rainaut shows brother peire around
Nov. 13th, 2014 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieAnd the first thing to do is to learn exactly what home entails – the buildings, the gardens, the livestock, the industries and residences and holy places. What people do, where they do it. He hopes he'll find at least one thing he recognizes, one familiar thing, that can remind him of the friary without the attendant empty feeling of a place he'll never see again.
They walk out the gate and turn around so that they're facing the wall and the former monastery behind it. "If we were to walk along the wall that way" - Rainaut points off to the right - "eventually it would turn into a low rock wall and we'd be at the fields - wheat for us, grass for the sheep. We can walk out there if you want. But say you've just arrived and you want to announce your presence and there's no one at the gate." He gestures to the wooden doors, which are open. "You can just walk in and keep going until you see someone, or you ring the bell." He goes through the doorway, gesturing for Brother Peire to follow, and takes the rope hanging from the bell just inside the gate.
"I don't think I need to ring it," he says. "Do I?" He grins.
"No."
Rainaut leads Brother Peire through stands of fruit trees, just now starting to bud, and then around vegetable gardens, an herb garden, a flower garden, past chicken coops and tethered goats and beehives. They walk through the kitchen (bustling) and the refectory (empty) and storage rooms and the bakehouse and the cheesehouse and the brewhouse. They poke their heads into the men's dormitory (also empty), the guest rooms (plain but comfortable-looking, and bigger than Rainaut's cell), and the library, where an older woman with short gray hair is teaching seven small children the story of how God created the world and populated it with creatures that swim and fly and walk.
"God said to the hare, 'All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and if they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you.' And so God gifted the hare with long ears, so that he might hear his enemies coming from a long way away, and God gifted the hare with big hind feet, so that he might thump the ground and warn his brothers and sisters of oncoming danger, and God gifted the hare with strong legs, so that he might run fast and escape."
"And because God loved man and woman," pipes up a little boy, "God gave the hare soft fur and delicious meat." Some of the children giggle, but one little girl looks scandalized.
"Very true," the teacher says. "But we are the hare's enemies as much as the fox and the owl are, and we still have to catch him." She notices Rainaut and Brother Peire in the doorway. "Brother Rainaut! And Brother Peire, is it?"
"Just Peire," he says. "Please."
"Just Peire." She smiles at him, as if he’s told a joke. He didn't think it was that funny. "I am Sister Verrine. Would you like to join us?"
"No, thank you," Rainaut tells her. "I'm just giving Just Peire the guided tour so he can decide what he wants to do here."
"I can always use more help with these little fidgets. Do you teach?"
"I don't, um, I don't think I'd be that good with children," Brother Peire tells her, a little apologetically.
"No matter. There's something for you here, otherwise Brother Rainaut wouldn't have brought you."
"We still have more to see," Rainaut tells her, and then to the children, "Be good for Sister Verrine, yes?"
Six little heads nod, one little head isn't paying attention, and Rainaut and Brother Peire back out of the library and shut the door behind them.
"'Just Peire'?" Brother Peire asks, amused.
Rainaut shrugs. "You said it first. Let's go see the workrooms."
The workrooms are in a long building with tall windows, which Rainaut explains used to be a study hall and copy room.
"Ser Lucatz, the lord who owns the land," he says, "his grandfather was the last patron of the monastery. The community was disbanded but the old man maintained the buildings in the hopes that one day the monks would come back. Ser Lucatz isn't one of us, really – he believes in God but I don't think he practices any particular faith, although in public he at least pretends to follow the teachings of your church. He lets us live here for the cost of part of our harvest, and his agent buys our goods to sell at a profit elsewhere. I don't think he tells people that they're buying honey harvested from heretic bees." He grins. "Or cloth woven by heretic hands. Ser Lucatz wouldn't call himself our patron, but he believes we have a right to live our lives the way we want, and we live here under his protection." Another grin. "We're outside the city limits and beyond the control of the mayor, but we have the added security of being on private land owned by a nobleman who is, if not beyond reproach, at least fairly clear of sin. Well, aside from the grievous sin of renting his land to a bunch of heretics."
They go inside and Brother Peire meets Rostans the weaver, whose wife had their marriage annulled and who was forced to leave his guild. There are people spinning and weaving, a man making clothes, a woman sorting through dyed fibers. Farther down is a woodshop, two men and a young woman and sawdust all over the floor. There are pieces of chairs and stools and finished bowls and a half-built bedframe, tools and bits of wood and a bowl full of what look like wooden pegs. The young woman throws her arms around Rainaut and the two men come forward to welcome him back and tell him the chairs languished for the skill in his hands.
"This is what I do," Rainaut tells Brother Peire, who guessed as much. "I'd been apprenticed to a carpenter when I came here and I enjoyed it. What do you think? Do you want to learn how to work with wood?"
"You were a friar, were you not?" one of the men asks Brother Peire, and to Rainaut he adds "Show him the copy room."
The copy room is at the end of the long hall. There are only three desks, placed to catch as much light as possible.
words: 1050
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They walk out the gate and turn around so that they're facing the wall and the former monastery behind it. "If we were to walk along the wall that way" - Rainaut points off to the right - "eventually it would turn into a low rock wall and we'd be at the fields - wheat for us, grass for the sheep. We can walk out there if you want. But say you've just arrived and you want to announce your presence and there's no one at the gate." He gestures to the wooden doors, which are open. "You can just walk in and keep going until you see someone, or you ring the bell." He goes through the doorway, gesturing for Brother Peire to follow, and takes the rope hanging from the bell just inside the gate.
"I don't think I need to ring it," he says. "Do I?" He grins.
"No."
Rainaut leads Brother Peire through stands of fruit trees, just now starting to bud, and then around vegetable gardens, an herb garden, a flower garden, past chicken coops and tethered goats and beehives. They walk through the kitchen (bustling) and the refectory (empty) and storage rooms and the bakehouse and the cheesehouse and the brewhouse. They poke their heads into the men's dormitory (also empty), the guest rooms (plain but comfortable-looking, and bigger than Rainaut's cell), and the library, where an older woman with short gray hair is teaching seven small children the story of how God created the world and populated it with creatures that swim and fly and walk.
"God said to the hare, 'All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and if they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you.' And so God gifted the hare with long ears, so that he might hear his enemies coming from a long way away, and God gifted the hare with big hind feet, so that he might thump the ground and warn his brothers and sisters of oncoming danger, and God gifted the hare with strong legs, so that he might run fast and escape."
"And because God loved man and woman," pipes up a little boy, "God gave the hare soft fur and delicious meat." Some of the children giggle, but one little girl looks scandalized.
"Very true," the teacher says. "But we are the hare's enemies as much as the fox and the owl are, and we still have to catch him." She notices Rainaut and Brother Peire in the doorway. "Brother Rainaut! And Brother Peire, is it?"
"Just Peire," he says. "Please."
"Just Peire." She smiles at him, as if he’s told a joke. He didn't think it was that funny. "I am Sister Verrine. Would you like to join us?"
"No, thank you," Rainaut tells her. "I'm just giving Just Peire the guided tour so he can decide what he wants to do here."
"I can always use more help with these little fidgets. Do you teach?"
"I don't, um, I don't think I'd be that good with children," Brother Peire tells her, a little apologetically.
"No matter. There's something for you here, otherwise Brother Rainaut wouldn't have brought you."
"We still have more to see," Rainaut tells her, and then to the children, "Be good for Sister Verrine, yes?"
Six little heads nod, one little head isn't paying attention, and Rainaut and Brother Peire back out of the library and shut the door behind them.
"'Just Peire'?" Brother Peire asks, amused.
Rainaut shrugs. "You said it first. Let's go see the workrooms."
The workrooms are in a long building with tall windows, which Rainaut explains used to be a study hall and copy room.
"Ser Lucatz, the lord who owns the land," he says, "his grandfather was the last patron of the monastery. The community was disbanded but the old man maintained the buildings in the hopes that one day the monks would come back. Ser Lucatz isn't one of us, really – he believes in God but I don't think he practices any particular faith, although in public he at least pretends to follow the teachings of your church. He lets us live here for the cost of part of our harvest, and his agent buys our goods to sell at a profit elsewhere. I don't think he tells people that they're buying honey harvested from heretic bees." He grins. "Or cloth woven by heretic hands. Ser Lucatz wouldn't call himself our patron, but he believes we have a right to live our lives the way we want, and we live here under his protection." Another grin. "We're outside the city limits and beyond the control of the mayor, but we have the added security of being on private land owned by a nobleman who is, if not beyond reproach, at least fairly clear of sin. Well, aside from the grievous sin of renting his land to a bunch of heretics."
They go inside and Brother Peire meets Rostans the weaver, whose wife had their marriage annulled and who was forced to leave his guild. There are people spinning and weaving, a man making clothes, a woman sorting through dyed fibers. Farther down is a woodshop, two men and a young woman and sawdust all over the floor. There are pieces of chairs and stools and finished bowls and a half-built bedframe, tools and bits of wood and a bowl full of what look like wooden pegs. The young woman throws her arms around Rainaut and the two men come forward to welcome him back and tell him the chairs languished for the skill in his hands.
"This is what I do," Rainaut tells Brother Peire, who guessed as much. "I'd been apprenticed to a carpenter when I came here and I enjoyed it. What do you think? Do you want to learn how to work with wood?"
"You were a friar, were you not?" one of the men asks Brother Peire, and to Rainaut he adds "Show him the copy room."
The copy room is at the end of the long hall. There are only three desks, placed to catch as much light as possible.
words: 1050
total words:
