Women are not encouraged to study the exact sciences or engineering. The complete texts of the Holy Writ are forbidden to them; they only study the writings given specifically for women. The arts and sciences of war are judged unfit…if those be the paths to power, then, yes, perhaps women are denied those paths when they are denied those disciplines.”
“Why should it matter?” I spread my hands. “If there are disciplines that are unfit for girls, then it is only natural that those disciplines would lead to inappropriate ends. Why would any father put his daughter on a path that can only lead her to unhappiness and frustration?”
Epiny swiveled her gaze to me. “Why would a powerful woman be unhappy and frustrated?”
“Because she wouldn’t, well, a powerful woman, would not…have, well, a home and family and children. She wouldn’t have time for all the things that fulfill a woman.”
“Powerful men have those things.”
“Because they have wives,” I pointed out to her.
“Exactly,” she said, as if she had just proven something.
I shook my head at her. “I’m going to bed.”
“You’re leaving me alone here with Spink?” she asked. She feigned being scandalized, but the look she shot Spink was almost hopeful. He shook his head at her regretfully.
“No, I’m not. Spink is going to bed, too. You heard your father. We have to waken early for Sixday services at dawn.”
“If the good god is always with us, why must we worship him at such an awful hour?” Epiny demanded.
“Because it is our duty. It’s a small sacrifice he asks of us, to demonstrate our respect for him.”
“That,” she told me archly, “was a rhetorical question. I already know its conventional answer. I just think it’s a good idea for all of us to think about it now and then. For just as the good god makes rather strange requests of how men must show their respect, so do men make peculiar demands of women. And children. Are you truly going up to bed already?”
“I am.”
“You won’t stay and hold a seance with me?”
“I…of course not! It’s unholy. It’s improper!” I throttled a terrible curiosity to know how a seance worked and if anything real ever happened in one.
“Unholy? Why?”
“Well, it is all trickery and lies.”
“Hm. Well, if itis all trickery, then it can scarcely be sinful. Unless, of course…” She paused and looked at me quite seriously, almost as if alarmed. “Do you think those mimes who pester people in the Old Square are sinful? They are always pretending to climb ladders or lean on walls that aren’t there. Are they unholy, too?”
Spink choked back a laugh. I ignored him. “Seances are unholy because of what you are trying to do, or pretending to do, not just because they are all fakery. And they are a most improper activity for young ladies.”
“Why is it improper? Because we hold hands in the dark? The queen does it.”
“Nevare, surely if the queen does it, it cannot be improper.” This, from Spink of all people.
I took a breath, resolved to be calm and logical. I felt a bit affronted that they were united against me. I spoke coolly. “Seances are unholy because you are trying to take a god’s power to yourself. Or at least, pretend to have such. I’ve heard something of seances: foolish people sitting in the dark, holding hands, listening for thumps and knocks and whispers. Why do you think they hold them in the dark, Epiny? Why do you think nothing about them is ever clear or straightforward? All is mumble and mystery. We are of the good god, Epiny, and we should set the superstition and trickery and magic of the old gods behind us. Soon, if we ignore them all, they will fade to nothing, and their magic will be no more. The world will be a better, safer place when the old gods have passed away completely.”
“I see. And is that why you and Spink both do that little finger-wavy charm thing over your cinches each time you go to mount your horses?”
I stared at her, astonished. The “keep fast” charm was something I had learned from Sergeant Duril when I first learned to saddle my own horse. Before then, he or my father had made the charm. It was a cavalla tradition, a tiny bit of the old magic that we had kept for ourselves. I had once asked the sergeant where it had come from, and he had said, in an offhand way, that most likely we had learned it from the conquered Plainsmen. Then he had mentioned that there had used to be other little charms, a string charm to find water, and another to give strength to a flagging horse, but that they did not seem to work as well as they once had. He suspected that all our iron and steel was the cause of the magic fading. And then he added that it was probably not wise for a cavalla man to be using too much of the magic that we had learned from our enemies. A man who did that might end up “going native.” At the time, I had been too young to fully understand what was meant by the phrase, other than that it was very bad. So Epiny talking about that magic to me suddenly made me feel both exposed and ashamed. “That’s private!” I exclaimed indignantly, and glanced at Spink, expecting him to mirror my outrage.
Instead he said thoughtfully, “Perhaps she has a point.”
“She does not!” I retorted. “Answer honestly, Epiny. Don’t you think seances are an affront to the good god?”
“Why? Why should he care?”
I had no ready reply to Epiny’s question. “It just seems wrong to me. That’s all.”
Spink turned to me, his hands palm up. “Go back, Nevare. Let’s talk about the “keep fast” charm. You know it’s a small magic we use. And everyone says it works, when they say anything about it at all. So either we are as ungodly as Epiny is for tampering with such things, or there is no sin in investigating it.”
Spink was taking her side again. “Spink, you should know seances are a lot of nonsense. Otherwise, why would there be all those rules about holding them in the dark, and keeping silent, and not being able to ask questions during them, and all that silliness. It’s to cover up the trickery, that’s all!”
“You seem to know a great deal about them for one who has never taken part in one,” Epiny observed sweetly.
“My sisters went away for a spring week at a friend’s house. When they returned, they spoke of holding a seance there, because a visiting cousin from Old Thares had told them about one. They’d heard a wild tale of floating plates and unseen bells and knocking on tabletops, so they all joined hands and sat in a circle in the dark and waited. Nothing happened, though they scared themselves silly waiting. Nothing happened because there was no charlatan there to make things happen and pretend the spirits were doing it!”
I think my irritation had daunted even Epiny, for she sounded subdued when she said, “There is a lot more to it than floating plates and mysterious knocks, Nevare. I don’t doubt that there could be fakes and charlatans, but the seance I attended was real. Very real and a bit frightening. Things happened to me there…I felt things that no one could explain. And Guide Porilet said that I had the same skill that she did, but was untrained. Why do you think I was left here with Father this time? It was because I interfered with the trained medium and she could not summon the spirits to herself while I was there. They all wanted to come to me. I suppose I cannot blame you for doubting me. I could scarcely believe it myself at first. I found all sorts of ways to deny it and explain it away. But it wouldn’t stay gone.”
This last she said in a very soft, uncertain voice. I capitulated to her feelings. “I’m sorry, Epiny. I’d believe you if I could. But all my logic and reason tell me that these ‘summonings’ are simply not real. I’m sorry.”
“Are you, Nevare? Truly?” She straightened slightly, a flower refreshed by a gentle rain.
I smiled at her. “Truly, Epiny. I’d believe you if I could.”
She grinned in response and jumped to her feet. “Then I’ll make an offer to you. Let’s just turn down the lamp wicks, extinguish all but two candles, and sit around it, holding hands, in a circle. Perhaps you are right and nothing at all will happen. But if things do start to happen, you can tell me ‘stop’ and I’ll stop it. Now what could be the harm in that?”
She had acted as she spoke. By the time she finished, she had darkened the room except for two fat yellow candles burning on what had been our game table. Their wicks were short and the flames guttered shallowly in the fragrant wax. Epiny sat down in the dimness, folding her legs under her skirt. She extended one hand to Spink. For the first time, I noticed how slender and graceful her fingers were. He took her hand without hesitation. With her free hand, she patted a cushion next to her and extended her hand in invitation to me. I sighed, recognizing both that it was inevitable and that, deep down, my own curiosity was urging me on.
