Grey Sister

Glass smiled. She turned back towards the inquisitors and nodded. She had never been a zealot in the mould of Sister Wheel but she believed that at the end of things the Ancestor would gather them to the whole and all division would be set aside. It was an end worth praying for. She reached out for Agika’s hand, then Seldom’s. “Sister, brother, it has been an honour to serve with you.”

Lord Glosis, last to arrive, clambered up the stairs from the cellar, helped by a young nephew. “They’re on our trail.” She paused to catch her breath. “I could hear them in the corridor right behind us.” Another wheezing chestful of air hauled in under her ribs. “They’re coming!”

Ara and Regol moved quickly to flank the stairs, both with bloodstained swords in hand. The sounds of a fight would draw guards and soldiers from other directions; it would be over quickly. The sounds of footsteps on stone stairs grew louder, closer. A dark head popped up. Regol swung. Ara swung. Swords clashed, Ara’s blade turning Regol’s aside as the head jerked back.

“Clera?” Ara shouted. “What in hell are you—”

“Don’t kill me!” Clera came up again, hands raised.

Regol stepped back, frowning. Ara gave a cry and pushed past Clera, heading down the steps. She emerged a moment later in a staggering, limping, moving embrace with Nona Grey and Sister Kettle, all three of them clutching swords.

“I’ve seldom had a prayer answered so swiftly . . .” Glass released the inquisitors’ hands and hurried across to Nona and Kettle.

Glass wrapped her arms around Kettle’s altogether too-skinny frame, then Nona’s, similarly lacking in softness, all hard angles.

“Sister Kettle! So good to see you, Mistress Shade asked me to bring you back to the convent in one piece and I would hate to disappoint that woman.” Glass found her smile so wide it hurt. She took Nona’s hands. “And, novice, I’ve reconsidered your punishment. I’ve decided death was too harsh. Banishment seems extreme too. So . . . no visits to town for a month and you’re to attend the optional Spirit classes on seven-days instead.”

Glass stepped back and found both of them teary-eyed. To her dismay she discovered her own eyes misting. “Enough of this! The gate is heavily guarded. How are you going to get us out?” She noticed that Nona was limping. Kettle too; and the young nun also sported a livid black-and-scarlet wound across her throat.

Nona’s gaze wandered over the various stalls with horses in, the rope and tack hung across the walls, the hay heaped beside sacks of grain. Her eyes came to rest on Sherzal’s huge carriage. One of the Sis had pulled back the sheeting from the door. It gleamed darkly, lacquered in black, emblazoned with Sherzal’s coat of arms: a storm cloud above a mountain, both lit by the jagged golden lightning that joined them.

“Is it a clear path to the outer gates?” Nona asked.

“Apart from all the archers,” Regol said. “And the soldiers.”

Nona looked across at the cage-fighter, registering him for the first time. She stood frozen for a heartbeat then looked away, almost shy. “Everyone needs to get into the carriage.”

“How will that help?” Lord Jotsis pushed through the survivors starting to gather around the newcomers.

“I will move it.” Nona turned her wholly black eyes on the man. “There are palace guards entering the cellar below as we speak. Get in the carriage and you might survive.”

“Uncle.” Ara was already pulling the lord towards the carriage.

Glass watched without comment. Nona’s unassuming air of command was remarkable. The girl had Sis lords hurrying to do her bidding.

Kettle turned around and scattered caltrops down the stairs. “Better hurry, abbess, they’re coming.”

Glass nodded and followed Carvon Jotsis. A sense of urgency took hold and the guests in their soiled finery started to hurry towards the carriage. It looked large enough to hold them all though there would be no room for modesty. It would take eight horses to pull and horses wouldn’t see them through locked gates. What one girl could do Glass couldn’t imagine, but she had prayed and Nona had come. Now she would have faith.

Nona reached out, took a lantern from one of the passing guests and smashed it at the base of the piled hay. She pointed to a pitchfork. “Block the stairs.” Regol moved to begin the task while the others stood horrified.

“You’ll burn us alive!”

“She’s mad. Look at her!”

The air was already hot on Glass’s face and her eyes stung. The memory of her burned hand returned to her, not the unreal agony of the burning but the long dark misery of pain in the weeks that followed. She hoped Nona’s plan reached beyond torching the palace.

Nona ignored the cries of protest. “Make sure the horses can get out, Terra.”

“But . . .” Terra held up her broken wrist.

“Just do it.”

Nona limped towards Sherzal’s carriage. Kettle limped after her. Clera chased both of them. “Burn to death in the carriage. Is that the plan?” She stopped in her tracks. “I liked Sherzal’s better!” Behind her the panicked whinnying of horses had begun.

“I am rather wondering what the plan is myself,” Kettle said. Behind her the flames were leaping up across the hay, smoke billowing from the stairs to the cellar. Regol stumbled out of it, coughing, wiping his eyes.

“I’m going to walk the Path,” Nona said. “Unlock the doors!” She waved towards the stables’ main entrance. The two inquisitors ran over, hauling the locking bar clear.

“You won’t be able to!” Kettle said. “Not so soon. You walked an hour ago!”

Glass had no practical experience but she had heard Sister Pan’s stories. On rare occasions the old woman, her tongue loosened perhaps by convent wine, spoke of past days, and of the deeds of the greatest Holy Witches. Walking the Path was always dangerous, a step too far. Take too much power to yourself and it would rip you apart. It took time to recover from. When extremity drove a Holy Witch to return to the Path too soon it always ended in disaster, often for everyone around. The old saying was “seven moons to be sure.” Some of the greatest had walked again after a single moon, a single night to recover their focus, and for some of those it had been their last moon too. The curtain wall of Heod’s Fist, a great castle close to Ferraton where Glass had grown up, held a scar yards across and feet deep, and in its midst the shape of a person etched into the blackened rock. Sister Pan’s teacher, Sister Nail, had died there in defence of the castle against the army of the rebel king. A second walk attempted at the sunset of a day when she had walked the Path at sunrise.

Ara hurried back from the carriage to help Melkir lift Darla from her resting place among the hay bales.

“You can’t walk again, Nona.” Ara struggled with Darla’s weight. “You know you can’t.”

Nona opened her mouth to reply, then froze. Glass realized that until this moment Nona hadn’t seen the gerant novice, lying down among the hay bales.

“Darla . . .” Nona dropped her sword. “What have they done to you?” She was beside the girl in a moment, kneeling over her, oblivious to the crackle of the fire, rising towards a roar. “What have they done to you?” Her hands moved across Darla’s wounds, inches above them, trembling.