“Impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible when it comes to youthful mischief, as we all know,” Onsofruct drawled in a muffled voice.
Questioner said firmly, “Since we are more or less alone, just we four … women, I think it’s time for you to tell me the truth about Newholme.”
D’Jevier refused to be cowed. “By all the Hagions,” she erupted, planting her feet firmly on the trail and turning on her interlocutor. “Don’t play games with us, Questioner. You know the truth! You know we lied about the Timmys. You’ve probably had that one figured out since shortly after you got here. I don’t know what made us think we could hide it.”
“I know some of the truth about that, yes,” said Questioner. “But I am speaking now of the truth of Mouche and Madame. I mean the other truth.”
The three women looked at one another. Onsofruct sighed. “What about Mouche and Madame?”
“This Consort business. This business of men going about in veils.”
The two sisters exchanged a glance, and Onsofruct shrugged. “There’s no point in not telling you. It’s not unethical.”
Questioner said, “You may be right, though I doubt Haraldson would have approved. It’s part of the Newholmian pattern, and I need to know about all of it.”
D’Jevier sat on a boulder at the edge of the path, removed her boot, and dumped gravel out of it, saying: “Tell her about the woman raids, D’Jevier. That’s where the whole thing started.”
D’Jevier did so, concluding, “The men who took them made no bones about their intentions. They’d been promised wives with the second ship, and they weren’t going to wait. They had stolen women, they would steal more, and they intended to keep them all under lock and key to prevent their running away.
“Well, Honored Questioner, ‘keeping women under lock and key’ or ‘stopping their running away’ sounded like the worst sort of patriarchal repression to our foremothers, some of whom, as required by the Settlement Act, were cultural historians.”
Onsofruct interrupted, “The women knew that if we got entrenched in a patriarchal system, no matter how useful it might be for a generation or two, there’d be no simple way to stop it sixty or seventy years later. Once a male dominance system got started, it would take centuries before their daughters and granddaughters could achieve equality.”
D’Jevier got to her feet and started down the path again, Questioner close behind. “The women used the fortress in Sendoph. It was unfinished, but it had strong walls that were easy to defend, and our ancestresses had control of medical care, tools, weapons, and women. That gave them what they needed to enforce the newly written dower laws. Our foremothers knew that when women had to be paid for, they were more highly valued, so we told the men they’d either pay and pay well for a woman’s reproductive life, or they would do without.
“Well, you know about the dower laws. Women have a contractual right to be well supported during their entire lifetimes—there is no divorce in an economic sense—and in return the women agree to contribute their reproductive capabilities to their husbands’ lineage for a specified number of years. If a woman has talents or skills, the contract may include some contribution toward the business. The marriage contract can guarantee support, but no contract can guarantee affection or pleasure. Our people thought women should be entitled to those as well. After a dutiful childbearing, women had a right to the same pleasures men have always achieved through having mistresses.”
“You gave them Consorts,” said Questioner.
“Exactly. Someone to offer intellectual stimulation, to make conversation, to create romance, to cuddle and cosset, to make love to them. Men of Business are too busy with the game of business—which most men seem to enjoy more than anything else—to have time for pleasuring a wife.”
Questioner asked, “And you’re satisfied with the system?”
Onsofruct said, “Almost everyone is satisfied because we tried very hard to give everyone what they wanted. What men most wanted was clear title to their children’s paternal genetics, so we gave it to them. What women most wanted was to lead productive and companionate lives. We gave them that by giving them broadly educated companions, Consorts who read, who enjoy the arts. Whenever you see art or hear music or enjoy culture upon Newholme, you may thank women and their Consorts, for they are the ones who keep it going.”