Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

‘You shouldn’t do this,’ Nona said.

‘I’m your friend,’ Hessa said. ‘Besides, you’ll protect me.’

Nona’s eyes widened. ‘Friend?’

‘Of course, silly. You don’t think Clera’s your only friend, do you? People can be friends without saying so.’

Nona opened her mouth and found that she had run out of words. She had vowed that she would never let a friend down, that she would do anything, anything at all, to protect them. A vow more sacred to her than the Ancestor, more holy than the church from tallest spire to lowest crypt. The idea that someone might count her as a friend without her knowledge or agreement suddenly complicated things.

Sister Rose set her hands to their shoulders. ‘Do you both understand the trial?’

Nona shook her head but Hessa replied, ‘I have to stand still and Nona has to defend me from a thrown spear and a throwing star, and … are there four stages in the full trial or three?’

‘There are—’

‘Sister Rose!’ The high priest calling down from the back of the stands. ‘Get them ready if you will. And provide Captain Rogan with a spear.’ At his words one of the church-guards standing at the main doorway stepped forward, not a gerant but well over six foot and solid in chest and limb. He removed his helm and brushed back short brown hair sprinkled, like his short brown beard, with grey. A pallid scar pulled his mouth into a sneer. His eyes, though, were neither cruel nor kind, only incurious, as if throwing a spear at little girls was just another of the day’s duties.

Sister Rose steered the two girls towards a part of the wall covered by a splintered wooden hoarding. Nona felt a tremble in the woman’s hand. ‘Do your best, Nona.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Oh dear. And Hessa, don’t be scared. Sister Tallow says Nona is very fast … and … I’m sure the abbess is right … She had a vision, and …’ The nun choked on the next word, instead taking them into her arms, pressing them both against her fatness. Nona was surprised to find herself not wanting to be let go of. The ordeal hadn’t scared her until the high priest had put a person’s life in her hands – and now that person was Hessa. Her friend, Hessa.

‘Sister Rose!’ The high priest’s voice, not well pleased by the delay.

The nun struggled, weeping, to her feet and let Sister Flint lead her off. Flint glanced back once, dark eyes finding Nona’s. A curt nod and she looked away, helping Sister Rose to the back of the hall.

Nona turned and stepped closer to Hessa, so close their noses almost touched. ‘Don’t move. I won’t have time to look at you. I have to know you’re where I put you.’

‘I’ll do my best.’ Hessa gave a weak smile, very pale now, glancing towards Captain Rogan, now being presented with a spear from the stores. ‘In any case, it takes me ages to get anywhere.’

The captain hefted his weapon, a plain ash shaft nearly two yards long, iron shod, the blade narrow, designed to penetrate armour. ‘You have anything heavier? Broad-leaf?’

Sister Tallow narrowed her eyes at the man. ‘Nothing heavier. We have blade-headed spears, if your desire is to cut as much flesh as possible, captain.’

The man shrugged and waved away the suggestion with no apparent embarrassment. ‘This will serve.’

The high priest stamped staff to floor. ‘Let’s get this nonsense over with.’

Nona looked towards Abbess Glass and the abbess gave her the same calculating look she’d given that day at the prison, tossing hoare-apples at her. Nona turned, set her hands to Hessa’s shoulders, positioned her, then faced the captain, taking five paces forward. Less time to see the spear coming – more time for any slight deflection to grow.

‘Sister Wheel, if you will adjudicate.’ The high priest opened his palms in a gentle shoving motion, and taking the hint, the nun descended to the sands, moving in that strange gangling way of hers that seemed as if it should belong to something not born of a woman.

Nona spent the wait studying the captain, watching the gleam of his breastplate, the sway of the iron-studded leather tongues of the undershirt as it divided into a skirt to protect his upper legs. The bright point of his spear. The thickness of his arm.

At last Sister Wheel took her place at the middle of the hall and raised her hand. ‘Ancestor witness this our trial of faith and swiftness, the Argatha’s Shield.’ She looked left, right. ‘Ready?’ She let her arm fall.

Nona lengthened her heartbeats and watched. The captain’s arm hooked back, launched forward, sliding through the air, a wordless roar on his lips. Fingers opened at the full extension of his arm, releasing the spear’s shaft. Nona wrapped the world about her, watching the bright steel point of the blade pulse slightly up and down as the spear’s shaft flexed with the power of the throw.

Captain Rogan aimed his throw at Nona’s heart. She began to twist to the side. Swiftness depends on reaction, on the speed with which the mind understands what the eyes show it, and with which it sends its orders to the body. No matter how fast those messages though, there are limits to what muscles can do. Nona knew that a finger can be moved more swiftly than a hand, a hand quicker than an arm, an arm faster than a body. She worked to move her torso from the path of the spear’s flight, her thin body suddenly heavier than iron, sullenly resisting her strength as she strove to shove it aside.

While she twisted she raised her arms, readying her hands, one atop the other, backs flat to her chest. Every part of the hall lay frozen, faces, eyes, the shower of sand from the captain’s heels hanging in the air. Only Nona moved, Nona and the spear, sliding inexorably towards her heart.

By the time the steel point reached her, in the thick deep silence of her speed, Nona had almost twisted clear of the line that joined its sharpness to her friend’s heart. The widest part of the blade touched her fingers as it passed. The tickle wouldn’t reach her for a while yet but her muscles had already been primed to push, and with near perfect timing they did, driving her palm against the haft of the spear.

At speed everything refuses motion with an obdurate stubbornness, as if the air itself were thickest mud. Although the weight of the spear proved problematic Nona had two advantages. Firstly, she was applying pressure right at the end she wished to deflect, just behind the spearhead. Secondly, she was sufficiently in advance of her friend that moving the spearhead just an inch at this point would see it miss Hessa entirely.

Nona shoved with all the strength and speed that lay in her limbs. The wooden shaft slid across her palm. A moment’s panic washed through her as she realized that if she continued to push after the spear’s midpoint had passed across her hands she might be turning the spearhead back towards Hessa. Her mind spoke but it took an age for her arms to cease their advance. The spear’s midpoint had passed her hands, and several inches more had travelled across her palm, when the contact ceased – the spear now on its new path, her only chance to influence it passed.

Nona let the world spin up to its given speed around her, her gaze locked on Captain Rogan. If his spear killed Hessa she would give him a new scar for his collection. And more besides. The impact thundered around her, echoing back from walls and ceiling. For a moment there was only the voice of the spear, the shuddering of its shaft about a point now bedded deep. And then … a rising cheer. Nona turned to see Hessa, just as she had left her, eyes crinkled shut but beginning to open, the spear standing proud of the wall, a three-inch gap between its shaft and her upper arm.