building’s undercroft.
“The lay brothers’ reach,” Brother Gildas said, nodding to the busy fellows when I paused in my babbling. “Their sleeping quarters and refectory, and the food, oil, wool, and wood stores for the abbey. So did you stay in Morian?”
I moved on carefully. “Nay. After the winter in Avenus, cutting stone in the quarries, I heard the call to labor on the hierarch’s new cathedral in Palinur. A fine thing to build for Iero’s own house…”
…and excellent pay on a sacred project, intended to proclaim Iero and his Karish church as triumphant over the elder gods and their Sinduri council. I had worked in Palinur only one season, though. The labor had been grueling, the hours long, and the punishments for any lapse in workmanship severe. And indeed, the proximity to my family and the attendant risks of being identified had made the royal city unpalatable. Once I’d padded my purse enough to last a season more, I was off to try something new.
It was not fear of discovery made me move so often. Recondeurs were rare, and every one of them was recaptured within half a year, hauled up for public flogging or humiliation, and then vanished from sight and speech, save for horrified whisperings among pureblood families about “close confinement” and “unrestricted contracts.” Every sorry soul of them failed in rebellion because the fool could not forgo using the bent to soften the hardships of ordinary life: hunger, cold, hard work, uncertainty. The Registry would never search the places I lived, because they’d never imagine a pureblood forsaking his comforts for a life where he’d not know when he’d eat next. I had refused to learn much of spellworking as a child—as I had refused to learn much of anything they tried to pound into my head—so I’d little to give up.
As it was, I’d just never found any occupation worth the bother of staying in one place. Restless feet, just as I’d told Gildas. Incurably restless feet, in fact. A disease.
The path turned sharply back toward the river. We left it behind and angled right into a brick alley.
“Gillarine seems well constructed,” I said, seizing an excuse to divert the conversation from myself. “What building is this to have windows so many and so fine?”
“The monks’ refectory,” said Brother Gildas. “You’ll be happy to hear that novices get meat three times a week and half again the portions of the rest of us. We use all our wiles to lure the worldly into harmony with the god.”
As I picked my way across the uneven bricks of the pooled and puddled alley, I caught a merry glint beneath his sober brow. Cheerful humors can redeem even excessive piety. I liked him.
“Gillarine must truly lie on holy ground to produce such bounty,” I said. “The patroness of travelers led me here, no doubt of it.”
“We’ve exceptional soil and water here. The font in Saint Gillare’s shrine is said to be rooted in a holy spring.” All the monks and friars I’d ever met seemed to wear a secret pleasure beneath their holiness, like gamers who carry skewed dice up their sleeves. Gildas was no different.
The brick passage squeezed past a coal store and kitchen building and then widened as we approached a colonnaded walkway that extended right and left and all the way around the broad green garth beyond it. The walkway’s tiles had been laid in intricate coiled patterns like those on Aurellian urns and doorposts, with the trilliot, the three-petaled lily of Navronne, tucked into its loops here and there, alongside the golden sunbursts reminding us of the One God’s glory.
Gildas laid a finger on his lips. I had not actually noticed the bustle of kitchen and bakehouse, the whacks and grunts of the wood choppers, or the complaints of distant sheep as we walked from the infirmary…not until we stepped into the cloisters of Gillarine and all such common sounds dropped away. The place was so quiet, I could almost hear my own blood
“The lay brothers’ reach,” Brother Gildas said, nodding to the busy fellows when I paused in my babbling. “Their sleeping quarters and refectory, and the food, oil, wool, and wood stores for the abbey. So did you stay in Morian?”
I moved on carefully. “Nay. After the winter in Avenus, cutting stone in the quarries, I heard the call to labor on the hierarch’s new cathedral in Palinur. A fine thing to build for Iero’s own house…”
…and excellent pay on a sacred project, intended to proclaim Iero and his Karish church as triumphant over the elder gods and their Sinduri council. I had worked in Palinur only one season, though. The labor had been grueling, the hours long, and the punishments for any lapse in workmanship severe. And indeed, the proximity to my family and the attendant risks of being identified had made the royal city unpalatable. Once I’d padded my purse enough to last a season more, I was off to try something new.
It was not fear of discovery made me move so often. Recondeurs were rare, and every one of them was recaptured within half a year, hauled up for public flogging or humiliation, and then vanished from sight and speech, save for horrified whisperings among pureblood families about “close confinement” and “unrestricted contracts.” Every sorry soul of them failed in rebellion because the fool could not forgo using the bent to soften the hardships of ordinary life: hunger, cold, hard work, uncertainty. The Registry would never search the places I lived, because they’d never imagine a pureblood forsaking his comforts for a life where he’d not know when he’d eat next. I had refused to learn much of spellworking as a child—as I had refused to learn much of anything they tried to pound into my head—so I’d little to give up.
As it was, I’d just never found any occupation worth the bother of staying in one place. Restless feet, just as I’d told Gildas. Incurably restless feet, in fact. A disease.
The path turned sharply back toward the river. We left it behind and angled right into a brick alley.
“Gillarine seems well constructed,” I said, seizing an excuse to divert the conversation from myself. “What building is this to have windows so many and so fine?”
“The monks’ refectory,” said Brother Gildas. “You’ll be happy to hear that novices get meat three times a week and half again the portions of the rest of us. We use all our wiles to lure the worldly into harmony with the god.”
As I picked my way across the uneven bricks of the pooled and puddled alley, I caught a merry glint beneath his sober brow. Cheerful humors can redeem even excessive piety. I liked him.
“Gillarine must truly lie on holy ground to produce such bounty,” I said. “The patroness of travelers led me here, no doubt of it.”
“We’ve exceptional soil and water here. The font in Saint Gillare’s shrine is said to be rooted in a holy spring.” All the monks and friars I’d ever met seemed to wear a secret pleasure beneath their holiness, like gamers who carry skewed dice up their sleeves. Gildas was no different.
The brick passage squeezed past a coal store and kitchen building and then widened as we approached a colonnaded walkway that extended right and left and all the way around the broad green garth beyond it. The walkway’s tiles had been laid in intricate coiled patterns like those on Aurellian urns and doorposts, with the trilliot, the three-petaled lily of Navronne, tucked into its loops here and there, alongside the golden sunbursts reminding us of the One God’s glory.
Gildas laid a finger on his lips. I had not actually noticed the bustle of kitchen and bakehouse, the whacks and grunts of the wood choppers, or the complaints of distant sheep as we walked from the infirmary…not until we stepped into the cloisters of Gillarine and all such common sounds dropped away. The place was so quiet, I could almost hear my own blood
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