After the Downfall

“Everybody says that. You’d be bloody strange in my world, too,” Hasso answered. Landing in his world, Rautat wouldn’t know the customs or speak the language. He’d end up in trouble before he could learn. How could he help it?

“I’d be strange anywhere,” the underofficer said, not without pride. He wasn’t wrong, either. Hasso laughed and clapped him on the back.

The German knew how to deal with Rautat. He’d handled plenty of Feldwebels in his Wehrmacht days. The language here changed. So did a few of the details. The art as a whole? No.

Dealing with Drepteaza as a lover … That he had to learn one step at a time. It wasn’t simple, either. There were moments when he felt like a man trying to defuse a booby-trapped bomb. The priestess was more private and much more complicated than Velona had been. When Drepteaza was unhappy, she’d retreat into herself. She would stay polite all the time. If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. Then you would lose more points for not noticing.

Hasso complained only once. She laughed at him. “This is what you spent so long mooning over and chasing. Now you have it, and you find out it isn’t exactly what you expected? What am I supposed to do about that? I am what I am. I can’t be anything different, not for you or anyone else.”

He shut up after that. She was telling the truth. And she had to put up with him, too. Well, no – in fact, she didn’t. She could dump him any time she pleased.

But she didn’t do that. It was as if she’d decided that, as long as they were going to be lovers, she would see just where that led. “Your world must be a funny place,” she said once, as they lay side by side in a cot that wasn’t really big enough for both of them.

“Why?” he asked.

“You are a fighting man. Rautat says you are one of the most dangerous fighting men he ever saw. From everything I’ve seen, he’s right. But you are the gentlest lover any woman here would ever have known.”

He grunted. Velona never accused him of every such thing. Everybody, he supposed, was different with a different partner.

“Why is that?” Drepteaza persisted.

“Partly, it’s you.” He pursued his own thought. Drepteaza made a small, dubious noise. “It is,” Hasso insisted. “And partly, men and women in my world are closer to equals than they are here.”

“Oh?” That intrigued her in a new way, as he hoped it might. “How? Why?”

Later, he wondered whether Bucovinan – and maybe even Lenello – men would have reason to swear at him. As best he could, he explained how women’s rights had flowered in his world over the past hundred years.

Drepteaza reacted the way he knew she would: “That sounds wonderful! Why isn’t it like that here?”

“I don’t know,” Hasso answered.

“You say it wasn’t always like that where you come from? It used to be more the way it is here?” Drepteaza waited for him to nod, then went on, “How are things in your kingdom different now from the way they used to be?”

“Machines,” Hasso said automatically. “We have machines to do the things magic can do here. But the machines do it better. They do it for everybody, not just for a few rich people. And with lots of machines, it doesn’t matter so much if men are bigger than women. It doesn’t matter so much if men are stronger. What you know, what you can do – that matters.”

“Women are still the ones who have babies, though,” Drepteaza said.

“Ja” Hasso nodded.”That is one reason there are still differences. But women have babies more when they want in my world.” He explained about rubbers.

“How do you make them?” Drepteaza demanded. “They would be marvelous!” The Bucovinans – and the Lenelli – used pulling out in time for contraception, when they bothered to pull out in time. They also used blowjobs and buggery, which were more fun for men than for women. Women here had lots of children. Lots of kids died here, but lots were born.

Hasso spread his hands. “No idea.” He hadn’t seen anything like rubber here. And had the locals had it, he didn’t know how to make it thin enough for condoms. There were the ones they called skins, though…. “Sheep gut might do.”

“Like a sausage casing.” Drepteaza giggled and reached for him. “Just like a sausage casing.” Even if he didn’t usually manage two rounds close together, he surprised himself and did that night. Afterwards, he slept like a log.

The next morning, as they got ready to go back to Falticeni, Drepteaza kept going on about equality for women, and about condoms. She didn’t seem to be able to think or talk about anything else. Hasso knew he’d changed things here with his knowledge of war. He hadn’t thought what he knew about other things in his lost world might change them here, too.

Listening to Drepteaza talk, he could tell he’d been naive. She was bubbling with excitement, as if she wanted to pack a hundred years into a day. Hasso wasn’t the only one listening to her, either. Rautat sidled up to him and asked, “Why is the priestess all loopy? What kind of bullshit have you been feeding her?”