Baru found that metaphor rather clever. The Handbook of Manumission said that honor was the most primitive form of government: Insult me, honor said, and I will avenge the insult. Lose your honor and people would believe they could hurt you without fear of retaliation. Just as a good creditor always paid back debts, an honorable man always answered insults.

“It was a men’s war,” Yawa said, and clucked exactly like the great-family matriarchs Baru had met in Vultjag. “Call that anti-mannist if you will. The date crop was bad, money short, not enough food coming in to feed families grown too fat off good years. Some families had enough. Others didn’t. The disagreements spilled out of the markets and councils. Inevitably, there was a killing, the killing was avenged—you know how it goes. Young men started to climb underneath the bridges at night, past the constabulary, to fight. Then they started sabotaging bridges to kill each other as they climbed.”

“And?”

“And the women of the Twelve Families called a meeting, and because the violence showed no sign of slowing, they decided to reinstitute the traditional Manning.”

“Yes.” Apparitor sighed. “I thought as much.”

“What’s the Manning?” Baru asked, imagining a Manning and a Womaning, in which large committees debated the exact definitions of each.

“They give boy children a test of patience,” Yawa said. “The child must pass up an easy pleasure, ignore a vile insult, endure a mild pain, and hold a stranger from a fight.”

“And if they fail?”

“Then,” Apparitor said, “they go into exile. On a boat with no water.”

Yawa nodded at Baru. “And that is why the Llosydanes have three women for every man today. The women are gentler, more suited to crowded life. So the date groves flourish, and the date trade prospers, and they are all fed.”

Baru was very troubled. No matter what the Incrastic creeds said, she didn’t believe that men were intrinsically more passionate and emotional than calculating, restrained women. But how could the Sydani have arrived at the same conclusion if there weren’t some truth to it…?

And if she smashed Falcrest between the Oriati and the Stakhi—then what would happen to the Llosydanes?

“There’s no formal Masquerade presence here, so of course the Morrow Ministry haunts the place instead. I sent the prisoners from Baru’s inner circle to the Ministry station here for covert debriefing. It was too dangerous to keep them in Aurdwynn.” Yawa looked between them. “Do I need to explain that?”

The Morrow-men were Falcrest’s spy service. As Baru understood it, they spent about half their effort on spying and the rest on fending off Judiciary attempts to purge them.

“You go find the station,” Baru said. “Interrogate them.”