Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

‘I said that you would be accompanying me to the Academy.’

‘Me?’

‘And Hessa and Arabella. I take the Grey Class quantals every year on the twentieth seven-day. If we have any quantals, that is. It is important that you be exposed to marjal enchantments, and likewise the Academy masters believe their students should know something of Path magics.’

Bray sounded and Sister Pan frowned at the fading bell before waving her hand in uncharacteristic irritation, dismissing the class. Clera’s chair almost spun in her wake as she beat the scramble to be first down the stairs.

Nona found Clera already attacking a bowl of stew when she reached the refectory table that evening. Darla had secured a drumstick that looked to have come from a swan rather than a chicken, and seemed determined to gnaw through to the marrow, her cheeks and chin running with grease.

‘You’re late. Not like you.’ Darla managed to get the words around her drumstick. Of all the novices only Darla seemed to have more of an appetite than Nona.

‘Sister Wheel caught me for a lecture.’ It wasn’t true though – she had been trying to walk the Path again, reaching it angry. As usual her attempts to slow down and take control saw her pitched off within moments. A crazing of shattered stone and cracks that ran a yard or more into the bedrock were all she had to show for it.

‘I saw Wheel whispering with Yisht behind the pigsties.’ Clera didn’t look up from her bowl, speaking between spoonfuls. ‘I think they’re plotting together.’

Nona looked around for Zole but the girl wasn’t there. Sherzal often sent her food-parcels to cater to her ‘ethnic diet’ and Zole could be found eating from them in the cloisters. It looked like dried fish usually, sometimes with disturbing hints of tentacle. At other times it looked like cubes of fat, blackened with age, and the stink made Nona’s eyes water. Nobody ever asked to share.

Nona helped herself to stew and a heel of bread, squeezing in between Clera and Ketti. ‘Sister Wheel would rather cut her nose off than skip singing the fourth psalm before eating. She’s the last nun in the whole faith who would plot against the church.’

‘Maybe it’s not the church she’s conspiring against.’ Ara pulled out a chair from the other side of the table and leaned in for the bread. ‘Maybe she doesn’t consider you a part of the church, Nona. You do manage to destroy every prayer she makes you learn.’

‘I get the words right!’

‘You make them sound like death threats. Even if everyone didn’t know you hate her it would only take them listening to you in Spirit class to be sure.’ Ara sat down.

‘I don’t hate her.’ Nona chewed and swallowed. ‘I just really, really don’t like her.’

‘Anyway,’ Ara said. ‘Forget about Sister Wheel, we get to go to the Academy in four days!’

‘I’ve been.’ Nona shoved a big spoonful of stew in her mouth and, finding it too hot, sat breathing rapidly in and out over it while Ara made furious eyes at her, motioning for more information.

‘And …’

Nona finally won the battle and started to chew, her tongue a little scalded. ‘It’s not so great.’

‘How did you get to go there? I wanted to visit with my father and they wouldn’t let us!’ Ara looked up at Hessa, now emerging from a crowd of older novices and stumping towards the table. ‘She says she’s been!’

‘I have too,’ said Hessa. ‘It’s not so great.’

‘What!’ Ara let her spoon splat into her stew. ‘Outrageous. Is there anyone at this convent besides me who hasn’t had the tour?’

‘All you have to do is get taken by someone who wants to sell you,’ Hessa said. ‘And Nona hasn’t been, she’s just remembering my memory.’

Nona blinked and looked up. ‘But …’ She frowned, knuckling her forehead. Hessa was right – it was the memory they had shared that night she and Hessa had left the dormitory together, all thanks to Hessa’s thread-work, something else Nona had yet to have any success in, requiring as it did the ability to move very close to the Path without actually touching it. ‘I guess you’re right.’ She looked across to where Ruli sat staring into the steam rising from her bowl. ‘Ruli? What are …’ The steam coiled into a pale serpent and a sick agony coiled through Nona. She found herself falling, wordless, pulling plates and bread with her. It took an age to hit the ground.

‘Nona! Nona!’ Ara on her knees, holding Nona’s face between two hands.

‘… matter with her?’

‘Sister Rose …’

‘No!’ Nona’s hand snapped out to catch Jula’s ankle as she made to leave.

‘She doesn’t need Rose.’ Clera – more to contradict Jula than out of reason.

‘What are you talking about?’ Ara released Nona’s head and sat back on her heels. ‘You’re ill.’

‘She’s fine. Just slipped.’ Clera, standing, waving novices from the other tables back to their seats.

‘I’m not ill. I was poisoned,’ Nona hissed.

‘Well that’s even better reason for us to take you to the sanatorium,’ Ruli said, squatting down next to Ara, her brow furrowed with concern.

‘I’ll get thrown out if the nuns find out what I did.’ Nona curled around her pain, which was easing now but still cramping through her. Right now being thrown out didn’t seem an unreasonable price to pay to feel better.

‘We can’t leave you poisoned.’ Ara exchanged glances with Ruli. ‘It could kill you. And who did it? You really think this is something to do with Raymel Tacsis?’

‘I don’t have to stay poisoned.’ Nona tried to get up and with Clera’s help regained her chair. ‘We know how to make antidotes.’ Two years of the Poisoner’s classes ensured that.

‘You need to know what poisoned you. We know thirteen different antidotes. We can’t make all those, and half of them aren’t even safe to take with the others.’ Hessa reached for her crutch and struggled out of her chair.

‘There’s the black cure,’ Nona said.

‘Which we haven’t been taught,’ Hessa replied. ‘And can kill the patient or leave them blind.’

‘Besides, Sister Apple has all the ingredients.’ Ruli, back on her side of the table, leaned in, keeping her voice to a loud whisper.

‘We don’t even know where she keeps them.’ Clera went back to eating.

‘In a cave,’ Nona said.

‘Well, duh.’ Clera spoke around her mouthful.

‘We can search. I’ve been further in than you have – I saw a few places where she might store them.’ Nona rocked to distract herself from the pain, still sharp but easing.

‘You’ve been further?’ Ara frowned.

‘When she was held for trial,’ Hessa said, frowning too, though she’d been frowning all the while.

‘Oh.’

‘There’s the lock,’ Jula said.

Clera snorted.

‘Well there is,’ Jula persisted. ‘That gate’s always locked. We wouldn’t even be able to get to the Shade chamber without Sister Apple or Bhenta to let us in.’