Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor 2)

Nona started to swing. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth swing she released the rope and arched her back. She landed in two feet of water and stumbled up onto the rocky border. There, she unslung the kelp tub, uncorked it, then took out the cloth she had stuffed in an inner pocket and wetted it with the juice. The stink of the liquid took away her breath.

“Ancestor!” She spat on the stones. “This had better work.”

Nona approached the nearest root that came low enough to reach and wiped the cloth across it, leaving dark smears of the kelp juice along its length. She moved to the next. Then the next. She kept to the fringes, the younger roots. They emerged in sheets from any crack that would let them through the rock. In the midst of the cavern the thickest and oldest roots reached the floor and sprawled out across it, but those were stone-clad.

Within half an hour Nona discovered that, however much fighting you might do, any work that required you to hold your arms above your head soon became exhausting. Added to the fatigue in her arms was the fact that no matter what care she took the kelp juice still managed to drip on her. One drop stung in her left eye, another found its way into her mouth and filled it with a sour foulness.

Keot made no further comment, perhaps having fallen back to sleep.

The lantern had started to gutter by the time Nona let up. She had used most of the kelp juice and all of her patience. Stinking and bone-tired, she took herself back to the pool, put the lantern down and steeled her nerves.

“Seven ice-baths in a day . . .” She plunged in and thrashed about, gasping, hoping to rid her habit of the kelp-stink. Keot’s wordless howls of outrage provided just enough warmth to keep her from freezing. After that, the long climb back up the well-shaft nearly defeated her, but it did at least get her muscles working and her blood flowing once more.

Nona hauled herself over the low wall surrounding the well and slithered to the floor where she lay gasping. After a minute she picked up her lantern, recovered her rope, and set off to brave the ice-wind one more time in a wet habit.

* * *

• • •

“ATISHOO!”

“Sounds nasty!” Darla rumbled from her bed, just a mound beneath the covers.

“Atishoo!” Nona repeated herself. Grey fingers of morning light reached across the dormitory.

“It’s your own damn fault.” Darla rolled over, muttering to herself.

“Part of your next disguise?” Crocey called from across the room. “You’re going to sneeze your way past us today?”

“I’m certainly going to try.” Nona levered herself up and groaned. It felt as if she’d slept for three minutes rather than three hours. On the floor beside her bed her habit lay in a heap, water pooled around it.

Nona hung her clothes up to dry and went to breakfast in Darla’s second habit, which was more of a tent than a garment but warmer than her own second habit which had been patched to the point at which there was more replacement material than original.

Sister Rail devoted the morning’s Academic class to a history of Durnish invasions and the occasional ripostes from past emperors. Although she lined up a host of complex political reasons behind each act of aggression it seemed to Nona that the root cause was the same in every case. The ice kept advancing. If you squeezed any nation north and south it must expand east and west, or spend so many lives trying that the land remaining to it is sufficient.

“Atishoo!” Nona tried to hold the next sneeze in, she focused her will, reached for her serenity, gritted her teeth. “Atishoo!”

“Cover your mouth, girl!” Sister Rail stalked towards her.

Nona lowered the hand she’d had covering her mouth, biting back both her retort and the desire to wipe that hand down the front of the approaching nun.

“How many battle-barges were beached in the Durnish invasion at Songra Beach?” Sister Rail peered down at her.

Carry her to the window and throw her out!

Nona couldn’t help but smirk at Keot’s suggestion.

“You find this amusing, novice?”

“No, Mistress Academic. I was trying not to sneeze.” Nona pressed her lips together. “And it was three hundred.”

“When?”

“Uh . . . the thirtieth year of Emperor Tristan?”

“Nonsense.” Sister Rail turned and stalked back towards her desk. “It was the thirty-first year.”

When Bray tolled the class made for the door with indecent haste. Only Zole, Darla and Nona took their time. On each day of the Shade Trial two novices were allowed a day’s respite from guard duty. Four-day was Zole and Darla’s day off and no penalties incurred by the guards on post would fall upon their shoulders.

Zole walked out after the others. “Good luck today.”

“What have you heard?” Nona fought back a rising panic.

“Heard?” Zole turned. “Nothing but footsteps in the night. But it is enough to know you. You will make your move today. You would not strike against a friend, Nona Grey.” She shrugged and left.

“Better get on with it,” Darla said. “This is insane, though. I did mention that?”

“You did.” And Nona led off after Zole.

They went directly to the novice cloisters, the icy gusts swirling around them as the Corridor wind struggled to reassert itself. Mystic Class would be arrayed within the cloister now, ready to challenge Nona the moment she set foot inside. Darla followed Nona into the laundry wing, ignoring the main archway into the cloister. They went through the washroom, past Sister Mop and Sister Spear, one scrubbing, the other at work with the mangle.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sister Spear looked up as Nona started to climb the wooden stairs to the second storey.

Nona paused and met the woman’s sharp stare. “I’m on Shade Trial, sister.”

“And the big girl?” Sister Spear had recently joined from Gerran’s Crag in the west and struggled with names.

She’s old. Beat her and leave her bleeding.

“She’s my prisoner,” Nona said.

“Prisoner?” Sister Spear frowned.

Nona nodded. “Mistress Shade has instructed us at length on the value of hostages. I can’t afford to let her out of my sight.”

Sister Spear waved them away, shook her head and returned to her mangle work. “Novices . . .”

The floor above had been given over to the storage of linens, salt for the wash, and unspecified crates of the type that looked too important to throw away but too boring to open. Nona ignored it all and went to one of the outer windows. The shutters protested with a squeal of rusty hinges.

“I don’t like this bit.” Darla peered out at the drop.

“I won’t let you down.” Nona patted the rope at her hip then slipped out onto the window ledge. A quick jump and scramble saw her onto the roof, one flaw-blade skewering a roof tile to gain purchase. Crouching low, Nona hurried towards the chimney above the boiling room. She kept below the roof ridge and looped her rope around the narrow smokestack. Returning to the roof’s edge, she dangled the rope for Darla.

“Come on.” She sneezed and swore.

Darla made a meal of the climb, sending more than a few tiles crashing to the flagstones below. If the Mystic Class guards had truly believed Nona stood even a small chance of success they would have recruited eyes among the other classes and stationed them outside. But Nona had chosen the least overlooked side of the building and the ice-wind kept novices from lingering outside; and neither Joeli nor her friends seemed to consider her a threat.