The Order of the Grail was a welcomed sight after months of traipsing through the wilds, suffering poor hospitality or camping on the side of the road, wet, hot, tired and at the mercy of every monster and vagabond that might come across their path. Caste felt like weeping at the sight of the auspicious building made from grey stone. Against the softer colours of Astaril, the starkness of the stone was the choice the original founders made to ensure that, whatever else might befall, the Order was strong and not to be taken lightly. There were no pretty statues of love or towers for the stars but sharp arches, narrow columns and high ceilings.


    Archdeacon Adamis brought Caste to the main doors which had a grand antechamber, the walls inscribed with the founding principals of Astaril. After the antechamber was a courtyard where several deacons walked, their hands tucked into the folds of their cappa clausa, speaking softly to each other or staring vaguely up at the sky.


    After the antechamber was the Hall of Rote where novitiates, who were attempting to secure their place as a cleric, copied the same precepts, letters and approved doctrines into leather pouches. Each paper would be checked by deacons, every line scrutinised for minute mistakes, regardless if they were accidental or a result of lazy copying. That way, when the novitiate became a cleric, they had the founding principals drilled into their heads over and over and the leather pouches would be bound together, forming their own copy of the doctrine of Astaril.


    It was tedious, exacting work, especially when a single mistake meant the entire page had to be rewritten. Some novitiates abandoned their dream of becoming a cleric because they had to write the same passage or letter a dozen times. Caste was quite proud of his extremely low rewrite rate, less than a dozen over the course of, what was supposed to be three years of intense training done in just under two years. There were rows of tables, uncomfortable pews and the bowed heads of novitiates scribing constantly. The rule was they were to work in complete silence so the only sound in the air was the scratch of quill on parchment. Three deacons were assigned to the hall each day to watch over the novitiates as they scribed and copied. They sat at the front of the Hall of Rote, reading whatever paper had last been handed to them, checking that each had been copied without fault.


    A novitiate would know their work had been approved when the deacon checking it would indicate that they could move on to the next letter or doctrine to be copied. A deacon who rose from the table and strode down the hall, paper in hand, was a sure sign that a novitiate was about to have to redo all their work. In that moment, the air in the hall went from silent to breathless as they waited to see who would have to strain their silent groan as their work was returned with hard lines and an even harder expression.


    Archdeacon Adamis led Caste along the side of the hall, past the bookshelves lined with countless letters, notations, missives, testaments and observations in book form. In the centre of the hall was the ink well refilling table and novitiates sometimes used the opportunity to refill their well to have a reprieve from their aching necks and backs and to work out the cramps in their fingers. Every novitiate’s allocation of papers was renewed each morning inside their desk along with their quills, a small blade to sharpen them and plenty of blotting paper.


    Even though Caste was very young to have completed his novitiate, he found the faces and bodies of the adolescent males to be even younger still. They were a mass of spots, untidy hair, shadows beneath their eyes and red around the eyes of the ones missing their families. For most who entered the Order of the Grail, it was something they always wanted to do. Those that thought it was a doddle and didn’t want to go into the family business or curb their lazy disposition to accept an apprenticeship, soon fled back to that which they had first so despised. The others who wanted to do it were more likely the ones who lasted. There was a third group that made up a small portion of the novitiates and those were the ones who couldn’t do anything else. They were unlikely to ever receive an apprenticeship, had no family business to embrace even the clumsiest of children and not talented enough to make it on their own. Often those were the novitiates who worked the hardest because if they failed there, there was nowhere else for them to go.


    Caste knew he was receiving curious glances and felt himself puff up, hoping he made an admirable spectacle. Even the deacons looked up and one jaw dropped completely. Archdeacon Adamis did not pause through the hall so the interruption lasted less than a minute but Caste felt great pride at walking through the hall yet also great relief at leaving it behind.


    He had wanted to be there and he had the mental capacity to handle the work well. Perhaps his urge to complete the work so quickly was seen as arrogance but it was less about the work than it was about the social interactions…if that’s what intimidation and torment was excused as.


    Caste had not been widely liked as a child and his faint hope that he would be welcomed by similar maligned souls in the novitiate program was dashed when brash individuals in his class, too lazy to take up a physical apprenticeship and just smart enough to pass the entry exams, banded together. They had called themselves ‘alphas’ and proceeded to make Caste’s life a misery when it should have been fulfilling.


    And the deacons did nothing about it so Caste took matters into his own hands and was promoted ahead of the alphas and all others in his class, relieved to be out of their clutches only to be assigned to Judd LaMogre not a year later.


    After the Hall of Rote they climbed a dark wood staircase with white marble busts of all the bishops who had previously served as the head of the Order set in alcoves, their names and years they had given in the role engraved on brass plates. By the time deacons became one of the twelve archdeacons and had a shot at becoming bishop, they were hardly young men. Between age, bad health and the odd carriage incident, the average time for a bishop to serve was under a decade which was why Bishop Peele’s stint at twenty eight years was so impressive, second only to Sagges who made it to the awe inspiring three decade mark.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Clerics who did not continue in the Order often went on to apply for positions as tutors in noble families or accountants for tradesmen who could not add up a column of figures like the former cleric could not hammer a nail. Some clerics were assigned to forts, learning from the cleric prior to them if they were alive like Deacon Alast and Cleric Rodel or thrown in the deep and trusted in their training to survive. Most of what they did was record keeping which was not that different from their novitiate work.


    There weren’t a lot of clerics in the Order of the Grail’s building except those who preferred dusty corners and dustier books, happily scribing away where no one would bother them, maintaining the records of the Order. So the men that passed Caste on the stairs, whispering as they went, had to be deacons. There was little to tell between the position except for the lustrous quality of their clothing and the precious metal of their lopsided four pointed star…and that their hair was often greying.


    Caste’s red shock of hair, green eyes and arms clutched around his chest and sack were something of an oddity as he followed Archdeacon Adamis up through the chambers of the deacons where Caste had been looking forward to his own room and study space. They were not excessive but they did mean he could escape the world by shutting the door.


    The next storey was set aside for the twelve archdeacons, men who had tuned their focus into certain areas and gained renown for their papers, their achievements and discoveries and mostly, for not falling into the trap of romance, getting married and losing the battle with the desire for physical intimacy.


    Finally, the last staircase, which was set at the back of the Order’s property, at the top of the building, with the mountain as a backdrop and Italea Bay laid out like a sapphire blanket, was the bishop’s abode. He had his own grand bedchamber, bath and servants who served him in his personal dining room where it was rumoured he never ate off the same plate twice. He had his own private library which was also his office/den. Caste had been in it once before and recalled the cabinet of hefty decanters filled with richly hued liquors took up almost as much space as the grand fireplace, two dark green plush wingback chairs sitting in front of it and a desk of wood so smoothly polished you could see your face in it.


    There was a vestibule outside the den. Calling it a ‘landing’ seemed irreverent given the illustrious chambers that branched from it through three separate doors. Archdeacon Adamis bade Caste to sit on a chair near the den door.


    “Wait here while I make sure Bishop Peele is well enough to receive you.”


    Caste nodded, licking his lips in anticipation. Adamis knocked on the door nearest to Caste, the door swinging in as though it had not latched properly. He was called inside and gave the door a push to close it but the door caught on a corner of a rug which must have been the reason it hadn’t been closed properly before and remained ajar.


    “Adamis,” Bishop Peele’s voice was gravelly and unfortunately congested, “what brings you here when I made it clear I was not to be disturbed?”


    “I apologise for the interruption of your convalescence, Your Eminence…”


    “Yes, yes…”


    “Judd LaMogre has returned to Astaril.”


    “LaMogre…LaMogre…the knight assigned to Fort Faine?”


    “No, Your Eminence. You remember Sir Rylan’s knighthood quest proposal and the clerics assigned to the first born sons of middle class families?” Caste couldn’t tell if Bishop Peele’s huff was confirmation or a stifled sneeze. “Judd LaMogre set out on the quest months ago and has returned, to all accounts after a cursory examination of requirements by myself, successful.”


    “He would have to be the only one.” Caste heard the clink of glassware and wondered if the poorly Bishop was pouring himself some medicinal comfort. “Who was the cleric assigned to him? Tiele? Rodel? There are so many names I forget most of them. Well, whoever they are, being associated with a successful questor will warrant immediate promotion to deacon.”


    Caste’s heart thrilled at the news. He had been on the fast track of promotion to the office of deacon but after being assigned to the knighthood quest and Judd LaMogre, he thought it was just another dashed hope. But from the sounds of it, with Judd LaMogre’s success and elevation, Caste was rising along with it.


    “Bishop Peele…”


    “Once all the evidences are sighted and confirmed by myself, of course.”


    “Your Eminence…”


    “Such a diligent officer of the Grail will be given a weekly placement at my table and what with his fresh, worldly perspective and experience, he could well have a niche into which the role of archdeacon would naturally fall.”


    “Bishop Peele!”


    “Have no fear, Adamis, your post will not be in danger. I’ll retire one of the other archdeacons who have exhausted their active usefulness in the role should this young cleric…cleric…cleric who?”


    “Caste Undern.”


    Caste held his breath, his name spoken aloud and all his hopes and dreams stretched out before him like the firmest, grandest road in Astaril.


    “Not Undern!” Peele’s gravelly and congested voice was so unexpectedly sharp that Caste jolted like he’d been slapped. “That pedantic, neurotic perfectionist was the most disliked and shunned novitiate that ever clawed his way up to the rank of cleric!”


    “His work was impeccable allowing him to graduate a year before any of his peers…”


    “What do I care about his abilities when his very nature makes me want to pull fingernails? Do you know he had the gall to correct ‘discrepancies’ in several of my papers and presented them to me with supporting documentation? The presumption!”


    Caste was numb. He felt nothing as he heard them speak. Not anger, sorrow or despair. Just a wave of numbness as though his whole body had gone into shock.


    “I agree, Your Eminence. It was why his name was at the top of the list to be assigned a middle class questor.”


    “We should have chosen a more incompetent first born…” Bishop Peele groused.


    “The temporary knighthood academy set up by Sir Rylan to train these men warned us that, out of the list of risky first borns, LaMogre was the least likely to succeed and the most likely to be killed, taking his cleric down with him. It’s why we paired them together.”


    “He simply didn’t have the decency to die out in the wilds…and not only that, to return successful…now there’s no escaping Undern! Just when I thought this day couldn’t become any more miserable…you’d best send him in and get it over with.”


    However, when Archdeacon Adamis opened the door, calling Caste to enter, he found the vestibule empty.