Chapter 4: The Penitent

The road re-entered the forest, so for the next hour Danka continued walking in darkness. She had to go slowly to avoid tripping and to avoid wandering off the road. However, the birds were singing, so the spooky silence of the deepest part of night had passed.

When Danka emerged into another cleared area, the sky was already bright. She crossed another sheep meadow and passed an inn. Several men were outside, getting their horses and mules ready for the day’s travel. They all stared at her and several made admiring comments:

“It’s a pity all the lasses don’t run around like that one.”

“It’s an even greater pity all the lasses don’t look like that one.”

Not knowing what else to do, Danka picked up her pace and moved away from the inn as quickly as she could.

That morning she passed many men and boys on the road. They were from all sectors of Danubian society: farmers, squads of the Duke’s soldiers, trading caravans, vagabonds, stage coaches, and the occasional noble. There were a few women and girls on the road as well, but they were always accompanied by at least one man carrying a weapon. All the men and boys stared at her with unabashed lust; all the women and girls stared at her with blatant curiosity. At first Danka was terrified by all the staring, then she merely found it irritating. By mid-day she began to enjoy the attention. She had been almost invisible at home, but here, in this strange province, everyone seemed interested in her, or at least in looking at her.

A Priest and Priestess approached Danka. She remembered to kneel, placing her hands in front and touching her forehead to the ground. The Priest blessed her and handed her a piece of bread. Free bread, hmmm, that was one benefit of Public Penance that Farmer Orsktackt had neglected to tell her about.

By midday her arms became sore from carrying the bucket and she was hungry. She realized that she had forgotten to eat. She ate some of her apples and continued; her bucket now somewhat lighter. Throughout the afternoon she continued to eat apples as she walked. She passed through several villages, looking around at all the new buildings and people with fascination. In one peasant’s farm she saw goats for the first time in her life and wasted half an hour staring at them. As the sun started to get low in the horizon she witnessed a stage coach accident; a wheel from an overloaded stage coach collapsed, causing the vehicle to fall sideways and spill its load of passengers and cargo. She watched the ensuing fight between the driver and several passengers, which came to an abrupt end when one of the horses ran off and everyone set out to capture the animal. It was a fascinating spectacle for a young person who had spent her life just working in her family’s garden and doing odd jobs.

As sunset approached she entered another large village. She realized that she had wasted too much of her day looking at all the new sights and that nighttime had caught up with her. She was about to panic about that when she noted the steeple of a church. She remembered her collar and Farmer Orsktackt’s promise of a free night’s bed wherever there were clergy members. She approached the church, located the Priest, and remembered to kneel. Sure enough, after glancing at her letter the Priest took her to a cottage inhabited by three apprentices, a young man and two women who were only slightly older than Danka. The trio tasked the visitor with cleaning the kitchen and handed her a bowl of stew and a loaf of bread. She cleaned her teeth at the well before going to sleep.

Danka stayed at the village for three days. The apprentices offered her free lodging and food in exchange for cleaning up and washing clothing and bed linens. In the afternoons they helped her practice drawing alphabet letters. At the end of the third day she spelled out her first word: “A-P-P-L-E”.

On the fourth day she continued walking east, with her supply of apples greatly diminished. The next large provincial town was about three days’ walk past the first village. Danka knew exactly what she needed to do before sunset: go to the next village and report to the local Priest. She was in no hurry, so she could take her time looking at all the new and fascinating sights along the road. To most travelers, the road was no different than any other stretch of the western half of the Duchy, but for Danka, who was seeing everything for the first time; the trip was one of wonders and surprises. She passed an orchard with strange orange fruit and for the first time in her life tasted a peach.

She took a ferry across the Rika Chorna River and spent a pleasant morning bathing and napping on the northern shore, feeling the warm breeze on her naked body as she ate a couple more apples. The bucket was much lighter when she finished her break. She only had six apples remaining, which meant that she would not be able to continue past her next stop without having the money to buy some food. She was not particularly worried, however. She figured the Clergy members at the Church would help her, and possibly assist her in finding employment. She spent the rest of the day walking to the next town, the provincial center Starivktaki Moskt, which in Danubian meant “City of the Ancients.” The town received its name from a pre-Christian temple, which looked like the Temple of the Ancients in the capitol but was much smaller. The local temple was a favorite pilgrimage site for people who did not want to go all the way Danubikt Moskt to visit the main one. There were a couple of cathedrals in the town as well, so Starivktaki Moskt was an important center of the Danubian Church, second only to Danubikt Moskt.

The town was attractive, but in a way totally different from Rika Heckt-nemat. The architecture in Danka’s hometown mostly consisted of multi-storied brick and stone buildings, typical of what would be seen in other Christian countries at the time. Many of Starivktaki Moskt’s buildings were pre-Christian, and many of the newer ones copied the style of the older structures. Rika Heckt-nemat was much more enclosed than its neighbor to the east. Starivktaki Moskt had wider streets and the fronts of most of the houses had pillared entrances and large windows. The houses in Rika Heckt-nemat were grey, brown, and blue; while the structures in Starivktaki Moskt were mostly white and bright yellow. Danka wandered around the town with a bewildered expression as she took in all the new sights.

The day was drawing to a close, so Danka made her way to the Temple to see about a place to sleep. She knelt before an old Priest and Priestess, who immediately complained that her kneeling posture was incorrect. She needed to stretch her hands out in front and keep her forehead to the ground. More importantly, she needed to arch her back and spread her knees.

“You’ve been dishonoring your duty to the collar by not presenting yourself properly. You will understand that your duty to the collar is total submission, and your posture must be one of complete humility and the abandonment of all modesty and pride.”

To drive home the lesson, the Priest left Danka in her corrected kneeling position while he attended other duties. Several people walked in and out of the temple while the Priest was absent. The men always walked behind Danka and studied her exposed bottom-hole and vagina at their leisure. Yes indeed, the corrected kneeling position was one of absolute exposure and submission.

Finally the Priest and his partner returned.

“Now speak. What do you need from us?”

“I’m traveling and I request a place to sleep, Priest.”

“What else do you want from us, Penitent?”

“I’d appreciate a meal, Priest.”

“Yes, and what else do you want from us?”

“I ... I’d like to know if there’s work for me, Priest.”

“ ... and what else, Penitent?”

What else? What else could there be? Well ... Danka wouldn’t mind a husband, preferably one with a nice house in the city, but she knew better than to say that to Clergy members. She thought about her efforts to learn the alphabet ... maybe that’s what they meant. She decided to try “learning” as an answer, but needed to phrase her request with as much humility as possible, since it seemed that was what those two were after.

“I’m ignorant ... I don’t know very much, Priest, and I need to learn ... what ... what the Church has to teach me.”

“Now we’re coming closer to what you really need. You said it yourself: you’re ignorant. Yes, you are. If you don’t even know how to kneel correctly and are putting your worldly desires ahead of your service to the Creator, then your ignorance dishonors you. That collar means something, girl. It’s not just so you can walk around from Church to Church asking for a free bed and free meals. You’d better straighten your priorities, or I’ll take that collar off your neck and send you away with nothing. Do you understand me?”

Danka trembled, terrified that the Priest would carry out his threat and discover she was wearing a fake collar. Fortunately for Danka, the Priest misinterpreted her fear and assumed she understood that she had offended the Creator (he did not use the more common term “Lord-Creator”) and was ready to comprehend the true meaning of Public Penance.

“Y ... yes ... Priest ... I ... under ... understand.”

“Very well, dishonored sinner. You will be granted your selfish desires. You will clean your dishonored body, you will fill your dishonored stomach, and you will rest your dishonored head. Tomorrow you will wake up, and we will address your obvious ignorance.”

He whistled in a pattern of high and low whistles, summoning a totally naked female seminary student. The young woman knelt, using the correct position.

“Apprentice, you will take this visitor to the dormitory. Attend to her needs. She is blatantly ignorant, so don’t assume she knows anything. Teach her, and correct her.”

“Yes, Senior Priest.”

“Rise. On your feet, both of you.”

“Yes, Senior Priest.”

Danka was taken aback by the Priest’s rough, insulting treatment. She was more worried about his apparent insight; that he suspected something was not right about her arrangements with the Church. She wanted to flee, but knew that running off was absolutely the worst thing she could do. It was possible the Church would send someone after her. Even if the Church did not pursue her, she’d never be able to set foot in Starivktaki Moskt again. However, what most held her were her physical needs. She had to eat, sleep, get cleaned up, and hopefully find employment. If she spurned the Church, that night she’d have nowhere safe to sleep, nothing except her last apples to eat, and the next day would wake up with no options except going back to stealing.

The residence for the female seminary students was much larger than the one where she had stayed in the village. There were eight official apprentices and four penitents living in a large whitewashed stone house that looked very ancient. It had a courtyard that boasted its own well and a stone bath. In the back the house was a dining area and the nicest kitchen Danka had ever seen. To both the left and the right of the entrance were sleeping quarters. The apprentices slept two in each room while the penitents shared a larger communal room.

The courtyard was full of drying bed linens. The bedding was only one of the duties of the penitents. The penitents had to earn their keep: in exchange for meals, beds, and religious instruction they had to maintain the house and keep everything clean.

The arrangement was acceptable for the penitents. Church protocol mandated that penitents had to perform menial tasks for the Clergy as part of their sentence. To be a penitent was to accept humility, abandon all pride, and serve others. Serving seminary students was not an onerous life. Yes, the women spent a large portion of their day working, but the work was clean and not physically taxing. The women had clean beds to sleep in, ate well, lived under the Church’s protection, and were free to leave whenever they wanted.

Danka was the youngest woman among the penitents. There was a shy woman only slightly older than her who had an illegitimate child and had been disowned by her family. There was a woman who must have been about 30 who, like Danka, had been sentenced to the pillory for petty theft. There were two other women in their forties who had become accustomed to the Public Penance lifestyle and had served the seminary students for years.

The two older penitents ordered Danka to pull off her boots and undo her braids. She had to go through both a ritual and physical cleansing before she could enter the household. While the two younger penitents prepared a bath, the older women and Danka presented themselves to a seminary student for the ritual cleansing.

The seminary student issued the normal prayers for knowledge and enlightenment, but, like the Priest, she surprised the newcomer by using “Creator” instead of the usual “Lord-Creator” to refer to the Church’s supreme-being. She then released the subordinates to allow Danka to bathe, have her hair re-braided, and be accepted into the household.

After her bath, Danka knelt upright while one the older women started fixing her hair. She asked about the seminary student’s strange prayer and her refusal to use the Lord-Creator’s entire name.

“Child, we are Old Believers. We use the prayers of our ancestors, not the prayers of the Romans. The Creator is the true name of the Master of the World. ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ came from the Romans, which is why we don’t use it.”

The penitents showed Danka their dormitory, which contained eight beds plus a makeshift crib for the baby. The newcomer set down her bucket and boots next to one that was unoccupied. She realized her remaining apples weren’t going to stay fresh much longer, so she offered them to her companions. As she pulled out the last of the apples, she noticed a small piece of folded cloth at the bottom of her bucket. She decided to leave it alone. She could see what it contained when the others weren’t looking.

At dinner eight apprentices entered the dining hall. They were young, serious, educated women. Just like the penitents, none of the trainees was wearing a stitch of clothing. Nudity was not a requirement of studying for the Church priesthood, but during the summer there was a practical reason for it. The initiates were each issued a single dress at the beginning of their education. That dress had to last during four years of study: if it wore out before the initiate took her vows, the Church would not replace it. The purpose of the restriction was to encourage the initiates to pay attention to detail and care for every item issued to them by the Church. In practice, the custom forced initiates to wear their dresses as little as possible during warm weather so they’d last through four winters.

The five penitents knelt while the seminary student who had brought Danka to the house introduced her to the others. In keeping with Church tradition, no one asked Danka where she was from or why she was performing Public Penance. Even her name was of no interest to the apprentices.

Danka was surprised when she and 30-year-old were ordered to set 13 places at the table and not just eight. She expected, because they were serving, that the penitents would eat separately. They had to serve the apprentices first, but the trainees did not touch their food until the penitents had filled their plates and sat down as well. Danka later learned that because the women shared the household, they shared the dining table as well. It was a very strange experience, eating in a formal setting with other women who were obviously from a different social class.

The apprentice who had introduced the newcomer took note of the way she ate. The Senior Priest had repeatedly referred to Danka as ignorant. Judging by the way she hunched over the table and ate with her hands, it seemed his assessment was accurate. If she didn’t know how to eat properly, what else didn’t the new girl know? She decided to find out after dinner. If the new penitent had issues, it would be to everyone’s benefit to find out about them before she talked to the Senior Priest the next day.

The apprentice requested that Danka be excused from cleaning up so she could talk to her. The apprentice planned to ask her some questions about basic theology, but on a flash of intuition she realized the first thing to find out about the newcomer was if she could even read. She ordered Danka to accompany her to the house library and ordered her to sit at a study table. The apprentice opened a printed copy of The Book of the True Path, turned several pages, and told the newcomer to read the following passage:

The Destroyer enters the Realm of the Living through the mouth of the liar.

Danka went pale. She trembled and started sweating.

“Read, Penitent. Tell me what this line says.”

“Apprentice ... I ... I mean ... I can’t.”

“You can’t read?”

“No, Apprentice. I can’t.”

“So you really have no idea what you’re doing...”

“No, Apprentice. I don’t.”

“So the Senior Priest was right about you.”

“Yes, Apprentice.”

“Very well. Normally it’s not my prerogative to ask such a question, but in your case I need to know. Why are you wearing a Church collar? What did you do to convince anyone the collar was appropriate for your Path in Life?”

Danka shook, terrified that the Apprentice was about to figure out her secret. Her only option was to divulge a portion of the truth. The Apprentice tapped her shoulder.

“Speak. What did you do to convince anyone the collar was appropriate for your Path in Life? Not a difficult question to answer, Penitent.”

Danka started crying. Between sobs, she answered.

“I ... I was stealing apples ... from a farmer ... he called a city guard ... they arrested me ... she whipped me ... I ... I confessed ... stole ... sold the apples...”

“Why were you selling stolen apples?”

“ ... because I wanted a new dress...”

“Why did you want a new dress?”

“My parents ... sister ... I have a sister ... they want her to get married ... me to work ... so she could get married ... I wanted ... to get married first ... dress ... go in the city ... find a husband...”

“So let me make sure I understand. Your parents were making you work so your sister could get married. You didn’t think that was your Path in Life, to work so your sister could benefit. So you stole apples and sold them, to buy yourself a dress. That is correct?”

“Yes.”

“And with your dress, you were going to walk into the town, and some rich man was going to see you and fall in love with you. That was your intention?”

“Yes.”

“And you thought just having a dress was going to change the Path of your Life? Why did you think such nonsense? Who told you that?”

Danka told the apprentice about the story she heard, the tale of the serving girl with the magic dress who went to the King’s ball and got the Crown Prince to fall in love with her. The Apprentice was so taken aback by the stupidity of Danka’s assumption that for a moment she couldn’t react. Finally she pressed the newcomer for additional information.

“So, you were caught by the farmer and a female city guard, correct?”

“Yes, Apprentice.”

“ ... and what happened? Apart from the whipping, I mean?”

“Pillory... “ Danka responded quietly. Then, remembering what the mob did to her ... the very people she had been hoping to impress and whose society she wanted to become a part of ... she broke down crying.

The apprentice decided to stop interrogating the Penitent at that moment. It was not difficult to guess what happened next. She had seen multiple pillory punishments. Usually they were uneventful: the criminal spent a day exposed to the city; then wore a penance collar until the family accepted the offender back into their household. There were instances, however, where the spectators went beyond simply observing and started taunting the helpless offender. Once the insults and jeering started, the taunting could get out of hand very quickly and the crowd became uncontrollable. There usually was no particular reason the spectators got out of control; sometimes it just happened.

The apprentice assumed she knew the outcome of Danka’s punishment. When the spectators started attacking her, it was likely a Priest intervened and ordered her taken down. Since the girl was dishonored beyond redemption in her hometown, the Clergy member issued the penance collar so she could get away and make a new life somewhere else. That would explain why she had no theological knowledge. The apprentice thought it was extremely irresponsible to send a penitent away with no instruction, but she could understand the Priest’s reasoning; the dishonored girl had to leave as quickly as possible. The apprentice was right about everything concerning Danka except for one important detail. She did not receive the collar from a Clergy member: she received it from the very man who had her arrested.

Danka’s crying made the apprentice assume that whatever happened to her on the pillory must have been traumatic and that no further questions were necessary. The peasant girl was very fortunate that the apprentice did not bother to ask who issued the collar.

The apprentice waited for the penitent’s crying to subside before moving on to another topic.

“I don’t see how we can address your ignorance if you can’t read. Do you at least know the letters?”

“Yes, Apprentice.”

“You know how to read and write letters?”

“A little, Apprentice.”

“Very well, let’s see what ‘a little’ means to you.”

The apprentice brought a wooden tray full of fine sand and a stylus that Danubian children used to learn the alphabet. Paper was too expensive to waste on simple learning and writing practice, so typically a student used the stylus like a pen to draw letters in the sand.

“Draw me the letter ‘A’.”

Danka easily drew the letter.

“Now draw the next five letters in the alphabet...”

Danka complied. The apprentice smoothed the sand and told her ward to write more letters.

“If you know any words, I want you to write them out for me.”

Danka wrote the word “A-P-P-L-E”.

“How appropriate. That’s your first word. Not a bad start. So, you’ve been practicing?”

“Yes, Apprentice.”

“Now. I will have you write some letters to make some words. I want you to sound them out and see if you can figure out what they are.”

The apprentice patiently spelled out several words letter by letter, giving the student time to draw them. The words were simple; such as “cat”, “sun”, “bird”, and “nut”. Danka struggled with sounding them out, but eventually pronounced all of the words correctly.

Early the next morning, the apprentice took Danka to the old temple and addressed the Senior Priest. Danka was still terrified that he would figure out her secret, but now she had the apprentice on her side.

The two women knelt in the appropriate position, with their legs spread, their backs arched, their hands extended in front, heads to the ground, and bottoms spread and completely exposed. When the Senior Priest gave them permission to kneel upright, the apprentice requested that both she and the penitent have the day off for writing lessons. The response was that the two women could have the mornings to work on the lessons and Danka would be tested at the end of each week to check her progress. So, that was it: Danka now was committed to learning how to read and write.