Fritha’s cloister was sheltered by a waist-high drystone wall and a head-high dense hedge—a skilfully-interwoven mixture of, to Aelfeva’s eye, hawthorn and willow.

As they’d been told at the infirmary, the barrier arched inwards a short way further. A gate of two solid wooden panels stood closed before them; next to it was a door of regular size, with an extended roof over a railing and a wooden bench.

“I suppose this is what we need,” Teoda said, swinging off her mare. She waited until Guillen did the same, then handed him her reins and strode towards the door. Ilduara and Aelfeva followed her.

A woman of middle years, in a mossy-green overdress and a creamy chemise, opened the door and emerged before Teoda reached it.

“Good morning!” she greeted them cheerfully. “And welcome to Fritha’s cloister. What can I do for you?”

“Our friend Leofeva Glaedwin came here to join you the day before last,” Teoda said. “We were hoping we could talk to her.”

The woman chuckled and nodded. “She said she expected at least one visitor. I’m sorry, we don’t allow men inside the cloister.”

“Understood,” Guillen said. “I’ll wait with the horses, if that’s acceptable.”

“Completely. I’ll be back in a moment to fetch water for them and put on a pot of tea.” She gestured towards the shelter and the railing. Guillen clucked to the four horses, and led them over to tie off the reins.

Meanwhile, the gatekeeper pushed open one of the leaves of the gate and beckoned to Aelfeva and the sisters. “Come inside.”

Aelfeva held her breath, wondering whether Fritha would be angry and see her presence as a violation of her cloister, but nothing happened; they just stepped into a courtyard in front of a large old stone building.

“Wynnflaed!” their guide called to another woman, this one sweeping the stones in front of what might be the main door. “Visitors for our new sister! Could you show them in while I show their escort our hospitality?”

“Yes, of course.” The other woman leaned her broom against the wall and beckoned to them. “I’ll show you to the reception room and then fetch her.”

Only the outer walls were stone; everything inside was wood, polished to smoothness by tending and countless hands. The walls held dried wreaths of flowers and greenery, sometimes with other natural objects like feathers or shells worked into them, often with bright ribbons securing them; the floor was plain hard-wearing tile, though it was in a sort of non-pattern of reddish and greenish and bluish ones. They didn’t get much of a look: Wynnflaed opened a door and gestured invitingly.

“We were worried about her,” Teoda said quietly, stepping into the room beyond.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Wynnflaed said sympathetically. “From what I understand, she saw no other choice. She feared sending a message until she’d sworn initiate vows, and we can’t rush that, but she was quite distressed about frightening her family and friends. Life sometimes gives us choices in which none of the paths are what we’d prefer. For what it’s worth, I think she’s going to be a credit to the sisterhood.”

“She’s only been here a day or so.”

“A lot can happen in a day. And possibly we had a message from a sister who knows her better. I’ll send her to you. Make yourselves comfortable.” She closed the door behind them.

The room in question was... comfortable, rather than luxurious or stylish. In front of a cold dark fireplace were two highbacked chairs; aside from that, the room held several fancy-armed benches with soft bright cushions on them and two more chairs, these ones wooden frames with seats and backs woven of what looked like rags. More wreaths adorned the walls.

“Osgyth wrote a letter for Leo,” Ilduara said, sitting down on one of the benches. “She would have sent it but it would be unlikely to get here ahead of her, so Leo took it with her to give them. Just describing what she’s taught Leo and recommending accepting her without delay.”

“Was it just the three of you conspiring?” Aelfeva asked, prowling the room to look at the wreaths more closely.

“Yes.”

“At least she had a plan,” Teoda said, taking one of the chairs and settling her skirt. “And didn’t just run off impulsively.”

“True,” Aelfeva said. “You know, I still have no idea what to actually say to her. At some point last night I think I just accepted that I can’t ask her to leave here.” Josceran’s betrothed. As of the day after tomorrow, Josceran’s wife. That still felt strange.

The rest, less so. It had taken her a moment to sort out how to get chemise and overdress arranged so she was comfortable in the saddle, but she was getting the trick of lacing the dress now and had it adjusted before the sisters had arrived to collect her. She’d still needed help with her hair—the two braids remaining after she’d fumbled the pins out last night had been fraying noticeably—but its current single practical braid didn’t feel like it was in her way so much. Washing up before dressing hadn’t felt discordant at all.

“I suspect that most men would,” Ilduara said.

“I got that impression last night while we were talking. I genuinely can’t understand panicking immediately. I just can’t see why.” She glanced back with a crooked smile. “I’m saving all my panicking for the idea of it being forever and whether I can learn the millions of things I don’t know.”

“We’ll help,” Teoda said. “You know we’ll do anything we can.”

“Unconditionally,” Ilduara agreed. “Now that we all know what the situation actually is.”

The door didn’t so much open as slam aside.

Leofeva, in a mossy-green overdress and her blonde hair braided and coiled into a bun, practically bounded in. Ilduara barely had time to stand up before Leofeva flung both arms around her. Aelfeva moved around so she was standing behind Teoda’s chair, her hands resting on the back; Teoda looked up and gave her a reassuring smile.

“I missed you, are you all right? I found what I was looking for, the archivist helped and she knew exactly what Osgyth meant.”

“I’m fine, Leo,” Ilduara said. “The archivist knew about an old law?”

“A lot of the sisters are here because they don’t want to marry men. The ones who go out to communities and have a woman as a companion of whatever kind who isn’t Fritha’s use it to protect them, but it’s not just women. She told me the whole history of it and...”

“And I badly want to hear it, but there’s something more urgent we need to talk about.”

“Oh no, was Herlinde terribly upset? She wouldn’t punish my family if they didn’t know anything about it, would she?”

“Not exactly punish,” Aelfeva said for herself. “But once she’s decided on something, she doesn’t let anything stand in her way.”

Leofeva spun in that direction, and Ilduara let her go. Her eyes widened. “What...”

“Herlinde,” Teoda said, “needed a Glaedwin to marry Jos, so she made sure Aelf could.”

“What? But that’s... that can’t happen!”

Aelfeva moved out from behind Teoda. “Your dress,” she pointed out. “Less tall, different build, but I’ve been repeatedly told that I’m still very much recognizable as myself.”

“That’s honestly more the way you talk and move than the way you look,” Ilduara said. “Although you’re visibly a Glaedwin.”

Leofeva’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, damn her! I can’t do that to you. I’ll... I’ll come and... marry Jos...”

“No you won’t,” Aelfeva said, hugging her. The altered sensation, between her lost inches of height and gained inches around her chest, drew her attention, but she ignored it. “I’m not letting you. Not when this matters so much to you. You can help a lot of people if you get a chance.”

“If I say I’ll marry Jos she’ll change you back or something.” Leofeva buried her face in Aelfeva’s shoulder, and she felt her little sister’s breath catch.

It would be an easy lie, just tell her it couldn’t be undone so it didn’t matter.

Lying had already gotten her in trouble once.

“Leo. It’s all right. Magic can’t work unless deep down someone wants it to. I don’t know, maybe I was supposed to be a girl all along.” Had she? She hadn’t thought of that until she said it. Had Herlinde somehow made things right instead of twisting them? That was something to think about later. “Or maybe I’m just that strange. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. You’re staying here. I’m marrying Jos. We just need to figure out something that will make things better for Dara and you and Ferrand and Guillen, if we can.”

“But you can’t...”

“Leo,” Teoda said gently. “Aelf’s okay. Really. You just now have a sister named Aelfeva instead of a brother named Aelfric.”

“What about Jos?”

“Jos has no problem at all with it,” Aelfeva said. The memory of last night made her cheeks feel warm. “He knows everything. He says I’m supposed to tell you that he’s not taking it personally. I don’t think he was really very surprised. He was going to promise to never touch you uninvited and to support you learning as much as possible, but you can learn more here. So now he’s promising to be understanding and that he’d never mess with Dragon or my sword.”

“Not to never touch you uninvited?”

“Ah... no, that hasn’t been an issue.”

“Oh? But you... oh!”

“Please don’t ask,” Aelfeva said. “I’m still very confused by a lot. But it’ll be all right. You don’t have to worry that anyone’s going to try to force you to Aelautha’s temple on Sunna’s Day to marry Jos, that’s covered. If they’ll let you, you can come watch with Guillen while the rest of us get married.”

“I’m pretty sure they would.” Leofeva stepped back and wiped at her eyes, then pulled her handkerchief from her chatelaine and used that instead of the back of her hand. “But there might be a way to do things differently. Herlinde probably wouldn’t have ever come across this, so she wouldn’t know it could be done.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sit,” Ilduara said firmly. “Both of you.” She’d already seated herself on the bench again. Leofeva joined her, and Ilduara closed a hand around hers; Aelfeva took the chair next to Teoda. “Now. Explain, please.”

Leofeva took a deep breath, and nodded. “The current king’s father took the throne a little over forty years ago. Things have actually been pretty peaceful since then. But for almost fifty years before that, there was a lot of upheaval. A few years of bad weather meant food prices were high but there was widespread poverty, and there was fighting between us and neighbours but also between different parts of our own country, and there were multiple waves of a plague. Everything was horribly uncertain from day to day for almost everyone.”

“That sounds terrible,” Teoda said with a shudder.

Leofeva nodded. “With all the fighting, a lot of men died on battlefields. There were so many women who were alone with children, maybe widowed or maybe raped or maybe abandoned, and so many orphaned children, that it was much, much more than charity could compensate for, but a lot of those women had very useful skills if they just had the chance to use them. So the king at the time talked to the high priests and priestesses of the major gods, and they did scrying and prayers and asked for guidance every way they could. Hrethe’s high priestess came back with a revelation. She said that a family should not be defined as a man and a woman and their children, because clearly that was failing. A family should be defined as adults who support each other and their children, by birth or adoption.”

Hrethe was a bi-gendered deity whose primary concerns lay with the health, protection, support, and education of all children, which in practical terms covered much more in order to achieve that goal. Aelautha watched over home and hearth and fertility, and Fritha over birth and health, so there was considerable overlap between the three, but since Aelautha blessed traditional marriage and Fritha rejected it, that definition seemed most likely for Hrethe to propose.

“That seems like a very sensible definition,” Teoda said.

Leofeva nodded quickly. “It meant that women could swear a vow to each other, and it didn’t matter whether they were in love or not, they could share a house and work and raise their children together as a family. If anything happened to one, the other had legal responsibility for all the children, no orphans, and also inherited everything. They didn’t need charity, two women combining their marriage settlements could do just as well as a man and a woman at setting up a valid and successful household. They had the same rules as a traditional marriage, except that neither one has authority over the other one. They can both sign binding contracts and make pledges and all without the other one having to ratify it. If they separate, it’s the same as regular divorce rules about property and debts. And it worked... mostly. But there were still some cases when it was more complicated.”

“Of course,” Ilduara said. “There are always exceptions.”

“But it was so successful at keeping the kingdom from collapsing that they didn’t want to revoke it, so they expanded it. It works differently for men, of course. Doesn’t everything? Women were supposed to be unmarried when they swore to each other, but men could be in a traditional marriage and still swear a vow with another man. It means that if anything happens to either one, maybe in a battle or something, the other is taking responsibility for both households. There are some other details that have to do with debts and contract liability and that sort of thing, but it’s also a binding vow that’s a form of marriage. And that helped a lot, but there were still some problems, so they changed it again so that women didn’t have to be unmarried in order to pledge themself to another woman. Which was a part of why women now own and control our own property instead of all control passing to a husband.”

“So essentially,” Aelfeva said, “instead of changing the definition of marriage to just include any two adults on an equal basis, which might have been simpler, what they did was create a parallel system of marriage, so that it’s possible to marry both someone of your own gender and someone of the other gender without it being bigamy, and each of those people that you’re married to can do the same. But marrying two people of the same gender would count as bigamy.”

Leofeva nodded quickly. “I know, it’s overly complicated. Apparently some people deliberately made it as secure as they could by two couples making sure that they were all sort of cross-married. Nothing in the records says anything about how people actually felt about it, obviously, but the archivist here says that in her experience, it’s sometimes purely practical and sometimes because people fall in love, just like a traditional marriage.”

“And this is still a valid law.”

“Yes! It’s still being used sometimes, but it’s not well-known. It’s too useful to revoke, really. Herlinde doesn’t have to make you marry Ferrand, Dara, for him to swear that vow with Guillen would be just as effective as far as legally binding both families together. But I doubt she knows that, and I don’t know of any way to tell her, so I was hoping you’d come soon and would maybe have a way to get a message to her. And, well, a second Glaedwin-Cristoval pairing doesn’t do much for her plans, but at least we could.”

“You’ll be allowed to?” Aelfeva asked.

Ilduara nodded. “Osgyth says that Fritha’s initiates are encouraged to have close ties with family and friends and communities, and vows are acceptable as long as they do not and cannot interfere with the primary responsibility of healing anyone who needs it. In practice, that means not marrying a man, because even if he has good intentions, he still has an uncomfortable amount of authority and things could get extremely messy. But she told us that she knew women who were living with other women and that she believed there was a legal basis to it but she wasn’t familiar with the details.”

“We need to talk to Herlinde,” Teoda said. “As terrifying as that thought is. Maybe if we beg her, she’ll consent to allowing Ferrand to marry Guillen instead. It was Hrethe’s temple that supported this?”

“Hrethe started it,” Leofeva said, “and blesses it, but most of the other temples are also supportive, now that they’ve seen the increased stability that it can bring. Aelautha and Fritha can both sanctify it. If everyone wants that, of course. Like a traditional marriage, it can be just a secular contract with no religious blessing.”

“I think we need to reassure Herlinde that we’re taking this seriously,” Ilduara said, “and see if we can arrange essentially for Guillen to just step in and take my place—without the transformation magic, he would not cope well with that, I’m sure. And we need to do this quickly, since Sunna’s Day is the day after tomorrow.”

“I suspect,” Teoda said, “that our cook or our maid would be able to arrange for a message to reach Herlinde. Then we just need to hope that she decides to respond quickly enough, and that she’s open to a small amendment to her decree.”

“I should stay here,” Leofeva said. “They’re understanding but I don’t want to strain that. And I really don’t know how to face our parents. But... really, Aelf? You’re absolutely sure about this? I don’t want to ruin your whole life. I really will come and marry Jos if it’s the only way...”

“I’m not sure about very much of anything right now,” Aelfeva said honestly. “But what I do know is that, taking everything so far into account, it matters more to me that you can learn to help people than it does whether I’m a man or a woman and whether I marry Jos. I think we can do better than you and he could. So yes, stay here and be good and learn everything they can teach you, then come home and help Osgyth out and set up a household with Dara. All right?”

“I can do that. I guess... keep my clothes? I don’t need them right now. Although they’re a little short on you, maybe Teoda can fix that.” Leofeva unfastened the clasp on her purse and fished around in it, then passed Ilduara a scrap of parchment before closing the ornate semi-circular top and fastening it again. “Those are the official dates for the law and its amendments so she can verify it if she wants, although any temple in Blaecstan has apparently done the other versions and would be able to tell her it’s real. They just don’t usually bring it up without a reason.” She sighed, raising her eyes to Ilduara’s. “I miss you. And that’s hardly started.”

Teoda caught Aelfeva’s eye, and tossed her head towards the far corner, getting up from her chair and striding in that direction herself. Aelfeva followed her.

“Give them a moment,” Teoda said in an undertone, her back to the rest of the room. “It’s not really privacy, but it’s something.”

“Oh. Yes. I suppose that makes sense.”

“If we can convince Herlinde to accept that Ferrand and Guillen marrying would be a viable and legally-binding alternative...”

“Then they’re happy, you and Rich are still happy, and Leo and Dara only have to figure out time and distance but eventually they’ll be happy.”

“Which leaves you and Jos.”

“We’ll be all right. There’s still no other Glaedwin-Denisot pairing and I don’t think she’s going to tolerate removing one whole side of the triangle just because of an amendment to another side, do you?”

“If a marriage between two men is legally binding, then you could ask Herlinde if she could change you back, or allow you and Jos to wait a few extra days until it wears off. That Glaedwin-Denisot pairing can still happen, just with different terms.”

“I... oh.” Why did that thought make her feel like the world had just dropped out from under her?

Watching her closely, Teoda laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not saying you have to. It’s... really surprising, how well you’re taking to being a woman, but some ways, it just looks like the most natural thing possible. I’m just saying that it’s possible that it might not be a trap you can’t escape from. For all we know, Herlinde wouldn’t agree to that anyway. But maybe it would be worth thinking about it.”

“And talking to Jos about. I might not have much of a grasp on this whole romance-and-sex thing but he does.”

Teoda giggled. “I saw you blush when Leofeva asked about Jos promising not to touch.”

“I... oh, good gods, that is beyond confusing and I can’t even be mad about it because it kind of feels good.”

“Hm... sounds like even if it’s confusing, you’re finding out what it feels like. That would complicate decisions, I think. Sorry, Aelf, I really don’t envy you the pressure to make a decision that enormous.”

“I’ll figure it out. Just... keep being you and being calm and practical and not laughing at me for not knowing what I’m doing.”

“I’d never laugh at you for that.” She slid an arm around Aelfeva’s waist in a half-hug. “Women don’t figure out how to be women in a sennight, any more than men learn how to be men that quickly. I think maybe, if so much of it has to be learned, maybe the differences underneath aren’t as big as we tend to believe they are? But I don’t think I’d believe that there are no differences at all. Maybe you’re right and you should have been born a girl and if there wasn’t so much we associate with being a woman or being a man, maybe that wouldn’t be such a frightening thing.” She rested her head on Aelfeva’s shoulder, and chuckled. “Or maybe you’re just complicated. Either way, day after tomorrow you become my sister for real, and sisters should look out for each other.”

“Unless I’m your brother.” Why did that feel so uncomfortable to say?

“I don’t think you’ll forget this in a hurry, and in some way, you’ll always be my sister.”

“You two can stop being tactful now,” Ilduara said. “We should go. The more time we waste, the longer before Herlinde can at least get our message that we’d like to talk to her, and the greater the risk that we can’t talk to her in time. We’ll be in Blaecstan for a couple of days past Sunna’s Day, I can try to visit then. Right now, this matters for all of us.”

Teoda nodded as she let go of Aelfeva. “Then let’s go.”