Grey Sister

  “Break!” Sister Tallow called.

  All around them the other novices watched amazed. Apart from the dropping of jaws none of them had had time to move.

  “Good,” Tallow repeated. “Changing rooms.”

  “There.” Zole heaved in a breath. “Was that a bell?”

  Nona hadn’t heard it either. She grinned. An echo of it showed on Zole’s lips. The ice-triber pushed back sweaty hair and turned for the changing room.

  “Nona.” Sister Tallow pointed to the chair that Joeli had vacated. “When you’ve finished here, Nona, have Sister Rose look at those injuries.” The nun walked across to Joeli, now standing beside the chair, and handed her the razor. “If you cut her, Joeli, you’ll be her sparring partner next lesson.”

  Sister Tallow relieved Nona of her training sword and went to stow it away. Nona took her place in the chair without a word, staring straight ahead.

  “A close shave will make it easier to wear a wig for the Shade Trial.” Joeli held the back of Nona’s head, lifting the razor to Nona’s brow, the steel cold on her skin. “You might get past us as a blonde . . .” The razor scraped and a chunk of black hair fell into Nona’s lap.

  Slice her throat. Say she tried to kill you. Keot flowed along the veins and tendons in Nona’s wrist.

  No. For a moment the idea tempted her. Keot’s violence bleeding through. At least Nona hoped it was just that.

  Yes! Keot moved across her down-turned palm, a scarlet scald. He twitched in her fingers, trying to take control.

  No. Nona forced him back.

  Joeli worked quickly with a sure hand, and although Nona kept her teeth gritted, her body tensed to spring into action, it was only hair that came down rather than blood.

  With a surprisingly gentle touch, Joeli tilted Nona’s head forward to scrape away the last of the hair from the base of her neck. Nona’s head felt cold and strange.

  “Of course you’ve no more chance of passing the trial than you do of taking the Grey.” Another scrape of the blade. “Any more than you stand a chance of catching Yisht. It’s been what, almost three years now? Your little peasant friend will just have to go as unrevenged as she was unmourned.”

  Nona snarled and thrust her head back, intending to get herself cut if that was the price of a sparring session with Joeli. But the razor was no longer there.

  “I don’t have to be fast if you’re going to be predictable, now do I?” Joeli stepped away, laughing that same tinkling laugh that Ara and Terra had shared in the Mensis mansion, something as artificial to Nona’s ear as it was ugly.

  16

  “YOU WANT ME to throw you into the sinkhole?”

  “Yes.” Nona followed in Darla’s wake, out across the fractured stone towards the yawning mouth of the Glasswater.

  “In an ice-wind!”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll freeze to death.”

  Darla had a point: the wind howled around them. Nona’s head was already starting to feel like a solid block of ice.

  “It’s a risk I’m prepared to take. At least I won’t have to dry my hair.”

  Darla barked a laugh at that and ran a hand over Nona’s baldness.

  “Why do you want me to throw you in?” Darla peered over the edge at the dark waters forty feet below.

  “Because you’re the strongest.” Nona looked up at her friend. At fifteen Darla stood a good six-foot nine inches, broad in the chest, her arms thicker than Nona’s thighs.

  Darla sighed. “Let’s get this over with.” She reached for Nona.

  “Not from here!” Nona skipped away from Darla’s hand. “Over there!” Pointing, she ran to her chosen spot ten yards back into the wind.

  Darla walked after her. “I know you’re a shrimp, but I’m not sure I can throw you that far, even wind-assisted.”

  “I’m going to help you,” Nona said. “Put your hands like this, down low.” She cupped her hands together. “I’ll run at you, step in your hands, and you boost me over your head.”

  Darla spread her arms, palms out. “That’s insane!”

  “You said you’d help me out!” Nona hugged herself against the wind’s cold.

  “But . . .” Darla shook her head and spat out a piece of ice. “What’s this for?”

  “Can’t tell you. Conflict of interest. I’m protecting you.”

  Darla pursed her lips, frowning. “Do we have to do it this far back? What if you fall short?”

  “If I fall short then I’ll probably hurt myself.”

  “Can’t we start closer?” Darla looked over her shoulder, judging the distance.

  “We are starting closer. Next time we’ll add five yards. And there’s only so many times I want to jump in today.” Zero was the true number.

  “Ancestor!” Darla spat again. “You’re crazy. You know that?”

  Nona grinned. “Ready?”

  “No.” Darla knelt and put her hands into a stirrup, ready for Nona’s lead foot.

  Nona started to back off.

  Darla called after her. “Let’s at least practise the last few steps!”

  And so they did. Nona took the last five steps of her run in, set her foot into Darla’s hands and Darla launched Nona over her head. Nona landed two yards behind her, the force of the impact concertinaing her into a tight hunch about folded legs. They repeated the move four times.

  “Good.” Nona rubbed her aching ankles. “You’ve got to be even quicker this time. I’ll be coming in fast and I need to keep the speed. Hold your hands higher . . . here . . . I’ll jump.”

  Nona backed off ten yards and stripped off both shoes then her range-coat, placing them in the lee of a boulder.

  * * *

  • • •

  “YOU WANT ME to steal a tub of kelp juice?”

  “Yes.” Nona followed Ruli towards the vinery.

  “Nasty stinking half-rotted seaweed?” Ruli stopped and peered at Nona as if she might be unwell.

  “Yes. You can do it. Everyone knows Sister Oak is sweet on you.”

  “Sister Oak,” Ruli sniffed, “appreciates my ledger-keeping skills and the nose I have for wine.”

  “Whatever.” Nona pushed Ruli back into walking. “You can get me a tub.”

  “Of course I can.” Ruli grinned over her shoulder. “There’s scores of them at the vinery. Best fertilizer money can buy. Plus we don’t pay for it. It’s harvested on the beach at Gerran’s Crag. I bet the Holy Sisters have a ball at that convent. My pa says most of them stink of seaweed and the ones that don’t smell of fish.”

  “Good. Hide it for me somewhere easy to get at and let me know.” Nona turned away, stifling a sneeze.

  “Wait! You’re not coming?”

  “Got things to do!”

  “You only love me for my rotten seaweed juice.” Ruli pouted. “What do you want it for?” She brightened. “You’re going to tip it over Joeli, aren’t you? Do it! Do it! It’ll turn her hair green. You can’t wash it out!”

  “Something like that!” And Nona ran off across the courtyard before stopping and calling back. “Oh, and I need a net. A big one, like the ones they use to keep the barrels in the carts.”

  Nothing to say, Keot?

  The devil remained silent, sulking across her ribs. The discovery that being submerged in truly icy water distressed him so much was a useful one that Nona vowed to investigate more thoroughly at a later date.

  * * *

  • • •

  “CHALLENGE!”

  Nona raised her hands. “You got me!”

  Zole scowled. “It was not difficult.”

  Across the novice cloister members of Mystic Class were converging on them, weaving through the other classes who stood chatting in their usual groups, huddled on benches or strolling beneath the galleries.

  Nona unwound her headscarf. “Got to try!”

  “You’re the only novice wearing a headscarf,” Zole said.

  “And now you’re the only bald novice,” Alata said, drawing
up to them.

  “Also you’re the only novice with huge black eyes like an insect.” Joeli came up behind them from her patrol of the gallery.

  “And with no shadow,” Crocey sneered. Though with the scudding cloud overhead there were few chances to check for the presence of a person’s shadow even if Nona hadn’t still been in the shade of the cloister walls when challenged.

  Elani came across, her sneer echoing Crocey’s, her arm still splinted from Nona breaking her elbow in the dormitory attack. “It’s a pity you’ll never reach the tree. I would enjoy watching you try to hide in it.” She waved her good arm at the stark branches that stood like a thousand black fingers raised against the sky.

  “Good!” Mally was one of the last to arrive. “We can go and eat at last!”

  Normally the trial was held in Verity on seven-days and each candidate got to try her luck across a whole seven-day from dawn to dusk, with the sixth fail ending the matter. Since the novice cloisters were all but deserted on a seven-day Nona had managed to get Sister Apple to agree that she might try at any non-lesson time between breakfast and dinner, one attempt per day for the six days leading up to the seven-day. If she hadn’t succeeded by dinner on six-day then the trial was over and she had failed. This meant of course that none of those on guard duty could get lunch without weakening the defence.

  “Couldn’t you just try before lunch?” Mesha trailed in behind Mally, rubbing her stomach. “Everyone knows you’re not going to make it. So be a saint and fail early!”

  “On the bright side. Only three more days to go.” Joeli led the rush for the nearest exit. “Challenge you tomorrow, Nona!”

  * * *

  • • •

  THAT NIGHT, IN the dark wake of the focus moon, Nona slid from her bed. She took her clothes and crept from the Mystic dormitory. On the stairs she hurried into her habit, tying her shoelaces blind. She stood, struggling into her range-coat. Dressed, she went down into the main corridor and stopped outside the Grey dormitory. She gave the lightest pull on a thread visible only within the clarity trance and using a quantal’s eyes. Ara opened the door moments later and handed over the lantern and rope they used on their caving trips. A moment later she fetched the hooded lantern kept for trips to the necessary and closed the door while Nona lit the first lantern from the second. Ara retrieved the hooded lantern and returned to her bed. Neither girl spoke during the whole exchange.

  Nona left the building with the lantern trimmed so low that its glow barely reached past the smoky glass. She crossed the convent, keeping to the walls, avoiding the places where nuns were most likely to patrol.

  In the bushes outside the sanatorium windows Nona recovered a heavy rope net and a wooden tub of kelp juice, five pints at least. She could smell the stuff as she picked the tub up. Burdened by her load, Nona made her way next to the novice cloisters, taking the path along the west side, a narrow alley between the laundry rooms and the low winery building.

  “And where might you be off to, young lady?”

  Nona froze. She turned her head slowly, seeing nothing in the darkness.

  “Pssst.” The hiss made Nona look up. Kettle watched her from the winery roof, crouched low, darkness wound around her in sheets, untouched by the wind. “What are you up to?”

  “No good,” Nona said.

  “Be on your way then.” Kettle grinned and melted into the night, as if the dark had swallowed her then poured from the roof like oil.

  Nona hurried into the novice cloister via the arch through the laundry rooms that filled the south wing. First she positioned the net then went to search through the laundry for the well. She found it after trekking through the washing and airing halls. It lay at the bottom of a short stair. The door to the well chamber had been locked but the device was simple and Nona soon found the necessary thread to pull in order that it be unlocked. It was a trick Hessa had showed her years before.

  Nona secured her rope to the well-head, tied her lantern to her belt, and started to descend. A person of Darla’s size would probably not fit. Even Nona felt distinctly trapped as the sides rose around her, dark with slime and nitre, the lantern scraping on stone while she slid down the rope. The faint sounds of running water rose from far below.

  Do you never sleep? Keot grumbled, stretching out along her arm, almost as if yawning. What hole have you found to crawl around in now?

  Nona continued down the rope not bothering to reply. She became aware of the shaft opening up around her without needing to see it, something about the quality of the sound. She shinned another yard down the rope and looked out across the pool beneath her. The lantern’s glow reflected all around her, the light moving across rock walls capturing the ripples. Where the cavern opened out beyond the pool the forest of the centre oak’s roots swallowed all illumination.

  Nona started to swing. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth swing she released the rope and arched her back. She landed in two feet of water and stumbled up onto the rocky border. There, she unslung the kelp tub, uncorked it, then took out the cloth she had stuffed in an inner pocket and wetted it with the juice. The stink of the liquid took away her breath.

  “Ancestor!” She spat on the stones. “This had better work.”

  Nona approached the nearest root that came low enough to reach and wiped the cloth across it, leaving dark smears of the kelp juice along its length. She moved to the next. Then the next. She kept to the fringes, the younger roots. They emerged in sheets from any crack that would let them through the rock. In the midst of the cavern the thickest and oldest roots reached the floor and sprawled out across it, but those were stone-clad.

  Within half an hour Nona discovered that, however much fighting you might do, any work that required you to hold your arms above your head soon became exhausting. Added to the fatigue in her arms was the fact that no matter what care she took the kelp juice still managed to drip on her. One drop stung in her left eye, another found its way into her mouth and filled it with a sour foulness.

  Keot made no further comment, perhaps having fallen back to sleep.

  The lantern had started to gutter by the time Nona let up. She had used most of the kelp juice and all of her patience. Stinking and bone-tired, she took herself back to the pool, put the lantern down and steeled her nerves.

  “Seven ice-baths in a day . . .” She plunged in and thrashed about, gasping, hoping to rid her habit of the kelp-stink. Keot’s wordless howls of outrage provided just enough warmth to keep her from freezing. After that, the long climb back up the well-shaft nearly defeated her, but it did at least get her muscles working and her blood flowing once more.

  Nona hauled herself over the low wall surrounding the well and slithered to the floor where she lay gasping. After a minute she picked up her lantern, recovered her rope, and set off to brave the ice-wind one more time in a wet habit.

  * * *

  • • •

  “ATISHOO!”

  “Sounds nasty!” Darla rumbled from her bed, just a mound beneath the covers.

  “Atishoo!” Nona repeated herself. Grey fingers of morning light reached across the dormitory.

  “It’s your own damn fault.” Darla rolled over, muttering to herself.

  “Part of your next disguise?” Crocey called from across the room. “You’re going to sneeze your way past us today?”

  “I’m certainly going to try.” Nona levered herself up and groaned. It felt as if she’d slept for three minutes rather than three hours. On the floor beside her bed her habit lay in a heap, water pooled around it.

  Nona hung her clothes up to dry and went to breakfast in Darla’s second habit, which was more of a tent than a garment but warmer than her own second habit which had been patched to the point at which there was more replacement material than original.

  Sister Rail devoted the morning’s Academic class to a history of Durnish invasions and the occasional ripostes from past emperors. Although she lined up a host of complex political reasons behind
each act of aggression it seemed to Nona that the root cause was the same in every case. The ice kept advancing. If you squeezed any nation north and south it must expand east and west, or spend so many lives trying that the land remaining to it is sufficient.

  “Atishoo!” Nona tried to hold the next sneeze in, she focused her will, reached for her serenity, gritted her teeth. “Atishoo!”

  “Cover your mouth, girl!” Sister Rail stalked towards her.

  Nona lowered the hand she’d had covering her mouth, biting back both her retort and the desire to wipe that hand down the front of the approaching nun.

  “How many battle-barges were beached in the Durnish invasion at Songra Beach?” Sister Rail peered down at her.

  Carry her to the window and throw her out!

  Nona couldn’t help but smirk at Keot’s suggestion.

  “You find this amusing, novice?”

  “No, Mistress Academic. I was trying not to sneeze.” Nona pressed her lips together. “And it was three hundred.”

  “When?”

  “Uh . . . the thirtieth year of Emperor Tristan?”

  “Nonsense.” Sister Rail turned and stalked back towards her desk. “It was the thirty-first year.”

  When Bray tolled the class made for the door with indecent haste. Only Zole, Darla and Nona took their time. On each day of the Shade Trial two novices were allowed a day’s respite from guard duty. Four-day was Zole and Darla’s day off and no penalties incurred by the guards on post would fall upon their shoulders.

  Zole walked out after the others. “Good luck today.”

  “What have you heard?” Nona fought back a rising panic.

  “Heard?” Zole turned. “Nothing but footsteps in the night. But it is enough to know you. You will make your move today. You would not strike against a friend, Nona Grey.” She shrugged and left.