Praedium Archive
Statement of Gioquomo Piegatore, shipwright, La Sorella. Currently under Extraordinary Censure at Arx Fax.

We do a lot of trade here with the temple. Strange kind, them. Even the novices that they send down to buy the sheep and the flatware from time to time seem so peaceful and enlightened. Every once in a while one of the masters comes down and talks to all the farmers and the shopkeepers in the town market. They tell us the principles that we should live by to make our lives important and meaningful. Everyone is part of a circle, they say, and every one of us has a place on it. I know a lot of people’d like to believe that, seeing as how things are going in these times. But the monks of the Water Temple are good to us; they steady the waters during a storm if people are getting hurt, and they make sure that the fishermen can keep their catch. That’s all we need, really. I know they can do more, but I know it’s all we need. I suppose in a lot of ways, we’ve all become dependent on the Temple. We don’t mind though. They’re a lot more easy going than the King.

My niece tried to join them, actually. She’s such a sweet girl, always wanting to help everyone. She loved to listen to the speeches that the monks would give in the market about the Truth and the ways which a man could become better, more than he was. She wanted to live out those principles, be more than she was so she could do more for others. Such a sweet girl. She talked to the Novices and asked how she could be like them, and they sent her to the monastery to speak to one of the masters. I don’t know what they said or did. I don’t know what went on up on the hill, that day. But she came home a wreck, said she didn’t understand, would never understand, didn’t want to understand the Truths of the world. She took her life that summer, bless her. Such a sweet girl.

Even so, I don’t blame the Temple for that. That was her choice, and the monastery has always been good to us. Everyone and every thing is part of a circle, they say.