The abbess slumped, a guard stepping forward to prevent her falling.
‘Archon Nevis, the decision rests with you.’ The high priest walked to stand behind the fat archon’s chair. ‘You at least I know can be relied upon to understand where the best interests of the church lie.’
Archon Nevis glanced across the line of his fellow archons. He looked nervous, sweat making small ringlets in the grey hair sticking to his forehead. ‘I—’
‘It’s been more years than either of us would care to mention, Nevis,’ Abbess Glass said, shaking off the guard and standing straight. Speaking as if there were only the two of them there, Nona and the rest no more than shadows. ‘That boy and that girl would not recognize us. We are old. Changed. But I remember. One time, you said. Once. That I could ask anything of you. I doubt you thought it would take me this long to ask it. That one time is now. That anything is this.’
‘I remember.’ Nevis went still more pale, every vein blue upon the marble of his flesh. ‘We were children, Shella. Playing children’s games. You can’t expect—’
‘It was in the focus of the moon, Nevis. The ice lit red about us and began to steam …’
‘… and the crakes took to the sky and their song—’
‘Very touching.’ High Priest Jacob brought his staff down with a crack. ‘But Archon Nevis is no longer a moon-eyed boy panting over a tanner’s girl. Great Ancestor, woman! Nevis honours the debts of the entire church. The master of the faith’s coffers concerns himself with debts of a rather more adult nature. Archon, let’s end this farce.’
‘I …’ Archon Nevis held his finger to his chest, out of the high priest’s view. A ‘one’ for the abbess’s eyes. ‘The case has no merit. It cannot stand.’
Across the hall, murmurs of approval spread among the guards and attendants. Outside cries of delight went up, though how word reached the women and girls in front of the hall so swiftly Nona had no idea. Archon Kratton was already on his feet, his chair rocking behind him. ‘Get the damned yoke off her! She’s an abbess of the church!’
Nona found herself standing straight and unsupported, her restraints no burden now, a shout of defiance on her lips.
A guard moved to obey, the heavy key ready in his hand. The loud crack of the high priest’s staff against stone cut through raised voices.
‘Overruled.’
‘What?’ Nona stared. Even the archons looked shocked. She looked up at the abbess. ‘He can’t …’
Of all of them only Abbess Glass seemed unsurprised. ‘That’s a big step, Jacob. Are you sure you want to—’
‘This is a court of law and you will address me by my title!’ High Priest Jacob slumped back into his chair of office. ‘Your concern is noted, abbess. I’m sure your concern is for me rather than for your own imminent and … uncomfortable … exit from this convent, and from the church as a whole.’
Abbess Glass pursed her lips. ‘The office of high priest rests upon four pillars. It’s my duty to counsel you against kicking them out from beneath you.’
‘Noted.’ The high priest turned to his black-clad assistant, scratching at her scroll. ‘Make sure you get that down, Greha. Now – to the sentencing.’
‘I took Nona from the prison because she is The Shield. The Ancestor told me to do it in a vision.’ Abbess Glass didn’t raise her voice but somehow she gathered all the attention that the high priest held a moment before and focused it upon herself in the quiet of the hall.
‘Nonsense! Nonsense …’ The high priest tried to wave the idea away. ‘This is foolishness, desperation. It would not have been credible if these words were the first out of your mouth on our arrival. To speak them a moment before you’re sentenced to have your tongue split … well … it’s beneath you. It’s beneath an abbess of the Ancestor!’
‘Wh—’ Nona wanted to ask what a Shield was but the abbess set her large foot over Nona’s small one.
‘The Shield will have almost as many enemies as the Argatha. It was my duty to protect her until she is able to protect both herself and the Chosen One. She is just a child. Her safety lay in secrecy. Unfortunately, now you have forced a damaging choice: reveal the truth of her identity or let you drown her in ignorance.’
‘This is ridiculous, Abbess Glass. Anyone can claim a holy vision to save themselves from justice.’
‘Were not my first words to you in this court an invitation to consider why I would do such a thing? Rather than giving serious thought to that question you preferred to blame it on a mothering instinct that was singularly absent before my courses ran dry. I ask you once more – knowing what you know of me – do you seriously believe the words that came from your mouth?’
Nona knew herself a stranger to tact but even to her ears the abbess didn’t seem to be doing a good job of convincing a proud man to change his mind. She gave him no retreat, no escape, and yet he held all the power. Not even the archons could tell him what to do.
High Priest Jacob cleared his throat, gathered his robes about him as if he might be chilled, and stamped his staff beside his chair. ‘I am unconvinced, abbess. The sentence of this court is that—’
‘I demand the test.’
‘Test? What test?’ The high priest glanced to either side as if missing something. Answering his rhetoric, a black-clad assistant leaned in to whisper into his ear. The high priest frowned, the furrows across his forehead growing deeper from one second to the next. Then a smile. ‘You want to set this child before the Red Sisters and let them shoot her full of arrows? It’s certainly a more interesting form of execution than drowning the girl.’ The assistant raised his head from the open book in his arms and leaned in again. ‘The child would have to agree to such an ordeal though. Apparently.’
‘No.’ The pressure on Nona’s foot increased as the abbess shook her head. ‘That would be ridiculous. The ordeal of the Shield is for any sister that claims the title. It was never intended for a novice. Certainly not one who has worn the habit little more than a week. The test I refer to is the one that became legal precedent after Sister Cane’s vision of the Three Arks.’ The abbess lifted her foot, freeing Nona’s. ‘You will have to look in Lorca’s book on ecclesiastical proof. I believe Archon Philo’s attendant has a copy at the bottom of the pile he has stacked by the archon’s chair …’
‘Why don’t you save us the bother, Abbess Glass, and just tell us?’ The high priest clapped one hand over the fist of the other and rested his chin upon it, elbows on his knees.
A smile twitched across the abbess’s lips. ‘I’m tempted to say that I must affirm my vision to each archon and as a bride of the Ancestor that would be sufficient.’ She held up a hand as High Priest Jacob raised his head to object. ‘Sadly the ordeal that Sister Cane endured to prove her words was a rather unpleasant one.’ A quaver in her voice now.
Archon Anasta spoke into the quiet moment. ‘The nun in question held her hand just above the flame of a votive candle until she was believed. The precedent is that either the presiding official is swayed to believe the testimony and allows the witness to withdraw their hand. Or the witness withdraws their hand without permission and by doing so admits the lie. Or, I suppose, the candle burns out, which should be proof enough for anyone of something extraordinary. The whole thing is archaic, barbaric, and rife with superstition, but then again the prophecy to which Abbess Glass refers is archaic and rife with superstition, and the punishment that High Priest Jacob seems determined to impose carries an even greater degree of barbarism and antiquity …’ The old woman raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Who has a candle?’