Back to Chapter 3
Chapter Four � The Penitent
The
road re-entered the forest, so for the next hour Danka continued walking
in darkness. She had to go slowly to avoid tripping and to avoid
wandering off the road. However, the birds were singing, so the spooky
silence of the deepest part of night had passed.
When Danka emerged into another cleared area, the sky was already
bright. She crossed another sheep meadow and passed an inn. Several men
were outside, getting their horses and mules ready for the day�s travel.
They all stared at her and several made admiring comments:
�It�s a pity all the lasses don�t run around like that one.�
�It�s an even greater pity all the lasses don�t look like that one.�
Not knowing what else to do, Danka picked up her pace and moved away
from the inn as quickly as she could.
That morning she passed many men and boys on the road. They were from
all sectors of Danubian society: farmers, squads of the Duke�s soldiers,
trading caravans, vagabonds, stage coaches, and the occasional noble.
There were a few women and girls on the road as well, but they were
always accompanied by at least one man carrying a weapon. All the men
and boys stared at her with unabashed lust; all the women and girls
stared at her with blatant curiosity. At first Danka was terrified by
all the staring, then she merely found it irritating. By mid-day she
began to enjoy the attention. She had been almost invisible at home, but
here, in this strange province, everyone seemed interested in her, or at
least in looking at her.
A Priest and Priestess approached Danka. She remembered to kneel,
placing her hands in front and touching her forehead to the ground. The
Priest blessed her and handed her a piece of bread. Free bread�hmmm�that
was one benefit of Public Penance that Farmer Orsktackt had neglected to
tell her about.
By midday her arms became sore from carrying the bucket and she was
hungry. She realized that she had forgotten to eat. She ate some of her
apples and continued; her bucket now somewhat lighter. Throughout the
afternoon she continued to eat apples as she walked. She passed through
several villages, looking around at all the new buildings and people
with fascination. In one peasant�s farm she saw goats for the first time
in her life and wasted half an hour staring at them. As the sun started
to get low in the horizon she witnessed a stage coach accident; a wheel
from an overloaded stage coach collapsed, causing the vehicle to fall
sideways and spill its load of passengers and cargo. She watched the
ensuing fight between the driver and several passengers, which came to
an abrupt end when one of the horses ran off and everyone set out to
capture the animal. It was a fascinating spectacle for a young person
who had spent her life just working in her family�s garden and doing odd
jobs.
As sunset approached she entered another large village. She realized
that she had wasted too much of her day looking at all the new sights
and that nighttime had caught up with her. She was about to panic about
that when she noted the steeple of a church. She remembered her collar
and Farmer Orsktackt�s promise of a free night�s bed wherever there were
clergy members. She approached the church, located the Priest, and
remembered to kneel. Sure enough, after glancing at her letter the
Priest took her to a cottage inhabited by three apprentices, a young man
and two women who were only slightly older than Danka. The trio tasked
the visitor with cleaning the kitchen and handed her a bowl of stew and
a loaf of bread. She cleaned her teeth at the well before going to
sleep.
Danka stayed at the village for three days. The apprentices offered her
free lodging and food in exchange for cleaning up and washing clothing
and bed linens. In the afternoons they helped her practice drawing
alphabet letters. At the end of the third day she spelled out her first
word: �A-P-P-L-E�.
On the fourth day she continued walking east, with her supply of apples
greatly diminished. The next large provincial town was about three days' walk past the
first village. Danka knew exactly what she needed
to do before sunset: go to the next village and report to the local
Priest. She was in no hurry, so she could take her time looking at all
the new and fascinating sights along the road. To most travelers, the
road was no different than any other stretch of the western half of the
Duchy, but for Danka, who was seeing everything for the first time; the
trip was one of wonders and surprises. She passed an orchard with
strange orange fruit and for the first time in her life tasted a peach.
She took a ferry across the Rika Chorna River and spent a pleasant
morning bathing and napping on the northern shore, feeling the warm
breeze on her naked body as she ate a couple more apples. The bucket was
much lighter when she finished her break. She only had six apples
remaining, which meant that she would not be able to continue past her
next stop without having the money to buy some food. She was not
particularly worried, however. She figured the Clergy members at the
Church would help her, and possibly assist her in finding employment.
She spent the rest of the day walking to the next town, the provincial center Star�vktaki M�skt, which
in Danubian meant �City of the Ancients.� The town received its name
from a pre-Christian temple, which looked like the Temple of the
Ancients in the capitol but was much smaller. The local temple was a
favorite pilgrimage site for people who did not want to go all the way
Dan�bikt M�skt to visit the main one. There were a couple of cathedrals
in the town as well, so Star�vktaki M�skt was an important center of the
Danubian Church, second only to Dan�bikt M�skt.
The town was attractive, but in a way totally different from Rika
H�ckt-nem�t. The architecture in Danka�s hometown mostly consisted of
multi-storied brick and stone buildings, typical of what would be seen
in other Christian countries at the time. Many of Star�vktaki M�skt�s
buildings were pre-Christian, and many of the newer ones copied the
style of the older structures. Rika H�ckt-nem�t was much more enclosed
than its neighbor to the east. Star�vktaki M�skt had wider streets and
the fronts of most of the houses had pillared entrances and large
windows. The houses in Rika H�ckt-nem�t were grey, brown, and blue;
while the structures in Star�vktaki M�skt were mostly white and bright
yellow. Danka wandered around the town with a bewildered expression as
she took in all the new sights.
The day was drawing to a close, so Danka made her way to the Temple to
see about a place to sleep. She knelt before an old Priest and
Priestess, who immediately complained that her kneeling posture was
incorrect. She needed to stretch her hands out in front and keep her
forehead to the ground. More importantly, she needed to arch her back
and spread her knees.
�You�ve been dishonoring your duty to the collar by not presenting
yourself properly. You will understand that your duty to the collar is
total submission, and your posture must be one of complete humility and
the abandonment of all modesty and pride.�
To drive home the lesson, the Priest left Danka in her corrected
kneeling position while he attended other duties. Several people walked
in and out of the temple while the Priest was absent. The men always
walked behind Danka and studied her exposed bottom-hole and vagina at
their leisure. Yes indeed, the corrected kneeling position was one of
absolute exposure and submission.
Finally the Priest and his partner returned.
�Now speak. What do you need from us?�
�I�m traveling and I request a place to sleep, Priest.�
�What else do you want from us, Penitent?�
�I�d appreciate a meal, Priest.�
�Yes, and what else do you want from us?�
�I�I�d like to know if there�s work for me, Priest.�
��and what else, Penitent?�
What else? What else could there be? Well�Danka wouldn�t mind a husband,
preferably one with a nice house in the city, but she knew better than
to say that to Clergy members. She thought about her efforts to learn
the alphabet�maybe that�s what they meant. She decided to try �learning�
as an answer, but needed to phrase her request with as much humility as
possible, since it seemed that was what those two were after.
�I�m ignorant�I don�t know very much, Priest, and I need to
learn�what�what the Church has to teach me.�
�Now we�re coming closer to what you really need. You said it yourself:
you�re ignorant. Yes, you are. If you don�t even know how to kneel
correctly and are putting your worldly desires ahead of your service to
the Creator, then your ignorance dishonors you. That collar means
something, girl. It�s not just so you can walk around from Church to
Church asking for a free bed and free meals. You�d better straighten
your priorities, or I�ll take that collar off your neck and send you
away with nothing. Do you understand me?�
Danka trembled, terrified that the Priest would carry out his threat and
discover she was wearing a fake collar. Fortunately for Danka, the
Priest misinterpreted her fear and assumed she understood that she had
offended the Creator (he did not use the more common term
�Lord-Creator�) and was ready to comprehend the true meaning of Public
Penance.
�Y�yes�Priest�I�under�understand.�
�Very well, dishonored sinner. You will be granted your selfish desires.
You will clean your dishonored body, you will fill your dishonored
stomach, and you will rest your dishonored head. Tomorrow you will wake
up, and we will address your obvious ignorance.�
He whistled in a pattern of high and low whistles, summoning a totally
naked female seminary student. The young woman knelt, using the correct
position.
�Apprentice, you will take this visitor to the dormitory. Attend to her
needs. She is blatantly ignorant, so don�t assume she knows anything.
Teach her, and correct her.�
�Yes, Senior Priest.�
�Rise. On your feet, both of you.�
�Yes, Senior Priest.�
Danka was taken aback by the Priest�s rough, insulting treatment. She
was more worried about his apparent insight; that he suspected something
was not right about her arrangements with the Church. She wanted to
flee, but knew that running off was absolutely the worst thing she could
do. It was possible the Church would send someone after her. Even if the
Church did not pursue her, she�d never be able to set foot in
Star�vktaki M�skt again. However, what most held her were her physical
needs. She had to eat, sleep, get cleaned up, and hopefully find
employment. If she spurned the Church, that night she�d have nowhere
safe to sleep, nothing except her last apples to eat, and the next day
would wake up with no options except going back to stealing.
The residence for the female seminary students was much larger than the
one where she had stayed in the village. There were eight official
apprentices and four penitents living in a large whitewashed stone house
that looked very ancient. It had a courtyard that boasted its own well
and a stone bath. In the back the house was a dining area and the nicest
kitchen Danka had ever seen. To both the left and the right of the
entrance were sleeping quarters. The apprentices slept two in each room
while the penitents shared a larger communal room.
The courtyard was full of drying bed linens. The bedding was only one of
the duties of the penitents. The penitents had to earn their keep: in
exchange for meals, beds, and religious instruction they had to maintain
the house and keep everything clean.
The arrangement was acceptable for the penitents. Church protocol
mandated that penitents had to perform menial tasks for the Clergy as
part of their sentence. To be a penitent was to accept humility, abandon
all pride, and serve others. Serving seminary students was not an
onerous life. Yes, the women spent a large portion of their day working,
but the work was clean and not physically taxing. The women had clean
beds to sleep in, ate well, lived under the Church�s protection, and
were free to leave whenever they wanted.
Danka was the youngest woman among the penitents. There was a shy woman
only slightly older than her who had an illegitimate child and had been
disowned by her family. There was a woman who must have been about 30
who, like Danka, had been sentenced to the pillory for petty theft.
There were two other women in their forties who had become accustomed to
the Public Penance lifestyle and had served the seminary students for
years.
The two older penitents ordered Danka to pull off her boots and undo her
braids. She had to go through both a ritual and physical cleansing
before she could enter the household. While the two younger penitents
prepared a bath, the older women and Danka presented themselves to a
seminary student for the ritual cleansing.
The seminary student issued the normal prayers for knowledge and
enlightenment, but, like the Priest, she surprised the newcomer by using
�Creator� instead of the usual �Lord-Creator� to refer to the Church�s
supreme-being. She then released the subordinates to allow Danka to
bathe, have her hair re-braided, and be accepted into the household.
After her bath, Danka knelt upright while one the older women started
fixing her hair. She asked about the seminary student�s strange prayer
and her refusal to use the Lord-Creator�s entire name.
�Child, we are Old Believers. We use the prayers of our ancestors, not
the prayers of the Romans. The Creator is the true name of the Master of
the World. �Lord� and 'God' came from the Romans, which is why we don�t
use it.�
The penitents showed Danka their dormitory, which contained eight beds
plus a makeshift crib for the baby. The newcomer set down her bucket and
boots next to one that was unoccupied. She realized her remaining apples
weren�t going to stay fresh much longer, so she offered them to her
companions. As she pulled out the last of the apples, she noticed a
small piece of folded cloth at the bottom of her bucket. She decided to
leave it alone. She could see what it contained when the others weren�t
looking.
At dinner eight apprentices entered the dining hall. They were young,
serious, educated women. Just like the penitents, none of the trainees
was wearing a stitch of clothing. Nudity was not a requirement of
studying for the Church priesthood, but during the summer there was a
practical reason for it. The initiates were each issued a single dress
at the beginning of their education. That dress had to last during four
years of study: if it wore out before the initiate took her vows, the
Church would not replace it. The purpose of the restriction was to
encourage the initiates to pay attention to detail and care for every
item issued to them by the Church. In practice, the custom forced
initiates to wear their dresses as little as possible during warm
weather so they�d last through four winters.
The five penitents knelt while the seminary student who had brought
Danka to the house introduced her to the others. In keeping with Church
tradition, no one asked Danka where she was from or why she was
performing Public Penance. Even her name was of no interest to the
apprentices.
Danka was surprised when she and 30-year-old were ordered to set 13
places at the table and not just eight. She expected, because they were
serving, that the penitents would eat separately. They had to serve the
apprentices first, but the trainees did not touch their food until the
penitents had filled their plates and sat down as well. Danka later
learned that because the women shared the household, they shared the
dining table as well. It was a very strange experience, eating in a
formal setting with other women who were obviously from a different
social class.
The apprentice who had introduced the newcomer took note of the way she
ate. The Senior Priest had repeatedly referred to Danka as ignorant.
Judging by the way she hunched over the table and ate with her hands, it
seemed his assessment was accurate. If she didn�t know how to eat
properly, what else didn�t the new girl know? She decided to find out
after dinner. If the new penitent had issues, it would be to everyone�s
benefit to find out about them before she talked to the Senior Priest
the next day.
The apprentice requested that Danka be excused from cleaning up so she
could talk to her. The apprentice planned to ask her some questions
about basic theology, but on a flash of intuition she realized the first
thing to find out about the newcomer was if she could even read. She
ordered Danka to accompany her to the house library and ordered her to
sit at a study table. The apprentice opened a printed copy of The Book
of the True Path, turned several pages, and told the newcomer to read
the following passage:
The Destroyer enters the Realm of the Living through the mouth of the
liar.
Danka went pale. She trembled and started sweating.
�Read, Penitent. Tell me what this line says.�
�Apprentice�I�I mean�I can�t.�
�You can�t read?�
�No, Apprentice. I can�t.�
�So you really have no idea what you�re doing��
�No, Apprentice. I don�t.�
�So the Senior Priest was right about you.�
�Yes, Apprentice.�
�Very well. Normally it�s not my prerogative to ask such a question, but
in your case I need to know. Why are you wearing a Church collar? What
did you do to convince anyone the collar was appropriate for your Path
in Life?�
Danka shook, terrified that the Apprentice was about to figure out her
secret. Her only option was to divulge a portion of the truth. The
Apprentice tapped her shoulder.
�Speak. What did you do to convince anyone the collar was appropriate
for your Path in Life? Not a difficult question to answer, Penitent.�
Danka started crying. Between sobs, she answered.
�I�I was stealing apples�from a farmer�he called a city guard�they
arrested me�she whipped me�I�I confessed�stole�sold the apples��
�Why were you selling stolen apples?�
��because I wanted a new dress��
�Why did you want a new dress?�
�My parents�sister�I have a sister�they want her to get married�me to
work�so she could get married�I wanted�to get married first�dress�go in
the city�find a husband��
�So let me make sure I understand. Your parents were making you work so
your sister could get married. You didn�t think that was your Path in
Life, to work so your sister could benefit. So you stole apples and sold
them, to buy yourself a dress. That is correct?�
�Yes.�
�And with your dress, you were going to walk into the town, and some
rich man was going to see you and fall in love with you. That was your
intention?�
�Yes.�
�And you thought just having a dress was going to change the Path of
your Life? Why did you think such nonsense? Who told you that?�
Danka told the apprentice about the story she heard, the tale of the
serving girl with the magic dress who went to the King�s ball and got
the Crown Prince to fall in love with her. The Apprentice was so taken
aback by the stupidity of Danka�s assumption that for a moment she
couldn�t react. Finally she pressed the newcomer for additional
information.
�So, you were caught by the farmer and a female city guard, correct?�
�Yes, Apprentice.�
��and what happened? Apart from the whipping, I mean?�
�Pillory�� Danka responded quietly. Then, remembering what the mob did
to her�the very people she had been hoping to impress and whose society
she wanted to become a part of�she broke down crying.
The apprentice decided to stop interrogating the Penitent at that
moment. It was not difficult to guess what happened next. She had seen
multiple pillory punishments. Usually they were uneventful: the criminal
spent a day exposed to the city; then wore a penance collar until the
family accepted the offender back into their household. There were
instances, however, where the spectators went beyond simply observing
and started taunting the helpless offender. Once the insults and jeering
started, the taunting could get out of hand very quickly and the crowd
became uncontrollable. There usually was no particular reason the
spectators got out of control; sometimes it just happened.
The apprentice assumed she knew the outcome of Danka�s punishment. When
the spectators started attacking her, it was likely a Priest intervened
and ordered her taken down. Since the girl was dishonored beyond
redemption in her hometown, the Clergy member issued the penance collar
so she could get away and make a new life somewhere else. That would
explain why she had no theological knowledge. The apprentice thought it
was extremely irresponsible to send a penitent away with no instruction,
but she could understand the Priest�s reasoning; the dishonored girl had
to leave as quickly as possible. The apprentice was right about
everything concerning Danka except for one important detail. She did not
receive the collar from a Clergy member: she received it from the very
man who had her arrested.
Danka�s crying made the apprentice assume that whatever happened to her
on the pillory must have been traumatic and that no further questions
were necessary. The peasant girl was very fortunate that the apprentice
did not bother to ask who issued the collar.
The apprentice waited for the penitent�s crying to subside before moving
on to another topic.
�I don�t see how we can address your ignorance if you can�t read. Do you
at least know the letters?�
�Yes, Apprentice.�
�You know how to read and write letters?�
�A little, Apprentice.�
�Very well, let�s see what �a little� means to you.�
The apprentice brought a wooden tray full of fine sand and a stylus that
Danubian children used to learn the alphabet. Paper was too expensive to
waste on simple learning and writing practice, so typically a student
used the stylus like a pen to draw letters in the sand.
�Draw me the letter �A�.�
Danka easily drew the letter.
�Now draw the next five letters in the alphabet��
Danka complied. The apprentice smoothed the sand and told her ward to
write more letters.
�If you know any words, I want you to write them out for me.�
Danka wrote the word �A-P-P-L-E�.
�How appropriate. That�s your first word. Not a bad start. So, you�ve
been practicing?�
�Yes, Apprentice.�
�Now. I will have you write some letters to make some words. I want you
to sound them out and see if you can figure out what they are.�
The apprentice patiently spelled out several words letter by letter,
giving the student time to draw them. The words were simple; such as
�cat�, �sun�, �bird�, and �nut�. Danka struggled with sounding them out,
but eventually pronounced all of the words correctly.
Early the next morning, the apprentice took Danka to the old temple and
addressed the Senior Priest. Danka was still terrified that he would
figure out her secret, but now she had the apprentice on her side.
The two women knelt in the appropriate position, with their legs spread,
their backs arched, their hands extended in front, heads to the ground,
and bottoms spread and completely exposed. When the Senior Priest gave
them permission to kneel upright, the apprentice requested that both she
and the penitent have the day off for writing lessons. The response was
that the two women could have the mornings to work on the lessons and
Danka would be tested at the end of each week to check her progress. So,
that was it: Danka now was committed to learning how to read and write.
The apprentice spent the rest of the morning having Danka practice the
sounds associated with each letter and writing simple words. They only
stopped when the cathedral bell announced it was mid-day. The lessons
became part of the daily routine of Danka and her mentor. She worked
hard and learned quickly, earning the respect of her tutor. The
apprentice noted:
�You may be ignorant, but you�re definitely not stupid. That may sound
like an insult, but it�s not. I�d rather be ignorant and smart than
educated and stupid. I have seen plenty of stupid people with education
and I can attest such people are tools of the Destroyer.�
By the end of her first week she had completely mastered the alphabet
and could spell and write one-syllable words. Learning, like her
exploration of new places, became an adventure for the young peasant.
Just like her trip to a new province, the world of letters and written
words opened up an entirely new part of Danka�s brain, forcing her to
think in ways that had never occurred to her when she was still with her
family. She was changing and realizing facts about the real world, the
most important of which was now knowing that buying a new dress would
have made no difference whatsoever in finding an upper-class husband.
Upper class women had different skills and knew a bunch of things that
Danka had yet to master, only one of which was reading.
After cleaning up from lunch, the five naked penitents settled down for
their midday nap. Danka waited for the others to fall asleep so she
could finally see what was in that folded cloth sitting in her bucket.
When she opened it, there was a piece of parchment with a note and�a
silver coin. Danka had never touched a silver coin, let alone have one
in her possession. By the standards of her family�s neighborhood, it was
a huge amount of money. Now she truly understood how much Farmer
Orsktackt wanted to make amends for what had happened to her. She could
not understand the note, but it was written in block letters instead of
cursive script to allow her to interpret it as quickly as possible. Now
she had a specific assignment in reading, something she�d have to master
and practice to understand. She practiced tracing the letters in her
writing tray until she had the pattern memorized. Then she�d sound out
each letter and try to interpret the words. On the first day she figured
out C-O-I-N, T-H-I-S, and Y-O-U. The others were beyond her grasp at the
moment, but now she was able to sound-out, read, and write three new
words.
----------
Danka was the constant companion of the apprentice for the rest of the
month. In the mornings she labored with her efforts to learn how to
read, sounding out and writing longer and ever-more complicated words.
The apprentice was impressed with her ward's progress, and also by her
determination. Yes, the peasant had arrived as ignorant as a rock, but
she was determined to overcome her deficient upbringing.
The apprentice liked having Danka with her. She continued to talk to her
in a condescending manner and always looked at her as a social inferior,
but still she enjoyed Danka's company. She could talk freely and test
how to express Church doctrine in a way that an ignorant person could
understand it. She practiced singing hymns with her ward and in exchange
learned several bawdy peasant camp-fire songs. The girl's very roughness
fascinated the fastidious apprentice and opened her understanding of a
social group she had only seen from a distance.
During the afternoons Danka accompanied the apprentice on her rounds
about the town. She especially enjoyed going to the market and haggling
with the vendors over the price of food. The apprentice, coming from a
wealthy family, was not worried about saving the Church money during her
purchases, an attitude which mystified the peasant girl. Danka
instinctually contested every purchase and astonished her mentor by
forcing the vendors to cut their prices in half.
The apprentice read passages of both the Bible and the Book of the
Ancients and explained to Danka the difference between the two books.
She explained that there were two competing factions trying to assume
control of the Danubian Church. The faction that controlled Danka's
hometown of Rika H�ckt-nem�t and Rika Chorna was called the "True
Believers", while the faction controlling Star�vktaki M�skt and the main
Temple in the capitol called themselves the "Old Believers". The "True
Believers" mostly followed Christian beliefs, including the idea that
the Lord-Creator existed in the form of a man and had a son called
Jesus, and that Jesus, or the "Son of Man", was the person to whom most
prayers should be directed.
The Old Believers countered that the idea that the Creator could have a
human form and also have a son, who was executed by human soldiers of
all things, was ludicrous. The Old Believers took most of their
philosophy from the pre-Christian Book of the Ancients. They drew some
ideas from the Bible, mostly from Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Isaiah, but
their main focus was the Bible's predecessor, the book that outlined the
more ancient beliefs of the country.
The apprentice was very clear where she stood in the conflict. "We are
not part of Rome. Therefore, it makes no sense that we should accept the
Roman Lord and pray to his executed son. It just makes no sense."
----------
Danka spent the rest of her time working with the other Penitents. She
did not particularly enjoy being with them because their only
conversations focused on chores. Protocol determined that a Penitent
could not talk about herself or her life. Danka already knew penitents
kept quiet around Clergy members, but she was surprised that the
penitents also kept quiet around each other. Weeks went by and she knew
no more about her companions than she did when she first met them. At
first the silence was hard on Danka; to live with people she really
could not converse with. Later she realized how much the silence worked
to her advantage, because after the initial scare she had with the
Senior Priest, no one questioned her motives or her right to live under
the protection of the Church. Whatever her faults, she was accepted as a
full member of the household.
Three times a week all of the women associated with the Temple gathered
in the Cathedral to sing. Priestesses, seminary students, and penitents
combined their voices in religious hymns and "formal" music. The
majority of the songs were unaccompanied by instruments, but each
woman's voice had a unique role in the songs. From the first day, the
music director expected Danka to fully participate and learn where she
needed to add her voice to each composition.
Danka felt more at peace with herself during the singing than at any
other time of the day. She was part of something much bigger: just one
voice among many, and yet with a unique role. She applied herself during
the songs, determined to add her part to the women's collective effort.
The music itself, sad, beautiful, and peaceful, calmed her nerves and
helped her to push aside the trauma of her exile and the stress she was
under trying to become literate. She felt enchanted with the Creator's
peace during the practices and was always disappointed when they ended.
----------
For several days after arriving, Danka wondered if there were any male
seminary students or male penitents working for the Temple in
Star�vktaki M�skt. At the end of the second week a group of dirty naked
young men returned to the Temple with a wagon train loaded with
supplies. There were over 20 men altogether. The majority were wearing
penance collars, but eight were not. The eight un-collared men knelt
before the Senior Priest and waited for him to look over several
purchase documents related to the group's outing. Danka noticed the
eight female seminary students waiting anxiously with bouquets of
flowers, including her mentor. As soon as the men were dismissed, each
paired up with one of the women. Following protocol, the women gave the
flowers to the men and the men gave a basket of fruit to the women. They
left to eat together and chat about the trip.
Danka later learned that Danubian Priests and Priestesses, especially
among the "Old Believers", were expected to marry upon graduating from
the seminary and before taking vows. That was why there was always the
same number of male and female trainees attending a seminary at any
time, because an unmarried person could not join the Clergy. Courting a
marriage partner during seminary studies was as important as pursuing
theological topics, given that Priests and Priestesses spent their lives
working in pairs and were expected to have a close and flawless
relationship.
The two older female penitents led the men to a Temple storage annex to
offload the supplies. Unlike the seminary students, there was no
relationship at all between any of the male and female penitents. Most
of the men did not even live on Temple property, but instead were
staying with family members. Their life circumstances were different
from the women as well; most expected to wear their collars no more than
a year or so and then resume normal lives. The women lived with the
Clergy because their situation was much more long-term and their
families had rejected them.
----------
After two months of struggling with the strange world of letters and
words, Danka was more-or-less literate. She had so pleased the
apprentice that the trainee approached the Temple Senior Priest and
asked to be given several pieces of parchment and an ink-well. Now Danka
could practice writing on real paper with a real quill, instead of
scratching letters in sand. Over the next several days the peasant
filled every spot on the sheets with letters, words, and sentences. The
apprentice triumphantly returned to the Clergy with the papers, showing
them that she had managed to teach an illiterate adult how to read and
write.
Now...finally...Danka could decipher Farmer Orsktackt's letter.
Laboriously spelling and sounding out each word, she read the following:
If you are reading these words, then you will understand I was
correct about you and that it is your Path in Life to be much more than
the peasant I saw in my orchard. I do not know what your Path in Life
will be, but I am confident it is not to dig wells and steal apples. The
Lord-Creator has much more planned for you.
I am giving you a silver coin. I ask that you keep it with you and not
spend it unless your life depends on it. The purpose of that coin is to
keep you alive, should the need arise. This way, no matter what your
struggles, you will never be completely destitute, you will always have
what you need for an emergency. Just remember, once the coin is spent,
it is spent.
You will discover that life is like your coin. Once you spend your
precious time on something, that time is spent and you will never have
it again. Remember to appreciate every moment and every opportunity the
Lord-Creator has granted you.
I wish you safe passage and happiness. I did what I could to give you
the chance to escape. The rest is up to you.
Tuko Orsktackt - Rika H�ckt-nem�t Farmer's Guild
Danka folded the letter and picked up the coin. She spent a long time
staring at it, memorizing every detail. She had wondered what to spend
it on. In spite of the apprentice's skepticism about her plan to buy a
dress, she had thought about using it for that purpose. However, there
would be no dress purchase, because Danka now realized she was obligated
to keep the coin with her. Its purpose was to save her life and it could
not be spent on anything more trivial.
Danka was so immersed in her day-to-day activities that she failed to
notice the passing of the summer. She did not keep track of dates, but
had she been working outside she would have noticed the changes among
the plants and animals signaling that autumn was fast approaching and
the unpleasant dark days of winter were only weeks away. She didn't
think about any of that: she was too immersed in her literacy and
theological studies to notice anything going on immediately outside the
Temple. At the end of August, her seminary mentor assigned her first
full-length book: a theological training manual for children about to
become teenagers. The assignment signaled that by the end of the summer
Danka was reading at the level of a 12-year old.
On the first day of September hundreds of nervous-looking children and
their parents gathered in the town plaza, while the seminary women, the
penitents, and several Priestesses stood on the Temple steps singing
Church hymns. The ceremony was for the annual Departure from Childhood,
a ritual that, during the 1700's, was held once each year in most of the
provincial towns. Traditional Danubian society considered a person as a
child until the age of 12 and an adolescent over the next three years.
Adolescence was the most difficult period of a Danubian's life, because
young teenagers no longer could live the care-free existence of a child,
but did not yet have any of the rights of an adult. The girls would not
braid their hair, nor the boys shave their heads, for another three
years. However, they were about to experience the difficult reality of
assuming adult responsibilities.
The 12-year-olds were wearing black prayer robes and each was carrying a
toy. Each was accompanied by a much younger child, either a sibling or a
cousin. The 12-year-olds and their companions assembled at the steps of
the Temple, while the other family members knelt in the Temple plaza.
The Senior Priest and his wife stood on the steps, waited for the choir
to finish their last song, and addressed the public. His speech was the
one he gave every year about the Creator's Path in Life and personal
transition. He began with one of the few passages from the Christian
Bible's New Testament that was still quoted among the "Old Believers":
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I
know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now
abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is
charity."
The Priest paused for several moments as the assembled children fidgeted
nervously. Finally he continued:
"The time has come for you to put away your childish things. It is your
Path in Life. Whatever joys you had as a child have passed. Your Path in
Life now will be totally different. The Creator commands that you put
away all childish things."
The older children responded by handing off their toys to the younger
ones. The younger children scampered back to their families, each happy
to have something that had been treasured by their older sibling. The
custom stipulated that the item given away had to be the adolescent's
favorite toy or childhood item, the loss of which officially marked the
end of the first phase of the Path in Life.
The choir sang another hymn before the Senior Priest continued. There
was a lengthy prayer to the Creator, asking for guidance for this year's
group of adolescents, along with the hope their lives will be charitable
- that the presentation of the toy will be only the first selfless act
out of many throughout their lives.
Danka recalled with bitterness the year she turned 12. She had to give
up her only doll to her sister, who passed it to a friend who
immediately lost it. That was the day she learned that her Path in Life
was indeed to serve. She would give and Katr�nckta would take. The
Lord-Creator had determined that she would give charity, but not expect
any in return. As a result, Danka's bitterness against both her family
and the Lord-Creator festered over the following three years. If that is
my Path in Life, then I will find a different Path in Life. I have no
reason to accept the Lord-Creator's plans for me. I hate the
Lord-Creator and I'll say that to his face if he ever has the courage to
confront me. If I have to suffer the Hell-Fire for it, then I'll just
deal with it when the time comes.
Now she was watching other adolescents forced to surrender their
childhood. She felt sorry for them, because her own life after turning
12 had been nothing but hardship and misery. She wondered how many of
those girls standing in black robes would be stuck in equally grim Paths
in Life.
----------
The passing of September 1 reminded Danka that the summer had ended and
that the weather would be changing within a few weeks. Already she
noticed the days rapidly shortening and the nights becoming less and
less comfortable for being outside with no clothing. When she arrived in
Star�vktaki M�skt her intention had been to stay just a few days, but
the lure of living in a comfortable place and learning how to read
encouraged her to postpone her departure.
She expected the Clergy to tell her to move out at some point. However,
by the end of the summer it seemed that was not going to happen. She was
doing what she was supposed to do and earning her keep. The seminary
student rarely left the Temple grounds without having the penitent go
with her, which pulled Danka away from the more routine chores in the
house. If the other penitents resented Danka continuously leaving, they
never said anything about it. It was clear she was following the orders
of her mentor, not acting on her own.
During most of her time at the Seminary, Danka's only real interaction
with anyone was with her mentor. The relationship was a strange one:
Danka was not only the trainee's unofficial student, but also her
personal assistant, sidekick, companion, servant, and confidant. She
could never be completely sure how she would be treated when the trainee
whistled at her to set down what she was doing and depart on yet another
outing. Usually the seminary student was totally bossy and
condescending, but there were other times she shared her doubts and
frustrations, treating the penitent in the same way she'd treat a close
friend.
For Danka the interactions were a welcome break from the silence of her
companions and kept her from getting bored, even when her mentor was not
being pleasant with her. More importantly, whenever Danka had to talk to
any of the Clergy members, the seminary student took it upon herself to
go with the penitent and speak on her behalf. Danka was still very
intimidated by the Priests, so it was a relief not to have to converse
with them.
----------
Right after the Path in Life ceremony for the 12-year-olds, the Church
women's choir began practicing for important celebration that the "Old
Believers" had revived, the Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead was
important to both factions of the Danubian Church, but all of the
details, even the date on which it was held, differed. The "True
Believers" celebrated at the beginning of November, the date it was
celebrated in other parts of Europe. The "Old Believers" celebrated on
the date of the September equinox, in deference to pre-Christian
traditions.
During the mid-eighteenth century, the Old Believers held their version
of the Day of the Dead in two places, the capitol Dan�bikt M�skt and the
provincial center Star�vktaki M�skt. In both places Temple apprentices
and penitents commemorated the equinox by painting their bodies with
chalk and charcol to assume the appearance of dead spirits. The body
painting was very simple, but the resulting appearance was totally
sinister, halfway between a ghost and a skeleton. Starting in the
mid-1800's the number of marchers and the length of the march would
increase considerably when the Ministry of Justice mandated that
collared criminals also would participate each year they wore a Ministry
collar. However, the judicial reforms of the late 1700's had not yet
taken place and during Danka's life collared criminals had little
contact with the Danubian Church.
After sunset the townsfolk gathered in the Temple plaza and knelt in
their traditional black prayer robes. There was a lengthy service while
the penitents and seminary students slowly marched around the plaza
carrying torches. The torches were the only light in the city that
night, because all other fires and lanterns had to be extinguished.
It was common for the torch bearers to have visions during the march,
and that night Danka had one. The fire from the torches merged into a
massive fire in her imagination. It seemed all of the Duchy was
burning...city after city. Among the burning ruins she saw thousands of
bloody corpses. When she recoiled from them, they reached out to her.
She screamed and tried to step back, but there were just as many corpses
behind her as in front. There was no escape.
Suddenly everything went black. She was standing alone in a forest
clearing. A large owl was staring at her.
"You know your true Master, Danka S�luckt. It is I."
"No. I don't. I don't know you."
"Ahhh, but you do, Danka S�luckt. Remember what the scripture says: '
The Destroyer enters the Realm of the Living through the mouth of the
liar'. You will not escape from me, liar."
Danka woke up. She was still marching.
No...no...no... That was just a bad dream... had to be... no relation
with reality... best to forget... yes... forget... not tell anyone...
bad dream... just a bad dream... just stay at the Temple... focus...
forget... try to forget...
----------
Note: The Danubian Clergy was
completely unaware of the ruse being used by the Farmer's Guild
involving counterfeiting penance collars to safeguard their currency
couriers. Had anyone from the Danubian Church realized that Danka was
wearing a fake collar, the resulting scandal would have huge. It is
likely the Clergy would have taken Danka to the Great Temple in Dan�bikt
M�skt and she would have been interrogated until she gave up the person
who gave her the collar. The Danubian Church then would have
investigated the Farmer's Guild and tracked down the artisans that were
making the group's collars. The Church leaders would have approached the
Grand Duke to request the execution of the artisans and the dissolution
of the entire Guild. By 1750 Public Penance had become extremely
important to the Old Believers as they sought to restore ancient
practices to the Duchy's faith. Even in modern times, wearing the
penance collar with devotion and piety remains one of the most sacred
tenants of the modern Danubian Church. Using a collar for something as
worldly as moving money would be considered a heinous act of blasphemy
in Danubia.
So, what motivated Farmer Tuko Orsktackt to give up his guild's
counterfeit collar, considering the risk it involved? The answer was
that there were some circumstances unique to Rika H�ckt-nem�t's society
that set the town apart from the rest of the Duchy, most notably the
inhabitants' tendency to fall into bouts of mob hysteria. The panic over
the Beelzebub story was typical of the town's behavior at the time. The
fact that Farmer Tuko Orsktackt was willing to take such a huge risk by
giving Danka his collar indicates the extent of the danger he believed
he had placed himself and his family in by rescuing her.
- Maritza Ortskt-Dukovna -
