As Cromwell announced her, Zoe stood up and walked to the front of the stage, her head held high, making sure the light caught the swelling still closing her eye, the cut, the bruises.

She could hear a vague uneasiness in the audience about her clothing, but more than one woman was looking her up and down in a speculative way, perhaps thinking that pants might be more comfortable, and a lot more practical.

She waited, letting everyone get a good look, taking so long she could see Cromwell starting to get nervous.

Finally she spoke, her voice filling the large hall without even needing to be raised.

“Seen enough?” she asked. “And before you judge, it wasn’t my husband. If it was he wouldn’t be my husband any more. But the men who did it … they’re not important. They’re less than nothing. It doesn’t matter who did this, what their motives were, whether they were paid or not. It doesn’t even matter that it was me who got stopped last night, threatened, beaten on. No-one should be treated like this. Male, female, child, adult … no-one has the right to deal this way with another human being just because they don’t agree with them, or because they’re stronger, or cleverer, or because it’s the way things have always been done, here on Jericho.”

Zoe took a breath, letting her words sink in. “That’s pretty much why I stood for women’s rights campaigner. In fact, it shouldn’t be called that at all. It should be campaigner for human rights. Because you need that. Someone to stand up and be counted, to say what some of you are probably thinking, but are too afraid to voice. To avow and declare that everyone has the right to live their life under nobody’s heel, to be able to complain when something is wrong without fear, without having to look over their shoulder so often that it becomes a habit, until it’s so ingrained that the whole gorram planet acts the same.”

She could see Hank at the back of the hall, nodding encouragingly, the others next to him, Kaylee beaming so hard that she