Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction by Mariano Villarreal

patient too. We’ll make him believe that his
punishment satisfied us, we’ll make him feel comfortable and safe,
we’ll keep it to ourselves when he does something barbaric, and
once we’re sure that the rest of the men don’t know we’re at his
side, he’ll wind up lowering his guard, and then and only then will
we make him face facts.”
    And in fact, it all happened just as her
mother had predicted. Three bleeds of the queen later, Chaid Khasat
was made to face reason: a spectacular fall left him in bed and
unable to move for more than a half a cycle.
    Of course, the women who cared for him with
complete devotion and fuss made sure that his recovery was not as
fast as it might have been.
    No man accused any woman of having provoked
the accident. They simply assumed that Chaid Khasat had been too
clumsy, since women had previously fallen and hurt themselves in
the same place, although with more minor injuries.
    They also did not think to ask the women who
cared for him why it took so long for his bones to knit and for him
to recover. They simply assumed that his bones were as weak as
Khasat himself.
    And of course Kesha, who had asked Qjem a
couple of times to do something about that place before someone
else hurt themselves (as Chaid eventually did), enthusiastically
thanked him once the work was finished.
    If Qjem had any doubts
about her, he did not show them. What’s more, he agreed to be the
assistant in Charni’s initiation ritual.
    Just as the queen had planned.
     
     
    Between classes and practice sessions, time
flew like a sigh. Charni never found the right moment to ask her
mother about the questions that tormented her about the unexpected
existence of other sisters. In fact, it took her a long time to
realize that there would never be the right moment.
    She had found time to
investigate by herself, although it was not easy at first. No
matter how delicate she was with her questions, no adult felt
comfortable enough to give her answers. In the end, the response
was always the same: Dear, it’s best to ask your mother.
    They were right. After all, what they could
tell her would be a partial perception of the issue, possibly
distorted by the passage of time. The person who was most involved,
who had experienced it first-hand, was her mother. Still, Charni
suspected that if she had never brought up the subject, it was more
than probable that it was as painful for her as it was
shameful.
    At times Charni could not
keep from asking herself whether her mother’s insistence on her
becoming queen was nothing more than a desire to find redemption
via her daughter. Or, perhaps, to eliminate any doubt about the
information she had inside her.
    Charni had no doubt that
there was no madness within her, although from what Deva had said,
it did not have to be something she could feel. The madness could
be asleep and some personal event might awaken it, the way it
seemed to have happened in the case of her two older sisters. Both
perfectly healthy, both totally in accord with Ksatrya women’s
feelings.
    Yet something that she had
been told made her doubtful. No one had ever given a thought to the
possibility that part of the guilt might lie in the men with whom
both sisters had … failed. Why? Was it so improbable that in
addition to pride, Ksatrya women transmitted the information of
madness, for example? Why was it so logical to think it was always
women’s fault? Why make them responsible and distressed over every
failure?
    Of course, she never asked other women those
questions. Not even Deva or her mother. Oh, no, above all not her
mother. As Charni understood it, questions were the forerunner to
madness, and she did not wish to frighten or worry her mother. In
the end, they were only questions, right? At no time did it pass
through her mind to take her own life or betray the Ksatrya women.
So they did not seem to be anything like the symptoms of her older
sisters.
    Qalja, after her first aberration,