Leslie Moore - Griffin's Daughter

“ We’re not nearly so grand as Balnath’s temple, no marble pillars and gold leaf here, oh no. You won’t see any of the high and mighty here, either, young man, none of your sort. Oh don’t look so surprised! Did you really think you could hide those fine manners of yours?”

“ I…I…” Magnes stammered, then quickly regained his composure. Clearly, his cover story was not going to work, so he decided to take a calculated risk and tell Brother Wambo the truth, or at least part of it.

“ Please, Brother, I need a place. I’m a long way from home and just about out of money. I swear to you that I’ll work hard, and I’ll bring no trouble.”

“ What about trouble finding you, eh?” Wambo cocked his head to one side and regarded Magnes with hard brown eyes.

“ I promise it’s all left very far behind me.”

“ Hmm, well.” Wambo’s expression softened. “We’ve never had a Soldaran nobleman petition to join our ranks before, but there’s a first time for everything. An herbalist, you say?”

“ Yes, I know a lot about plants, both medicinal and food. I can help tend the gardens as well.” For the first time in many days, Magnes could feel himself letting go of some of the terrible burden of sadness he had been carrying since leaving Amsara.

“ Welcome to our order, Tilo,” Wambo said.

“ We’re a small group here, as you will see. So many needy people! We are stretched very thin at times,” said Wambo as he led Magnes to the refectory.

After his arrival earlier, Wambo had shown Magnes to a small chamber furnished with only a woven rope cot and a single chair. A small window looked out onto the courtyard. Wambo had promised that he would have the room all to himself, a small luxury that had pleased Magnes greatly. He had been allowed to rest until sunset, when the evening meal would be served.

“ Sister Melele is our cook. Oh, you’ll learn to enjoy what we eat here, but I must warn you. It can be quite a shock to the timid Soldaran palate.” Wambo grinned impishly, revealing a mouth full of strong white teeth.

The refectory was a long narrow room dominated by a solid wooden trestle table. Several people were already seated when Wambo and Magnes entered. They all regarded Magnes with varying degrees of curiosity.

“ Brothers and sisters, this is Tilo, a young man of conviction who wishes to be one of us,” Wambo announced cheerfully.

“ Welcome, Tilo. Come and sit by me,” a woman said, beckoning Magnes over with a wave of her hand. Magnes obliged, grateful for the overture.

“ My name is Ayesha. I serve as the midwife here.” Magnes could not help but notice Ayesha’s beauty. Fascinated, he caught himself staring at her hair, which had been skillfully arranged into a cascade of impossibly slender braids. Ayesha smiled knowingly, and feeling a little embarrassed by his lapse in manners, Magnes quickly looked away.

“ I also look after the women who become ill after childbirth,” Ayesha said.

“ Then you have a much more harrowing and important job than I do, Ayesha,” Magnes replied, daring to look back at her face and finding gentle amusement in her eyes.

“ All jobs are of equal importance here, Tilo,” she said. “Without a skilled herbalist, I could not offer the poor women who come to us for help many of the most efficacious remedies I know of.” Magnes nodded in understanding.

“ That is Jouma, our chiurgeon,” Wambo said, indicating the middle-aged man to Magnes’s right, “and young Fadili over there, he will be your assistant.” Fadili smiled broadly and waved from his seat across the table. “Zemba and Nyal are medics.” Wambo pointed to a man and a woman seated opposite Magnes, finishing off the introductions.

“ Is everyone in this order from…the south?” Magnes asked, looking around at the people he had chosen to join with. They were all as dark as the wood of the table at which they sat; in contrast, even if Magnes should expose himself to the sun for many hours, he would still be pale when compared to any of them.

“ Not everyone,” said Ayesha with a smile. “Now, we have a Soldaran brother.”

“ All of us have lived here in Darguinia for many years,” Wambo said, sitting down to Magnes’s left. “I last saw our homeland over thirty summers ago. Fadili came into this world right here within these walls.”

“ It must be hard for you all, being so far away from home,” Magnes said.

“ Darguinia has become our home. Our work is very important, and the people are grateful. We don’t serve the rich here, oh no. Poor working folk, slaves, beggars, and whores-that’s who we treat. All of the people who can’t afford the fees that Balnath’s priests swindle out of their patients. Bah!” Wambo spat in disgust.

“ How, then, can the temple afford to buy supplies and support all of us if we charge no fees?” Magnes asked.

“ I didn’t say that we charged no fees. Of course, our patients must pay something, but only what they can afford, and many times, it’s trade. And we have the Arena.”

“ The arena?” queried Magnes.

Jouma the chiurgeon spoke up for the first time. “The Grand Arena. We hold contracts with several of the yards to provide care and healing for their fighters, both slave and free. It brings in a tidy sum every month, and it’s steady.”

“ It’s our Arena contracts that allow us to offer so much for so little to the poor. We’d be out of business without them,” Wambo added.

“ Tomorrow, we visit the de Guera Yard, our biggest contract,” Jouma continued. “Yesterday was an off-day, so there won’t be any new injuries to treat, just follow-ups and the usual little things-runny noses, headaches, coughs and such. Lady de Guera runs a tight yard. She sees to it that her slaves stay healthy and her prizefighters stay clean, or they don’t work. You can come with me if you like.”

“ Yes, I would love to, thank you,” Magnes agreed.

Several more people had since entered the refectory and had taken places at the table. Wambo introduced them as they sat. Last to enter came a young woman upon whose arm leaned a small man. To Magnes’s amazement, the man appeared to be even older than Wambo.

“ Father Ndoma, the leke or head of our order,” Wambo whispered into Magnes’s ear, indicating the frail elder with a lift of his chin. He waited until the Father’s attendant had settled the old man in a high backed chair at the head of the table, then shouted, “Leke Ndoma, this is Tilo! He has come this very day to join us as our new herbalist!” Wambo looked at Magnes, tapped his ear and explained, “Leke Ndoma is nearly deaf…Has been for at least a year. My lungs have grown very strong from shouting.”

“ Eh? A new recruit?” the ancient cleric piped in a thin, reedy voice. “Well, where is he? Let him come forward so I can look at him!”

Magnes rose from his seat and approached the leke’s chair. Unsure of how to demonstrate respect to the elder, he decided to incline his head as he would toward his own father. Just that brief thought of the duke twisted Magnes’s gut into a painful knot, but he resolutely pushed his feelings back down into the dark place underneath his heart and sealed them off.

The old man regarded Magnes quizzically. He clicked his tongue and muttered something in a language Magnes did not understand, then asked,

“ You are a Soldaran nobleman, yes?” His black eyes glittered shrewdly.

“ Yes, Father,” Magnes answered. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The priest’s eyes seemed to penetrate through all of the shields Magnes had erected to protect himself, discerning the true man beneath the façade.

“ You’ll have to speak up, my son. I haven’t much hearing left… Never mind…I know who you are. Welcome.” He waved a spidery brown hand, giving Magnes leave to go back to his place at the table.