Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

Sister Apple closed the box and tucked it away. ‘To your seats then, girls. We’ve a lot to learn today!’

Nona followed Arabella back to the nearest of the three long tables. The older girl returned to her place first, wincing as she sat, then shifting position with a frown. Nona found her place and lowered herself towards the bench before pausing, held by a sudden suspicion with her backside just an inch or two from the polished wood. She shifted and turned, narrowing her eyes as she made a quick study of the area beneath her. Something glinted. A short pin held upright on a tiny dark base. She flicked it to the floor and sat. Bhenta must have placed the thing while Nona was up at the front of the class.

‘Well done, Nona!’ Sister Apple clapped her hands. ‘Arabella … less well done.’

Nona looked across at Arabella. The girl’s face had a peculiarly stiff look to it, just her furious eyes and twitching grimace to indicate she wasn’t simply concentrating on Mistress Shade’s words. She jerked her body minutely to the left but seemed incapable of more movement.

‘You passed the test, Nona.’ Sister Apple smiled. ‘I won’t try to trick you again.’ She turned back to the chalkboard, where she tapped her chalk against a leaf-shape then underlined the word beside it. ‘Today we will be learning how to brew catweed to potency, a close cousin to segren root from which I made the tincture that was on the pin-trap Nona so cleverly avoided and Arabella did not. Commonly we call the tincture lock-up. The first—’

A tap-tap-tap on the door turned Sister Apple back towards the class. ‘Come.’

Sister Kettle poked her head into the classroom, a mischievous grin on her face. ‘I’ve just come from the scriptorium to give Nona her writing supplies.’ She pushed fully through the half-open door, a dark slate in one hand and chalk sticks in the other. ‘For our lessons together.’

‘Go on then.’ Sister Apple smiled tolerantly and waved Sister Kettle in.

The younger nun – Nona thought Kettle might be twenty-something to Apple’s thirty – tiptoed over in exaggerated fashion and placed the slate and chalks before Nona on the table. She removed a folded wiping cloth from her habit and set that down between them before mouthing ‘sorry’ at Mistress Shade and tiptoeing out, waving to the novices from the doorway once out of sight from the board.

‘As I was saying.’ Sister Apple rapped the board. ‘Catweed.’

Nona looked down at her new possessions. Her only possessions other than the quill, scroll and ink the abbess gave her … and a briefly-owned knife. She picked the slate up, marvelling at its even corners and uniform thickness. The bigs in Nana Even’s seven-day class sat with rough pieces of slate they had dug themselves from Ebson’s Hole. While Sister Apple continued to describe the locations in which catweed might be found Nona set the slate back down before her, finding it slightly sticky. Her fingertips held a brownish stain where she’d touched it, and had a faint smell of rot.

‘Catweed in its natural state can be eaten without adverse effects,’ Sister Apple continued. ‘Though you would be advised against consuming it in quantity. That would lead to stomach cramps and numbness in the extremities. Besides, it has a sour and unpleasant taste.’

Sister Apple continued to expound upon the merits of catweed for several minutes before pausing to look at Nona. ‘And how are you feeling, novice?’

Nona licked her lips. Her mouth felt strangely dry and cottony.

‘You … lied.’ She discovered herself weak in every limb. An attempt to rise merely made her slump over the table.

‘It was entirely evident that I was trying to poison you, Nona dear. You don’t think that someone who would poison you might also stoop to not telling the truth on all occasions?’

‘L … iar.’ No part of Nona’s body would obey her. Where Arabella had gone rigid Nona had turned limp, but neither of them had command of their muscles.

Sister Apple crossed the room to stand beside Nona, setting a hand to her shoulder. ‘Do you know what the most insidious poison is, Nona?’ Sister Apple pursed her lips. ‘That means “worst”.’

‘N—’ The table filled most of Nona’s vision now as her head met it. She could see Sister Apple from hips to ribcage, Arabella’s arm, Clera behind them both.

‘N—? Catweed got your tongue?’ Sister Apple retrieved the slate with a cloth-wrapped hand. ‘Trust, Nona. Trust is the most insidious of poisons. Trust sidesteps all of your precautions.’ Behind the nun Clera rolled her eyes. ‘So give your trust sparingly. Or better still, not at all. And, Novice Clera … you will be grinding stinkcorns in the fume cavern for an hour after the lesson finishes.’

13

Shade class passed slowly but with little else to pay attention to Nona learned a lot about the properties and preparation of catweed, the primary ingredient of the preparation known as ‘boneless’ with which she had been poisoned. She also learned about segren root, from which the ‘lock-up’ tincture with which Arabella had been poisoned was distilled. The most memorable fact was that catweed had an unpleasant aroma of decay whereas segren root when cut smelt like cat urine.

‘Segren root smells like a cat weed. Catweed does not.’ Sister Apple tapped the board. ‘That should be easy to remember!’

Nona didn’t see the demonstrations, though she did get to see Clera pinch the immobilized Arabella, twice.

About ten minutes before the end of the lesson Nona found herself able to lift her head. All about her the novices were boiling small iron pans full of catweed and vinegar over trays of glowing charcoal. The stench was incredible.

By the time Nona could sit up, Sister Apple was moving around the class checking the preparations for colour and consistency.

‘You should all be decanting the liquid now. Use a fine sieve, and make sure you’ve added the alkoid salt before sieving, and the quicksilver after. Next lesson we’ll be distilling our liquor to recover the essence with which Nona’s slate was coated. It will penetrate the skin, though slowly and less effectively – for optimal results it needs to be consumed while fresh.’

Nona and Arabella brought up the rear when the class climbed the long stair to escape into fresh air at last. Sister Apple supported Nona while Bhenta helped Arabella along.

‘You’ll be fully recovered within the hour,’ Sister Apple said, sending Nona on her way at the top of the stairs with a pat.

Nona didn’t feel entirely herself until bedtime. She sat on her bed chatting with Ruli until Clera finally showed up from the bathhouse.

‘I had to soak for hours to get the stink off me! Look! I’m all wrinkled up!’ Clera held her fingers out, the pads of each ridged from too long in the water.

Nona sniffed but didn’t like to say she could still smell the stinkcorns. ‘How did she know?’

‘That I was cheeking her? Eyes in the back of her head!’ Clera snorted.

‘How did she know, that she would need Sister Kettle to trick me?’

Jula leaned in from the next bed. ‘If the sweets or pins had got you both she would have ignored the door and Kettle would have gone away. If Arabella wasn’t poisoned when Kettle came in then she would have taken out something for her – a message from her father or something … The Poisoner always wins!’