Chapter Four #2
It was ridiculous that Finnvid could be confused by this conversation, but that was the only interpretation of the expression on the boy’s face. “The temple? Why is the temple involved?”
“To make sure it’s an approved mating. Not too closely related, not too many kids with the same blood being produced—”
“You’ve fathered forty-six children in nine years and you’re worried about too many children with the same blood?”
“I’m not worried. The temple is. That’s why they won’t approve me for more than five or six extra partners a year, outside of the festivals.”
“Otherwise every baby in the city would be his,” Andros said with a grin.
“You’re just as popular,” Theos retorted. “We’d have made a lot of women unhappy if we’d left you up on the mountain with the snakes.”
It would have been easier to let the conversation drift back in that familiar direction.
But Finnvid clearly didn’t want to move on.
“But if you’re sleeping with all these women .
. . there must be an imbalance. There must be some men who can’t sleep with a woman, because you’ve taken them all. That’s not fair.”
“Fair? Women aren’t kegs of ale; they aren’t to be divided up equally for the enjoyment of all the drinkers. If Andros and I have more children, that’s because the women want to have our babies. It’s their choice. Nothing to do with being fair to men.”
“That’s easy for you to say, when you’re the one with all the women! What about the men who are alone?”
“Alone? Being invited to the city . . . that’s .
. . well, counting the festivals, it’s maybe ten nights a year, at the most. Being with women isn’t going to keep anyone from being alone.
” Theos nodded at Andros and Xeno, reclining together with their legs entwined.
“Your friends keep you from being alone. Not women.”
“But it could be women. You don’t have to . . . you know. You don’t have to do unnatural things. You could just be with women.”
“The women are in the city—” Theos started again, but Finnvid interrupted him.
“The women could leave the city! Or the men could go there! You’ve built this whole artificial culture around a simple peculiarity of population distribution—”
“The women stay in the city because they’re safe there.
We need them, as many as possible, and we need them to be healthy.
One man can have many children in a year; we don’t need as many men.
So men go to war and keep the valleys safe, and women stay in the cities where they’re protected.
They take care of business, and they build things and raise children.
” Theos raised an eyebrow. “What’s so unnatural about that? ”
“Your women are happy with this system? They don’t want to settle down with one man and have a family?”
“If they aren’t happy, they can speak up.”
“And the men will listen? Who will make sure the women have voices? How can they know they’re safe to speak, with no mate to protect them?”
“Why would they need a mate to protect them when they have a whole army?”
“What if it’s the army they need to be protected against?”
“Well, one man isn’t going to do much good against a whole army. But, really, why would the army want to attack a woman?”
“Because she challenged your crazy social structure?”
“Women can challenge things. They can go to the city council and say what they want.”
“Without being shouted down by the men?”
Theos was getting impatient. “It’s the city council. There are no men.” He looked up at the stars for a moment, then said, “Remember back when the world was fresh and new? Back when you were pretending you didn’t speak Torian? Those were good times, weren’t they?”
Finnvid’s snort was suspiciously like a laugh. “They were certainly simpler times,” he admitted. He was quiet for a while, then tilted his face toward the same stars Theos had been gazing at. “Do Torians have stories about them?”
“About what?”
“The stars. Do you make pictures from them, and tell stories about them?”
“I don’t understand. Make pictures from the stars?”
Finnvid nodded, and pointed upward. “Like those stars there. You see the brightest one? And then down from it, and over, how it makes a box? And the little stars in the middle are almost lined up. That’s Greanna’s loom.”
“Who’s Greanna?”
“The mother of all.” Finnvid sounded like a man telling a tale to children. “She creates our lives, and then she and her daughters weave us together on the loom and determine how everything will go.”
“Her daughters?”
“Three pairs of twins: Love and Hate, Birth and Death, Laughter and Tears.”
“What kind of a mother would name her daughter Death? Or even Tears?”
“You don’t object to Hate?”
“Well, I guess Hate isn’t too nice either. I wouldn’t mind spending a night with Laughter, though. She sounds like fun.”
“You’d prefer Laughter to Love?”
“Love would be too complicated.” Theos lifted his hand to point at the stars. “That one? And then . . . that one . . . yes, I see the box. That’s their loom. What else do they do?”
“Well, that’s about the only story for that constellation.
It’s just the easiest one to see. But . .
. up from there, and off to the right. Do you see those two stars close together, and then the other one beyond them?
That’s Varin’s sword. The hilt, and then the tip.
And his shield is over there, those five stars in a sort of circle? ”
“Aye, I see it . . . but who’s Varin?”
“He’s the greatest hero the world has ever known,” Finnvid said confidently. He leaned back on his elbows and stared at the stars and began to tell Theos stories of the hero. And Theos listened, although he spent as much time looking at Finnvid as he did at the stars.
The next morning they woke early, had breakfast, and walked the rest of the way into town.
Andros insisted on climbing off the stretcher once they reached the drilling yards and everyone slowed down to wait for his careful, tight steps.
When they arrived at the barracks, Elios and Achus accepted Andros’s thanks and then drifted off toward their quarters, and Xeno said he would take Andros to the medics to be checked out.
Before they left, they both hugged Finnvid and thanked him, and Andros gave Theos a look that probably contained a message, but not one he could understand.
He walked Finnvid over to the holding pens and peered inside. The other Elkati prisoners were still there, a few of them with fresh bruises and cuts. Theos sighed. “Seems like some more work for you.” Maybe Finnvid would feel better about stepping into the cage if he felt he had a purpose.
But as it happened, Theos couldn’t see how Finnvid was reacting to the prospect. The Elkati’s expression was as closed and unreadable as it had been in the early days, back when he was planning escapes and pretending not to speak Torian.
Which was as it should be, Theos reminded himself.
Finnvid was Elkati. He was the enemy. He’d been captured well over the border, and now he’d face the consequences.
None of it was Theos’s problem, and none of it was within his power to change.
“Good luck,” he said, feeling like a fool as soon as the words were past his lips.
But Finnvid didn’t mock him. He didn’t say a thing as Theos unlocked the cage and Finnvid stepped into it. He kept his shoulders straight and his head high, and strode toward his men without so much as a glance in Theos’s direction.
Theos shut the door behind him, made sure it was locked, then went to give his report to the captain.