| Story |
 
|
(Page 2 of 2) Grail Overfloweth by Sean Regan
 (2 ratings)
|
A slight girl, perhaps eleven years, knelt at the prayer stand. With pursed mouth, the abbess recalled that this cycle was for rest, not meditation, and she noticed the girl had set aside the cushion. She chose to kneel on stone.
Asena appeared at the hall's far end. Her robes rustled as she approached the abbess.
"When did she refuse the cushion?" the abbess whispered.
"At the Ordeal's start," the priestess replied. "She pushed it to the corner, you see. Yildiz said she sleeps poorly."
"She takes water?"
"Some. She is the orphan from Kislan."
"Ah," the abbess said, recalling the message from Rustu, the priest in Kislan, the most impoverished neighborhood in Akuryan. Rustu chose this child for the honor of the Ordeal because he saw no other way to remove her from his temple.
The abbess motioned away Asena and turned to observe the girl. The whispered conversation distracted the trialist, for the abbess, with a start, turned to see the orphan looking at her. The abbess reflexively gestured her apology for the disturbance, and whether the girl forgave she could not tell. Long, long did they gaze at each other, the abbess dressed in the white robe embossed with gold thread, the orphan clad in the coarse gray robe, the robe of the davali, which fell from her shoulders like curtains. Also memorable was her face: dark-eyed, fierce, horribly scarred by pox.
The abbess again gestured her apology and returned to her quarters. She took her meal, and each movement of her jaw, each swallow, reminded her of the davali, the Kislan orphan most strongly. She reflected that the orphan would submit last, for she had endured graver punishments.
In this the abbess proved correct. All but the orphan submitted by the beginning of the sixth day, and at the orders of the abbess, the cycles of meditation and rest continued for her alone. She prayed, she slept, she accepted water, but she ignored any suggestion of relief. She seemed sustained by hunger.
At sunset on the Ordeal's tenth day, Yildiz entered the abbess' chamber.
"She collapsed during meditation, a clareon ago," said Yildiz. "I found her lying on bare stone and I wrapped her in the blanket. I asked if she would submit and she ignored me. This can't continue."
"That is not your decision," the abbess replied. Nor, she doubted, was it hers. "Ask the tailor to craft a robe and veil for a small girl. They must be finished by midnight. The garments shall be black."
Yildiz paled but said nothing and exited the chamber. What could she have said, the abbess thought, before she wrote the order that decided the orphan's path in the faith.
At midnight, the abbess descended to the hall of the davali. Asena presided, and the priestess shuddered at the sight of the black garments the abbess carried. These were the raiments of a doumla, a nurse to the dying, whose veil obscured their face from all but those who requested a merciful death.
The abbess strode to the orphan's cell. A waning candle revealed the girl wrapped in her blanket. The abbess knelt to touch the orphan's forehead and her scarred and broken cheeks - a face forever shattered. The girl's eyes opened and she stared impassively at the abbess.
"Your ambivalence ends by me," the abbess said. She set aside the blanket and took the girl into her arms without protest. She carried her from the cell. She felt the orphan collapse in her embrace, and she knew that this substance was the girl's most-sought solace.
| |
