To Believe in Mathematics

by C Z Edwards

  “Justia was worse at being a mother than me. Partially because she was far too young. She saw the rite of donation as a finite task, not establishing an ongoing relationship. She never had enough milk, so she weaned Jemi to goat’s milk early and took her first expedition to Spagna. And her second. We’re not strictly supposed to be on field work before our rite of donation, but the Wisdomian Council considered my ingeniae and approved me for a short trip out, with Justia, our mentor, and our mentor’s other student. Sixty days, only into the border land, mounted. Listening only, scramble if sighted. Three days before we were supposed to leave, I got sick. So they went without me. They never came back. Being a Wisdomian can be spectacularly fatal. It’s been almost nine years without a word.”

  “You lived and they died,” I said. “Survivor’s guilt.” I knew it well, having lived it, learned how to minister to it, helped Quin through his, and watched Rien rebuild herself around two separate cases of it.

  “Yes, but... it’s that we don’t know. Justia was tough. If they caught her, they must have killed her. She didn’t have a submissive bone in her. But... she was also driven, could be devious. If they caught her, she may have decided to play along, get as much information as she could, and try to escape later. It’s the not knowing how or when she died that eats at us.” She knelt in the water, at the scrub board, and got to work with the bar of laundry soap and her shirts.

  I put my hand on her shoulder and she stopped scrubbing. “Eight years ago, you accepted she was gone, and went to grudgingly acknowledge the god of death’s due. You put a good face on it for your superiors and mentors, but that’s why you observed the Lethians.”

  She didn’t look up, but she did thread her fingers through mine. Then she tugged on my hand, and I sat down, facing her. Down here, in the lowest pool, the water was almost cold, definitely cooler than skin. It had the effect of both masking and cooling my unhelpful anatomy. She glanced at me, nodded slowly, then went back to the work at hand. “You admit that to anyone else, I might actually kill you just to see if I can survive it. It would be good for my research.”

  “Try it, dove. I’m tougher than I look, too.”

  “That, I don’t doubt,” she said with a small smile, but then she looked me full in the face, completely serious. “Ced, really. You can know, and only you. My private spiritual need in that time, coupled with your history, are a specific, religious threat that would panic the Wisdomian Council. Doubt about the nature or existence of the Pantheon is expected of a Wisdomian. Acknowledging or respect for a god who denies the others exist... not done, not at all.”

  “I understand,” I said. “It’s the same argument that got me out, and here, just from the other side. An unwilling, unsanctioned, unwanted experience of the numinous. It convinced me I could have that sense of the universe and the mystery of the harmony of reality, but without faith in Lethis, or any of them.”

  “And my single strongest experience of it was in the company of people who would happily burn me alive,” she agreed.

  “It’s not your fault. Death and grieving are what the Lethians are good at,” I said.

  “Indeed. Their rituals and understanding of suffering and loss... is exquisite. Expert.”

  “It’s what makes them dangerous,” I said. “Because they’re so good at comforting people when they’re most vulnerable, because they offer a singular hope that none of the other temples can quite match, because they offer a single prescription for... salvage of the soul from destruction, because they don’t admit ambiguity or doubt... and because they’re convinced that deceit and manipulation in service to Lethis is virtuous.”

  “You were a priest,” she said. “That’s a theologian’s mode of thought.”

  “Acolyte,” I corrected. “They assigned us each a handful of younger students when we reached sixteen. Practice for the ministry. But I wouldn’t be here if I’d taken my next vows. And we wouldn’t be talking marriage at all.” At least then, the pending castration was a small reason I left, but I’d known it was coming, and keeping my jewels was a factor.

  I think that admission got us through each other’s armor. I was... well, not quite willing to forsake the conversations we needed to have, but willing to let them move slightly towards the carnal. “Can we try again?” I asked, and touched her lower lip with my thumb.

  She dipped her head in a nod, and briefly firmed her lips against the pad of my thumb in a kiss. “You do the moving this time. I’ll be still until you either prove yourself hopeless, or you catch the rhythm.”

  I sort of wanted to be proved hopeless, just for the education, but we’d try it her way first. I’ve seen Fanik kiss Lin, and Pols kiss Bran, and Daval kiss what seems like half the women in the Uplands, and all of the reverses. A few common bits sorted themselves out of my memory. I cradled her head between my palms and leaned forward. Her lips started firm, then softened and opened to me, and I did understand. How two mouths overlap, so her lower lip was in my mouth, and my upper was in hers. How our tongues met in the middle, or were invited into each other. How to breathe, and how much I just wanted to curl her into my arms and never stop —

  So I did. I broke off, sat back, straightened my posture, and ignored my renewed, and painful stiff staff.

  My refusal startled her, that was obvious. “Can you explain this conflict?” she asked. “You’re holding off desire by force of will. I will bet my entire fortune that you don’t believe desire is a sin, so... why?”

  I nodded and put my words together carefully, as Rien demands of a presentation before the bench. “While I disagree with the application of the term virgin to my mental and emotional state, I will allow that I lack complete integration of my emotional, physical and theoretical knowledge. I anticipate that it will be intensely stimulating, likely overwhelming, and a little unsatisfactory. I also suspect it’s something like a gosling’s first sight of movement. Whatever is moving must be Mamma, and you’ll never convince the baby otherwise. The first time sets a pattern for the future. I know my life probably won’t be very long, but... if we’re not able to agree to share the rest of the time we have, as partners, I’d rather never start if we’ll ultimately just hurt each other breaking it apart. So I’m willing to wait a little longer until I know we have the contract amended to both of our satisfactions.”

  She looked at me oddly, then peered into me, as if examining me from the inside out. “Why do you think your life will be short?” she finally asked. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” She glanced down. “Except the obvious, and I can remedy that quickly.”

  “We’re starting a civil war,” I reminded her. “Completely unequipped and understaffed.”

  “Oi, no.” She almost laughed, and did smirk. “Obvious pun pointedly ignored. I wouldn’t be here if I thought Rien was going to lose, Ced. That’s part of the Wisdomian’s vow, too. We preserve Wisdom and those who seek it before we take on hopeless causes. If I thought this war was doomed, I’d be smuggling Archilavast’s library and people to... ” she considered, “probably Adelbahan, or maybe Anaconia. Archilians have existed for three thousand years, and my order has endured for over a thousand. We’ve seen governments rise and fall. If I thought this part of the conflict was truly useless, but there was a distant potential, I would have already kidnapped Laarens and gotten him to safety, and Rien would be on my list right now.”

  “What about not involving yourself in politics...?” I asked.

  “They’d be instruments of the preservation of the Archilians,” she said simply. “We will be destroyed if the Lethians get too much power, and after us, the other Four Sisters temples, the Lunagans and the Renarans34, and the Sardanis. Maybe even the Teandrians35. They may agree with the Lethians on behavior, but Teandrians don’t acknowledge a god besides their own. Which offends the Lethians. So we Wisdomians would take the best assets off the board until the game can be won. If the Archilians survive, we bring t
he other temples, too. That’s our way.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Yes. It’ll be a hard war, but it is winnable, and more winnable with me here.”

  “All the more reason to delay... my initial... then,” I said, feeling my face flame. I truly did not consider myself innocent. Just not... directly experienced in all dimensions and feeling incompetent about it. “Until we work out the details.”

  “Yet a quarter hour ago, you were considering Archilian marriage.”

  “Still am, but forever was no more than a couple of years a few minutes ago.” I shrugged.

  “Six children?” she prodded.

  So I confessed. “Even one is highly improbable right now. We spend half an hour or more every day in a much hotter spring than this, warmer than any solarium, and all of us except Bran have been eating bomull seeds since spring.”

  “Since when are you Sardani? That’s the men’s accountability practice.”

  I nodded. “Quin is sort of Sardani. He made the argument that we shouldn’t risk putting any woman in this army out on the injury lists for an unintended kindling just because we’re ninety milliae from a midwife and the giant fennel failed. We’re the ones who cause pregnancy; it’s up to us to be responsible. He figured if we just made it the normal practice for everyone, it wouldn’t single anyone out, and would be easier for new recruits.”

  “Clever,” she mused. “Good practice, given circumstances.” She looked me in the eye. “Do you agree with the rest of it?”

  “All children wanted, intended, and planned?” I checked. She nodded. “Of course. I’m just... once we start intending, I’m fine continuing to intend until you’re done.”

  “It’s not like we have to stop tumbling if we pause intending,” she said. “I do have a pearl, and it can be put back, after.”

  “It’s not religious,” I said. “Yes, I do know that we’re allowed to tumble for fun. I know my opinion isn’t worth that much on this specific subject, but Mam said bomull has risks, and so does giant fennel, and...” I broke off, because all of a sudden, everything she said hit, and all at once. Like being kicked in the chest. “Mam’s alive?”

  She nodded.

  “And my father’s not, and she probably killed him when he tried to kill her. And probably because... I ran away. Timing fits, anyway. He probably thought I went to her.”

  “I think so, now that I’ve a bit more context,” she said. “She’d be overjoyed to get a letter, you know. Send it to the Hospital, and they’ll forward it if she’s moved. It may take a couple extra tendays to find her, but she’ll get it.”

  I nodded. Eventually. We still had to be careful about who and when. I tried to imagine what Mam must have done in all those years when she couldn’t get to me, could barely keep my sisters safe. I knew I’d agree with her, whatever she did. My sisters were far, far more vulnerable. If my father put them into the cloister, nobody in the family would have ever seen them again. With me, at least she knew that eventually, I would leave the Chapterhouse, either by my will or as a priest. And I think she trusted my will and conscience.

  Gilane, though, just wanted to please everyone, and hadn’t learned yet that she had a right to refuse. Lieve and Sanna were too young to even have that much moral reasoning. And he planned to lock them inside the walled cubilata we called the cloister. “They ruined everything that was good in my father,” I said half to myself. “I’m not sure how much good there was to begin with. I don’t remember.”

  “They didn’t ruin you,” she said. “Of that, I’m certain.”

  “How?”

  “Because we’re both here.” This time, she held my face, and kissed me. When she stood up on her knees, she drew me up, and closer, so we were kneeling face to face, skin to skin, from lips to knees, with nothing hidden or withheld.

  I’d never felt belly on the underside of my staff, or breasts against my chest, nor her body in my arms, not with this extra multiplicity. I recognized all of the sensations of Kya and me, in the same place, but now there was this extra dimension of intensity. I wanted my mind to stop interfering, to let my body do what we still had a good chance of regretting over years, even if my prospective forever had just become much longer than expected. I was pretty certain that with just a slightly different position, she could, and would, engulf my staff, and we’d stop talking until at least dawn. I wanted her to make that move, whatever it would be.

  And yet, I’ve waited this long. Getting it right mattered more.

  I put my hands on her shoulders, and pushed her back, just a little. “How do you leave us?” I asked. “Show me your decision.”

  She stared into my eyes, unwavering. “I defended Wisdom and those who seek it before I became a priest, and I became a priest before I became a vessel and a mother. I will always be a defender, a priest, a mother, a spouse, in that order, if we’ll have each other. Because I have such absolute faith in everyone I love. I am convinced they’re all strong enough to not need me to thrive, and that I am the one privileged to be allowed into their lives. I know you have your place in the world already, and that our union isn’t a submerging, but a bridge. You’re strong enough to stand on your own, and stand up to me.”

  That, I did understand, and I didn’t even dislike it. What felt offended in me was not that she’d leave, nor that she already had her own profession and place in the world, but that we’d never get the chance to try the easy path the Lethians promised. I don’t think I ever even wanted the easy path; I know I’ve never seen it in practice. All of the women I’ve ever known have worked and been full, equal partners, if not the senior partner. But ayuh, the Lethians did promote the idea of keeping our wives safe at home as mistresses of the household, who fitted their needs around ours. It’s an attractive fantasy for men, because it’s easy, and flattering; it attracts some women, too, because there’s a perverse freedom in having no choices at all. I hadn’t realized how much I absorbed it until the very moment when it became impossible for me. Nor had I realized how much I’d expected it to eventually, in some way, apply to me.

  And no, I wouldn’t want it. I’d find having a wife with no interests but our house and children as stifling as Kya found the eternal routine of the Conversatory. And I’d be jealous, because she’d get all the baby time, and I’d be stuck writing divorces and partnership contracts. I couldn’t think of anything that would make a family more miserable than that sullen resentment.

  I didn’t like the idea of Kya in battle, but I don’t want Quin or Bran in battle, either. And we were going, that was almost inevitable now. Someday, after the war, if we all lived, ayuh, I should expect that some of my friends would find other paths. I’ve been married in all but bed and documents to Quin and Bran for most of a decade. Our lives will always intertwine, but our vines would take separate paths to the same place. If I couldn’t give someone willing to share her entire life, and mind, and body, the same respect as I gave Quin and Bran and Fanik and Daval and Rien... well, it would make Kya an exception. A lesser exception. It would be... trying to own her, instead of being her partner.

  That’s what I saw in my father that I never wanted to see in myself. There came a time when he saw all of his children as possessions, as property to be given to the god of death and decay. My mother disagreed, in that way of hers that she gave to me: iron-willed, good-natured, and tolerant, but unwilling to compromise a principle. Mam’s was the better way, and probably why I’ve lived a decade in a forest without killing anyone.

  “You’re far away in your head,” Kya said. “I can’t follow you.”

  “When should we start this binding?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to try to be her very good friend. And I didn’t want her vows to force us to be separate. So that meant I had to accept the vow she made, and fit myself around the commitment she promised her community long before she met me, even if neither of us remembered the meeting. Th
e way she would fit herself into my ethics and commitments.

  She blinked at me in surprise. “I was nearly certain you were going to refuse.”

  I shook my head. “Forced separation will make us more miserable. We can’t live apart, and we can’t live together at parallel, except in this one specific way. Your vows are a part of you. It made you the person I’ve shared dreams with. I only have two conditions. If you want me to come to open meditation and lectures with you, I will go. I’ll participate in the community, sing the morias, add my hands to work projects. I don’t object to the community. I will be a priest’s partner. But I will never make a profession of faith or acknowledgement. If that excludes me from some rites, I’m sorry, but my conscience can’t. And I will not consent to dedicating our children as oblates, but most Archilian children aren’t oblates at all, so it shouldn’t matter that much.”

  “If we have children,” she said carefully.

  “True, if. Now’s not the time to try.”

  “We can practice, though,” she suggested.

  “Mother of trees, you’re so transparently desperate,” I said.

  “Yes,” she cried. “It’s been almost five years, and you may not know what you’re missing, but I do.”