by Sharon Shinn
“But that’s—then, she has no recourse? A woman who has been abused or married into a violent household?”
“Very little. Except to run away. And her chances of making it to the city are slim. Maybe one in four. Less.”
“And once she’s there—she’s not safe there, is she? I mean, you read those stories all the time, about some woman found slaughtered in the Lost City. A woman and all her children. And that’s because she’s run away from some cruel husband? He has the right to do that?”
“Ah. The slaughter of children is really a completely separate matter.”
“You say it so casually!”
“I’m not casual” was her sharp reply. “I’m just trying to explain it to you.”
“Then explain it.”
“In Geldricht, paternity is everything. For a man, there is almost no point to life unless he has a son to whom he can pass on all his wealth, his possessions, his profession. A daughter is a bargaining chip for making advantageous deals that include marriage, but a son is the future.
“But a son is not a real person until he is twelve years old. Try hard to understand that, or none of the rest of this will make sense to you. Until he is twelve, he may as well not exist. He is cloistered with the women and the other children, and even his father rarely sees him. At least, in the more traditional households. There are some fathers who spend time with their children, but they are rare. When a boy turns twelve, there is a ceremony that marks his—well, actually marks the occasion of his coming into existence. He has legal rights. He can hold a position on his father’s estate, he can inherit if his father dies. He is officially a man.
“It is those years before manhood that are dicey ones for a boy. If his father does not approve of the way he is growing up—if his father dislikes his looks, for instance, or considers that he is not intelligent enough, not manly enough, to follow in his footsteps, he can have the boy put to death. If he—”
“Put to death! Murdered! You can’t possibly mean that!”
“Try to remember. Until he is twelve, the boy isn’t a person. He has no rights. He’s like—a dog, or a toy or—”
“You can’t be saying this. No one could believe this.”
Kit spread her hands. “In Inrhio, as I understand it, it’s fairly common for a woman to abort a child before it comes to full term.”
Nolan stared at her. “So? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Isn’t it the same thing? Aborting a life before it becomes whatever you have determined is really an individual?”
“It’s not the same thing at all! One is a—a collection of cells so small you can’t see them unless you’re in a lab with special equipment, and the other is walking around talking, breathing, laughing, playing—”
“Frankly, I think both practices are equally abominable.”
“Then how can you talk so calmly? How can you defend something that you don’t believe in?”
“How can you attack something that you don’t understand?” she shot back.
He threw his hands in the air. “Fine! Finish your explanation! Nothing you say will make me view this as anything less than primitive and barbaric.”
“And both of those elements exist in the gulden lifestyle. But unless you know why those elements are in place, and how deeply they are woven into the collective gulden psyche, you will have no hope of changing the fabric of that society.”
“As if change were possible.”
“It’s possible. It’s happening. But slowly.”
“You can tell me about that later. Finish about the children.”
“All right. So until a boy is twelve, his father can do with him what he wills. But if his father dies before he’s twelve, his life becomes even chancier. When a man dies, care of his wife and family passes to his next of kin—father, brother, uncle, cousin—no matter how distant the connection. Most often, this kinsman does not want the responsibility of another family in his household, so his first priority is to marry off the widow. Though he only has a hope of doing that if she’s still of childbearing age, because no man wants to marry if he won’t be able to produce sons. Does this all make sense so far?”
“In its way,” Nolan said grimly.
“A man who wants to have his own children has no interest in raising another man’s son. So, most often, a man who marries a widow with young children will have all the children killed. He may keep the daughters, if they are pretty enough to attract good husbands—”
“He kills them? Just like that?”
Kit nodded. “It is as if he—as if he were to drown kittens because there were too many in the litter. It happens all the time on in-country farms.”
“I never drowned a kitten. I never killed anything in my life.”
“You offered to see Jex Zanlan killed.”
“I admit that’s what I said. The truth is, I would not have been able to stop his death if you had not helped me.”
She watched him with narrowed eyes. “If you do not have power over Jex’s life,” she said slowly, “then what am I doing with you here on this train?”
“You’re taking me to see Chay Zanlan,” he set in a set, stubborn voice. “Finish your story.”
Kit resumed speaking in a subdued voice as if her mind, at first, was elsewhere. “So a widow with young children knows that her children have very little chance of survival if she is forced to remarry. And that is why so many gulden women immigrate to the city, looking for shelter. They know if they can all manage to stay alive until the oldest boys turn twelve, they are safe. To slaughter a twelve-year-old is to commit murder and be subject to a trial—and, very likely, severe punishment.”
“So that’s why there are all those stories of children killed in the ghetto,” Nolan said. “It’s all about inheritance and—and property values.”
“You’re less brutal about it in-country,” she said softly. “But your laws are just as strict. For instance, you’ll never be able to inherit property, will you?”
He shook his head slowly, dumbly. “Only through Leesa. I mean, there is property my mother will settle on me, but only when I marry. If I were to never marry, it would go to my sister or a cousin or one of their daughters.”
“And what would happen to you?”
“My mother’s estate would care for me the rest of my life. Or it would if I didn’t have an income from my job, which is probably what I would choose to live on. So if I were, for some reason, cast out of my family, I could still live, though not as comfortably as I do now. But I wouldn’t be on the street. I wouldn’t starve. I wouldn’t be hunted down and murdered by some avenging heiress.”
“That must make you feel very secure.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you! I just think you shouldn’t allow the privileges and luxuries of your own situation to blind you to the realities that others live with—and live by.”
“I’m not blinded by them. But they make me think—why can’t these same options be available to others? A guldman doesn’t want the responsibility for his brother’s widow. Fine. Teach her skills, let her earn her own money, let her be an independent woman.”
“Just because you—” she began, but he cut her off.
“Very few high-caste blueskin men have chosen to follow a career, as I have. And you’re quite correct—if a blueskin man does not marry, he becomes a burden to his family. In the noble families, of course, it’s easy to support half a dozen extraneous mouths. In the mid-caste families, so I understand, there’s some tension when a man won’t marry as he’s bid. But more and more men are taking their educations seriously, so that they can choose to go to the city and work if they elect not to marry—so they aren’t dependent on their families. I have to admit, the first time I heard a blueskin man tell me he was never going to return in-country, I was shocke
d. It had not crossed my mind that my sojourn in the city was anything more than—than an interval, a small recess in the planned course of my life. But the longer I am there, and the more I grow to love my job, the more I begin to think—why not? Why not stay here the rest of my life? I am productive and happy. Why should I have to give this up?”
“And why should you?”
He shrugged. “Because I am too deeply steeped in tradition to withstand the uproar that would create. Because I respect my mother and I do not want to hurt her. Because I love my fiancée.”
“Interesting,” Kit said dryly, “that you put the most important reason last.”
Hot color flooded his cheeks; he looked away. “So I will live as my father lived,” he continued, ignoring her interjection, “but perhaps my son will not. And if change can come to the indigo traditions, why can’t it come to the gulden ones?”
“It is coming. I told you it was. The very fact that the Lost City exists is a sign of change. Fifty years ago, no guldwoman would have made it to the city. Simply no one would have aided her. And if she did make it that far, there would have been no one in the city to help her. And even if someone had helped her, her father or her brother or her prospective husband would have tracked her down. She would not have been able to live. And now … The Lost City isn’t much, but it’s a start. The children raised there will not be subject to the strict rules and rituals that have governed their ancestors. Like you, they will say, why not? And they will learn skills, and take jobs, and marry city girls who will not permit themselves to be dominated … But all that takes so much time. Generations, usually. And it is amazing the change has even been allowed to begin.”
“Then why was it?”
“Chay’s doing, mostly. He traveled a great deal when he was a young man, visiting some of the foreign ports where his father had established business contacts. He saw societies so grand he could scarcely describe them. He had never had much respect for the indigo, you know—none of the gulden do—but in the foreign cities he encountered women of great elegance and power who seemed to awe him greatly. And I think he began asking himself some of the questions you are asking. ‘Why is my society this way? Who is benefiting and who is hurting?’ But he has to proceed very slowly, of course. Chay is ruler only so long as those he rules respect him.”
“I don’t understand you,” Nolan said. “Sometimes you seem to embrace this savage gulden lifestyle. Other times you seem to hate it. Which is it? How do you feel?”
Kit put her hands in the air and twisted her palms indecisively back and forth. “I love it, and I hate it. I love the structure, the symmetry, the definition. Everyone knows his role and does his best to fulfill it with grace and honor. When it works, it’s beautiful. When you have a kind patriarch, a loving mother, children who strive to do well and please their parents and learn all the skills they need—then it is a peaceful and harmonious place. I love to walk into a house and know where the women will sit, what the children will be wearing, what the ritual greeting will be. I know I will be treated according to my station—which, since my father was a great friend of Chay’s, is high. I know what is expected of me. There is great comfort in that.”
She paused, took a deep breath, seemed to consider, and exhaled slowly. “But. So often the machine does not work quite so smoothly. A husband is abusive or merely stupid. A daughter rebels against her chosen husband and is dismissed onto the streets. A man dies, and his children cease to exist. These things appall me. As you say, if we could give them options, they could find a different way to function within the society. But the gulden have never been keen on options before this.”
“I still don’t understand you,” Nolan said. “I don’t know how you can have such patience with the gulden lifestyle and show such scorn for the indigo—which certainly is no worse!”
A small smile flickered across her face. “It’s that obvious, is it? I do despise so much about the indigo. Maybe because my father did. Maybe because I think—with all their advantages—they really should be better than they are. You’re right that they’re no worse than the gulden. But they’re almost as restrictive. They’re not as violent to their own people, but they’ve been ruthless with the gulden. I expect them to be more enlightened, I suppose, and I’m furious that they’re not. They’re greedy and small-minded and obsessed with prestige, and I don’t see how that makes them superior to the gulden in any way. And the fact that they think they are galls me no end.”
“Then if you’re so interested in change,” he said, “why don’t you work to change your own race?”
Now it was her turn to look out the window, letting the shadows of the passing landscape mask the thoughts behind her eyes. “Maybe I will,” she said. “How do you know? Maybe I’ve been doing it all along.”
* * *
* * *
They did not speak for another two hours, by which time it was almost full dark. They were in more densely populated territory now, and every thirty minutes or so they passed through another town. Here the streets were extremely wide and the houses were gigantic—huge, rambling structures in which additional stories appeared to have been grafted on at random, with no attention paid to previous materials or styles. They were built of a motley but somehow pleasing assortment of red brick, pastel granite, painted wood, dark marble, and white stone, with accents of copper, ceramic, and plaster. Every house, even the smallest, blazed with color against the twilight, and even the meanest lawn was freshly mowed and neatly trimmed.
Nolan pointed as their train eased through one such town. “Those houses are enormous,” he said. “Who lives there? Rich people? How can there be that many wealthy people in one place?”
Kit shook her head. “Those are clan homes. Multigenerational. You might have as many as ten families living under one roof. Typically, that would be a man and his wife and his unmarried children—as well as his married children, with their spouses and children—and sometimes their children. Occasionally, two brothers will share a house, and all their offspring. Occasionally, a widowed woman will return to her clan home, if there has been no husband found for her elsewhere.”
“And why are they built so oddly? As if they were just thrown together?”
Kit laughed. “Well, in a sense they were. Most of them were built over the course of a century or so. Even now, if a clan keeps expanding, new levels will be built above the old ones—or sometimes new additions will be built onto the back. A man likes to have a large, complex home. It shows that his family has many branches—that he and his menfolk have been virile—and that he is able to care well for all those who are his responsibility.”
“Gulden houses aren’t this big in the city.”
Kit closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. “No, they aren’t. Just one of the many things lost to the city dwellers.”
“What else?” Nolan asked, but she pretended to be asleep and did not answer.
* * *
* * *
At Klevert Station, there was another hourlong layover. They took the opportunity to buy more food, for they were both getting tired of train fare. Kit bought some magazines; Nolan browsed at the newsstand, pretending he could read the headlines. A pretty gulden girl walked in, saw him, and seemed to leap backward a pace, though in reality her feet did not move. Then she stepped forward again and bestowed a charming smile on him. When she addressed him in a quick, interrogative sentence, he spread his hands and shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know your language,” he said in bluetongue very slowly, as if by emphasizing each word, he could make her understand it. She repeated her question, disappointment clear on her face. “I’m sorry,” he said again. The girl pouted, turned away, smiled at him again over her shoulder, and ambled from the shop.
Kit was at Nolan’s side in seconds. Nolan turned to her with a bemused expression. “If I didn’t know better,” he sai
d, “I’d say I’d just been flirted with.”
“Oh, you were.” She was laughing. “Take it as a compliment. It means she thinks you have money. Of course, almost any blueskin who comes this far into Geldricht does have money, but the tikitiras won’t approach just anybody, you know. They have their standards.”
“Tikitiras? Let me guess. In the city they’re called gilt girls.”
“Not exactly the same,” she said. But before she could explain, the bell sounded, alerting them that it was time to board their train. They headed for the gate at a half-run, and it took them another fifteen minutes to dispose themselves comfortably in their seats and arrange all their new purchases.
“So,” Nolan said finally. “The gilt girls. Or whatever.”
“In the city, the gilt girls are mostly runaways, girls who elected not to stay and marry the husband of their father’s choice, but who have no other skills through which to make a living. And some of them are the daughters of runaway wives, who choose this way to augment the family income. They don’t consider it especially demeaning, because in Geldricht, being a prostitute is a reputable occupation.”
Nolan snorted. Kit continued, “It’s true. It’s part of the system I told you about. Everyone has his or her place. A tikitira is usually a girl who has lost her parents and siblings and is taken under the protection of a clan leader. She has no connections, so he can’t profitably marry her off, but he will provide her with a home and clothes and the basic necessities of life. In return she provides a—a service to the men of his clan.
“You see, marriageable women are very, very strictly guarded. I won’t say none of them ever manage to have sex before they’re married, but it’s pretty rare. If they’re discovered to have lost their virginity, they lose all hope of making a marriage, and they’re generally summarily evicted. Occasionally killed, though that’s rarer these days, though their lives once they’re out of the clan home can be pretty grim. So young women must be virgins, yet gulden men are encouraged to have experience before they wed. Obviously, that equation won’t work unless somewhere in the formula there are some willing women. Thus, the tikitiras. They’ll never marry or have much status, but they do have their place, and they’re treated well. It’s not a bad life, all in all.”
