed up between what her body wants to do and all the romantic, dramatic notions Barten had helped her work up for herself. Deathless love. Undying promises.â
âThatâs just Myra,â she said uncertainly.
âWell, itâs any of us, Stavvy. Iâve heard a few of those same promises from young warriors. Iâve had a few romantic or sentimental notions myself, from time to time. We all like to invent worlds that are better than this one, better for lovers, better for mothersâ¦. For all I know, Barten believes it himself. Many warriors do.â
âLike the poets.â
âWhat poets?â
âIn
Iphigenia at Ilium.
Making what really happened to Iphigenia into something else. Really she was murdered, but that made the men feel guilty, so they pretended she had sacrificed her own life. Barten knows what would really happen to Myra if she went out to the Gypsy camp, but he makes it into something else in the stories he tells her.â
âMmm. Yes. As a matter of fact, thatâs a very good comparison. Itâs one of the things we on the Council tryto keep in mind, the need to keep sentimentality and romance out of our deliberations. Leave romance to the warriors: We canât afford it in Womenâs Country.â
âYou could tell Myra sheâd better get it while she can. Thereâs no fucking in Hades.â
âStavia!â
Stavia flushed, then turned guilty white. The phrase was more literary than womanly. She heard a choking sound and turned to find her mother bent across the kitchen table, eyes flowing with tears, lost in silent laughter.
O N THE LAST DAY POSSIBLE , Myra went to the medical center and was given an implant in her upper armâvitamins, Morgot said, because she hadnât been eating properly. At the same visit she was sealed for carnival. The red ink of the stamp was hidden by a fall of auburn hair at one side of her forehead and was thus scarcely a visible matter. However, once she had it, she seemed to come to terms with herself and almost stopped flouncing about. She did stop twitting Joshua, though she didnât treat him with her old, affectionate respect. Still, it made life pleasanter for both Morgot and Stavia, as well, no doubt, as for Joshua himself. Carnival was never a comfortable time for the servitors. They stayed mostly in the residential or private areas in order to avoid any confrontations between servitors and the warriors they might once have known rather well. Not that any of Marthatownâs garrison except Habby and Byram would know Joshua. Joshua had come from Susantown when he was only eighteen. Men who returned through the Womenâs Gate often chose to go to different cities from the ones they were born in, just to avoid seeing old acquaintances. If Habby returned through the Womenâs Gate, he could choose to be sent to Susantown or Mollyburg or to one of a dozen other cities. Morgot or Stavia could always visit him there.
Beneda had delivered a message to Chernon, telling him he would be welcomed at home. Stavia passed her examinations in womenâs studies and physiology, and was commended for her gardening project. Her sketch for a setting of
Iphigenia at Ilium
was acceptable, as was her rendition of her assigned part. She managed to writefrom memory the assigned section of the ordinances, making only a few mistakes in punctuation. Then all studies and projects were terminated for one month to allow the instructors time to make their own carnival arrangements. Except for these semiannual holidays, school went on year after year, all year around. No matter how old they were, almost all the women in the city
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