The Orphans of Raspay_A Penric and Desdemona novella in the World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold

Author:Lois McMaster Bujold [Bujold, Lois McMaster]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spectrum Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2019-07-17T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

A door in the wall next to the Bastard’s altar led to the back premises. Pen slipped through and found himself under a short colonnade. To the left, a high gate led out. Ahead lay not so much a temple complex as a temple simplex, a typical rectangular stone building around a central court which had its own small fountain, presently dry. Stairs and a wooden gallery served a course of upper rooms.

Residents? Pen asked Des.

Only three right now, upstairs sleeping.

There should have been rather more, even for a small neighborhood temple. Pen took a quick circuit under the gallery. A room for the divine to change his robes, an office and library, a kitchen along the back, refectory, storerooms, a lecture room converted to a lumber room… that last seemed the best bet for a temporary den, or else an unused room upstairs.

Pen returned to the colonnade and checked beyond the gate. A stable for the sacred animals was built against the outer wall, with a low, slanting roof. The old timbers were sturdy and elaborately carved. New repairs were crude. The long shed seemed currently underpopulated, with a pen of chickens, a couple of nanny goats, and a dozing donkey flopped in its straw. The menagerie seemed less hallowed than practical, not that it couldn’t be both.

Pen returned to the temple hall. His breath caught and his steps quickened as he heard a voice grumbling, “Who left this door unlocked? …Hey! You street rats can’t sleep in here!”

Dawn light leaked through the oculus, the arched windows, and, now, the front door, shoved wide. A fellow—townsman or peasant, hard to tell by his plain garb—stood beside the fire plinth with his hands on his hips. He bore a rack on his back holding a bundle of trimmed branches, which he doffed and swung down to the floor. He opened his mouth to shout again at the trespassers, but his jaw hung slack as Penric came up beside the girls, who were pushing themselves up from their rugs, sleepiness warring with fright.

The wood-carrier stepped back, his hand going to the knife at his belt. Pen could see the calculation on his face as he attempted to average the threat: tall strange man, danger; small children, not. And Pen bore no visible weapons; better. The firmness returned to his spine.

“You can’t sleep in here. Off with you quick, now, and I’ll say no more.” His strong island Adriac accent went with his sawed-off, sturdy island build.

Pen suppressed his frustrated curses and let the cultured tones of Lodi infuse his own voice. “But I have quite a lot to say. To begin with, who are you?” Temple servant, obviously, to be bringing in the morning’s firewood for the plinth. Or the kitchen, as might be.

The man’s face pinched in suspicion. “Brother Godino. I run this place, as much as it gets run.”

“I need to speak with the divine.”

“You already are. As much as there is one.”

Pen’s brows rose. “This temple has no trained divine? Or acolyte?”

“It did.

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