Foretold

Chapter 5

“How is the stranger coming along in learning our language?”

Vasiliki glared at her mother. “His name is Alex.”

Her mother examined her knife’s blade. “Who cares?”

“He cares!” Vasiliki cried, exasperated. “Mother, over the days I have worked with him, I have come to see that he is as smart as we are.”

Queen Kyrene frowned. “Vasiliki, how many times must I tell you that no man is as smart as we are. They are good for nothing but slaves. Why do you insist on forsaking our ways?”

Vasiliki frowned. “Mother, do you not think that I can see how our numbers decline? We have only a thousand women left to our numbers when just four years ago, we were two thousand strong.”

Queen Kyrene shrugged. “We had a plague. It’s under control now.”

“No, mother. That’s not the reason. It accelerated the problem, but it wasn’t the only cause. It’s because we deny the natural order of things. We despise men, but they are an essential part of our existence. Without them, we would die out. We are fools to treat them so.”

Queen Kyrene glared at her daughter. “Vasiliki, you will not speak to me of these things.”

Vasiliki threw her hands up. “Yes, that’s right. Vasiliki don’t talk about this. Vasiliki don’t talk about that! Anything that makes you even vaguely uncomfortable, you order me not to speak of it.”

Queen Kyrene’s jaw clenched. “I am trying to do what is best for you, Vasiliki. If the tribe finds out what you have been saying to me in private, they will surely kill you, and nothing I can say will have any effect on their decision. Please… Obey me in this for your own sake.”

Vasiliki trembled. “Mother, is it not true that our numbers are declining?”

Queen Kyrene nodded. “Yes. It is. Fewer children have been born of late, and fewer of them are girls.”

Vasiliki nodded. “I understand. And you know why, don’t you?”

Queen Kyrene’s brilliant green eyes wavered from Vasiliki’s and she looked down at the ground. “Yes. I know why. It is because our people… I… despise the very ones who give life to the women who run this tribe, hunt for it, and do all manner of other things. It is how we have always been taught. Why would we abandon it now?”

“Because it will be our death, Mother. Our extinction.” Vasiliki whispered.

Queen Kyrene looked up. “The tribe would kill both of us for mutiny if we were to suggest that we go to the method of marriage. Of putting men on a level with women. Or perhaps we should make men above us as so many of the other cultures around us did.”

Vasiliki smiled thinly. “I never said that we should necessarily make them above us. But certainly equal to us. They are human beings too. They have thoughts and feelings.”