“Yes. About eighteen hundred of them. Most are just about at the legal age. They left the cities, went to the Great Island, and there they have built themselves a village. They grow food there; they work; they are self-supporting. To many old women and a few girl-children, they have given sanctuary.”
“And the government does nothing about it?” I exclaimed.
“They did, at first. Men were sent to the Virgins’ Island to get some of the old women; but the girls forcibly resisted them. Some of the girls were killed. Nothing much has been done about it since. The government, I think, does not know what to do.”
She was scornful. “Our girls are very beautiful. It would not be profitable to kill them.”
Alice said, “You reach the marriage age in a year, Sonya? Have any men recorded their names for you?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “There were eight, I think, when I last went to the records.”
“But you wouldn’t marry any of them? Or perhaps I should not ask.”
“Why not? There is no secret in such things. One man whose name is recorded for me I love very dearly. Our prince.”
A sound from Dolores interrupted her. Dolores was sitting with hands to her forehead and eyes closed. She murmured, “I caught someone’s thoughts! Now they come again.”
We waited through a breathless silence. Then Dolores murmured, “The prince. You called him Altho? It is he!”