This month's Celebration of new Christian fiction called for a fiction excerpt or short story. So I posted a story I wrote after taking a class in "Women of the Renaissance." That semester I discovered Christine de Pizan, whose father served in the French king's court and who sneaked her a classical education. Christine went on to write a defense of women, City of Ladies, writing in the tradition of Augustine's City of God and drawing on stories from history, mythology, and the Bible. Below is the allegory I patterned after her work.

I jolted upright, my heart pounding.

Only a nightmare....

I fell back into my goose-down pillow and exhaled. Wiping my brow with the back of my hand, I focused aching eyes on the ornate panels in the wall above my bedchamber.

There they were again. Those stories--the ones in the paintings. They troubled me even more than my dream.

When I pulled myself upright again, my eyes fell on my marriage chests nearby. I sighed. There was no getting away from the many scenes, all bearing the same message.

The artwork above and about depicted the rape of the Sabine women and the story of Nastagio degli Onesti. They were supposed to remind me, and every good wife for that matter, that a woman exists for her husband.

Since the day of my remarriage following five years of widowhood in the year of our Lord fourteen hundred seventy-eight, I had determined to make these scenes the objects of my daily inspiration and meditation. Having become accustomed to certain freedoms as a widow, I had been struggling to adjust to being a wife again in these three months since the marriage procession.

I had fallen asleep pondering the scenes. Initially I fancied myself bringing peace between two groups, as the Sabine women had done. Yet suddenly I had been torn from the safety of my parents’ care and dragged to a new world, taken prisoner. Before I awoke, I had realized that, as with the Sabine women, my prison was the home of a new husband.

Now I looked upon the paintings with new questions. I had sometimes dared to allow myself these thoughts, but I usually suppressed them. Yet I couldn't douse the inner fire they had lit. I had no energy with which to fight, and my mind yielded to doubt: I had to know why so many godly men had spoken so frequently and falsely against women.

Why are the women of Tuscany disallowed from owning our own property? I wondered.

I also wanted to know why a man could strike his wife with a pole until she bled as long as what he had in his hand was smaller than the width of his thumb. And why did the laws bar women from bearing witness in court? And why weren't women allowed to be educated?

I considered that perhaps it was too dangerous. (They say we are more fickle and faithless than men.) Yet my dream raised the questions again: Is violence before and within marriage acceptable, so long as it leads to a desired outcome? I knew the admonition of St. Paul that we are to overcome evil with good. Yet it seemed to me that this was calling evil good.

Once I allowed myself to ask a few, hundreds of questions followed. When I considered what I knew of women and what men believed about us, I found the two irreconcilable. "Perhaps I perceive the world wrongly," I thought, having been taught since childhood that females are by nature more susceptible to deception than men. Like a fish unable to feel his own wetness, perhaps I too was deceived, unable to see clearly because of my womanhood.

Yet this thought brought no satisfactory solution, for just as I began to wonder if I were deluding myself, numerous circumstances came to mind in which women’s perceptions had been equal to or superior to men’s. Had not Mary of Bethany anointed our Lord’s feet for burial when His disciples had failed to comprehend that He had chosen to die?

My heart picked up its pace again. I pressed my palms against my temples, wishing to cease all thinking. Yet I couldn’t stop. If God, in infinite wisdom, made woman in His image and declared creation “very good” after she arrived, how could woman have innate flaws, as we had been told?

I was conscious that the Almighty knew my every thought, and fear led me to pray.

“Oh, God, I am a woman of little faith who often doubts what I’m told. Even if all my senses contradict your word, I ask for the grace to believe You. Help me to be like the Virgin who, upon hearing she would conceive by the Holy Spirit, accepted Your will joyfully—unlike Zechariah, her cousin’s husband, who disbelieved upon hearing…”

I swallowed hard. My own prayer had added to my unbelief. Did not the Mother of our Lord have more faith than Zechariah when faced with a miracle conception?

I threw my quilt over my head and wiped a tear that had rolled onto my jaw.

“Have mercy!” I begged.

I do not know how long I lay in that state. But after a time, suddenly I felt in my body that I was healed of my infirmity. Sensing the approach of another, I opened my eyes and beheld a woman standing before me. Robed in angelic garb, she stood before me surrounded by light, and she held in her hand an apple sapling. I trembled and hid my face at the sight of her.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ve come to help you build an orchard. My name is Botania.”

An orchard? I pulled back the covers and looked at her.

She set her tree next to my bed, took my hand, and helped me sit. “We'll pattern our Orchard of Ladies after the Orchard of Eden.”

“The Garden…?”

She shook her head, but her eyes shone. “Before it was a garden, it was an orchard: ‘Out of the ground Yahweh Elohim made every tree grow' … 'The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….’ ”

I thought of that last tree and groaned. “I know. You’re here to remind me of Eve’s sin so I will know better than to question— ”

Botania held up her palm. “In that orchard, ‘The Lord made the man from dust,' but the woman was made from human flesh—made in God’s image. And 'God brought the woman to the man' and together declared them ‘very good.’ The man’s name was associated with earth, but the woman’s name was life itself. She was the crown of creation.”

“But she was inferior …”

“Indeed, she was not!" Botania's eyes flashed fury. "She was the man’s equal in every way, made to complement him.”

“Then why is she called his helper?”

“Did you not pray asking God to help you?”

She had a point. I nodded.

“Does that make the Almighty your inferior?”

I wanted to say that was not what I was implying, but she continued.

“Job was called a helper of the helpless. Was he less powerful or able than those he wished to aid? What the man lacked, the woman supplied. She was his indispensable companion.”

I didn’t hear much of what she said after “Job,” remembering that Job’s wife had cursed God while her husband held fast. Yet the story about Mary of Bethany still haunted me.

Botania motioned for me to put on my garments. Then she picked up her apple sapling.

Eyeing the tree she bore and reminded of the woman's problem with the fruit, I couldn’t suppress my wonderment. “How was the woman in the garden—er, the orchard—deceived, if not due to an inferior nature?”

“There was nothing inferior in her nature. Both the man and the woman chose to sin, and both suffered consequences from their actions. She had a free will, just as the man did.”

I had never heard of such a thing!

“If the woman was and is truly responsible for the entire fall,” she went on, “why did the apostle write that ‘In Adam all sin’? And how was the race redeemed but through the Last Man—the Seed of a woman?”

I couldn't answer.

Seeing me speechless, she suggested we get to work.

I walked over to my cassone and removed my garments. Yet I halted when the nude on the inside cover panel caught my eye. “But didn’t Eve tempt Adam to sexual sin?”

Botania shook her head. “It had nothing to do with that.” She looked at the ground, seemingly remembering the event. Then she lifted her eyes to meet mine. “The woman had a distorted view of God. She discounted the privileges Yahweh had given, for one thing. The Lord had said, ‘You may freely eat of every tree.’ Yet the woman’s words to the serpent removed the generosity. She said they could eat, but that the very touching of it would be lethal. She also minimized the penalty. The Almighty said, 'You will surely die,' but she said merely, 'We will die.' Her mistrust of the Holy One—not her sexuality nor any innate weakness—led to her shame. Remember, before their sin, the man and woman were naked and unashamed.”

“Why then was the woman cursed with a voracious sexual desire, if not as punishment for sexual seduction?”

I thought I heard her chuckle, but I couldn't be sure. She was behind me, lacing the back of my dress.

“First of all, she was not cursed. God cursed the ground when the man and woman sinned; Cain was the first cursed human.”

A mere technicality. “Her consequences then…”

“...had nothing to do with sexual desire. The man and woman were both to rule the earth and fill it. Their penalties related to their joint tasks. The woman’s desire was in wanting to dominate the man. And ever since that day he has ruled her. Once sin entered their relationship, the terrible power struggle began.”

“And it is God’s will that the man win….”

“Indeed, no!” She spun me around by the shoulders so I faced her.

"No?" I asked, stunned at the force of such boldness, especially in a woman. Especially in a holy woman.

She seemed perplexed by my reasoning. “Yahweh described what sin would do to their relationship. But don't mistake his description for an ideal. Didn't you take medicine this morning to treat your illness?"

I nodded. The concoction had tasted like sewage, and left an even worse aftertaste.

"Do your gardeners pull weeds or accept them as God’s will?"

I saw her point. Just because something was a part of the curse didn't mean we had to embrace it.

"God created men and women as equals in His image to rule the earth side-by-side. The domination of one over the other is sin. He predicted it, but it's still wrong.”

Everything in me longed to believe her words, yet it felt rebellious to do so. I pressed fingers against my palm to be sure I was truly awake. I wondered if my illness had left me delirious.

“If the man is supposed to rule the woman, as you suppose,” she continued, “how is it that in the most intimate part of their lives—the one-flesh relationship—the apostle Paul commands them both to yield to the other's authority?”

I had by now finished dressing and moved to the basin to wash my face.

Botania, her posture as straight as a statue, stood with a towel in her hand, ready to assist me.

I agreed that it was an odd hierarchy that gave husbands and wives authority over each other’s bodies. Her words made sense, but each explanation only raised more questions.

“Perhaps that is the one exception,” I said, “seeing that their purpose in marriage is to fill the earth.”

Botania looked at me with patient eyes, but she spoke with a firmness. “The duty the apostle describes relates to ongoing needs, not to filling the earth.”

I gasped. “Meeting needs?”

“Consider Song of Solomon—that lovely anthology of love poems—”

“His great allegory?” I interrupted.

She considered my words for a moment and shook her head. “Even if his Canticles were an allegory, what meaning has allegory if it has no truth on a literal level? It is the very foundation of that truth that allows recognition of an allegory’s meaning.”

Again, she had a point. My experience told me men had great needs, though I had been told that since Eve’s tragedy, women had been given the more voracious sexual desire.

“In God’s holy book we find an exhortation to physical intimacy apart from procreation. And in Solomon's collection, the bride is as assertive as her husband.”

I know my eyes must have widened. “Surely you can’t mean what I think you’re implying….”

She nodded.

I felt a smile cross my face.

Botania glanced down at the sapling she held, and I followed her eyes. “In Solomon’s love poetry," she said, "the beloved tells her lover, ‘Under the apple tree I awakened love.’ She meant sexual love when she spoke those words. And awakening physical love in the right context is a good and holy thing.”

Seeing me again at a loss for words, Botania motioned toward the garden entrance. “Let’s go plant this.”

I led the way to the outer door . Yet when I opened it, a new world greeted me. Where my terrace had once been, two women had planted rows of trees. And some tress had already grown to adulthood.

Botania took me to meet one of the women. She was bent down planting palms.

As we approached, the woman stood. “My name is Subpoena,” she said, with a slight bow. Then her eyes met mine. “I’ve come to help you plant the orchard and to answer your questions—the ones about women owning property and serving as witnesses.”

I cast my eyes to the ground, ashamed that I had been so bold as to question.

But Subpoena lifted my chin with her index finger.“Your observations were just,” she said. “Consider that women were the primary witnesses of Our Lord’s birth, death, burial and resurrection. And what about the Samaritan woman?”

“The immoral one…”

“Indeed she was not!”

I stepped back.

“Not until the end,” Subpoena said. “You know a woman cannot divorce her husband, nor would she think of doing so, unless she wants to starve. The woman of Samaria had faced desertion five times, and the man providing for her at the time she met our Lord had refused to marry her. So who was more immoral—that one woman or the six men who failed to show her loyal love?” She looked at me with piercing eyes.

I nodded timidly. “I see.”

Subpoena got back down on her knees and resumed her work, speaking as she went. “The Samaritan is the only woman to whom Our Lord and Savior ever stated directly that He was the Messiah. And consider what a witness she was! She ran and told an entire village of men that the Anointed One had come—though sadly everyone later made it a point to say ‘We don’t believe on account of you; we have seen for ourselves.’ ”

Subpoena handed me a garden tool. Side by side we worked as she continued.

“Was not Junia among the apostles? What a witness she must have been! And what about the Queen of the south, of whom our Lord spoke? He said she would rise up in the future and condemn His generation for failing to see that one greater than Solomon had come. Can you imagine? A woman will rise up and testify against an entire generation!”

We continued on in silence as I pondered these words. When we had planted the last sapling, Subpoena got up, brushed herself off, and motioned for me to follow.

I went with her through the grove until we came to a clearing. There I could see that her palm trees lined the orchard’s perimeter.

“Deborah, the prophetess and judge, used to sit under a palm tree so all Israel could come to her for judicial decisions.”

“How wonderful to be the exception God uses when a good man can’t be found,” I said wistfully.

Apparently this was not the right thing to say.

Subpoena's eyes looked at me from beneath furrowed brows. “If that’s what you think, you must not know about Hulduh.”

I'm certain my eyes gave away my ignorance.

“Hulduh was another prophetess—and a married one, lest you think Yahweh spoke only to and through virgins. Hulduh was keeper of the wardrobe in the days of King Josiah. At that time a scribe found a copy of God’s Law that had long been hidden. After reading it, Josiah commanded his priest, scribe, and servant to go inquire of the Lord. During that time Jeremiah the prophet lived near Jerusalem, as did Zephaniah, but the king’s men sought out Hulduh for God’s answer. In fact one of the men in that delegation was Jeremiah’s own father! So you see, God uses women even when good men are available.”

“Never was a woman more gladly corrected!” I exclaimed.

“Canon law has been hard on women,” Subpoena acknowledged. “But if canon law has been hard, civil law has been even more hostile. Zelophehad’s five daughters wondered that same thing you did about women owning property.”

“Zelophehad’s…what?”

“Zelophehad’s daughters lived during the time of Moses. Their father died leaving behind five females and no male heir. So Zelophehad’s daughters demanded that Moses give them a possession. And when Moses brought their case to the Lord, do you know what the Almighty said? He said ‘They are right!’”

I stood with my mouth agape. “I...I confess … I have never heard of these women.”

“And how could you unless you were allowed to learn God's law?"

“But a woman’s place—”

Subpoena shook her head. “Where is a woman's place? Indeed! Where was Mary of Bethany when her sister, Martha, was preparing a meal? Mary sat at the feet of the Rabbi obtaining an education. And which one of the two women did our Lord say had chosen the better part?”

“Mary. The who had once been immoral…”

Subpoena folded her arms across her chest and exhaled deeply. “What makes you say that?”

“...from whom seven demons had been cast out.”

Subpoena thought long and hard. “First of all, demon-possession is never said to be associated with immorality. But the Mary of whom you speak—Mary Magdelene—was from Magdela. Mary of Bethany was from Bethany, as were her siblings, Martha and Lazarus. Mary of Bethany was not the one from whom seven demons were cast out, nor do we have any reason to believe she was immoral. Yet that is secondary to my point. The Lord defended the woman who learned God's law over the one who cooked and served. If a woman’s job is to cook and clean and a man’s job is to learn, how is it that the Lord Himself insisted otherwise? And what a pupil Mary was! She showed insight superior to that of the twelve disciples. Remember what a sharp rebuke Saint Peter received for telling Jesus to avoid Jerusalem?”

I nodded.

“The Lord said to him, “Get behind me, Satan!” Yet Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus’ feet for burial while He still lived. Mary understood Jesus was going to die and be raised. And The Lord predicted that wherever the good news would be preached, what Mary did would be told. Later, at the tomb, the angel told the women, “He is not here—He is risen—just as He said.”

I could not help but stare as I pondered these things. Eventually Subpoena left me standing there looking up at the palm trees.

Before long I heard footsteps. I turned to see who was approaching and saw a third woman. She bore in her arms a balsam sapling.

“I’m Fidelity,” she said pleasantly. “Please join me.”

I walked with her until we entered a round clearing in the center of the orchard. There she knelt and planted her tree. When she had finished, she stood and brushed dirt off of her garments.

“Now, about that other question you had…”

“I have so many!”

“The one about women being fickle and faithless.”

“Ah …” Had it been a question? It was more my own observation, or at least what I had been told.

She motioned for me to follow, and we proceeded until we found a group of balsam trees ready for planting. She handed me one of her tools and we proceeded.

“Think about the great lengths to which Tamar went to carry on the name of her dead husband—who was, by the Almighty’s own assessment, an evil man,” Fidelity said. “First Tamar became the wife of her brother-in-law, Onan. But Onan was a disloyal brother, showing his disregard for the deceased by spilling his seed on the ground. That cruel act brought God’s judgment. Later Tamar dressed as a harlot to seduce her father-in-law, Judah, in a final attempt to carry on her husband’s name. And do you remember what Judah said of her when her deed was discovered?"

“She is more righteous than I.”

“Correct! And what of Rahab? The harlot kept her word to Israel’s spies, and in doing so saved all her family members. And then there’s Bathsheba. What was she doing when the king spotted her?”

“Taking a bath.”

“And not just any bath! She was obeying God’s law by ceremonially cleansing herself after menstruation. When the prophet Nathan brought the rebuke for adultery, he did not go to Bathsheba—he went to David, who committed adultery and then murdered to cover his own sin."

I wanted to ask a question about women and menstruation, but she continued before I had a chance.

“And Bathsheba’s daughter-in-law, Ruth—did she not marry a man much older than herself to show loyal love to her deceased husband, thereby guaranteeing provision for her bitter mother-in-law? What great loyalty she showed him, even after his death!”

“Yes.” I had marveled about that myself.

“All these women—along with the Holy Virgin—are in the genealogy of our Lord.”

Choosing my words carefully, I said, “Of course all of what you say is true. But if Bathsheba bathed because menstruation made her unclean, doesn’t that indicate her inferiority? Why are we not allowed in the church when we are menstruating if not because our womanhood offends God?”

Fidelity shook her head. “Remember the woman with a twelve-year menstrual flow who received the highest commendation from our Lord?”

“Yes,” I said, recalling she was the only woman our Lord ever called “daughter.” “She was healed from the uncleanness associated with her punishment for being a woman...”

“You must not confuse ritual uncleanness with sinfulness. This is a grave error,” Fidelity insisted.

My furrowed brow must have told her I was confused again.

“In the days of Moses the nations around God’s people used bodily fluids in their worship—semen, blood. But the people of God were to be different: ‘Be holy as I am holy,’ they were told. To be holy meant they were to be set apart, unlike those around them. Those who bled as well as those who had recently had relations were considered unclean for a time, but that did not mean they were sinful. It meant they were ritually impure. Foods and fungi also fell into the categories of clean and unclean.”

“But what about a woman who delivered a baby girl? She was unclean for twice as long as one who gave birth to a boy.” I was fairly sure I had her there. Surely the double penalty proved girls’ inferiority. “Our fathers and mothers rejoice when a son is born, but not when they have a daughter. The Scriptures themselves teach us males are better in the sight of God.”

There was a firmness in Fidelity’s voice. “Often in the first few weeks after birth when a mother nurses, her body passes to her baby girl a substance that makes the child have a discharge. Bodily fluids baby boys would never have. The law relates to ritual purity, not relative worth!”

“I see.” I thought for a moment. “But isn’t a physically weaker body inferior to a stronger one?”

“Allow me to answer your question with a question,” Fidelity said. “Did not Saint Paul ask three times to be delivered from a physical infirmity only to be told that God’s power was perfected in weakness?”

I nodded.

“And while Saint Peter does say that women are weaker, his phrase ‘weaker vessel’ has the idea of being less empowered, more vulnerable physically. Thus Saint Peter admonishes husbands in their new-found faith to treat their wives with consideration.”

“To have pity on them…”

Fidelity smiled and sighed. “No. Wives are fellow heirs, and thus to be treated with honor.”

“If women are such fellow heirs and indispensable partners, why are men considered “madmen if they think true prudence or good counsel lies in the female brain”?

“Why indeed? Did not the Almighty try to warn Pontius Pilate against crucifying our Lord through the wisdom of his wife? Pilate himself should teach all husbands that a man who refuses to listen to his wife’s good counsel is an utter fool. Pilate seemed to think he could ignore his wife’s wisdom and wash his hands of all responsibility, but he was mistaken. And clearly the good counsel of women extends beyond their management of the home. Think of Deborah, who told Barak that if she went with him in battle, a woman would get the honor. What great humility made her think of his honor! And indeed, her words showed her to be a prophet, for a woman did receive the honor. Jael drove a tent peg through the brains of Sisera as he slept in her tent. So Deborah and Jael showed the bravery in their nature. It takes more valor for a woman than for a man to enter battle, for if men capture a woman…”

I thought of my cassoni with the Rape of the Sabines that had been my meditation in recent days. “But both men and women are vulnerable to rape…”

“Certainly,” she agreed. “But not by a woman."

I fell silent.

“And what of Esther—who used the myrrh of the balsam tree to prepare herself for a pagan king? Having won the favor of Ahasuerus, she risked her life to save her people. And what’s warfare if not risking all for a higher good? When Saint Paul urged Christians to put on the full armor of God and stand for battle, did he address his words only to men? So you see, women are called daily to enter the greatest battle of all—the battle of good against evil.”

Fidelity, seemingly satisfied with both her work and her arguments, stood and brushed the dirt off her garments.

I did the same and glanced up to see Subpoena and Botania approaching.

Botania made a wide, sweeping motion with her arm. "Is it not altogether lovely?"

I followed her gaze and gasped as I drank in the sight of perfectly symmetrical lines of trees. The scent of apple, palm, and balsam wafted through the air.

“Most honored ladies,” Fidelity said, “may God be praised, for our Orchard of Ladies is complete. And may all women who love justice, honor, and valor find refuge in this place. It is only a temporary orchard of refuge until that day when all wrongs are made right. Our first parents were not cast out forever, but in mercy were sent from the orchard before they ate from the tree of life, lest they be confirmed forever in their sinful states.”

Subpoena added, “A woman was present at the first tree—in Eden. And women were present at the Second Tree—on which the Root of Jesse was nailed for our transgressions.”

Hearing this we grew silent out of our great reverence.

Then Botania gazed out on the newly planted orchard with a faraway look in her eye. “This is just a resting place until that Final Orchard shall appear—about which it is said, ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life.’"

Then in unison, with joy lifting our voices we proclaimed together, "Peace to all who enter here!”