The Waters Rising

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Sister Tomea hid a quick grin. “That’s as may be, ma’am, and I’m not saying it’s always untrue, but as it happens, no one has been housed in any of them for some time. One of them is being newly paneled and cleaned. No doubt the abbot thought it would be more convenient to have all your party together and both a stable for your animals and storage for your property. That way, you’ll have some privacy without brothers or sisters or children from the school walking over you and around you all the time.” She smiled as though delighted by this idea. “And you’ll be a bit farther from the bells. They take some getting used to . . .”

  She was interrupted by her subject as a great bell rang high above her, the initial bong succeeded by a multitoned peal. “First supper warning,” said Sister Tomea.

  Xulai asked, “What is the building with the towers?”

  “It’s where we worship and sing. Actually I should say it’s where we sing in order to worship.”

  “This is very nice,” said Xulai. “Please tell the abbot and the prior we are very grateful.”

  As Sister Tomea went out into the hallway, closing the door behind her, Precious Wind cried, “Bath first,” stripping off her clothes as though they were a fruit skin, leaving them where they fell, and striding naked toward the tub. Nettie, though still fully dressed, hesitantly went after her.

  Oldwife and Xulai returned to the sitting room where the porters had stacked their baggage, including the cat basket, which rocked violently atop a pile, threatening to fall any moment. Xulai let the animals out, and they followed her to the outside door. As soon as it was opened they darted across the small area of stone paving to the garden planted around its edges. Bothercat went on complaining for some time while casting irritated looks at Xulai. “This is all your fault,” he was saying. “I’ve never been so ill treated in my entire life.”

  “That was unlike you out there,” Oldwife said, “interrupting the prior.”

  “We were all saying too much,” Xulai said. “We don’t know him. We got here and we were tired and we stopped being careful. Besides, he told a lie.”

  “What lie?”

  “He said my cousin told them it was a rumor, a feint. When did he do that? He was gone before the troops got there. I was watching the prior’s eyes. His eyes are cold, and they flicker when he tells a lie.”

  Oldwife stared at her, through her, shaking her head. “Go along to the bath, child. I’ll keep an eye on the cats, and when you younger creatures have finished, I’ll have a wash. I’m not such a one as you Tingawans for the submerging of my whole naked self in company with other naked selves. In fact, I’m surprised at Nettie Lean!”

  Woldsgard also had a bathtub, not unlike the ones in the abbey, built by the duke for Princess Xu-i-lok, who had refused to behave as barbarians did by either sponging with a cupful of hot water or staying dirty all winter. Xulai and Precious Wind had used it frequently, and Xulai got herself into the tub almost as quickly as Precious Wind had done. Two smooth wooden benches were fastened to the walls of the tub, one higher than the other, and the two of them sat with water up to their necks while Precious Wind hummed and splashed. Nettie, however, was still undressing, garment by garment, finally lowering herself slowly into the tub and simply sitting there, wide-eyed.

  “They do this in Tingawa?” she asked Precious Wind.

  “Oh, yes,” she replied. “We certainly do. Daily, or more often. Of course, it’s not such labor as it is here. It’s warm there. The water tanks are heated by the sun . . .” She hummed a bit more before climbing out of the tub, applying soft soap to a gourd sponge, and scrubbing herself all over before filling a bucket from the tub and rinsing the soap away. The water ran away into a gutter around the edge of the room and out through the wall.

  Precious Wind sighed with pleasure as she climbed back into the tub. “That’s the way we do it in Tingawa, so we don’t ever sit in dirty water. This one is built so well that I wager the Elder Brothers had a Tingawan guest who suggested it and drew the plans.”

  Nettie followed her example, then Xulai, who was having a hard time staying awake. Finally, and not without a regretful look at the still steaming water, they wrapped themselves in large towels and returned to find Oldwife unpacking their clothing and distributing it onto shelves or into the carved chests under the windows of each bedroom.

  “Each of these rooms has two beds. I’ve put Xulai’s things in that room with mine.” She pointed to the smaller room. “Nettie, you and Precious Wind can share the other. Everything we brought is in the chests or piled on the shelves. You can rearrange it to suit yourselves.” And with that she disappeared to take care of her “bit of wash.”

  Xulai’s clothing had been laid ready on the bed: a white linen, knee-length, short-sleeved undershift and drawers with a drawstring top; clean stockings that were held up by being laced through the eyelets in the bottom of the drawers; and an ankle-length, long-sleeved gown with tiny ruffles at the wrists and neck. Aside from being badly wrinkled, the clothing was decent enough to be seen in public, Xulai thought. Folded on the lowest shelf was the striped, sleeveless coat she had worn when they left Woldsgard. She had others, but this one reminded her of her cousin saying it became her, and she was busy doing up its thirty buttons when Oldwife came in.

  “Put on your better shoes,” said Oldwife as she dried her face on the ends of the towel draped around her shoulders. “They’re beside your bed. Those others look like you’ve been slopping pigs in them.” She rummaged in her own chest, finding a clean cap and long apron, as symbolic of her status as any of the veils and stoles worn by the abbey people were of theirs.

  When all four of them returned to the sitting room, Sister Tomea was waiting for them. She smiled at them, put her finger to her lips, and turned to face the door. Somewhere a bell rang. Sister Tomea bowed her head. It rang again and again, seven deep, reverberant sounds with silences in between. After the seventh, she opened the door, remarking, “During the ringing of the supper bell it’s customary to recite our thanks. The noise and hurry in the dining hall give us no time for reverence once we’re there.”

  They went back the way they had come, alone as far as the locked gate, which was again locked behind them, then as part of a stream of people that broadened as they moved along the cloister and broadened yet more in the shorter hall beyond. Upon the terrace they became part of a slowly moving swarm, people thronging in from every direction and thrusting themselves through the enormous quadruple doors of the dining hall. Some wore leather; some were cloaked in black, others in gray or brown, many in white with stoles and veils of various colors. The children, who wore no particular dress, darted in and out of the crowd, some of them glancing curiously at Xulai.

  Xulai’s group found Bear, Bartelmy, and the other four men waiting for them at a table at the far back corner of the room, quite near an enormous open hatch with an even more enormous kitchen behind it. Xulai sat down and stared into a vast space full of sweat- shined faces and running legs. “Cart!” yelled someone in a deep bass voice. “Coming,” cried someone else, and the cart plunged across the vast kitchen impelled by three tall boys. Within moments the same cart was at the open hatch, and the boys were unloading its contents: stacks of dishes, arranged in ranks and files. Behind them, other carts went to and fro, and in the background blades glittered as something or other was carved up by a whole phalanx of cooks. “Eggs,” shrieked a high voice. “Coming,” cried another, and a cart darted by loaded high with baskets.

  Xulai turned to look behind her. Across the room, in the opposite corner, another such hatch fronted another such kitchen. A bell rang. Sister Tomea rose and went to the hatch, where the towers of dishes were lined up, returning swiftly with a stack of ten. Xulai counted the people from other tables who were rapidly picking up stacks of plates. About one hundred people. One hundred tables in this half of the dining hall. The tables each seated ten, with a bench on each of the long sides and one chair at each end, and there were only a few em
pty seats and very few empty tables. Two thousand people, not counting the fifty on the dais at the far side.

  “It’s quickest this way,” said Sister Tomea as she passed out the dishes. Each time the bell rang she took another of them to collect something from the hatch: Precious Wind to collect mugs and jugs of milk; Bear for salad; Nettie for a platter of meat; the others for various bowls and baskets until all the fetching was done. By the time the cake platter was set in the middle of the table, all plates were full and the hall was aroar with people chattering, bowls and platters thumping, utensils scraping and clattering. Each of them had been given a folding knife, a folding fork, and a folding spoon, though some at neighboring tables ate with their fingers and some used two slender sticks, like pinchers.

  Sister Tomea had seated herself at the center of one bench, where Willum and Clive had made room for her. “Normally, I won’t eat with you. I’m just with you today to show you how to find your way and what the rules are. Eldest Brother feels it’s important that no one be exempted from doing what is needed for the life of the abbey or the earth.” She made the two-handed sign that meant “holy work,” two fingers of her right hand walking across the back of her left hand, down her middle finger into the future. “That means we don’t have servers, and everyone takes a turn in the kitchen, even the children who are old enough, though the cooks are specially trained to ensure the food is good. Same with the laundry, the gardens, the stables, and so on. The experts run each thing, but everyone has a turn at providing the less-skilled labor. The best helpers are often the ones trained to take over later on.

  “The utensils on this table are provided for you. When you are finished eating, lick them clean, wrap them in your napkin, and take them with you when you leave. Remember to bring utensils and napkin to the next meal. Use the napkin until it’s too dirty to use, then drop it off in the basket by the door and pick up a clean one. The wrapped utensils will fit easily in a pocket. If you prefer others, by all means bring them with you, so long as they can fit in a pocket. No one carries bare knives in the abbey, and we only furnish them once.

  “When we finish eating, we pocket our utensils, stack our dishes on the trays stored under the table, and carry them back to the scullery as quietly as possible.” She reached under the table, pulled out a large tray, and pointed to another huge hatch to the left of the kitchen hatch. “What comes from the kitchen is clean, what goes to the scullery is dirty. Don’t mix up the two. It’s considered impolite to yell or talk too loudly, but we can converse quietly right up until the abbot or next-eldest rises and gives the concluding blessing.

  “After the blessing, don’t stay seated. There’ll be another seating for dinner within a very short time, so it’s important to clear tables and get out promptly. It’s easiest to clear the tables if at least three people do it—there are three trays under the table. Always unload the trays at the scullery and bring the empty tray back to stow under your table. The trays have your table number painted on them. No one else will unload them for you, and you’ll find clearing without trays a bother and getting trays back if you leave them even more so. Never let just one person do the clearing; it’s not polite.”

  She looked around the table to see that they understood before continuing. “People are split up into tens, but families generally sit together or at adjacent tables. Children sit with their parents or guardians. Children who have no parents or guardians at Wilderbrook sit with their group leaders or teachers. Because you have all come together, Elder Brother says we are to treat you as a family. You will have this table, number twenty-three, at each evening meal. The number is carved into the top at each end. The morning and noon are different. We don’t all rise at the same time or finish morning chores at the same time, so anytime within two hours after the breakfast bell, we go to the kitchen hatch, pick up what we want to eat and drink, sit wherever there’s room, and take our own dishes to the scullery. Same at noon.”

  Willum interrupted his eating to ask, “Will us hostlers have kitchen duties and such?”

  “It depends on how long you’ll be staying,” said Sister Tomea. “Hostlers would probably be asked to help in the barns and stables or on the farms. And, of course, if people are assigned to work at a distance from the abbey, they pick up packed lunches at breakfast and they aren’t expected until evening. If the duty means you can’t get here for evening meal, or have kitchen duty, you’ll be given a tag to hang on the chair at the head of the table. If you’re sick, the infirmarian will send someone to hang it for you. That way when a tallyman comes through, he knows who’s missing and why.”

  “Missing?” asked Precious Wind doubtfully. “Perhaps one simply isn’t hungry.”

  “If you aren’t on duty and don’t have a permit from the infirmary, you’re here at evening meal,” said Sister Tomea. “If you’re not hungry, you can always do without or take your share to eat later, but you’re here at mealtime. There aren’t many requirements here at Wilderbrook Abbey, but that’s one of the most important ones. We have to know where people are, and this is the easiest way. If someone is missing, and we know he was on wood detail, we may find him under a fallen tree somewhere. If a tallyman comes to a table, and you have a family member who’s feeling unwell, you can tell him the reason, but the person who tells the reason is responsible for the person after that. If you say your brother is sick, then you’re responsible for getting help for him if he gets sicker.

  “Also, everyone is given a shift for supper. You’ve been given one bell as your meal assignment, first seating, one bong repeated seven times. Other seatings have different bells. There are bells for other things as well, emergencies, fires, report for duty. You’ll get used to hearing them. Serving three meals takes about ten hours, two each for breakfast and lunch, more than six for supper. One crew does breakfast and lunch, another crew does supper. Tonight there will be three other seatings after this one.”

  “That’s eight thousand people,” said Xulai wonderingly.

  “Eight thousand if we’re full. Actually, none of the seatings are completely full. We have about six thousand in this arm of the abbey. Temporary guests don’t eat here. Passersby are fed in the guest arm at the north end of the abbey, just inside the northernmost gate in the outer circle. It’s near the guest housing. We don’t really want people in here who are just passing through. It’s too confusing for them.”

  “You said, ‘in this arm of the abbey,’ ” said Black Mike. “There are others?”

  Sister nodded. “Well, for instance, there’s food service in what we call an anytime arm at the south end, inside the southernmost gate between walls two and three. Anytime service is for the soldiers and guards and people doing other kinds of work where they have to eat when they can. Some kinds of work you can’t just put down and walk away from because it’s lunchtime, you know? Then there are the separated arms, back in the mountains, some large, some small. Forestry has a couple. The farms have a dozen or so. Military has several. Those places have their own kitchens. That’s where the men who went to Woldsgard came from.”

  “Why do you call them arms?” asked Xulai.

  Sister Tomea laughed. “Because there are hands at the end of them, busy doing things. Only the choir has no arms, just voices.”

  All of this was a good deal to take in. The huge dining hall was noisy but not deafening, despite the chatter going on. Xulai took note of several tall, rangy individuals with long gray hair who mounted tall daises at each corner of the room and made rapid notations on a chart. The talleymen, said Sister, each one responsible for a certain block of tables. When almost everyone had finished and was just sitting there, dishes stacked, the tallymen went to the dais where the abbot sat, handed him their tally sheets, and retreated. The abbot summoned several of the men and women waiting near the table, handed out the lists. When they had departed, he leaned forward and struck a bell. Immediately everyone rose, heads bowed. The abbot said a few words, both the sound and sense of them lost in
echoes, struck the bell again, and everyone moved, most of them streaming toward the doors, others, those on kitchen duty, toward the scullery hatch.

  “What did we eat?” asked Oldwife as they left. “I was so caught up in what you were saying, Sister, I didn’t notice.”

  “Lamb stew,” said Nettie. “A dish of grain with herbs and onions. A dish of carrots, beets, and parsnips, chopped fine and cooked with butter, vinegar, and sugar. Where do you get butter and sugar, Sister?”

  “Butter from our own cows, sugar from the southlands or honey from our own bees. We trade wool and leather for things we can’t grow here. Our own orchards produce cider and vinegar.”

  “Ah,” said Pecky Peavine. “We also had greens, bread, milk—very good milk—and some fruit. Everything good, though Mike was saying he’d have preferred beer.”

  “He may have that,” said Sister Tomea. “Those who wish it may bring it to evening meal or may have it in their own rooms. The cellarer will be available in the morning. He keeps beer and wine for sale.”

  “For sale?” asked Xulai. “Do all these people get paid?”

  Sister Tomea said, “All sworn members of the abbey get a personal allowance to spend as they see fit. On books. On wine. On fancy clothes or weapons to wear when they’re off duty. People who are traveling through or lodging here or studying here pay for their housing and food. We presume they have their own money for wine or whatever. To its members, the abbey provides only needful things: shelter, food, clothing, warmth in winter, education and training and the means to stay clean.”

  “And how does the abbey make money?” Precious Wind asked.

  “We have many profitable endeavors. The abbey’s products are well known. Our school is famous. People pay to have their children educated here. People pay for the foods we produce, the crafts we create. They pay for the armed men who protect their caravans on the desert, their curricles on the road, their caravels on the sea—though that’s not frequent these days. They hire the guides who take them through places like the Lake of the Clouds. The lodging for the ten of you has been paid for by Justinian, Duke of Wold, as has Xulai’s schooling. The abbot would not ask that we labor without pay, not even for friends.”