"There are circumstances so much better that it's worth getting your children access to them, even if it causes trouble at home. And we've dealt with Kings who will let us heal their people and bless their crops only if we let him keep up whatever horrid personal vice he's fond of. We debated what to do about it. We decided not to be a paradise full of festering pockets of horror permitted to continue for the greater good. Kings usually find themselves quite unpopular when they're trying to convince their people not to accept healing. We've been in the rest of this world for weeks already. People know where to go to board the shuttlebuses that take them on tours of our worlds. They know our songs work. They know our eyeglasses work, and our medicines. Next week there'll be schools, and they'll learn how to read. I am sure your Emperor will be upset. I am much less sure that everyone will listen to him, if he tries to cut them off from the galaxy.

When I left I went before a judge and I explained to the judge when I had married my husband and how he had treated me and why I had not been able to get a divorce before and why I wanted one now. And he granted one and he said that the children would stay with me, but my husband could visit them every day for up to three hours, supervised by a social worker so I didn't have to be present or worry about them. The court arranged him transportation and arranged him compensation for lost income so he could take all his visitation time if he wished even though it'd mean less work. He visits them, sometimes, especially the boys. Not very often. My two oldest have both said they don't want to see him anymore, so now they don't. I would have been failing them if I had stayed."

"You think he will be upset? That you made his people healthy, wealthy, and wise? No, not at all. They will still be Scandinavians, they will still be loyal to him in the end. That you took his favorite concubine? Momentarily; he'll find another. That you kept his children from him? For a while - perhaps he'll tell his people what he has suffered, being separated from his sons for so long. No doubt he will suffer something. But Frey will come back to him. Perhaps the others will, too, when he dangles fiefdoms or princes in front of them. And I will have - what, the knowledge that I abandoned my children to the greatest evil this world has ever known? The knowledge that Scandinavia is now a realm without legally recognized slavery, but where all people barely cling to free choice because they fear an army of unkillable wizards more than they love their kings, more than they love their spouses? The knowledge that Mercia is still there, should I wish to return to it, but that it will be unrecognizeable and no longer a pocket of the true faith? The pride of defending my own virtue, ten years too late? I hope I can enjoy that pride alone, because there is no one in this world and very likely no one in any other who will not see these circumstances or their bearer and fail to perceive how entirely pathetic they are."

Well. That made her feel much worse. Hooray. 

" - I had a life to recover once. I don't anymore. I have children and I have stories and I have a burning need to see the thing that rules this country either rot in hell or successfully repent of its seemingly boundless capacity for evil."

"I'm confused."

"Well I'm probably doing a really terrible job of explaining things because I'm kind of upset right now." She sighs. Probably she can keep herself from crying if she thinks about being very dignified and continuing to hold this baby. "Sorry."

"I want to get to know you better but it can wait until next week, if you want, or the week after. You're - putting a lot on yourself if you want to figure everything out now. It took me two years."

"Well you're welcome to stop by in the future, in the sense that it won't bother me and I couldn't prevent it if it did."

"Well, I wouldn't come if you asked me not to."

"Then - no, I shouldn't say anything to that, I'll only be pointlessly rude. Thank you for taking the time to visit."

"Of course. Take care."

Then Vigdis will show her out, making a valiant if not quite successful attempt to hide how exasperated she is.

"She's your aunt?"

"Yup. Mother's sister."

"She seems very brave."

"I guess," says Vigdis, doubtfully. 

"You also seem very brave."

"Well I am, but I haven't done anything brave today, so you couldn't know."

"You snuck out to find us and you got in an argument with your aunt today. What do you do on a brave day?"

"Sneaking out is only brave if you figure you'll get caught, and arguing's not brave if you're doing it with someone who's basically a wounded puppy. Brave is doing something that'll hurt you if you don't do it right, and not knowing if you will. Like, one time I killed a viper with my sword before it could bite my brother, and that was brave because I didn't know if it was gonna bite me."

"I think it's brave to do things that will hurt even if you do them right."

"I guess. Then you have to be really sure you're right about what the right thing to do is, though, and not just so scared of getting things wrong that you keep doing a thing that's hurting you for no reason. 'Cause I don't think that's brave at all."

"If you can sneak out the day after tomorrow, there'll be a shuttlebus leaving from our tent for Mars and from there on to Crossroads. You could be back about an hour later."

"Cool. I can make it."

"I'll see you then!"

"Bye!"

She will, in fact, sneak out the day after tomorrow. Early in the morning again, because that's the best time for sneaking.

The shuttlebus is made of metal; it's shiny and chrome and looks out of place in a muddy field. You have to pay to get on - shiny silver tokens, not local currency - but you can get shiny silver tokens from the magicians' tents in exchange for a story, or you can get ten tokens if you let them stab you with a needle which prevents most illnesses.