The First Book of the Pure (7 page)

Mu’dar lifted one hand to indicate he would
now speak as an authority, as a teacher. “I will make some
observations. You must also learn to always make observations about
anything and everything, if you would study with me. I’m an old
man, and you’re young. I don’t know how long you would stay with
me, nor exactly why you desire to study. But my first observations
are these: You speak with a strange accent, and your words are hard
to understand. I’m fairly sure no group of people still use that
variation of our tongue. Secondly, you’re not a man of letters,
that is, you aren’t a man of academia, but a man of action, a
soldier perhaps. Thirdly, you perhaps are seeking how to best fit
in this place, with these people.” He waved his arm to indicate
those about them. “Am I at all accurate, young student?”

“Sir, you are accurate in all. I see that
I’ve come to the right man for what I desire. I need to speak as
they speak.” He also motioned to indicate those around them. “I
need to gain much in the way of writing, numbers, and logic. I
think you’re the man to teach me.” Max allowed himself a rare
smile, and Mu’dar responded in kind. Maximus opened his purse to
show the glow of golden coins and the flash of precious gems and
went on. “I’ll gladly pay for the teaching.”

“I see. But I expect you will find that we
have little need for such things. Some, of course, but not much.
Very well, let us begin.”

The days became months, and the months
stretched into years. Max had a keen mind, great instincts and an
unusually accurate intuition. He learned at a greater rate than any
student Mu’dar had ever taught.

Over time they developed a deep and relaxed
camaraderie, and thoroughly enjoyed one another’s company. They
became more associates than teacher and pupil, and Max was no
longer taken for a stranger or foreigner. For all his posturing
about being old, Mu’dar was still a vigorous man.

***

A few months after their relationship began,
the two were walking to the next town, and planned on being there
before evening. They rarely took any kind of transportation,
because Mu’dar had a saying, which he expressed far too often for
Maximus’ liking. “The going is far more important than the
arriving, and teaches one as the journey unfolds.” Max had learned
more patience with him, and they walked along the road, still paved
these many years since Maximus had watched Roman work gangs perform
that task. The thieves jumped out from behind the rocks at the side
of the road, and immediately demanded their possessions. “Give them
what they want, Maximus.” Mu’dar spoke quietly and urgently.
“Perhaps we shall live.”

“Sorry, master.” Max turned from Mu’dar to
the bandit leader. “You’ll take nothing from this good man, and you
cannot
take anything from me. Leave while you’re still
breathing.”

That brought peals of laughter from the
bandits, eight in all. Laughing so hard he could barely speak, the
leader began to tell Maximus why it was so funny. But before he
could get it out, he found a dagger hilt protruding from his chest.
He stared at it as if in amazement, and then sank to his knees.
“Any more volunteers?” Maximus asked with a fey smile.

One of the geniuses before him voiced his
lack of understanding. “Volunteers?”

“Let me rephrase it: does anyone else wish to
die today, or will you leave us in peace?”

As brutes were wont to be, they were
infuriated by the attack on their leader, even though they were the
initial aggressors. The others rushed Maximus, expecting to put him
down from sheer weight of numbers. Their weapons were at all
angles, and Maximus abruptly found himself, once again,
Sub-Commander Maximus, an elite killer for the Empire, his sword in
hand, eagerly meeting the pitifully undisciplined charge of these
brigands. He knew from vast experience that of these men, two would
have to die quickly, leaving probably three to approach him more
slowly, while most likely two would try to run off at some point
after their comrades started dying.

He rendered the front two weapons, spears,
into mere sticks as he swept their top two feet of length off with
one sweep of his blade. On his backswing he cut into a bandit’s
neck, slicing a major artery, which prompted a fountain of blood as
the bandit screamed and fell. The one to the left of the two brash
frontrunners fell with Max’s blade in and out of him so fast the
man wondered what was happening to him as he died, and the others,
a rabble really, fell quickly to his homicidal blade. Only one had
the time and sense to run for his life, and Max calmly took a small
throwing knife from his pouch and flung it expertly into the back
of the bandit. That one fell to the road, scrabbling to keep going
without his legs working properly. Max walked to him and lifted his
head by his hair. “I did tell you to leave while you could. Fool.”
He slashed the bandit’s throat with one clean movement, dropping
his neck to bleed out on the road.

Max walked from that corpse back to where the
seven other bodies were lying about in various tumbles and heaps. A
couple of arms and one head were no longer attached to bodies, and
lay by themselves. The bloodlust held him for a moment when all was
done, in the abrupt stillness. As the adrenaline faded away he
shook himself, and turned to face Mu’dar.

His teacher was aghast, having now seen the
other side of his pupil. He gripped folds of his cloak, his hands
clenching and unclenching, sweat running from his shaven head like
a small stream. “What have you
done
, Max? They’re all dead!
By the true God of heaven!” The anguish in his voice cut Max to the
quick, and disturbed him.

“They
are
dead, but we’re alive. We
would not be if they were. It’s simple deductive reasoning, that to
eliminate them was the best and more secure path to our continued
living.” He looked at his teacher for a response.

“Oh, Max, my friend. Just who
are
you,
that you are able to do this, and that you could do it in
seconds?”

A long lifetime of killing could not be
erased by the time he had been with Mu’dar. Maximus was taking all
of this very casually, which seemed to be callousness to Mu’dar.
Max decided to treat it as a lesson, howbeit a grisly one. “Is my
logic flawed, good teacher? Are not these men most probably wanted
for banditry and murder? Did I not just execute justice and also
save our lives? Are you wroth with me?”

“This is not a new thing to you, is it Max?
The killing I mean.”

“Of course not, master, but it’s been a long,
long time.” He lifted his blade to look at it, saw the blood
dripping from it, and knelt to clean it on the tunic of a dead
bandit. “A long time indeed, but my skills are still good. I had
wondered about that. Hmmm, I seem to have not escaped injury after
all.” He looked down at his side to see blood running in a sizable
stream from his side to his leg, leaching into the ground around
his sandal, turning the dry soil into a discolored mud.

“Max, you’re injured!” Mu’dar knelt to
inspect the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood with his bare
hands.

“It’s nothing my friend, so leave it. We must
be away from this soon, or others will come upon them and we’ll
have to answer too many questions. And how would you answer those
questions?” He gave Mu’dar a very pointed look. As he’d been
speaking, Maximus had torn a long strip of cloth from a fallen
bandit’s cloak, and tied it tightly around his mid section to stop
the bleeding. It wouldn’t do to leave such a trail for others to
follow.

Mu’dar was an educator, a wise man, and ever
practical. “And you can travel with that wound?”

“Come, let us away, Teacher.” Maximus hurried
Mu’dar down the road with his left hand on the small of his
master’s back, and his right hand holding his Roman short
sword.

That night they chose to camp, instead of
seeking out a lodging place, which might have invited too many
questions. As the fire created stomach stirring smells from the now
succulent looking hare Maximus was slowly turning on their wooden
spit, Mu’dar broke their silence. “What would you have me know,
Max?” The question was a gracious one, asking not for information
per se, but rather giving Maximus an invitation to share as much or
as little as he felt a need to share.

That earned Mu’dar a long stare from his
current student, his last, he’d decided some time ago. “Let me tell
you a tale my teacher, my friend, and you must not doubt the fact
that I am indeed your friend, as I speak.” He said it in a tone
that made it a question as he held his teacher’s eyes with his own.
Mu’dar nodded solemnly, oddly still trusting this man he had come
to know, in spite of the bodies lying on the road behind them.
“There was,” Max began, “some centuries ago, a soldier of Imperial
Rome, the sub-commander of a legion. He fought in the service of
Caesar, his Emperor; he was a very good soldier, and his name was
Maximus Palamos.”

Session 4

“You still don’t believe me, do you
Kenneth?”

“I’m trying to, really,” protested Kenneth,
looking a bit glassy eyed. He thought his host was way better
looking than the Grinch, but just as nuts.

“Let me share some history closer to home for
you, and a wonderful example of your own country’s horribly immoral
actions. This was in 1692, I believe. Ruby was going by another
name by then, and living another life. She picked the wrong place,
filled with folks who couldn’t accept anyone different from
themselves.” He looked down at Kenneth. “Although that seems to be
the general attitude of the majority of you Normals. She’d married
and outlived her husband yet again. I don’t know what happened to
him; perhaps she offed him, and then again perhaps he died a normal
death.” He paused and seemed lost in thought for a moment. “I would
guess it was not old age though; we can’t hide our age until a
spouse actually is old enough to die from old age. That would make
us freakish, and open to investigation and even
experimentation.

“Dear old Ruby was one of the witches your
people burned at the stake; no wait, she was hanged, actually. I
want to get this right, even though your people didn’t manage to.
She was hanged by the neck as it’s said, but not actually until
dead. Witch or not, convicted or not, they just couldn’t get her
dead.” He laughed loudly, and Kenneth did
not
find it a
pleasant sound.

Mary Parker (Ruby)

Condemned Witch

“The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial
Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were
accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil’s magic—and 20 were
executed.”

Smithsonian.com

Mary Parker was a wealthy widow who had moved
to Salem alone. There was, coincidentally, another family named
Parker in the town as well. It’s obvious where this is going. Mary
Parker was really Ruby, and she was accused of being a witch.

Her background wasn’t viewed as proper by the
people around her. After all, she was a woman who was in charge of
her own affairs, and a woman of means at that. It was a combination
almost unheard of in that day and age. Yet Mary seemed very
comfortable with her position and her independence. Many of the
other women in town were quick to criticize her. Perhaps their
outward dislike of her came from a deep, secret place inside where
they envied her freedom. That brought about a resentment for her
living as they would wish to live.

She was at the general store in Salem one
day, with its plank floors and stacks of merchandise. It was the
only place to obtain supplies and foodstuffs, and so was frequented
by the entire population of the town. In that quaint and necessary
place, one simple, helpful action triggered her demise. A child, a
young lady actually, the daughter of the other Parker, Alice, was
running loudly through the store. That wasn’t done either, even
though she was a child. Alice had a terrible time controlling her
daughter, and realized too late, as parents often do, that she was
getting out of control.

Mary (Ruby) had a strange weakness for the
problems and sorrows of young girls. Her own daughters had never
received their due from their fathers, and she’d never been able to
make the difference in their young lives. Now she watched this
child be a child, expending energy just to use it up, and she
smiled. She also thought she’d do this child a favor and teach her
that the ways of this community, this small culture, were not the
only ones she needed to learn. She wanted to somehow introduce this
child to the wider world.

When she ran by Mary, she tripped and fell on
her face. Mary pulled her foot back out of the narrow wooden
planked aisle, and with a skillful toss of her left hand, unseen by
anyone, she flipped a basket of roots, very smelly roots with earth
still on them, directly onto Sarah’s face. The young girl lay
there, smelled the acrid roots, and jumped up screaming. Mary
caught her arm in a steel grip and said quietly, “Hush. You’re in
trouble already. Do you want it to be worse? Here comes your
mother.”

Sarah was brushing roots and dirt off of
herself, shaking her long dress, and looking fearfully at her
approaching mother. “I didn’t do anything Mother.” She spoke so
quickly she stumbled over the words.

Alice, her mother, very embarrassed by her
daughter’s actions, spoke first to Mary. “I am
so
sorry,
Ma’am. She’s just a child, and I hope she didn’t bump you or
frighten you.” Turning her attention to Sarah, she said in a stern
voice, “Young lady, out! You cannot be acting like this in
here.”

Mary stepped in very smoothly. “Your name,
child?”