How did you cut him? The older nun, from behind.
I Nona pictured Raymel, golden hair curling across an unfurrowed brow, the smile opening into something else, blood sheeting crimson from the slices shed set deep in the meat of his neck. I pulled the dagger from his hip as I climbed.
That, said the younger nun, sounds unlikely.
Abbess Glass replied before Nona could deliver her sharp reply. Nevertheless, if you look more closely, Sister Apple, you will see that the girls tunic was once white rather than brown a brown which, if the guards at Harriton are to be believed, is a combination of drying blood and prison grime. Moreover she and her friend were both to be hanged for the murder of Raymel Tacsis.
Then why isnt he dead? Nona asked. She wanted Raymel to be dead.
Because his father is very rich, Nona. The abbess led them from the road onto a narrower track aimed towards the towering walls of the escarpment. Not just a little bit rich but rich enough to buy a different mansion to sleep in every night from now until age claims him.
Money doesnt matter when youre bleeding. Nona frowned. Rich or poor, people looked the same on the inside.
Thuran Tacsis is rich enough that he owns Academy men. The abbess hitched up her habit to help her climb the slope. I miss my crozier already. An old lady without her stick to lean on is a sad thing indeed.
Nona said nothing, not understanding the abbesss words.
Academy men Wizards, Nona! Mages. Sorcerers. Witches and warlocks. Children with marjal blood. Educated and raised at the emperors expense and bound to the Ark and to his service, but free to earn a living outside the palace until such time as he requires their skills.
They can raise a man from the dead? Suddenly she thought of her father, unable to remember anything of him but thick black hair and strong, safe arms.
No, but they can stop a live one becoming dead. Theres a boundary, a place where we cross over to join the Ancestor. Some among us can visit that boundary and hold a person there while their body heals from wounds that would otherwise make an end of them.
So rich people never die? Nona wondered at it, buying off death with gold coins.
The abbess shook her head. No warlock stays by the boundary for long. Her breath came shorter now as the way grew steeper. Thuran has a dozen warlocks working in shifts to hold his son from crossing. And many of the things that kill us the body cant repair, no matter how much time it is given. Cut flesh though, and lost blood a healthy body can mend one and replace the other. The real risk is when they bring a person back to their body there are beings that will try to follow in their wake and find a home in their minds. The longer the person is kept on the boundary, the harder it is to keep out such passengers.
Nona thought of Raymel Tacsis lying in his fathers halls surrounded by Academy men sweating to keep him from death. Saida was dead Nona had seen her feet poking beneath the sheet in the prison yard, their wrappings still stained with Raymels blood. She had no pity for him.
I hope he comes back full of devils and they eat his heart.
4
You could send the child on her way here, abbess.
They stood at the point where the track began its steep ascent up the tumbled cliffs of the plateau, cutting back and forth across the gradient in a dozen hairpin turns. The older nun turned to Nona and pointed across the woods and fields to the west. Morltown is five miles that way. A girl could make herself useful there, find fieldwork.
Sister Apple stood shoulder to shoulder with Sister Tallow. The high priest will be on this in a heartbeat. The Tacsis wont even have to ask.
Pick your fights and pick your ground, abbess, Sister Tallow said. Jacob would love to get his feet back under the convent table. This would be the perfect excuse.
And you did just steal her from prison Apple frowned, glancing back towards the distant city.
Mistress Blade tells me not to fight. A smile, then the abbess turned to begin the climb. And Apple tells me not to steal Nona started to follow her. Youre nuns. Show a little faith.
A last edge of the sun clung to the horizon as Abbess Glass led the way towards a peculiar forest of stone pillars, their shadows reaching across hundreds of yards of rock towards the travellers approach. Nona followed, flanked by the two nuns, neither of them winded by the long climb that had set the abbess wheezing. The old one, Sister Tallow, looked as if she could climb all day. The younger, Sister Apple, at least had the decency to appear flushed. Nona, toughened by endless laps at the Caltess, felt the climb in her legs, and the dampness of her shift where sweat stuck it to her back, but made no complaint.
The plateau, really one huge slab of rock, narrowed to a neck of land before widening into a promontory. The pillars stood across the neck, from cliff to cliff, dozens deep, scores across. Abbess Glass led the way through finding her path seemingly at random. All about them the columns, taller than trees, stretched towards the darkening sky. The place held an odd silence, the wind finding nothing to sing its tune, only stirring the dust and grit among the towers of carved stone. Nona liked it.
The pillars bounded Sweet Mercy Convent one side, and on the other the edges of two cliffs marched towards a sharp convergence. The main dome rose black against the crimson sky, a dozen and more outbuildings visible to either side. Nona followed the nuns towards its arched entrance, the weight of the day on her shoulders now, fatigue wrapping her in its dull grip, making both her anger and her sorrow grow more distant, shaping them into things that might be set apart for a night of dreams.
You live in there? As they drew closer Nona began to realize how large the dome was. The whole of the Caltess would fit inside several times over, stacked on top of itself.
Thats the Dome of the Ancestor, Nona. The Ancestor lives there, nobody else.
Is he terribly big? Nona asked. Behind her Sister Apple stifled a laugh.
The Ancestor occupies any space built in their honour. In Verity the Ancestor is present in ten thousand household shrines, some into which even you would find it hard to squeeze, others larger than most houses. Here on the plateau the church was able to give the Ancestor a grander home a gift of Emperor Persus, third of his name.
Nona followed on in silence, her lips buttoned against the thought that the Ancestor seemed very greedy to be taking up so much room while the children at the Caltess wedged themselves into any nook or cranny that would take them.
This is my house. Abbess Glass waved a hand at a blocky stone building looming out of the deepening shade. At least for as long as I am abbess here. Its also Malkins home. A large grey cat lay coiled on the steps. The abbess turned to face Nona and the two sisters. Sister Apple will find you somewhere to sleep and in the morning youll be introduced to your class, after which
Class? Nona blinked. In the village Nana Even had held class every seven-day, teaching the older children their numbers and such. Nona had tried to listen in but bigs chased her away as if their stupid numbers were a secret too important for her ears.
Class? Nona blinked. In the village Nana Even had held class every seven-day, teaching the older children their numbers and such. Nona had tried to listen in but bigs chased her away as if their stupid numbers were a secret too important for her ears.
Youre here to join the convent, Nona. Shadow hid the abbesss face but perhaps there was a smile there. If you want to. And that means living here and learning all the things a sister needs to learn. There are classes every day except seven-day. She turned and walked away.
Come, Nona. Sister Apple held out her hand. Nona regarded it, uncertain whether the woman wanted something from her. After a moment Apple returned her hand to her side and continued on around the curve of the dome. Sister Tallow followed, her habit flapping about her legs.
Darkness had swallowed the plateau behind them and the wind roamed there. Nona stared back along the path the nuns had brought her by, the pillars invisible now. The heat of the climb had left her and the Corridor wind ran sharp fingers through her Caltess shift, filching any remaining warmth. It carried a salt edge perhaps the sea, though it lay so many miles away. Nona shivered, hugged herself, and followed the nuns.
At the rear of the dome a long, low building extended like a tail on a huddled dormouse. Sister Apple stopped at a sturdy door beneath the peak of a tiled roof. A lantern swung on a hook, sparing enough light for the nun to match the iron key she drew from her habit to the keyhole in the doors locking plate.
Sister Apple lifted the lantern down from its hook, adjusting its cowl. These are the nuns cells. She kept her voice low.
Cells! Nona took a step back.
Not like prison cells. Sister Apple smiled, then frowned. Well, quite similar truth be told, but theyre clean and there are no locks on the doors. She stepped through the doorway. Youll sleep here tonight. If you study hard and do well you might get to come back for another night in about ten years.
The door gave onto a long corridor. The beam of Sister Apples lantern revealed the passage extended all the way to a black door where it reached the dome. Left and right, repeating every few yards, a pair of round-topped doors guarded nuns cells. Sister Apple walked in, stepping softly. Sister Tallow turned without a word as they passed the third pair and passed into the darkness of the cell to the left. The black door at the end drew Nonas eyes. Something about it.
Eighteen doors in, about half the length of the corridor, Sister Apple stopped and pushed open the door to the right. She leaned in and took a candle from the box on the wall, lighting it from the lantern. Youll be in here. Theres linen and a blanket on the pallet. Ill collect you in the morning. She handed the candle to Nona. Dont start any fires.
Nona watched Sister Apple walk back towards the main door, the light diminishing with her departure. Finally the nun entered one of the cells close to Sister Tallows, leaving Nona in her own small and flickering pool of light. The silence that had rolled back with the shadows now returned, deeper and thicker than any Nona had known. She stood, held by its completeness. No sound. Not the winds moan. Not the creak of timbers or rustle of leaves. Not the skittering of rats or the distant complaint of owls. Nothing.
The door at the end of the corridor reclaimed her attention, although the darkness had hidden it. The memory of that door, black and polished, pressed like a finger between her eyes. Her feet wanted to take her there, her hands to set themselves flat against the smooth wood and to feel up close the vast and slumbering fullness that lay beyond.
Somewhere a few cells back a woman coughed in her sleep, breaking the silence and the strangeness. Freed from both paralysis and compulsion, Nona raised a hand to shield her candles flame and advanced into the narrow room that Sister Apple had led her to.
Even her cell at the Harriton had boasted a window, high and barred perhaps, but offering the condemned the sky. Nonas new cell had a slit wide enough to reach her arm through, shuttered with a pine board. She made a circle. A sleeping pallet, a pillow, a chair, a desk. A pot to piss in. Last and strangest, a length of metal running along the outer wall at ground level. It emerged from the cell to the left and vanished through the wall to the right. Round as a branch and just a little too thick to close her hand around.
Nona sniffed. Dust, and the stale air of an unused room. She went to the pallet. Heat rising from the metal stick burned on her cheeks. The whole cell held the warmth of it. Nona pulled the pallet away from the hot metal, mistrusting it. She set the candle down, pulled the blanket over her, and laid her head on the pillow. One last look at the room and she blew out the flame. She stared at the darkness, her mind too full for sleep, certain that she would lie awake the whole night.
A moment later the clanging of an iron bell opened Nonas eyes. The door swung open, banging against the wall. Nona levered herself up from the pallet and blinked towards the entrance, the darkness now a gloomy half-light. A groan escaped her, every limb stiff and aching though she only recalled straining her legs on the climb.
Up! Up! No slug-a-beds here! Up! A small, angular woman with a voice that sounded as if it were being forced violently through a narrow hole. She strode into the cell, reaching over Nona to throw back the shutter. Let the light in! No hiding place for sin!
Through fingers held up to defend against the daylight Nona found herself staring into a humourless face pinched tight around prominent cheekbones, eyes wide, watery and accusing. The womans head, which had seemed a most alarming shape in the gloom, sported a rising white headdress, rather like a funnel, and quite different to those the other nuns had worn the previous evening.
Up, girl! Up!
Ah, I see youve met Sister Wheel. Sister Apple stepped through the open doorway holding a long habit, the outer garment grey felt, the inner white linen.
Sleeping after the morning bell, she was! The old woman raised her hands, seemingly unsure whether to strike Nona or to use them to better depict the enormity of her crime.
Shes new, Wheel, not even a novice yet. Sister Apple smiled and looked pointedly at the doorway.
A barefooted heathen is what she is!
Sister Apple spread her fingers towards the exit, still smiling. It was commendable of you to notice the cell had an occupant.
The older nun scowled and ran her hands over her forehead, tucking a stray strand of colourless hair back into her headdress. Theres nothing that goes on in these cells I dont notice, sister. She narrowed her watery eyes at Sister Apple then sniffed hard and stalked back into the corridor. The child stinks, she offered over her shoulder. It needs washing.
I brought you some clothes. Sister Apple lifted the habit. But I forgot how dirty you are. Sister Wheel is correct She folded her arms over her stomach. Come with me.
Nona followed Sister Apple out of the room, weaving around various nuns emerging from their cells or speaking in low tones in the corridor. A couple raised an eyebrow at her approach but none addressed her. At one point an angular nun brought Sister Apple to a halt by laying a hand upon her shoulder. She towered above the others, her height seemingly gained by stretching a regular woman far beyond her design, leaving her dangerously thin.
Mistress Blade reports armed men beyond the pillars. An emissary came before first light.