Shadows and Light

either,” Breanna muttered. “But he tries.”
    Padrick chuckled. Liam wished he understood what was so amusing.
    Then Breanna rested a hand against his face. “You’ve been ill,” she said.
    “I...” Liam took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I was poisoned.”
    She paled so much, Liam wondered if she was going to faint.
    “Poisoned? Why?”
    “He spoke out in the council meeting against the eastern barons and the Inquisitors,” Padrick said.
    “I would have died if it wasn’t for Padrick’s help,” Liam said.
    “Mother’s mercy,” Breanna whispered.
    “Perhaps you should sit down, Mistress Breanna,” Padrick said gently.
    She shook her head. “No. But the two of you should. Why don’t you sit under the tree there? I’ll bring you some ale.”
    “You don’t need to—,” Liam said, but Breanna was already turning away and walking toward the house.
    He took a step to stop her, but Padrick’s hand on his arm held him back.
    “She needs to do something useful,” Padrick said. “And you really do need to sit down.”
    They walked to the bench under the tree.
    “Breanna is my sister,” Liam said, settling on the bench. “My half sister. My father...”
    “You don’t have to explain.”
    Breanna returned with tankards of ale. She handed one to each of them, then held out the letter to Liam.
    “Elinore is resting. She’s frightened, Liam. We all are.”
    “Breanna...”
    “Read the letter. Perhaps then you’ll be able to tell her something that will ease her mind.”
    Breanna walked away.
    Padrick took a sip of his ale, then stood up. “This is a private matter. I’ll—”
    “No,” Liam said. He set his tankard on the bench. “I’d appreciate your opinion. And, obviously, this letter has been read by others, so whatever Moira wrote to my mother wasn’t private in that way.”
    When Padrick settled on the bench beside him, Liam opened the letter.
    Dearest Elinore,

    I know my last letter must have hurt you when I told you so brusquely not to write to me again because I didn‘t want to hear from you anymore. I did want to hear from you, more than you can know, but I was afraid your letters might draw too much attention from the baron who rules my village and that you might suffer for it. I decided to tell you not to write because I was afraid, for both our sakes, of what you might say or the questions you might ask, and I couldn’t write to you.
    But this letter will be my last, so I’ll tell you all the things I haven’t been able to say.
    I have guests tonight, a young couple, recently wed, who are fleeing the eastern village where they had lived, hoping to get far enough west to escape the madness that has come over the barons here and has turned our lives, women’s lives, into a barren nightmare. I have hidden them, given them food and a place to rest for a few hours. I gave them your direction, and I’ll give them this letter in the hope that it reaches you.
    I wouldn‘t send them to you if your husband still lived, but I think Liam has too much of you in him to be a man like his father. I hope with all my heart that is true.
    We are less than prisoners now, Elinore. Less than slaves. Less than the animals men use. We are domestic labor who clean men’s houses, cook their food, wash their clothes. And we are the whores they use when they want sex. That is what the baron’s decrees have turned us into. We cannot work to earn a living for ourselves. We cannot express a thought or opinion or feeling that disagrees in the slightest way with what the men who are in charge of us think or say or feel. If we do, we are punished — sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. I’ve endured both. They are equally brutal. Even when the punishment doesn’t do much harm to the body, it rapes the soul. Of course, the men call it discipline, the necessary force required to make us modest women who will not become the Evil One’s servants.
    We are forbidden to write stories and poems and plays. We are forbidden to write music, to paint, even to sketch. We can read only books men have given us permission to read, can play only the music it has been deemed acceptable for us to play.
    We cannot write anything, not even a shopping list, without a man’s approval, and that approval is indicated by his initials at the bottom of the page. That’s why I haven’t written to you. There is nothing I could say that I would want a man to see, and, because I’ve been known to be