by Anthony Ryan
“I am pleased to be here, brother,” Vaelin assured him. “I have to clean these clothes…”
“Oh tosh.” The clothes were torn from his grasp and tossed into one of the large stone baths, where the laundry workers laboured. “We’ll do that. Come and meet everyone.”
The big man turned out to be a master, not a brother. His name was Harin and when he wasn’t taking his turn in the laundry he taught the novices the finer points of bones. “Bones, Master?”
“Yes, m’boy. Bones. How they work, how they fit together. How to mend them. I’ve snapped more arms back into sockets than I can remember. It’s all in the wrist. I’ll teach you before you leave, if I don’t break your arm first.” He laughed, the sound easily filling the cavernous chamber.
The rest of the brothers and sisters gathered round to greet Vaelin and he found himself assailed with numerous names and faces, all of whom displayed a disconcerting enthusiasm for his presence, as well as a plethora of questions.
“Tell us, brother,” one brother said, a thin man named Curlis, “is it true your swords are made from star silver?”
“A myth, brother,” Vaelin told him, remembering to keep Master Jestin’s secret. “Our swords are finely made, but of plain steel only.”
“Do they really make you live in the wilds?” a young sister asked, a plump girl called Henna.
“Only for ten days. It’s one of our tests.”
“They make you leave if you fail, don’t they?”
“If you live that long.” It was Sister Sherin, standing in the doorway, arms crossed. “That’s right isn’t it, brother? Many of your brothers die in the tests? Boys as young as eleven years old.”
“A hard life requires hard training,” Vaelin replied. “Our tests prepare us for our role in defending the Faith and the Realm.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If Master Harin doesn’t need to prolong your presence here, the teaching room needs mopping.”
And so he mopped the teaching room. He also mopped all the rooms in the west wing. When he was done she had him boil a mixture of pure spirit and water and soak the metal implements the Aspect had used to treat the young man’s wound. She told him it eradicated infection. The rest of the day was spent in similar endeavours, cleaning, mopping, scrubbing. His hands were tough but he soon found them chafing with the work, the flesh red from soap and scrubbing by the time Sister Sherin told him he could go and eat.
“When do I learn how to heal?” he asked. She was in the teaching room, laying out a variety of instruments on a white cloth. He had spent two hours cleaning them and they shone brightly in the light from the overhead window.
“You don’t,” she replied, not looking up. “You get to work. If I think you won’t get in the way, I’ll let you watch when I tend to someone.”
A variety of responses flickered through his mind, some caustic, some clever, but all certain to make him sound like a petulant child. “As you wish, sister. What hour do you require me?”
“We start at the fifth hour here.” She gave a conspicuous sniff. “Before reporting for work, you are expected to wash thoroughly, which should help diminish your rather pungent aroma. Don’t they wash in the Sixth Order?”
“Every three days we swim in the river. It’s very cold, even in summer.”
She said nothing, placing a strange-looking implement on the cloth: two parallel blades fastened by a screw device.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Rib spreader. It allows access to the heart.”
“The heart?”
“Sometimes the beat of a heart will stop and can be recommenced by gentle massage.”
He looked at her hands, slim fingers moving with measured precision. “You can do this?”
She shook her head. “I’ve yet to learn such skills. The Aspect can though, she can do most things.”
“She’ll teach you one day.”
She glanced up at him, her expression wary. “You should eat, brother.”
“You’re not eating?”
“I take my meals later than the others. I have more work to do here.”
“Then I’ll stay. We can eat together.”
She barely paused in scrubbing at a steel basin. “I prefer to eat alone, thank you.”
He stopped a sigh of exasperation before it escaped his mouth. “As you wish.”
There were more questions at mealtime, more intense curiosity almost making him wish for Sister Sherin’s disinterest. The masters of the Fifth Order ate with their students so he sat with Master Harin amongst a group of novice brothers and sisters. He was surprised by the variety in the ages of the novices at the table, the youngest little more than fourteen whilst the oldest clearly in his fifties.
“People often come to our Order later in life,” Master Harin explained. “I didn’t join until my thirty-second year. Was in the Realm Guard before then, Thirtieth Regiment of Foot, the Bloody Boars. You’ve heard of them no doubt.”
“Their renown does them credit, Master,” Vaelin lied, never having heard of such a regiment. “How long has Sister Sherin been here?”
“Been here since an infant that one, worked in the kitchens. Didn’t start training till she turned fourteen though. That’s the youngest we’ll allow novices to join. Not like your Order, eh?”
“It’s but one of many differences, Master.”
Harin laughed heartily and took a large bite from a chicken leg. Food in the Fifth Order was much the same as the Sixth, but there was less of it. Vaelin experienced a moment’s embarrassment when he began wolfing down large helpings with habitual haste, drawing bemused glances from the others at the table. “Have to eat quickly in the Sixth,” he explained. “Wait too long and it’ll all be gone.”
“I heard they starve you as punishment,” said Sister Henna, the plump girl he had met in the laundry. She asked even more questions than the others and whenever he looked up she seemed to be watching him.
“Our masters have more practical ways of punishing us than starvation, sister,” he told her.
“When do they make you fight to the death?” the thin man, Innis, asked. The question was voiced with such earnest curiosity Vaelin found he couldn’t take offence.
“The Test of the Sword comes in our seventh year in the Order. It is our final test.”
“You have to fight each other to the death?” Sister Henna seemed shocked.
Vaelin shook his head. “We will be matched against three condemned criminals. Murderers, outlaws and so forth. If they defeat us, they are considered to have been judged innocent of their crimes as the Departed will not accept them into the Beyond. If we defeat them, we are judged fit to carry a sword in service to the Order.”
“Brutal but simple,” Master Harin commented before belching loudly and patting his stomach. “The ways of the Sixth Order may seem harsh to us, my children, but do not forget they stand between our Faith and those who would destroy it. In times past they fought to keep us safe. If not for them, we wouldn’t be here to offer care and healing to the Faithful. Think well on that.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the table and, for once, conversation turned to other matters. The concerns of the Fifth Order seemed to revolve mainly around bandages, medicinal herbs, various forms of disease and the endlessly popular subject of infection. He wondered if he should be more upset at having to discuss the Test of the Sword but found it left him with little more than a vague sense of unease. He had known it was coming since his first days in the Order, they all had, it was an annual event, watched by a great many of the city’s populace and, although novice brothers of the Order were forbidden to attend, he had heard many stories of prolonged combats and unfortunate brothers whose skills had failed to match the final test. However, set against what he had already experienced it seemed little more than one of many dangers ahead. Perhaps that was the point of the tests, to render them immune to danger, accepting fear as a normal part of their lives.
“Do you have
tests?” he asked Master Harin.
“No, m’boy. No tests here. Novice brothers and sisters stay in the Order House for five years, where they are trained in our ways. Many will leave or be asked to leave but those who stay will have earned the skills to heal and will be appointed tasks that match their abilities. Myself, I spent twenty years in the Cumbraelin capital, seeing to the needs of the small Faithful community there. It’s a hard thing, brother, to live amongst those who would deny the Faith.”
“The King’s Edict tells us Cumbraelins are our brothers in the Realm, as long as they keep their beliefs within their own Fief.”
“Pah!” Master Harin spat. “Cumbrael may have been forced into the Realm by the King’s sword but always she seeks to promote her blasphemy. I was approached many times by god-worshipping clerics seeking my conversion. Even now she sends them across her borders to spread their heresy amongst the Faithful. I fear your Order and mine will have much work in Cumbrael in the years to come.” He shook his head sadly. “A pity, war was ever a terrible thing.”
They gave him a cell in the south wing, bare apart from a bed and a single chair. He undressed quickly and slipped into the bed, enjoying the unfamiliar but luxuriant feel of clean, fresh linen. Despite the comfort, sleep was slow in coming; Master Harin’s talk of Cumbrael had disturbed him. War was ever a terrible thing. But there was something in the master’s eyes that seemed almost eager for war to be visited on the heretical Fief.
Sister Sherin’s coldness was another concern. She clearly wanted little to do with him, which he found bothered him greatly, and had no regard for the Sixth Order, which he found bothered him not at all. He resolved to try harder to win her confidence in the morning. He would do everything she asked of him without question or complaint, he had a suspicion she would respect little else.
However, what kept him awake longest was Aspect Elera’s refusal to answer his questions. He had been so sure she would provide the answers he craved that the prospect of a refusal hadn’t even occurred to him. She knows, he thought with certainty. So why won’t she tell me?
He fell asleep with the questions tumbling through his mind, finding no answers in his dreams.
He forced himself out of bed at first light, washed thoroughly in the trough in the courtyard and reported for work a good measure before the fifth hour. Sherin was there before him. “Fetch bandages from the storeroom,” she said. “People will soon be at the gate seeking treatment.” She frowned as he moved past her. “You smell…better, at least.”
He borrowed a trick from Nortah and forced a smile. “Thank you, sister.”
The first was an old man with stiff joints and endless tales of his time as a sailor. Sister Sherin listened politely to his stories as she massaged balm into his joints, giving him a jar of the substance to take home. The next was a thin young man with trembling hands and bloodshot eyes who complained of severe pains in the belly. Sister Sherin felt his stomach and the vein in his wrist, asked a few questions and told him that the Fifth Order did not give redflower to addicts.
“Up yours, Order bitch!” the young man spat at her.
“Watch your mouth,” Vaelin said, stepping forward to throw him out but Sherin stopped him with a glare. She stood impassively as the young man swore at her viciously for a full minute whilst casting wary glances at Vaelin before storming out, his profanity echoing through the hallway.
“I don’t need a protector,” Sherin told Vaelin. “Your skills are not required here.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, teeth gritted, failing to summon another Nortah smile.
They came in all ages and sizes, men and women, mothers with children, sisters with brothers, all cut, bruised, pained or sick. Sherin seemed to know the nature of their ailments instinctively, working without pause or rest, tending to them all with equal care. Vaelin watched, fetched bandages or medicine when he was told, trying to learn but instead finding himself preoccupied with Sherin, fascinated by the way her face changed when she worked, the severity and wariness disappearing into compassion and humour as she joked and laughed with her charges, many of whom she clearly knew well. That’s why they come, he realised. She cares.
And so he tried as hard as he could to help, fetching, carrying, restraining the fearful and the panicked, offering awkward words of comfort to the wives or sisters or children who brought the wounded to be healed. Most were in need of little more than medicine or a few stitches, some, the ones Sherin knew so well, had prolonged sicknesses and took the longest time to treat as she asked numerous questions and offered advice or sympathy. Twice, grievously wounded people came in. The first was a man with a crushed stomach who had walked into the path of a runaway cart. Sister Sherin felt the vein in his neck and began pumping at his chest with both fists clamped over his sternum.
“His heart stopped beating,” she explained. She kept at it until blood began to flow from the man’s mouth. “He’s gone.” She moved back from the bed. “Fetch a trolley from the storeroom and take him to the morgue. It’s in the south wing. And clean the blood from his face. The family don’t like to see that.”
Vaelin had seen death before but her coldness took him by surprise. “That’s all? There’s nothing else you can do?”
“A cart weighing half a ton ran over his stomach, turning his guts to mush and his spine to powder. There is nothing else I can do.”
The second badly wounded man was brought in by the Realm Guard in the evening, a stocky fellow with a crossbow bolt through his shoulder.
“Sorry, sister,” the sergeant apologised to Sherin as he and two fellow guards hauled the man onto the table. “Hate to waste your time with one such as this but we’ll get hell from the captain if we turn up with another corpse.” He gave Vaelin a curious glance, taking in his dark blue robe. “You appear to be in the wrong House, brother.”
“Brother Vaelin is here to learn how to heal,” Sherin informed him, leaning over the stocky man to examine his wound. “Twenty feet?” she enquired.
“Closer to thirty.” One of the guards sniffed proudly, hefting his crossbow. “And he was running.”
“Vaelin,” the sergeant murmured, his glance turning into a stare of scrutiny as he looked Vaelin up and down. “Al Sorna, right?”
“That’s my name.”
The three guards laughed, it wasn’t a pleasant sound and Vaelin instantly regretted leaving his sword in the cell that morning.
“The boy brother who beat ten Hawks single-handed,” the younger guard said. “You’re taller than they said.”
“It wasn’t ten…” Vaelin began.
“Wish I’d been there to see that,” the sergeant interrupted. “Can’t stand those bloody Hawks, strutting about the place. Hear they’re making a plan of revenge though. You should watch your back.”
“I always do.”
“Brother,” Sherin cut in. “I need catgut, needle, probe, a serrated knife, redflower and corr-tree oil, the gel not the juice. Oh, and another bowl of water.”
He did as he was told, grateful for the chance to escape the guardsmen’s scrutiny. He went to the storeroom and filled a tray with the required items, returning to the treatment room to find it in uproar. The stocky man was on his feet, backed into a corner, his meaty fist clamped around Sister Sherin’s throat. One of the guardsmen was down, a knife buried in his thigh. The other two had their swords drawn, shouting threats and fury.
“I’m walking out of here!” the stocky man shouted back.
“You’re going nowhere!” the sergeant barked in response. “Let her go and you’ll live.”
“I go inside, One Eye’ll have me done. Stand aside or I’ll wring this bitch’s n—”
The serrated knife Vaelin had fetched from the storeroom was heavier than he was used to but it wasn’t a difficult throw. The man’s throat was clearly open, but his death spasm might have caused him to snap Sister Sherin’s neck. The blade sank into his forearm, causing his hand to open by reflex, allowing Sherin to collapse to t
he floor. Vaelin vaulted the bed, scattering the tray’s contents across the room, and felled the stocky man with a few well-placed punches to the nerve centres in his face and chest.
“Don’t,” Sherin gasped from the floor. “Don’t kill him.”
Vaelin watched the man slumping to the floor, his eyes vacant. “Why would I?” He helped her to her feet. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, pulling away. “Get him back on the bed,” she told him, her voice hoarse. “Sergeant, if you could help me get your comrade to another room.”
“Be doing the bastard a favour if you had killed him, brother,” the sergeant grunted as he and the other guardsman helped their fallen comrade to his feet. “Hanging day tomorrow.”
Vaelin had to struggle to get the man off the floor, he seemed to be composed mainly of muscle and weighed accordingly. He groaned in pain as Vaelin let him fall back onto the bed, his eyes flickering open.
“Unless you’ve got another knife hidden,” Vaelin told him. “I’d lie still.”
The man’s gaze was baleful but he said nothing.
“So who’s One Eye?” Vaelin asked him. “Why does he want you dead?”
“I owe him money,” the man said, his face slicked with sweat and lined with pain from his wounds.
He recalled Frentis’s tales of his time on the streets and the wayward throwing knife that had caused him to seek refuge in the Order. “Your tax?”
“Three golds. I’m in arrears. We’ve all gotta pay. And One Eye hates those that don’t pay with a passion.” The man coughed, staining his chin with blood. Vaelin poured a cup of water and held it to his lips.
“I have a friend who told me once about a man who lost his eye to a boy with a throwing knife,” Vaelin said.
The stocky man swallowed the water, his cough subsiding. “Frentis. If only the little sod had killed the bastard. One Eye says he’s gonna take a year to skin him alive when he finds him.”
Vaelin decided he would have to meet with One Eye sooner or later. He looked closely at the crossbow bolt still buried in the man’s shoulder. “Why did the Realm Guard do this?”