Vespertine

by Margaret Rogerson

  Beyond the entrance, I saw nothing out of the ordinary—nothing that might explain the mysterious whispering. The hair stood up on my arms. I wondered if I was losing my mind.

  The lichgate’s tarnished iron throbbed strangely in my vision. The air thickened, growing difficult to breathe. As its shadow fell over me, individual voices resolved from the confusion of sound, some calm, others angry, leaping out as though hissed directly into my ears.

  “Lady, we beg mercy for Your servants….”

  “Begone, foul spirit!”

  “We ask protection for those within….”

  “We cast you out! We banish you into the dark!”

  “May our prayers stand fast against evil….”

  “The Dead are not welcome here!”

  “May our faith stand as iron though our bodies are dust….”

  A shudder tore through me. The whispering was coming from the lichgate. These were the voices of the long-dead sisters who had forged the gate, their prayers driven into the molten iron with every stroke of the hammer. The living couldn’t hear them, but spirits could. This was what a lichgate felt like to the Dead.

  Each voice stabbed at me like the beak of an attacking raven. I hunched inward to protect myself from their invisible assault, stubbornly pressing forward. An elderly woman being helped past gave me a worried look, but if she spoke, I didn’t hear her.

  I sagged with relief as we finished crossing the threshold. A few whispers followed me, their condemnations pelting my back like sleet, then fell away. We were inside the convent. I had an impression of somber stone buildings, their slate rooftops spattered white with raven droppings, and the chapel’s bell tower rising above them in the distance.

  It was only after Charles paused, taking me in, that I realized he had been talking to me as we passed through the gate. His eyes widened. “Are you all right? Your nose is bleeding.”

  Unsurprised, I pressed my cloak against my face to stanch the flow. “It happens sometimes,” I said colorlessly. “I have a condition.”

  “Nice try, but I’ve been called worse,” the revenant sniped, roused from its silent lurking.

  Charles seemed unconvinced. “I think I’d better take you to one of the—”

  A resounding bellow interrupted him. “I see you there! Out! OUT, if you know what’s good for you!”

  The voice belonged to a hugely stout nun who was charging toward us with alarming speed, her face purple with anger and her gray robes billowing behind her. My heart almost stopped. She had arms as big around as vinegar barrels, the fabric straining to contain their girth. Like Mother Katherine, she didn’t wear any adornments of rank, but the numerous relics glinting on her fingers suggested she was the abbess.

  I stood frozen as she approached, but it wasn’t me she was after. She bustled past, stirring my cloak in the wind whipped up by her momentum. I had been so distracted by the lichgate, I hadn’t noticed the pair of clerics lurking just within, wearing identical expressions of disapproval as they watched the refugees trickle inside. Their blue robes and moonstone relics identified them as low-ranking Clerisy officials called lectors, who were responsible for the somewhat frivolous task of reciting holy texts during ceremonies. They jumped as the abbess bore down upon them like a furious eagle descending on jays, already roaring at the top of her lungs.

  “Look at the pair of you, standing idle while the sisters break their backs in the Lady’s service. And you call yourselves clerics. Useless!” Her voice boomed from the walls like thunder. “Do you have anything to say for yourselves? No? Not a word? Well, I know who sent you. If Her Holiness wishes to stick her prying nose into the care of the sick, the injured, the elderly in this convent, tell her she’s welcome to come get an earful in person!”

  She punctuated each sentence by stabbing her finger at their chests. With each jab, the lectors took a step backward, growing increasingly pale until they lifted their robes and fled. The abbess planted her large fists on her hips and watched them go. Then she grunted in curt dismissal and turned toward the nearest refugee.

  “Infirmary,” she declared, already bustling over to the next. This time I saw her brush her hand over one of her relics. “Guest dormitory, be quick about it—and get some pottage in her; she’s about to drop.”

  Charles leaned toward me. “That’s Mother Dolours. Do you see those rings she’s wearing? They’re healing relics. She’s saved the lives of more soldiers in the guard than any of us can count.”

  “All of them?” I asked in surprise. I counted at least five rings, likely more.

  He grinned. “Every last one.”

  I had never heard of someone wielding so many Third Order relics. Healing relics were difficult to master, and greatly sought after. Each conveyed a different healing power based on the type of spirit bound to it—a feverling to treat fevers, a witherkin to treat wasting illnesses, and so on. Our healers in Naimes hadn’t used relics at all, treating us instead with herbs and tinctures.

  A tremor ran through the revenant when the abbess’s attention swung in our direction. Its presence shrank inward, but not before an icy prickle of fear escaped.

  “We can’t let the fat nun use her relics on you,” it said, its voice muffled. “I won’t be able to hide myself from her.”

  I looked more closely at Mother Dolours. I couldn’t tell whether it was my imagination, or whether I truly perceived a slight distortion in the air surrounding her, the holiness radiating from her body like consecrated steel. The revenant had felt fear in the presence of nuns before, but that was different—it had feared what they represented, imprisonment in its reliquary. This time it feared Mother Dolours herself.

  “Where are you going?” Charles asked.

  “The stable.” My feet had begun to carry me there before I had consciously decided on a direction. This convent was laid out differently than mine, but the manure-coated wagon tracks and telltale odor of pigs were as good as any sign pointing the way.

  “Wait! You haven’t been assigned a place to sleep. I think they’ve started setting people up with pallets in the refectory. Anne, you really look like you should sit down.”

  Ignoring him, I glanced around. The more mobile refugees had been given small tasks helping the sicker ones—carrying blankets, distributing bowls of pottage. There were too many outsiders in the convent for the sisters to keep track of everyone. Their attention would be divided between accommodating the refugees and caring for the city’s dead. If I looked like I knew what I was doing, which wouldn’t be difficult to feign, the sisters would probably leave me alone.

  Besides, I couldn’t sleep in the refectory. I remembered how crowded it had been in Naimes when we’d hosted the novices for the evaluation. I wouldn’t be able to speak to the revenant if I was surrounded by people, and someone would eventually notice that I never took off my gloves. Also, there was the part about being surrounded by people.

  Charles trotted up beside me. “Anne—”

  “How is Mother Dolours able to speak against the Divine like that?” I asked to distract him. An abbess ranked far above a pair of lectors, but challenging a Divine bordered on treason.

  He gave me a speculative look. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but everyone in the city knows by now, so it isn’t much of a secret. Mother Dolours was almost elected Divine four years ago. Her Holiness only got the position because Mother Dolours turned it down.”

  I paused in surprise, considering what I knew about the Holy Assembly in Chantclere, who were responsible for electing new Divines when the old ones died. “Isn’t the Assembly’s vote binding?”

  “It’s supposed to be.” He grinned. “The story’s legendary. Mother Dolours got around it by handing in her curist’s robes to join the Gray Sisters—that was the only way she could defy the vote and continue to practice healing….”

  Charles trailed off. He halted in the middle of the lane and began rapidly unbelting his sword. As I watched in bewilderment, he shoved the whole m
ess into my hands—belt, scabbard, and all. “Hide that,” he instructed, and nodded in hasty approval as I dubiously placed the sword behind my back.

  Ravens took off from a nearby roof, cawing harshly. They had been disturbed by an enormous shape rising from the building’s shadows. Someone cried out in fear as the figure took a lumbering step into the light, revealing a huge, muscular frame swathed in bandages. He was the largest man I had ever seen, nearly the size of a rivener. His strangely blank eyes were trained unblinkingly on me and Charles.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you,” Charles assured me, and then went to the huge man and put a steadying hand on his arm. “Jean, it’s all right. The sword’s gone now. Jean? It’s me, Charles. Your friend.”

  His pleas seemed lost on the giant, who continued to lumber forward, dragging Charles with him. Swollen patches of blight, dark against his pale skin, distorted his already ugly features—small eyes, a heavy jaw, a nose flattened by a poorly healed break. He was so tall that as he approached, I had to lean my head back to keep looking at him.

  “I promise, he won’t hurt you.” Charles sounded desperate now. He frantically cast around, and understanding dawned as his eyes alit on my face. “I think it’s the blood. Jean? You can calm down. She isn’t hurt.”

  The man—Jean—didn’t give any sign of registering what Charles had said. His stark, wild eyes were still fixed on me unblinkingly. Seeing him up close, I realized he was near Charles and me in age; his imposing size only made him appear older. And it was also obvious, at least to me, that his gaze wasn’t angry or threatening. It was haunted.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Look,” I told him. “It’s just a nosebleed. It’s already stopped. See?”

  Jean’s expression didn’t change, but some of the tension left his broad shoulders. Judging by the gratitude in Charles’s eyes, I guessed that this wasn’t normally the way people reacted. Based on personal experience, the normal way probably involved screaming.

  “He’s a soldier?” I asked.

  Charles hesitated, then said in an undertone, “He got possessed in the battle yesterday. He… he hurt a lot of people. Our friend Roland…” He didn’t need to finish. One look at Jean’s size and obvious strength made it clear Roland hadn’t survived.

  “Fascinating,” the revenant put in. I felt it inspecting Jean. “He still smells faintly of Old Magic. That might prove useful to us later.”

  “He hasn’t spoken since,” Charles went on, thankfully unaware of the revenant’s remarks. “Things keep setting him off. Mother Dolours thought it would be best to keep him here, since there are so many weapons in the garrison. Not that he’d use them to hurt anyone,” he added quickly. “They just—”

  “Upset him. I understand.”

  He let out a breath, relieved. “The way some people react to him, after hearing what happened—you’d think he was still possessed.” He lowered his voice further, looking pained. “Whatever’s wrong with him, Mother Dolours can’t heal it. She says it’s an injury of the mind.”

  “I used to know someone like him,” I said. “He just needs time.”

  Charles’s face brightened. “They got better?”

  I remembered hiding under the bed from Marguerite. Jerking away whenever the sisters tried to touch me. Sitting alone in the refectory while the other novices whispered. “Mostly,” I said at last.

  * * *

  “What did you mean when you said that Jean might prove useful?” I asked once I had shut the stable’s door and found myself alone with the horses. Most were the large, well-muscled draft type bred to pull the convent’s corpse-wagons. Their heads hung inquisitively from their stalls, greeting me with soft snorts and nickers.

  “Not now. The brute might overhear you. He’s standing right outside.”

  “Don’t call him that,” I replied, but I moved deeper into the stable until I found the ladder leading up into the hayloft. The revenant winced as a rat fled squeaking across the rafters.

  “You aren’t planning to sleep in here, are you?” it asked in disgust.

  I shrugged, peering into the loft’s murky darkness, trying to make out whether I would bang my head against the slanted ceiling if I straightened to my full height.

  “I suppose it is filthy and depressing, just the way you like it. Open that window,” it demanded, a trace of urgency entering its tone. “You might thrive in this vile miasma, but I don’t have to suffocate to death while you’re at it.”

  I decided not to point out that the revenant was already dead. I went to the loft door and cracked it open. The revenant relaxed as clear sunlight and a flood of cold, fresh air swept inside. Looking out, I saw that Jean was still standing in the yard below. He had followed Charles and me all the way to the stable.

  Charles was still there too, wandering aimlessly around the muddy yard, kicking bits of straw and pointlessly examining the chickens. Stalling for time.

  “I’m leaving now, Jean,” he said at last.

  Jean didn’t move. I could only see the top of his shorn, blight-mottled head, but it was enough to tell that he wasn’t paying attention, staring instead into nothingness.

  Charles looked down and took a deep, reinforcing breath. Then he squared his shoulders and raised his head. “That’s all right, Jean. Maybe tomorrow.” He came over to give Jean a pat on the arm before he went to retrieve his sword from where I had stowed it behind a water trough. I watched him walk away, defeated.

  Jean might not have been possessed if I had woken earlier and reached Bonsaint sooner. Their friend Roland might not have died. If I hadn’t paused to eat those apples, if I hadn’t sat gaping at the sight of the city on the horizon…

  I could drive myself mad thinking that way. With the power I had now, I could measure every choice I made in human lives.

  Exhaustion crashed over me. I slid down the wall, feeling splinters catch in my cloak, and thumped into the hay. My eyes felt gritty, as though they were full of sand. I squeezed them shut before I said, “We can talk now. Jean won’t be able to hear anything from down there.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “You always want to talk.” I knew that much about the revenant by now.

  “Perhaps I could use a little peace and quiet during the rare moments in which you aren’t trying to get yourself killed.”

  Ignoring it, I said, “I don’t think you’re right about Leander being the one in control of the spirits. They attacked him when they ambushed the harrow. And back in Naimes, he was surprised to learn about the possessed soldiers.”

  “I didn’t say he was controlling them,” the revenant snapped. “Not all the time, at least. I said he’s been practicing Old Magic. Do you know the least thing about Old Magic? It’s a notoriously fickle art. If it has one rule, it’s that it always—”

  “Twists back on its users,” I interrupted, surprised to find the answer on the tip of my tongue. “Like it did to the Raven King.”

  Now that I thought back to the memory—Leander standing opposite the page, holding the folded missive—surprised didn’t seem like quite the right word. He hadn’t been surprised. He’d been angry. As though…

  “Just because he’s been influencing them doesn’t mean his command over them is complete. Suppose, for example, he orders a group of spirits to destroy Saint Eugenia’s relic. They fail in the attempt. Then he gains custody of the relic and no longer feels that it needs to be destroyed. But he hasn’t commanded the remaining spirits to stop trying; he hasn’t realized he needs to. And then he’s in for a nasty surprise when they proceed to attack him, because he’s the one bearing the relic. It doesn’t matter that he’s the ritual’s practitioner—their orders are clear. Destroy the relic. They’ll keep trying until they succeed, or until they’re destroyed themselves.”

  “And the possessed soldiers… he might have ordered the spirits to do something, but he didn’t order them to do it by possessing people. Except he didn’t expressly forbid it, either.”
<
br />   “Yes, precisely. Rituals need to be highly specific about their boundaries to go according to plan. Even adepts make terrible mistakes from time to time, and no matter how clever he is, the priest is no adept. Anyone who tries practicing Old Magic now will be working with incomplete resources—scavenged pages, half-burned manuscripts.”

  I was still thinking about those first possessed soldiers. What if they had fallen victim to nothing more than an early test of Leander’s command over Old Magic? I wondered how many people had died. If any of the soldiers had lived. “How do you know?”

  “I was there,” the revenant answered. “I saw them burn.”

  A shiver ran through me. But its answer shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The revenant was ancient; no doubt its power had been used to battle Old Magic before.

  “That still doesn’t explain what he wants.”

  “What do you know about him? Think, nun.”

  I cast back through my memories. The first to leap out was the look of disgust on his face when I’d told him I wanted to be a nun. Why would you ever want such a thing? And then, in the harrow, when I had continued to defy him—I think it’s possible that you don’t know what you want.

  “He wants power,” I said slowly. “It’s so important to him that he can’t understand other people not wanting it.”

  “Go on.”

  I thought of the way the Divine had gazed at him. Fondly, adoringly. But he was still her inferior and always would be. Despite his young age, he had already risen as high as he could in the Clerisy’s ranks. He had obtained the most powerful relic he could control.

  “He can’t get any more of it through the Clerisy,” I finished. “If he wants more power, he has to find it elsewhere.”

  “I’ve seen a thousand humans like him. If it helps, they always end up dying in ghastly ways. I would happily volunteer, but unfortunately, we can’t just kill him and be done with it. We need to find out more about the rituals he’s been practicing first. Old Magic persists beyond its practitioner’s death, and we need to know exactly what he’s set in motion.”