Grey Sister

“Glass.” Brother Pelter found his voice, staring pointedly at Sera and Melkir.

Glass ignored him. “Ara?”

“I came to be of service, Abbess Glass,” Ara said. Although her maids had made her beyond pretty with all the arts of powders and rouge there was still something in those blue eyes that promised a world of hurt to any who crossed her. “You have only to ask. And I am not alone.” She motioned with her gaze, pointing out Darla who towered above her father, the renowned General Rathon, newly promoted and surely just one more victory from his lordship.

Glass found herself oddly touched that the two novices had contrived to have their family connections move them to her destination as soon as they had discovered it. The delays encountered while Pelter hunted her judges had allowed Darla and Ara to overtake her along the more direct roads.

“Heretic.” A vicious whisper, close at hand.

A glance found the source, decked in diamonds and lace. Joeli Namsis. Her whisper spread, giving licence to tongues held still in the moment. “Abbess Glass?” A malicious smile. “Were chains all you could find to wear that would get you past the door to so grand a home?” This girl wasn’t seventeen yet but she could pass as a woman of twenty-one among the gathered heiresses. “And I had heard that you were supposed to be good at these games of empire.”

“Glass!” Pelter again.

The abbess turned away from Joeli, nodded to Lord Jotsis, and pushed on before Melkir’s hand quite found her elbow.

The butler pressed forward, employing some personal magic to forge a path through the assembled aristocracy without causing offence. Ahead the throng thickened as cattle will around a feeding trough, the conversations joining and swelling, each voice raising itself by degrees in order to be heard. Like a marjal water-worker the butler parted the vivid sea before them and, revealed at its midst, Sherzal, in flowing black.

“Abbess Glass!” Her already-wide smile widened. “Have you brought my daughter to me?”

“Novice Zole’s whereabouts are unknown to me.” Glass studied the woman. Sherzal looked younger than the thirty-nine years recorded against her name. Nobody would call her beautiful—perhaps striking would be closer to the truth. Undeniably, the energies that animated her created a personal magnetism about the emperor’s sister.

“A disappointment.” Sherzal managed to hide the alleged disappointment from her face. “And you come to us in chains?” All eyes save Sherzal’s fell to Glass’s wrists. “Are we to have a trial? How exciting.”

Glass raised her wrists, palms turning upwards, and drew the crowd’s gaze back to her face. “A trial without inquisitors would be impossible, I’m afraid. And it would be remiss of me not to note that Brother Pelter is here illegally, along with Brothers Seldom and Dimeon, and Sister Agika. They have entered a royal palace without permission and must remove themselves immediately to await punishment in the Tower of Inquiry.”

Two vertical lines appeared momentarily between Sherzal’s brows. “No matter. Their transgression is forgiven.”

Glass kept herself erect despite the weight of the crowd’s regard. “Forgiveness is admirable in one so blessed with position, but the fact remains that without invitation none of them can be beneath your roof. As law-breakers they lack the authority to hold me and these chains, however silver, become the tools of the abductor.”

“I invite them,” Sherzal snapped, the violence beneath her skin suddenly manifest. “All of them, welcome guests. We shall have our trial at midnight.”

A man pushed by Glass, his robes lordly but a faint rankness swirling in their wake. “The trial will be something to settle stomachs after the banquet and before the dancing.” Lord Thuran Tacsis reached Sherzal’s side. He bowed low. “My apologies, honourable Sherzal, for returning in haste and disarray, but I heard our new guest had arrived and I had to greet her.” He turned to direct the blaze of his good humour upon Glass. “I’m glad to see you here, abbess. Or perhaps it should just be ‘prisoner’ now?” A huge grin. He patted the ample belly beneath his robes. “I’ve been attending to that matter we discussed back on the road to Verity, if you recall?” On Thuran’s snow-lion collar a small grey smear of mud drew Glass’s eye.

Sherzal clapped her hands, suddenly serious. “Enough. Inquisitor Pelter, take the prisoner away and let your jury know they sit at midnight.”

Glass found herself being bustled back through the press of Sherzal’s guests. She had no eye towards their faces this time, and no care for any jibes. Thuran Tacsis had come to them in haste from wherever Nona was being held. Glass knew the smell he carried. Mud and shit. But more than that. It was a scent she knew from her time beneath Sweet Mercy on the night before another trial. The smell of deep places. Of a recluse or cell in caves far below the ground. Had the Noi-Guin delivered Nona to Sherzal’s dungeons? Glass had known the emperor’s sister was reckless but not so reckless as to allow Thuran Tacsis to flout the emperor’s ruling in her own palace. Crucical had forbidden the Tacsis from pursuing Nona for revenge or justice. He had made it a capital command after Raymel broke the first declaration. Everyone involved in any further contravention could be summarily executed.

Glass had been sure the Noi-Guin would take Nona to the Tetragode and that if Thuran were to gloat over his prize it would be there. There was perhaps no place in the empire so far from the emperor’s eye. Crucical probably didn’t even know where the Tetragode currently lay. It seldom remained in one place for long: the assassins never stayed more than four years and took almost nothing with them, erasing all evidence that the Tetragode had ever existed. They took only their wealth, rumoured to be in diamonds of exceptional quality, their shipheart, and the Book of Shadows, the list of clients and targets dating back over six hundred years. The Noi-Guin and the Lightless would melt away one by one, regathering at some new location with the most extravagant care.

“Hurry!” Pelter snapped, and Sera gave a push to encourage Glass along.

The abbess raised her head. They were far from the great halls now, in a long corridor lined with quarters for the servants of guests. She paused. The others walked a couple of paces before Pelter spun around. “What are you waiting for?” The tone a mistress might use for a tardy novice.

Glass frowned. “There’s a feeling . . . when you know something is there. You absolutely know it, and yet whilst you have all manner of evidence that implies it is there, you’ve nothing that absolutely demands that it is. Like a case built on circumstance. Or the next stair in a dark cellar after you’ve passed the point that you can see where you’re placing your feet. There’s a feeling you get sometimes in those situations, a crisis of doubt and faith. You step down, feeling for the next stair, you pass the point where you might pull back and still not stumble, and you keep going, with just faith and guesswork to keep you from breaking your neck in a black place beneath the ground.” Glass lifted her foot for her next step. “I just had that feeling. That’s why I was waiting.”

38

NONA PLUMMETED THROUGH empty darkness. She wasn’t sure how long she had been falling for or where she had fallen from. All she knew was the terrible certainty that soon she would hit something hard and at a speed that would spread her across it.