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faces with only the eyes cut out. They also did not use a tie at the waist,
making the dresses so shapeless and sack-like it was impossible to tell
anything about them.
"The ones in white are unmarried-virgins of age, or in some cases past it,"
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Zenchur told them. "They are forbidden to show any more of themselves in
public or to anyone outside their immediate household than you see after they
undergo a rite of passage on their tenth birthday. They are also forbidden to
speak to or even snow they hear the speech of any man save their father and
brothers. They live like that until they are married and then, as you see,
things loosen up a lot."
"I can't see how any of 'em would ever get married, considerin' them rules,"
Sam responded.
Zenchur laughed. "All marriages are arranged-by the mothers, by the way,
talking to the groom's father or, if orphaned, the male guardian. Oh, there
are stories of romantic trysts and separated lovers, of course, but almost
nobody does it.
Actually, the girl has some power the man does not, since she can see him
without his ever really knowing it's her and can make a real case for certain
boys and against others with her mother. All the boy gets is a sketch by an
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artisan known as a Wedding Broker, although in villages such as these he can
usually get some information from relatives and friends of. relatives."
"The same old story. Women as cattle again, though," Charley noted sourly.
"No, no! The women have rights here. They are given what education they need
or can handle, although separately from the boys of course, and they can
inherit and have definite rights in courts of law. It is not as bad as it
sounds. Most of these shops are run by women and some are even owned by women.
This is because, in these conservative societies, the man is the boss but
inheritance is through the female line, not the male. I am not saying it is
perfect, only that it is not as bad as it looks."
"Still, neither one knows what they're gettin' until they're stuck with it,"
Sam noted.
"And is it any worse than other ways? Marrying for lust of the moment and then
one day you discover you have nothing else in common, or marrying one for
supposed wealth or position? I am not defending this system, I am only saying
that I have not found the number of successful and happy marriages here any
different than other societies' ways."
"Still, with the slim pickings in a village like this and kept apart, I can
see why some of 'em would run for the city and sell their bodies rather than
take it, particularly if the guy's awful and she can't talk her mom out of
it,"
Charley commented.
Sam looked around. "Somehow, with all them worlds to steal from, I kinda
thought this'd be a little more modern than the Dark Ages."
There was a service which unhitched and cared for the horses white you were in
town, and they were more than grateful to be out of that box and on their feet
again, although both were so sore they had some initial trouble walking. Sam
was together enough in a minute or two, though, to note the various signs
around the square that all seemed to be filled with little squares and circles
and squiggles and realize that her knowledge of the language did not extend to
literacy. The letters or symbols or whatever they were seemed to not even have
a lot of organizational sense; they were scattered all over and didn't look
very consistent at all in their shapes and forms. It reminded her of something
that might come out of a kindergarten art class back home.
The one they went into turned out to be a tavern, and a somewhat peculiar one
at that. It had the look on the inside you expected going in-round wooden
tables, rough, well-worn wooden chairs, sawdust over the wooden, creaky floor,
and a long bar with a big polished mirror behind it that just about reflected
the whole place. But there were anachronisms as well, things that just didn't
make sense.
For example, there were the three Casablanca-style ceiling fans turning slowly
above them, keeping the hot air circulating. And the lights, both behind the
bar and, subdued, along the side walls, looked, well-not at all primitive. The
bottles behind the bar seemed to be of clear glass with fancy labels on them,
not the crude stuff of the cave, and when someone yelled to the barman he
nodded and drew a tankard of what might have been beer or ale from a tap and
brought it over. The customers-the only ones other than themselves-were also
obviously from
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and ugly voice and a face and body that looked more like a Neanderthal than a
modern human, accentuated by the fact that he was wearing a worn fur breech
clout and a somewhat matching fur vest over his incredibly hairy chest. His
companion was dressed in a fancy bloused top and tights, with fancy pointed
boots, and had features far different from those seen in the village-lighter,
sharper, with long hair, a black goatee, and a moustache that must have been
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half wax.
"Don't look now," Charley whispered to Sam, "but I'd swear Conan the Barbarian
over there is wearing a wrist-watch."
"I noticed," Sam whispered back. "And I think that fugitive from a playing
card is smoking a filter-tipped cigarette. This is nuts."
Zenchur gave them a sour look and they shut up. Sam was curious to know what
the strange pair was discussing, but the cave man had such lousy command of
the language it was hard to make him out most of the time. In a language where
a shift of a mere quarter tone could make "I am going to kill you" sound like
"I
want to make love to a fig tree" she was definitely at a disadvantage only
slightly less than Charley's.
"But, my friend, I need five," said the fop, clearly but in a very strange
accent. You knew what he was saying but only barely and with some
concentration.
The people in the changewind vision had also seemed to have odd accents to
her, but not this extreme.
"You ask my ass be cake-baked," the Neanderthal seemed to reply. The
conversation, thanks to his horrible lack of subtleties, seemed almost comic
to
Sam, although Moustache seemed to make the right sense out of it.
"But, be reasonable, my friend. Fewer will simply not work."
"I want to lick my pig-sucker," replied the barbarian.
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