‘As I was saying.’ Sister Apple rapped the board. ‘Catweed.’
Nona looked down at her new possessions. Her only possessions other than the quill, scroll and ink the abbess gave her … and a briefly-owned knife. She picked the slate up, marvelling at its even corners and uniform thickness. The bigs in Nana Even’s seven-day class sat with rough pieces of slate they had dug themselves from Ebson’s Hole. While Sister Apple continued to describe the locations in which catweed might be found Nona set the slate back down before her, finding it slightly sticky. Her fingertips held a brownish stain where she’d touched it, and had a faint smell of rot.
‘Catweed in its natural state can be eaten without adverse effects,’ Sister Apple continued. ‘Though you would be advised against consuming it in quantity. That would lead to stomach cramps and numbness in the extremities. Besides, it has a sour and unpleasant taste.’
Sister Apple continued to expound upon the merits of catweed for several minutes before pausing to look at Nona. ‘And how are you feeling, novice?’
Nona licked her lips. Her mouth felt strangely dry and cottony.
‘You … lied.’ She discovered herself weak in every limb. An attempt to rise merely made her slump over the table.
‘It was entirely evident that I was trying to poison you, Nona dear. You don’t think that someone who would poison you might also stoop to not telling the truth on all occasions?’
‘L … iar.’ No part of Nona’s body would obey her. Where Arabella had gone rigid Nona had turned limp, but neither of them had command of their muscles.
Sister Apple crossed the room to stand beside Nona, setting a hand to her shoulder. ‘Do you know what the most insidious poison is, Nona?’ Sister Apple pursed her lips. ‘That means “worst”.’
‘N—’ The table filled most of Nona’s vision now as her head met it. She could see Sister Apple from hips to ribcage, Arabella’s arm, Clera behind them both.
‘N—? Catweed got your tongue?’ Sister Apple retrieved the slate with a cloth-wrapped hand. ‘Trust, Nona. Trust is the most insidious of poisons. Trust sidesteps all of your precautions.’ Behind the nun Clera rolled her eyes. ‘So give your trust sparingly. Or better still, not at all. And, Novice Clera … you will be grinding stinkcorns in the fume cavern for an hour after the lesson finishes.’
13
Shade class passed slowly but with little else to pay attention to Nona learned a lot about the properties and preparation of catweed, the primary ingredient of the preparation known as ‘boneless’ with which she had been poisoned. She also learned about segren root, from which the ‘lock-up’ tincture with which Arabella had been poisoned was distilled. The most memorable fact was that catweed had an unpleasant aroma of decay whereas segren root when cut smelt like cat urine.
‘Segren root smells like a cat weed. Catweed does not.’ Sister Apple tapped the board. ‘That should be easy to remember!’
Nona didn’t see the demonstrations, though she did get to see Clera pinch the immobilized Arabella, twice.
About ten minutes before the end of the lesson Nona found herself able to lift her head. All about her the novices were boiling small iron pans full of catweed and vinegar over trays of glowing charcoal. The stench was incredible.
By the time Nona could sit up, Sister Apple was moving around the class checking the preparations for colour and consistency.
‘You should all be decanting the liquid now. Use a fine sieve, and make sure you’ve added the alkoid salt before sieving, and the quicksilver after. Next lesson we’ll be distilling our liquor to recover the essence with which Nona’s slate was coated. It will penetrate the skin, though slowly and less effectively – for optimal results it needs to be consumed while fresh.’
Nona and Arabella brought up the rear when the class climbed the long stair to escape into fresh air at last. Sister Apple supported Nona while Bhenta helped Arabella along.
‘You’ll be fully recovered within the hour,’ Sister Apple said, sending Nona on her way at the top of the stairs with a pat.
Nona didn’t feel entirely herself until bedtime. She sat on her bed chatting with Ruli until Clera finally showed up from the bathhouse.
‘I had to soak for hours to get the stink off me! Look! I’m all wrinkled up!’ Clera held her fingers out, the pads of each ridged from too long in the water.
Nona sniffed but didn’t like to say she could still smell the stinkcorns. ‘How did she know?’
‘That I was cheeking her? Eyes in the back of her head!’ Clera snorted.
‘How did she know, that she would need Sister Kettle to trick me?’
Jula leaned in from the next bed. ‘If the sweets or pins had got you both she would have ignored the door and Kettle would have gone away. If Arabella wasn’t poisoned when Kettle came in then she would have taken out something for her – a message from her father or something … The Poisoner always wins!’
‘I hate that woman,’ Clera said.
Morning came and Nona, first out of bed, had to be reminded by a sleepy Clera that there were no classes on seven-day.
‘The older novices are allowed to go down into the city on supervised excursions.’ Clera sat up, yawning and stretching. Her nightdress was thin and grey with a number of tears but better than nothing, which was all Nona had. ‘I’m going down to see my father. With Sister Flint, worse luck. She is no fun at all. The abbess gave me special permission even though I’m still in Red.’
Nona said nothing. She knew enough about prisons to say that she would not want her father in one. However, if being in a prison meant that her father was there to visit one day in seven rather than lost beneath the ice, she would step into Clera’s shoes.
Hessa poked her head from beneath her blankets, yawning hugely. ‘I had an awful dream.’ She sat up, shuddering. ‘About a wolf—’
‘—in a trap,’ Nona said.
‘Yes …’ Hessa frowned. ‘Did I talk in my sleep?’
Nona didn’t answer. A dream of a wolf with its leg in an iron trap had woken her in the night. She hadn’t remembered it on waking until Hessa spoke.
‘We’re going to swim in the sinkhole.’ Jula tugged her underskirts on and promptly tripped over her bed into an undignified fall, face first, bottom up. She rolled to the side, bucking to get the skirts up. ‘Coming, Nona?’
‘I have extra lessons with Sister Kettle.’ Also, Nona couldn’t swim.
‘Be careful she doesn’t poison you again.’ Clera grinned.
Nona met with Sister Kettle after breakfast in the Academia tower. The classroom seemed very large with just two of them there, their chairs side by side at the table where Sister Rule’s mysteries were normally on display. The slate and chalks that Sister Apple had taken charge of during Shade were set on the polished wood before them.
‘You poisoned me,’ Nona said.
‘I did.’
‘Don’t do it again.’
Sister Kettle sucked her lower lip, studying Nona. ‘I don’t believe I shall. That’s a very fierce stare for a little girl.’
‘I made both Tacsis brothers bleed, and they didn’t even try to poison me.’ Nona took out her quill.
‘They underestimated you, Nona. I’ve seen you on the blade-path. I wouldn’t underestimate you.’ Kettle took a flat case from her habit and opened it to reveal her own quill, the feather black and stiff, perhaps a raven’s. ‘I told Sister Tallow about your jumping between the tops of the spiral.’