doubt flowing invisibly to join the riders. If Jula and Ruli were hauled before the abbess’s desk their whole night’s work could unravel. Wheel wasn’t shy of using harsh methods to get to a truth that satisfied her, and if she had discovered the theft of her seal there was no telling what anger might drive her to.
‘Go after them. Get them inside,’ Nona hissed back. She grabbed a roof tile and with a crack of her arm sent it scything through the night to explode against the side of the bathhouse. The detonation drew all eyes. Ara was already gone.
Nona launched a second tile, this one aimed at the flagstones past the bathhouse, further from the soldiers. Before it hit Nona had slithered on her belly and dropped from the roof.
Kettle would be out there on the rooftops or prowling between the buildings. After the disaster in Sister Apple’s stores Nona was far from sure what sort of reception she would get from either of the nuns. She wasn’t keen to find out.
Nona had never been able to spot Sister Kettle. Her friend was one of the few who could put fear into her. There’s nothing like running in the dark and knowing that you are exposed, vulnerable to attack from any angle. Nona relied on her foot speed. She ran towards the rear of the dormitories, the flesh of her back crawling with the knowledge that at any moment a venomed dart might come speeding from the shadows to bring her down.
Nona reached the rear wall of the dormitories and released a sigh of relief. To avoid the activity towards the front of the building, along with any of Joeli’s thread-traps, she climbed the wall and slipped the shutter catch to Ara’s study room, creeping from there to her bed. Part of her wanted to cross the room, haul Joeli from her bed and pin her to the wall, with flaw-blades if she put up a fight. The truth would come out swiftly enough.
Nona bit back on her instincts and went to her bed instead. Ara already lay in the neighbouring bed feigning sleep and faintly illuminated by the hooded lantern on the wall. Nona slid beneath her covers, straining her ears for sounds of heavy feet on the staircase. Those soldiers had come for a reason. It couldn’t be long before they brought the abbess to the dormitory door and began to ask questions about the theft from the high priest’s vault.
She lay staring at the dark with the need for violence twitching in her fingers, still wanting to haul Joeli from her bed before the soldiers arrived. Kettle had once advised that she count to ten in such circumstances, or perhaps a thousand. Nona found that Abbess Glass was more of a help than counting. Not something the abbess had said, just how she had lived. The abbess had taken on more powerful enemies than Nona had, and bested them by playing the long game, a game her opponents had thought they were winning right until the moment of their defeat. The abbess had never raised her hand in anger, but the blows she struck were more powerful than any taught by Sister Tallow.
Nobody came. No tramp of boots on the dormitory stairs. Perhaps the soldiers had arrived on other business … As sleep took hold Nona saw again the abbess lying pale on her deathbed, the flesh wasted from her, eyes fever-bright. On that last night she had summoned Nona to her side and found the strength that often comes before that final goodbye. She had spoken to Nona, rediscovering the lucidity that had been a stranger to her for many days.
‘A million words won’t push the ice back, not even the breadth of a finger. But one word will break a heart, two will mend it, and three will lay the highest low.’
Abbess Glass had spoken and Nona had made promises. Promises to a friend. Promises she meant to keep.
The bell that drew Nona from her dreams spoke with a steel tongue. Bitel! All around, her fellow novices were jumping from their beds, shedding nightgowns, grabbing habits, shouting questions. All except Joeli who sat on her bed, fully dressed, her hair already brushed to its usual golden magnificence. She watched with a private smile as Nona struggled first into her smalls and skirts, and then the latest in a series of habits, this one already too short for her.