LITMIR.BIZ

       4

      ‘You could send the child on her way here, abbess.’

      They stood at the point where the track began its steep ascent up the tumbled cliffs of the plateau, cutting back and forth across the gradient in a dozen hairpin turns. The older nun turned to Nona and pointed across the woods and fields to the west. ‘Morltown is five miles that way. A girl could make herself useful there, find fieldwork.’

      Sister Apple stood shoulder to shoulder with Sister Tallow. ‘The high priest will be on this in a heartbeat. The Tacsis won’t even have to ask.’

      ‘Pick your fights and pick your ground, abbess,’ Sister Tallow said. ‘Jacob would love to get his feet back under the convent table. This would be the perfect excuse.’

      ‘And you did just steal her from prison …’ Apple frowned, glancing back towards the distant city.

      ‘Mistress Blade tells me not to fight.’ A smile, then the abbess turned to begin the climb. ‘And Apple tells me not to steal …’ Nona started to follow her. ‘You’re nuns. Show a little faith.’

      A last edge of the sun clung to the horizon as Abbess Glass led the way towards a peculiar forest of stone pillars, their shadows reaching across hundreds of yards of rock towards the travellers’ approach. Nona followed, flanked by the two nuns, neither of them winded by the long climb that had set the abbess wheezing. The old one, Sister Tallow, looked as if she could climb all day. The younger, Sister Apple, at least had the decency to appear flushed. Nona, toughened by endless laps at the Caltess, felt the climb in her legs, and the dampness of her shift where sweat stuck it to her back, but made no complaint.

      The plateau, really one huge slab of rock, narrowed to a neck of land before widening into a promontory. The pillars stood across the neck, from cliff to cliff, dozens deep, scores across. Abbess Glass led the way through – finding her path seemingly at random. All about them the columns, taller than trees, stretched towards the darkening sky. The place held an odd silence, the wind finding nothing to sing its tune, only stirring the dust and grit among the towers of carved stone. Nona liked it.

      The pillars bounded Sweet Mercy Convent one side, and on the other the edges of two cliffs marched towards a sharp convergence. The main dome rose black against the crimson sky, a dozen and more outbuildings visible to either side. Nona followed the nuns towards its arched entrance, the weight of the day on her shoulders now, fatigue wrapping her in its dull grip, making both her anger and her sorrow grow more distant, shaping them into things that might be set apart for a night of dreams.

      ‘You live in there?’ As they drew closer Nona began to realize how large the dome was. The whole of the Caltess would fit inside several times over, stacked on top of itself.

      ‘That’s the Dome of the Ancestor, Nona. The Ancestor lives there, nobody else.’

      ‘Is he terribly big?’ Nona asked. Behind her Sister Apple stifled a laugh.

      ‘The Ancestor occupies any space built in their honour. In Verity the Ancestor is present in ten thousand household shrines, some into which even you would find it hard to squeeze, others larger than most houses. Here on the plateau the church was able to give the Ancestor a grander home – a gift of Emperor Persus, third of his name.’

      Nona followed on in silence, her lips buttoned against the thought that the Ancestor seemed very greedy to be taking up so much room while the children at the Caltess wedged themselves into any nook or cranny that would take them.

      ‘This is my house.’ Abbess Glass waved a hand at a blocky stone building looming out of the deepening shade. ‘At least for as long as I am abbess here. It’s also Malkin’s home.’ A large grey cat lay coiled on the steps. The abbess turned to face Nona and the two sisters. ‘Sister Apple will find you somewhere to sleep and in the morning you’ll be introduced to your class, after which—’

      ‘Class?’ Nona blinked. In the village Nana Even had held class every seven-day, teaching the older children their numbers and such. Nona had tried to listen in but bigs chased her away as if their stupid numbers were a secret too important for her ears.

      ‘You’re here to join the convent, Nona.’ Shadow hid the abbess’s face but perhaps there was a smile there. ‘If you want to. And that means living here and learning all the things a sister needs to learn. There are classes every day except seven-day.’ She turned and walked away.

      ‘Come, Nona.’ Sister Apple held out her hand. Nona regarded it, uncertain whether the woman wanted something from her. After a moment Apple returned her hand to her side and continued on around the curve of the dome. Sister Tallow followed, her habit flapping about her legs.

      Darkness had swallowed the plateau behind them and the wind roamed there. Nona stared back along the path the nuns had brought her by, the pillars invisible now. The heat of the climb had left her and the Corridor wind ran sharp fingers through her Caltess shift, filching any remaining warmth. It carried a salt edge – perhaps the sea, though it lay so many miles away. Nona shivered, hugged herself, and followed the nuns.

      At the rear of the dome a long, low building extended like a tail on a huddled dormouse. Sister Apple stopped at a sturdy door beneath the peak of a tiled roof. A lantern swung on a hook, sparing enough light for the nun to match the iron key she drew from her habit to the keyhole in the door’s locking plate.

      Sister Apple lifted the lantern down from its hook, adjusting its cowl. ‘These are the nun’s cells.’ She kept her voice low.

      ‘Cells!’ Nona took a step back.

      ‘Not like prison cells.’ Sister Apple smiled, then frowned. ‘Well, quite similar truth be told, but they’re clean and there are no locks on the doors.’ She stepped through the doorway. ‘You’ll sleep here tonight. If you study hard and do well you might get to come back for another night in about ten years.’

      The door gave onto a long corridor. The beam of Sister Apple’s lantern revealed the passage extended all the way to a black door where it reached the dome. Left and right, repeating every few yards, a pair of round-topped doors guarded nun’s cells. Sister Apple walked in, stepping softly. Sister Tallow turned without a word as they passed the third pair and passed into the darkness of the cell to the left. The black door at the end drew Nona’s eyes. Something about it.

      Eighteen doors in, about half the length of the corridor, Sister Apple stopped and pushed open the door to the right. She leaned in and took a candle from the box on the wall, lighting it from the lantern. ‘You’ll be in here. There’s linen and a blanket on the pallet. I’ll collect you in the morning.’ She handed the candle to Nona. ‘Don’t start any fires.’

      Nona watched Sister Apple walk back towards the main door, the light diminishing with her departure. Finally the nun entered one of the cells close to Sister Tallow’s, leaving Nona in her own small and flickering pool of light. The silence that had rolled back with the shadows now returned, deeper and thicker than any Nona had known. She stood, held by its completeness. No sound. Not the wind’s moan. Not the creak of timbers or rustle of leaves. Not the skittering of rats or the distant complaint of owls. Nothing.

      The door at the end of the corridor reclaimed her attention, although the darkness had hidden it. The memory of that door, black and polished, pressed like a finger between her eyes. Her feet wanted to take her there, her hands to set themselves flat against the smooth wood and to feel up close the vast and slumbering … fullness … that lay beyond.

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