‘You tire too easily. What sort of a cavalla officer will you be when you cannot stand up to the demands of a simple game?’ she asked me tartly. Smiling, she turned to Spink. ‘You are not weary yet, are you?’ she asked him.
He smiled back. ‘I could play another hand or two.’
‘Excellent. Then we shall!’
I had expected Spink to side with me. Deprived of my ally, I conceded and we played another three hands. Midway through our second hand, my uncle looked in on us. Epiny immediately and enthusiastically welcomed him back to the game, but he firmly declined, saying he had some reading to do. Before he retired to that, he reminded us that the next day was the Sixday, and that we should all get to bed early enough that we could easily rise for the daylight services he always attended.
‘We’re just going to do a few more hands,’ Epiny assured him to my dismay, for I was very willing to retire from her and her game and seek a good night’s rest. My uncle left and we finished yet another round of the tedious game. Then, as Epiny gathered the markers to set them up afresh she asked us, ‘Has either of you ever been part of a séance?’
‘A science?’ Spink was puzzled, then helpfully offered, ‘Nevare appears to enjoy geology as a hobby.’
‘No. Not a science.’ Epiny continued to set up the playing pieces for the game. She was sending us only furtive glances, gauging our reactions from under her eyelashes. ‘A séance. A summoning of spirits, often through a medium. Like me.’
‘A medium what?’ I asked her. She laughed aloud.
‘I am a medium. Or so I believe, for so the Queen’s medium said to me the last time I attended a séance at my mother’s side. I’ve only begun to explore my talent in the last four months. A medium is someone with the power to invite spirits to speak through her body. Sometimes the spirits are the ghosts of those who have died, but who earnestly wish to convey some final bit of information to the living. Sometimes the spirits appear to be elder beings, perhaps even the remnants of the old gods who were worshipped before the good god came to free us from that darkness. And sometimes …’
‘Oh. Those. I’ve heard some talk about them. People sitting in a circle in the dark, holding hands and playing at bogey-frights on one another. It sounds unholy, and completely unfit for a girl to be interested in,’ I told her sternly. In my heart, I was full of curiosity and longing to hear more, but I did not wish to tempt my own cousin to corruption.
‘Indeed?’ She gave me a disdainful look. ‘Perhaps you ought to tell that to my mother, for tonight she assists the Queen at her weekly séance session. Or perhaps the Queen herself would like to hear your notions of what is “unholy and unfit for girls”.’ She turned to Spink. ‘The Queen says that much of what is judged “unfit for women to pursue” are the very sciences and disciplines that lead to power. What do you think of that?’
Spink glanced at me but I had no help for him. It struck me as an entirely peculiar conversation, not unlike Epiny herself. He took a breath, and the expression on his face was the same one he wore when an instructor called on him in class. ‘I have not had much time to reflect on that, but on the surface, it would certainly seem true. 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 swivelled 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 fulfil 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 séance with me?’
‘I … of course not! It’s unholy. It’s improper!’ I throttled a terrible curiosity to know how a séance worked and if anything real ever happened in one.
‘Unholy? Why?’
‘Well, it is all trickery and lies.’
‘Hmm. Well, if it is 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 that 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. ‘Séances 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. ‘Séances 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 séances: 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
