Selfish Is the Heart

by Megan Hart

  “There’s naught against an instructor and a student sharing a meal,” Tansy said boldly.

  Annalise looked at her. “Tansy, you needn’t defend me. If Perdita wishes to make much of my acquaintance with Master Toquin, she might do as she pleases. I’ve no issue with her queries.”

  “It seems so sudden, that’s all.” Perdita lifted the gentlemen’s shirt upon which she was sewing. The work was beautiful. Even, tight stitches, soft fabric, a masculine yet fashionable design. Annalise had no difficulty imagining how a shirt such as that might bring a measure of solace to the man who wore it.

  “Friendships are never sudden. They grow like flowers,” Annalise said. “Which you seem to have a lovely skill for embroidering, Perdita, but not such a great skill for cultivating.”

  Perdita frowned. “I am quite proficient in the garden, Annalise Marony. The roses I grew at home outlasted any others in the garden, and my captain’s buttons were coveted for centerpieces by all my mother’s friends.”

  “I’m sure your skill with plants is as impressive as your every other,” Annalise said serenely, focusing on her own work, “but I wasn’t speaking of flowers.”

  Perdita looked ’round the room, first to Tansy, then at Helena and even Wandalette. “I have friends.”

  Annalise shrugged. “So do I.”

  “And you count Master Toquin among them?”

  “I do.”

  Perdita sniffed. “Master Toquin has never fraternized with the novitiates. It doesn’t seem appropriate, actually.”

  Annalise could no longer maintain her placid demeanor. “Speak plainly, or speak not at all.”

  “I speak very plainly. What I mean is, that such a friendship between the two of you seems sudden and unexpected, considering the way the pair of you were previously at such odds.”

  “How would you know what we were?”

  Perdita smiled. “Everyone knows. We all heard about the words you exchanged in his classroom.”

  “It was my understanding that Master Toquin was no favorite of any. Whatever words we exchanged were naught but the usual for him, yes?”

  “No,” Perdita said. “Nobody ever stood up to him before the way you did.”

  At this, Annalise scoffed. “Oh, really? You think in all the years of service he’s provided the Order that nobody, no novitiate, ever spoke back to him? Not a one? The man’s insufferable and arrogant, and not all of us were bred to be meek little lambs led willingly to slaughter.”

  “I haven’t been here as long as some.” Perdita gave Tansy a significant stare. “But it’s my understanding that he has ever been as he is now, and that none dared cross him.”

  “If he were such an evil figure, causing so much grief, why would the Mothers-in-Service allow him to stay? In an Order full of young women, most of them impressionable, bound for service to the Faith? Why on earth would they keep him on if he were so . . . so. . . .” Annalise sputtered on her lack of words. Her linen lay scrunched in a ball on her lap. It was made of ugliness and lack of skill, unfit even to wipe a nose. She wanted to toss it aside but kept it close, so as not to give Perdita the satisfaction of comparison to her own exquisite work.

  “Mayhap because we should get used to such a man.” Wandalette, who’d ever seemed as uncertain and awkward as a mouse, now spoke with conviction. “Because we do need to know this, us. Because it’s what we’ll have to face when we go out among them. To them. The patrons. Because they’ll all be like him, or worse.”

  Silence. Every woman in the room turned to stare at Wandalette, who shrugged and bent back to threading her needle. She licked the thread and poked it through the eye, then drew the strings together with the tips of her fingers and twirled them at the bottom to make a knot. She held it up, the needle glinting, then noticed all the stares.

  “How else would we learn?”

  Perdita, for once, had no comment. The other girls bent back to their work, and in a few minutes the soft murmurs began again, the worthless chatter Annalise despised and had no interest in repeating. In her lap, the square of linen had not been ruined. She could save it. She could thread her needle the way Wandalette had done, and prick it through the cloth. She could imprint colored flowers on the creamy linen and make a pattern where there had been none.

  She could, she thought, make beauty from something that had near been ruined, make something pretty that had seemed just moments before impossible to fix.

  “I believe I’m finished,” she said aloud to nobody and stood. She gathered her sewing basket and materials and put them all away. She handed them to Tansy. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Tansy was already on her feet, but Annalise shook her head.

  “No, thank you.”

  Tansy looked disappointed, but Annalise didn’t care. She needed to be alone for a while, to contemplate this, making something pretty that didn’t seem possible.

  Even a dual-headed calf ceases to gain a second glance from the people who’ve grown accustomed to it, and so it was with the friendship between Cassian and Annalise. She knew he didn’t think so. She could tell by the way he still looked from side to side when she took her place at his table.

  “Loosen yourself,” she told him. “We are no longer the current fashion in gossip.”

  At least he was no longer holding himself from his food while she was with him. He broke off a piece of bread from the small loaf between them and slid it across to her. She looked at it for half a moment but made certain not to react in any way that might alert him to her knowing how charming she found his offer.

  “I never assumed we were . . . fashionable.”

  Annalise sipped sharp cider from her mug, grimaced, and put it aside. She didn’t care overmuch for cider and had poured it from the pitcher without thinking why. “You worry about it. I can tell.”

  When he got up from the table, her first thought was that she’d driven him from his seat. It wasn’t an outrageous assumption to make, considering their past confrontations, and yet she hadn’t meant to poke him. She stared at her plate, stomach knotted, wondering if this would ever be easy, if the effort had reward.

  He returned before she had time to even look ’round. He’d brought a pitcher of water, and a new mug. He filled it for her and pushed the cider aside.

  “What?” he asked, startled at the way her mouth gaped. “By the Land Above, Annalise, are you going to . . . cry?”

  “No, absolutely not.” She shook her head. “Tell me, sir, of today’s lesson, so that I might come prepared to plague you with all the questions those other women won’t think to ask.”

  He spoke for quite some time before noticing she’d made no reply.

  “. . . the passage regarding descriptions of the Land Above and the Void, both . . .” Cassian trailed away. “Annalise, are you unwell?”

  She was very well. That simple act of consideration he’d shown her—something with so little meaning on the surface as to be unremarkable, yet so significant at the same time.

  “I like you when you’re talking about the text,” she managed to say in a voice only slightly scratched.

  “I am well pleased to discuss such matters with you. You know that.” He looked up as the chime sounded. “And the mealtime has ended. It feels so sudden.”

  Mayhap she needn’t try so hard, she thought as they both got up and merged with the crowd leaving the dining room. Mayhap this might happen on its own, should she cease to push so hard for it. In the hallway they both paused, Cassian’s destination in one direction and hers in another.

  “I shall see you this after, yes?”

  She heard the inflection of her own voice in his and found it so charming she wanted to weep again. “Yes.”

  “Annalise.” Cassian said her name slowly without looking even once at anyone passing by them to see if they might be listening. “Are you sure you’re well?”

  “I’m most well, thank you. I’ll see you later. Go, now, else your students re
bel and begin reading ahead in the texts.”

  “I find there little to suggest that is at all likely,” Cassian said.

  Annalise laughed. “You never know. I’m not the only novitiate who knows obscure bits and pieces of the Faith.”

  Cassian made a face. “Have I heard you aright? You are admitting to being the same as any other?”

  This could not go without response; Annalise poked his chest. Hard. “I take affront at your tone.”

  He captured her hand before she could poke again, but whatever retort he meant to give was swallowed when a cool feminine voice interrupted them.

  “Your mercy, Master Toquin, Mistress Marony. Annalise,” said Deliberata with a small smile that revealed naught, “I’ve some letters for you.”

  In an instant, the warmth of his fingers vanished as he pulled away. Cassian gave the Mother-in-Service a formal half bow and one to Annalise. When he straightened, the teasing light in his eyes had vanished.

  “And I must be away, as Mistress Marony so aptly pointed out to me.”

  “May the Invisible Mother keep you,” Deliberata said.

  “Today and all your others,” Cassian replied after a hesitation. “Anon.”

  Both women watched him walk away. Deliberata spoke first. “Do you still feel you are too advanced for Master Toquin’s instruction?”

  “I . . . no, Mother. Actually, I’ve found Master Toquin a fine instructor.”

  Deliberata smiled. “Finer than you’d suspected?”

  “Yes.” Annalise paused, not eager for the older woman to question further. Not from shame on her part, certainly, but out of respect for Cassian. “He’s a man of impressive intellect.”

  “And a fine-featured face never hurts.”

  Annalise laughed. “Yes, Mother, I suppose a handsome man is always more a pleasure to be around than an ugly one.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ugly men seem to have their own charm. Mayhap it’s because they’re more used to pleasing than expecting pleasure. It makes it ever so much more satisfying to provide it.”

  “You speak of patrons?”

  Deliberata’s laugh belonged to a much younger woman. “Oh goodness, child. Not necessarily. It’s been a good long time since I’ve had a patron, as I’ve made it my service to attend here at the Motherhouse. It’s been far less time since I’ve taken a lover. Walk with me. I’ve your letters in my office and would give them to you at once.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Annalise fell into step beside her. She wanted to giggle at the older woman’s frank admission, but held back. When she was old and wrinkled and gray she hoped the idea of taking a lover would seem no sillier than it did to her now, even though it might to someone else.

  They chatted of inconsequential things on their path to the same tidy office to which Annalise had been first admitted upon entering the Motherhouse. Inside, Deliberata pulled open a drawer and removed a packet of letters bound with a rough cord. She handed them across the desk.

  “They were delayed in their delivery, it appears. The man brought them this morning from town.”

  “Thank you, Mother.” Annalise tucked the letters into her palms and placed them against her belly.

  Deliberata smiled. “Do you know how much you’ve improved since your arrival here, Annalise?”

  This was not what she’d expected to hear. “I . . . have?”

  “The young woman who arrived upon my doorstep several months ago would have fallen upon those letters like a dog tossed a bone with meat still on it.”

  Annalise looked at the letters. “I thought it would be unseemly for me to tear them open to read in front of you and dismiss our conversation.”

  “It’s been quite some time since you’ve heard from anyone at home, and I’m fair certain you’re eager to read what they’ve sent. I’d have understood if you preferred the company of their words to mine.” Deliberata sat with her hands folded on top of the desk and gave Annalise another smile.

  “I was being polite.”

  “It’s more than being polite. I’ve known you to be spirited since your arrival, but never rude.”

  The cord scratched at her palms while the corners of the letters poked her, too. Letters, three of them, and from who? One from her parents, perhaps a sister or two? Was there a letter there from Jacquin?

  She’d not written him in more than a week and should not have felt guilty for it. After all, beyond the first letter he’d sent, he’d not bothered to send another.

  “It is more than being polite,” Deliberata said again. “It’s about finding a certain level of calm, Annalise. A certain way of being, so that no matter your eagerness to accomplish a task, you maintain the ability to assess all aspects of the situation and decide your course.”

  “It makes me no less eager to get to the letters, Mother, pleading your mercy.”

  Deliberata laughed. “Child, there is little to be done for such excitement as comes from something as special as a letter from loved ones far away. I would never prefer you to lose that joy. But I am well pleased to see how you handle yourself, and it. It shows me somewhat about you.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That you are becoming a Handmaiden.”

  Fire and ice both split her at the same moment. Annalise swallowed past a sudden lump. “Mother?”

  “Few arrive here with it instilled inside them. And, unlike some of my Sisters-in-Service, I’m unconvinced it can be taught to those who have no skill for it. There is somewhat special about being a Handmaiden, as you well know, Annalise. Somewhat beyond a manner of speech or deportment. Many leave the Order before taking their vows. I thought, I truly thought, you’d be one of them.”

  Guilt still plagued her, that Deliberata should have so seen the truth Annalise had tried to hide and yet now was no longer certain applied. “Your mercy, Mother.”

  “No need to apologize to me, child. Some have it. Some do not. Some want it. Some think they desire a life of Service and yet discover they cannot stomach it.” Deliberata waved a hand. “We are all called to serve the Invisible Mother in ways we are never granted the ability to imagine. It’s not up to us to discover them. We must rely on Her guidance to lead us to Her, and it may not be in ways we anticipate or even like.

  Annalise held the letters closer to her stomach. “Mother, I think I should tell you something.”

  “Your vision. The one you had in the forest. The one that sent you to us.”

  Annalise swallowed again at the memory of the lie. “My vision.”

  “Your description of it was quite compelling, as I recall. I’d never heard one quite so detailed, or vivid. You must have put a lot of thought into it.”

  Fortunately, the Mother-in-Service had a chair on the other side of her desk, because when Annalise’s knees gave out, she sat so suddenly she’d have hit the floor had it not been there to catch her.

  “You know? You know I . . .” She still could not quite bear to admit a lie. “Embellished?”

  “My dear, do you think you’re the first young woman ever to seek sanctuary among us who’s not been a true seeker of service? My goodness, I myself came to the Motherhouse to escape a particularly domineering mother and passive father, neither of whom had my best interests at heart, or so I believed in my youth. Still believe, actually.” Deliberata shook her head, mouth pursing for a moment. “Many come to us with reasons that are less than pure.”

  “I plead your mercy. I’ve done what’s requested of me. Most of the time.”

  “Ah, you’ve chafed at much we’ve asked of you. Take no shame in it. Some who come to us have no quarrel with time spent on their knees, and yet are never granted a patron.”

  “I should not have come on false pretense.”

  “Was it?” Deliberata looked at her.

  Annalise opened her mouth to say yes, but stopped herself. “Was it not?”

  “Did you truly go into the forest and fall to your knees in front of an image of the Invisible Mother created in the bark of a
tree, which then spoke to you in a voice so terrible it caused your ears to bleed? Did She truly tell you to seek the Motherhouse and devote your life to service? Did She blind you for a day and a half, from the rise of one sun to the set of one moon, and cause Her name to be raised on your flesh in wheals of crimson?”

  “No, Mother.” Listening to it now, Annalise wished she’d not spent so much time on the craft of the tale. Compared to what Wandalette had said in class, Annalise’s story was overblown and ridiculous.

  “Ah. But does that mean that your vision was a lie?”

  “None of that happened, Mother.”

  Deliberata raised a finger. “Sometime you might feel the need to confess your reasons, but I am not to play the part of your confessor. Tell me where you came up with the idea for that story.”

  “I made it up.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes. From the commentaries and texts I knew.”

  “You took bits and pieces and put them together to make your own?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Deliberata’s girlish laugh rang out again. She clapped. “Delightful. But ask yourself, Annalise. How did you know which bits to choose? Which to put together? How did you know how to weave that particular tapestry?”

  Annalise thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  Deliberata raised a finger. “Do you not think She had a hand in it?”

  “The Invisible Mother? Kedalya?”

  “Yes. Do you not think perhaps She led you to decide this path, no matter what reasons you thought you had? Do you think it possible She led you here, Annalise, to devote yourself to service so that you might do your part in bringing about the Return?”

  Annalise had not, in fact, thought any such thing, but there in the Mother-in-Service’s office, anything seemed possible. “Do you think that’s what happened?”

  “Perhaps it’s not so important what I believe, as what you do.”

  Ah, there was the rub. Annalise’s belief had gone away long ago. Stolen or lost, mayhap just forgotten.