Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

The church-guard who led Nona after the abbess reminded her of the man who had led her to the gallows: tall, greying, probably someone’s grandfather. If the abbess failed her trial then he might be the man who pushed Nona from the edge of the sinkhole and sent her sailing down towards the water.

‘She’s secure?’ The high priest descended from his dais to stand over the table till he was almost face to face with Abbess Glass, as if concerned that there might be trickery. Two ropes bound around the abbess’s sore wrist led to opposite legs of the table where they had been secured. She could move the hand from side to side, but not raise it.

The votive candle, fat but short, sat close by, its flame flickering as guards moved around the table checking the abbess’s restraints.

‘Abbess?’ The high priest gestured to the flame. ‘I wait to be convinced.’

Four archons leaned forward in their chairs and the room held its breath. Nona could hear the rain drumming on the roof above them, splashing from high gutters. Abbess Glass moved her open palm above the flame, a single inch between the tip of its tongue and her skin. The trial hardly looked dramatic. To prove themselves Nona knew the wildmen in Durn hung from trees by ropes attached to iron hooks set beneath the muscle of their chests. But despite the blood and groaning of such theatrics the abbess’s trial held its own fascination. Every person in the hall had their own memory of fire’s kiss. The one that taught them the lesson you need learn only once. Hot, don’t touch.

Abbess Glass kept her gaze upon the high priest, upon the cold grey of his eyes and the smirk twitching across his lips – amusement? Embarrassment? Her face remained serene and Nona imagined that in her mind the abbess must be following the broad strokes of some path that led to peace, gentle turns finding their way to the quiet places of the world where the wind holds its tongue and the light of the dying sun rests gentle upon the ground.

Long moments passed.

‘Ah.’ A quick intake of breath. Tension in the abbess’s cheeks, a distant pain in her eyes.

‘You should give up this foolishness now, Shella.’ High Priest Jacob leaned in, his voice falling to a murmur. ‘You could burn your whole hand to blackened bones and I’d still know you were lying. This time you’re out. You’ve played your game and lost.’

Abbess Glass clenched her teeth, eyes wide and locked on the high priest’s, her breath tight in her throat. ‘Glass. I am Glass.’ A faint sizzling noise came from beneath her palm. Nona sniffed. It could have been bacon, hot from the pan and heaped in the refectory bowls. Her stomach growled even as she retched.

The abbess’s breath, gasped in in tight little bursts, counted out the duration of her ordeal. Nona’s shortness made her the sole witness to the flame’s damage, first turning a circle of the abbess’s palm red, then raising white blisters upon it, then setting them to bubble and blacken.

Tears filled the abbess’s eyes and rolled across her cheeks, sweat beaded on her brow, gathered in the folds beneath her chin. The scream that broke from her came so sudden and so loud that Nona jerked backwards and half the guards reached for their swords. The abbess fell to gasping and groaning, deep guttural noises that hurt to hear. She strained to raise her hand, but the ropes held. Her arm shook with effort but moved neither left nor right to escape the heat.

‘This is pointless!’ The high priest threw up his hands, looking around at the archons. ‘Give it up, Shella, you’re embarrassing yourself.’ If anything it was the high priest who looked embarrassed, almost as red in the face as the abbess. She was beyond any shame, deep in some place where nothing existed but her and her pain.

‘Arrrrrrggggghhh!’ A roar of agony this time. Nona could see fats dripping down from the puckered ruin above the candle’s flame. It seemed to reach higher now, as if trying to lick her. ‘Arrrrrgggghhhh!’ A cry so awful that Nona would have put her hands to her ears if they were free.

Nona saw again the fluid motion with which the abbess’s clever hand had caught her image on her work scroll back in Sister Wheel’s class. How would those fingers function now? Could they ever draw again?

‘Move your hand!’ Nona found it was her saying it. She wasn’t alone though – all around the room men and women were muttering it. ‘Move your hand!’ Archon Philo’s assistant lost his composure and shouted at the abbess, his own hands clenched together, white-knuckled.

‘This is ridiculous!’ The high priest stamped his staff in anger. ‘I won’t be blackmailed—’ Another roar of agony cut him off. Nona could hardly see for tears. Her nose ran and she couldn’t wipe it; her throat was raw with shouting for the abbess to stop.

High Priest Jacob’s face was set in a rigid, sickly grimace. He turned and walked back to his chair, taking the three steps to the dais in one, his journey punctuated by the abbess’s screams. He turned, tucked his robes behind his knees and sat down.

‘I will watch the flesh—’ Another scream. ‘—drip from your bones before I let you sell me this—’ A scream that had nothing human in it. ‘—this pathetic lie.’

‘I’ll take the Shield test!’ Nobody heard Nona amongst the shouting and the abbess’s almost unbroken howling. She lunged forward, smashing the weight of her yoke into the table. The candle jolted, fell, and rolled away. ‘I’ll take the Shield test!’ Nona yelled it into the stunned silence. For a moment nobody spoke. Then the abbess collapsed and everyone started talking at once.

17

The rain hit Nona, cold and hard, as she stepped through the doors of Heart Hall, the shock of it seeming to wake her to the truth of her situation. Standing in the chamber before the archons in their finery had been so far outside her experience that events took on a dream-like quality, ending in a nightmare. Out there in the freezing rain the grim reality regained its hold.

She could see little but the backs of the guards leading the way, and to either side, almost lost in the downpour, the grey shapes of sisters and novices huddled in their habits, pressed to the walls for shelter. The icy water burned on her wrists where the yoke had taken her skin off. She flexed her hands rapidly, knowing she would need them soon. The rain ran off her fingertips as if they were pipes spraying it from within.

The procession kept a brisk pace. Nona had no problem keeping up. Free now from the yoke’s weight she felt as if she were floating, as if with one hard kick she could shrug off the earth’s bonds and reach the roof of Blade Hall, a dark shape wavering ahead of them. A few moments later they were through the doors with more men pushing in behind them.

Two guards took Nona off to one side, paying no real care to how they held her, as if she were really just a little girl, not a prisoner accused of murder preparing to take some trial that few full-fledged Red Sisters would try.

The high priest and archons came through the doors and stood dripping on the sand, finery bedraggled. Nona’s mother used to say that the rain didn’t care how long you’d spent brushing your hair, it’d fall on you just the same. The villagers had it that there were gods in the rain, just as there were gods in each river and wood. You could pray to them but generally by the time they got close enough to hear you it was too late to stay dry.