Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1)(9)
“My still,” Sister Serafina says with great pride. “I use it to boil and reduce substances to their essence, removing all the extra matter until nothing but the poison remains.” She motions me over to the table, and I come eagerly, ducking under a lowhanging clutch of roots drying in the rafters. A strange and pungent combination of smells reaches my nose, rich, earthy notes combined with a cloying, sickly sweetness, and a strong acrid smell lurking underneath.
On the table is a bowl of withered black seeds and a pile of shiny red ones. Large round pods the size of rosary beads are scattered next to drying tubers that look like a man’s organ. Seeing those brings Sybella’s question of last night back to me.
Sister Serafina studies me closely. “How are you feeling?”
I start to tell her that I can hardly feel my injuries any longer, then I realize she means how am I feeling among all the poisons. “Fine,” I say. To my surprise, I am smiling.
“Then let’s get to work.” She shoves a bowl of round green pods in front of me. They are misshapen lumps covered in soft, flexible prickles. She takes up a small pointed knife. “Cut them open and extract the seeds, thus.” with a deft flick of the blade, she guts one of the pods, and three fuzzy seeds spill out. She pinches one between her fingers and holds it up to me. “One of these will make a man so sick, he will wish to die. Three of these will kill him.” Then she hands me the knife, places the seed back on the table, and returns to her distillery.
The knife handle is smooth and well balanced, a thing of beauty, but the seed pod is tough and fibrous, and my hand is not as skilled as the nun’s. It takes a long time before the point of my knife pierces the hard shell and breaks it open. I glance up to find Sister Serafina watching me. Unable to help myself, I flash a smile of victory at her.
She gives me a toothy grin, and then she turns back to her work and I turn back to mine.
That night, I attend dinner in the refectory with the others. It is a large stone chamber with arched doorways and long wooden tables. I see there are less than a dozen girls in all. At thirteen and fourteen, Annith and I appear to be the oldest. The youngest looks to be no more than five, although Annith assures me they do not learn anything of the killing arts until they are older. All of them bear a fair measure of beauty. Perhaps Mortain sires only comely daughters.
“There are even more of us,” Annith tells me. "We have half a dozen full initiates of Mortain, but they are all away, carrying out His wishes.”
Eight nuns file in and head for a large table set apart on a dais. As we eat our dinner, Annith tells me of the nuns I have not yet met. There is the horse mistress and the weapons mistress and the mistress of martial arts, as well as an ancient nun whose only duty is to tend the crows in the rookery. Another nun is charged with teaching history and politics. The last one, a woman who may have been pretty once but now reminds me of a peahen, instructs us in courtly manners and dancing. “And,” Annith adds, her eyes growing bright and her cheeks pink, "Womanly arts.”
I turn to stare at her in surprise. "Womanly arts? why do we need instruction in that?” I hope the small flicker of panic I feel does not come through in my voice.
She shrugs. “So we may get close to our victims. How else are we to see if they have a marque? Besides, all our talents and skills must be well honed so we may serve Mortain fully.” It sounds like a lesson she has been made to memorize.
“Is that all of them, then?” I ask.
“Sister Vereda is not only old but blind as well. She never eats with us and keeps to her rooms. She is our seeress and speaks with us only when she has had a vision.”
I feel someone watching, and look up to find the reverend mother’s cool blue gaze on me. when our eyes meet, she lifts her goblet in private welcome. The immensity of it all surges through me, leaving me dizzy with my unexpected good fortune. This is my new life. My new home. The one I have prayed for ever since I was old enough to form words. A deep sense of gratitude fills me. I will make the most of this chance I have been given, I vow, and I raise my goblet in return.
Chapter Five
It is a full week before I see Sybella again. what they did to calm her, not even Annith has been able to find out.
She first appears among us at the dinner hour. The entire refectory falls silent when Sister widona, the nun with the melodious voice and a talent for taming the convent’s horses, appears in the doorway with Sybella at her side.
When the nun leaves to join the other sisters at the main table, Sybella stands for a long moment looking down at our table, proud and scornful. The younger girls are too awed by her to do anything but stare, but Annith scoots over on the bench to make room for her. Sybella ignores her and instead sits next to me. I am exquisitely uncomfortable at this. Annith has been so kind to me, I cannot bear for her to be shunned like that. And yet . . . there is something about this new girl, and I am filled with a dark joy that she has chosen to sit next to me. I glance down at my plate so Annith will not see my secret pleasure.
Sybella is thinner than when I last saw her, but her eyes are less wild, and the shadows are nearly gone. Her haughtiness, however, is untouched. She sits on the bench, her back rigid, and looks neither to the right nor to the left.
Proving she is a saint, Annith offers the branch of friendship once more by asking, “May I get you some stew?”