“Only five years or so, apart from training o’course. Spent most of my brotherhood in the southern ports. I tell you there’s no pox or disease on this earth that a sailor can’t catch.”
Instead of leading him to the large door at the front of the house the old brother took him around the building and into a side entrance. Inside was a long corridor, bare of decoration and possessing a strong redolence of something both acidic and sweet.
“Vinegar and lavender,” the old man said, seeing him wrinkle his nose. “Keeps the place free of foul humours.”
He took Vaelin past numerous rooms, where it seemed there was little but empty beds, and into a circular chamber tiled from floor to ceiling with white porcelain tiles. In the centre of the chamber a young man lay atop a table, naked and writhing. Two burly, grey cloaked brothers held him down whilst Aspect Elera Al Mendah examined the crudely bandaged wound in his stomach. The man’s screams were stopped by the strap of leather clamped into his mouth. The circumference of the chamber was lined with ascending rows of benches where an audience of grey robed brothers and sisters of varying ages looked down on the spectacle. There was a rustle of movement as they turned their gaze on Vaelin.
“Aspect,” the old man said, raising his voice, the echo of it incredibly loud in the chamber. “Brother Vaelin Al Sorna of the Sixth Order.”
Aspect Elera looked up from the young man’s wound, her smiling face adorned with a line of fresh blood-spatter across her forehead. “Vaelin, how tall you’ve grown.”
“Aspect,” Vaelin replied with a formal nod. “I submit myself to your service.”
On the table the young man arched his back, a plaintive whimper escaping the gag.
“You find me engaged in a most pressing case,” Aspect Elera said, taking a pair of scissors from a nearby table to cut away the dirty bandage covering the young man’s wound. “This man took a knife in the gut in the early hours of the morning. An argument over the favours of a young lady apparently. Given the amount of ale and redflower already in his blood we cannot give him any more for fear of killing him. So we must work while he suffers.” She put the scissors aside and held out her hand. A young, grey robed sister placed a long bladed instrument in her palm. “Adding to his woes,” Aspect Elera went on, “is the fact that the tip of the blade broke off inside his stomach and must be removed.” She raised her gaze to the audience on the benches. “Can anyone tell me why?”
Most of the audience raised a hand and the Aspect nodded at a grey haired man in the front row. “Brother Innis?”
“Infection, Aspect,” the man said. “The broken blade may poison the wound and cause it to fester. It may also be lodged close to a blood vessel or organ.”
“Very good, brother. And so we must probe the wound.” She bent over the young man and spread the lips of the cut with her left hand, applying the probe with the right. The young man’s scream spat the gag from his mouth and filled the chamber. Aspect Elera drew back a little, glancing at the two burly brothers holding the young man to the table. “He must be securely held, brothers.”
The young man began to thrash wildly, succeeding in wresting one of his arms free, his head banging on the table, madly kicking legs narrowly missing the Aspect who was forced to retreat a few steps.
Vaelin moved to the table and placed his hand over the young man’s mouth, forcing his head back onto the table, leaning close, meeting his eyes. “Pain,” he said, fixing the man’s gaze. “It’s a flame.” The young man’s eyes filled with fear as Vaelin bore down on him. “Focus. The pain is a flame inside your mind, see it. See it!” The man’s breath was hot on Vaelin’s palm but his thrashing had subsided. “The flame grows smaller. It shrinks, it burns bright, but it’s small. You see it?” Vaelin leaned closer. “You see it?”
The young man’s nod was barely perceptible.
“Focus on it,” Vaelin told him. “Keep it small.”
He held him there, talking to him, fixing his eyes whilst Aspect Elera worked on his wound. The young man whimpered and his eyes flickered away, but Vaelin always brought them back until there was the dull clatter of metal falling into a pan and Aspect Elera said, “Needle and cat gut please, Sister Sherin.”
“Master Sollis teaches you well.”
They were in Aspect Elera’s chamber, a room even more crammed with books and paper than Aspect Arlyn’s. But where the room of the Aspect of the Sixth Order had a certain chaotic quality this one was tightly ordered and meticulously tidy. The walls were adorned with overlapping diagrams and pictures, graphic, almost obscene depictions of bodies shorn of skin or muscle. He found his eye continually drawn to the image on the wall behind her desk, a man shown spread eagled and split from crotch to neck, the flaps of the wound drawn back to reveal his organs, each expertly rendered with absolute clarity.
“Aspect?” he said, tearing his gaze away.
“The pain control technique you used,” the Aspect explained. “Sollis was always my most adept pupil.”
“Pupil, Aspect?”
“Yes. We served together on the north eastern border, years ago. On quiet days I would teach the brothers of the Sixth relaxation and pain control techniques. It was a way to pass the time. Brother Sollis was always the most attentive.”
They knew each other, they served together. The idea of them even conversing felt incredible but an Aspect would never lie. “I am grateful for Master Sollis’s wisdom, Aspect.” It seemed the safest reply.
His eyes flicked to the drawing again, and she glanced at it over her shoulder. “A remarkable work don’t you think? A gift from Master Benril Lenial of the Third Order. He spent a week here drawing the sick and the recently expired, he said he wished to paint a picture that would capture the suffering of the soul. Preparatory work for his fresco commemorating the Red Hand. Of course we were happy to allow access and when he was done he gifted his sketches to our Order. I use them to teach the novice brothers and sisters the secrets of the body. The illustrations in our older books lack the same clarity.”
She turned back. “You did well this morning. I feel the other brothers and sisters learned much from your example. The sight of blood didn’t concern you? Make you feel ill or faint?”
Was she joking? “I am accustomed to the sight of blood, Aspect.”
Her gaze clouded for a second before her customary smile returned. “I cannot tell you how much it gladdens my heart to see how strong you’ve grown and that compassion is not absent from your soul. But I must know, why have you come here?”
He couldn’t lie, not to her. “I thought you might provide answers to my questions.”
“And what questions are these?”
There seemed little point in vagary. “When did my father sire a bastard? Why was I sent to the Sixth Order? Why did assassins seek my death during the Test of the Run?”
She closed her eyes, her face impassive, breathing regular and even. She stayed that way for several minutes and Vaelin wondered if she was going to speak again. Then he saw it, a single tear snaking down her cheek. Pain control techniques, he thought.
She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze. “I regret I cannot answer your questions, Vaelin. Be assured that your service here is welcome. I believe you will learn much. Please report to Sister Sherin in the west wing.”
Sister Sherin was the young woman who had assisted the Aspect in the tiled room. He found her wrapping bandages around the waist of the wounded man in a room off the west wing corridor. The man’s skin had an unhealthy grey pallor and a sheen of sweat covered his flesh but his breathing seemed regular and he didn’t appear to be in any pain.