“Were you ever raped, Varia?”
Varia said nothing.
“I wonder what it would be like.”
“It’s ugly. Painful. You feel like shit.” Time after time. Night after night.
Silence again for a moment. Then, contritely: “I’m sorry I asked, Varia. I really am.”
Varia opened her eyes. Her voice was wooden, a monotone. “It’s all right. You’re young. Just be careful in a situation like we walked into. Turn around and walk out.” If you can. Varia discovered her guts were tied in knots.
“Are you young?” Hermiss asked. “I’d forgotten you’re like the ylver; that you can look young for a long time. I thought you might be—twenty.”
Varia looked at the earnest face on the blanket beside hers, and felt a sudden pang of—something. Loss. “I have daughters about your age,” she said. Had, she corrected herself.
The face looked troubled again, and this time Varia broke the silence. “Tell me what it’s like to be a girl growing up in Ternass.”
Hermiss told of school and parties. And about the colonel’s daughter, who sounded a bit full of herself but pleasant enough. And especially about the young men of Ternass, and the ylvin soldiers stationed there. Of flirtations, stories of occasional love affairs and briefly broken hearts. The ylver, Hermiss said, were especially exciting because they were supposed to be better lovers, and being relatively infertile, were less likely to get a girl pregnant. But the imperial army had rules against “slipping it to” local girls, and other rules against marrying them without official sanction, which involved a lot of time and trouble.
She also told about her father. “He knows an awful lot. He’s read hundreds of books, some of them ten times, I guess, and thought about them all. He knows a lot about the ylver. Some people at home don’t like them very much; some don’t like them at all. But my father says ylver are just people with tilty eyes and pointy ears. Some of them can’t even do magic, he says. And they don’t live forever; they just stay young a long time. He says we’re lucky they’re here. For every person in the kingdom who died during the war, he says probably three have been saved because we don’t fight our neighbors anymore.”
Varia didn’t reply. She was thinking it would be better if there weren’t wars at all.
“What was it like growing up a Sister?” Hermiss prompted.
“Different than you told about. We had duties.”
“Like what?”
“Whatever work they trained you for, assigned you to. Making jewelry, all kinds of ceramics, taking care of babies, working in the dining room . . . I was best in the kitchen. I got to be a very good cook.”
“Really?” Pause. “Did you, you know—have to make babies?” Hermiss paused, then added, “I’ve heard . . .” and trailed off.
“After I grew up, I was sent to Farside to marry a man the Sisterhood wanted me to have babies with.”
“Farside!?”
“Farside.”
“What happened to him?”
Varia began to cry, quietly as usual. Hermiss could hear something though, and peered intently at her in the seepage of lantern light. “Are—you crying, Varia?”
Varia nodded, fighting now to keep silent.
“Oh Varia! I’m so sorry!” Hermiss too began to cry, and put her arms around her. “I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t. I’ve been terrible to you!”
The girl tried to cry quietly, too, but began to sob and hiccup, and now it was Varia doing the comforting, hugging her, patting her shoulder. “It’s all right, Hermy, it’s all right. You couldn’t know. You couldn’t know.”
Hermiss quieted and they let each other go. After a bit, Varia could see the girl’s aura smoothen, softening in sleep, but she herself was wide awake now, listening to the rain drum on the roof. “God, Curtis,” she whispered drily, “how I wish! How I wish!”
She became aware of movement then, as if someone had been outside the stall and was moving away. Rolling to her knees, she got up and peered out. Cyncaidh was at the hayloft ladder, a hand on a riser. Realizing he’d been seen, he stopped, stood waiting. Varia walked to whispering distance.