Free Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett

Starlight began.
    I could see she was just as scared as I was.
    “You said you wanted to take me across the Pool,” she said. “And I’ve come to ask you what you meant.”
    “What I meant was—”
    “Headmanson!” Dixon interrupted, striding up behind me. “There are things we need to talk about before you can answer that question. Your dad wouldn’t—”
    I turned round to face him. “Chief Dixon, I’m the Headmanson, and you’re just a chief.”
    “But this concerns all of us, Headmanson. It concerns whole of New Earth, and all the chiefs and teachers.”
    “I’ve made up my mind.”
    “Your dad won’t be happy, Headmanson, and nor will the men you’ll have to work with when he’s gone.”
    “If John Redlantern could take Brightflame with him, then why shouldn’t I—”
    “That was completely different.”
    Starlight looked at her friend with a puzzled frown. They obviously had no idea who Brightflame was. Then the holeface girl turned to me.
    “Where we live   ...” she began.
    Behind me, Chief Dixon gave a snort of contemptuous laughter. Whoever heard of a holeface talking to a Headmanson? The girl looked at him, and her eyes looked hurt and scared. She could see his contempt and she could see his power, but she pressed on all the same.
    “Where we live, we’re all together in one place. If a man and woman want to spend time together, or slip together, or have babies, well, they just do.”
    I nodded, making myself look straight at her. After all, she was Starlight’s friend, and things were different here on Old Ground.
    “That sounds a straightforward way of doing things,” I told her. “In New Earth we have more rules about how these things are done.”
    “What rules?” asked Starlight.
    I looked back at her, turning away from her friend, away from Dixon, away from everyone, and it was like the two of us disappeared into some completely different place where there was no one there but us. She was so lovely, with those sharp sharp eyes, and that proud way she stood. Proud, yet not proud like a chief’s daughter, not proud because of her father’s metal or her father’s ground, but proud in a way I’d never seen before. I wished I could be proud like that.
    “In the old times, in Old Family,” I told her, “when everyone still lived up in Circle Valley, people could slip with whoever they wanted, and lots of folk didn’t even know who their dads were. John didn’t like that, so he made it a rule in New Earth that a woman should be with just one man, so that all her children would be his children, too. It’s the same here in Veeklehouse, I’ve noticed. Pretty much the same. These Davidfolk are always—”
    “Tom’s dick,” interrupted Starlight. “Please, please just tell me what you’re asking me!”
    “Headmanson,” Chief Dixon growled behind me, “there are other rules to think about.”
    “Not rules from John. Otherwise, why did he go with Brightflame?”
    Starlight pressed her hands to her head as if it was going to burst. “Please just tell me, Greenstone!”
    I glared at Chief Dixon to warn him to keep silent. “I’m asking you to be my housewoman, Starlight!”
    “Headmanson!” Dixon shouted.
    “What?” said Starlight. “ Housewoman ? David’s shriveled heart, what does that mean ?”
    “You probably shouldn’t speak of David like that here in Veeklehouse,” I said. I was trying to lighten things and make her smile. But it was no time for jokes. “I’m sorry if I haven’t explained it to you properly. Over on our Grounds, a man’s housewoman is the woman who lives with him, and is the mother to his kids and no one else’s. I want that to be how it is with you and me.”
    “But you’re the Headmanson! You’ve got all these ringmen and   ... Oh, Jeff’s ride, I don’t understand anything . What is a headmanson?”
    “The son of the Headman,” I reminded her. “Do you remember I told you that up on the cliff there? My father is Headman