Nona finally stepped out of the bathhouse in the full attire of a novice of the Sweet Mercy Convent of the Ancestor. The wind was shockingly cold on her face but the rest of her seemed surprisingly well protected. She stood in her double-sleeved robe, tied at the middle with a woollen belt, two underskirts rustling beneath, her feet feeling most strange in leather shoes drawn tight around them with laces. The only difference between her habit and Sister Apple’s appeared to be the lack of a headdress, the nun having restored the garments she’d shed inside.
‘The novices will be at breakfast in the refectory.’ Sister Apple turned her head sharply and waved to someone across the wide yard. ‘Suleri!’
The figure stopped, turned, and hurried towards them, a tall girl with long dark hair. ‘Yes, sister?’
‘This is Nona: she’s to join Red Class for lessons. Take her to their meal table.’ Sister Apple seemed suddenly more stern, someone to be reckoned with.
‘Yes, sister!’ The older girl, perhaps fifteen, glanced down at Nona, ‘Come on.’ And she walked away at a brisk pace, forcing Nona to run to keep up.
They crossed a courtyard and turned a corner into a passageway, the bake-house on one side, the kitchens on the other. Suleri stopped and rounded on Nona, blocking her path.
‘You’re not her!’ She seemed both furious and unconvinced. ‘The Chosen One wouldn’t be a skinny little hunska.’
When hunger has been your lifelong companion the smell of food is a physical thing, an assault, a seduction, a deep-sunk hook that will reel you in. Nona forgot about Suleri’s anger. The convent’s wonders slipped from her mind. The flood of warmth on passing through the tall oak doors, the rapid, high-pitch babble of many voices that became almost a roar … none of it mattered. The aroma of fresh bread held her, the captivating scent of bacon sizzling, buttery eggs, scrambled and sprinkled with black pepper.
‘This way!’ Suleri’s voice carried the edge added when someone has had to repeat themselves.
She led Nona through a crowd of older novices chatting animatedly by the entrance. Nona’s head barely rose above belt-height on many of them.
Four long tables ran across the width of the hall, each surrounded by high-backed chairs and with large bowls set along the centre. A dozen or more girls sat around each table save the nearest one where only a couple of novices had yet taken their place, both looking like grown women to Nona.
‘Is that her?’ A voice from behind.
The conversation around the doorway died to nothing and, glancing back, Nona found the novices staring down at her.
‘Red Class at the back, Grey Class next, Mystic …’ Suleri slapped the table immediately before them. ‘And Holy!’ She waved Nona away. ‘Go!’
Nona advanced into the room under the scrutiny of the girls by the doors, arms straight at her sides, hands in fists. Despite the crowd she had never felt more alone. She bit her bottom lip hard enough to taste blood. Easing her jaw, she pressed her lips together in a thin, defiant line.
The conversation failed at each table as she passed; by the time she reached the fourth the girls there were turning their chairs to watch.
Nona stopped at the last table. The girls there ranged across a few years in age, though none looked quite as small or young as her. The hunger that had wrapped her stomach in its iron fist slipped away under the stares of half a hundred novices. She looked for a chair but all of them were occupied.
‘She’s not the one.’ Suleri’s voice cut across the room. ‘She’s the dirty peasant we saw earlier. Look at her!’ Ignoring her own command, the novice turned her attention to the plate before her, heaping it with bacon and bread.
Nona’s treacherous stomach chose that moment to rumble more loudly than she had thought possible. The laughter that followed made her cheeks blaze and she stood, furious, staring at the floor, willing it to crack and burn. Instead, it was the laughter that cracked and fell into silence.
Tall men in the furs of the red bear, and armoured beneath in bronze scales, came through the doors, novices scattering from their path. The warriors carried themselves imperiously, as though they might just walk over any too slow to get out of their way. Each wore a helm coiffed with chainmail and visored to mimic the sternest of faces without hint of mercy.
Tacsis men! Come with their own rope to set right the mistake at Harriton, or perhaps to administer crueller justice of their own. Nona snatched the knife from the nearest girl’s plate and holding it before her, level with her eyes, she started to back towards the service door in the rear wall.
The men ignored her. They stepped to either side, clearing the main entrance, and raised their visors to reveal faces that admitted no more compassion than had been engraved upon the metal. The abbess came through the open doors behind them, one hand gripping her crozier, its golden curl rising above her head, the other resting on the shoulder of a blonde girl perhaps a year older than Nona.
‘Novices, this is Arabella Jotsis. She will be joining our order.’
‘As was foretold!’ Sister Wheel stepped out from behind the abbess, Sister Tallow to the other side. ‘As was foretold!’ She cast about rapidly, her watery stare challenging anyone to disagree.
Abbess Glass frowned. ‘We can be sure she is Arabella and that she is Jotsis. Anything else is open to interpretation.’ She struck the heel of her staff to the floor, the sharp retort cutting off the novices’ mutterings. ‘We can also be sure that Arabella will study hard and be treated no differently from any other novice.’
Sister Wheel seemed on the point of saying something but at a glance from the abbess closed her mouth with a snap.
‘Additionally, we may be certain that Novice Nona understands that it is impolite to point a knife at guests,’ the abbess added, tilting her head in Nona’s direction.
Nona set the blade back on the table with a guilty hand as laughter rose about her.
‘Gentlemen.’ Abbess Glass looked left then right. ‘Your duty is dispatched. Arabella is now the charge of the convent and her care rests in my hands.’
The four men inclined their heads and turned, marching out of the building without a word to either the abbess or the girl they had delivered.
Arabella herself didn’t appear to notice their departure. She looked, to Nona, like a different kind of creature, set apart from the dull and dirty humans who scurried about the world. Her hair seemed to glow golden in the light that reached through the still-open doors. Her travelling clothes were a wonder of brushed suede and fur-edged leather, with a magnificent dark red cape across her shoulders secured by a gold chain. Where others might be described by their collection of flaws Arabella Jotsis’s only identifying feature seemed to be that she was without blemish. Perhaps the Ancestor looked like this, but people didn’t.
‘Your table is at the end, Arabella. I’m sure Red Class will welcome you into their ranks. Nona too.’ The abbess nodded towards the end of the room and took her guiding hand from the girl’s shoulder.
‘Best behaviour!’ Sister Tallow added, running
