“Alata, get Brother Pelter a chair.” Sister Apple indicated a spot by the door.
“I prefer to stand.” Pockmarks from some childhood illness marked one side of the man’s narrow face. He was perhaps fifty. The scrawny length of his neck, the prominence of his throat, and his greying hair, tufting up like the wool of a badly shorn sheep, would have made him comical if not for the brittle blueness of his eyes. Nona felt they were the eyes of a man who had witnessed horrors, and approved. She sat, grateful to join the others.
“Well.” Sister Apple frowned and brought her hands together. “Let us return to the art of disguise . . .”
The tall inquisitor set a long-fingered hand to his throat. “I believe you were discussing the business of lying.” He pointed to Nona. “Perhaps the girl could convince me that she is a Sis. A daughter of Elon Namsis. And that she wishes to clear peasants from her lands.”
Sister Apple motioned Nona to her feet.
Pelter’s gaze travelled the length of her, a sharp inspection that made Nona’s skin crawl. Beneath her habit Keot circled away to the small of her back. The inquisitor’s gaze met hers and she felt something new, a rustling of old memories, the focus moon through the starkness of bare branches, the Corridor wind through the wooden bars of a cage. Thread-work! Nona bit down hard, imagining the fist of her will closing around every thread that anchored her to the world and holding them fast. Her glance fell to the man’s hands, down at his sides now. There was little to betray him, just the slightest twitch of his fingers, but she knew it then. A quantal thread-worker running the dirty fingers of his mind through her thoughts. She raised the blackness of her eyes to him and saw a moment’s hesitation in his own. The inquisitor’s lip curled and the tugging on her threads grew stronger, but she held them. Denied, Brother Pelter narrowed his gaze, the blue of his eyes turning to ice like that advancing from north and south to swallow the world. His smile held only winter.
“Come then, girl,” he said. “Lie to me.”
12
NONE OF THE novices could tell Nona why the Inquisition had installed itself at Sweet Mercy. Inquisitor Pelter had four watchers with him and placed them in all the classes that he did not personally observe.
“Sherzal sent them because of Zole.” Ruli spoke with the total conviction she reserved for all guesswork.
“Sherzal doesn’t own the Inquisition, Ruli.” Jula continued to sew the tear in her habit.
“She’s prime instigator.” Ara stretched out catlike across her bed. She patted for Nona to sit on the edge. “That means a lot. When Jacob sold her the role on his way to getting the high priesthood it was mostly an honorary position, but her archivists dug into the scrolls and found all manner of associated rights and duties the Church seemed to have forgotten about.”
Nona crossed from the doorway and sat on the end of Ara’s bed. She missed moments like this, lying boneless beside Ara after the heat of the baths, complaining together as they wrote essays for Academia or Spirit class, just spending time. She already felt like an interloper in the Grey dormitory. Wincing, she lowered herself slowly: she still had an ache or three from the beating Joeli’s friends had dished out. “If Sherzal’s so hungry for power why doesn’t she set the Inquisition on her brother? Or can’t emperors sin?”
Ara grinned. “Emperors are famed for their sinning, but be careful where you say it! However, the only place the Inquisition can hold the Lansis to account is in their palaces. All the most highly placed people have rights about where they can and can’t be put on trial.”
“So Sherzal should send the Inquisition into Crucical’s throne room?”
“That’s where the emperors got clever. Their line is the only one that can refuse admission to the Inquisition. So unless Crucical invites them in, the Inquisition can’t touch him,” Ara said. “That’s what keeps Sherzal’s sister, Velera, safe too.”
“The emperor should just disband the Inquisition. I’ve heard how they get their confessions.” Nona shuddered.
“The Inquisition keeps us pure,” Jula said. “Someone has to see that the faith doesn’t slip away from its foundations.”
“Who keeps them pure?” Nona asked.
“Anyway this isn’t about Zole,” Ara said, returning to Ruli’s assertion. “This is about the whole thing. The Grey and the Red. The emperor wants control. He wants to send the sisters against his enemies, not have to beg High Priest Nevis. That’s what my father says. The emperor will be doing the same with the monasteries. They’ll have inquisitors up at Narrow Path too, trying to find fault with the abbot. Crucical will want the Red Brothers and the Grey too.”
Nona watched Jula sew, fingers quick, stitches neat and accurate. The tear in her habit had outlasted her memory of what had caused it.
“Why would Sherzal do anything to help her brother?” Ruli asked, reluctant to let go of her theory. “Wouldn’t she take the Red Sisters for herself?”
“The emperor wouldn’t stand for that. His legions would be at her door within the week.” Ara shook her head. “There’s been bargaining. A trade. Sherzal will get something she wants—but not Sweet Mercy. Not all of it anyway.”
“We should go back to the caves.” Nona reached over to set her fingers to a second tear in Jula’s habit. “Who knows how many more chances we’ll get if they set watchers on us?”
Only Ara acknowledged Nona had spoken. “I don’t want to.”
The rest carried on as if no words had passed her lips.
Much of Nona shared Ara’s desire to avoid the caves from now until the moon finally fell from the sky, but other more stubborn parts refused to agree. Sherzal had sent the Inquisition into Sweet Mercy and yet her hands were stained with Hessa’s blood, whatever Safira might claim. Yisht was Sherzal’s weapon, she was responsible for what that weapon cut. Nona owed it to Hessa to undertake her own inquisition. To see if her friend had left her any clue or message in the place where she died. Added to this was the fact that Nona had been driven from those caves, fleeing in terror, her friends’ minds altered. It was not in her to let such a challenge go unanswered. The Ancestor didn’t value pride but Nona had never quite managed to let hers go, and it drew her back to the scene of that disgrace, more strongly with each passing day. And if vengeance and pride were not enough, Yisht had stolen the shipheart, striking at the abbess’s reputation, robbing Sweet Mercy of its most valued treasure, walling its inhabitants away from their magics. It had to be recovered, and where better to start than at the beginning?
Nona held silent, watching the others. It seemed that time was only hardening their denial into fact. Patience would not solve the problem, and in any event time was running out.
Fix them yourself.
How?
Experiment.
And if something goes wrong?
Peh. Keot managed to convey an air of complete indifference. Are you not here to learn? Mistakes are how you learn.
“How did this tear?” Nona asked, lifting the sleeve towards Jula.
“I caught it on something.” The stitching continued, a little faster, a lot less neat.
I need help, Keot. It needs two people.
I’ll help—
Thank you.
But you would have to let me use your body to kill someone.
No! And who?
Anyone, I don’t care. Joeli if you like.
No!
You weren’t so squeamish about Raymel Tacsis. You enjoyed it. That’s why I’m in you. Keot sank down her back, burning as he went. Think about it. Otherwise you’ll need two minds for both the silly trances you think you need. Perhaps Joeli will help you. He settled into a sullen silence.