Read Online The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper - Free Book Online Page B

good idea for Myra and me to have a private talk.”

A FTER ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT SPENT GRIEV ing over Dawid, Stavia dragged herself to the hospital, to work. Morgot came out of her office, took one look at her, and told her to go home. “Stavvy, you usually look about twenty-five, but today you look fifty. I heard you tossing and turning, up all night, wandering around. Go home and get some sleep.”
    Stavia, who was conscious of the imminence of her thirty-eighth birthday, was peculiarly annoyed by this repetition of Corrig’s comment concerning her appearance. “I was checking the windows.”
    â€œAgainst what? Ghosts?”
    â€œI thought it might rain in.”
    â€œIt quit raining yesterday about noon. Go on home, Stavvy. This place is almost empty. Everyone in Marthatown is disgustingly healthy, it seems. A lot healthier than you look. I’m not surprised, mind you. I don’t think there’s a woman in Marthatown who really believes her son will be lost to her until he reaches fifteen and repudiates her. You try to get ready for it, but you can’t. It’s like losing an arm or leg. Go ahead—take a little convalescent time.”
    â€œOh, Morgot, I did so hope….”
    â€œI know, love. We all told you not to, but you wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t. Say the ordinances over to yourself; that’ll put you to sleep. If you can’t sleep, at least rest. There’s a Council meeting tonight.”
    â€œI’d forgotten!” She bit her lip, annoyed with herself. What a thing to forget.
    Stavia buttoned her padded coat and left the hospital, unbuttoning the collar again as soon as she got outside into the sun. The chill rains of early spring had passed for the moment and a mock summer had come, a transient warmth to stir false optimism. Cold would return inevitably before there could be true spring, no matter what the sun and sea conspired to suggest. It was too early for lunch. There was no one at home—the girls were at school and Corrig had gone to the servitors’ fraternity, where he was teaching a class in the mysteries. She would have the house to herself if she wanted to nap, but she didn’t want to do that, not just yet.
    She wound her way through the market, not realizing until she came to the candle makers shops at the edge of the plaza that she had intended all along to come to the wall.
    â€œStupid, sentimental sop,” she told herself as she climbed the stairs. “What do you think you’re going to see down there?”
    What Stavia saw was the empty parade ground with its tower and its monument to Telemachus, behind that the carved gables of the barracks buildings sweltering in the sun, and beyond them black specks racing about on the playing fields. The garrison was only half the size it had been when she was a child, and every member of it seemed to be either playing or watching, mostly from low bleachers along the field. Three or four men were looking on from the terrace of the officers’ residence. Shaking her head at herself, she found a sheltered corner hidden from the plaza and fished in a pocket for the book. It was warm here in the sun. She would spend an hour or two reviewing
Iphigenia
, then buy herself some lunch at a tea shop before going home to the promised nap. By then she’d be tired enough to sleep, she told herself, leafing through the pages to find the place where she and Corrig had left off that morning.
    â€œT HE GHOST OF A CHILLES appears upon the battlement,” she read, wondering how Joshua could bear to play Achilles. One would expect some servitor with a broad sense of humor and not much dignity, not someone like Joshua.

    A CHILLES I seek my servant, Polyxena!
    I PHIGENIA
(Calling from ground level)
Oh, mighty warrior, she is not here.
    A CHILLES
(Petulantly)
She’s supposed to be here. They spilt her maiden blood upon my tomb so she would be here.
    I PHIGENIA