The Girl with No Name
Copyright 2013 by Edward -EC-
EC's Erotic Fiction - /~caligula97030/

(warnings: public nudity, sex between adults, corporal punishment, maledom, 
humiliation, war violence, occult, language)

Chapter Four – 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 Starívktaki Móskt, 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 Danúbikt 
Móskt to visit the main one. There were a couple of cathedrals in the town as well, 
so Starívktaki Móskt was an important center of the Danubian Church, second 
only to Danúbikt Móskt.

The town was attractive, but in a way totally different from Rika Héckt-nemát. 
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 Starívktaki Móskt’s buildings were pre-Christian, and many of 
the newer ones copied the style of the older structures. Rika Héckt-nemát was 
much more enclosed than its neighbor to the east. Starívktaki Móskt had wider 
streets and the fronts of most of the houses had pillared entrances and large 
windows. The houses in Rika Héckt-nemát were grey, brown, and blue; while the 
structures in Starívktaki Móskt 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 Starívktaki Móskt 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.

The apprentice spent the rest of the morning having Danka practice the sounds 
associated with each letter and writing simple words. They only stopped when the 
cathedral bell announced it was mid-day. The lessons became part of the daily 
routine of Danka and her mentor. She worked hard and learned quickly, earning 
the respect of her tutor. The apprentice noted:

“You may be ignorant, but you’re definitely not stupid. That may sound like an 
insult, but it’s not. I’d rather be ignorant and smart than educated and stupid. I 
have seen plenty of stupid people with education and I can attest such people are 
tools of the Destroyer.”

By the end of her first week she had completely mastered the alphabet and could 
spell and write one-syllable words. Learning, like her exploration of new places, 
became an adventure for the young peasant. Just like her trip to a new province, 
the world of letters and written words opened up an entirely new part of Danka’s 
brain, forcing her to think in ways that had never occurred to her when she was 
still with her family. She was changing and realizing facts about the real world, 
the most important of which was now knowing that buying a new dress would 
have made no difference whatsoever in finding an upper-class husband. Upper 
class women had different skills and knew a bunch of things that Danka had yet to 
master, only one of which was reading.

After cleaning up from lunch, the five naked penitents settled down for their 
midday nap. Danka waited for the others to fall asleep so she could finally see 
what was in that folded cloth sitting in her bucket. When she opened it, there was 
a piece of parchment with a note and…a silver coin. Danka had never touched a 
silver coin, let alone have one in her possession. By the standards of her family’s 
neighborhood, it was a huge amount of money. Now she truly understood how 
much Farmer Orsktackt wanted to make amends for what had happened to her. 
She could not understand the note, but it was written in block letters instead of 
cursive script to allow her to interpret it as quickly as possible. Now she had a 
specific assignment in reading, something she’d have to master and practice to 
understand. She practiced tracing the letters in her writing tray until she had the 
pattern memorized. Then she’d sound out each letter and try to interpret the words. 
On the first day she figured out C-O-I-N, T-H-I-S, and Y-O-U. The others were 
beyond her grasp at the moment, but now she was able to sound-out, read, and 
write three new words.

----------

Danka was the constant companion of the apprentice for the rest of the month. In 
the mornings she labored with her efforts to learn how to read, sounding out and 
writing longer and ever-more complicated words. The apprentice was impressed 
with her ward's progress, and also by her determination. Yes, the peasant had 
arrived as ignorant as a rock, but she was determined to overcome her deficient 
upbringing.

The apprentice liked having Danka with her. She continued to talk to her in a 
condescending manner and always looked at her as a social inferior, but still she 
enjoyed Danka's company. She could talk freely and test how to express Church 
doctrine in a way that an ignorant person could understand it. She practiced 
singing hymns with her ward and in exchange learned several bawdy peasant 
camp-fire songs. The girl's very roughness fascinated the fastidious apprentice 
and opened her understanding of a social group she had only seen from a distance.

During the afternoons Danka accompanied the apprentice on her rounds about the 
town. She especially enjoyed going to the market and haggling with the vendors 
over the price of food. The apprentice, coming from a wealthy family, was not 
worried about saving the Church money during her purchases, an attitude which 
mystified the peasant girl. Danka instinctually contested every purchase and 
astonished her mentor by forcing the vendors to cut their prices in half.

The apprentice read passages of both the Bible and the Book of the Ancients and 
explained to Danka the difference between the two books. She explained that 
there were two competing factions trying to assume control of the Danubian 
Church. The faction that controlled Danka's hometown of Rika Héckt-nemát and 
Rika Chorna was called the "True Believers", while the faction controlling 
Starívktaki Móskt and the main Temple in the capitol called themselves the "Old 
Believers". The "True Believers" mostly followed Christian beliefs, including the 
idea that the Lord-Creator existed in the form of a man and had a son called Jesus, 
and that Jesus, or the "Son of Man", was the person to whom most prayers should 
be directed.

The Old Believers countered that the idea that the Creator could have a human 
form and also have a son, who was executed by human soldiers of all things, was 
ludicrous. The Old Believers took most of their philosophy from the pre-Christian 
Book of the Ancients. They drew some ideas from the Bible, mostly from 
Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Isaiah, but their main focus was the Bible's predecessor, 
the book that outlined the more ancient beliefs of the country.

The apprentice was very clear where she stood in the conflict. "We are not part of 
Rome. Therefore, it makes no sense that we should accept the Roman Lord and 
pray to his executed son. It just makes no sense."

----------

Danka spent the rest of her time working with the other Penitents. She did not 
particularly enjoy being with them because their only conversations focused on 
chores. Protocol determined that a Penitent could not talk about herself or her life. 
Danka already knew penitents kept quiet around Clergy members, but she was 
surprised that the penitents also kept quiet around each other. Weeks went by and 
she knew no more about her companions than she did when she first met them. At 
first the silence was hard on Danka; to live with people she really could not 
converse with. Later she realized how much the silence worked to her advantage, 
because after the initial scare she had with the Senior Priest, no one questioned 
her motives or her right to live under the protection of the Church. Whatever her 
faults, she was accepted as a full member of the household.

Three times a week all of the women associated with the Temple gathered in the 
Cathedral to sing. Priestesses, seminary students, and penitents combined their 
voices in religious hymns and "formal" music. The majority of the songs were 
unaccompanied by instruments, but each woman's voice had a unique role in the 
songs. From the first day, the music director expected Danka to fully participate 
and learn where she needed to add her voice to each composition.

Danka felt more at peace with herself during the singing than at any other time of 
the day. She was part of something much bigger: just one voice among many, and 
yet with a unique role. She applied herself during the songs, determined to add her 
part to the women's collective effort. The music itself, sad, beautiful, and peaceful, 
calmed her nerves and helped her to push aside the trauma of her exile and the 
stress she was under trying to become literate. She felt enchanted with the 
Creator's peace during the practices and was always disappointed when they 
ended.

----------

For several days after arriving, Danka wondered if there were any male seminary 
students or male penitents working for the Temple in Starívktaki Móskt. At the 
end of the second week a group of dirty naked young men returned to the Temple 
with a wagon train loaded with supplies. There were over 20 men altogether. The 
majority were wearing penance collars, but eight were not. The eight un-collared 
men knelt before the Senior Priest and waited for him to look over several 
purchase documents related to the group's outing. Danka noticed the eight female 
seminary students waiting anxiously with bouquets of flowers, including her 
mentor. As soon as the men were dismissed, each paired up with one of the 
women. Following protocol, the women gave the flowers to the men and the men 
gave a basket of fruit to the women. They left to eat together and chat about the 
trip.

Danka later learned that Danubian Priests and Priestesses, especially among the 
"Old Believers", were expected to marry upon graduating from the seminary and 
before taking vows. That was why there was always the same number of male and 
female trainees attending a seminary at any time, because an unmarried person 
could not join the Clergy. Courting a marriage partner during seminary studies 
was as important as pursuing theological topics, given that Priests and Priestesses 
spent their lives working in pairs and were expected to have a close and flawless 
relationship. 

The two older female penitents led the men to a Temple storage annex to offload 
the supplies. Unlike the seminary students, there was no relationship at all 
between any of the male and female penitents. Most of the men did not even live 
on Temple property, but instead were staying with family members. Their life 
circumstances were different from the women as well; most expected to wear 
their collars no more than a year or so and then resume normal lives. The women 
lived with the Clergy because their situation was much more long-term and their 
families had rejected them.

----------

After two months of struggling with the strange world of letters and words, Danka 
was more-or-less literate. She had so pleased the apprentice that the trainee 
approached the Temple Senior Priest and asked to be given several pieces of 
parchment and an ink-well. Now Danka could practice writing on real paper with 
a real quill, instead of scratching letters in sand. Over the next several days the 
peasant filled every spot on the sheets with letters, words, and sentences. The 
apprentice triumphantly returned to the Clergy with the papers, showing them that 
she had managed to teach an illiterate adult how to read and write.

Now...finally...Danka could decipher Farmer Orsktackt's letter. Laboriously 
spelling and sounding out each word, she read the following:

If you are reading these words, then you will understand I was correct about you 
and that it is your Path in Life to be much more than the peasant I saw in my 
orchard. I do not know what your Path in Life will be, but I am confident it is not 
to dig wells and steal apples. The Lord-Creator has much more planned for you.

I am giving you a silver coin. I ask that you keep it with you and not spend it 
unless your life depends on it. The purpose of that coin is to keep you alive, 
should the need arise. This way, no matter what your struggles, you will never be 
completely destitute, you will always have what you need for an emergency. Just 
remember, once the coin is spent, it is spent. 

You will discover that life is like your coin. Once you spend your precious time 
on something, that time is spent and you will never have it again. Remember to 
appreciate every moment and every opportunity the Lord-Creator has granted you.

I wish you safe passage and happiness. I did what I could to give you the chance 
to escape. The rest is up to you.

Tuko Orsktackt - Rika Héckt-nemát Farmer's Guild

Danka folded the letter and picked up the coin. She spent a long time staring at it, 
memorizing every detail. She had wondered what to spend it on. In spite of the 
apprentice's skepticism about her plan to buy a dress, she had thought about using 
it for that purpose. However, there would be no dress purchase, because Danka 
now realized she was obligated to keep the coin with her. Its purpose was to save 
her life and it could not be spent on anything more trivial.

Danka was so immersed in her day-to-day activities that she failed to notice the 
passing of the summer. She did not keep track of dates, but had she been working 
outside she would have noticed the changes among the plants and animals 
signaling that autumn was fast approaching and the unpleasant dark days of 
winter were only weeks away. She didn't think about any of that: she was too 
immersed in her literacy and theological studies to notice anything going on 
immediately outside the Temple. At the end of August, her seminary mentor 
assigned her first full-length book: a theological training manual for children 
about to become teenagers. The assignment signaled that by the end of the 
summer Danka was reading at the level of a 12-year old.

On the first day of September hundreds of nervous-looking children and their 
parents gathered in the town plaza, while the seminary women, the penitents, and 
several Priestesses stood on the Temple steps singing Church hymns. The 
ceremony was for the annual Departure from Childhood, a ritual that, during the 
1700's, was held once each year in most of the provincial towns. Traditional 
Danubian society considered a person as a child until the age of 12 and an 
adolescent over the next three years. Adolescence was the most difficult period of 
a Danubian's life, because young teenagers no longer could live the care-free 
existence of a child, but did not yet have any of the rights of an adult. The girls 
would not braid their hair, nor the boys shave their heads, for another three years. 
However, they were about to experience the difficult reality of assuming adult 
responsibilities.

The 12-year-olds were wearing black prayer robes and each was carrying a toy. 
Each was accompanied by a much younger child, either a sibling or a cousin. The 
12-year-olds and their companions assembled at the steps of the Temple, while 
the other family members knelt in the Temple plaza. 

The Senior Priest and his wife stood on the steps, waited for the choir to finish 
their last song, and addressed the public. His speech was the one he gave every 
year about the Creator's Path in Life and personal transition. He began with one of 
the few passages from the Christian Bible's New Testament that was still quoted 
among the "Old Believers":

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a 
child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see 
through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I 
know even as also I am known. And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; 
but the greatest of these is charity."

The Priest paused for several moments as the assembled children fidgeted 
nervously. Finally he continued:

"The time has come for you to put away your childish things. It is your Path in 
Life. Whatever joys you had as a child have passed. Your Path in Life now will be 
totally different. The Creator commands that you put away all childish things."

The older children responded by handing off their toys to the younger ones. The 
younger children scampered back to their families, each happy to have something 
that had been treasured by their older sibling. The custom stipulated that the item 
given away had to be the adolescent's favorite toy or childhood item, the loss of 
which officially marked the end of the first phase of the Path in Life.

The choir sang another hymn before the Senior Priest continued. There was a 
lengthy prayer to the Creator, asking for guidance for this year's group of 
adolescents, along with the hope their lives will be charitable - that the 
presentation of the toy will be only the first selfless act out of many throughout 
their lives.

Danka recalled with bitterness the year she turned 12. She had to give up her only 
doll to her sister, who passed it to a friend who immediately lost it. That was the 
day she learned that her Path in Life was indeed to serve. She would give and 
Katrínckta would take. The Lord-Creator had determined that she would give 
charity, but not expect any in return. As a result, Danka's bitterness against both 
her family and the Lord-Creator festered over the following three years. If that is 
my Path in Life, then I will find a different Path in Life. I have no reason to accept 
the Lord-Creator's plans for me. I hate the Lord-Creator and I'll say that to his 
face if he ever has the courage to confront me. If I have to suffer the Hell-Fire for 
it, then I'll just deal with it when the time comes.

Now she was watching other adolescents forced to surrender their childhood. She 
felt sorry for them, because her own life after turning 12 had been nothing but 
hardship and misery. She wondered how many of those girls standing in black 
robes would be stuck in equally grim Paths in Life.

----------

The passing of September 1 reminded Danka that the summer had ended and that 
the weather would be changing within a few weeks. Already she noticed the days 
rapidly shortening and the nights becoming less and less comfortable for being 
outside with no clothing. When she arrived in Starívktaki Móskt her intention had 
been to stay just a few days, but the lure of living in a comfortable place and 
learning how to read encouraged her to postpone her departure. 

She expected the Clergy to tell her to move out at some point. However, by the 
end of the summer it seemed that was not going to happen. She was doing what 
she was supposed to do and earning her keep. The seminary student rarely left the 
Temple grounds without having the penitent go with her, which pulled Danka 
away from the more routine chores in the house. If the other penitents resented 
Danka continuously leaving, they never said anything about it. It was clear she 
was following the orders of her mentor, not acting on her own.

During most of her time at the Seminary, Danka's only real interaction with 
anyone was with her mentor. The relationship was a strange one: Danka was not 
only the trainee's unofficial student, but also her personal assistant, sidekick, 
companion, servant, and confidant. She could never be completely sure how she 
would be treated when the trainee whistled at her to set down what she was doing 
and depart on yet another outing. Usually the seminary student was totally bossy 
and condescending, but there were other times she shared her doubts and 
frustrations, treating the penitent in the same way she'd treat a close friend. 

For Danka the interactions were a welcome break from the silence of her 
companions and kept her from getting bored, even when her mentor was not being 
pleasant with her. More importantly, whenever Danka had to talk to any of the 
Clergy members, the seminary student took it upon herself to go with the penitent 
and speak on her behalf. Danka was still very intimidated by the Priests, so it was 
a relief not to have to converse with them.

----------

Right after the Path in Life ceremony for the 12-year-olds, the Church women's 
choir began practicing for important celebration that the "Old Believers" had 
revived, the Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead was important to both factions 
of the Danubian Church, but all of the details, even the date on which it was held, 
differed. The "True Believers" celebrated at the beginning of November, the date 
it was celebrated in other parts of Europe. The "Old Believers" celebrated on the 
date of the September equinox, in deference to pre-Christian traditions.

During the mid-eighteenth century, the Old Believers held their version of the 
Day of the Dead in two places, the capitol Danúbikt Móskt and the provincial 
center Starívktaki Móskt. In both places Temple apprentices and penitents 
commemorated the equinox by painting their bodies with chalk and charcol to 
assume the appearance of dead spirits. The body painting was very simple, but the 
resulting appearance was totally sinister, halfway between a ghost and a skeleton. 
Starting in the mid-1800's the number of marchers and the length of the march 
would increase considerably when the Ministry of Justice mandated that collared 
criminals also would participate each year they wore a Ministry collar. However, 
the judicial reforms of the late 1700's had not yet taken place and during Danka's 
life collared criminals had little contact with the Danubian Church.

After sunset the townsfolk gathered in the Temple plaza and knelt in their 
traditional black prayer robes. There was a lengthy service while the penitents and 
seminary students slowly marched around the plaza carrying torches. The torches 
were the only light in the city that night, because all other fires and lanterns had to 
be extinguished. 

It was common for the torch bearers to have visions during the march, and that 
night Danka had one. The fire from the torches merged into a massive fire in her 
imagination. It seemed all of the Duchy was burning...city after city. Among the 
burning ruins she saw thousands of bloody corpses. When she recoiled from them, 
they reached out to her. She screamed and tried to step back, but there were just as 
many corpses behind her as in front. There was no escape.

Suddenly everything went black. She was standing alone in a forest clearing. A 
large owl was staring at her.

"You know your true Master, Danka Síluckt. It is I."

"No. I don't. I don't know you."

"Ahhh, but you do, Danka Síluckt. Remember what the scripture says: ' The 
Destroyer enters the Realm of the Living through the mouth of the liar'. You will 
not escape from me, liar."

Danka woke up. She was still marching. 

No...no...no... That was just a bad dream... had to be... no relation with reality... 
best to forget... yes... forget... not tell anyone... bad dream... just a bad dream... 
just stay at the Temple... focus... forget... try to forget...
 

----------


Note: The Danubian Clergy was completely unaware of the ruse being used by 
the Farmer's Guild involving counterfeiting penance collars to safeguard their 
currency couriers. Had anyone from the Danubian Church realized that Danka 
was wearing a fake collar, the resulting scandal would have huge. It is likely the 
Clergy would have taken Danka to the Great Temple in Danúbikt Móskt and she 
would have been interrogated until she gave up the person who gave her the 
collar. The Danubian Church then would have investigated the Farmer's Guild 
and tracked down the artisans that were making the group's collars. The Church 
leaders would have approached the Grand Duke to request the execution of the 
artisans and the dissolution of the entire Guild. By 1750 Public Penance had 
become extremely important to the Old Believers as they sought to restore ancient 
practices to the Duchy's faith. Even in modern times, wearing the penance collar 
with devotion and piety remains one of the most sacred tenants of the modern 
Danubian Church. Using a collar for something as worldly as moving money 
would be considered a heinous act of blasphemy in Danubia.

So, what motivated Farmer Tuko Orsktackt to give up his guild's counterfeit 
collar, considering the risk it involved? The answer was that there were some 
circumstances unique to Rika Héckt-nemát's society that set the town apart from 
the rest of the Duchy, most notably the inhabitants' tendency to fall into bouts of 
mob hysteria. The panic over the Beelzebub story was typical of the town's 
behavior at the time. The fact that Farmer Tuko Orsktackt was willing to take 
such a huge risk by giving Danka his collar indicates the extent of the danger he 
believed he had placed himself and his family in by rescuing her.

- Maritza Ortskt-Dukovna -