Red Sister

‘What—’ Hessa’s story swallowed Nona’s voice first, then took the rest of her.

The Academy purchased Willum and Chara. Like the Caltess it kept a reserve of young potential, but while Partnis Reeve stored his children among the sacks and boxes in his attic the Academy had a school for the purpose, a sprawling range of buildings that looked to Hessa more like a fairy castle than a place to teach ragged peasants plucked from Giljohn’s cage.

Four-Foot’s hooves clattered on the cobbles as he brought them in under a great sandstone arch, every inch of it carved with sigils, some that seemed to fold the world around them, and others that made her smile, laughter bubbling up from places Hessa had forgotten even before the journey. A strange energy suffused the air, tingling on Hessa’s skin, pricking along her cheeks, singing in the marrow of her bones.

‘You’re as close now to the emperor’s palace as you’re ever likely to get.’ Giljohn seemed nervous – worry looked as out of place on him as kindness or sentimentality might. ‘Closer than most ever get. The Academy Hall lies behind this school, and it practically backs against the Ark.’ He brought Four-Foot to a halt before a complex of buildings, under the watchful eyes of stewards in spotless black uniforms. ‘Get out.’ Giljohn ushered them from the cage. ‘Quick about it!’ He aimed a half-hearted swipe at Markus. ‘And try to look valuable, damn you!’

They had been examined, all four of them, Markus and Hessa too, in a hall as grand as any church. Each of them in turn, inspected across the width of a polished ebony table. Hessa sat in the uncomfortable chair that Giljohn had carried her to, on a cloth that the Academic’s assistant had laid atop smooth wood. The assistant had wrinkled his nose as he retreated.

In this place Hessa supposed even Giljohn looked like a beggar. He stood ill at ease among the gleaming marble columns, watching as Markus took his turn at the table.

The Academic sat in a high-backed chair, itself a work of turned pillars and ornate turrets, her fingers steepled before her, thin arms emerging from sleeves of lustrous purple fabric embroidered with the same sigil repeated time and again. Her neck seemed too long and thin to support her head, and all across one side of it a stain spread, a dull scarlet thickening of skin, like a hand reaching up to choke her.

She spoke to each of them at length, looking down from her elevation with coldly curious eyes. Hessa came away confused and drained, as if each answer had taken something from her.

When it came to the sale Giljohn had none of the banter that he’d shared with Partnis. Rather he spoke more like a stall-keep at a peasant market faced with some high lady wandering through for a moment’s diversion. He stated his price and the Academic either paid or enquired after the next child. For Chara and Willum she handed over twelve crowns apiece, more for each of them than Partnis had given for all eight that he took.

‘The dark boy, he’s likely to show some marjal blood, but his aura is too wild for Academy work. He’ll end up a hedge-mage or turn native. If that happens, better he end up a forestling than take to the tunnels, mark me.’ The Academic turned away, down the long gallery of pillars, and Giljohn pushed her purchases after her, his hands to their shoulders. ‘And the girl?’

‘Nothing. Perhaps she sees the Path … perhaps some-one taught her what to say so that she might get fed. Take her to the sisters, or Caiphus, if he’ll see you. Or one of the rogues. I don’t really care – the Path is not Academy business.’

After the Academy Giljohn drove his cart along the smaller streets, muttering to himself. The tenements had a sour smell and tall chimneys behind the houses pumped out a dark, almost green, smoke that even the wind didn’t seem to want.

‘Damned if I’m taking you to the witch, girl!’ Giljohn raised his voice without warning, turning in his seat. ‘I don’t like the way she looks at me. ’Sides, it’s a steep haul to the convent and the mule ain’t up to it.’

Hessa shrank back into the far corner of the cage, raising her hands. Witch, mage, Academic, it made no difference to her – they all sounded terrifying.

‘I’ll take the boy to church first. The priest knows his business. Not a judger, that one.’ Giljohn shook the reins and Four-Foot picked up the pace. The sky lay sullen overhead, the air heavy with the kind of heat that makes a body sweat.

They passed through the dour streets of the eastside and came by rising and tree-lined avenues to a more opulent quarter where, over a sea of tiled roofs, the spires of some great cathedral challenged the sky. Hessa felt as uncomfortable passing by the good-folk of Verity as she had beneath the Academic’s scrutiny.

‘They don’t look like they’re real people …’ Markus whispered beside her.

Hessa nodded. All of them, whether old or young, whatever their shade or blood, seemed a different breed, glowingly clean, full-fleshed, their clothes both strange and costly. Hessa had seen the major of Morltown once, back in the Grey, as he passed by on his horse. Here even he would look shabby, his colours dull.

Giljohn drew up beneath a large tree and jumped out into the road. ‘Covering you up. Stay hid.’ He pulled out the hides he hung when the rains came and pushed them through the bars. Hessa and Markus hunched down beneath them.

They rattled along in stifling darkness for a while with only the change from cobbles to paved road and back again to mark their passage.

‘I didn’t like that woman,’ Markus said.

‘The Academic? She was … strange.’

‘My great-nan was a hedge-witch. She said that the marjal who work with the land don’t twist like the rest. That’s why they hate us.’

‘Twist?’ Hessa lifted the edge of the hide for enough light to see Markus’s face.

‘Twist.’ He put a hand to his neck where the woman had borne a livid mark. ‘The marjal tribe learned the deepest secrets of their world, tasted its blood, knew it down to the bedrock and beyond – it let them work it with their minds, draw on its strength, understand its beasts and draw its fire. But this isn’t that world, it belongs to someone else. You take too much here and Abeth takes back. This place still belongs to the Missing.’

Giljohn drew up again. ‘Wait here.’

An age later, or perhaps a couple of minutes, Giljohn returned and drove the cart around a corner into some echoing space. He halted and pulled the hides clear, leaving Hessa blind in the daylight.

First she saw that they were in a high-walled garden on the gravel between house and grounds. Next that the house was as grand as any she had yet seen, the windows beneath huge sandstone lintels boasting sheets of glass bigger than her head, held within a criss-crossing of wooden frames.

‘Priest’ll be out in a minute,’ Giljohn said. ‘Show him what he’s looking for, boy. He’s not a man you want to disappoint.’

Hessa shuffled along to sit on the tailgate while Markus clambered out and went to stand beside Giljohn up by Four-Foot. The garden walls seemed to hold back what little wind the day had to offer, the air hanging close and wet around them.

‘He’s a priest?’ Markus asked.

‘Of the Ancestor, so mind your heathen mouth.’

‘I’m not a heathen—’

The main door to the house opened, a tall and exquisitely dressed man stepping through. He took in the cart and three travellers with a disapproving eye, as if mere proximity might sully the dark blue of his velvets. A moment later the priest walked out, a broad-chested guardsman behind him. Hessa stared, lips parted. The servant had been more richly dressed than anyone she had ever seen, but the priest wore a robe of dark material that seemed to glisten even as it ate the light, so thick and so folded that stretched out it might cover the cage that for months had been her home. Gold chains gleamed on both his wrists, an amethyst the size of a hen’s egg hung from the rope of woven gold about his neck, and in his right hand he held a sick-wood staff, the end stamped with the alpha and omega of the Ancestor, each letter inlaid in silver.