Rebels of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 2), стр. 8

As I walked the streets and took it all in, I felt my first stab of conscience. The Goddess Queens had enlisted me to help restore the natural Vulvarian order, to help return these males to slavery, and to empower females to assume once more their dominant societal role. Did committing myself to serve the will of the Goddess Queens and attempting to accomplish their will make me a traitor to my male sex, I pondered? Had I not many times in discussions with my old teacher, Amanuensis, railed against the unfairness of the Vulvarian social order? Why I had often demanded to know, could females not rule without stripping males of every last vestige of their dignity? Had I taken the wrong side of this rebellion, I wondered?

A woman wearing the drab gray garment and slave collar around her neck passed by me, her head bowed, but cautiously scrutinizing me with a sidelong glance. I realized she was fearful, terrified that I might reach out and molest her in some way. That’s when I realized I was not wrong to pursue the cause of the Goddess Queens. What I saw here in Nisa was not the equality of females and males I had championed in those debates with my old teacher years before. Dabar Cooke and his band of rebels had not revolted in the interest of seeking equality. Instead, they had only inverted the social order where it was males who ruled and females who were subservient. This was not the fairness I had imagined. The system the rebels had installed was every bit as oppressive as the one I had once condemned.

Wandering in the city, I found myself in the central marketplace. Numerous stalls filled the square that offered fresh vegetables, meat and fish, clothing, and other trinkets. Customers and merchants haggled good-naturedly over prices with plenty of laughter interspersed with the friendly banter. There are no fixed prices on Vulvar. Goods are exchanged, and food purchased using a time-honored system of bargaining over prices. A potential buyer approaches a vendor, points to something, and makes an offer. The merchant then makes a counteroffer at a higher price. The buyer and seller continue the back-and-forth negotiations until they reach a compromise, one in which both are convinced that he have prevailed. That completed the transaction.

While delicious smelling food was available in abundance throughout the market, and I had money, I was not hungry. Haela had served me a generous meal the night before, and a large bowl of gruel with toasted brown bread for breakfast before I had departed her farm for the city. She had also given me a leather bag filled with silver and copper Vulvarian coins her Thiva contacts had provided for me that I might have the means to pay for lodging and meals as needed. But, as I left the marketplace, I saw something that did interest me, a blacksmith shop.

Three women wearing heavy leather aprons and gloves were at work in the shop when I entered. They were making swords. With the hammers and tongs that were the stock in trade of the metalsmith, the women worked proto-blades, moving the blocks of glowing metal back and forth between an anvil and a hot coal furnace fueled by bellows. They needed just the right color that indicated the right amount of heat to keep the metal at just the proper flexibility.

The women shaped the metal while red-hot by slowly and repeatedly hammering and re-heating until it was the length, width, and thickness they wanted. They had to work the sides, edges, and tang into shape, none of which was entirely identical in its characteristics to the others. The sword they all fashioned was the short double-edged Vulvarian sword called the rakir. One of the women looked up at me from her anvil. She thrust the blade into a tub of water, dropped the hammer on the anvil, and pulled off her gloves.

“What is your business?” the woman said tiredly.

“I wish to speak with the owner,” I said. “I require a sword.”

The woman glanced at a table with a row of finished rakirs upon it, then regarded me again.

“A male of Nisa takes what he wishes,” she said with bitterness.

“I do not wish to take anything from you,” I said. “I am not a thief. I will pay, but I want a specific kind of sword. That is why I wish to speak with the shop owner.”

The woman regarded me with a wry smile.

“The owner is not here,” she said. “I was once the owner of this smithy. Now, after Dabar Cooke has come, my former slave is the owner, though he spends little time here.”

She waved a hand at the other women working at the anvils.

“Now, my sisters and I are his slaves.”

“I see,” I said. “Perhaps you can help me.”

“What is it you want?”

I described to the woman metalsmith the katana. Using a stick, I drew a rough sketch of the sword on the dirt floor of the shop. I gave her all the specifications, including length, width, and the type of hilt to be made and attached to the tang. The woman listened as she squatted beside my crude drawing and inspected it.

“You wish only a single-edged weapon, like a long knife?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because I prefer it,” I said. “While I find the rakir awkward to use, I am well versed in the use of the sword I speak of, the katana.”

“We are working on a contract to supply swords for the Dabar’s warriors,” the woman said, standing up. “The owner will not agree with wasting time fashioning your special sword.”

“Yet, as you said, the owner does not spend much time here,” I said. “I expect he is interested only in collecting the money for your work.”

The woman smiled thinly. “Yes, it is as you say.”

“Then perhaps you could fashion the katana for me, for which I would pay you directly. It