Chapter 24

The Temple Of Eskleipa

Five days after fleeing Amsara, Magnes came upon a tiny monastery just outside of a hamlet called Gariglen. As he guided his horse through the simple wooden palisade, he made a decision.

He sheltered there a day and a night. When, at last, he emerged, Magnes Preseren, son and Heir of Duke Teodorus of Amsara, was no more. A lay brother named Tilo, dressed in a simple brown robe and armed with nothing more than a knife and a stout walking stick, left Gariglen Monastery that bright Uresday morning. A satchel, bulging with salves and remedies, hung across his right shoulder.

The monks of Gariglen would have their new roof this fall and a stone byre to replace their old wooden one, for Magnes had traded them the horse from his father’s stable for the robe, medicines, and the small supply of food that he now carried. The gelding would fetch a handsome price, and a poor herbalist would never have been able to afford a horse in any case. The monks had asked no questions, and they’d accepted the lopsided trade happily.

As Magnes continued to make his way south, guilt haunted his every step. At night, he feared to close his eyes, for the evil dream that plagued him allowed him no rest.  His father would appear before him, face like a thundercloud, his life’s blood gushing in a scarlet stream from his head. He would raise an accusatory finger, aimed at Magnes’s heart.

Why did you murder me, Son? Why?

He would awake, his skin clammy with sweat, fighting for breath.

For a time, he feared he would go insane.

Three weeks of steady travel brought Magnes at last to the city of the Emperors. Darguinia quickly proved itself to be two cities, existing on two very different levels. One was a place of stunning beauty, filled with gardens, fountains, and buildings made of the whitest marble.

The other city was not.

Magnes, as a poor monk with little money, soon found himself in the other Darguinia. He entered a place of narrow, twisting streets and dark alleys, of fetid, open sewers and ramshackle buildings, of crime and disease—a place where hollow-eyed beggars sat in doorways, women and children sold their bodies on the streets to survive, and murder evoked barely an eyeblink.

Magnes had landed squarely in Hell, and he felt that he deserved the place he had made for himself. Even in Hell, though, things cost money, and he was fast running out of what little he had.

First, I need to find shelter,he thought. Then, I’ve got to figure out what sort of living I can make.Hitching his satchel a little higher on his shoulder, he looked around, picked a street at random, and plunged into the crowd.

~~~

The whore lifted her skirts and straddled Magnes where he sat on the shabby room’s only chair. Settling her bare rump firmly on his knees, she slid forward and pushed herself onto him. He sighed and shuddered a little. With professional efficiency, she began pumping her hips. Magnes shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at her face and gripped the sides of the chair, riding each successive wave of sensation, higher and higher, to a final spasm of release.

It was all quite impersonal and unsurprisingly brief.

“There, told you so, sweet’eart,” the woman said. She stood up and carefully pulled herself free, casually wiping between her legs with a corner of her skirt. “Told you I was ten times better ‘n that tired old cunt Lorola. Worth th’ extra three coppers, right, luv?”

Magnes glanced up, then away. All of the whores in this dangerous neighborhood of tenements and warehouses were well past their primes, but this one, with her cheap red dye-job and heavy make-up, had looked a little fresher than the rest. Still…

“I’m not your love,” he said roughly, tucking himself back into his breeches and standing. Almost immediately, he felt a stab of guilt at his harsh tone. He could in no way blame the mess of his life on this woman. “Please,” he amended more gently. “Don’t call me that.” The whore simply shrugged.

His thoughts turned to Livie. The memory of their last time together, of how they had made love and then had clung to each other as if their final night on earth had come, set up such an ache in his heart that he thought he might choke on his despair.

“You have your money,” he said quietly. She had insisted on her half-sol fee before coming up to his room. “You need to leave now.”

“When you need another ride, you know where t’find me, luv…oops, sorry!” She smirked and left without another word.

Magnes sat down on the edge of the narrow, musty cot and rested his head in his hands. A single tear slid from the corner of his eye, and slowly, he wiped it away with a forefinger. He chided himself, again, for wasting what little money he had left on something so tawdry, but the pain of his loneliness had been so great that the prospect of the touch of another person, anyperson, had proved to be impossible to resist. When this particular whore had propositioned him for the third time, he’d given in.  

He then thought of his father.

The image of Duke Teodorus’s death-pale face, a constant, lurking presence in his mind’s eye, seemed always ready to glide into full view at any unguarded moment. He could still see the crimson of his father’s blood, leaking onto the stones from his shattered skull. The memory had lost none of its vivid horror. Magnes moaned aloud and lay down, covering his face with his hands. The little candle on the shelf by the door, the room’s only source of light, guttered and went out. He lay, sleepless and unmoving, until sunrise.

Magnes rose at first light and donned his monk’s robe. He gathered up his meager possessions—knife, satchel, a waterskin, his walking stick—and left his small room, as he had each morning since arriving in the city four days ago.  This morning, though, he had a feeling he would not be returning.

Magnes had found that the brown homespun garment of a holy brother and healer afforded him a small bit of protection when he walked abroad in the squalid streets of Darguinia’s slums. Thieves and cutthroats were less likely to come after him, unless, of course, they needed a remedy; he kept several common ones on him at all times for such eventualities. Not that he really needed protection. He still carried his knife, and his training at arms would serve him well in any fight.

He took one last look around, then headed out into the street, intending to make his way to the temple district. Once there, he would inquire at as many establishments as it took for him to find one that would take him in as a novice.

The morning air already shimmered with heat. The coarse fabric of his robe chafed at neck and chest. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled in little rivulets from his underarms and down his back. His stomach rumbled. He thought of the half-sol he had spent on the red-dyed whore last night and winced in regret. A half-sol could have bought him a decent breakfast and a tankard of mead in one of the many alehouses that operated in the neighborhood.

He walked steadily, taking an occasional swig from the tepid contents of his waterskin. After a while, the dirt beneath his sandals became cobbles. The buildings transformed from shabby mud brick to sturdy wood, then stone. Another few blocks and he turned a corner and entered the temple district.

A plan had crystallized in Magnes’s mind. He would continue to call himself Tilo and try to get work as an herbalist in one of the temples dedicated to healing, or failing that, he would seek employment as a gardener. It didn’t matter, so long as he could work with growing things.

The Green Brothers were not accepting novices at this time, nor was the Temple of Balnath. The elderly priest who came to the door to politely turn him away suggested that he try the Temple of Eskleipa, over at the east end of the district near the Grand Arena. Magnes sat awhile in the shade of the temple porch, mustering his energy for the hot trudge to come. His mouth ached for a drink of something other than warm water; he thought about retreating from the day’s heat into a nearby tavern, but then he reminded himself of his dwindling finances.

With a weary sigh, he rose to his feet and set off.

Eskleipa was a foreign god, brought up from the far south of the Empire by a wave of immigration from the conquered lands of the Eenui people. His clergy had proven themselves to be skilled healers; worship of the god had become quite popular, especially among poor immigrants and slaves.

The Temple of Eskleipa looked far less grand than the gleaming marble house of Balnath. Magnes walked up to the plain wooden door of the modest brick building and pulled on a rope dangling from the doorjamb. Somewhere within, he heard the tinkling of a bell.

Time passed, and the door remained firmly shut. Magnes hauled on the bell rope a second time and followed that up with a firm rap with the end of his walking stick. A third and fourth try were equally fruitless, and Magnes had decided to give up when, just as he was turning to leave, the door swung open, and a man poked his head out.

“Yes?”

Magnes blinked in surprise.

He had never before seen a man so old.

“Are you in need of healing, my son? Well, speak up! I’m hard of hearing!” The old man cupped his hand to his ear and peered up at Magnes owlishly.

“No, I don’t need healing, Father,” Magnes finally managed to answer. “I’m looking for a position as an herbalist. I was told over at the Temple of Balnath that you might accept me as a novice.”

“Balnath! Balnath, bah! No Balls-nath, more like. Those quacks wouldn’t know their ears from their arseholes. They think tree lizard dung is a cure for warts! Hah!” The old man cackled with derision. “Well, then, young sir, I guess you’d better come in.”

His skin was as brown as old wood, and it had been many years since his scalp had last sprouted hair, but the old man’s back remained unbent, and the hand that held the door looked untouched by the joint ill. He stood at least a head shorter than Magnes, a twig of a man attired in a gauzy grey garment he had wrapped partly around his waist and draped the rest over his left shoulder. An enormous beak of a nose dominated his oval face.

“I am Brother Wambo,” the old cleric said as he led the way into the temple.

“I am Tilo,” Magnes replied, following his host through a receiving chamber and out another door into a courtyard.

The courtyard was an inviting oasis of shade trees and flowering shrubs. A tiled fountain stood at its center, the cheerfully splashing water throwing off myriads of bright reflections. The air, so much cooler here than out on the street, hung thick with the perfume of growing things.

Magnes looked about him and sighed. Already, he could feel the peace of the place begin to seep into his body, relaxing it.

“Why d’you want to join with us, eh? Wait! I know! ‘Cause the Temple of Balnath turned you away!” The old cleric had abruptly rounded on Magnes and now stood wagging a finger at the tip of the younger man’s nose. Magnes stifled a laugh. Brother Wambo looked very much like a cranky old heron.

“We’re not nearly so grand as Balnath’s temple, no marble pillars and gold leaf here, oh no. You won’t see any of the high and mighty here, either, young man, none of yoursort. Oh don’t look so surprised! Did you really think you could hide those fine manners of yours?”

“I…I…” Magnes stammered, then quickly regained his composure. Clearly, his cover story was not going to work, so he decided to take a calculated risk and tell Brother Wambo the truth, or at least part of it.

“Please, Brother, I need a place. I’m a long way from home and just about out of money. I swear to you that I’ll work hard, and I’ll bring no trouble.”

“What about trouble finding you, eh?” Wambo cocked his head to one side and regarded Magnes with hard brown eyes.

“I promise it’s all left very far behind me.”

“Hmm, well.” Wambo’s expression softened. “We’ve never had a Soldaran nobleman petition to join our ranks before, but there’s a first time for everything. An herbalist, you say?”

“Yes, I know a lot about plants, both medicinal and food. I can help tend the gardens as well.” For the first time in many days, Magnes could feel himself letting go of some of the terrible burden of sadness he had been carrying since leaving Amsara.

“Welcome to our order, Tilo,” Wambo said.

“We’re a small group here, as you will see. So many needy people! We are stretched very thin at times,” said Wambo as he led Magnes to the refectory.

After his arrival earlier, Wambo had shown Magnes to a small chamber furnished with only a woven rope cot and a single chair. A small window looked out onto the courtyard. Wambo had promised that he would have the room all to himself, a small luxury that had pleased Magnes greatly. He had been allowed to rest until sunset, when the evening meal would be served.

“Sister Melele is our cook. Oh, you’ll learn to enjoy what we eat here, but I must warn you. It can be quite a shock to the timid Soldaran palate.” Wambo grinned impishly, revealing a mouth full of strong white teeth.

The refectory was a long narrow room dominated by a solid wooden trestle table. Several people were already seated when Wambo and Magnes entered. They all regarded Magnes with varying degrees of curiosity.

“Brothers and sisters, this is Tilo, a young man of conviction who wishes to be one of us,” Wambo announced cheerfully.

“Welcome, Tilo. Come and sit by me,” a woman said, beckoning Magnes over with a wave of her hand. Magnes obliged, grateful for the overture.

“My name is Ayesha. I serve as the midwife here.” Magnes could not help but notice Ayesha’s beauty. Fascinated, he caught himself staring at her hair, which had been skillfully arranged into a cascade of impossibly slender braids. Ayesha smiled knowingly, and feeling a little embarrassed by his lapse in manners, Magnes quickly looked away.

“I also look after the women who become ill after childbirth,” Ayesha said. 

“Then you have a much more harrowing and important job than I do, Ayesha,” Magnes replied, daring to look back at her face and finding gentle amusement in her eyes.

“All jobs are of equal importance here, Tilo,” she said. “Without a skilled herbalist, I could not offer the poor women who come to us for help many of the most efficacious remedies I know of.” Magnes nodded in understanding.

“That is Jouma, our chiurgeon,” Wambo said, indicating the middle-aged man to Magnes’s right, “and young Fadili over there, he will be your assistant.” Fadili smiled broadly and waved from his seat across the table. “Zemba and Nyal are medics.” Wambo pointed to a man and a woman seated opposite Magnes, finishing off the introductions.

“Is everyone in this order from…the south?” Magnes asked, looking around at the people he had chosen to join with. They were all as dark as the wood of the table at which they sat; in contrast, even if Magnes should expose himself to the sun for many hours, he would still be pale when compared to any of them.

“Not everyone,” said Ayesha with a smile. “Now, we have a Soldaran brother.”

“All of us have lived here in Darguinia for many years,” Wambo said, sitting down to Magnes’s left. “I last saw our homeland over thirty summers ago. Fadili came into this world right here within these walls.”

“It must be hard for you all, being so far away from home,” Magnes said.

“Darguinia has become our home. Our work is very important, and the people are grateful. We don’t serve the rich here, oh no. Poor working folk, slaves, beggars, and whores—that’s who we treat. All of the people who can’t afford the fees that Balnath’s priests swindle out of their patients. Bah!” Wambo spat in disgust.

“How, then, can the temple afford to buy supplies and support all of us if we charge no fees?” Magnes asked.

“I didn’t say that we charged no fees. Of course, our patients must pay something, but only what they can afford, and many times, it’s trade. And we have the Arena.”

“The arena?” queried Magnes.

Jouma the chiurgeon spoke up for the first time. “The Grand Arena. We hold contracts with several of the yards to provide care and healing for their fighters, both slave and free. It brings in a tidy sum every month, and it’s steady.”

“It’s our Arena contracts that allow us to offer so much for so little to the poor. We’d be out of business without them,” Wambo added.

“Tomorrow, we visit the de Guera Yard, our biggest contract,” Jouma continued. “Yesterday was an off-day, so there won’t be any new injuries to treat, just follow-ups and the usual little things—runny noses, headaches, coughs and such. Lady de Guera runs a tight yard. She sees to it that her slaves stay healthy and her prizefighters stay clean, or they don’t work. You can come with me if you like.”

“Yes, I would love to, thank you,” Magnes agreed.

Several more people had since entered the refectory and had taken places at the table. Wambo introduced them as they sat. Last to enter came a young woman upon whose arm leaned a small man. To Magnes’s amazement, the man appeared to be even older than Wambo.

“Father Ndoma, the lekeor head of our order,” Wambo whispered into Magnes’s ear, indicating the frail elder with a lift of his chin. He waited until the Father’s attendant had settled the old man in a high backed chair at the head of the table, then shouted, “LekeNdoma, this is Tilo! He has come this very day to join us as our new herbalist!” Wambo looked at Magnes, tapped his ear and explained, “LekeNdoma is nearly deaf…Has been for at least a year. My lungs have grown very strong from shouting.”

“Eh? A new recruit?” the ancient cleric piped in a thin, reedy voice. “Well, where is he? Let him come forward so I can look at him!”

Magnes rose from his seat and approached the leke’schair. Unsure of how to demonstrate respect to the elder, he decided to incline his head as he would toward his own father. Just that brief thought of the duke twisted Magnes’s gut into a painful knot, but he resolutely pushed his feelings back down into the dark place underneath his heart and sealed them off.

The old man regarded Magnes quizzically. He clicked his tongue and muttered something in a language Magnes did not understand, then asked,

“You are a Soldaran nobleman, yes?”  His black eyes glittered shrewdly.

“Yes, Father,” Magnes answered. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The priest’s eyes seemed to penetrate through all of the shields Magnes had erected to protect himself, discerning the true man beneath the façade.

“You’ll have to speak up, my son. I haven’t much hearing left… Never mind…I know who you are. Welcome.” He waved a spidery brown hand, giving Magnes leave to go back to his place at the table.

Magnes returned to his seat, unsettled. What had thelekemeant by his last remark?

He pondered the question all throughout the meal, which, as Wambo had warned earlier, proved to be highly spiced. His companions, mistaking his distraction for shyness, attempted to draw him out with conversation. He could tell that they were fishing for clues about his background. He fed them only enough details to make up a plausible story. He was the son of a minor noble house, estranged from his family and looking to make his own way in the world. They all seemed to accept him at his word, and he felt a momentary twinge of guilt at the deception, but he told himself that no harm would come of it.

After dinner, Magnes went with Fadili to inspect the pharmacy. He found it to be meticulously organized and well stocked.

“Our old herbalist Tima died last winter of the lung fever,” Fadili explained. “She was teaching me.” The young man’s voice quivered with sadness.

“I’ll teach you now, Fadili,” Magnes stated. Something about the youth reminded him of Dari. A wave of homesickness weakened his knees and brought tears to his eyes. He wondered if Dari now looked after Storm.

“Are you not well?” Fadili asked. Magnes quickly shook his head.

“I’m fine. It’s…it’s just that I’m not used to the spiciness of your food, that’s all. It has unsettled my stomach a little, but I’ll be recovered by morning. Don’t worry!” He laughed wanly. “I’ll make myself some peppermint tea. That’s always good to ease indigestion.”

“I’ll make it for you and bring it to your room,” Fadili offered. Magnes thanked him and made his way back to his little chamber. There, he applied flint and steel to the small clay lamp sitting on a wall shelf by the door and lay down upon his cot.

The straw-stuffed mattress smelled a little musty, but mercifully, seemed flea-free. He would see about getting some fresh straw later. He crossed his arms behind his head and stared up at the wood-beamed ceiling, allowing his mind to drift.

A soft knock at the door heralded the arrival of the tea. Magnes got up to let Fadili in and took the steaming mug from the young novice with a murmured “Thank you” and “Goodnight.” He carried the tea over to the cot and sat on the edge, sipping carefully and thinking.

How long ago that fateful Sansa night seemed now, when all of the events that so drastically changed his life had been put into motion. If only his father had not procured that horrible girl, then insisted that he marry her. If only Jelena’s choices hadn’t been so grim—flight or slavery.

Jelena.

What has become of you, Cousin? Are you happily married to Ashinji Sakehera? Have you found your father yet?

What will happen to you and Ashinji when Soldara brings war to Alasiri? Gods, how I miss you! I just pray that you are safe.

He took a final sip of the tea, got up from the bed and went to extinguish the lamp, then lay down again to sleep.