Grey Sister

Nona’s thoughts wandered away rather like the hypothetical novice in the market and led her to Thaybur Square. On at least a quarter of seven-days the Shade Trial kept the novices of Mystic Class from the chaperoned distractions of Verity’s markets or family visits, hemming them instead into the broadness of Thaybur Square. By all accounts it wasn’t too harsh an imposition. The square was popular with the merchant classes and many a well-dressed couple would promenade there, browsing the small number of licensed stalls and exchanging pleasantries. Older folk with good coin would play dominos or chess on hired boards at tables around the perimeter.

Nona’s goal would be to reach the spreading pine at the centre of the square without being challenged by the novices on patrol. Reaching the pine would be nigh impossible. If she made it everyone on guard wouldn’t get to eat for two days. But the novices couldn’t afford to just challenge anyone who approached. An incorrect challenge lost everyone on guard a meal. Reaching the tree would be enough to continue being considered as a candidate for the Grey. For top marks though you had to not only reach the tree unchallenged but recover the puzzle-box hidden high in its branches. If you did that the guards missed meals for three days. The full task was to open the box as well, but you would have to be invisible to sit in the tree fiddling with the box long enough to open it and still not be challenged so Nona was not surprised to hear that none of the Poisoner’s graduates had managed it.

“Zole can be first.” Sister Apple’s voice cut through Nona’s imaginings.

Zole got to her feet, scowling, as the Poisoner beckoned her to the front.

Sister Apple offered her a smile in return. “Now, Zole, tell me how much you love to dance.” She raised a hand to forestall the objection. “And while you sell me the lie, also convince me, without using words, that you’re a native of Verity born to a merchant family of moderate wealth.” In that moment the nun’s accent so mirrored that of Zole and Yisht that Nona could believe her born on the ice and raised for thirty years without sight of green.

“I live to dance.” Zole spoke through gritted teeth, tightening each word into something that sounded more like a Durnish sailor in pain than any subject of the emperor, let alone one of Verity’s moneyed class. “Dancing is my . . . pleasure.”

“Hmmm.” Sister Apple nodded. “And do you favour the chattra or the mouse-step?”

Darla elbowed Nona while the ice-triber ground out her replies as though they were death-threats. “Even Zole stands a better chance than you in the Shade Trial.” She pointed to her eyes with index and forefinger. “Joeli is going to organize a defence around that tree that a Noi-Guin couldn’t get through, and with those peepers of yours two street kids would be enough to spot you before you got within ten yards.”

“Pay attention, Nona, you’re next.” Sister Apple snapped her fingers. “And Zole—that was terrible. You may never have an ear for accents but you can at least learn to lie more convincingly. Next class you will convince me of your love for dancing or I will convince you that your defences against poisoning are still inadequate. Here’s my tip. In your mind substitute something that you love for the thing you hate. Clearly you’re not a devotee of music and self-expression, so when you come to me again be thinking of something else every time you say the word ‘dance.’ You like punching people. When you’re telling me how you connect to the music and let it speak through you tell me instead about blade-fist: map that love onto the words coming from your mouth. This is how honest people lie.”

Zole pursed her lips, gave a short nod, and returned to her seat.

“Nona, you’re from the House Namsis and you’re disgusted that you have to have the peasants on your land resettled if you want to site a hunting lodge on their village. Make me believe your outrage. Go.”

The door to the Shade cavern opened. The mouths of a number of novices did too. You knocked at the Poisoner’s door, and then you waited, you did not just push on through.

The man who walked in had to stoop to avoid cracking his head against the doorframe. He wore white robes.

“Inquisitor.” Whispered among the class.

“Well, girls.” Sister Apple pointed Nona back towards her desk. “We are honoured to have an unexpected visit from a Brother of Inquiry today.” She turned and raised her head to face the man. “How may we help you, brother?”

“I am Pelter from Verity’s Hall of Questions. I am simply here to observe.”

“Alata, get Brother Pelter a chair.” Sister Apple indicated a spot by the door.

“I prefer to stand.” Pockmarks from some childhood illness marked one side of the man’s narrow face. He was perhaps fifty. The scrawny length of his neck, the prominence of his throat, and his greying hair, tufting up like the wool of a badly shorn sheep, would have made him comical if not for the brittle blueness of his eyes. Nona felt they were the eyes of a man who had witnessed horrors, and approved. She sat, grateful to join the others.

“Well.” Sister Apple frowned and brought her hands together. “Let us return to the art of disguise . . .”

The tall inquisitor set a long-fingered hand to his throat. “I believe you were discussing the business of lying.” He pointed to Nona. “Perhaps the girl could convince me that she is a Sis. A daughter of Elon Namsis. And that she wishes to clear peasants from her lands.”

Sister Apple motioned Nona to her feet.

Pelter’s gaze travelled the length of her, a sharp inspection that made Nona’s skin crawl. Beneath her habit Keot circled away to the small of her back. The inquisitor’s gaze met hers and she felt something new, a rustling of old memories, the focus moon through the starkness of bare branches, the Corridor wind through the wooden bars of a cage. Thread-work! Nona bit down hard, imagining the fist of her will closing around every thread that anchored her to the world and holding them fast. Her glance fell to the man’s hands, down at his sides now. There was little to betray him, just the slightest twitch of his fingers, but she knew it then. A quantal thread-worker running the dirty fingers of his mind through her thoughts. She raised the blackness of her eyes to him and saw a moment’s hesitation in his own. The inquisitor’s lip curled and the tugging on her threads grew stronger, but she held them. Denied, Brother Pelter narrowed his gaze, the blue of his eyes turning to ice like that advancing from north and south to swallow the world. His smile held only winter.

“Come then, girl,” he said. “Lie to me.”

12

NONE OF THE novices could tell Nona why the Inquisition had installed itself at Sweet Mercy. Inquisitor Pelter had four watchers with him and placed them in all the classes that he did not personally observe.

“Sherzal sent them because of Zole.” Ruli spoke with the total conviction she reserved for all guesswork.

“Sherzal doesn’t own the Inquisition, Ruli.” Jula continued to sew the tear in her habit.

“She’s prime instigator.” Ara stretched out catlike across her bed. She patted for Nona to sit on the edge. “That means a lot. When Jacob sold her the role on his way to getting the high priesthood it was mostly an honorary position, but her archivists dug into the scrolls and found all manner of associated rights and duties the Church seemed to have forgotten about.”