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"Good man!"
I nodded. "That doesn't surprise me. Some of them resent it, but he helps them anyway."
Her eyes opened a trifle wider. "How did you know that?"
"When some people are in pain, they strike out at any target within their reach, that's all. If you haven't learned it yet, you'll learn it soon. We all do."
"Have I been doing that?"
"That is for you to decide. I have been a judge, Mora, but I am not a judge here. Before I talk to you seriously-and I have serious things to say to you-I want you to consider this: Suppose that instead of being as you are, you were the small and pretty girl whom Fava appears to be. Don't you think it's possible that your father might doubt that you were really his? And that your life would be a great deal less happy if he did?"
She was silent again, the large, plump hands motionless in her lap, her head bowed. At last she said, "I never thought of it."
"You will think about it now, I know."
To say what I wanted to say next was to risk the life of the girl before me, and I knew it; I waited until I felt certain I could suppress the tremor in my voice.
"Mora, I used to know a woman named Scleroderma. She was quite short. You are already much taller than she was. She was also fat, a great deal fatter than you are, and not at all good-looking. People made jokes about her, and she laughed the loudest at them, and made jokes about herself-about others, too, to tell you the truth. All of us thought that she was very fu
"I'd feel sorry for her, " Mora said.
"Perhaps you would. War came, and Scleroderma acquired a needier. I don't know how, and it doesn't matter. She did. And when we who had lived in the Sun Street Quarter had to fight, Scleroderma fought like a trooper. It isn't good for a trooper to be over forty, or short, or fat. It isn't good at all, and she was all of those things; but she fought like a trooper just the same."
As I said that, something came into Mora's eyes that told me I was in fact ru
"There were many women with us who had known her all their lives, and some of them were shamed into fighting too, though none of the rest showed her determined courage. I was almost precisely as old as you are when all this happened, and there was a girl named Nettle there with me who was my own age. Nettle had fought earlier-we both had-and she said then what both of us felt, which was that General Mint might easily have put Scleroderma in command of fifty or a hundred troopers."
"Women don't fight here, " Mora told me, "or not very much."
I smiled. "They fight only with their husbands, you mean. I know they must, because women everywhere do that. Scleroderma did more than fight, though I have mentioned the fighting first because it was what she did first. The troopers we were fighting were brave and well trained. They had slug guns, and some had armor. It wasn't long before some of us were dead and many of us were wounded. It was Scleroderma who went for our wounded under fire and bandaged their wounds, and carried or dragged them to a safe place. I know that very well, Mora, because I was one of the wounded she rescued."
"I'd like to meet her."
"We will both meet her in time, I hope. She is dead now. But long after that fighting was over, when we were here on Blue and I helped her and her husband build their new house, she told me her secret. It's a simple one, but if you'll make it your own it may serve you well. She said she thought about what there was to do. What would be hardest, what next hardest, what followed that, and so on. Then she decided which level was within her reach, how difficult a task she could manage. Mora, do you understand what I'm saying? She ranked the tasks mentally."
"I think so."
"She might decide that dragging the logs to the spot where her new house was to stand was the hardest, for example. That felling the trees was next hardest, and so on. And that both those would be too strenuous for her. Shaping the logs and boring the holes for the pegs were both too difficult, too; but she could cut small limbs for pegs and smooth them with a knife. That wouldn't be too hard for her."
Mora nodded. "Sometimes I do that, too."
"Then she went to the level above that one, and bored the holes."
The next nod came slowly, but it came.
"Blanko will be at war very soon, Mora. Your father thinks so, and he's got a level head and a good grasp of the situation here. I'm not going to tell you that you'll be loved as you wish if you do as Scleroderma did, or even as Nettie did. You may not be-and I honestly believe you'll be loved like that no matter what you do. But if you do what Scleroderma did, you'll deserve to be, which is something quite different. It is far easier to get all the good things that our lives have to offer than it is to deserve them. We seldom have much joy of them, however, unless we deserve them."
"I don't know if I could, " Mora muttered. Then, "I'll try."
"You'll be risking your life. I'm sure you understand that. What is far worse from my viewpoint, I am risking it just by talking to you as I am now. You may be killed. But Mora… "
"Yes?"
"You may be killed no matter what you do. Not everyone who runs risks dies, and many who try very hard to avoid every risk are killed anyway. You're the daughter of one of Blanko's leaders-"
"He's the Duko. They don't call him that, but he is."
"Things won't be easy for you if Blanko loses. Now go to your palaestra. You're very late already, I'm sure. My blessing goes with you, for whatever it's worth."
Oreb seconded me. "Go now. 'Bye, girl."
"About Fava… Does she really, really have to leave?"
I nodded. "For your grandmother's sake, for her own sake, and for yours."
Reluctantly, Mora rose. "She's the only friend I've got."
"Yes, I know. And as long as she is with you, she's the only friend you can have. Possibly you haven't thought of it like that; but Fava has, you may be sure. Another friend might guess the truth, as you did. Fava will see to it that no one gets that close to the two of you. Isn't she doing it already? You must know, and the story you told last night indicated that she is."
As I watched Mora go, it came to me that I was watching a woman who did not know that she was a woman or had not yet come to terms with the knowledge, a woman whose womanhood was reckoned not in years but in weeks or months – perhaps only in days.
When we were on Green and I was searching the river for the sword and the light I had been given, I walked up and down the banks of the river for most of a day. I found and saw a great many things without being much affected by any of them. I was looking for my light; I was looking for my sword; and since those other things were neither of them, I paid them little heed. They took their revenge on me just now, waking me wet with sweat. I have dried myself with the towel Inclito's mother gave me, lit the candle, and opened my door. I would like to have company, but Oreb is off exploring and everyone else seems to be asleep. If any of them are awake, perhaps they will drop in for a talk. There is no one in this house, not even the cook, whom I would not like to talk to. The gloomy chambermaid would be best, I believe. Her name is Torda, but Torda is probably too much to hope for.
In the meantime, I am going to write about what I saw and what I dreamed, which comes down to saying the same thing twice. By writing about them, I will subject them to the discipline of my conscious mind. At least I hope so.
The corpses were the first and the most obvious thing. They floated past upon the slow water the whole time I searched, mostly singly, but sometimes by two and threes. I have already written about the first, the one I saw in the water while the Neighbor was still with me. There would be no point in recording the same facts about the rest. I had cleared the blockage enough to raise the level of the river noticeably, and the opening I had made was permitting the water in the sewer to erode dead men (and women and children) as any little flow of water washes away grains of sand. A few of them floated face up. Most were face down, and I was glad of that.