The house stood at the end of a long road a mile from the center of town. The ruins of a onetime fortress, the gray stones silver in the moonlight, loomed from the swell of a hill. A battle had once been fought here; he and Patrick had always been unearthing bits of armor and decaying sword hilts. Now there was little left but the battlements up high and, down by the river, a collection of stones that had once been a ferry. Those sad remains guarded a sandy ford that had long since been replaced by the bridge a mile upstream. After nearly ten years of absence, Edward was about as relevant to this scene as those abandoned battlements.
The modern house lay before him, the picture of utter tranquility.
That tranquility was a lie. On that field near the stable—that was the place where Edward’s father had ordered Patrick and Stephen whipped.
The windows of the house cast a golden, illusory light on the scene of that memory. Edward shook his head, dispelling his grisly thoughts, and stole his way to a glassed side door.
Moonlight spilled into the library. Through the windows, he could make out a desk stacked high with papers. Edward had received his share of reprimands in that room. He’d held his head proudly there, refusing to break, refusing to lie, no matter what the consequences.
Pah. He’d learned better now. The notion of morality was relative. For instance, he intended to break into this house. Some might call that “burglary.”
It would be, in the moral sense: The current residents of the house would not welcome his intrusion.
From a legal perspective, however, there was one small and yet salient difference: This house, and everything in it, still belonged to him. It would be his for four more months, until he was declared dead once and for all.
He couldn’t wait.
He pulled a thin piece of steel from its hiding place in his coat sleeve, crouched beside the lock, and listened for the telltale click. He’d known a man who could open any door in a few seconds flat. Edward, by contrast, had only rarely needed to break and enter, and so the skill was all too rusty. It took him three uncomfortable minutes to persuade the door to let him in.
The scent of old cigar smoke assailed him immediately—dark and pungent, a rancid smell that had seeped into the curtains, into the walls. It was an old smell, as if nobody had smoked in the room in months. Edward found the matches, lit an oil lamp on the desk, and turned the screw until a dull glow illuminated the desk. There were stacks and stacks of papers to go through. If Patrick was right, the proof would be here.
Proof was one of the two reasons he’d come.
The file he was looking for turned out to be hidden in the leftmost drawer, underneath a sheaf of mortgages. Edward untied the twine wrapped around the papers and sorted through a mess of little notes and tantalizing bits of correspondence. But the series of newspaper clippings particularly caught his eye.
The first was just over six months old.
Ask a Man, he read. The inaugural release of a column of weekly advice by Stephen Shaughnessy.
So. Patrick had the right of it. Someone here was paying attention to Stephen. His friend had mentioned that Stephen wrote for a paper, but Edward hadn’t realized he had a regular column—and a column of advice, at that.
Frankly, the thought of taking advice from the twelve-year-old he’d once known sounded rather horrifying. But even Stephen must have matured somewhat in the intervening years.
There was a note of explanation before the column started.
It has come to the attention of the editorial staff that our newspaper, with its determination to be “by women, about women, and for women,” cannot possibly impress anyone as we lack the imprimatur of a man to validate our thoughts. To that end, we have procured an Actual Man to answer questions. Please address all inquiries to Man, care of Women’s Free Press, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. —F.M.
It took Edward a moment to check the head of the paper. Indeed. Women’s Free Press, it read. That was the name of the business on the card he’d received that morning. F.M. was almost certainly Frederica Marshall, the spitfire he’d met on the banks of the Thames. It made sudden sense of her behavior. She was Stephen’s employer. There was no reason that should make Edward feel glad; he was unlikely to ever see her again, and even if he did, he’d no intention of entangling himself in any sense. A kiss, a cuddle, a quick farewell—that’s all a man like him ever hoped for.
Still.
He shook his head and read on.
Dear Man, someone had written. I have heard that women are capable of rational thought. Is this true? What is your opinion on the matter?
Breathlessly awaiting your manly thoughts,
A woman
Edward tilted his head and shifted the paper so that the answer lay in the dim circle of lamplight.
Dear Woman,
If I were a woman, I would have to cite examples of rational thought on the part of women, which would be awfully tiresome. Once we got through the example of the ancient Greeks, matriarchal rulers in China, Africa, and our own country, once we passed from Aglaonike the astronomer, to Cleopatra the alchemist, and on through our very modern Countess of Chromosome, we’d scarcely have time to talk about how great men are. That simply won’t do.
Luckily, I am a man, so my mere proclamation is sufficient. Women can think. This is true because a man has said it.
Yours,
Stephen Shaughnessy