The Serpent's Shadow

and graphic obscenities promising that the shouter would inflict a great deal more than a simple beating if he got his hands on one of the women.

Maya kept her eyes on the girls ahead of her, but she couldn't help but shiver internally. She considered herself to be brave, but it seemed to her that there was no doubt many of those men would do exactly as they threatened if they could catch a suffragette alone.

They were so angry! How could a demand by women that they have a right that these men had and didn't even value enough to exercise be so threatening to them? Why should they care?

Perhaps because if they 'allow' us to vote, they will have to treat us as equals? Unbidden, memories arose with each step on the pavement, echoing in her mind in concert with the marching cadence behind her. So many women coming into the Fleet beaten within an inch of their lives—with broken bones or flesh not just bruised but pulped. So long as the woman didn't die, it was perfectly legal for a father or husband to treat her worse than a dog or a horse! He could starve her, beat her, torture her, abuse her in any way his mind could encompass. He could make her sleep on the dirt floor of a cellar dressed only in rags, force her to work until she dropped, then force her to turn over the fruits of her labor to him. She was his property, to do with as he willed, and the force of the law was behind him.

And then there were those who did die; all the man had to do was to claim he had caught 'his' woman in adultery, and the law released him to the streets, to do the same to another woman, and another, and another.

Even among men who counted themselves as civilized and would not dream of physically hurting a female, there was the repeated and deliberate starvation of woman's intellect. Consider the refusal of male instructors to teach women subjects they considered improper—that was the reason the London School of Medicine for Women had been founded in the first place. For heaven's sake, Oxford hadn't even granted degrees to women in anything until the end of last century!

And the marriage laws! While a father lived, no matter how incompetent, a woman's property could be handled (or mishandled) by him. Once married, it belonged to her husband, again to be treated as he willed! Even when a woman earned money by her own work, it belonged to him! The only time a woman could be free from interference was when father and husband (if she had one) were both dead—and even then, any male relative who wished to have what she had earned could have her brought into court and declared incompetent! She had seen that happen, to women who were too intimidated to fight back, or those who lost in the court to a lawyer with a smoother tongue (or a readier hand with a bribe) than hers had been!

With every step, with every memory, her fear fled, and her anger rose. Last of all came the most recent memories, of Simon Parkening and his cronies heckling both her and her unconscious, helpless patient, afraid of her competence, and trying to overmaster her with brutal words because they could not beat her into submission.

And neither they, nor these other beasts will beat us down! she thought, her anger now bringing new energy to her steps, so that she raised her head and glared at the hecklers in the streets with white-hot rage in her eyes. Go ahead! she challenged silently. Threaten me all you like! You only prove that you are worse than the brute animals!

'Votes for Women' was only the battle cry, the hook upon which all else depended. It was emancipation of women that was the real issue—for until women could vote, they could never change the laws that oppressed them and made them slaves.

Maya was not the only one mustering anger as a weapon against the mob; she saw now that others were glaring at their tormentors with equal defiance as they marched. In the younger girls, the defiance was mixed partly with fear, but mostly with excitement. Perhaps they had not yet had enough experience with the worst that men could do for the fear to seem very real to them. But in the older women, it was clear that the anger had overmastered the fear, and their glares were intended to shame the instruments of that fear.

Sometimes it even worked, when they could actually catch and hold the eyes of those who shouted so angrily at the marchers. Now and again, a man stopped in mid-shout, his mouth gaping foolishly. His face flushed, he dropped his eyes, and he slunk into the crowd. But there was always another shoving forward to take his place.

At this moment, Maya almost hated Men, the entire brutal race of them.

Almost. For there were men among the marchers, and not the cowed, hen-pecked specimens depicted in the cartoons of the critical press either. Men who were braver and stronger than the ones shouting on the line of march, because they weren't afraid of women who were just as brave and strong as they were! For their sake, Maya could not take the easy route of condemning the whole sex—only those who were too cowardly, weak, and ignorant to bear the thought of losing their domination over those that should have been their partners.

At last their goal came within sight. Parliament, where the marchers were going to lay their coffin, fill it with stones until it was too heavy to lift, and some of the women were going to chain themselves to it and to the railings of the stairs and the fences. These women would be arrested and dragged off to prison, of course, where they would also go on hunger strikes, and be force-fed—

And die, perhaps. Until shame overtakes those in authority and the murdering stops!

Amelia worked her way up through the marchers to Maya's side. 'As soon as we gather and start to fill the coffin, you and I need to slip off,' Amelia said quietly, under the muffled drumming and the shouts.