He snarled, “Canace—Davith—they have abandoned their post … they have been taken, or fled … they have gone back up another route, perhaps the blocked-up ways, or the peep, or…”
“Cease worrying. Sister Canace and Deacon Davith are not the types to abandon their post,” said the old soldier. “I’ll send people to check. We’re safe down here—so leave your maunderings, or the youth will start to think your dotage is on you already. You see secrets and conspiracies in every corner now.”
“Brat—toy soldier—harridan,” ground out Crux; and then he was hustled through the arch, with Paul supporting. The old soldier they called Aiglamene watched him go, with her face caught up in some worry.
“He’s too old to walk that one off,” she muttered to herself. But then she shook herself back to the situation at hand, and looked critically at Pyrrha—her gaze swept over Nona—her gaze fixed briefly on the corpse prince; then back to Nona.
“I’ve never seen this many nuns before,” said the corpse prince, who didn’t sound excited about it.
Aiglamene said, “Sister Berta—hold,” and passed the pike on to a rather gloomy-looking girl who looked not much older than Honesty. Berta could barely hold the thing, and someone else came up to help her struggle with it. Then the old woman said, “The Ninth House welcomes back its Sainted Reverend Daughter.”
To Nona’s horror whole and entire, Aiglamene dropped to her one native knee. Behind her, in ones, then twos, then threes—every robed old person, or medium person, or even quite young person glancing sidelong at their fellows, dropped to the floor. Only hapless Sister Berta remained upright, and her fellow helping her with the pike. The call moved back through the broad, dark room behind them—“Reverend Daughter,” “the Reverend Daughter,” “the Sainted Daughter.” Nona’s horror only grew when she realised that it was not Kiriona Gaia they were referring to, but her.
Aiglamene rose from one knee—it took a long time, but she quelled with a look anyone who offered to help—and then stumped forward into the ring of light flung by the corpse prince’s lantern. She reached out—she touched the side of the Prince’s face—they both recoiled.
Kiriona Gaia recovered first.
“You always said I’d come back in a box, Aiglamene,” she said lightly.
“They killed you,” said Aiglamene.
“Crime of opportunity,” said the corpse prince. And: “Don’t tell Crux—I absolutely, positively cannot give him the fucking satisfaction.”
Aiglamene shoved her square in the chest, with the palm of one gloved hand; Kiriona tottered a little and wheezed, “Don’t—that’s where my heart used to be,” but the old soldier’s gaze had already fallen upon Nona.
Nona cringed back in Pyrrha’s arms, because the expression was as bad as every single time Camilla had caught her putting a mouthful of chewed-up food in the potted plant or elsewhere. She could read this very old, very furious soldier like a book: the woman was angry, and blamed her. Kiriona Gaia could read her too, because she insinuated herself between them, and said coolly—
“It’s not her, Captain—it’s only her body.”
Over the Prince’s shoulder, Aiglamene looked at Nona, long and suspiciously; then she sighed, and wheeled around, and said: “Get inside. Now. Complete the gate,” she told a few of the other robed people.
With her back still to the group, she said— “Nav, rest assured I would give you the beating of your life and death if we were not under terrible siege. I don’t know why you’re here—I don’t know why you came back—but if we have the time later, and the Ninth House survives, I will ask pertinent questions. For now, only give me information if I need it.”
“We need to get through to the rock,” said Pyrrha.
Aiglamene turned to look at Pyrrha, but Pyrrha—as per usual—was completely unmoved by any hostile, gimlet-eyed expression. Aiglamene said slowly: “You ask me, in the middle of the worst emergency my House has ever faced, to let strangers through to our holiest of holies?”
“Yes. We have a Lyctor’s rights,” said Pyrrha.
The old soldier sharpened, face alight with something that Nona could tell wasn’t hope, but was in the same room—at least the same building. She looked over Pyrrha again, Pyrrha in her ordinary jacket and her ordinary clothes with her very ordinary guns and her extraordinary scruff on her jaw, and she said dubiously, “Your Grace…”