LITMIR.BIZ

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child. A small thing in shapeless linen – not street rags, covered in rusty stains, but a serf’s wear none the less. She might be nine. Argus had lost the knack for telling. His older two were long grown, and little Sali would always be five. This girl was a fierce creature, a scowl on her thin, dirty face. Eyes black below a short shock of ebony hair.

      ‘Might have been the other,’ Partnis said. ‘She was the big one.’ He lacked conviction. A fight-master knows the fire when he sees it.

      ‘Where’s Saida?’ the girl asked.

      The abbess’s eyes widened a fraction. It almost looked like hurt. Gone, quicker than the shadow of a bird’s wing. Argus decided he imagined it. The Abbess of Sweet Mercy was called many things, few of them to her face, and ‘soft’ wasn’t one of them.

      ‘Where’s my friend?’ the girl repeated.

      ‘Is that why you stayed?’ the abbess asked. She pulled a hoare-apple from her habit, so dark a red it could almost be black, a bitter and woody thing. A mule might eat one – few men would.

      ‘Stayed?’ Dava asked, though the question hadn’t been pointed her way. ‘She stayed ’cos this is a bloody prison and she’s tied and under guard!’

      ‘Did you stay to help your friend?’

      The girl didn’t answer, only glared up at the woman as if at any moment she might leap upon her.

      ‘Catch.’ The abbess tossed the apple towards the girl.

      Quick as quick a small hand intercepted it. Apple smacking into palm. Behind the girl a length of rope dropped to the ground.

      ‘Catch.’ The abbess had another apple in hand and threw it, hard.

      The girl caught it in her other hand.

      ‘Catch.’

      Quite where the abbess had hidden her fruit supply Argus couldn’t tell, but he stopped caring a heartbeat later, staring at the third apple, trapped between two hands, each full of the previous two.

      ‘Catch.’ The abbess tossed yet another hoare-apple, but the girl dropped her three and let the fourth sail over her shoulder.

      ‘Where’s Saida?’

      ‘You come with me, Nona Grey,’ the abbess said, her expression kindly. ‘We will discuss Saida at the convent.’

      ‘I’m keeping her.’ Partnis stepped towards the girl. ‘A treasured daughter! Besides, she damn near killed Raymel Tacsis. The family will never let her go free. But if I can show she has value they might let me put her into a few fights first.’

      ‘Raymel’s dead. I killed him. I—’

      ‘Treasured? I’m surprised you let her go, Mr Reeve,’ the abbess cut across the girl’s protests.

      ‘I wouldn’t have if I’d been there!’ Partnis clenched his hand as if trying to recapture the opportunity. ‘I was halfway across the city when I heard. Got back to find the place in chaos … blood everywhere … Tacsis men waiting … If the city guard hadn’t hauled her up here she’d be in Thuran’s private dungeon by now. He’s not a man to lose a son and sit idle.’

      ‘Which is why you will give her to me.’ The abbess’s smile reminded Argus of his mother’s. The one she’d use when she was right and they both knew it. ‘Your pockets aren’t deep enough to get young Nona out of here should the Tacsis boy die, and if you did obtain her release neither you nor your establishment are sufficiently robust to withstand Thuran Tacsis’s demands for retribution.’

      The girl tried to interrupt. ‘How do you know my name? I didn’t—’

      ‘Whereas I have been friends with Warden James longer than you have been alive, Mr Reeve.’ The abbess cut across the girl again. ‘And no sane man would mount an attack on a convent of the faith.’

      ‘You shouldn’t take her for a Red Sister.’ Partnis had that sullen tone men get when they know they’ve lost. ‘It’s not right. She’s got no Ancestor faith … and she’s all but a murderer. Vicious, it was, the way they tell it …’

      ‘Faith I can give her. What she’s got already is what the Red Sisters need.’ The abbess reached out a plump hand towards the girl. ‘Come, Nona.’

      Nona glanced up at John Fallon, at Partnis Reeve, at the hangman and the noose swaying beside him. ‘Saida is my friend. If you’ve hurt her I’ll kill you all.’

      In silence she walked forward, placing her feet so as not to step on the fallen apples, and took the abbess’s hand.

      Argus and the others watched them leave. At the gates, they paused, black against the red sun. The child released the abbess’s hand and took three paces towards the covered mound. Old Herber and his mule stood, watching, as bound by the moment as the rest of them. Nona stopped, staring at the mound. She looked towards the men at the gallows – a long, slow look – then returned to the abbess. Seconds later the pair had vanished around the corner.

      ‘Marking us for death she was,’ Dava said.

      Still joking. Still not funny.

       3

      A juggler once came to Nona’s village, a place so small it had neither a name nor a market square. The juggler came dressed in mud and faded motley, a lean look about him. He came alone, a young man, dark eyes, quick hands. In a sackcloth bag he carried balls of coloured leather, batons with white and black ribbons, and crudely made knives.

      ‘Come, watch, the great Amondo will delight and amaze.’ It sounded like a phrase he didn’t own. He introduced himself to the handful of villagers not labouring in field or hut and yet brave enough to face a Corridor wind laced with icy rain. Laying his hat between them, broad-brimmed and yawning for appreciation, he reached for four striped batons and set them dancing in the air.

      Amondo stayed three days, though his audience dried up after the first hour of the first evening. The sad fact is that there’s only so much entertainment to be had from one man juggling, however impressive he might be.

      Nona stayed by him though, watching every move, each deft tuck and curl and switch. She stayed even after the light failed and the last of the children drifted away. Silent and staring she watched as the juggler started to pack his props into their bag.

      ‘You’re a quiet one.’ Amondo threw her a wizened apple that sat in his hat along with several better examples, two bread rolls, a piece of Kennal’s hard goat’s cheese, and somewhere amongst them a copper halfpenny clipped back to a quarter.

      Nona held the apple close to her ear, listening to the sound of her fingers against its wrinkles. ‘The children don’t like me.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘No.’

      Amondo waited, juggling invisible balls with his hands.

      ‘They say I’m evil.’

      Amondo dropped an invisible ball. He left the others to fall and raised a brow.

      ‘Mother says they say it because my hair is so black and my skin is so pale. She says I get my skin from her and my hair from my da.’ The other children had the tan skin and sandy hair of their parents, but Nona’s mother had come from the ice fringes and her father’s clan hunted up on the glaciers, strangers both of them. ‘Mother says they just don’t like different.’

      ‘Those are ugly ideas for children to have in their heads.’ The juggler picked up his bag.

      Nona stood, watching the apple in her hand but not seeing it. The memory held her. Her mother, in the dimness of their hut, noticing the blood on her hands for the first time. What’s that? Did they hurt you? Nona had hung her head and shook

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