The Exile and the Sorcerer

by Jane Fletcher

  “So it doesn’t help us find who took the chalice.”

  “Lorimal’s name is a good starting point.” Jemeryl kept her voice level, even though her hopes soared at Tevi’s use of the word “us.” “The best thing would be for you and me to go to Lyremouth. There’s bound to be more information in the Coven library.”

  Tevi’s brief burst of enthusiasm died. Her eyes fixed on the desk, and she dug at the grain with her fingernail. “That’s if I bother. I’m sorry, Jem, but you can’t come with me.”

  “I have to.”

  “I don’t want company.”

  It was the old stalemate. Jemeryl’s patience snapped. “It doesn’t matter what you want. I’ve been ordered to go.”

  Tevi looked shocked. “By who? And why?”

  Instead of answering, Jemeryl kicked her chair back and stalked across to the window. She stared out over the valley. Ten days before, she would not have dreamed of telling the truth to a common, ungifted citizen. Now her emotions were so raw that the thought of losing face before Tevi was irrelevant. But would it help?

  Jemeryl took a deep breath and turned back. “I wasn’t told why. My mentor contacted me a few hours before you came to the castle. She told me about you and the basilisk. She said that when you left, I had to go with you. She also took the opportunity to tell me I’m a disgrace to the Coven.”

  “What!”

  “Reports from the village have got back to Lyremouth.”

  “But the villagers have got you all wrong.”

  “It’s nice you think that, but I wasn’t able to convince my mentor. I’ve been removed from my post in the valley and ordered to help you on your quest. So I’m going with you, and that’s the end of it.”

  “You have helped. You’ve found Lorimal’s name. I could go to Lyremouth on my own and ask someone there to do the rest.”

  Jemeryl shrugged. “If I don’t leave with you, I might as well go straight to Lyremouth anyway. They like you there in person when your case is taken before the disciplinary tribunal.”

  “You wouldn’t be punished?”

  “Disobeying a direct order? Of course I would.”

  “What would happen to you?”

  “I’m trying not to think about it.” Jemeryl reclaimed her seat at the desk. “But it isn’t going to happen, as I’m going with you.”

  Tevi licked her lips nervously. “Perhaps you could come as far as Lyremouth. When we’re there, I can explain that I don’t want you with me.”

  “That will go down nearly as well as me deserting you.”

  “Why?”

  “I was hauled over the coals for upsetting the locals. Now I’ve done the same with you. I don’t know how.” Jemeryl’s head sank; her voice dropped as well. “Would it help if I said sorry?”

  “You haven’t upset me. You’ve been really nice.”

  “Oh, sure. I’m so wonderful you can’t stand being in my presence.”

  “That’s not far from the truth,” Tevi mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Jemeryl buried her face in her hands. “Tevi, please. Tell me what I’ve done to offend you. Give me the chance to put things right.”

  “You haven’t done anything.”

  “Tevi, come on,” Jemeryl pleaded. “You can’t stop me following you, but I can’t stop you saying what you will to my superiors. If you’re going to wreck my life, you at least owe me an explanation.”

  Tevi slumped backwards. Her knuckles were white on the tabletop. At last, she blurted out, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

  “What is?”

  “It’s me. I’m not fit company for any woman.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “No. It’s true. The quest for the chalice was a way to exile me while saving my family the embarrassment of a public trial.”

  She’s murdered someone. It was the first thought to shoot through Jemeryl’s head, followed quickly by disbelief. There was no trace of malicious violence in Tevi. It must have been an accident, or a mistake, or something else. Who could tell what the barbarian laws of the islands might be?

  In a whisper, Jemeryl asked, “What did you do?”

  “It was what they thought I was going to do.”

  “Be sensible. Even Coven seers don’t punish people for what they’re going to do.”

  “They were right.”

  “If I’m any judge of character, you’re a decent, honest person. I don’t know what you think you were about to do, but I can’t believe it was anything that bad, and even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. The Coven leaders want me to go with you. I can’t see them being put off by a crime that hasn’t been committed yet, in a land outside their jurisdiction.”

  “Wouldn’t they want to protect you from me?”

  Despite the overwrought atmosphere, Jemeryl had to restrain the urge to laugh. “I think you’d have difficulty persuading them you presented any threat to me. I don’t mean to imply that you’re not a formidable warrior, but I’m a sorcerer. A dozen of you couldn’t—” Jemeryl broke off. “Tevi, you’re not making sense. What is this crime you’re going to commit? How could you harm me?”

  There was a long silence. When Tevi finally spoke her voice was a dull mumble. “I have a problem with men.”

  Jemeryl tried to understand. “I’m sure the same could be said for most women on your islands.”

  “No, it’s different. I’m not sure how to explain.” Tevi’s eyes were devoid of fight and of hope. “There were slang terms on the islands, crude ones. I’ve not tried to find out what your words are for it. I thought it best to avoid the subject completely.”

  Jemeryl opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again. Tevi was finding things difficult enough without interruptions.

  Tevi continued, picking her words deliberately. “I feel about other women the way a normal woman would only feel about men. In my heart, I can only...”

  The struggle to say that much had left Tevi shaking. She leaned forward and rested her head on her hands. However, Jemeryl was no more the wiser. It was obvious that the confession had taken a lot of effort, but despite turning the words around in her head, Jemeryl could produce no interpretation that was not totally absurd.

  “I’m sorry, Tevi. I don’t understand what you mean.” Jemeryl spoke as gently as she could.

  “Don’t play games with me.” Tevi sprung to her feet, knocking over her chair. In three steps, she had reached the door.

  Jemeryl could not allow Tevi to escape. A pull on the sixth-dimension tensors sent the bolt sliding into its socket and all of Tevi’s superhuman strength could not get it to budge. After a few desperate attempts, Tevi let go of the handle and turned back.

  Jemeryl was still seated. Quietly she said, “I’m sorry, but believe me, I’m not playing games. This is much too important to me.”

  “Jem...”

  “I really don’t know what you mean.”

  Tevi slumped against the door. She closed her eyes and swallowed. “I’m physically attracted to other women, not men. I fall in love with them. I can’t help it. It’s women that I want sexually. And right now, I want...” Tevi’s words died in a grimace of pain. She twisted around to face the barred door, resting her hands on the wooden planks. “Please let me go.”

  There was utter, wretched despair in Tevi’s voice. Jemeryl could not refuse. The bolt moved back, and Tevi tore open the door. Her footsteps pounded on the stairs and away.

  Jemeryl stared after her. She was still not certain she understood, but Tevi’s confession had struck a chord with something she had read earlier that morning. Thoughtfully, Jemeryl pulled her grandfather’s book towards her and thumbed back several chapters.

  The section she wanted was a lengthy extract from a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old report by a Coven sorcerer named Bolitho. It had been made in the mistaken expectation of Walderim imminently joining the Protectorate. In the guise of an itinerant healer, Bolitho had travelled throughout Wal
derim while preparing extensive notes on the inhabitants. Some of his analysis reflected ideologies, fashionable at the time, that were no longer accepted. However, he had been a conscientious observer, and one of his findings seemed to offer the explanation Jemeryl needed. It took a few seconds to find the part she wanted, relating to gender stereotyping.

  Jemeryl settled down to read.

  *

  Inherent to a hereditary culture has to be belief in the inborn superiority of the ruling elite. Other groups have their value assigned on a descending scale, with the lowest sections relegated to subhuman status. In Walderim, the main groups to suffer from this have been women and migrant workers from the north.

  The position of women is especially bleak, partly due to the widely held belief that instead of being distinguished by minor statistical variations, the characters of the two sexes are in some way diametrically opposed. In fact, the phrase “the opposite sex” is in common use. There is a refusal even to accept that a male sorcerer has vastly more in common with a female sorcerer than with an ungifted man (although I suspect that this will change once Walderim joins the Protectorate).

  I had a conversation with one of their philosophers. He explained how the universe was divided into male and female principles. Male was active, light, hard; female was passive, dark, soft. We had this conversation sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree. I found a male and female wood louse in the rotten wood and asked the philosopher to illustrate these “universal” principles, using the wood lice as examples. The philosopher then accused me of being absurd!

  The ideology results in a need to exaggerate any perceived gender difference into an unbreakable law of nature. For example, an inhabitant will state, “Men are taller than women.” If I point out that only a small average difference exists, and the divergence is such that many women are taller than many men, I am met with animosity, as if I am being deliberately perverse.

  This may at first seem amusing, but in practice, it is quite odious. People’s lives are made miserable if their stature is such as to challenge the assertions about gender and height. It is as if tall women or short men have committed an indiscretion and are deserving of derision or censure. With personality traits, such as aggression or compassion, that are harder to measure objectively and seen as under the individual’s control (despite the contradiction with the idea that they are fixed by nature), the extent of the assumed polarisation and culpability is intensified. It is a brave person who refuses to distort his or her personality by pretending to match their gender stereotype.

  Some people in Walderim seem aware that their culture’s gender stereotyping is artificial. Yet by adulthood, the beliefs have been ingrained on a subconscious level. However much they might value courage and independence, they are still more comfortable ridiculing an assertive woman than they are respecting her—since, needless to say, the majority of positive character traits are seen as male. For women to assume an active role in society, they will need to overcome the stigma of being “unfeminine.”

  The enforced divergence of the sexes has one inevitable side effect. It has been observed that everyone is romantically attracted to a narrow spectrum of personality type, centred around a few key traits. Since children in Walderim are raised to see the characters of men and women as diametrically opposite, it follows that anyone seeking a long-term partner will perceive their idealised mate as falling into an exclusively male or female pattern, and will even be unable to respond to the personality type if it is encountered in the “wrong” sex. I strongly suspect that few raised in this culture will be capable of falling passionately in love with persons of either sex.

  This would be of no more than incidental interest were it not for strict local doctrines forbidding erotic relationships between people of the same gender. Such relationships are claimed to be deviant and unnatural.

  During my time in Walderim, I have been discreetly approached by many with an exclusive attraction to people of their own gender, who wish me to “cure” them. I have been astonished by the strength of their belief in their culture’s doctrine. They agree that people are right to despise them. They despise themselves.

  The first time the request was made of me, I made the mistake of telling the man that while in the Protectorate, my own lovers had not been restricted to women. I suggested that he accompany me when I returned. Instead of the relief I expected, the man accused me of trying to turn Walderim into a “decadent” region like the Protectorate. To my astonishment, he told me in an impassioned speech that “some people still know what normal behaviour is.” He then resorted to denouncing me to the rest of his tribe, claiming that I had tried to “defile” him.

  I can conclude by saying that of all the things I have found in Walderim, this is the one that has surprised me the most. I was prepared to find people held in a state of subservience and those in power enforcing their beliefs on the less fortunate. However, this self-oppression has left me dumbfounded.

  Even where people of different genders are attracted to each other, the result is less than satisfactory from a Protectorate viewpoint. As each partner has to conform to their own gender stereotype and may appreciate their partner only as the opposite stereotype, it seems impossible that they can ever really know their lover. The complaint “My wife doesn’t understand me” is so common as to be a joke. It is all quite astonishing and very sad.

  Eliminating the exploitation of migrant workers from northern Walderim is also likely to encounter problems...

  *

  Jemeryl scanned the rest of the extract, but there was nothing else of relevance. At the end of the chapter were a few additional comments from her grandfather, which stated that the conditions described by Bolitho had largely disappeared from Walderim, although echoes remained, particularly among the lower social orders.

  Jemeryl pushed the book away. “I guess that explains what Tevi was going on about. The clans would have taken their beliefs with them to the islands. And it explains her tortured attitude. It must be awful to believe that you’re evil and depraved, and unable to do anything about it.” Jemeryl spoke quietly. “Poor Tevi.”

  “So what do you do now?” Klara landed on the desk.

  “I don’t know. If Tevi has absorbed her society’s morality in the fashion described by Bolitho, there’s no hope of persuading her to change her mind. But it still doesn’t explain why she doesn’t want me with her. Although I suppose she might be worried that I’ll try to seduce her.”

  “That’s not a totally groundless fear on her part.”

  Jemeryl shook her head. “It doesn’t match the feel of Tevi’s words. It was as if she expected me to be shocked.”

  “Bolitho described a pretty strange mindset. Perhaps the island’s culture is so ingrained that she has to accredit the same ethics to others, even when she must know they won’t share them.”

  “Maybe. But there has to be some way around it.”

  “On to a new field of enquiry?” Klara said brightly.

  Jemeryl considered the bookcase. She summoned a thin volume from the top shelf. “Somewhere in here is a section on the perpetuation of cultural ethics by transferred guilt, considered as an imbalance in fifth-dimensional perspective fields.”

  “I suppose you’ve got nothing about the utilisation of incomprehensible terms by sorcerers, considered as a nervous reflex under pressure?”

  “No, but I might have a recipe for roast magpie somewhere.”

  Chapter Fifteen—Clueless

  Night had fallen by the time Jemeryl finished reading. She had found a lot of ominous warnings, but very little in the way of helpful advice. Before leaving the study, she stood for a long while at the window, staring at the moon riding between ragged clouds. Talking to Tevi was going to be difficult, and Jemeryl had the nagging feeling that an important piece of information was still missing.

  She left Klara in the study—the magpie’s sarcasm would not help—and went in search of the islander. The castle was so sil
ent, she could hear the thudding of her heart. When she entered the parlour, the only light came from the hearth. The chairs were all empty, but then she spotted Tevi sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring bleakly into the fire.

  Tevi did not move at the sound of the door opening and closing. Jemeryl came to a halt a few steps into the room. “Tevi?”

  There was no response.

  “I’d like to talk to you.”

  “If you want. I’m finished with running,” Tevi answered apathetically.

  Hesitantly, Jemeryl slipped into a chair beside the fireplace. Tevi’s eyes remained fixed on the flames, her expression one of absolute desolation. Jemeryl knew she was way out of her depth. All of her carefully planned questions evaporated. She was going to have to start talking, keep her words and tone as calm as possible—and hope.

  “Tevi...what you said. I’ve been looking at my books and I think I’m beginning to understand, but I’m still unclear. I wonder if you... if we could sort things out.”

  The muscles bunched in Tevi’s jaw. “What is there to sort out?”

  “Well, from what you’ve said, on your islands men and women have strictly differentiated roles.” Jemeryl spoke in a general search for inspiration. “What are your feelings about the way people relate to each other on the mainland?”

  “It doesn’t help, if that’s what you mean.”

  “In what way?”

  Confusion gave Tevi her first spark of life. “Pardon?”

  “In what way doesn’t it help? If that’s not a silly question.”

  Tevi glanced in Jemeryl’s direction as if to judge her seriousness. “It confuses me. All the men look and act like women. It’s often impossible for me to tell them apart. But I’ve found it best not to make the effort. If I become too mindful that someone is a man, they usually end up complaining that I’m treating them like an idiot. So I try to act as if they’re all women, but I can only push the pretence so far. Inside, I know they’re not really women, and I’m not...attracted to them like women.”