Prologue
The culture and ways of my homeland, called Mata, and of the Songe who invaded us are vastly different. The most well-known is our love of learning. Education is the most important thing in life in Mata; we view it as a worthy endeavor in and of itself. The Songe never understood that. Everything in their Empire had to have an explicit purpose; they believed there was no point in studying something you would never use. Since Songe women primarily managed the home and child rearing, women everywhere were not formally educated. As a Matan, I would ask, How can a person raise children well if she is uneducated? But a Songe citizen’s answer to this would be to tell me to be quiet, women don’t know anything anyway.
A lesser known cultural difference is how life has an order in Mata, and for the most part we follow it exactly. Study is the main occupation of children from a very young age until we sit our exams at eighteen. Then follows two years of adjusting to adult life and practical work. At the age of twenty, we marry. Other milestones are also celebrated or completed at certain stages, and overall our culture resulted in a society of partnerships; my parents, and every couple I knew growing up, were equal in age, life experience, and education.
Things changed when the Songe came. I had just turned sixteen, and my whole world was mathematics, oration, botany, history, and literature. I overheard adults discussing the new taxes but remained focused on my scrolls. It took a long time for the Songe’s educational policies to make it to the farming villages of rural Mata like mine. I was only a year away from graduation when I learned that not only would the exams be administered in a foreign language, but as a woman I wouldn’t be allowed to take them at all.
The one and only attempt at uprising against the Songe in Mata then commenced. In order to keep the peace, the Songe governor at the time, Hadrian, adapted the policy so that schools could slowly implement the changes within the following year. I threw myself into my studies, including learning the new language, called Kyen, and took my exams on time in both languages.
I passed both – thought the Kyen one just barely. I was part of the last graduating class to include women in Mata.
Life went on. I continued studying Kyen, as it was quickly becoming the main language of the known world, and I secretly tutored the girls who were no longer allowed to attend school, but for the most part I did what was expected: I helped my parents manage the farm and traveled a bit amongst the hills of southern Mata. When I was nineteen, my parents began looking for a suitable husband for me. While I hated the Songe, I had more pleasant things to think about…
