Sister Arnette gives me a sympathetic grin. “I think if he catches sight of her nipples, it won’t matter whether they’re rouged or not. He’ll be dead within seconds.”
It is Sister Arnette who leads me to the convent’s inner sanctum, where Sister Vereda resides, and I am glad, for I am heartily sick of Sister Beatriz. At the seeress’s door, the nun pats my arm. “Good luck,” she says, and I do not know if she means for my assignment tonight or my visit with the ancient nun. Sister Arnette leaves and I turn back to the door. Before I even knock, a voice calls out, “Come in.”
I step into the seeress’s quarters, which are as dark and warm as a womb. There is a faint reddish glow from a charcoal brazier. Sister Vereda has no need of light, but her old joints are fond of heat. I peer into the darkness to try to see her better. She cocks her wimpled head to the side and studies me with her blind eyes. It is unsettling. “Come closer,” she says.
I fumble my way across the darkened room, the heavy, unfamiliar skirts hampering me as much as the lack of light. “Reverend Mother says you have Seen my assignment this evening and can give me directions so I may strike true.”
“Strike true? Is that your heart’s desire then?”
“But of course! Mortain and His convent have raised me up from a root cellar and given me a more glorious life than I could ever have imagined. I will repay that debt in every way I can.”
She stares at me in silence, her milky white eyes unnerving. “Remember, true faith never comes without anguish.”
Before I can respond, she reaches into a small pouch at her waist, pulls out a handful of something — it looks to be small bones and a tangle of feathers — and tosses it on the brazier.
Flames spring to life and an acrid tang fills the room. Sister Vereda stares into the small fire as if reading the red-gold flames reflected in her unseeing eyes.
“Twenty paces, then up a staircase. Small for a man, and wiry, like the fox he resembles. The dust of Amboise clings to his boots, and a red ruby given to him by the French regent winks in his ear. Martel is his name. That is who Mortain has marqued.” The flames sputter out, and Sister Vereda’s eyes return to their milky white.
Not knowing what else to do, I curtsy. “Yes, Sister. Mortain’s will be done.”
Next, she lifts a small box from the shelf under the brazier. Her eyes may be blind, but her fingers are nimble and quick, and she opens the small leather case and pulls from it a heavy bottle. It is of deepest black, its polished surface catching small sparks of light from the embers so that it looks as if she holds a piece of night sky filled with stars.
"Even though you are not a full initiate, the reverend mother says that you are to receive the Tears of Mortain. Kneel,” she orders as she pulls the stopper from the bottle.
Keeping my eyes on the sharp, tapered point of the stopper, I kneel at her feet.
“By the grace of Mortain, I grant you Sight so you may see His will and act on it. Do you promise to obey the saint and act only when He bids it?”
“I do.”
She dips the point of the stopper into the contents of the vial, then gropes gently for my face. “Open your eyes wide, child.”
Even though I am sore afraid of that sharp wand, I do as she commands. She moves it unerringly toward my eyes, one single heavy drop hanging from the tapered end, and I pray her hand is steady.
There is a touch of warmth, then my vision blurs and all the colors and light in the small room run together. My eyes grow warmer and warmer until I fear they will burst into flames. For a moment, I am afraid she has blinded me, but then the sensation passes and the heat and the blurring cease, and I can see again. It seems to me that everything is somewhat brighter now, all the edges sharper, as if the same milkiness that clouds Sister Vereda’s gaze has been ripped away from my own.
But it is not only my sight that is different. My skin, too, has changed, and I feel the air as an almost solid thing against my arms and face. I am aware of Sister Vereda in a way I was not before; I can feel her, feel the spark of life that shines so brightly within her.
“These Tears of Mortain are a gift to those of us who serve Him,” she explains as she returns the vial to its box. “They allow us to experience life and death as He does. Now go,” Sister Vereda says. “And may Mortain keep you in His dark embrace and guide your hand with His own.”
Chapter Eight
Chancellor Crunard has claimed this chateau is nothing but a hunting lodge, but to my eyes, accustomed as they are to a poorly thatched cottage and the austere world of the convent, it looks like a palace. The only thing the nobles appear to be hunting is one another, whether for spirited gossip or furtive liaisons behind the tapestries.