Lucia felt only numb. She couldn’t imagine the consequences of what Rosa was saying. She could see nothing to connect her fifteen-year-old self to the wizened, pregnant old woman she had met. “But I am nothing,” she said. “A month ago I was starving to death because nobody would talk to me.”

“In a way it was your—ah—breakout that helped me establish you as the right candidate. You have strength of mind, Lucia, strength of character. Not many of your contemporaries could have endured so much. And we need strength to face the future. The world changes, and the Order must change with it. We need a certain independence of thinking in our children, a will to accept the unfamiliar—even though there is a paradox, for to get by we all must accept our place in the Order, and not think too hard, as you know to your cost.”

“It’s impossible,” Lucia whispered.

“No.” Rosa took her arm. “Just a little hard to imagine, that’s all. And now, here is the man I want you to meet . . .”

Lucia turned. The man was right behind them. She hadn’t heard him approach.

He was perhaps thirty. He was taller than Lucia, and bulkier; his body looked a little soft, flabby, and his skin was pale. He wore casual clothes, a pale blue shirt and jeans. His hair was dark and neatly combed, but he had something of the features of the sisters, of Lucia and Rosa themselves.

He smiled at her. And as he glanced over Lucia’s figure his gray eyes were alive with something of the intensity of the contadino boys.

Rosa touched Lucia’s lips with one fingertip. “Don’t say anything. You mustn’t speak to each other. Lucia, this is Giuliano Andreoli. He’s a contadino, strictly speaking. But he’s actually your distant cousin—you can tell from the coloring—you can look him up in the scrinium if you like. He lives in Venice. He’s a bricklayer . . . I think that’s enough. Come now.”

She took Lucia’s arm and led her away. Lucia looked back, but Giuliano was already out of sight, around the bend of the corridor.

“I don’t understand,” whispered Lucia.

“Reproductive biology, Lucia. To produce babies you don’t need just mothers, but fathers, too. Oh, of course, nowadays the new biotechnologies could make anything possible, but the ancient ways are the best, I think . . . Ninety-five percent of the babies born here are girls. Most of the boys leave after their schooling, and those who stay are mostly either homosexual or neuter.” Neuter: it seemed a strange, cold, clinical term. Rosa went on, “So where are the fathers to come from? From outside, of course—though we like to keep it in the family if we can.”

Lucia stopped. “Rosa, please—who is Giuliano?”

Rosa smiled, but there was a wistful sadness in her expression. “Why, he’s your lover.”

Chapter 28

Chapter 28