Once again she wears the chalice.

Confession of sin was insufficient for forgiveness; one must too complete penance. One commonly assigned to those who have committed great crimes is to walk the path of the pilgrim. To bear the chalice is more than just to travel, it is to travel as a servant. Any passing priest, mystic or holy man might assign the penitent tasks to perform - not mere labour and punishment, but opportunities to cleanse the soul through service and humility. 

Robena has worn the chalice of Xristos for many years, but the last pilgrimage was not hers. It was Sandsfern's and she was a retainer. It had not crossed her mind how many sneers, dismissive waves, careful avoidance of priests and convenient forgetting to wear the chalice was required to avoid even the assignation of penance, or how eager village druids would be for another set of hands when it came time to work the harvest, to find the lost lambs in the moors, to clean the nave. She has crossed the world drinking and fighting and waging war, and then she has crossed it back in silence and solitude. Now she crosses it hauling ploughs, sweeping floors, with hands bloody not from war but from the birth of lambs. 

For the first time she feels like she truly sees it.

She sees it foremost in her aching back and shoulders, in the callouses on her fingers. Alas, to be so obviously strong! Tasks which have been deferred for months or years because of the physical might required all come due when Robena passes through town! She has hauled a boulder from a well! She has pulled a mighty oak stump from the earth! She has wrenched boxes full of silverware from a bargewreck at the bottom of the River Mersey! The animating fluid that runs through the veins of the earth is not blood, not wine, it is [i]sweat[/i], and now when Robena looks upon the fields she understands at last the oceans of it required to keep this land green and growing. 

She has not turned from her penance yet once. She has not tucked away her cross, failed to pay respect or glared at a priest come to challenge her. Many days the exhaustion tried to tell her to do so - such exhaustion, and not even a celebration from victorious comrades to mark the battle's end! She had lived life as a vassal knight in her lady's castle and it had been comfortable. She had lived life as a vassal pilgrim traveling from tavern to tavern and it had been easy. She had crossed all the lands of Europe and it had not had been as hard as this little stroll across little England.

But then, she has always had the strength required. She simply never gave it before.

[Robena has taken the Penitent's Oath, which has given her the following Rights:
- The Right to visit shrines and holy places and pray before the relics within
- The Right to have penance assigned to her by holy figures, priest or druid or otherwise
- The Right to forsake worldly responsibilities until her penance is complete]