by Greg Curtis
Still, she thought as she rode toward the building, that wasn't her concern. Hers was that the scouts had reported that the monastery seemed to be a hub of activity for their people. Many had arrived in town asking for directions to it. She wanted to know why. Actually the Magistrate had asked first, and when she'd told him she didn't know she'd thought she'd better find out. Besides, Tyrollan had things well in hand with the purchase of new premises for their people. Already the price had been agreed and the deal made. Not bad for their first full day in the town. Currently he was negotiating with the Mayor. An odious little man from all accounts. But they would need his assistance if they were to run a successful guild. Mostly they needed to be assured that businesses would deal fairly with them, that the law would be even handed, and that any problems would be reported to them as soon as they arose.
No doubt the Mayor would want some consideration for making sure that happened. Corruption was a way of life in the upper echelons of society as she'd learned. There was a reason why the nobles were so rich.
The monastery was a solid looking building, she thought as she drew closer. It was only a couple of stories high, but the walls were constructed of heavy stone blocks, and the steeply arched roof of orange clay tiles seemed to add to its appearance of solidity. It also had a large inner courtyard, which made it appear larger than it was. But what struck her as most odd was the gate. It was eight feet tall and had wrought iron poles with sharp spikes on top, which were connected together by heavy wrought iron cross bars. It was the sort of gate and fence that you found on forts and military structures. Not around places of worship.
There were some orders of holy warriors associated with the various faiths. Knights, crusaders and paladins and so forth. Pritarma's followers included several orders who protected the priests as they journeyed to new towns. And Vitanna's besotted followers included a fighting order. They defended the sacred lands of the grape. She wasn't however, aware that the Benevolent One's followers had any military strength. Just some temple guards to protect the donations.
Still the wrought iron gates had the crossed pilgrim staffs proudly displayed on them, so she knew this was the right place.
Marnie rode up to the gate and rang the bell. If it was a military post she thought, it was a decidedly odd one as there weren't there men on watch. She could see a couple of brothers working in the gardens at the front of the walls. But that was it. And the brother who came to answer the bell was clearly no soldier. He was too wide of girth to fit into any armour and he would likely have collapsed on the parade ground.
“Yes?”
“I'm Marnie Holdwright from the new Guild,” she introduced herself. And then she almost stopped dead in shock. That was the first time she'd ever publicly said that they were to become a guild. And though everyone knew they had dreams of setting up a guild, no one had ever admitted publicly that that was the intention. And here she was suddenly announcing it as if it were fact!
Fortunately, though it surprised her to say it, it didn't seem to bother the brother at all.
“Of course Miss Holdwright. We were expecting a visit when we heard you were coming.” He nodded politely and then lifted the bar to open the gate. “Some of our patrons were curious.”
Their patrons were curious? She wondered what that meant as she dismounted and followed him in to the courtyard. She was still wondering as she handed the reins to another brother and then followed the first into what looked like a waiting room. Four people sat inside.
“These are some of your people who have arrived today for the ceremony. There is one more who is with Brother Tharanday at present.” The brother gestured at the next room.
“I see.” And she did. Suddenly as she saw the markings on the people waiting and heard the word ceremony, she understood exactly why her people had been coming here. This was Hendrick's and Tyrollan's second plan. The one they had not told the King about. Or anyone else.
“I'm Marnie from the Guild of the Gifted.” She introduced herself to them. “And you're all here for a new spell or two?”
“Aye.” The man in the front answered her and the others just nodded.
“But you don't want to join the Guild?”
“No.” A middle aged woman beside him spoke up. “Don't want the King to know. Who's to say the pillock won't start rounding us up and dragging us off like livestock again. And we don't want the town to know either.”
“You don't get on with the people of Burbage?”
“I'm not from Burbage. I'm from Tree Helm, a few leagues that way.” She nodded in a vaguely easterly direction. “There's not many priests there and the guards are … difficult.”
Marnie nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. Combury was very much the same. The guards didn't enforce the law equally when it came to the afflicted – or gifted as they were now trying to call themselves. Had there been priests they might have stepped in to smooth things over. But there weren't any. Just a shrine. In towns like that it paid not to be noticed.
“And the spells you're hoping to learn? Warspells?”
“Anything that'll keep me safe from the guards or the beast or let me earn some stynes.” The woman put it simply. “The only two spells I have are one for turning rust back into iron, and one that dissolves clay. Neither will help me in anything.”
Derust and Dissolve. Marnie knew of the spells. They were relatively common, and for the most part useless. But if the woman had practised and worked at the first spell she could have earned a few stynes returning old steel items to their pristine condition. You couldn't sell your services if you were afflicted. Or at least once upon a time you couldn't. Still, there was nothing stopping you buying a rusty old knife or tool and returning it to its perfect condition to sell. But she decided not to tell that to her. It would only upset her.
“You know about the meditations and practice and the need to research your spells?”
“We know. The brothers explained it all. And we'll go to the Abbey after this. When the smoke dragons come, we'll be ready for them.”
Smoke dragons? That was a new one Marnie thought. But it was as good a name for them as anything else. She herself sometimes thought of them as insect dragons.
“Then I wish you good fortune.” She nodded to the woman and then headed into the next room.
Once there, she stopped, again caught by surprise. Instead of a garden and barrels filled with magic metal fragments which people dropped their hands into, she saw a man lying face down on a cushioned leather bench. His vest had been drawn up and two small wooden rings were positioned on his back – one over each kidney. She quickly realised that they were the sites where the new spells would be placed. Obviously he was getting two and was making sure that they wouldn't be seen.
Meanwhile a brother was intoning a prayer in front of him, while another was standing beside a bucket hanging from the wall with a pair of heavy work gloves on. Marnie supposed it was quicker and easier than using tongs. There were seven buckets hanging from pegs, all of them overflowing with fragments of the magic metals. Curious but not wanting to interrupt she walked over to the side of the room and stood there watching.
In the end things went exactly as she'd expected – with one exception. The man didn't get two new spells. He got six. Three Infernium fragments were placed in each of the wooden rings. When she asked him about that and suggested it might not be so easy to recover from receiving six spells at once, he gave her a simple answer.
“I'm not coming back.”
That made sense she realised as he got up off the table after receiving his spells and staggered away to the promised resting chamber. People had to work. They couldn't simply go through a protracted period of accepting three spells at a time for six or seven weeks. It was better to simply absorb as many as they could in one go, and then return to their homes in a few days when they'd recovered.
She watched the others go through the same procedure, and noticed one or two other differences from what she
was used to. Not only were they absorbing four, six or eight spells at a time, but there were no names mentioned. At all. The patrons were all addressed as Master, Miss or Mistress. But then that also made sense. These people didn't want anyone to know what they had done. So no records were taken and no names were spoken.
In a very real way these people were becoming witches and warlocks by hiding their afflictions. And yet because they had some markings showing as a result of their original affliction, they could never actually be accused of that crime.
There was also a charge for the ceremony. Not a steep one – one styne per spell and two stynes for the two nights they would spend in the monastery recovering – but still it was not what she was used to. None of them had ever been asked to pay anything. Still, it was probably a lot cheaper than any black marketers would likely charge, and most people could afford it. Certainly none of the patrons looked to be merchants or nobles, but they were well enough off to be able to pay for the service.
“Miss Holdwright?” Having finished with the last of the patrons, Brother Tharanday came to greet her. He was an ageing man with a shock of long grey hair peeking out from beneath his hood, something that didn't seem particularly monk like.
But he had a trustworthy face. Marnie was happy to follow him as he offered her some refreshments and a place to sit down. And as they walked through the long oak panelled hallways to the dining hall, it gave her a chance to ask the questions she wanted answers to.
“Brother, I'm surprised by your ceremony. Is this normal?”
“The charging or the numbers of spells or patrons?” He smiled politely at her. “Because it keeps changing.”
“Changing?” She was curious about all of those things.
“At the start when your … Guild, was just forming, we got maybe one patron a day. And they wanted only one or at most two spells, usually with the fragment placed directly over their existing markings. People were worried. The news of Styrion Might's fall had just reached us here. And there was wisdom in what your people had advised. That others wouldn't notice an extra spell or two and it might be the thing that saved their lives. We didn't ask for any payment then. It was seen as part of our charitable works.”
“Then, as word of more attacks by the smoke dragons reached us, more people began visiting. It seemed sensible to want to get extra spells. As long as no one ever found out what was happening.”
“But then the King began his conscription and things changed a lot. From the moment people started hearing word of it, we had them flocking to our doors. Every monastery, every temple, every abbey. They wanted to be ready for when the soldiers came for them. Ready to be able to run or hide. We hoped not to fight.”
“Here we had maybe ten to twenty people arriving every day. And they didn't want just one or two spells. They wanted everything they could have without it showing. That was when we started placing the spells on peoples' backs. It was the best place we could find that wouldn't be seen.”
“We also began to charge at that point. It was no longer just a few people and a few fragments. It had become a major undertaking.” Marnie and Brother Tharanday reached the dining hall then and he guided her to one of the tables where some cups and plates had already been set out for them. A kettle was already bubbling away on the fire beside it.
“Since then things have slowed. Once the conscription ended and the Mythagan showed up with their offer of sanctuary the people stopped coming in such numbers. But when they do come they still want as many spells as they can get without anyone knowing.”
And what did that mean, Marnie wondered? On the face of it the answer was obvious. That the afflicted were starting to see their magic as a gift. Something they could use. Hendrick would welcome that. It was the start of their people learning a lesson of pride in their magic. Still, they didn't want people to know that they were accepting more spells. In time that would change she assumed. Partly because other people would find out. And partly because it would simply become more accepted to have spells.
But the bigger question was how many people were they talking about. She asked.
“We have no records so I cannot say. But if we've performed the ceremony for hundreds here, and there are say fifty other monasteries and more temples and abbeys doing the same – then thousands must have received spells.”
“Shite!” She cursed under her breath as she sat down. “We were just starting to build our guild, and already we've been surpassed! Left standing in the road like an arthritic old dray when the nobles on their thoroughbreds ride past!” She shook her head in sorrow.
Brother Tharanday just laughed as if she'd said something amusing and eventually she found the wit to ask what he found so amusing.
“Do you know how many carpenters there are out there? And how many belong to the Guild of Carpentry? How many masons? And how many of them belong to the Order of Stone Masons?”
She shook her head.
“A lot more masons and carpenters, engineers and scribes live and work in Styrion than belong to their various guilds. And yet their guilds speak for them. They establish the rules by which they trade and the standard against which they are judged.”
“You aren't the drays. You are the thoroughbreds. The ones who stand. Who declare themselves with pride. We are the drays standing in the shadows. And your task is not to rule us, but to lead us.”
“We?” She heard that.
“We.” He told her with a smile. Then he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a dark grey marking of magnetite on his elbow. “I have eight more on my back.”
“If you lead and you lead well, we will follow. But if you try to rule us we'll ignore you and hide away. Because we don't want to belong to any guild. We have our own lives to live. And they aren't the lives of the gifted or of mages. I'm a brother of the Order of The Benevolent One. The others are blacksmiths and wheelwrights. Mothers and farmers. Those are the things that matter to us. They are the reason we chose not to go with the Mythagan. These,” he tapped his elbow, “are not who we dream of being. They are just a part of us. And what we do here is mostly for protection. From the smoke dragons. From the conscription.”
“In time it may become more than that for some of us. If the world can change so that we are no longer seen as afflicted. Until then we will remain as we are. Safe and unnoticed in the shadows. And hoping that you can light the path for the rest of us.”
“If you can do that we will be grateful. And you should know that we will listen to what you say. If there are risks to having the markings, we want to be told of them. If there are laws we should follow we will obey them so long as we know why there are those laws. And if you truly inspire us, some of us may join your guild in time and others may wear their markings openly. But we are not here to be recruited.”
“When the talking is done, we just want to live our lives. The same as everyone else.”
“And so you should, Brother. So you should.”
He was completely right about that Marnie knew. He was also right about what they needed to do. But as he stood up to grab the kettle and fill her cup, she wondered – was she the person to do that? Was Tyrollan? Was even Hendrick? Were any of them?
And yet she realised, even if all of that failed, Hendrick's and Tyrollan's alternative plan appeared to be working. And the King's hope of defending his realm was coming true too. Sooner or later they'd surely have enough gifted people spread across the realm that the beast's servants wouldn't dare attack. That was something to celebrate.
Chapter Forty One
Visitors were the last thing Marnie wanted as she directed the work on the barns. There was just so much to do. So many workmen to organise. So many people to placate – it was surprising how many people were staunchly opposed to sleeping in a barn. Barns were for animals they kept telling her. City dwellers! Back in Combury she had slept in barns many times as a child. They were warm and dry and the hay was soft if a little scratchy. It was the animals who should feel aggrieved
at having people move into their living quarters. Still, to make this pair of rusting old barns liveable would take a lot of work.
First they had to pull out all the mud and hay and muck that was covering everything, and put down a solid floor. Then the walls had to be strengthened, windows put in and holes patched, before work could begin on the internal walls and floors. Even with all the workmen she'd hired, she knew it was would be no quick job. Once they were finished with that they could begin the job of connecting the two barns with a walkway or concourse and then building two or three more.
But progress was being made. Even in the mere five days they’d been there she could see the changes, thanks to the large number of people they had employed. There were at least twenty workmen on site and many of their own people were helping. The glass and the timbers were already being made in the town. And until they could move in, supplies were being bought every day to make people as comfortable as possible. Burbage was proving to be a good town for them to set up in. In part because it was a Temple town and the priests of Tarius stood by the afflicted. Also because Hendrick was a Prince of the realm, and so using his name generally leant weight to any request. But mostly, things were going well because they had stynes to spend. Everyone loved coin.
