by Megan Hart
No, she wanted to read it, but alone, and there was very little time or space to be alone as a novitiate. So Annalise kept the letter in her sleeve where it might remind her without cease of news from home.
By the afternoon, anticipation had worn a hole in her patience. She took her customary place in Master Toquin’s classroom and slipped the letter from her sleeve onto the desk in front of her. The man would begin his lessons, talking on and on, and the other girls would spend the time with vapid questions, grasping at the most basic philosophies and yet never catching them. He’d never called on her because she always had an answer or another question for him, and since three nights ago when he found her behind the stables, he’d ignored her even further. She’d have plenty of time to read her letter.
In her school days, Annalise had perfected the art of reading notes slipped to her by her classmates and hidden in the text or beneath the slateboard. She made no such effort now. She was no longer a girl and these classes earned no grades.
So when the shadow sifted over the letters, words, sentences, Annalise looked up expecting to see one of the other girls, curious about what she was doing. Toquin stood over her desk. He did not look happy.
“This is not the place for personal correspondences.”
Annalise did not often find herself without words, and this occasion was no different. “I’ve read the text you assigned already.”
“There are others to be studied.”
Annalise took the time to look around the room at the other novitiates, all of whom had left off their studies to watch. Her stomach had clenched and dropped at the sound of his voice, but she drew a deep breath before she replied. She was not a child.
“I know those as well, sir, which I believe you might well have guessed.”
“Are you saying you so well understand the Word of the Book you need study no further?” He had thick, dark lashes that closed over eyes the deep, bitter brown of cacao.
“I’ve studied the words in this text, yes.”
“Scholars tend their lessons for lifetimes without fully comprehending the entire Word, and you’d have me believe you’ve accomplished what they give their lives to do?” Toquin looked over the letter Annalise hadn’t tried to cover up. “And for what? This?”
He snatched up the letter and read the first line, his eyes shifting over the words. “A love letter?”
“Is it a love letter? It would appear you’ve more knowledge of it than I, since I’ve barely had the chance to read it.” She held out her hand, but he didn’t return it.
“This is not the place,” he said again, “for your personal correspondences.”
Annalise pushed away from the desk and stood, her fingers stiff not from fear but anger. “Then I shall tuck it away to be read another time.”
She held out her hand, but Toquin backed away, letter kept tight, reading it as he went. He backed up against his desk and stopped, eyes roaming over the words as Annalise could only stare in sick and silent outrage. She looked ’round the room once more, but nobody dared stare this time.
Annalise clenched her fists at her sides but didn’t stride to him or yank the paper from his grasp. “Give me back my letter.”
He looked up at her then, the letter folding into squares in his long, strong fingers. “Tell me the name of the forest in which Sinder came upon Kedalya.”
“What?” Annalise opened her hand. Her nails had left small marks in the palms.
“The name of the forest. A scholar would know it.”
Murmurs and shuffles smoothed over her, but if anyone were looking at her, she ignored them. Annalise swiped her tongue over her lips and swallowed against sudden dryness. He watched her as she did, not with the quick, sharp eyes of a cat with its prey but a flat, dead gaze.
“I’ve made no claims to be a scholar—”
“Your mercy,” he cut in smoothly. Snide. “You’re greater than a scholar, for you’ve studied all these texts and know them well enough to need no further instruction. So tell me the name of the forest.”
“You hold my missive prisoner for the sake of a name?” She gaped at him but only briefly before she thought of how such an expression might give him pleasure. She sealed her lips, tight and straight, bit her tongue to keep from saying more.
“I would.”
As the youngest of seven daughters, Annalise had been long accustomed to taunts and teases. Favorite dollies stolen and held above her head while she wailed, treats promised but never given. Handed-down finery she’d spent hours in refitting only to lose when the sister who’d given it up found new desire for the fabric or ribbons she added to make it her own.
“The forest in which Sinder first came upon his bride is not referred to by name in the texts you’ve assigned us.” Simple texts, not detailed. Not deep. Perfect as a base for study, but she’d absorbed more than what lay between the pages in her first six years.
His palm closed around the paper of her letter. It would be so well-creased by now, so dampened by being kept next to her skin for so many hours and now held tight in his palm, the ink surely would have run. She’d only read the first few lines. Now perhaps she might not be able to read any of it.
“But it has a name.”
The forest could be said to have more than one name. She didn’t know all of them. “If I tell you the name of the forest, you’ll return my letter to me? That is your price?”
“Indeed, mistress. I shall.”
Her jaw went so tight the clicking of her teeth sounded too loud in her ears, blocking even the sudden harsh thump of her heart. Without the assistance of her stays, Annalise had found her posture much less stiff than had been her wont, but now a rod of iron could not have made her back any straighter.
She had options. She could run and snatch at the letter, perhaps struggle for it. She could leave the room and seek a Mother to whom she could complain. Or she could give him what he wanted.
Instead, she sat back at her desk. She settled her journal to one side of the text and her pens in their flannel atop the journal. She folded her hands together, fingers linked tight to keep him from seeing any sight of them trembling.
“No.”
Someone, Wandalette, perhaps, gasped. Toquin held the letter tighter in his fist for one breath, then two, before reaching behind him to place it gently on the top of his desk. He straightened. The high band of his collar bulged with the motion of his throat as he swallowed.
“No,” he murmured.
The chime sounded for the session’s end, but not a person in the room moved. Annalise focused on his face, on the ache in her fingers from clutching them so tight together, on the hard bench beneath her rear and the faintest whiff of breeze come from some unknown source.
“You,” he told the room, “are all dismissed.”
It was as though he’d set them loose, hounds from a gate, the way they all sprung up from their desks and fled the room. Only Annalise lingered, rising slowly from her seat and gathering her belongings while his gaze did its best to weight her shoulders or trip her step.
His voice caught her at the door. “You would leave behind that which you desire to prevent me from gaining?”
She stopped, but didn’t look at him. “The others may be giddy, silly bints. I am not.”
“This show of temper may describe you as otherwise.”
Annalise gave a half turn on the toe of her slipper so that it squeaked on the wood floor. “I’ve not raised my voice. This is no show of temper.”
“Of disobedience, then.”
Again her hands clenched and ached. “I was not aware I’m required to obey you.”
He hadn’t moved even a hair since she’d stood from her seat and made to leave without approaching him. Now he passed a hand along the edge of the desk, over the letter. “You act as no Handmaiden.”
Now she turned fully, so fast her skirts swirled. “I am not your Handmaiden, sir. Good day.”
Without a further word or look, Annalise left
the room and slammed the door behind her. He would not come after her. Would he?
“Annalise.” Mother Deliberata, who’d been the one to first welcome Annalise to the Order, had just rounded the corner. “Is all well?”
Sister Merriment, who’d been walking arm in arm with the Mother, gave a curious glance to the door behind Annalise. “You fair to shook the door from its hinges.”
“Your mercy. In my haste I was overexuberant in its closure.” Annalise, upon the second curious glance of Sister Merriment at her fists, relaxed her fingers. “If you’ll excuse me?”
“And how are you finding your first days here at the Order?” Deliberata asked calmly, ignoring Annalise’s request. “Have you settled comfortably?”
“Ah, yes, Mother. I have.” It was no lie—aside from the abominable, irascible man inside the room behind her, Annalise had been fully welcomed, or at the least ignored, by everyone else she’d encountered.
“It’s no small thing,” Deliberata continued, “to leave one’s home and family behind, to seek a life of service. If there is aught I can provide for you, Annalise, you must let me or one of the other Mothers know. We seek only to encourage our future sisters, you know.”
Which was a far cry from what she could have expected from other apprenticeships, Annalise well knew. “I understand, Mother. Thank you.”
“It can be difficult to adjust,” Deliberata said with a tilt of her head. “Should you ever feel you cannot mold yourself to our expectations . . .”
Before Annalise could protest against such an event, the door opened behind her. Cassian stepped through it, his mind clearly on other pursuits, as he nearly collided with her. Only his swift reaction, grabbing at her elbow to move her slightly out of the path of his feet, kept her toes from being trod upon. Annalise shivered, remembering how gracefully he’d moved three nights ago.
“Master Toquin,” Deliberata murmured. “I see that you are making haste, as well.”
He would denounce her now. She could be cast from the Order, Annalise knew it, though nobody would dare speak of those who’d been thrown out. There were rules and as Deliberata had said, expectations. Now he would reveal her to be unsuitable or worse, unwilling.
“Your letter,” he said, and her throat closed tight on the breath she’d been sipping. “You left it behind.”
He’d not yet left off his grip of her elbow and now his fingers twitched. The heat of his touch could not possibly have penetrated the weight of her sleeve, and that wasn’t where Annalise felt it. Her belly took the spark and kindled it to flame, fanned higher when she looked directly into his eyes.
He let go of her as if she’d burned him.
“Your letter,” Cassian said again.
Annalise took the proffered paper, folded neatly. She didn’t thank him, not trusting her voice. He was still looking into her eyes, and now he cut his gaze toward Deliberata and Merriment.
“Your mercy, ladies, for the interruption.” With that, he disappeared back into his room.
The door shut behind him with a small, soft click.
With both women staring at her, Annalise slipped the letter discreetly into her sleeve and cleared her throat. “It would seem I have much to learn from Master Toquin in how to properly close a door.”
Merriment laughed and tucked her arm through Deliberata’s again. “Ah, I’ve known Cassian to slam a few doors in his time.”
“Sister,” Deliberata chastised gently, never taking her gaze from Annalise’s face, “one must not speak ill of Master Toquin, for without him, we’d be left to tend much for which we have not the skill or patience.”
“Perhaps not the skill,” Merriment replied with another small laugh, “but certainly we might be considered as having more patience.”
Deliberata did not laugh. “Tell me, Annalise, how are you finding Master Toquin’s instruction? Do you still feel you were placed incorrectly?”
Annalise looked at the other woman and wondered what she’d seen, what she thought she knew. “I find him most thoroughly knowledgeable in the Word of the Book.”
Deliberata inclined her head. “Most well. Come, Annalise. Merriment and I were about to take a turn around the gardens before afternoon services. We should love to have you join us. The fresh air will do wonders for your constitution.”
The command, worded as a request, might have been denied if Annalise knew how lightly Deliberata would take such refusal. Since she didn’t, she nodded and smiled. “I’d love to join you. Thank you.”
“I find a brisk walk in the fresh air wipes away all the cobwebs and brings a new outlook upon any situation.” Deliberata offered Annalise her other arm.
Annalise took it. “I suppose a new outlook is not something to be disparaged.”
Now, finally, Deliberata chuckled. “No, indeed, it is not.”
No matter how many days had passed since he’d been the one on the beemah, facing the Book and speaking for those who could not, Cassian ever remembered how it had felt to be there. Now he made it his practice to watch not from the chapel but from the small side room that had long ago been built to accommodate visiting luminaries. Not that he equated himself with persons of such importance they required a special room, but because he knew for a fact the room itself had not been blessed for such a purpose in so long a time he felt no hypocrisy in its use.
None questioned his use of the room instead of his presence in the chapel, because none knew. Or none had, at least not until the Marony woman had discovered him there.
She was a burr, ever-snagging.
He could not stop thinking of her.
She challenged him, and though he didn’t want to enjoy being so challenged, he did. Most of the women who sought the Order of Solace were intelligent—they had to be, to pursue their craft. Many were beautiful, if not classically at least with some feature or presence or attitude that made them lovely. Scores of women had passed through the Order in his years and more than one had turned his head.
Not a one of them had ever struck at him some other place.
She did not, could not know, not unless she could look inside his mind and divot out the truth. He’d seen the look in her eyes when he’d snatched the letter—a foolish, childish gesture forced by some emotion he wished not to name. She thought him arrogant, mayhap cruel. It would be better if she did.
But even now he could recall the tone of her voice and her lifted chin. How her eyes had flashed with fury she’d been strong enough to keep from spilling over. She had tight rein on herself, a restraint he admired but that had only moved him to taunt her into an outburst.
And for what? So that he might bring her before the Mothers and demand punishment? It would take more than a disagreement for them to turn her out, particularly when he’d been the one to urge it forward. He’d had no good reason for taking her letter and naught to defend himself with should Annalise decide to level a counter-accusation.
She thought him cruel, at the least. Cassian watched his once-brothers move about their tasks, their words falling over and around him. Across his lips, silent. He listened to them speak for him, who would not.
He’d not always been known as fire-headed. In boyhood, Cassian had fended off his share of jeers and attacks from bullies who’d assumed his quiet demeanor meant he was vulnerable. Since he’d never fought in return, his reputation as soft grew.
Calvis, on the other hand, had never stood still long enough for a blow to hit him. Those who believed he shared his brother’s temper as well as his features discovered swiftly enough the sting of Calvis’s biting wit and the harsher bite of his fists. Woe to any who harmed those he loved, for Calvis was protectively, fiercely loyal.
He was quick to fury and amusement both, easily led to laughter and passion. Cassian could only ever watch his brother in every pursuit—a fight, a kiss, joke. Calvis loved and was loved. Cassian, on the other hand, was most often forgotten.
If they’d not shared a womb, they’d never have been friends. Cassi
an knew it deep within his soul, though Calvis would ever deny it. Calvis’s arm ’round his shoulders, his knuckles rasping along his scalp, the slap of his brother’s palm on his back while Calvis’s laughter rang all ’round them—these were things Cassian knew he’d have been denied if they weren’t brothers.
“Shite and bollocks,” Calvis had said the first and sole time Cassian made mention of it. “Shut your mouth, brother, else I shut it for you.”
It had been late, the room dark, Calvis’s breathing heavy from indulgence in worm and herb. The stink of a brothel wafted from him so that even in the darkness Cassian could tell without hesitation his brother’s position. He could hear the thump of Calvis’s boots being flung to the floor.
“You think because I didn’t ask you along that I don’t like you?” More thumping. A stifled belch. The tang of herb drifted across Cassian’s wrinkled nose. “I know you overwell, brother, that’s all. I know you’d take no pleasure from the company of whores and the sorts of men who join with them.”
Cassian, in his bed, had turned his face to the wall and drawn the covers up high. “Go away, Cal, you’re drunk.”
“Oh, oh, oh.” The sound of bare feet slapped the floor, coming closer. “Oh, brother dear, such condemnation in your tone.”
“I condemn you not, but go away.” Cassian dug deeper into the bedclothes.
“Have you, little brother, ever been drunk? Methinks the answer is no, but you’ve ever been one to surprise.”
Cassian had, in fact, overindulged on sweet tumbleberry wine once the summer before. It had made him sick enough to pray for unconsciousness, and he’d not repeated the act since. “It’s late, and I—”
“You,” breathed Calvis as the bed settled and he crept close, “have to be up early for those bedamned devotions. Yes, little brother. I know your bent.”
“Don’t call me little.”