Five months after he had arrived, he asked Loprin to take him as a pupil.
For the first time the old man held back immediate affirmation. "This is a serious thing you ask me," he told Pel. "The most important thing is to harm no one. If a patient is going to die, he will die. You can ease his going, if it is his wish. That is mercy. For the rest, do your best and trust in Meshpri. There will always be those who blame you for the loss of a loved one, but if you are honest they will understand you could did all you could."
He stayed with Loprin for several years, learning the old man's craft. He had discovered life-oriented gods to whom he felt he could honestly devote himself, but as it had been Meshpri who had led him to his new life, Pel gave her the greatest devotion. He had traded one goddess for another, and never regretted it for a moment.
As Loprin's apprentice the villagers had accepted his care, but he knew the robe, mask and gloves frightened them. They needed to see a human face, see human hands giving to them. He wanted to rid himself of the marks of Dyareela that covered his entire body, including his scalp. For that, Loprin explained, they had to turn to the gods. Still not judging, but with a twinkle in those kind old eyes, he began preparations.
Shaved as bare as a newborn, he lay on Meshpri's altar in the light of the new moon. Every tattoo, every word and number, every sacred whorl and scroll stood out in the silver light. The red on his hands glimmered like blood. The potion Loprin poured into his na-vel had taken many months to prepare. It was cold. Pel felt himself divided into three people: the one on the altar reaching out to his new goddess and taking everything very seriously, the watcher standing back and trying to save all these strange sensations and thoughts for later, and the little boy, stifled for so long, who wanted to giggle at the whole process.
"Be as a newborn," the healer had intoned. "Unmarked, untouched, at the beginning of your life once more. Clear your heart of what went before. As without, so also within."
Then the pain had begun.
"You should've froggin' asked me to come first," the large young man said to Pel, not for the first time, as he dodged a falling tile. It crashed on the floor between their feet. In spite of the cold of the day he was sweating, having just hauled in half a cart of stone blocks. He raised his voice to shout above the noises of sawing, hammering and talking, the busy sounds of fifteen other people who were present on an Anensday to work off their medical bills.
"Shoring up those pillars, resetting the walls-those ought to be done before anything on the gods' cursed roof!"
"Sorry," Pel said, brushing fragments off the front of his tunic. "I don't know anything about construction. I can have them all stop what they're doing and help you instead."
"Why in the froggin' hell didn't you ask Carzen?" Cauvin asked, pointing to the woodman, who was standing near a wall with his arms folded. "He could've told you the same."
He wanted Pel to make a fool of himself, the apothecary thought, half-humorously. "He said labor's extra. I guess that included advice, too."
Cauvin spat, but he grinned, too. He knew Carzen well. "I won't charge extra for getting these puds workin', but Grabar wants paying for his stone. He says the sleep remedy didn't froggin' work!"
"It was one of two possible cures for the symptoms he described," Pel explained. "Loud snoring, sudden wakefulness, feeling like he's choking in his dreams, and so on. One condition's more dangerous than the other. I hoped it wasn't that. I'll send the other potion with you today."
"If it works the deal's on, but if not, you'll have to come up with the soldats," Cauvin said, folding his meaty arms. Pel nodded humbly.
"Done." Pel felt like a stripling beside the stonecutter. Because of his skin-renewal they looked to be about the same age, but Pel knew he was a good ten years older then Cauvin. Though the stoneyard put out that Cauvin was their long-lost son, Pel knew better. In fact, the man who had been the priest Wrath remembered when the Servants had dragged Cauvin in from the streets and dropped him in the pits. The boy had been big for his age, and in trouble a lot of the time. What a scrapper he'd been even then, determined to survive in the hell in which the adults had trapped him. Pel had had to haul him out for punishment once when a boy had died. The others had blamed Cauvin, but the other had been far larger and had fewer marks on him.
Thank all chance Cauvin didn't seem to remember him. To grow up so well, to become a respected man in this disrespectful town, was an achievement, twice so coming from such disadvantages. Pel rejoiced for him that he'd found a good sponsor, as good as Loprin had been for him.
"Friends!" he shouted. He picked up a mixing paddle and banged it on the altar to get everyone's attention. "Stop! There's a change in plan. Stop what you're doing and come down. Master Cauvin will tell you what to do."
With a curt nod to the apothecary the stonemason turned to his new workforce. Pel went back to his brazier, where a huge jug of water was brewing for tea. Some of the visitors had hinted that beer or liquor would have been more welcome, but there was no chance Pel was letting someone climb to the forty-foot ceiling with a skinful. Just in case of accident, he had prepared a load of bandages and salves. There was food, though. He'd asked the people who couldn't work to bring things to eat for the workers. A few of them had shirked it, like Ma Sagli, who'd brought half a dozen biscuits and called it her share. Pel was holding his ire until the next time she came in looking for her phlegm medicine. Others, like Chersey, the money-changer's wife, brought in a big basket of meat rolls, far more than she owed for the vial of flux medicine she had needed for her youngest. She was keeping one eye on the comestibles and the other on her two small children, who were playing with the scraps of wood near his herb baskets. A few others had come to watch the construction, huddles of blankets safely out of the way of the workers.
The place would be very fine when it was finished. He hoped the goddess would be happy with her refurbished temple. Every padpol Pel didn't use for food or the raw materials for his medicines was put onto the altar as offerings to be used toward remaking the goddess's house. He had sixteen strong new joists, some blocks of stone, and waterproof cloth that would go up on top until he could afford the right enameled copper tiles for the roof. That could take years, money being what it wasn't.
This was the third workday that Pel had organized. The first was only a couple of months after he had returned to Sanctuary. The idea had come about because hard currency seemed to be in such short supply everywhere. If the Rankan lords had plenty of money, they weren't spending it in the city. Nearly all businesses but the taverns were taking some of their pay in trade. What Pel needed more than anything was helping hands. Meshpri's temple needed to be restored, but before that could occur all the rubbish that had accumulated needed to be cleared out and the building shored up so he could live in it without fearing for his life. In spite of his rejuvenation by Loprin, Pel could neither move stone blocks nor hammer up buttresses by himself. He tried to be as fair as he could in estimating the value of his services, but quickly discovered that any man who didn't add a hundred or even three hundred percent onto the base cost was a fool, and an exhausted and resentful one at that. He'd ended up doing most of the hauling himself.