Adding together Council members and servitors, there had been many who knew the truth, but the truth had not been spoken. A myth was spoken instead. In time, what was spoken became the truth. "The Lady," the Council had said, "will distinguish the guiltless and the honorable from the traitors. Their honors will be paraded in heaven."
A song had been written about the lost garrison, a song about betrayal of trust and broken ordinances and shame. It had been commissioned by the Council, but it became popular and widely sung, despite that.
A few months after the disaster, Susantown had sent two centuries of young men for Marthatown's defense. Later some of the other cities had sent men of their own, enough to make up a small though respectable garrison. Though they were all young men, they were tried men, men who had no patience with deviation from the ordinances, and they had soon whipped the fifteen- to twenty-three-year-olds into shape.
Beneda and Sylvia had never stopped talking about Chernon, any more than hundreds of other lovers or sisters or mothers had stopped talking about their lovers or brothers or sons. Stavia had learned to join in the talk, as Morgot did, holding the center of herself quiet, letting the actor Stavia do all the work.
And now the actor Stavia stood on the stage of the summer theater as Iphigenia. In the morning, at dawn, summer carnival would start. There would be drinking and laughter and sex. There would be jokes and singing. Before all that there had to be this, this reminder for those who could see what was in it.
Such as those on the stage with Stavia, or those sitting in the first few rows, thee Councilwomen. Tonia. Kostia. Old Septemius. Behind them a select group of servitors. Less than two hundred in all. What Morgot called the "Damned Few." Those who kept things running. Those who did what had to be done.
And behind them were all the other women of Marthatown. Beneda and Sylvia were there, on the aisle, where Stavia could not help but see them. During the early stages of the play there had been laughter and catcalls, giggles and whispers in the audience. At the end, however, a hush had fallen, the rattling of candy baskets had stopped, and the eyes of all the audience were fixed upon them where they stood halfway up the walls of Troy, Stavia and Joshua: Iphigenia and Achilles.
From the high plinth beside Iphigenia, Achilles asked the question. "What's it like, this Hades?"
ACHILLES What's it like, this Hades?
IPHIGENIA Like shadow with no sun, like dark with no day. Like the mating of ghosts.
ACHILLES Riddles! Only riddles!
POLYXENA I think she means, Achilles, that in hell we need not damn ourselves by trying to defend ourselves.
IPHIGENIA That's what I meant, yes.
ACHILLES It makes no sense! What has defending yourself to do with it?
POLYXENA I pled for my life, Achilles. When they said they would kill me, I wet myself. My bowels opened and the shit ran down my legs. I screamed and groveled. I hated what I was doing, but I did it. Achilles, I wanted to live! I wanted to live, but they killed me, stinking like a dung-covered animal. I was slender and still young, Achilles. I loved to dance, Achilles. But they killed me there in the mess with my skirts hiked up and blood and shit mixed like a stinking stew, damned to forever remember myself like that.... In Hades, perhaps I'll dance. I won't have to beg for my life, Achilles. I'll have no life to lose.
ANDROMACHE I saw my father slain. The spear went into his chest where he'd cuddled me, sometimes, calling me his sweetheart. The blood came out and he grunted like a slaughtered pig, a kind of squeal. He was surprised, I think. My brothers came running, but you and your men slaughtered them. Now, here at Troy, you've done it again, hacked my husband to bits. I keep seeing it in my sleep, arms, legs, fingers, thighs, all mixed in this terrible clutter. I keep trying to sort them out, calling, "Daddy, Hector, where are the parts of you I loved...."
And Hector's baby? My baby, his baby, our son. Thrown from the walls like rubbish. I heard him cry as he fell. He made a sound like a hunting bird, falling into the sea.... I can't think of anything else.
When the ship that takes me gets far enough from shore, I'll leap out into that sea. I'll be damned for taking my own life, but that's all that's left to do. I can't risk loving anything else to see it slain. In Hades there's no life and there's no pain. The dead are dead. They can't be killed again.
HECUBA I had a knife in my skirt, Achilles. When Talthybius bent over me, I could have killed him. I wanted to. I had the knife just for that reason. Yet, at the last minute I thought, he's some mother's son just as Hector was, and aren't we women all sisters. If I killed him, I thought, wouldn't it be like killing family? Wouldn't it be making some other mother grieve? So I didn't kill him, but if I had, I might have saved the baby. I'm damned to think of that, that I might have saved Hector's child. Dead or damned, that's the choice we make. Either you men kill us and are honored for it, or we women kill you and are damned for it. Dead or damned. Women don't have to make choices like that in Hades. There's no love there, nothing to betray.
ACHILLES (Shaking his head, still weeping) I ask you yet again, Agamemnon's daughter. What's it like, this Hades!
IPHIGENIA What's Hades like?
Like dream without waking. Like carrying water in a sieve. Like coming into harbor after storm. Barren harbor where the empty river runs through an endless desert into the sea. Where all the burdens have been taken away.
You'll understand when you come there at last, Achilles....
Hades is Women's Country.
Stavia leaned over Joshua, putting her cheek against his own, her eyes fixed on the half-empty garrison ground, seeing in her mind the thousands who had marched away. Gone away, oh, gone away. Wetness ran between her face and his as he, servitor, warrior, citizen of Women's Country, father, as he wept.
Wept for them all.
The End
Sheri S. Tepper, The Gate to Women's Country
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