The Book of the Blue House

Conn

Though Connleth Aragareth began his life in the far north of Westrial, his home is doubtless Kingsboro and his association with its Great Blue Temple. To think of Aragareth without thinking of the Blue Order of the city of the great kings, simply makes no sense.

-The Encyclopedia of Westrial, 56th Edition, edited by Andi Lincoln

“Here,” Nialla said, “drink some more water.”

Conn was trying to look as if this was not his first food for three days, and he was trying to eat the salad slowly, even as he looked over at the steaming loaf of bread. He obeyed his sister and poured the water into the large wooden cup, was embarrassed by how it sloshed around and spilled on the the table when he set the jug down.

“I didn’t hear from you,” Nialla said. “I wrote you, and then I didn’t hear back, so can you imagine how surprised I was when Cal came to my door and said your brother is here?”

“Cal?”

“Yes. The one you met. Calon, pronounced Kay-lon, but he hates that name.”

“And is he a…”

“Priest,” Nialla said. “Yes. He’s a priest.”

Two months ago, when Conn was back home in Ipwick doing nothing but seeing day pass after day, and occasionally being hired as a day laborer, living in the back of the large house with his mother, his father, his aunts, his uncles and all of their children, the letter came from Nialla, the disgrace of the family, a wench who had gotten up and fled on the night before her marriage to Alaric, a marriage which their mother never tired of saying would have changed the fortunes of the entire family, out the window and never been seen again, She had been heard from. When her first letter came from the city, Mother burned it in the fire palce, page by page, luxuriously, peeling the pages apart and gently laying them on the blaze.

“The first time you wrote to me, Mother burned it,” Conn said, “or I would have written you back.”

Nialla was too young to marry anyway. She was just seventeen now. And Conn was her younger brother. Nialla had suspected their parents were the reason Conn never got the letter and sent the next to their old school master. He had come down calling for Conn and handed it to him. Her second letter, sent in early autumn, when the leaves began to turn and a chill touched the air said, “Connleth, come down south to the City. There is life here for you and me, and I miss you. Come to the Blue Temple. There will be room for you.”

If Nialla had been present Conn would have made a joke and said, “What, do I need to be a Blue Priest?,But paper was precious, and so was time, and he didn’t want to be in Ipwick anymore. He couldn’t afford a landship or an airship, and so he knew he would hitchhike all the way, and Nialla’s warning was still in his mind, “Little brother, come before winter.” It was still warm enough down here, but the latticework reported that, already, the first snow had come to Ipwick and the northern hill countries.

“You can eat that slowly,” Nialla said, bending to look at him, “No one’s going to take that from you, and then for the rest of the day, if you want, you can come with me, see how things are.”

“You live here?” Conn said.

He was looking around in amazement, but not at the large eating hall which was, if anything, most unamazing. He meant this whole great and ancient building which he had come to this morning.

Nialla nodded and said, “Lots of people do.”

She amended. “Many people do. Some people find it not to their liking. If you do not wish to be a dependent here, this is the city, Conn. There are great houses and abbeys all over, and one right across the street. Whether you say there or go there, you’re here, in the city, and we’re together, and we will have such great fun!”

“Oh, now you really are disowned,” Conn said, switching from the salad to breaking off a piece of bread. He was surprised at how good the greens were, for he would be eating a bowl of hot soup if he was in Ipwick, but then the cool weather was just starting to come down here.

“If mother and father knew you had found your way to a blue temple.”

“I hold that once you are disowned you can’t possibly be more disowned,” Nialla said, shrugging. “And, besides, Mother and Father don’t know everything.”

She waited a moment and then decided, “I fact, they don’t really know anything.”

When Conn had headed south, only knowing that his sister was working in a blue temple, or living in one, he wasn’t sure what to think. He had seen blue houses and wasn’t entirely sure what was the difference between a blue house and a blue temple. Certainly some blue houses were little more than the size of the house he lived in with his family, and some seemed like taverns or inns while some in great cities, and this happened the further south you went, seemed like stately townhouses. Also, though they called themselves priests, and bthe White Priest reluctantly agreed that they were, Conn could not tell the difference between a blue priest and a male prostitute.

He imagined himself, coming into the Great City and asking, “Can you direct me to the the Blue Temple, and people sniggering, people saying, “Oh, this lad looks for a blue temple, indeed.”

Conn understood from very early on that a lad looking for another lad was suspicious. But things seemed to be different down south.

On his poverty stricken journey southe to warmer climes, he was surprised by the sizes of the cities, and when he had come up the River Arnor, and the ferry he’d taken passage on rounded its tip to reveal the City, his eyes had widened. Back in the north towns that were bigger than Ipwick were only bigger versions of Ipwick. There was no way to compare Ipwick to the city of the Capital. Ipwick had little churches and a few taverns, houses spaced out several feet apart. How to compare it to a place where the great minsters had towers touching the sky, and they crouched like massive lions, their naves as wide as several street blocks. How to compare to Ipwick’s houses the city blocks with great shops on the grounds and second floors of great mansions several stories high?

When Conn arrived in the city it was late, and though it was not cold like it would be in Ipwick, it was not warm as summer either. He was grateful now for the bag of warm clothes and the coat he had brought, and as evening set he looked for a place to sleep. A hotel was not an option, and staying in a tavern until it closed was not either. He was so tired he didn’t imagine staying up all night. His sister was somewhere in this city, and he asked, “Where is the Blue Temple?” wondering what someone would say, but the dry faced man he asked did not make any lewd jokes. He simply pointed to his left and said.

“You have come in at the far end of the city, and if you go up that road that is the general direction, but friend, you will be traveling till the sun’s up to get there.”

Kingsboro was an impossibly large city and even now, Conn saw all sorts of people who were not staying in houses, settling somewhere. He saw, moving through the city with the calm of people on a country road, shepherds with their great herds, the bells on the dust browned sheep tinkling as they headed to the fields along the river, and on the first levels of the houses, where there were open markets, the gates one thought would close were opening as merchants left, and people were coming to sleep in those spaces. The great parks he passed were receiving vagrants, but now he saw a troupe of people in grey, and the man he had spoken to said, “Friend, friend. If you love your stuff and want to see it again, get in with them.”

Conn did not like to weary people with questions when they had helped him out, so he only said, “Thank you, sir.”

But the man did explain.

“Those are the Brothers and Sisters of Ash. You couldn’t possibly be safer, and they take care of all who travel with them.”

And so, on his first night in the city, Conn had stayed with the Ash Sisters and the Ash Brothers, and learned that this city truly did take in anyone who came to it, some way or another.

“They come here often,” Nialla said. She seemed serious.

“To stay the night and to eat?’

“No,” Nialla shook her head, and then she said, “Yes. Bui it isn’t like that. They come to say prayers and give lay blessings over us and receive them from us. The Grey Brethren are strange. They believe that all are one. That’s the most I can say of them, and so because they think they are part of everything, few of them keep their own houses. And they don’t have their own temples. They go from temple to temple and minster to minster that will accept them. They stay in the stoas of houses, and in the parks. They have tents, many of them, and when they go to stay where the homeelss are, they feed them.”

“That’s what they did last night,” Conn remembered. “I was nervous to join their party, but when I did I was not the only one who was not part of them. It was many people who were walking with them, and when they got to the park there were others there, many women, many like nuns, and they were cooking food over fires, and they were feeding the other people in the park, and feeding us. Most of them were dressed like monks or like nuns, but some had children.”

“Yes,” Nialla said. “Some do.”

“I think I saw them back home, now and again. In the big cities, but I never saw them married.”

“A few are,” Nialla said. “That much I have seen when they come here, and when they come here everyone becomes much happier. Especially since the Ashes have teachers and preachers and musicians with them. It makes the temple happy.”

“The people with children stayed in tents. They were all very friendly and one was called Sister Hannan.”

“I love her—”

“You know her?”

“Yes,” Nialla said. “There are about three groups of Ashen Brothers and Sisters in the city, but this one I know—”

“She said the tents were fine, but for the winter the mothers and children would have to be put somewhere else.”

“They will probably stay here. I can’t imagine the Blues would not have them stay here.”

“This is so different,” Conn said, “different from what I thought it would be, different from how it is in the north. That Blue Priests have large temples and monks and nuns stay with them. And there is no… no judgment.”

“No,” Nialla said. “The South is different. The Blue Order is the oldest of the Orders and the most respected even when people are slightly leery of them. Here, take some bread. Eat but don’t eat too much. I want to show you around.”

“Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“Oh,” Nialla said, shaking her head, “it isn’t like that. Not really. And everyone knows that you are here now and that we have much catching up to do.”

Among the Ashen Brothers he had felt more secure and more at peace in that park, under the paper lanterns hung in trees, helping to pass out the cups of soup and the plates so rice before finally sitting down to eat his own than he had felt in his family’s house. From the Ashens he’d learned directions across town to the Blue Temple, and how long the journey was, and he slept for only a few hours in a circle of grey nuns and monks with one man playing the harp and singing old songs before he got up and began to travel. One of the sisters laid hands on him and said a blessing.

“We will see you soon enough,” she said, “when we reach the Temple as well.”

The streets were well lit, and once he crossed the river and saw the great lamps of the bridge sparkling dowm on the broad black water, and looked across to see the lit buildings in the distance as well. He saw great minsters and large palaces by the night, and carriages stopped not on the main streets but in the gated alleys by which the wealthy were led to the secret second and third story gardens of those mighty houses that held shops by day and homeless by night. Above the common life of the city, in a world of towers and ball rooms, turrets and great porches linked by fashionable bridges, the wealthy lived their lives in a world that never touched the ground. Against the light and the all night music, Conn saw the shadows of broken buildings too, and he wondered what joys the city held in the day, but did not stay to linger, wanting to be in at the Blue Temple by morning.