Chapter Sixteen
“Penitent Puhon! What are you doing here?”
Gayn jerked and swung around, startled by the unexpected, harsh, male-voiced demand. Turning, however, smacked his bad arm into the reading stand, making him hiss and clutch at his elbow while the waves of pain washed over him in icy-hot pinpricks. Overwhelmed, he didn’t reply—and gasped again when the stinging leather tails of a flogger smacked across his cradled arm, snapping his eyes wide.
“I asked you a question, Penitent!” Domo Galen snapped.
Shocked at the attack, he tried to defend himself. “I—I’m Doma Dulette’s penitent—“
“Doma Dulette was struck by a runaway horse two hours ago, walking back from Family Day at her aunt’s place,” Galen informed him. He gave the other two men in their corner of the stacks a hard look, Brother Alger and a fellow named Brother Steer, of all things. “Who are they?”
“I was assigned to help them today!” Gayn half-lied quickly, his arm still pulsing in waves of pain from the double jarring. The idea came partly from the fact it was a much more enjoyable duty than suffering spit up from and wiping the bottoms of orphaned babies, and partly from the conversation at luncheon with his eldest brother. Their father had approved of the idea of Krais demonstrating how a Puhon son could take a beating and still give service . . . damn his stupid sibling. “Doma Dulette gave me the whole of Family Day off because I’d been doing well with my penance duties, but then it was said I should help these outlanders from the Traveling Brotherhood until they don’t need me anymore, as part of my penance.”
“—We do need him,” Brother Alger quickly interjected. “He’s been immensely helpful and patient, even though we’ve been rather trying with all our questions about how the Library works. We still need his help tonight.”
“And for the next few days,” Brother Steer added on his verbal heels. “Easily the next few days, if not a week. Our Brotherhood is very grateful for all the help he’s been giving us.”
“Hmphf.”
“What happened to Doma Dulette?” Gayn asked. She’d been very gentle with him, and he did not wish her ill. “Was she . . . ? Will she live?”
“She will, but she’s bedridden for the next month, as the collision broke both of her legs, namely her thigh and her opposite shin . . . so she cannot tend to your disciplining anymore. Second Disciplinarian Belaria has assigned you to me for the duration of your penance.” Galen started to say more, then stopped, eyed the two outlanders, and asked, “And what, exactly, has my new penitent been helping you to research?”
Both young men eyed each other, then blushed. So did Gayn, feeling his face heat up. When they just cleared their throats awkwardly, the domo struck Gayn on his cradled arm again, making him cry out in pain. Brother Steer jumped and Brother Alger widened his eyes in shock. Though Domo Galen had not yet assessed him and could not yet punish him in full . . . he could use his ceremonial flogger to discipline any penitent who did not answer promptly. A single blow per dozen heartbeats, but a hard-smacked blow nonetheless.
Gritting his teeth, Gayn answered the demand for them. “They . . . they’re researching how to make power storage crystals.” He struggled to breathe through the pain throbbing in his arm. Another thwack made him cry out. “Ahh!”
“And?” Domo Galen prodded. “This is the section on binding spells to crystals. What are you going to bind to these power crystals?”
“And . . . T-They’re trying t-to see what . . . what kinds of energy can be raised. Tantrically,” he mumbled, embarrassed and angry at being beaten and thus debased by his new Disciplinarian in front of the two outlanders, younger males who had looked up to him as an authority figure until this humiliating treatment.
“Hmphf.” Galen eyed the three of them a long moment, then snapped, “Kneel, Penitent Puhon!”
Still cradling his elbow, Gayn knelt in front of the stocky, older man. Head bowed, he felt those meaty, callused palms clamp down on his shoulders, felt the surge of energies wash over and through him, as they had done so just a few days before. When it finished, Galen stared down at him a long, long moment, then squeezed Gayn’s shoulders and spoke.
“ . . . I can see the Goddess wants you to help these outlanders . . . but I can also see Doma Dulette was far too lenient with you in your physical punishments. Those punishments will begin now. Remove your vest, and get on your hands and knees, with your head bowed.”
Flushing hot with shame, Gayn knew he had no choice but to obey. Unbuttoning his top, he set it on the ground and braced himself in the required position, head tucked down between his braced arms. The right one protested at taking some of his weight, but he didn’t have a chance to shift to a more comfortable stance. Domo Galen immediately started flogging his back.
The blows didn’t harm him, but they did sting painfully sharp. Not nearly as painful as the humiliation of being flogged right there in front of the two outlanders who had been looking up to him, but now would only look down on him, literally and figuratively. Face burning, injured arm trembling with pain, the youngest Puhon brother squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that tried to well up.
It wasn’t until a good forty strokes later, when his back felt hot and stung all over, that the domo stopped and murmured, “There. That’s much more in line with what you deserve. I don’t have to be ordered to know what to do with you.”
It was said that the Goddess sometimes gave Her Disciplinarians a good deal of leeway in whether to be kind or cruel with their punishments. Without a doubt, Domo Galen intended to be very cruel. In that moment, Gayn remembered that Galen was a friend of his father’s. His father, who had ranted and railed at his sons for six months about how they deserved to be publicly flogged, and flogged hard and long. His father, who had been proscribed by law from applying that harsh a punishment to his own sons, or even ordering it done.
In that moment . . . Gayn felt a terrible betrayal stinging through his insides with the realization that his father had clearly told Domo Galen what he would want done to the three failures that were his sons . . . and that Galen was clearly prepared to carry it out despite not having been ordered to do so . . . since after all, the Second Disciplinarian had passed Galen into his hands. Not the Elder Disciplinarian.
“Good. Now, stay on all fours, while I question these two young men. You’ll be allowed to help them again tomorrow, when I know exactly how useful you’ve been to them so far . . . when you weren’t of much help to the Hierarchy, all those months ago.”
Gayn burned with shame and a burgeoning, helpless anger that his beloved father would plot to bend the law like this. But there was no way to escape now. His penance had been handed over to one of his father’s cronies. His fate, sealed. He remained where he was, shifting his degrading stance just enough to take most of his upper body weight on his uninjured arm, and let the rage of his betrayal simmer deep within, without letting it show at the surface.
He would obey. For now. Someone was going to pay for this betrayal, though. Particularly if it got worse. He just wasn’t sure if he could take his vengeance out on his own father. Gayn loved his father . . . his father could do no wrong in his eyes . . . so . . . someone else must have prodded Dagan’thio into this excessive madness, this pursuit of punishing even his most favorite son. . . . Right?
Eyeing the cat rubbing that silver-to-black face along his naked toes, Krais decided he just might be getting used to Purrsus. Certainly the cat is . . . heh . . . rubbing off on me . . . ha! Smiling, squirming a little from the teasing of those long white whiskers, he decided he liked the feline. The feel of that fuzzy sleek face bumping and rubbing and nuzzling, occasionally sniffing at and tickling the soles of his feet, contrasted with the scratching and scraping taking place along his chest.
Purrsus had not yet been given the pleasure of tending his doma’s feet simply because Pelai had settled in a kneeling position at Krais’ right. The position allowed her to use her fingernails to make a scratchy, scrapey, red-welt-raising mess of the wax still clinging to his chest. The way she coarsely picked at his skin contrasted with the smooth, sleek fur butting against his feet. The contrast had his kilt tented, the engorged pen underneath already leaking lover’s ink.
Platonic affection for my feet . . . lustful cruelty for my chest . . . “I think I could come from this alone,” he murmured. At her soft hmm of inquiry, he explained. “Domestic bliss with the cat, contrasting with the punishment you’re giving my chest. The contrast is . . . indescribable.”
“You’re not much of a writer,” she observed dryly.
“I don’t have to be loquacious or eloquent to be a writer, but I don’t have to be a writer to be a Mendhite,” he reminded her. “I just have to be able to read and write. Besides, someone has to actually do all the great deeds authors put to paper. It might as well be—ah!”
Pelai pulled her hand back. “Did I scrape too hard?”
“You scraped out a chest hair with that clump of wax,” he muttered, eyes wide. “That was an unexpected pain.”
“Oh. Sorry . . . Or did you enjoy it?” she inquired politely, settling back on her heels.
In answer, Krais grabbed the folds of his kilt and flipped it up, showing how his shaft had escaped the gathers of his undergarment. Liquid smeared more than just the tip, giving it a glistening sheen. His flesh twitched, and a fresh rivulet seeped from the slit. “I’d like to think that’s rather obvious, seeing as how I nearly came just now!”
“Are you complaining?” she asked dryly, one hand going to her hip. The other scraped lightly over another patch of beeswax. Too lightly to actually remove it. Most of the thinner edges had flaked off from all his movements in the time between pre-luncheon and post-supper, but there were still plenty of thick blots in need of removal.
“No . . . but I am wondering if I’ll ever get to dip my pen in your inkwell,” he said. He gave her a sidelong look, relaxing into the cushioned back of her couch. “You’ve taken me in your mouth, and I’ve licked at your inkwell . . . and I love both, but . . .”
Trailing her finger down to his navel, Pelai circled the dimple with her nail, brushing aside some of the little bits of fallen wax with the act. His stomach tensed under her touch, but he held himself still, permitting whatever she wanted to do to him. “Part of me wants to hold off until we know these ex-Mekhanans have left Mendhi.”
“Why?” he asked, curious.
She slanted him a look from under her dark lashes, her deep brown eyes warm yet wary. Or rather, cautious. “Given that the Song of the Guardians says that ‘Repentance is the Temple’s grace,’ it sounds like you’re supposed to remain my penitent until the situation with these ex-priests is resolved.”
“Ah. That makes an unfortunate amount of sense,” he muttered, looking away.
Lifting her finger to his jaw, she gently urged him to turn his head back to her. “Part of it is because . . . I don’t want you for a lover.”
His breath sucked in through his teeth. That . . . that hurt, more than he’d expec—
Her finger touched his lips. Pressed against them. “I want you for more than a mere lover.”
Blinking, Krais studied her in surprise. He quirked a brow, since she still had her finger sealing his mouth silent.
“It’s still early, but . . . you and I are getting along far better than I’d ever have imagined a year ago. You have enough willpower and motivation and determination to stay this new man that I like. And I know you’re going to stay this way, because true change only comes from within oneself . . . and you changed yourself.”
Krais nodded, still muffled under her touch, but agreeing fully.
She tipped her head thoughtfully, and asked, “Do you like me?”
More enthusiastic nodding. When she pulled away her finger, he spoke. “I’m no longer viewing you through the color of my father’s viewing lenses.”
That tilted her head again. “Your father has viewing lenses?”
He quirked his brows at her . . . and chuckled when she grinned, showing him in a flash that she was teasing him. Shaking his head, Krais confessed, “You would know more about that than I do, these days. I hadn’t seen him in nine months, up until the last few days, remember? You’ve been working with him all along. I haven’t.”
“Then you are truly your own man,” she stated.
Wrinkling his nose, Krais said, “Not really. Technically, I still live in his household. When I’m not being your penitent.”
“Then move out,” Pelai urged. “I’ll be moving out of these quarters in just a couple more days, according to the staff tending the Elder Mage’s hall. You could move in here as soon as I’m gone. If Purrsus refuses to follow me to my new home, at least I know you’ll give him a daily dose of stinky feet . . . right?”
Krais nodded. The feline in question had settled into a paw-tucked loaf-of-bread pose, leaning a little against the sole of his left foot, and the edge of his right, thanks to the way his ankles were crossed. “That’s a good idea. It doesn’t feel completely right, as a solution, even though it is. Sort of. But it would get me out of their household and into my own. Which might break my mother’s heart, since she’s always claimed none of us can move out until she’s approved of her future daughters-in-law.”
“I doubt she would approve of me,” Pelai murmured.
“Actually, she probably would,” he countered. “She likes strong, confident, dominant women. You know, like her . . . even if you’re only superficially like her, thank the Goddess . . .”
“Speaking ill of your mother?” she asked, lifting the brow surrounded by her pale blue linguistics tattoo.
“More like knowing what she’s like. We had a cat when I was little—just a common mottled stray, not a Temple breed like yours. He died when Foren was just six or so. Both of us were heartbroken, and we wanted another pet to love . . . but Mother refused. She said they were too much trouble. Now, if your cat refuses to leave this house, and I moved in here and he was still hanging around here . . . I’d be tempted to keep him, just so I could have a pet to love once again. But I’d be more inclined to scoop him up and bring him to you.” He held her gaze, wanting her to see how earnest he was. How changed from his old self. “I’d never deprive you, or anyone, of someone you loved.”
Pelai studied him a long moment . . . then rose up on her knees, straddled his lap, settled down . . . and murmured, “Sartorlagen.”
Their clothes vanished, then reappeared, thumping onto the low table beyond her cat and his toes. Krais blinked, nonplussed by their sudden nakedness . . . and the way she straddled him. “Is there something I should know?”
Shifting a little closer, she nudged her mound against his sac and his shaft, curls to curls, skin to skin. He still had wax on her chest; she reached up and teased her fingernail under an edge of a splatter near his nipple. “I’m thinking of changing my mind . . . which is my prerogative. A Disciplinarian is allowed to reward a penitent when he or she displays acceptable thoughts and behaviors. In fact . . . it’s encouraged.”
Krais hissed a little when she flicked her finger, feeling the wax tugging on one of his chest hairs before it broke in half, part of it dangling and part of it flying off somewhere. Mendhite men weren’t by nature nearly as hairy as the gentlemen found elsewhere in the world, though he did have some. A little, compared to some outlanders. He and his brothers had helped escort over the seas a gentleman so hairy, Foren had muttered his father must have been one of those fabled Katani jonja beasts.
Those beasts had shaggy yet luxuriously soft golden fur, thick enough in its winter pelt to serve as a cushion without needing any sort of a stuffing. Doma Belaria liked to boast of the jonja pelt covering her spanking bench, in fact. Compared to that fellow, the Puhon siblings had seemed clean-shaven. As it was, the stinging, pinprick-painful tug made his shaft twitch in anticipation. Watching her bring her finger and thumb deliberately into position around the half-stuck, half-dangling remnant of wax, he licked his lips—
—Only to have her yelp and squirm forward, clutching awkwardly at his shoulders for balance. “Aaah! Ahaha! Purrsus! Dammit!” she hissed, wobbling for balance. “He’s licking the crease of my toes—eeeeeheeheehee!”
Caught off guard himself, Krais laughed loudly. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close, but laughed long and heartily . . . until she grabbed his braided locks, tightened her grip painfully to pull his head into position, and kissed him deeply. Commandingly. Forcefully, yet fully consensually, because he moaned and held her closer, opening his mouth to her. Giving back as good as he got. One hand burrowed up under her own braid, pulling on her dark locks until she gasped mid-kiss. The other cupped her rump and squeezed, lifting her just high enough to let his noble pen bob free of her belly and bounce crudely between her thighs instead.
“Yesss!” she hissed. One hand yanked free of his hair, making him gasp, head pulled back.
Her other hand scratched at his chest, raking away random drops of wax. Scoring his skin in raggedly parallel lines. He groaned, hips bucking up, desperate to thrust in the rush of arousal raised by the rough stimulation. Clawing down his belly, she grabbed his shaft, positioned it roughly . . . and sank onto him. Letting her own weight force the merger of his noble pen and her lover’s inkwell. “P-Pelai . . . Goddess!” he exclaimed. “So much better than your mouth!”
That made her laugh. Chuckling a bit breathlessly, she hugged him, kissed him sloppily, and rocked a little, adjusting the fit of his shaft in her sheath. “Mmm! I hope you don’t mind me being a bit aggressive.”
“Well, not really,” he allowed, struggling for enough air himself. His toes curled in pleasure when she yanked a few more chunks of wax, and hairs, from his chest. “Gods! Keep that up and I’m going to come!”
“Go ahead,” she purred, kissing his brow tenderly . . . while somewhat viciously plucking another hair from near his nipple. The left one this time. “Ooh, I can feel your fingers giving me bruises . . .”
“I am going to pen you hard if you keep that up, woman,” Krais growled, turned on so strongly, he had to clench his buttocks to keep from spilling himself in her.
“Do it,” she purred. “Roll us over, and pen me roughly. You know I’ll love it.”
And with only that for warning, she leaned in and bit his cheek, near his dimple. Growling in shock and lust, Krais grabbed her, twisted them over so that she lay pinned on her back along the cushions, and dipped his pen over and over for a rough, raw stab at the noble lovers’ poem.
Purrsus, annoyed that he couldn’t huff anyone’s feet, squawked in protest a couple times, but neither of them cared. Both coupled hard and came fast, aroused beyond words, gripping with bruising strength, pulling on hair hard enough to bring tears to their eyes, and shuddering in unified bliss. When it ended, with his hips no longer pushing, her thighs too limp in her satiation to be able to clutch at his hips, she chuckled.
“Now that was a deliciously rough draft.”
“Just the first chapter in the Book of Love,” he agreed. Then wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. I still have wax all over my skin. I could stand an hour-long scrubbing . . . but I’m too sated to move. Unless you’re being squished. Then I’ll move.”
“I like being squished by you. And I’ll cast the wax-cleaning spell in a few moments. Not just yet. It’s sexy-looking to me,” Pelai murmured. She reached up and brushed a few stray, sweat-damp strands away from his cheeks and brow. “Thank you for indulging my Disciplinarian tastes in lovemaking, Krais.”
Turning his head, he kissed her fingers. “Thank you for helping me understand how much I enjoy them, too. Now . . . how long can I get away with lying here on top of you, squishing you? I think you dipped the bones out of my body. I don’t think I can move just yet.”
She grinned. “I’ll give you a little while more . . . and then I’ll simply levitate you if you get too heavy. I could levitate you all night with just a tiny drop of the Fountain’s power, you know.”
“You have phenomenal control while making love,” Krais observed, thinking about that. “I didn’t sense even a hint of magic spilling free.”
“I’d claim it’s my sheer skill . . . but truthfully, the Fountain is old enough, there are a lot of safety spells woven throughout its power. It’s harder to use it than not use it, despite having access to its phenomenal energies,” she confessed. “Picture it like having to open three doors instead of just one, just to get inside your bedroom.”
“That does sound rather awkward . . . but it’s a good precaution, I think,” he murmured. “The only thing I want burning up between us is perhaps another candle in a few more days. I quite enjoyed that. Far more than I thought I would.”
“Mm. The trick is to spill the wax in tiny dribbles, so that it doesn’t shock the body. And to pick a wax that doesn’t have to get too hot to be liquid,” Pelai added, yawning a little. “Pure beeswax does, but the candles I used are only about a third beeswax, with the rest coming from a lower-melting wax refined from certain berries that grow far to the north.”
“Sounds expensive,” he murmured, nuzzling her shoulder. He did intend to get up soon, honest, but she just felt so good, and his body so relaxed, so boneless . . .
Pelai chuckled and hugged him. “I’d say you’re worth it—and you are—but it’s all paid for by the Disciplinarian Sect’s budget.”
“I’m beginning to understand why it took my brothers each a year just to go through the basics of training, once they got past the submission test on the very first day,” he murmured. “Apprenticing to be a Painted Warrior seems a lot easier, with far less to learn and memorize.”
“It is the lazy mage’s path, in Mendhi,” she agreed. “Or the non-mage’s path. Come on, let’s get up and go upstairs while we can still move. It’s back to being warm and muggy tonight. I want a cool bath before we sleep.”
“Yes, Doma,” he agreed, breathing deep to put enough energy back into his body so he could move. “May I join you?”
“Of course. And call me Pelai,” she urged. “I don’t take penitents as my lover. I don’t care what the Hierarchy decided. Menda says you’re not to be punished for any reason but pleasure.”
That warmed him. He nuzzled her neck, and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Yes, Pelai. Thank you for the pleasure of my punishments. And I thank Menda, too.”
“You’re welcome. They were my pleasure, as well,” she purred, and helped him sit up so they could retire to her room. “You know . . . if you moved into the Elder Mage’s quarters with me, there is enough space that you could have your own bedroom, your own writing room, even a crafting room if you liked . . .”
“I wouldn’t want to impose,” he said, standing and offering her his hand to help her rise in turn.
“You’ll have to be there anyway for almost two months more,” she countered, accepting his help. “It’s something to consider.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” He smiled, letting her know he wasn’t resisting the idea all that hard, and leaned in for a kiss.
“Up. Get up, Penitent. Wake up.”
Roused from the groggy depths of sleep, Foren struggled to understand Domo Anso’s words. He had taken the rest of his Family Day break to settle the items he had bought on their long journey in his rooms at the Elder Disciplinarian’s hall, then had gone out to wander the evening markets for a little while, absorbing the scents and sights and sounds of home at his own pace, something he had not been truly free to do since their arrival.
Coming back to the disciplining cottage assigned to Anso, he had found the man still out doing whatever, so Foren had tidied up and had gone to sleep on his pallet on the floor. But now, in the light of the mage crystals activated by the domo, he squinted and struggled to understand what was going on. “ . . . What? What’s wrong? What happened?”
Domo Anso frowned at him, looking tired and grumpy. The Disciplinarian scrubbed at his face. He didn’t have the translation tattoo that Foren or his brothers had—tattooing the face, palms, throats, and ankles were all painful, so not everyone bothered—but he did have enough age-lines on his weary face to almost look like tattoos, given the way the dim lighting shadowed them.
“Domo Galen and I played several rounds of kashet for favors . . . and I won. He said that since Domo Dulette’s penitent was passed to him after her accident, he might as well take you on as his second penitent, for his forfeit.”
Doma Du . . . ? Oh! Foren blinked and sat up, alarmed and concerned. “Doma Dulette, she was Disciplining my brother! She was in an accident? What happened to her?”
“A horse spooked and bolted, got away from its handler, midafternoon,” Anso told him. “It crashed into her and knocked her down, trampling her as it fled. She has a broken thighbone and a broken shin, so she’s at the Healing Hall. Domo Galen has been assigned the disciplining of Penitent Puhon Gayn . . . and now he will see to your punishments as well.
“He awaits you in the atrium. Rise and gather your things,” Anso ordered.
Confused, Foren pushed himself upright on his hips shifted around to deal with his folded clothes. Hesitantly, he asked as he worked, “I thought penitent assignments couldn’t be traded around on a bet? That they have to be assigned by someone higher up in the hierarchy?”
“Doma Belaria owns the kashet set. She was there tonight, playing the role of the ti-fret anakesh, the money-lender. She was the one who suggested we bid for chores, and thus was the one who authorized it.”
That . . . was technically legal. Barely, but legal. Rising up on his knees, Foren donned the dark blue kilt he had been wearing earlier; rather than take the time to lace on his sandals, he just slipped on his salaps, the house sandals that just had a strap across the front of the toe, one that dipped down between the big toe and the rest of the digits on his feet. Twisting free of the floor-level bed, he neatened the bedding on his pallet, stuffed his boots and spare kilt and fundo wraps, clean and dirty alike, into the plain cloth carrying sack he had brought them in from home. Foren then added his toiletry bag with his shaving kit and scrubbing cloths, and shouldered the bag. The pallet and its bedding would remain here, awaiting the cleaning crews that maintained the cottages when they were not in use.
Slipping past Anso, he headed downstairs through the gloom to the atrium entry hall. There was no personal spirit tree here, but there was a small tree carefully pruned and tended by all penitents, and a scroll hung on the front of the tree stand listing the names of every person the penitent had wronged, so that they could tend the tree and pray for the souls of their victims. Not every Mendhite household had a spirit tree, just those who were ancestralists, but every disciplining cottage had a penance tree.
Technically, since their quest had failed . . . and they certainly hadn’t managed to kill that foreigner queen . . . there weren’t any actual victims whose deaths had resulted from Foren’s actions or inactions. None that should require a scroll to be there. Domo Anso had made Foren pen the names of the nine Elders of the Mendhite Hierarchy anyway, starting with the current leader, Hierarch Aleppo’thio, the official leader of Mendhi as well as the leader of the Hierarchy of Priests, and ending with Dagan’thio, leader of the Hierarchy of Discipline. Technically, Tipa’thia, former Elder of the Hierarchy of Mages, had died of natural causes, not of any action or inaction on Foren’s part.
She certainly had not agreed or disagreed about sending Dagan’thio’s sons to steal the Living Host so that the Convocation could be restarted here in Mendhi, instead of in that little island nation of Nightfall. The failure of the Puhon brothers could not have stressed her into dying, because she hadn’t cared if they succeeded, and was not upset by their lack of success.
Domo Galen pointed wordlessly at the scroll. Carefully untwisting the hanging cord from its peg, Foren started to roll up the scroll—and flinched, grunting in pain from the lightning-fast lash of the Disciplinarian’s flogger striking his unclothed back. He fumbled a little with the scroll, but managed to keep it from tumbling to the ground, which surely would have enraged the Disciplinarian.
“You did not recite the Prayers of Apology and Penitence!” the stern, stocky male growled.
Foren stared at him for a moment, a sinking feeling opening up a yawning pit within him. Domo Galen would not treat him like Domo Anso had . . . and that did not bode well for how his little brother would be treated, either. Domo Galen twitched his hand, the leather strands swaying in not so subtle warning. An impatient warning.
That broke through his shock. Quickly setting down his bag of clothes, Foren rehooked the cord of the scroll into place, dropped to his knees, and started reciting the proper prayers . . . though he had to modify all the lines about things like, “take care of your soul as you stand before our Goddess in Heaven” to, “take care of your soul when you stand before our Goddess in Heaven” for the Elders who weren’t actually dead yet.
As he knelt, Domo Galen clamped his hands down over Foren’s shoulders, assessing the sins of his soul. From the way the Disciplinarian grunted, Foren worried over what could have upset the man. At least, until he heard his new domo mutter to the old one, “You have been far too lenient with him, Anso. You with him, and Dulette with his sibling.”
“I treated him appropriately, Galen. Well within the bounds of the judging.”
“As will I.”
Those three words came out of the elder of the two Disciplinarians calmly, even reassuringly. Nothing that could be called ominous . . . but Foren felt a shiver prickle down through the hairs on his back. He focused on reciting his prayers cleanly, clearly, and quietly. By the time he finished, the Temple bells rang with the deep notes of the second hour past midnight. Rolling up the scroll and tucking it into his bag, he rose and bowed to his new Disciplinarian. “I have everything with me, Domo Galen.”
“Good. Follow.”
Foren followed. There wasn’t anything else he could do. The journey didn’t take long; the cottage Domo Galen led him to was the second from the end farthest from the main buildings of the Disciplinarian hierarchy. Galen unlocked the door, activated the atrium lights, and pointed at the penance tree. Guessing what he had to do, Foren crossed to it, unrolled the scroll, hung it on the side hook, knelt, and recited the same prayers he had just stated a short while ago.
Domo Galen grunted in approval. He waited in silence until Foren finished, then pointed at the back of the cottage. Gathering up his bag, Foren followed in the older man’s wake. A single imported lightglobe served as a source of light, tapped gently at some point so that it barely illuminated the cushions, pallets, benches, and punishment frames lining the floors and walls of what elsewhere would be called the family room.
Two pallets occupied the floor space in the corner to the right of the glazed back door overlooking the patio and the nearest garden lake. One had a shadowed figure sprawled on its surface, dark skin outlined by the pale linen of the pallet-covering sheet, a figure broken up at the hips by the pale fabric of his undergarment, dividing his upper torso from each of his legs. Puhon Gayn, left behind while Galen came to fetch him.
Once more, the domo pointed wordlessly, this time at the empty pallet next to Gayn, who slept on the one in the corner. Foren heeded the silent command to take his place and go to sleep. He approached, started to kneel . . . and jerked, overbalancing. He caught himself with one hand in an awkward half kneel, his bag of belongings thumping down beside him, balance and care forgotten in the horror of the marks striping his brother’s back.
Whip marks. Raised ones. Welts, probably from a quirt or some other semi-thick rod. Welts that had been lashed down so heavily, yet so neatly, they rippled Gayn’s skin in a shallow crisscross pattern that spoke of decades of practice in getting the blows to land just right. Welts that had scabs dotting his brother’s hide, from where the blows had broken his skin.
Welts that covered the backs of Gayn’s legs . . . and Gayn’s arms.
“Goddess . . .” The whispered plea escaped him involuntarily. Horrified, Foren reached for his little brother, though he hesitated before actually touching anything. All those blows, all that pain and punishment . . . and some of them on his right arm!
At least Foren saw his brother’s back rising and falling, subtle but definite proof his little brother still breathed, still lived. Either genuinely asleep . . . or fallen unconscious from his punishments. From his torments.
“Is something wrong, Penitent Foren?” he heard Domo Galen asking through the blood pounding in his ears.
That cold tone splashed icy fear through Foren’s nerves. It told him without needing any words that he would be harshly punished, too, if he protested. If he disobeyed the will of his . . . of their . . . Disciplinarian. Somehow, he managed to find his voice enough to reply. “No, Domo. I . . . I just slipped. I will lie down, now.”
“Goodnight.” The word came in a tone that brooked no further delays, let alone arguments.
Sickened by the sadistic treatment, he pushed his bag to the side with trembling fingers, removed his kilt and his sandals, and lay down. All the while watching his little brother. Several long heartbeats after he lay still, Domo Galen turned away and padded for the staircase leading to the upper bedroom.
Technically, it was not a room so much as a broad balcony, a place for the Disciplinarian to sleep. A place to watch from above while his or her penitents did whatever they were supposed to do. Suffered whatever they were supposed to suffer. A place to listen to whatever the penitents might try to say to each other, if there were two or more of them undergoing penance at any given time.
He could not, dared not, whisper anything to Gayn. He could not even risk touching his brother, for fear of waking him with a cry of pain. All Foren could do was carefully, quietly stretch out his arm so that his fingers touched the other pallet’s edge.
Foren lay there fretting as the night progressed, hating how the system believed this level of punishment was somehow acceptably “within the bounds of the judgment.” It should not have been! Not when compared to the gentleness he and his brother had known mere hours before!