Catch. The abbess tossed yet another hoare-apple, but the girl dropped her three and let the fourth sail over her shoulder.
Wheres Saida?
You come with me, Nona Grey, the abbess said, her expression kindly. We will discuss Saida at the convent.
Im keeping her. Partnis stepped towards the girl. A treasured daughter! Besides, she damn near killed Raymel Tacsis. The family will never let her go free. But if I can show she has value they might let me put her into a few fights first.
Raymels dead. I killed him. I
Treasured? Im surprised you let her go, Mr Reeve, the abbess cut across the girls protests.
I wouldnt have if Id been there! Partnis clenched his hand as if trying to recapture the opportunity. I was halfway across the city when I heard. Got back to find the place in chaos blood everywhere Tacsis men waiting If the city guard hadnt hauled her up here shed be in Thurans private dungeon by now. Hes not a man to lose a son and sit idle.
Which is why you will give her to me. The abbesss smile reminded Argus of his mothers. The one shed use when she was right and they both knew it. Your pockets arent deep enough to get young Nona out of here should the Tacsis boy die, and if you did obtain her release neither you nor your establishment are sufficiently robust to withstand Thuran Tacsiss demands for retribution.
The girl tried to interrupt. How do you know my name? I didnt
Whereas I have been friends with Warden James longer than you have been alive, Mr Reeve. The abbess cut across the girl again. And no sane man would mount an attack on a convent of the faith.
You shouldnt take her for a Red Sister. Partnis had that sullen tone men get when they know theyve lost. Its not right. Shes got no Ancestor faith and shes all but a murderer. Vicious, it was, the way they tell it
Faith I can give her. What shes got already is what the Red Sisters need. The abbess reached out a plump hand towards the girl. Come, Nona.
Nona glanced up at John Fallon, at Partnis Reeve, at the hangman and the noose swaying beside him. Saida is my friend. If youve hurt her Ill kill you all.
In silence she walked forward, placing her feet so as not to step on the fallen apples, and took the abbesss hand.
Argus and the others watched them leave. At the gates, they paused, black against the red sun. The child released the abbesss hand and took three paces towards the covered mound. Old Herber and his mule stood, watching, as bound by the moment as the rest of them. Nona stopped, staring at the mound. She looked towards the men at the gallows a long, slow look then returned to the abbess. Seconds later the pair had vanished around the corner.
Marking us for death she was, Dava said.
Still joking. Still not funny.
3
A juggler once came to Nonas village, a place so small it had neither a name nor a market square. The juggler came dressed in mud and faded motley, a lean look about him. He came alone, a young man, dark eyes, quick hands. In a sackcloth bag he carried balls of coloured leather, batons with white and black ribbons, and crudely made knives.
Come, watch, the great Amondo will delight and amaze. It sounded like a phrase he didnt own. He introduced himself to the handful of villagers not labouring in field or hut and yet brave enough to face a Corridor wind laced with icy rain. Laying his hat between them, broad-brimmed and yawning for appreciation, he reached for four striped batons and set them dancing in the air.
Amondo stayed three days, though his audience dried up after the first hour of the first evening. The sad fact is that theres only so much entertainment to be had from one man juggling, however impressive he might be.
Nona stayed by him though, watching every move, each deft tuck and curl and switch. She stayed even after the light failed and the last of the children drifted away. Silent and staring she watched as the juggler started to pack his props into their bag.
Youre a quiet one. Amondo threw her a wizened apple that sat in his hat along with several better examples, two bread rolls, a piece of Kennals hard goats cheese, and somewhere amongst them a copper halfpenny clipped back to a quarter.
Nona held the apple close to her ear, listening to the sound of her fingers against its wrinkles. The children dont like me.
No?
No.
Amondo waited, juggling invisible balls with his hands.
They say Im evil.
Amondo dropped an invisible ball. He left the others to fall and raised a brow.
Mother says they say it because my hair is so black and my skin is so pale. She says I get my skin from her and my hair from my da. The other children had the tan skin and sandy hair of their parents, but Nonas mother had come from the ice fringes and her fathers clan hunted up on the glaciers, strangers both of them. Mother says they just dont like different.
Those are ugly ideas for children to have in their heads. The juggler picked up his bag.
Nona stood, watching the apple in her hand but not seeing it. The memory held her. Her mother, in the dimness of their hut, noticing the blood on her hands for the first time. Whats that? Did they hurt you? Nona had hung her head and shook it. Billem Smithson tried to hurt me. This was inside him.
Best get along home to your ma and pa. Amondo turned slowly, scanning the huts, the trees, the barns.
My das dead. The ice took him.
Well then. A smile, only half-sad. Id best take you home. He pushed back the length of his hair and offered his hand. Were friends, arent we?
Nonas mother let Amondo sleep in their barn, though it wasnt really more than a shed for the sheep to hide in when the snows came. She said people would talk but that she didnt care. Nona didnt understand why anyone would care about talk. It was just noise.
On the night Amondo left, Nona went to see him in the barn. He had spread the contents of his bag before him on the dirt floor, where the red light of the moon spilled in through the doorway.
Show me how to juggle, she said.
He looked up from his knives and grinned, dark hair swept down across his face, dark eyes behind. Its difficult. How old are you?
Nona shrugged. Little. They didnt count years in the village. You were a baby, then little, then big, then old, then dead.
Little is quite small. He pursed his lips. Ive two years and twenty. I guess Im supposed to be big. He smiled but with more worry in it than joy, as if the world made no more sense and offered no more comfort to bigs than littles. Lets have a go.
Amondo picked up three of the leather balls. The moonlight made it difficult to see their colours but with focus approaching it was bright enough to throw and catch. He yawned and rolled his shoulders. A quick flurry of hands and the three balls were dancing in their interlaced arcs. There. He caught them. You try.
Nona took the balls from the jugglers hands. Few of the other children had managed with two. Three balls was a dismissal. Amondo watched her turning them in her hands, understanding their weight and feel.
She had studied the juggler since his arrival. Now she visualized the pattern the balls had made in the air, the rhythm of his hands. She tossed the first ball up on the necessary curve and slowed the world around her. Then the second ball, lazily departing her hand. A moment later all three were dancing to her tune.
Impressive! Amondo got to his feet. Who taught you?
Nona frowned and almost missed her catch. You did.
Dont lie to me, girl. He threw her a fourth ball, brown leather with a blue band.
Nona caught it, tossed it, struggled to adjust her pattern and within a heartbeat she had all four in motion, arcing above her in long and lazy loops.
The anger on Amondos face took her by surprise. She had thought he would be pleased that it would make him like her. He had said they were friends but she had never had a friend and he said it so lightly She had thought that sharing this might make him say the words again and seal the matter into the world. Friend. She fumbled a ball to the floor on purpose then made a clumsy swing at the next.
A circus man taught me, she lied. The balls rolled away from her into the dark corners where the rats live. I practise. Every day! With stones smooth ones from the stream.
Amondo closed off his anger, putting a brittle smile on his face. Nobody likes to be made a fool of, Nona. Even fools dont like it.
How many can you juggle? she asked. Men like to talk about themselves and their achievements. Nona knew that much about men even if she was little.
Goodnight, Nona.
And, dismissed, Nona had hurried back to the two-room hut she shared with her mother, with the light of the moons focus blazing all about her, warmer than the noon-day sun.
Faster, girl! The abbess jerked Nonas arm, pulling her out of her memories. The hoare-apples had put Amondo back into her mind. The woman glanced over her shoulder. A moment later she did it again. Quickly!
Why? Nona asked, quickening her pace.
Because Warden James will have his men out after us soon enough. Me theyll scold you theyll hang. So pick those feet up!
You said youd been friends with the warden since before Partnis Reeve was a baby!
So you were listening. The abbess steered them up a narrow alley, so steep it required a step or two every few yards and the roofs of the tall houses stepped one above the next to keep pace. The smell of leather hit Nona, reminding her of the coloured balls Amondo had handed her, as strong a smell as the stink of cows, rich, deep, polished, brown.
You said you and the warden were friends, Nona said again.
Ive met him a few times, the abbess replied. Nasty little man, bald and squinty, uglier on the inside. She stepped around the wares of a cobbler, laid out before his steps. Every other house seemed to be a cobblers shop, with an old man or young woman in the window, hammering away at boot heels or trimming leather.
You lied!
To call something a lie, child, is an unhelpful characterization. The abbess drew a deep breath, labouring up the slope. Words are steps along a path: the important thing is to get where youre going. You can play by all manner of rules, step-on-a-crack-break-your-back, but youll get there quicker if you pick the most certain route.
But
Lies are complex things. Best not to bother thinking in terms of truth or lie let necessity be your mother and invent!
Youre not a nun! Nona wrenched her hand away. And you let them kill Saida!
If I had saved her then I would have had to leave you.
Shouts rang out somewhere down the steepness of the alley.
Quickly. The alley gave onto a broad thoroughfare by a narrow flight of stairs and the abbess turned onto it, not pausing now to glance back.
They know where were going. Nona had done a lot of running and hiding in her short life and she knew enough to know it didnt matter how fast you went if they knew where to find you.
They know when we get there they cant follow.
People choked the street but the abbess wove a path through the thickest of the crowd. Nona followed, so close that the tails of the nuns habit flapped about her. Crowds unnerved her. There hadnt been as many people in her village, nor in her whole world, as pressed into this street. And the variety of them, some adults hardly taller than she was, others overtopping even the hulking giants who fought at the Caltess. Some dark, their skin black as ink, some white-blond and so pale as to show each vein in blue, and every shade between.
Through the alleys rising to join the street Nona saw a sea of roofs, tiled in terracotta, stubbled with innumerable chimneys, smoke drifting. She had never imagined a place so big, so many people crammed so tight. Since the night the child-taker had driven Nona and his other purchases into Verity she had seen almost nothing of the city, just the combat hall, the compound where the fighters lived, and the training yards. The cart-ride to Harriton had offered only glimpses as she and Saida sat hugging each other.
Through here. The abbess set a hand on Nonas shoulder and aimed her at the steps to what looked like a pillared temple, great doors standing open, each studded with a hundred circles of bronze.
The steps were high enough to put an ache in Nonas legs. At the top a cavernous hall waited, lit by high windows, every square foot of it packed with stalls and people hunting bargains. The sound of their trading, echoing and multiplied by the marble vaults above, spoke through the entrance with one many-tongued voice. For several minutes it was nothing but noise and colour and pushing. Nona concentrated on filling the void left as the abbess stepped forward before some other body could occupy the space. At last they stumbled into a cool corridor and out into a quieter street behind the market hall.
Who are you? Nona asked. She had followed the woman far enough. And, realizing something, wheres your stick?
The abbess turned, one hand knotted in the string of purple beads around her neck. My name is Glass. Thats Abbess Glass to you. And I gave my crozier to a rather surprised young man shortly after we emerged from Shoe Street. I hope the wardens guards followed it rather than us.
Glass isnt a proper name. Its a thing. Ive seen some in Partnis Reeves office. Something hard and near invisible that kept the Corridor winds from the fight-masters den.
Abbess Glass turned away and resumed her marching. Each sister takes a new name when she is deemed fit to marry the Ancestor. Its always the name of an object or thing, to set us apart from the worldly.
Oh. Most in Nonas village had prayed to the nameless gods of rain and sun as they did all across the Grey, setting corn dollies in the fields to encourage a good harvest. But her mother and a few of the younger women went to the new church over in White Lake, where a fierce young man talked about the god who would save them, the Hope, rushing towards us even now. The roof of the Hope church stood ever open so they could see the god advancing. To Nona he looked like all the other stars, only white where almost every other is red, and brighter too. She had asked if all the other stars were gods as well, but all that earned her was a slap. Preacher Mickel said the star was Hope, and also the One God, and that before the northern ice and the southern ice joined hands he would come to save the faithful.