by Jean Johnson
“Even an idiot can gain some wisdom in due time,” Krais reminded her. “So, do I get a cot, or just a chair?”
“There seem to be at least a couple of runes in need of regulating,” she said, carefully reaching through the barrier again, this time moving in with her whole body, not just her hand. “I don’t know how long this will take, but I will conjure something big enough for you to stretch out on before I begin.”
Chapter Seven
Torn in different directions, Gayn followed his doma through the marketplace just south of the West Temple Gate. He moved with a basket cradled in his bad arm, laden with a few bags of candied nuts, a collection of combs and brushes, ribbons for hair tying, a few rag dolls, and a basket filled with heavier items—mostly fruits—dangling from his uninjured arm. On the one hand, literally and figuratively, Doma Dulette was taking care not to aggravate his injury further than reasonable. He appreciated not having his arm stressed to the point where the ache became an ongoing agony.
On the other hand . . . she wasn’t really doing her job as a Disciplinarian. He didn’t feel like he was being punished properly. So far, all he had to do was carry things for her, a few cleaning tasks that weren’t onerus, allowed to sleep on a soft pallet on the floor in their assigned disciplining cottage . . . and so he did not understand how any of this, all of it light labor, could be a punishment. He appreciated her kindness toward the needs of his injury, but a part of him despised her for not being tougher on him.
His father certainly expected everyone to be tougher on him for having failed in their mission. His attention turned inward, Gayn followed Doma Dulette at a few paces back. In his mind, he reviewed yet again the damned fight where that damned redheaded dog kept doing things with her arms and limbs in a fighting style he’d never seen before, only to bring up that damned palm-sized mirror just as he finally cornered her against the wall, magic pouring through his tattoos to slam through her head, only to—
“Ouff!!”
Baskets and contents and self all went tumbling under the blow of the youth coming around the stall corner. Gayn twisted as he fell, desperate to cushion his already endangered arm—only to feel magic wrapping around him, cushioning him in a squishy-feeling landing that slowed and bounced his body gently, sending only a brief twinge of pain from his elbow through to his fingers.
“Sorry! I am so sorry, sir! Were you injured?” the dark-haired, pale-skinned youth added, crouching and touching Gayn’s shoulder, only to flinch when Gayn grunted. “I thought I cast the spell in time! I’m so sorry!”
Grimacing, Gayn twisted the other way and used his good arm to push himself into a sitting position on the wad of air stuffed under him by the younger male’s spell. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine,” he muttered. “My arm just hurts because it hurts, and nobody can fix it.”
The youth gaped at him. “That’s awful! We came all the way to the Great Library to find knowledge for our order, and they don’t have a spell in these halls that can make your arm better?”
Gayn flushed at that. What Healer Brelik had said was that he didn’t know the exact spell, and that he would have to study the problem further. Which, here in Mendham, meant conducting research in the Great Library. “The Healer is looking into it. But there are a lot of healing texts to go through.”
“I can imagine,” the youth said. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Alger. Alger of the Traveling Brotherhood.”
Since he couldn’t use his right arm to pull himself up, Gayn awkwardly grabbed the outstretched hand with his left and pulled himself up out of the cushioning spell. “Puhon Gayn, Painted Warrior.”
The outlander grinned at him. “I kind of guessed that—oh, here, let me help you pick everything up. Hey, Dor, come help me!” he ordered a shorter, stockier, but rectangular-faced fellow with similar pale skin and similar short-cropped brown hair. “Those fruit over there, and that basket, and I think that doll thing on those cobblestones there, and I’ll get these combs off the street . . .”
Doma Dulette came back just after they finished putting everything into the baskets for Gayn. She frowned at him, her dark eyes taking in the odd scene. “Penitent Gayn, do you wish to be punished? You are supposed to be following me without dropping anything.”
The shorter outlander, Dor or whoever, jerked upright at that, spun to face her, and glared at her. “Know your place, woman, and hold your tongue! My friend barged into him, and we were gathering up his spilled goods.”
Considering the youth was probably not much more than sixteen or seventeen years old to her twenty-five, it would have been amusing to see someone so junior admonishing someone clearly senior . . . except it wasn’t about their age differences.
“I am a Disciplinarian, a member of the Hierarchy,” Dulette snapped back, slapping her hand against the black-dyed leather of her uniform vest with its pei-slii tooling. “I could have you arrested for interfering in the penance of my charge.”
The shorter fellow drew in a breath to say something, but the taller of the two—if still short by Mendhite standards—caught his arm and spoke before he could. “We apologize, woman. We are outlanders and do not know your customs, or the signs of your rank. The fault of the delay is mine. I have apologized for it, and my friend and I have restored this man’s goods. We even cast cleaning spells on everything, and checked to make sure no harm was done, aside from a few bruised . . . apple things.”
Gayn only knew what an apple was because he’d had one while a prisoner on Nightfall Island. They were some sort of sweet, crisp, exotic tree fruit that apparently hailed from the land of Arbora, a nation located far to the northwest of Mendhi by months of land travel. He supposed the mangan fruit looked like apples.
“They are my goods, not his . . . and I thank you for taking care with them.”
“Some of the fruit looked bruised,” the first fellow, Alger, added. “I have a little coin on me. Pehaps I can afford to replace the worst of it? We’ll take the bruised fruit in exchange. The Traveling Brotherhood is humble enough to be accustomed to such things, which you yourself should not have to suffer.”
He gave her an ingratiating smile. Somewhat mollified, Doma Dulette nodded after a moment of thought. “You may do so.”
Alger looked around, but there were no fruit stands in this part of the marketplace. “Ahh . . . if you could be so kind as to tell me where to find them . . . ?”
“Penitent Gayn, you will accompany this outlander back to the fruit sellers and see that everything damaged is replaced. You, outlander,” she added to Dor, “will remain with me in this spot until your companion and my penitent return. Gayn, pass him the basket of the combs and toys. He might as well be useful while we wait.”
Dor seemed a bit slow to Gayn, for he protested, “You can’t order me around!”
“Yes, she can,” Gayn informed him, before Dulette could do more than frown again. “Only a senior Disciplinarian, or an Elder of the Hierarchy, can give her orders. You are neither.”
“I don’t even know what a Disciplinarian is, but—“ he started to say dismissively.
“Your ignorance is obvious,” Dulette drawled, folding her arms across her chest, her shoulders square, her stare stern.
Again, Gayn tried to intervene. The boys had helped gather up all the goods that had been spilled. His arm ached, needing cradling and rubbing to soothe the injured nerves, but he still had to hold onto the damned basket while the idiot outlander was educated.
“Disciplinarians are special Painted Warriors tasked with tracking down, neutralizing, and punishing mages who break the law . . . or who fail in a government-appointed task,” Gayn explained. “Every nation has some way of dealing with rogue mages. In Mendhi, once they are captured, they are handed over to the Disciplinarians, who suppress their magic and punish them appropriately. They enforce judgments of the law . . . and they have the right to track down and arrest wayward mages, as we
ll as punish them.
“Any rogue mage can be hunted down by Painted Warriors, who are often commissioned by a branch of the government, or by the army, or the fleet. But if they send a Disciplinarian after you, then you are considered a high priority for immediate magical suppression. They rank higher than any military officer or city guard. Between their abilities and their training and their legal power, Mendhites understand that it is not wise to anger a Disciplinarian.”
Dor paled. Gayn wouldn’t have believed such a pale-skinned outlander could do such a thing, but he did; the pink in his cheeks faded visibly, leaving his skin a sort of pasty, creamy color. The youth cleared his throat awkwardly, and managed to say, “ . . . Sorry. I, uh, I didn’t know.”
“Obviously. Hold that basket and remain here while those two travel,” she ordered him, pointing at the one in Gayn’s right arm. Wisely, the outlander youth took it. “We will wait here, Penitent. Do not take forever. I intend to have these gifts delivered to the West Orphanage within the hour. You will be working with the children as part of your penance.”
Grateful to get the weight of the basket off his bad arm, Gayn bowed his head in acknowledgment, and turned to retrace the path they had taken from the fruit sellers’ section of the market nearest the west end of the Temple grounds. Thankfully, the fellow Alger turned and followed him. After a few paces, he cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Gayn, for your patience in teaching Brother Dor. He’s not the sharpest knife in the kitchen, I’m afraid, and it is compounded by a lot of anger toward women for being mistreated and injured—bullied—by them in his past,” the youth confessed. He snuck a look at Gayn. “I . . . couldn’t help but wonder about the title she used on you. Penitent. It sounds like that has an unfortunate definition.”
“I have been handed over to her for punishing.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” the young outlander apologized.
Gayn snorted and slanted him a look. Outlanders were weird. “Why would you be sorry? You didn’t cause me to fail my mission.”
Alger chuckled a little. “No, I guess I didn’t, did I? I’m sorry you’re being punished. I hope it wasn’t a serious crime . . . ?”
Perhaps it was the sympathy in the younger man’s voice, the hint of earnest curiosity, or his willingness to learn rather than assume. Gayn found himself falling into the role of teacher again. Perhaps it was because Alger seemed genuinely interested in being his student. Which is only natural, Gayn thought before speaking. I have quite a lot to teach.
“I was directed by the Hierarchy—the Elders, those of the highest ranks who rule over Mendhi—to seize something for the glory of our nation. It was a very important task, and one not entrusted to just any Painted Warrior. Unfortunately, it required going up against the Gods Themselves. I failed, and the Hierarchy has decided I should be punished for my failure.”
“That’s awful!” Alger sympathized. “Sending a single mortal up against the very Gods?”
“Well, I did take my brothers with me,” Gayn allowed, slightly annoyed by the need to be honest. “And we had a little bit of aid from members of the Mendhite fleet, plus some outlander officials . . . but no matter how many helped us, it was in the end an impossible task. The Elders knew it was an impossible task, but our father insisted we try anyway.”
“Your father?” Alger asked him.
“Dagan’thio. The Elder Disciplinarian. He has been the Elder Disciplinarian for nearly fifteen years,” Gayn added, wanting to stress how important he was, because of his father.
“So . . . he assigned you your punishment, to carry baskets for that woman, like a servant?” Alger asked, quirking his brows. He had to dodge a mother and child in order to keep up with Gayn, but paused with the Mendhite to wait for a cart carrying what looked like a bunch of cabbages to pass before they could cross the street. The noise of the cartwheels on the cobblestone precluded answering for a few moments, since the cobbles were loose in one section and caused a fair bit of rattling. It did not help that they had reached the edge of the marketplace, either, which by its nature produced a lot of noise.
Despite the age of the streets themselves, this particular market had been formed from a mix of permanent plastered stone buildings holding shops that provided dry goods, and wooden stalls that provided fresh edibles from the farms and orchards beyond the city sprawl, but it had streets and it had traffic. It also had a drinking fountain on the way to the section where fruit was usually sold, which Gayn headed toward, feeling thirsty. That fountain hosted a number of people around it, all talking and chatting, and at least one goat herder thumping his bawling charges into crowding around the trough set to one side.
The hubbub did not make it easy to talk, but the others at the fountain moved briskly enough through their own needs. Setting down the basket of bruised fruit, Gayn scrubbed his hands under the stream of water arcing out of one of the bronze spigots, then cupped his palms and drank deep. He hadn’t been forbidden to drink, but the doma had not gone out of her way to let him, either. Alger watched what he did, and copied his movements at another spigot when a father with two young children finished helping his offspring drink, herding them gently off into the crowd.
Picking up his basket, Gayn waited for him to finish slaking his thirst. He then gestured for them to continue walking. Alger quickly moved up by his side, and murmured, “I apologize if my questions are unseemly. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here, trying to find the information we need for our Order, but I have found the sooner I understand the customs and ways of the land I am traveling through, the sooner I stop giving offense out of ignorance.” He managed a wry smile. “I try not to be like Brother Dor. He is a good companion to travel with, as he is wiser than I in the ways of the wilderness, but he is from the countryside, and not quite as sophisticated as those who are more worldly in the ways of city folk, like you and I.”
Pleased the younger male acknowledged his superiority—Gayn was a Mendhite, after all, and the only other nation that could possibly lay claim to a longer civilization was distant Fortuna, so it didn’t really count—the Painted Warrior decided it would be alright to teach the friendly outlander a bit more. Including his own uncommon circumstance. “My punishment, or penance, is whatever the Disciplinarian decides it must be. The length of it is determined by the judgment, which is based on a combination of truthstone testing and the severity of the transgression, but the actual punishments are decided between the Disciplinarian and the Goddess.”
“I don’t understand.”
Using his bad hand, since his good one carried the basket of bruised fruits, Gayn tapped his cheek and the light blue tattoo inking his sun-brown skin. “This mark on the right side of my face is a magic-infused tattoo that allows me to understand and communicate in whatever language you are speaking.”
“Fascinating. We all have translation pendants in the Brotherhood,” Alger confessed, pulling a carved stone out of the neckline of his sleeveless tunic. It wasn’t quite a proper taga, and he wore calf-length pants underneath instead of a proper, comfortable kilt, but it was more like what a Mendhite wore than the trousers and tunic version of his young friend Dor. “I have eight of them, in fact, including this one. All carved during our travels, walking the paths of Alshai, Goddess of Traveling, Defender of the Bullied. But I have heard of these magical, powerful tattoos of yours, yes. I’d imagine it’s more reliable than a pendant, which could get lost if the cord ever breaks.”
“It is,” Gayn agreed. He directed the conversation back toward the point he needed to make. “Disciplinarians must be Painted Warriors to begin with, because the power to suppress the magic of others comes from a very special, carefully hidden set of tattoos. That mark connects the Disciplinarian to our Patron Deity, who weighs the deeds of the mage to be punished. The Disciplinarian uses the mark to gauge the severity of punishment needed, and even some of the types of punishment best used.”
> “And those would be . . . ?” Alger prompted.
Gayn suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, and just gave the standard examples he had learned at his father’s knee. “If you have broken property, some penitents—mages who are being punished—are tasked with repairing or replacing that property, if that is the lesson the Goddess wishes to be inscribed upon their soul. But others might be beaten with a cane or a flogger, to drive a lesson into their flesh to understand the pain others have suffered.”
“So . . . because you were pitted against the Gods in your task . . . your punishment is mild, but humiliating, to act as a servant for a woman?” Alger asked, trying to puzzle his way through what the Mendhite apparently suffered. “How long must you serve this woman, instead of the other way around, as is right and natural?”
Gayn would not have put it that way, since servants could be any gender, but he shrugged and said, “Because we failed the Hierarchy, my brothers and I are to be punished for two whole months. The punishing began yesterday. So far . . . I have cleaned and I have carried.”
“Then maybe your Disciplinarian and, I suppose, your Goddess both think you don’t deserve great punishment?” Alger offered.
“Or maybe it’s just being paced slowly at the start. Here is where we bought the fruit,” Gayn told the outlander, pointing at one of the sellers as they came up to the row of stalls containing foods from various orchards outside the city. “Let’s stop at that stone bench there, and sort out the worst from the least of what needs replacing. Unless you’re made of gold and silver, of course.”
“Oh, hardly,” Alger demured. He smiled wryly, gestured dismissively as they reached the currently unoccupied bench. “The Order of the Traveling Brotherhood is fairly new and fairly weak in terms of membership just yet.”
