“That’s not what I meant!”
“That’s what it will be. You know that. Remember, years ago, when you told me I was as good as another son? After Calis died? I know many girls aren’t that strong—but not all men are as strong as you, yet you’ve got Pidi here—little Pidi that I can sling over my shoulder—and you think I can’t—”
“It’s not just strength. You know that.” Gird was sweating; he could feel it trickling down his ribs, and his hands were slick with it. “What about—you know—all those women things—”
Rahi stared at him a moment, and then snorted. A chuckle fought its way up, and she was suddenly convulsed with laughter. “Oh, Da—oh, Lady’s grace, it still hurts when I laugh, but—You mean you never knew?”
“Knew what?” He could not imagine what she thought was funny about the problems having women in camp could bring.
Her hand waved, vaguely, as she tried to stop laughing, and hiccuped instead. “Mother never told you? All those years and you thought—” she shook her head, laughing again. Finally, eyes streaming tears, she regained control. Now, flushed from laughter, she looked like his daughter again, like her mother—all the warmth and laughter that Mali had brought into his life regained. Gird stared at her, halfway between anger and delight. She took a long breath, with her hand to her side, and explained “Da, women have ways—herbs, brews—we’re not like cows, you know. We’re people; we understand our bodies. If it’s a bad time—and I agree, fighting a war would be a bad time—we take care of it and don’t make a mess. I can’t tell you; it’s our knowledge.”
“But Issa—”
“Oh, Issa!” Rahi shook her cropped hair. “It doesn’t work for some women, or they won’t bother—that kind wouldn’t want to learn soldiering anyway.” She chuckled softly, a gentler sound. “I thought I would never laugh again, and here the first time I see you, I disgrace myself—”
“It’s no disgrace to laugh,” Gird said. He wanted to reach for her again, hug her, stroke her hair as he had when she was a small child. But she was a woman, and a woman who had suffered too much to be treated as a child. “Even after sorrow—it comes, sometimes, when no one expects it.”
Rahi nodded. “Mother used to say it was the Lady’s way of making it bearable. Tears in joy, laughter in sorrow, she said, were a sign of the Lady’s presence.” She reached out to him, her hand almost as large as his own, and patted his shoulder. “There—now I’ve grieved, and laughed, and called you Da again, which I said would not do, were I your soldier. But I’m staying.”
And from that decision he could not budge her, not then nor that night nor the next day. Their argument was conducted in the spurious privacy of the camp, with everyone not listening. Between bouts, Rahi demonstrated her usual competence, fitting her contributions of work and skill in effortlessly. Gird began to notice covert grins, sidelong sly looks at her, at him. The skin on the back of his neck itched constantly from being looked at. His ears felt sunburnt. Rahi did not take part in the drill sessions, but she was clearly watching and learning the commands.
After the afternoon’s stick drill, Ivis lingered when the others dispersed to their assigned groups. “Your daughter—” he said, his eyes down.
“Yes.” Gird bit it off. He was going to have to talk about it, without having solved it, and it could do nothing but harm.
“You told us.”
“Yes.” He’d forgotten that, by this time. He looked at Ivis, who was staring past his shoulder. Gird resisted the temptation to look around—was Ivis looking at Rahi?
“She’s a lot like you,” Ivis said.
“She’s—what?”
“Like you. Gets things done. Strong—more than one way.”
Gird grunted. He could see where this was leading, and he didn’t like it. Had Rahi been talking to them behind his back?
“She hasn’t said anything, but we couldn’t help hearing a little . . .”
Gird squinted up at the bright sky showing between the leaves, and asked himself why Mali hadn’t had all boys. Life would have been a lot simpler. “She wants to stay; you all know that. She can’t. She’s stubborn, like her mother.” And me, his mind insisted silently. “Stubborn on both sides,” he admitted aloud. “But it’s impossible.”
Ivis dug a toe into the dirt and made a line. “She’s not like most women.”
Gird snorted. “She’s like all women. Wants her way, and expects to get it. But with Rahi, it’s even more so. Her next older brothers died, in a plague. That may have been it, though Mali—my wife—she was a strongminded woman too.” As if she were alive again, he heard her voice in his ear, as she had warned him that first night at the gathering. I will not guard my tongue for any man, she’d said, and she’d kept that vow. Along with all the others. And had taught Rahi the same, if teaching had anything to do with what was born in the blood. He could feel his own blood contending. If only Rahi had been his son—but then it might have been Rahi dead, and his (her?) wife left. Gird shook his head. That was too complicated; what he had was complicated enough. How could the men respect a leader who couldn’t make his daughter obey?
“We think she’s earned it—if she can, if she’s strong enough—”
“Strong enough! Of course she’s strong enough; that’s not the point.”
Ivis cleared his throat noisily. “Gird—it is the point. To us, anyway. You’ve worried about some of the men here having the strength to lead, or the courage when it comes to a real fight. She’s—she’s your daughter, and we know what happened. She should be here.”
Gird stared at him. “You think that? But if I let her—what about others?”
Ivis cleared his throat again. “The—the one thing I did hear her say, to Pidi, was that women could train at home too. In the bartons.”
In the bartons I don’t have yet, Gird thought furiously. In the bartons that are safe—if they are safe—only because the men always gather in the bartons. Again a memory of Mali forced itself into his consciousness, the day of their wedding when she had faced the ridiculous ceremonies with no embarrassment whatever. Were women really just humoring men with all that squealing and shyness? Could they—he had no doubts about Rahi, who could probably ride wild horses if the chance occurred—could other women really learn to fight, use weapons, kill—alongside men?
Ivis was watching his face with a wary expression. “She said I shouldn’t say anything to you,” he said.
Gird glared at him. “I thought you said you hadn’t talked to her!”
“I haven’t. I would have, but she wouldn’t. Said it was up to you and her to work out, and I should stay out of it.”
“Giving you orders, eh?” For some reason that amused him; he could feel Rahi’s resentment of someone’s interference, her fierce determination to convince Gird by herself.
Ivis grinned, catching the change in Gird’s mood. “You notice I didn’t obey.”
“So how many of them agree with you?”
Ivis relaxed still more. “I didn’t talk to all, but all I asked agreed that they would let her stay.”
Gird muttered one of the old guards’ curses he hadn’t used in years; Ivis clearly had never heard it and didn’t understand. “Go away, then. I want to talk to her.” Ivis vanished, as if whisked away by magic. Gird looked around for Rahi. There she was, grinding grain as placidly as any housewife by her hearth. He had a sudden sinking feeling, as if a hole had opened in his chest, and let his heart fall out on the ground. Could he possibly be about to do what he was going to do? He swallowed against the feeling, and called her. She looked up, smiled, and came to him. He noticed that she had, even in that moment, scooped the ground meal into a bowl, and laid another atop it to keep out dirt.