Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

Abbess Glass drew a deep breath and allowed her shoulders to slump in concession to the yoke upon them.

The fat archon licked his lips and nodded slowly to himself. Archon Philo, the sorrow-faced marjal, lifted his head from contemplation of his knees. ‘A better path would have been to demand a stay of execution while you sought a judge to hear the case.’

‘That is perhaps true, archon.’ The abbess nodded. ‘But the case would have had to have been made very loudly for any judge in Verity to hear it above the clinking of golden coins.’ She sighed. ‘I acted rashly. I saw that I could take Nona. The trip from could to should is short and allows little time for reflection. But I do not think that the result was the wrong one. Except that I should have found a way to save both girls.’

‘It is, as the high priest says, a dangerous game to play.’ Archon Anasta spoke for the first time, her voice deep and thick with age. ‘Invoke church law over common law outside our doors and with both hands you are taking the emperor’s power as your own.’

‘Also true, Archon Anasta. I could never argue politics against the woman who taught it to me in the first place.’ The abbess managed a smile, as if she were not yoked and bleeding, but instead discussing the finer points of academia over a school desk. ‘However, at no point in removing Nona from Harriton did I invoke one law above another. I made no mention of my office. I simply reminded the guards of my long friendship with Warden James and said that I was taking the girl. None of them attempted to stop me or even ordered me to desist, and so it seemed a perfectly reasonable assumption that they were happy for me to take her. I am more than willing to submit to any test of truth … I hear that there are graduates of the Academy who can deduce whether they are being told a lie, and—’

‘The truth is a very nebulous concept.’ Archon Philo took on a still more doleful look and returned his gaze to his lap.

‘Ha!’ The bark of laughter burst from Archon Kratton. ‘They didn’t even try to stop you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, it’s their incompetence. If they let you take the girl that’s tacit permission!’ He smacked his fist against his thigh.

‘If you’ve nothing more to say.’ High Priest Jacob, realizing that he was still standing, sat heavily in his grand chair. ‘If you maintain your refusal to apologize, then we can move on to the sentencing.’

‘I move for the charges to be thrown out.’ Archon Kratton waved a hand dismissively above his head. ‘Who’s with me?’

‘Kratton!’ The high priest struggled back out of his chair. ‘You would be advised to give this matter serious con—’

‘I have my own mind, Jacob. Old debt and old secrets be damned if they mean selling my soul for Tacsis gold.’

Archon Philo raised his face to the room. ‘There seems no case to answer.’ He didn’t sound happy about it but Nona wondered if he had ever sounded happy about anything.

Archon Anasta fixed Abbess Glass with a stare so hard that Nona could imagine reaching up to find it a physical thing, an invisible bar of iron between them. ‘This could have been done better, Glass.’

‘I know.’

‘Cleaner. Sharper. Clearer. As I always instructed.’ The archon narrowed already narrow and bitten lips. ‘This … this is muddy, messy, unsure.’

Abbess Glass bowed her head.

‘But the child should not suffer your mistake. There is no case to answer here.’

The abbess slumped, a guard stepping forward to prevent her falling.

‘Archon Nevis, the decision rests with you.’ The high priest walked to stand behind the fat archon’s chair. ‘You at least I know can be relied upon to understand where the best interests of the church lie.’

Archon Nevis glanced across the line of his fellow archons. He looked nervous, sweat making small ringlets in the grey hair sticking to his forehead. ‘I—’

‘It’s been more years than either of us would care to mention, Nevis,’ Abbess Glass said, shaking off the guard and standing straight. Speaking as if there were only the two of them there, Nona and the rest no more than shadows. ‘That boy and that girl would not recognize us. We are old. Changed. But I remember. One time, you said. Once. That I could ask anything of you. I doubt you thought it would take me this long to ask it. That one time is now. That anything is this.’

‘I remember.’ Nevis went still more pale, every vein blue upon the marble of his flesh. ‘We were children, Shella. Playing children’s games. You can’t expect—’

‘It was in the focus of the moon, Nevis. The ice lit red about us and began to steam …’

‘… and the crakes took to the sky and their song—’

‘Very touching.’ High Priest Jacob brought his staff down with a crack. ‘But Archon Nevis is no longer a moon-eyed boy panting over a tanner’s girl. Great Ancestor, woman! Nevis honours the debts of the entire church. The master of the faith’s coffers concerns himself with debts of a rather more adult nature. Archon, let’s end this farce.’

‘I …’ Archon Nevis held his finger to his chest, out of the high priest’s view. A ‘one’ for the abbess’s eyes. ‘The case has no merit. It cannot stand.’

Across the hall, murmurs of approval spread among the guards and attendants. Outside cries of delight went up, though how word reached the women and girls in front of the hall so swiftly Nona had no idea. Archon Kratton was already on his feet, his chair rocking behind him. ‘Get the damned yoke off her! She’s an abbess of the church!’

Nona found herself standing straight and unsupported, her restraints no burden now, a shout of defiance on her lips.

A guard moved to obey, the heavy key ready in his hand. The loud crack of the high priest’s staff against stone cut through raised voices.

‘Overruled.’

‘What?’ Nona stared. Even the archons looked shocked. She looked up at the abbess. ‘He can’t …’

Of all of them only Abbess Glass seemed unsurprised. ‘That’s a big step, Jacob. Are you sure you want to—’

‘This is a court of law and you will address me by my title!’ High Priest Jacob slumped back into his chair of office. ‘Your concern is noted, abbess. I’m sure your concern is for me rather than for your own imminent and … uncomfortable … exit from this convent, and from the church as a whole.’

Abbess Glass pursed her lips. ‘The office of high priest rests upon four pillars. It’s my duty to counsel you against kicking them out from beneath you.’

‘Noted.’ The high priest turned to his black-clad assistant, scratching at her scroll. ‘Make sure you get that down, Greha. Now – to the sentencing.’

‘I took Nona from the prison because she is The Shield. The Ancestor told me to do it in a vision.’ Abbess Glass didn’t raise her voice but somehow she gathered all the attention that the high priest held a moment before and focused it upon herself in the quiet of the hall.

‘Nonsense! Nonsense …’ The high priest tried to wave the idea away. ‘This is foolishness, desperation. It would not have been credible if these words were the first out of your mouth on our arrival. To speak them a moment before you’re sentenced to have your tongue split … well … it’s beneath you. It’s beneath an abbess of the Ancestor!’