Blood Song

And so he mopped the teaching room. He also mopped all the rooms in the west wing. When he was done she had him boil a mixture of pure spirit and water and soak the metal implements the Aspect had used to treat the young man’s wound. She told him it eradicated infection. The rest of the day was spent in similar endeavours, cleaning, mopping, scrubbing. His hands were tough but he soon found them chaffing with the work, the flesh red from soap and scrubbing by the time Sister Sherin told him he could go and eat.

“When do I learn how to heal?” he asked. She was in the teaching room, laying out a variety of instruments on a white cloth. He had spent two hours cleaning them and they shone brightly in the light from the overhead window.

“You don’t,” she replied, not looking up. “You get to work. If I think you won’t get in the way I’ll let you watch when I tend to someone.”

A variety of responses flickered through his mind, some caustic, some clever, but all certain to make him sound like a petulant child. “As you wish, sister. What hour do you require me?”

“We start at the fifth hour here.” She gave a conspicuous sniff. “Before reporting for work you are expected to wash thoroughly, which should help diminish your rather pungent aroma. Don’t they wash in the Sixth Order?”

“Every three days we swim in the river. It’s very cold, even in summer.”

She said nothing, placing a strange looking implement on the cloth: two parallel blades fastened by a screw device.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Rib spreader. It allows access to the heart.”

“The heart?”

“Sometimes the beat of a heart will stop and can be recommenced by gentle massage.”

He looked at her hands, slim fingers moving with measured precision. “You can do this?”

She shook her head. “I’ve yet to learn such skills. The Aspect can though, she can do most things.”

“She’ll teach you one day.”

She glanced up at him, her expression wary. “You should eat, brother.”

“You’re not eating?”

“I take my meals later than the others. I have more work to do here.”

“Then I’ll stay. We can eat together.”

She barely paused in scrubbing at a steel basin. “I prefer to eat alone, thank you.”

He stopped a sigh of exasperation before it escaped his mouth. “As you wish.”

There were more questions at mealtime, more intense curiosity almost making him wish for Sister Sherin’s disinterest. The masters of the Fifth Order ate with their students so he sat with Master Harin amongst a group of novice brothers and sisters. He was surprised by the variety in the ages of the novices at the table, the youngest little more than fourteen whilst the oldest clearly in his fifties.

“People often come to our Order later in life,” Master Harin explained. “I didn’t join until my thirty-second year. Was in the Realm Guard before then, Thirtieth Regiment of Foot, the Bloody Boars. You've heard of them no doubt.”

“Their renown does them credit, master, ” Vaelin lied, never having heard of such a regiment. “How long has Sister Sherin been here?”

“Been here since an infant that one, worked in the kitchens. Didn’t start training till she turned fourteen though. That’s the youngest we’ll allow novices to join. Not like your Order, eh?”

“It’s but one of many differences, master.”

Harin laughed heartily and took a large bite from a chicken leg. Food in the Fifth Order was much the same as the Sixth, but there was less of it. He experienced a moment’s embarrassment when he began wolfing down large helpings with habitual haste, drawing bemused glances from the others at the table. “Have to eat quickly in the Sixth,” he explained. “Wait too long and it’ll all be gone.”

“I heard they starve you as punishment,” said Sister Henna, the plump girl he had met in the laundry. She asked even more questions than the others and whenever he looked up she seemed to be watching him.

“Our masters have more practical ways of punishing us than starvation, sister,” he told her.

“When do they make you fight to the death?” the thin man Innis, asked. The question was voiced with such earnest curiosity Vaelin found he couldn’t take offence.

“The Test of the Sword comes in our seventh year in the Order. It is our final test.”

“You have to fight each other to the death?” Sister Henna seemed shocked.

Vaelin shook his head. “We will be matched against three condemned criminals. Murderers, outlaws and so forth. If they defeat us they are considered to have been judged innocent of their crimes as the Departed will not accept them into the Beyond. If we defeat them we are judged fit to carry a sword in service to the Order.”

“Brutal but simple,” Master Harin commented before belching loudly and patting his stomach. “The ways of the Sixth Order may seem harsh to us, my children, but do not forget they stand between our Faith and those who would destroy it. In times past they fought to keep us safe. If not for them we wouldn’t be here to offer care and healing to the Faithful. Think well on that.”