Mortal Heart
The next lesson of the day goes much the same, only this time I manage to anger the even-tempered Sister Widona, something I have not ever done in all my years at the convent. Her face is white and pinched as she scolds me for driving my horse too hard and jumping him in his exhausted state, thereby risking breaking his leg and my neck. When she orders me back to the stables, I want to put my heels to the horse’s sides and canter in the opposite direction. I can feel him quivering beneath me, eager to be allowed to show his full strength and power. Like me, he has more in him, and Widona coddles him just as the abbess coddles me. It is only the threat of being barred from riding for an entire fortnight that causes me to comply, for my riding skills are one of my best arguments as to why I should be the next one sent out.
As I return to the stables—alone and under reprimand—it occurs to me that if I anger enough of the nuns, perhaps they will beg the abbess to send me out on assignment lest they be tempted to kill me themselves.
The next day, we report to the training yard for knife fighting, using wooden blades fashioned by Sister Arnette that have the look and heft of true knives. I have spent nearly the entire night going over and over the abbess’s words until my heart is raw and my muscles twitch with a desperate need to do something to avert the fate she has in store for me.
I use that sense of desperation to quicken my reflexes and rack up seventeen kills in the first quarter-hour.
Sister Thomine orders a break, then calls me aside. “Your skill is as fine as anyone’s I have ever seen,” she tells me. “Novice and full initiate alike.”
It is all I can do not to ask that she report this to the abbess at once. Instead, I bow my head meekly. “Thank you, Sister.”
“However, you are not the only novitiate here. You need to begin holding back or else the other girls will never have a chance to learn their skills.” Her words cause my head to jerk up in frustration, but she does not notice and gives me an awkward pat on the shoulder, motioning me back to the group.
My next opponent is Matelaine, who looks more than a little wary of me. Instead of giving her a reassuring smile, I narrow my eyes. I cannot go easy, especially not on Matelaine. Not when it appears that the abbess is contemplating sending her out so soon. In the real world, assailants will not hold back or soften their blows, so how will my doing so teach the others anything except how to be weak and die young?
I nod once to indicate I am ready. When she steps forward with a right-handed strike, I move in, and with three quick strikes I have her on the ground. I am not even breathing hard as she glares up at me.
After I beat Matelaine once more, and Sarra twice, Sister Thomine orders me out of the yard for the afternoon. I keep my head held high as I leave, and remind myself that strength is nothing to be ashamed of.
My redoubled efforts in my training lessons have borne rich fruit, for not only have I demonstrated that no one else is equal to my skill, I have rebelled openly enough that reports of my behavior should make their way back to the abbess and have her reconsidering whether I will be so compliant with her every wish.
While I feel certain that the abbess will quickly see the error of her decision once the nuns’ accounts begin to trickle in, it is always best to approach a problem from two sides.
If Sister Vereda were not ill, they would not need me to be their new seeress. Therefore, I must do all in my power to ensure that Sister Vereda recovers.
Chapter Three
SISTER SERAFINA HAS BEEN OVERWORKED ever since Ismae left, as Ismae was the only other one here who was able to handle poisons with no ill effects. With the additional nursing duties she must perform for Vereda, Serafina will be truly buried by all her tasks. It is logical enough that she will need some help.
But if I simply show up and announce my willingness to help, word of it might get back to the abbess, which would not only raise her suspicions but confirm her belief that I am willing to do anything that is asked of me—no matter that it is not what I have trained for. The trick will be to provoke Sister Serafina into ordering me to help so it will not seem like my idea at all. I assure myself that is the reason for my subterfuge and not this overwhelming need that dogs my every step to be precisely the opposite of obedient and helpful.
I pause just outside the infirmary door. As I listen to the clink and tinkle of glass flasks and a lone voice muttering, my mind casts about for some demand that will trigger her ire so forcefully that she will be quick to punish me with extra chores.
I think of the older nun’s dear face, her sallow skin and plain features, and the small vanity that has her paying young Florette to pluck the dark hairs that have begun to sprout from her chin, hairs that her aging eyes can no longer see.
And that is when I know what will annoy her the most.
I close my eyes and try to muster the callousness I will need for this, for I am loath to cause Sister Serafina any pain. But surely hers will be a small pain when weighed against an entire lifetime spent shut inside the seeress’s chambers.
Besides, as the Dragonette used to work so hard to impress upon me, an assassin has no use for a soft heart. Ruthless, she always urged me. You must be ruthless. With that reminder, I rise up on my toes, make my steps light and dainty, and prance into the room. “Oh, there you are, Sister!”
Sister Serafina looks up from the herbs she is chopping and frowns at me. At her elbow, a kettle sits over a small flame, and faint beads of perspiration cover her upper lip. “Who is looking for me now?”
I pretend I do not notice her tone. “Just me.” I lift a hand to my cheek and frown. “I have come to ask if you could make a special wash for my face. Sister Beatriz says my complexion is not as smooth as it should be to pass for a noble lady at court.” Sister Beatriz has said no such thing to me, but she has said it to poor Loisse.
Sister Serafina shakes her head in disgust and keeps chopping. “I do not have time for such frivolities, and surely neither do you.”
For a moment my resolve falters. Should I not just confide in her? Would she not sympathize with my plight? After all, it was she who first saw, then subsequently tended, the wounds on my body, even when she had been ordered to leave them alone so that Mortain’s own will could guide the healing process. Her hands were gentle and her tongue mercifully silent of questions as she carefully cleansed and then treated the lacerations. Even more admirable, she has never once brought it up or presumed any special confidence between us, nor even allowed herself to glance toward the scars she once tended with so much compassion.
But it is too big a risk. Just because she did me a great kindness years ago does not mean she has sworn herself to secrecy on my behalf. “Is it frivolous to make myself perfect in Mortain’s eyes so He will use me for His work?” I allow my true concern to show on my face.
“You are already perfect, child,” she says, her voice flat.
I turn to an empty polished metal basin on her worktable and angle it so that I may see my own reflection. “Then why have I not yet been chosen?” The distress in my voice is no subterfuge—it comes straight from my heart.
“I know it is hard for you with both Sybella and Ismae having been sent out. But your time will come.”
In spite of the old nun’s words, a hot prickly feeling rises up in me and I want to shout at her that it might not come, it might never come if the reverend mother has her way. Terrified by this surge of unfamiliar anger, I bow my head and speak softly. “But surely I must do everything in my power to be ready for that moment.”
Sister Serafina presses her lips together and chops faster. Acting as if I cannot sense her mounting annoyance—indeed, a great thick ox would be able to sense her mounting annoyance—I move closer and peer over her shoulder. “What are you mixing? Is that mallow and comfrey? Those make a fine wash to improve the complexion, do they not?”
The old nun stops chopping and slams her knife down on the table. “I do not have time to hold your hand, nor offer you pretty comfort or useless potions. Surely there is something better you can do with your time. Other skills you can perfect besides your vanity.” She wipes her hands on her apron and pours more water into her small bubbling kettle.
I let my shoulders slump. “But what would you have me do? I am like a fifth wheel on a cart. I am skilled in the use of every weapon in Sister Arnette’s armory; I can best Sister Thomine in a fight as often as she can best me; my archery skills are better than anyone else’s here; and I can ride a horse bareback, backward, or standing up.”
Sister Serafina cocks her head, eyes alight with curiosity. “Standing up? I thought only the followers of Arduinna knew how to do that trick.”
“No. Sister Widona taught me.” I let a plaintive whine creep into my voice. “There is nothing left for me to do. Even Sister Beatriz has taught me every dance, every means of seduction. Why, she has even taught me how to—”
“Enough!” Sister Serafina holds up her hand, halting my words. Surely it was a Mortain-inspired strategy, turning to the one subject that makes her most uncomfortable—the skills of seduction they teach us.
She dumps the handful of herbs she has chopped into the kettle of boiling water. “Very well,” she says. “If you have mastered everything they have to teach you, I have some things you have yet to learn.”
I take an eager step toward her. “You will give me more poison lessons?”
She snorts. “I have already taught you everything I can about poisons. To learn any more, you would have to be immune to them, and you have not acquired that skill, have you?” She turns and looks at me sharply, as if almost hoping it were true.
I shake my head and sigh, fighting down a familiar pang of jealousy at Ismae’s most practical and rare of gifts. “Alas, no.”
“So I will teach you my other skill. Nursing.”
I look at the row of empty beds. “But we have no patient.”
“Ah, but we do. Here.” She shoves the empty metal basin at me, then picks up a tray covered with small pots of salves and piles of herbs. “Follow me.”
Of all the duties the nuns perform here at the convent, those of the seeress are the ones I know the least about. Sister Vereda does not join us at meals, nor participate in our feasts or celebrations. She does not teach us any lessons or train us in any skills. It is as if she does not exist. The only time a handmaiden meets with her is if she is going on assignment and Sister Vereda has Seen it. Since I have not yet been sent out, I have never met with her.
Old Sister Druette, who was seeress before Vereda, was just as mysterious, although far more terrifying. She was known to stand at her door, peeking out into the hallway, ready to grab or pinch a passing novitiate when she wanted something. Most of us did everything we could to avoid walking down that corridor.
I follow Sister Serafina down the hall that leads to the inner recesses of the convent and struggle to keep my footsteps firm and brisk. Dread begins to seep into my bones, an awareness that when I step into Sister Vereda’s chambers, I could be staring into the face of my own fate.
No. Surely as soon as the seeress can See again, the abbess will put away this idea of hers.
Once we reach the thick oaken door that leads to the seeress’s chambers, Sister Serafina shifts the tray she carries, lifts the latch, and slips inside. I try to follow, but my feet will not obey. They are stuck fast, as if they have been entangled in some invisible web.
Sister Serafina turns and frowns at me over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I say, and force myself to step over the threshold.
Sister Vereda’s chamber is dark and dim. The smells of a sickroom hang thick in the air: pungent herbs, a full chamber pot, old fevered sweat. It feels like every breath the seeress has ever drawn still sits here, trapped for all eternity. It is all I can do not to gag and run screaming from the room.
I take slow, deep breaths through my mouth and allow my eyes to grow accustomed to gloom. Once they have, the first thing I see is a pale orange glow from the four charcoal braziers set around the room. As my vision adjusts further, I am able to make out the interior, a small, cramped place with no windows, only the one door, and not even a true fireplace.