Shadows and Light

left, and found himself standing in the aisle with his fists clenched, almost panting with the effort to draw in enough air.
    “We have heard from the eastern barons,” Liam said loudly. “We have heard the same things over and over again—words with plenty of fat and no meat. It’s time to let others speak.”
    “You are newly come to your title, and this is your first time in the council,” the Baron of Durham said coldly. “It is customary for the senior members of the council to speak first. And it is a measure of wisdom that those who are so junior they haven’t even learned how to properly address the council should just listen and heed the words of those who have far more experience in ruling the land and the people who live there.”
    “Then let the senior members from the north or south or midlands speak,” Liam insisted.
    “You, sir, are out of order,” the Baron of Durham shouted. “You will be seated!”
    “No, sir, I will not.” Liam strode down the aisle. When he reached the front of the room, he turned to face the other barons. Grim faces. Furious faces. He was burning up. With anger. With fever. He couldn’
    t tell. Didn’t care.
    “It’s true that I’ve newly come to the title,” Liam said, struggling to hold his temper. Ranting would only kill any sympathy he might find in the barons beyond the east. “And it’s true that this is my first time attending the barons’ council. But becoming a baron doesn’t mean I relinquished my sense of what is decent, of what is right. I didn’t relinquish my education or my understanding of the world I live in and the people who live in it with me. I’ve listened to what has been said here in the past two days. I don’t have any answers, but I do have one question that I think needs to be answered.” He held out one hand in appeal. “What has happened to us? What has happened to our pride in our country and our pride in our people? We’re being told that women are too weak-minded to entertain ideas. We’re being told that the only creative things they are suited for are the embroideries to decorate their homes. No. Not even their homes. Their fathers’ homes. Their husbands’ homes. We’re being told that their writings are emotional scribbles that cause unhealthy feelings in others. We’re being told that girls should not be permitted to attend school for more than three years—just long enough to learn their sums and to read and write so that they don’t have to impose on the males in their families to keep the household accounts or write the invitations for a dinner party. We’re being told that women don’t have the intellect to run a business. We’re being told that the only purpose women have is to provide a comfortable home for their fathers and brothers or their husbands once they marry. This is what we’ve been told in these chambers over and over again.”
    Liam paused, took a deep breath, then continued before the Baron of Durham could start demanding that he take his seat. “My question to all of you is this: When did we change? Women are weak-minded?
    How many of our schools are well run by women who have studied and trained to teach the children?
    Women are weak? Tell that to the farmers’ wives who tend their houses and children and still go out to help their men with the planting and harvesting. A year ago, we had women novelists and poets and playwrights. We had musicians. We had painters whom we hailed as brilliant, remarkable talents. A year ago, we had women successfully running their own shops. Can you actually sit there and tell me that those women lost all of that talent, lost all of those skills in the past year? That women have changed so much they can no longer do what they’ve been doing for generations?”
    He shook his head. The anger was draining out of him, sorrow taking its place. “They haven’t changed.
    But I’m afraid to think what we’ll become if we agree to the eastern barons’ solution for prosperity. If women are no more than a body in bed to use and breed, are men really any different from the rutting bull that covers the cows? Will we really feel more like men if we see fear instead of affection in the eyes of our mothers and sisters and wives? Will we really go home in a few days, look at the women in our villages and in our family, and suddenly see weak creatures incapable of making a decision without first getting our approval? I don’t think so.

    So I ask you again: