Write about a secret code or cypher in your world: who uses it, and for what purpose?
The Cipher of Hecate
In Mythoversal Hellas, the followers of Hecate are a secretive lot, housewives by day and practitioners of magic by night. Since formal literacy in their patriarchal society is reserved for men, and specifically just for the men trained for employment as scribes, the exchange of clay or wax tablets would bring undue attention to the followers' illicit activities. Therefore, when the members need to communicate over distances or without risk of being overheard, they use a medium within their realm of expertise: weaving.
The Weaving Circle
Weaving circles are a common activity. Groups of women take turns hosting a social gathering with food, wine, gossip, and some small bit of actual weaving. But while chatting among themselves, seeming to exchange only catty remarks, some participants may actually be signalling each other with deliberate movements or placements of color and patterns.
A non-initiate of Hecate's cult may detect nothing unusual, while significant planning, instruction, or debriefing may be going on all around them.
Inadvertent Messengers
When a message needs to be sent across the city, between cities, or to places where the housewives aren't typically allowed, they can recruit a husband, son, or household slave. Not knowingly, of course, because even members of the oikos can't know that a woman has been initiated into Hecate's Inner Circle. But because the women control the household, and because they either make or procure all articles of clothing, they can pick and choose what household members are wearing when they venture forth into the city at large.
A husband returning home from a day at the court or counting house may think nothing of his wife inquiring as to the clothing choices of other government officials. "A blue scarf with white stripes, you say? Interesting. And how far apart would you estimate these stripes were?" From just a few well-placed items and some practiced questioning, the followers of Hecate can coordinate their activities without ever leaving the household.
Cracking the Code
Men will never crack the Cipher of Hecate. Even if they learned of the code's existence, even if they infiltrated a weaving circle, even if they were able to feign an interest in weaving, the arcane subject matter of magic and witchcraft would be inaccessible to them.
Some women on the outside of the cult, however, are sometimes able to piece together a few of its secrets. These women invariably find themselves recruited into the cult, and whatever secrets they've learned are returned to the realm of the goddess.
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