Red Sister

by Mark Lawrence

  Nona knew herself a stranger to tact but even to her ears the abbess didn’t seem to be doing a good job of convincing a proud man to change his mind. She gave him no retreat, no escape, and yet he held all the power. Not even the archons could tell him what to do.

  High Priest Jacob cleared his throat, gathered his robes about him as if he might be chilled, and stamped his staff beside his chair. “I am unconvinced, abbess. The sentence of this court is that—”

  “I demand the test.”

  “Test? What test?” The high priest glanced to either side as if missing something. Answering his rhetoric, a black-clad assistant leaned in to whisper into his ear. The high priest frowned, the furrows across his forehead growing deeper from one second to the next. Then a smile. “You want to set this child before the Red Sisters and let them shoot her full of arrows? It’s certainly a more interesting form of execution than drowning the girl.” The assistant raised his head from the open book in his arms and leaned in again. “The child would have to agree to such an ordeal though. Apparently.”

  “No.” The pressure on Nona’s foot increased as the abbess shook her head. “That would be ridiculous. The ordeal of the Shield is for any sister that claims the title. It was never intended for a novice. Certainly not one who has worn the habit little more than a week. The test I refer to is the one that became legal precedent after Sister Cane’s vision of the Three Arks.” The abbess lifted her foot, freeing Nona’s. “You will have to look in Lorca’s book on ecclesiastical proof. I believe Archon Philo’s attendant has a copy at the bottom of the pile he has stacked by the archon’s chair . . .”

  “Why don’t you save us the bother, Abbess Glass, and just tell us?” The high priest clapped one hand over the fist of the other and rested his chin upon it, elbows on his knees.

  A smile twitched across the abbess’s lips. “I’m tempted to say that I must affirm my vision to each archon and as a bride of the Ancestor that would be sufficient.” She held up a hand as High Priest Jacob raised his head to object. “Sadly the ordeal that Sister Cane endured to prove her words was a rather unpleasant one.” A quaver in her voice now.

  Archon Anasta spoke into the quiet moment. “The nun in question held her hand just above the flame of a votive candle until she was believed. The precedent is that either the presiding official is swayed to believe the testimony and allows the witness to withdraw their hand. Or the witness withdraws their hand without permission and by doing so admits the lie. Or, I suppose, the candle burns out, which should be proof enough for anyone of something extraordinary. The whole thing is archaic, barbaric, and rife with superstition, but then again the prophecy to which Abbess Glass refers is archaic and rife with superstition, and the punishment that High Priest Jacob seems determined to impose carries an even greater degree of barbarism and antiquity . . .” The old woman raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Who has a candle?”

  The archon’s request passed via a chain of assistants and guards to the sisters waiting outside and a silence followed as presumably nuns scattered in search of a votive candle.

  “How will burning your hand change his mind?” Nona asked. Her wrists had started to hurt and some sensation had returned to her fingers, though the yoke was no less tight. “He won’t care: he likes to hurt things.”

  “The high priest will see the depth of my conviction. Every second he delays will shame him before the archons against whom he has set his opinion. He will know that a woman who can stand the flame is capable of anything, and it will sway him.” The abbess spoke with a calm serenity, her eyes fixed on High Priest Jacob in his chair across the chamber.

  Nona wondered how Abbess Glass could be so calm. She had burned her fingers in the embers of a fire when she could barely walk and the heat had seared those hot moments of agony into her mind ever since. “If a woman like that is capable of anything, then she’s capable of lying too?”

  “Would he care about that? This has never been about truth.” The abbess kept her eyes on High Priest Jacob. “If he decides to hurt me he will also at the end of it have to set me loose in the world. You think he has the balls for that?”

  Nona knew she would be sweating in the abbess’s position. Looking for an escape. Ready to fight. But the woman looked so . . . serene. “You’re doing it, aren’t you? That mind game Sister Pan teaches.” Shadowing the Path, the novices called it. Not following it like a quantal could, but coming close enough to alter the way their minds worked.

  “Serenity.” The abbess made a slow nod.

  Nona frowned. Serene or not the abbess would still burn.

  A young church-guard bustled in, cloak rain-spattered, helm askew. She approached the archons, clutching a votive candle as if it were a holy artefact.

  “Remove the prisoner’s yoke and bring her before us,” the high priest called. “Set a table . . . there. And a rope, to keep her from raising her hand too high above the flame.”

  “That hardly seems necessary. I—”

  “She’s proving herself to me, not to you, Archon Kratton, and I deem it necessary!” He wiped at his mouth. “Bring the girl too.”

  Beside Nona a guard was working with a heavy key, rotating a screw that allowed the slow separation of the yoke that held Abbess Glass’s hands up to either side of her head. The device made a painful sound, sometimes a squeal, sometimes a deeper scraping.

  “It would be best if you looked away for this, Nona dear,” the abbess said, easing one hand out from the yoke as the guard moved to release the other. “Don’t interrupt—you won’t be helping. I’ll need to concentrate.”

  Nona watched as the yoke was lifted from around Abbess Glass’s neck and, flexing her wrists, she walked out to where the candle had been set upon a table. Nona wondered if the abbess had saved her from the noose as she first said on some point of principle, outraged at the corruption and failure of the empire law? Or because she valued the skills Nona had shown? Or had she truly been led by a vision? Or was that claim made in desperation? None of it made sense. The abbess had said words are steps along a path: the important thing is to get where you’re going. Nona wondered if the abbess knew where she was going now or if the game had got away from her the day she walked out of Harriton prison holding Nona’s hand.

  The church-guard who led Nona after the abbess reminded her of the man who had led her to the gallows: tall, greying, probably someone’s grandfather. If the abbess failed her trial then he might be the man who pushed Nona from the edge of the sinkhole and sent her sailing down towards the water.

  “She’s secure?” The high priest descended from his dais to stand over the table till he was almost face to face with Abbess Glass, as if concerned that there might be trickery. Two ropes bound around the abbess’s sore wrist led to opposite legs of the table where they had been secured. She could move the hand from side to side, but not raise it.

  The votive candle, fat but short, sat close by, its flame flickering as guards moved around the table checking the abbess’s restraints.

  “Abbess?” The high priest gestured to the flame. “I wait to be convinced.”

  Four archons leaned forward in their chairs and the room held its breath. Nona could hear the rain drumming on the roof above them, splashing from high gutters. Abbess Glass moved her open palm above the flame, a single inch between the tip of its tongue and her skin. The trial hardly looked dramatic. To prove themselves Nona knew the wildmen in Durn hung from trees by ropes attached to iron hooks set beneath the muscle of their chests. But despite the blood and groaning of such theatrics the abbess’s trial held its own fascination. Every person in the hall had their own memory of fire’s kiss. The one that taught them the lesson you need learn only once. Hot, don’t touch.

  Abbess Glass kept her gaze upon the high priest, upon the cold grey of his eyes and the smirk twitching across his lips—amusement? Embarrassment? Her face remained serene and
Nona imagined that in her mind the abbess must be following the broad strokes of some path that led to peace, gentle turns finding their way to the quiet places of the world where the wind holds its tongue and the light of the dying sun rests gentle upon the ground.

  Long moments passed.

  “Ah.” A quick intake of breath. Tension in the abbess’s cheeks, a distant pain in her eyes.

  “You should give up this foolishness now, Shella.” High Priest Jacob leaned in, his voice falling to a murmur. “You could burn your whole hand to blackened bones and I’d still know you were lying. This time you’re out. You’ve played your game and lost.”

  Abbess Glass clenched her teeth, eyes wide and locked on the high priest’s, her breath tight in her throat. “Glass. I am Glass.” A faint sizzling noise came from beneath her palm. Nona sniffed. It could have been bacon, hot from the pan and heaped in the refectory bowls. Her stomach growled even as she retched.

  The abbess’s breath, gasped in in tight little bursts, counted out the duration of her ordeal. Nona’s shortness made her the sole witness to the flame’s damage, first turning a circle of the abbess’s palm red, then raising white blisters upon it, then setting them to bubble and blacken.

  Tears filled the abbess’s eyes and rolled across her cheeks, sweat beaded on her brow, gathered in the folds beneath her chin. The scream that broke from her came so sudden and so loud that Nona jerked backwards and half the guards reached for their swords. The abbess fell to gasping and groaning, deep guttural noises that hurt to hear. She strained to raise her hand, but the ropes held. Her arm shook with effort but moved neither left nor right to escape the heat.

  “This is pointless!” The high priest threw up his hands, looking around at the archons. “Give it up, Shella, you’re embarrassing yourself.” If anything it was the high priest who looked embarrassed, almost as red in the face as the abbess. She was beyond any shame, deep in some place where nothing existed but her and her pain.

  “Arrrrrrggggghhh!” A roar of agony this time. Nona could see fats dripping down from the puckered ruin above the candle’s flame. It seemed to reach higher now, as if trying to lick her. “Arrrrrgggghhhh!” A cry so awful that Nona would have put her hands to her ears if they were free.

  Nona saw again the fluid motion with which the abbess’s clever hand had caught her image on her work scroll back in Sister Wheel’s class. How would those fingers function now? Could they ever draw again?

  “Move your hand!” Nona found it was her saying it. She wasn’t alone though—all around the room men and women were muttering it. “Move your hand!” Archon Philo’s assistant lost his composure and shouted at the abbess, his own hands clenched together, white-knuckled.

  “This is ridiculous!” The high priest stamped his staff in anger. “I won’t be blackmailed—” Another roar of agony cut him off. Nona could hardly see for tears. Her nose ran and she couldn’t wipe it; her throat was raw with shouting for the abbess to stop.

  High Priest Jacob’s face was set in a rigid, sickly grimace. He turned and walked back to his chair, taking the three steps to the dais in one, his journey punctuated by the abbess’s screams. He turned, tucked his robes behind his knees and sat down.

  “I will watch the flesh—” Another scream. “—drip from your bones before I let you sell me this—” A scream that had nothing human in it. “—this pathetic lie.”

  “I’ll take the Shield test!” Nobody heard Nona amongst the shouting and the abbess’s almost unbroken howling. She lunged forward, smashing the weight of her yoke into the table. The candle jolted, fell, and rolled away. “I’ll take the Shield test!” Nona yelled it into the stunned silence. For a moment nobody spoke. Then the abbess collapsed and everyone started talking at once.

  17

  THE RAIN HIT Nona, cold and hard, as she stepped through the doors of Heart Hall, the shock of it seeming to wake her to the truth of her situation. Standing in the chamber before the archons in their finery had been so far outside her experience that events took on a dream-like quality, ending in a nightmare. Out there in the freezing rain the grim reality regained its hold.

  She could see little but the backs of the guards leading the way, and to either side, almost lost in the downpour, the grey shapes of sisters and novices huddled in their habits, pressed to the walls for shelter. The icy water burned on her wrists where the yoke had taken her skin off. She flexed her hands rapidly, knowing she would need them soon. The rain ran off her fingertips as if they were pipes spraying it from within.

  The procession kept a brisk pace. Nona had no problem keeping up. Free now from the yoke’s weight she felt as if she were floating, as if with one hard kick she could shrug off the earth’s bonds and reach the roof of Blade Hall, a dark shape wavering ahead of them. A few moments later they were through the doors with more men pushing in behind them.

  Two guards took Nona off to one side, paying no real care to how they held her, as if she were really just a little girl, not a prisoner accused of murder preparing to take some trial that few full-fledged Red Sisters would try.

  The high priest and archons came through the doors and stood dripping on the sand, finery bedraggled. Nona’s mother used to say that the rain didn’t care how long you’d spent brushing your hair, it’d fall on you just the same. The villagers had it that there were gods in the rain, just as there were gods in each river and wood. You could pray to them but generally by the time they got close enough to hear you it was too late to stay dry.

  Once through the doors the archons didn’t get long to find their bearings as more figures pressed in behind. First priests and the attendants from the church party but then the nuns, and on their heels the novices, and nobody moved to stop them.

  With hardly a word spoken the entire assembly shuffled along the left side of the hall and up onto the tiered seating at the far end. The last few backsides were settling by the time Abbess Glass came through the main doors, escorted by two church-guards, supported by Sister Rock, a solid and hatchet-faced Red Sister, on one side and by Sister Rose on the other, still adjusting the edges of a mass of linen bandages that bulked the abbess’s hand into something almost spherical. Abbess Glass seemed unsteady on her feet, allowing herself to be led. The guards took her to stand before the lowest tier of the seating. When she passed Nona the abbess shot her a quick look, fleeting but long enough for Nona to see those same shrewd dark eyes that had assessed her that first day back at the base of the gallows.

  Nona searched the stands. The classes were mixed together, novice sat by nun, but she spotted Clera and Ruli huddled together on the second tier. A glimpse of colour drew Nona’s gaze a little way behind the girls: Sister Apple’s red hair escaping her headdress, Sister Kettle tight beside her, no less close than Clera sat with Ruli.

  The high priest stood in the highest tier, his hat discarded, wet grey hair plastered back across a reddened forehead. “Sister Wheel . . . Sister . . .” He glanced at the black-clad man beside him who muttered something. “Sister Rose. You are, I understand, the Sister Superiors at Sweet Mercy? Deputized with authority in the abbess’s absence. And as a prisoner of church law she is absent from authority. So, it falls to you to administer the ordeal of the Shield to this . . . novice.”

  Sister Rose said something inaudible and hurried over towards Nona, her fatness jolting and jiggling around her. “Oh, my dear . . .” She dropped heavily to her knees, ignoring the guards, and took Nona’s hands in hers.

  Suddenly Nona wanted to cry. She felt like a child, as she had been in the mists of her memory, when her mother’s arms were a fortress and a haven. She shook herself free of Sister Rose’s embrace. Her mother had let them give her to the child-taker; the weakness Sister Rose offered wouldn’t help her.

  “What do I have to do?” she asked.

  Sister Rose’s eyes darted past her, to where the practice dummies stood, crowded together on their round ba
ses, each of them a leather man-shape about six foot tall, battered by innumerable punches and kicks. The dummies would rock back when struck, absorbing the force of a blow, then bounce forward as the lead in their base pulled them upright once more. “Well . . . with the bigger girls, the new sisters I mean . . . it’s been a few years now . . . Kettle was the last . . . she took spear and dagger . . .” Sister Rose struggled to her feet, shaking her head. “You there!” She waved to a couple of guards by the main door. “We need one of the practice-shapes moved against that wall.” She turned back to Nona, looked to the stands, then back at Nona. “But . . . but this is madness!”

  Madness or not the two church-guards crossed to the dummies and began to haul one to the spot that Sister Rose had indicated, its base leaving a smooth and wide depression in the sand.

  “Wait!” The high priest rose from his place on the highest bench. “The Shield protects the Argatha, a precious gift from the Ancestor, not some lump of leather-bound horsehair. Let us have her defend flesh and blood at least, so there is some echo of the pressure under which such work must be done.” He held his hand out towards Nona and looked around, his smile returning. “Who will volunteer?” He turned his gaze left, then right. “Have you no faith in this Shield?”

  Sister Kettle made to stand, biting her lip, but the Poisoner caught her arm and dragged her back, her brow furrowed, eyes intense. They fell to furious whispering.

  “No one?” The high priest spread both his hands and his grin now.

  “I will.” Sister Tallow got to her feet just five places along from the high priest, unwrapping the wet sling from her arm as she did so. She started to move along the bench towards the steps, nuns and archons standing to let her by.