Part 1, Chapter III

Chapter III. A Name is Given

            The Northerners’ night’s stay came and went, and that night’s stay became a week, and one week dragged into the next -- they claimed to need time for “funeral festivities”, a very important rite in the North. So they said. We all shouldered this weight, keeping our peace about us, for it was unlawful to disband any who took refuge in the temple.

            Each night, while the women were tending to the camp the Northern men would uncap the lid of one of the barrels they’d brought along, and drink deep of the amber liquid inside. It was alcohol, but nothing like the wine the Augustinians took great pride in. This brew was weaker stuff, cheap and bounteous, grown in a land with a hardier crop than the plump grapes of paradise. The Northerners would chug this liquor down every night and make revelry, singing loud and crass melodies unfamiliar to our ears, and the whole temple would soon reek of their poor man’s brew. Despite her warnings and pleas to obey the temple’s code of conduct, Titana could do nothing to contain the riotous Northerners, who would promise penance one minute then roar with merriment the next.

The troop’s men began inviting the devout to their celebrations, and soon half the temple had abandoned their sacred obligations to lounge at tables and eat the good things put before them, just like the barbarous white-skins; even Titana could not help but to join in.

            I too began to attend these celebrations, but not for ale or food. While they drank, the Northerners would share tales from their home country, and it was these my appetite craved.

They spoke much of Ambitus, which Orchid described as a “truer gem, the likes of which you’ve never set peeps on!”

            “It’s a beaut, if you’ve ever the chance to gouge your eyeballs on her, I’d more than recommend it,” he said after downing the last of a pint. “Don’t get me wrong -- Augustine’s a swell a place as any, but don’t you find this heat a little stale after a while? That’s the magic of Ambitus, friends -- the moment you get sick of a season, you just stash yourself away and wait for it to change. That’s what the money beggars do near the town square.”

            While I marveled at this, Orchid addressed Titana. “That boy there -- pale skin with the ears, whatever his name is. What’s his story? Kind of a three-headed goat in the mix, isn’t he?”

            Without so much as looking at me, Titana replied, “He was once an orphan here. We’d hope to make a man of high religion out of him, but he is slow to learn his hymns and verses. A life of broom and mop suit him better.”

            “Daft then, is he?”

            “I fear as much, sir.”

            And so they carried on, as if I were a phantom! But then Orchid pressed his lips to the cup of revelry and declared, “Better he a strong back than his nose half-grinded in the pages of holy-whats-its. Don’t be pulling words from my mouth, I’m as God-a-fearing man as any, but I’ve never liked religion coming into it. Strong backs are far more use than hymns in the real world. You keep the work steady, boy, and you’ll have potential in Ambitus yet!”

            Titana gawked, “Why heathen, I bid thee know thy place!”

But Sister Eleanor, who’d been reclining at Orchid’s left side with a contented look, was quick to the Northerner’s defense. “Be not rash, saintly mother. He is not from these lands -- deprived of God and faith he is, poor fellow. Better to pray for him than to flay him. And was it not kind of him to invite us to sup with his own?”

            There was something about the artificial sweetness in her voice that caused me to bite back, “Don’t mock this man, Sister. He’s endowed with more sense than most here. What worship can Sol gain from our songs and sacrifices -- from the works of our hands -- when our hearts are sin-stained?”

            Mad with Northern ale, Eleanor cackled, all sweetness in her voice gone, while Titana only snorted and said, “If those are thy feeling, Fae, let them rest, but if thou look around thee thou shalt see our blessings piled high. We have great bounty; hardly the lot of a depraved race.”

            Orchid grinned at me. “Well, well… I thought you were downright stupid -- slow they told me. You’re surely mute like a dumb man! Why didn’t you say something sooner, when we were bomb-dropping your name, hmm?” He raised his glass. “Here’s a toast to you, my boy. If all mutes are like you, may they inherit the earth!”

            “You’re drunk, man,” said one of the Northern crew, a large, ruddy man whose belly hung far below his belt. I almost wondered if he was half Augustinian!

            “I take the hint, Quagmire. In fact, I’m well drunk enough to ask that slippery little question I’ve been putting off. You said you’ve orphans here, did you?”

            “Correct,” Titana answered. “We raise our fair share at the temple. Though this country is indeed gentle, it’s not entirely without unexpected casualties. Illness and drowning are two things we never seem to rid of.”

            “Beaut! Do you ever adopt them out? It’s been rough going, as you call tell from the stiff we fed to the earthworms. Help’s hard to come by, and the best workers are the ones you break in while they’re still fresh out’a the nest.”

            “If you’re asking me to press our children into service for thy wretched band, then the answer is absolutely not! I am not a pimp in Sol’s service.”

            “Clip their wings young, they say, and a pidger will never want flight.”

            “I won’t have you corrupting any of my own, and that’s the end to it.”

            “As you’d have it, ma’am.”

            I did not tarry long at that evening’s festivities. I’d little taste for drink, but the others, even the nuns, had more than sated their palate, and now glutted their bellies to the brim on the golden ale as they lulled about the table, mindless in their indulgence. Sister Eleanor had her elbows in her plate, head draped on Orchid’s shoulder, laughing at every word he said until a crimson flush brightened her cheeks and hot tears trickled down her face. Out of disgust, I flung my chair aside and stormed out into night’s open air.

            During the remainder of their stay at the temple, I did not have the chance to converse with the Northerners. After that riotous evening, they retreated to their wagons whenever darkness fell, where they would build a fire and play together on bizarre musical instruments. Though we had drums and shakers at the temple, they were nothing like the Northerners’ instruments. These were carved perfectly smooth, entirely unlike Augustinian craftsmanship. Some instruments had strings that the musicians plucked, others were hollowed out and produced sounds when the players blew into them, whilst some of their instruments did not even appear to be made of wood at all, but of brass, as effortlessly shaped and finished as if they were made of liquid. Together, these instruments played a sound I’d never heard before, and the Northerners sang together, but not always in chorus, and their words bore no repetition or adherence to the rigorous structure of our chants and hymns, but flowed out not entirely unlike a natural conversation.

I longed to join them, but like the other Augustinians, I was too sheepish. When they were dinning in our temple was one thing, but to venture near the wagons was to step into the Northerner’s territory. The music, too, kept me from approaching, for I’d been raised with the notion that music was a kind of communion with God. Believing the Northern music was some kind of holy rite and that my presence would be an intrusion, I strayed from their camp, but kept near enough to indulge the ear.

            The following evening, the Northerners were holding concert once more, so I hurried to conceal myself in the shadow-steeped orchard to hear again that peculiar melody.

I was so transfixed in my listening that I did not hear another approach until a voice behind me hissed, “Their art is rather fine, isn’t it? Sol gives even the heathen wondrous art.”

            Sister Eleanor’s appearance did not startle me; after all, she’d been making eyes enough at Orchid, why wouldn’t she try to sneak another eye-full in discretion? What was surprising was the fact that she’d spoken to me.

            “Cursed is the night --.”

            “ -- Hush, Fae, there’s no need for those words. They are especially brainless to hear you say.” She paused, eyes drifting to the Northerners’ camp. “You like their ways too much.”

            “I find them curious.”

            “As do I. I was hoping to stay up until night’s last watch to hear them. Would you care to join me?”

            Before I could attempt to make an answer, she perceived my thoughts and a devious smile assailed her lips. “I’ve long thrown away the desires of my flesh and have resolved to live a life of purity and baser virtues. My invitation comes innocently.”

            While there was something in her words which repelled my trust, being young and intemperate I conceded to her wishes, positive she would be too occupied with Orchid to put on her cloak of seduction.

            Eleanor had with her a canteen and a blanket. The latter she spread on the forest floor, but the canteen she handed to me, saying, “This is a spiced mulberry brew I brought to keep my lips and fingers warm when Luna’s cool chills the orchard. You may have this batch -- I shall fetch another canister for myself. Wait here, and I promise not to be long.”

            As she disappeared into the temple, I reclined on the blanket and took up the canteen of mulberry brew. As the Northerners played, I absently sipped from that cup of wrath, which went down sweet and tepid but left a burning in my throat. Lost in the music of the north, I did not realize I’d drunk the canteen dry until it slipped from my hands and into my lap.

            I remember neither feeling drowsy, nor lying down to sleep. It’s one of those inscrutable lapses of memory, a blank in itself far more terrifying than the actual recollection, for the gaps learn us of many a day of our lives drained from the very prism of existence and into perfect nothing, as if they never existed at all.

            Pardon the derailment of my thoughts. I suppose the voids of my memory frighten me so much because I fear I shall forget my errors, and the cost they extracted.

            Perhaps what bothers me most about that particular instance of forgetfulness is the fact that when I awoke, I awoke in pain. In its distress, my frantic mind, still half submerged in dream-world, could not find out the cause. There’s that subtle vice, that trickster memory! In a moment of panic, I slipped out of my brain and became like a lunatic, senseless to time, place, and identity. Wildly I thrashed, unable to recall who I was, or how I’d come to find myself in a state of pain and utter darkness.

            “By the Crick! Quit your wrangling for half a moment! He’s crazy as a c**k-too, isn’t he? ”

            “Bloody mad as hell, I’d say. Who’s the poor druggist who sold us that powder, anyways? I’d have thought he’d still be snoozing like a babe.”

            Someone had drawn a blindfold around my eyes so I couldn’t see, but when the madness subsided, I realized the voices belonged to two men with northern accents, both of whom had laid hands to me. The first speaker -- whom by the meaty fists wrapped around my lips I gathered to be the man Orchid named as Quagmire -- stuffed a cloth into my mouth to silence me. The other, Orchid, tied my wrists together behind my back.

            A third voice, feminine, suddenly broke out, “Must you handle him so roughly? He’s not an animal!”

            Heat flushed my face upon recognizing that voice. Treachery of women, I thought, may your name henceforth be Eleanor!

            “What’s with the talk, sis?” said Orchid. “Come on; you came to me, not the other way around.”

            I thought I heard her sniffle, but it only hardened my heart. Orchid, on the other hand, seemed moved by pity, for he added. “We’re not really all that cruel, just a bit rough on the edges -- a Northerner thing, really. He’ll be good and fine; he doesn’t belong here anyhow, he’s one of our boys! Look at him, pale as a snowhare’s a*s!”

            Before I could hear more, one of the men shoved me to the ground and pinned me on my belly. Despite my groans of protest, a rope was lashed around my feet.

Through my terror, Eleanor’s voice pierced. It was softer, more disquieted than before. “Orchid…”

            “Yes, m’lady?”

            “Will you return soon?”

            “Do I look like a fortune teller to you? Unless my soul up-and-goes from the meat, I’m bound to come through here again. Now, stay put and make sure he tries nothing funny while Quagmire and I bring the horses around. Wouldn’t be good if we had our arses hanging out come morning.”

            So that’s the way of women, Old Man. Look well upon yourself, for your age doesn’t let itself to the treacheries of the fairer sex.

            One token of kindness Eleanor bequeathed me, after the footsteps of both men grew far away. It was slipped into the pocket of my frock.

Eleanor’s warm, humid breath tickled my cheek as she whispered into my ear, “Take this, Fae. The nuns say it was given as a token for your admittance into the temple, and so I suppose it yours by right. I took it from the treasury. Come morning, I will tell them you stole it before you ran away with the Northerners. Should some ill fortune befall, it may purchase your freedom. It was certainly precious to the temple.”

            Though I longed to rebuke her, for I though myself already fallen in with ill fortune, the cloth between my lips prevented me from doing so.

            Sister Eleanor never addressed me after, for the sound of footsteps and hushed voices approached us. I heard the creak and clatter of the wagons’ wheels, and the snorts of the horses and the pawing of their hooves, breath heavy in the dank heat of the Augustine night. Orchid and Eleanor conversed for a time, his voice deep and steady and hers high and desperate (though I could not make out what either said), before he dismissed her. Then I heard the crush of heavy boots against the grass as a group of Northerners ambled towards me. My body was hoisted into the air and carried for a distance. Without warning, my captors gave me a good swing and the hands that had once held me disappeared. To my fright, I had become airborne! It was only a brief flight -- though such a thing tends to become drawn out by memory -- before I flopped onto a rough, solid surface that was most definitely not the soft grass from which I’d been plucked.

            It did not take long to realize that I was moving, being thumped and jostled about by whatever it was I lay upon. From this I deduced that the Northerners had tossed me into one of their wagons.

I wriggled my hands and tried to slip the loop that bound them, but the knot held fast, so I occupied myself with trying to force the gag from my mouth. Eventually I succeeded, but by then we had already been hours in motion and I was beyond a call for help.

            The apothecary’s bane, inhospitably slipped into the offered cup, still had its teeth. In no time at all, lulled by the bouncing and creaking of the carriage, I drifted into a deep and troubled sleep.

            When I awoke, sleep’s veil did not completely flee from my vision, and memories of the night before bled into recollection of my dreams. Someone was propping me up on their knee, but when I opened my eyes to look I found my vision flooded by darkness.          

Finally, the last of sleep’s dense curtain disintegrated from my brain, and the events of the night before resurfaced. I recalled how I was blinded by a cloth, which even now chaffed against my eyelids, and how I had been tossed into the back of one of the Northerners’ wagons, which even now lurched beneath me. Now I needed only wonder at the warm, gentle hands which cupped my chin.

            “I thought you might like a drink.” It was a woman’s voice, deep and rich. “I see that you have already taken care of the gag. We’re far away from the temple; there’s no one to hear you.”

            She then tilted my head back and a much-awaited trickle of water poured down my throat. At first, however, it came as a curse rather than a blessing, for those original sips caused my thirst to grow all the more ravenous. Fingers tangling in my hair, the woman gently pushed me upright and let me drink from the canteen until my stomach was near bursting.

            My thirst quenched, I begged the woman, “Please, undo ye my blindfold.”

            “I’m not Orchid,” said she, “but I’m no fool, either. You seem uncannily clever -- your eyes are sharp, I think. It would not take you long to loose yourself.”

            There were other favours I wished to ask the woman for -- food, or at least a warm blanket to cover me -- but before I could do so I heard the wagon groan as the woman hopped to the ground, and I was alone once more.

             I knew not how long we traveled, for seconds blurred into minutes and hours and days in my mind. In part my trouble measuring time came from my upbringing. Augustine’s cult was obsessed with all matter of days and hours, and as such, every aspect of temple life was conducted by schedule. We could glean the hour of the day from the sun’s position, and where the moon hung in the sky told us how long it would be before the sun rose. However, the cult had no conception of linear time -- not as the Northerners do. For in Augustine, all things are eternal, bound up with the passage of Sol, who comes and goes without alteration. There was “sooner” and “later”, but these were interposed upon the daily and yearly motions of Sol, and in the monthly waxing and waning of her nemesis, Luna. Each day was a renewal of a cycle, as was each year -- not a progression, but a rebirth. Subsequently, we had no method for counting the passage of time; no seconds or minutes with which to count down the hours, and so when I was cut off from Sol’s light I found myself in a world of ignorance.

            At one point, a sudden noise woke me. Though I was covered in cold sweat, the confusion which had accompanied the last two times I awoke was not present, for I’d grown used to the dark, timeless world beneath my blindfold.

            Just as I inclined my head to listen for whatever had caused the clamour, someone grasped the blindfold and gingerly slid it up my forehead. Having spent so long in the darkness, the light came as a sword upon my eyes. Growling, I sealed my eyes shut and grit my teeth together, fighting off the pain that spread to the back of my skull.

Even with my eyes closed, I noticed two things: the wagon wasn’t moving, and, second of all, the light which radiated through my eyelids was warm and golden, belonging to flame and not to sun.

            “So Orchid was right,” a female voice, relaxed and even, spoke. It was not the same voice as the woman who’d given me drink. “Your ears are weird.”

            When I dared open my eyes, light overcame my sight, so that I could see only whiteness. Then, like a mirage appearing on a desert horizon, bit by bit she emerged. In my desert vision, the first part which solidified were two large, glinting emeralds, and on the heels of these there came banners of red, one hundred-thousand in all, and under each great banner rode one-hundred thousand more a-piece, as though every nation great and small gathered upon that sweeping hill. Downwind from the banners and downwind from emeralds (I saw all this as if from above, looking down upon a sea of ivory sand), a river as pink as any flower in Sol’s garden was diverted into two thick fingers by a breakwater of polished pearl. Finally, my eyes adjusted and my vision found a superior expression -- the desert became her face, and all its feature became hers. The emeralds were her eyes, the banners her hair, and the river and breakwater were the partition of her lips over her teeth.

            She was lying beside me, her face aligned with mine as she stared at me, unblinking. I said nothing -- but how could I? After such a vision, my tongue became as lead.

            Something pressed against my lips. “Try it,” she insisted. “You must be starving.”

            She fed me and I chewed, mindless of flavour or texture.

            “It’s not bad, is it?” asked the girl. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “My name’s Kindred, by the way.”

Pictured: and older painting of Kindred.

          

            For a while, she fell silent and continued to watch me. Outside, crickets and frogs serenaded their lord, Luna.  

            “Do you have a name?” she asked.

            What answer could I give? Fae -- or worse, Imp?  Thankfully, she was quicker to the sport than I, for without awaiting an answer, she said, “I bet you don’t! Do you mind if I give you one?”

            “No,” I answered. When I spoke, it seemed to take catch her off guard, for her eyes widened ever so slightly.

            “Well. You have very interesting eyes. They look so melancholic! Sorrow? No, that’s not it. Maybe just Dark, then.” She chuckled at herself. “That’s an awful name, sorry. But do you like it? -- Dark, that is?”

            “It’s a good name,” I said.

            “Good. Well, I’ve got to run. Oh, and Orchid says he’ll flay you alive if you try to escape. Goodnight, Dark.”

            So Dark my name became. While I would have said yes to any name she’d come up with, there was something about that particular name I admired. Of course, I could not then guess how well it suited me!