2- An Orphan in the Fraternary

“Plead for me, Pater, for I have wronged,” Connall recited as he knelt before the old pater. 

He felt Pater Barthis’s wrinkly hand on his head and heard him say, “For what wrongs shall I plead, child?”

Connall thought about it for a minute.  This was the part of the day that he hated most.  Having to tell the pater all of the bad things he’d done, with all of the fraters and novices right there listening.  He had to make sure he listed everything that they already knew about, but he hoped the gods would forgive him if he didn’t tell the pater everything.

“I left my bed after Evening Songs and walked the grounds at night.  I took bread from the kitchen when Frater Willis wasn’t looking.  I climbed the trees in the garden after Frater Avrid told me not to.  I climbed on the roof of the sanctum and accidentally broke one of the tiles up there.  I picked grapes in the garden and ate them without permission.  I went in the stables and sat on one of the travelers’ horses. . . . Oh– and I took a couple sips of ale from a traveler’s cup.  But he said I could have some.  And I really didn’t like it at all.” 

Connall looked up.  The pater’s mouth was twitching at the corners.  “And do you regret your wrongs?”

“I do.”

“And will you try to resist these temptations in the future?”

“I will.”

The pater smiled.  “Then you will be blessed,” he said.  “Go forth and do good works in earnest.”

“Thank you, Pater.”  Connall walked quietly back to his place by the wall and pretended to solemnly meditate on his wrongs.  Really, he was doing what he knew everyone else must be doing.  He was listening to the confessions of all the others.

Connall wasn’t the only one who left a few things out when he told the Pater his wrongs.  He knew for a fact that some of the fraters and novices had done things that they didn’t mention in their confessions.  There was a reason Frater Willis wasn’t skinny like all the other fraters.  But he never said anything about taking food between meals.  And what Frater Nicken and Frater Torence did together sometimes when they were supposed to be washing clothes . . . Connall was pretty sure that was against the rules, and he never heard anything about that in their confessions.  So he figured that if even fraters left things out sometimes, he was probably okay too.

After all of the fraters and novices had finished telling the pater all their wrongs, they sang the Morning Songs and the pater released them to do their daily work.

Connall knew Frater Avrid was expecting him to go help in the garden, but he decided to take the long way so he could watch the travelers leaving. 

One day, Connall would be a traveler too.  He would leave the fraternary and go all over the world having adventures.  The fraters all laughed when he talked about it.  They seemed to think that he would grow up and become a frater like them.  But he didn’t want to be some boring old frater who had to follow a bunch of extra rules and just do boring work all day.  He had lived in the fraternary the whole nine years since he was found in the sanctum as a fresh-born baby, so he knew what being a frater was all about.  He didn’t understand why anyone would choose to live like that when there were so many other things to do that were much more interesting. 

But there were also travelers who took shelter in the fraternary’s hostel, on their way to all sorts of interesting places.  Some had families with them, and some traveled with friends, and some even traveled alone.  Connall liked to think that his own parents had been travelers staying there.  Maybe they had been brave adventurers, about to go off somewhere much too dangerous to bring a baby.  He pictured a tall, strong father with a deep, booming laugh and a beautiful mother with wheat-blonde hair and brown eyes, just like his.  And of course they would both have had their own horses.

Connall said goodbye to all of the travelers that he had spoken with the day before, wishing them luck on their journeys.  The man who had given him the ale winked at him and told him to stay away from women and drink.  Connall promised he would, and the man laughed.

After the travelers had all left and the Fraters and Novices started cleaning the hostel and preparing it for another night, Connall headed toward the garden that supplied the kitchen, where he was sure Frater Avrid was beginning to wonder where he was.

He was right about that.  He found Frater Avrid standing by the garden gate with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring down at him in that way that meant, You are in trouble.  Connall ducked his head down and slowed his steps.  He was not in a hurry for this lecture.

“It astounds me,” Frater Avrid began as Connall wormed through the gate and immediately crouched down in a patch of vegetables to pluck out the bits of weed that had begun to sprout there, “how you can confess your wrongs to Pater Barthis and then mere minutes later you can go running off all over the fraternary and shirk your daily work!”

Connall ducked his head even lower, making himself appear filled with contrition.

“Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”

Connall looked up at the frater with his most innocent expression.  “I stopped by the hostel along the way so I could wish the travelers a blessed journey,” he said sweetly, then for good measure he added, “The road is dangerous and they like knowing that the gods are with them in their travels.”

Frater Avrid took a deep breath like he was about to lecture some more, then he stopped and just stood there blinking at Connall for a minute.  The frater obviously knew that he was only playing at innocence, but he couldn’t prove Connall false, so there was nothing that the frater could say about it.  Finally he waved his hands at Connall in exasperation and said, “Just get to work!”

That day Frater Avrid gave him more tasks than usual, saying that he needed to learn the value of a hard day’s work in the service of the gods.  Connall had to work at his tasks all day, stopping only for meals.  The frater promised that tonight Connall would be so tired from his daily work that he wouldn’t be wanting to leave his bed at all after Evening Songs. 

Connall hoped that wouldn’t prove true, because he always enjoyed wandering the fraternary grounds at night, when all of the fraters and novices were asleep and there was no one to tell him what to do.

For now, he worked hard under the frater’s sharp eye, plucking weeds and churning dirt and sprinkling water and pruning bad leaves and gathering things for the kitchen.