Dayan
First Sunrise

In which Priscilla has speech with a sister.

Dayan, like Sintia, worships the Goddess; it does seem to be the same Goddess, with a common basis indicated by Priscilla’s expressions and gestures being recognised by the women she speaks to. Like Sintia, too, the priestesses of the Goddess are apparently the temporal as well as spiritual leaders, and possibly not handling it as gracefully as they might. In some ways it’s worse than Sintia; there are hints in some of the Moonhawk stories that men on Sintia are second-class citizens, but on Dayan their status doesn’t even reach that high. There are signs of hope: that Lomar Fasholt speaks with Shan as an equal says something, and that she considers it (and without any apparent doubt or hesitation) appropriate to secure her husband an education says something more. (And that echoes something in the Moonhawk story “The Wine of Memory”, come to think of it.)

Shan notes that Priscilla shows signs of her continued education in proper Liaden in her ability to produce an appropriate phrase; it also shows, I think, in the way she is able to put a name to the bow Shan offers Lomar Fasholt.

According to my notes, tomorrow’s schedule calls for doing the next three chapters in one go.