Rocalla's Saga: Arrival

2: Vhëlszladbwaatën —

1054 Geipharalka 4

My upstairs room at The Happy Pilgrim Inn is small, but functional. There is a bed with a straw-filled mattress, a small table with an oil lamp, and a few pegs on the wall on which to hang my backpack, coat, and bedroll. The table is just large enough to make a functional desk where I can record my observations of Mandelbroggen. A single window looks out from my second-floor room down on an empty courtyard and alley below.

Having gone to bed shortly after meeting Dierdra, I awoke refreshed and ready for the new day. Still, I retain the queasy stomach and flighty nervousness that come from being alone in a strange place. I dress quickly and hurry downstairs to start my day.

I have a bowl of hot, sticky mush and a cup of the native tea. The mush is tasteless but filling; the tea is unusually aromatic and flavorful. There are strong and spicy undertones competing with a more familiar minty flavor. It helps to conceal the bitterness of the basic root or leaf that is brewed as tea here.

Now I wait for Dierdra to come down, feeling very conspicuous. Numerous patrons come down from their rooms, eat, drink, and generally stare in my direction. No one says a word to me, but their stares speak volumes: stranger, outsider, heretic. I do not know if their rudeness is motivated by curiosity or fear of the unknown. As I wait, I wonder if I have missed Dierdra, or if she is coming down at all. After a while, I sit regarding my lap, examining the fabric of my dress to avoid looking at the other patrons.

I try to occupy my mind with other thoughts. I consider the Festival of the Second Moon that Dierdra is taking me to see, wondering whether it is a religious celebration or simply a recognition of the upcoming autumnal equinox, which is just four days from now. Perhaps it is neither. I attempt to study the clothing of the inn patrons, but my mind keeps returning to my situation, and how different I must appear to them.

About an hour later, Dierdra comes down. She gets a bowl of mush and a mug of tea from the innkeeper, then comes and sits at my table.

“Good morning,” I say. “It’s getting to be late. I was afraid that I might have missed you.”

“There is really no hurry, the festival parade doesn’t start until noon. Right now it’s just a few townspeople getting an early start on their drunkenness.”

“If it’s relatively quiet, it might be a good time to see the city.”

“I’ve seen the city. In time, you’ll probably see more of it than you care to. Personally, I wouldn’t mind finding a way to leave the city, as long as it doesn’t involve returning to the farm country where I grew up.”

I contemplate that as she shovels some more cereal into her mouth. We sit there quietly for a time, the only sound coming from Dierdra chewing and slurping her tea. Eventually, I say, “Dierdra, I place my trust in you. Today you are my guide, and I will follow your lead.”

“Good,” she replies. “Then we should have a good day.”

After she finishes her breakfast, we rise and leave the inn. Neither one of us is carrying a visible weapon; I am hoping that one won’t be necessary, and since Dierdra has left her bow behind, I am probably right.

As we leave The Happy Pilgrim, we head west, away from the port area. It is a clear day, and a fresh breeze blowing from the sea attempts to replace the fetid air of the city. Mandelbroggen looks much cleaner and more inviting in the bright sun. Despite it being just a few days before the end of summer and beginning of autumn, the air is still warm enough that I do not need to wear anything over my long-sleeved, ankle length white dress. Dierdra is less protected from the weather; she is wearing the same abbreviated red dress that she wore last night, minus the tunic.

After walking for a few minutes, we come to the city wall. Several guards are patrolling the rampart above us and others watch from the top of a tower just to the north of the gate.

The large portal grants us entrance into the inner city; its shaded interior is cold, causing me to shiver. When we reach the sun again, we come to a broad intersection where five streets come awkwardly together amid a jumble of two- and three-story buildings. Dierdra leads us down the second street on the right, narrower than the one leading straight ahead. A carved stone on the wall reads Vhëlszladbwaatën. Almost immediately, our path curves slightly to the left. The long narrow street before us is paved; down its center runs a gutter through which a trickle of murky water flows until it reaches an entrance to the underground sewers. Overhead, the buildings on either side extend over the street, almost touching in places and leaving us in shade most of the time. Now that we are inside the city wall, the sea breeze is no longer evident, and the smells of the city become more noticeable. For the first fifteen minutes, our footsteps on the cobblestones and the distant barking of a dog are the only sounds that break the silence. I am taking in the sights, and Dierdra is occupied with leading us toward our destination.

Dierdra is the first to speak. “I’ve been meaning to tell you; you remind me of the old woman who sits in the market courtyard every morning.”

“I remind you of an aged woman?”

“It’s not that I think that you’re old, but you are both darker of skin, and she wears the same sort of white dresses with the colorfully embroidered border that you do. Hers are quite a bit more worn and tattered, though.”

“There’s another Teidhwa Zariinyeida in Mandelbroggen? I was told that I was the first to travel here.”

“Apparently not.”

“Does she have a tattoo on her forehead?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I never really noticed.”

“You must take me to see her.”

“Perhaps after the festival,” Dierdra says.

“Will she still be there that late?”

“How do I know? Besides, I mean after the festival in a couple of days, not after the festival parade this afternoon. Don’t worry, you’ll get to see her, she’s been there nearly every morning I have gone to the market.”

“It’s just that I didn’t expect to find a fellow Traveler here. It makes me anxious to talk to her.”

“I suppose that’s understandable. You’ll get your chance, for now try to enjoy the day.”

Dierdra continues leading us through the city. The area that we are traversing is mostly residential, with an occasional small shop scattered here and there. The pictorial signs placed above some doors indicate a jeweler, a general supply store, a bakery, and a place where potions are sold. Eventually I am reminded of the warning sign that I read upon entering Mandelbroggen last night.

“I understand that no magic or wizardry is permitted in the city of Mandelbroggen,” I say.

“Not in Mandelbroggen or anywhere else in North Plessia,” Dierdra says.

“I’m sort of curious as to why.”

Dierdra gives me a long sideways look. “Wizardry is the work of the devil, and is contrary to the teachings of the church.”

“So I take it that the church is pretty powerful here.”

“Is there somewhere that it isn’t?”

“I guess that religion is fairly influential everywhere you go, but this is the first time that I’ve seen the practice of magic completely outlawed. Maybe I was just expecting the local church to be more tolerant.”

“Does that bother you? Are you secretly a wizard or something?”

“No, I’m a priestess. I’m just trying to understand the local culture.”

“That’s pretty easy,” says Dierdra. “There are tens of thousands of faithful, hard-working citizens trying to live their lives as best they can. The church provides them guidance, the Pyrusian imperial government provides oppression, and a small minority of thieves and similar undesirables provide annoyance. That’s the extent of Mandelbroggen’s culture.”

“The grand picture is pretty typical, but the details make it interesting,” I explain. “Language, religious practices, art, recreation, and cuisine all vary widely from place to place.”

“Like any of them matter. Although it’s obvious from your speech that your native language isn’t Gallish.”

“Well, your Gallish accent isn’t any better than mine.”

“That does not matter. I speak Franhkallan, along with most of the other people in this city. Trust me, less than a quarter of the people in Mandelbroggen know more than three words of Gallish, despite the presence of our beloved Pyrusian imperial governors. Don’t count on being able to strike up a conversation with the average citizen here.”

“So how did you come to learn Gallish?” I ask.

“I taught myself, picking it up gradually in taverns and down by the port, from foreign merchants and hired men like those buffoons at The Happy Pilgrim last night.”

A crashing sound down the street ahead of us interrupts the early morning quiet of the city. Two town guardsmen are standing over a man sprawled on the pavement, surrounded by baskets filled with metal objects too small to identify from this distance. Closer to us, a man is standing in front of a closed shop door, looking up and down the street. As he watches the guardsmen, they start walking up the street toward us. My stomach twists into a knot as I wonder what they want.

The man at the door is tall and thin, almost gaunt. His blond hair is kept short, and a long brown cape covers his back. He looks quickly about once again, then knocks on the shop door.

We are just a few buildings away from the man when the town guardsmen, now less than a block away, say something and point in our general direction.

I stop immediately. “What do they want?” I ask Dierdra.

“They’re talking to each other, and I don’t think that it is us that they’re interested in.”

Knocking once again and getting no answer, the man at the storefront turns and walks quickly in our direction. The guards are even quicker; they start running toward us. The thin man starts to run, too. But despite their leather armor, the dark-haired guardsmen are faster. One of them reaches the man and brings him to the ground right in front of us. Dierdra has to jump back to avoid a collision.

“Step back, keep out of their way,” Dierdra warns me. She and I back up to the edge of the street.

The man tries to scramble out of the guard’s grasp, but is unsuccessful. The second guardsman draws his sword and holds it to the thin man’s neck as the first binds the prisoner’s hands behind his back with a short length of rope. After making an official-sounding pronouncement, the one guardsman sheathes his sword, and together the two of them lift the prisoner to his feet. The man is now badly soiled, covered with the slimy wastes that blanket the cobblestones. The swordsman pauses and looks directly at me, his chestnut brown eyes peering from below thick black eyebrows. “What are you looking at?” he asks. “Move along, filth.”

Before I can even attempt an answer, they turn and drag their captive by his armpits back up the way from which they came.

I wait for them to get a block ahead of us before I speak. “Why did he talk to me that way?” I ask Dierdra.

“Like I said earlier, the Pyrusians like to oppress us,” she says.

“That wasn’t just oppression. He didn’t call you ‘filth’.”

“It’s probably your tattoo. That sort of body decoration isn’t too popular around here.”

“Why not?”

“The only ones with tattoos in North Plessia are people convicted of crimes. Sometimes the authorities tattoo a symbol of their crime on them so everyone will know what they did.”

“Oh,” I say. Feeling more conspicuous than ever, I contemplate covering my forehead. But I know that whatever I do, I will not blend in. My darker skin and different language are enough to prevent that. Since I cannot be truly anonymous, I decide to wear my tattoo with pride.

As we walk on past the man with the basket, we see him still on the ground, picking up metal knives and spoons from the street. “I see that the town guardsmen are fluent in Franhkallan. What was that all about?”

“They are arresting the man on suspicion of being a Circle Cultist,” Dierdra replies.

“Who are the Circle Cultists?”

“Wizards. They’re a pretty secretive group, given that they engage in illegal activities,” Dierdra adds.

“Do you know any of them?”

“No, and I’ve never even seen one up close until today. I’ve heard of them, and occasionally there are public ceremonies where convicted Circle Cultists are exiled, imprisoned, or executed.”

“I suppose that merely being a wizard counts as practicing wizardry under the law.”

“Does it really matter? If someone is a wizard, they must practice magic sometimes.”

“What if they just visit Mandelbroggen, and wait until they return home to practice magic?” I ask.

Dierdra gives me a sideways look and a sneer. “The Circle Cultists are all locals. If they’re not from Mandelbroggen, they are certainly from the surrounding area of North Plessia. They know the law, and if they want to practice magic they could always move.”

“To where?” I ask.

“Well, the Rhozzhani tribes of the Duradh Plateau may not welcome them, and they might have trouble fitting in with the Su Nan tribesmen to the north. But there are other places, like the mining towns of the far west.”

“So if they want to practice magic, they need to uproot themselves, leave all that’s familiar and travel far away,” I say.

“That’s about it,” Dierdra replies. “But is that really so bad? I mean, is it really that different from what you have done in coming here?”

“I don’t plan to be here permanently. In two or three years I will return home.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll give an account of my travels to our queen, and write a summary for the Library of the Priesthood. Then I’ll wait for my next assignment.”

“Well, if you can manage to travel to far places, they can move away as well. It’s their choice,” Dierdra says.

It is an interesting comparison, and keeps me in thought for some time.