Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor 2)

“A better person wouldn’t do this . . .” Part of her wanted Keot to be there in her mind, screaming at her to act. She glanced at Kettle, finding the woman’s face free of expression.

“Any fair court would give the death sentence for his crimes,” Kettle said at last. “It’s for you to decide how.”

Nona remembered the Tacsis, father and son, leaning over her in that Noi-Guin cell, and pressed the Harm firmly into the small of Thuran Tacsis’s back, holding it there as he went rigid with an agony whose measure she could not forget. She held the disc in place long enough for the flesh-bind to form its bond.

“Why isn’t he screaming?” Clera whispered.

“You can’t,” Nona said. “It hurts too much.”

She moved back, lowered the sheet, and got up. “Lock the door behind us.” There was no knowing how long it would take before he was discovered. If they took too long perhaps the pain would kill him or maybe he would survive until he died of thirst. Twinges of regret and shame ran through Nona while Kettle set to work on the lock again, but each time she thought of returning to put an end to the man some image from the cells would rise to stop her.

“Done.” Kettle stood from the lock.

“Can we leave now?” Clera asked.

Nona glanced back at the door, heart heavy, not feeling the release she had anticipated. “No.”

“No?” Clera seemed on the point of mutiny.

“Lano Tacsis said the abbess was escaping with others. They’re going to be caught at the gates. We need to go there and help them get out.”

45

ABBESS GLASS

ARABELLA JOTSIS LEAPT higher than Glass had seen anyone leap, or had imagined that they might. She had sheared away the bottom half of her skirts but still what remained trailed behind her like fluttering plumage. Her leading foot broke the neck of a palace guardsman, her sword scythed through another’s throat, and she was attacking a third before either of the first two could start to fall.

While Melkir dragged Darla between the doors and clear of the melee Ara spun amid the crowd of her foes, creating an ever-wider circle of injured opponents. Her speed couldn’t last, but while it did the results were breathtaking.

Glass worked as quickly as she could, snuffing the flame from one silver table-lamp, flinging it towards the doors, picking up the next, its oil sloshing within, and repeating the process.

Darla, bleeding fiercely from several wounds, shook free of Melkir and hauled herself up him, trying to return to the fray. Melkir caught hold of her again, offering sharp words. Glass couldn’t hear what they were but they worked and Darla accepted his support as they hurried towards the servants’ door. Glass flung a seventh lamp before abandoning her task and setting off after Melkir.

The seventh lamp was still lit. There had been no plan, no words exchanged. Ara had simply exploded from the passage and hurled herself across the room to rescue Darla. Now, planting a foot in a guard’s groin and driving off, she threw herself back across the flames blossoming between the doors. She arrived at the entrance to the servants’ passage simultaneously with Glass, moments behind Melkir and Darla. Glass patted her on the back, taking the opportunity to put out a burning patch of Ara’s dress.

They wedged the door and moved on, Darla stumbling white-faced, the floor behind her painted by the rapid pattering of blood.

* * *

• • •

LORD CARVON JOTSIS seemed to have the best knowledge of Sherzal’s palace among the group who had escaped the banqueting hall. He led their party through the palace’s underbelly, through roaringly hot kitchens, steaming laundry rooms, and past endless servants’ chambers.

Their group numbered a score or so: four Sis lords—Jotsis, Mensis, Halsis, and old Glosis, who appeared not yet ready to die despite having enjoyed at least eighty years in her seat. With them were various family members and additional guests, including a merchant or two, and the cage-fighter, Regol. Now, shamefaced over his flight from the battle at the banquet doors, he was helping Terra Mensis along. The girl had broken a wrist during the escape though otherwise appeared astonishingly pristine. Had there been time Glass would have explained to Regol the reason for his lost courage. But time had run out on them and they were chasing it. Glass walked alongside Darla, trying to bind the cuts on her arms and side with strips of cloth torn from her habit. All were too deep for dressings to be much help. The injury in Darla’s side was a puncture wound and the sword that made it must have penetrated her vitals. Glass talked all the while, hardly aware of what she said, just comforting noise. Words of praise for Darla’s courage and skill, words of comfort and of hope that she didn’t feel, the words of the Ancestor, mother and father to them all who would surely gather each of them into the eternal embrace soon enough.

Carvon Jotsis led them with a certainty common to those of his station whether or not they knew where they were heading. In the distance shouts rang out, the sounds of running feet came and went, and the darkened corridor behind them promised attack at each moment. But it never came. Eventually they emerged from a long service tunnel into a cellar and up into the main stables. Ara felled the trio of stablehands who showed some inclination towards barring their way, using her fists and feet rather than her sword, but it still looked a brutal business. Ara’s uncle left her to it and went to the main entrance, Glass following. Some yards back from doors as wide as those of any barn a huge carriage stood beneath protective sheets. Sherzal’s, no doubt. The wheels were nearly as tall as Glass.

“Twelve hells.” Carvon turned from the narrow gap between the stable doors. “The main gates are shut. There’s a line of soldiers in front of them, two dozen archers on the walls above those.” He walked back towards Glass and the inquisitors.

“There must be another way.” Ara left Darla in Melkir’s care, resting against a hay bale, and came to join Lord Jotsis in front of Glass. “It won’t take long before they’re coming up behind us.”

“There’s no other way, not for us.” Carvon shook his head. “They say there’re ways into the mountain from the basements but I don’t know how to get there, or how to get through the caves if we found them.”

“So we go out there.” Ara drew herself straight, trying to look fierce, but her exhaustion showed. “Regol and I could make it onto the walls. Attack along both sides. Clear the archers.”

Glass didn’t bother to point out that it would be suicide. Reinforcements would arrive before they got to the gates. And even if they got above the gates opening them would be no simple thing. And merely leaving the palace wouldn’t save them . . . The weight of this knowledge pressed down upon her shoulders. Her arrival had killed these people. Whole families condemned to die.

“I’m game.” Regol flashed Ara a wolf’s smile. “I came for a free meal. I get enough of fighting to the death back in Verity. But I’m damned if I’m supporting that woman against the emperor or inviting the Scithrowl over the mountains.”

Seldom spoke up behind Glass. “We’re done for.”

“We are.” Agika joined them. “We should pray.”