“Lady, we beg mercy for Your servants…”
“Begone, foul spirit!”
“We ask protection for those within…”
“We cast you out! We banish you into the dark!”
“May our prayers stand fast against evil…”
“The Dead are not welcome here!”
“May our faith stand as iron though our bodies are dust…”
A shudder tore through me. The whispering was coming from the lichgate. These were the voices of the long-dead sisters who had forged the gate, their prayers driven into the molten iron with every stroke of the hammer. The living couldn’t hear them, but spirits could. This was what a lichgate felt like to the Dead.
Each voice stabbed at me like the beak of an attacking raven. I hunched inward to protect myself from their invisible assault, stubbornly pressing forward. An elderly woman being helped past gave me a worried look, but if she spoke, I didn’t hear her.
I sagged with relief as we finished crossing the threshold. A few whispers followed me, their condemnations pelting my back like sleet, then fell away. We were inside the convent. I had an impression of somber stone buildings, their slate rooftops spattered white with raven droppings, and the chapel’s bell tower rising above them in the distance.
It was only after Charles paused, taking me in, that I realized he had been talking to me as we passed through the gate. His eyes widened. “Are you all right? Your nose is bleeding.”
Unsurprised, I pressed my cloak against my face to stanch the flow. “It happens sometimes,” I said colorlessly. “I have a condition.”
“Nice try, but I’ve been called worse,” the revenant sniped, roused from its silent lurking.
Charles seemed unconvinced. “I think I’d better take you to one of the—”
A resounding bellow interrupted him. “I see you there! Out! OUT, if you know what’s good for you!”
The voice belonged to a hugely stout nun who was charging toward us with alarming speed, her face purple with anger and her gray robes billowing behind her. My heart almost stopped. She had arms as big around as vinegar barrels, the fabric straining to contain their girth. Like Mother Katherine, she didn’t wear any adornments of rank, but the numerous relics glinting on her fingers suggested she was the abbess.
I stood frozen as she approached, but it wasn’t me she was after. She bustled past, stirring my cloak in the wind whipped up by her momentum. I had been so distracted by the lichgate, I hadn’t noticed the pair of clerics lurking just within, wearing identical expressions of disapproval as they watched the refugees trickle inside. Their blue robes and moonstone relics identified them as low-ranking Clerisy officials called lectors, who were responsible for the somewhat frivolous task of reciting holy texts during ceremonies. They jumped as the abbess bore down upon them like a furious eagle descending on jays, already roaring at the top of her lungs.
“Look at the pair of you, standing idle while the sisters break their backs in the Lady’s service. And you call yourselves clerics. Useless!” Her voice boomed from the walls like thunder. “Do you have anything to say for yourselves? No? Not a word? Well, I know who sent you. If Her Holiness wishes to stick her prying nose into the care of the sick, the injured, the elderly in this convent, tell her she’s welcome to come get an earful in person!”
She punctuated each sentence by stabbing her finger at their chests. With each jab, the lectors took a step backward, growing increasingly pale until they lifted their robes and fled. The abbess planted her large fists on her hips and watched them go. Then she grunted in curt dismissal and turned toward the nearest refugee.
“Infirmary,” she declared, already bustling over to the next. This time I saw her brush her hand over one of her relics. “Guest dormitory, be quick about it—and get some pottage in her; she’s about to drop.”
Charles leaned toward me. “That’s Mother Dolours. Do you see those rings she’s wearing? They’re healing relics. She’s saved the lives of more soldiers in the guard than any of us can count.”
“All of them?” I asked in surprise. I counted at least five rings, likely more.
He grinned. “Every last one.”
I had never heard of someone wielding so many Third Order relics. Healing relics were difficult to master, and greatly sought after. Each conveyed a different healing power based on the type of spirit bound to it—a feverling to treat fevers, a witherkin to treat wasting illnesses, and so on. Our healers in Naimes hadn’t used relics at all, treating us instead with herbs and tinctures.
A tremor ran through the revenant when the abbess’s attention swung in our direction. Its presence shrank inward, but not before an icy prickle of fear escaped.
“We can’t let the fat nun use her relics on you,” it said, its voice muffled. “I won’t be able to hide myself from her.”
I looked more closely at Mother Dolours. I couldn’t tell whether it was my imagination, or whether I truly perceived a slight distortion in the air surrounding her, the holiness radiating from her body like consecrated steel. The revenant had felt fear in the presence of nuns before, but that was different—it had feared what they represented, imprisonment in its reliquary. This time it feared Mother Dolours herself.
“Where are you going?” Charles asked.
“The stable.” My feet had begun to carry me there before I had consciously decided on a direction. This convent was laid out differently than mine, but the manure-coated wagon tracks and telltale odor of pigs were as good as any sign pointing the way.
“Wait! You haven’t been assigned a place to sleep. I think they’ve started setting people up with pallets in the refectory. Anne, you really look like you should sit down.”
Ignoring him, I glanced around. The more mobile refugees had been given small tasks helping the sicker ones—carrying blankets, distributing bowls of pottage. There were too many outsiders in the convent for the sisters to keep track of everyone. Their attention would be divided between accommodating the refugees and caring for the city’s dead. If I looked like I knew what I was doing, which wouldn’t be difficult to feign, the sisters would probably leave me alone.
Besides, I couldn’t sleep in the refectory. I remembered how crowded it had been in Naimes when we’d hosted the novices for the evaluation. I wouldn’t be able to speak to the revenant if I was surrounded by people, and someone would eventually notice that I never took off my gloves. Also, there was the part about being surrounded by people.
Charles trotted up beside me. “Anne—”
“How is Mother Dolours able to speak against the Divine like that?” I asked to distract him. An abbess ranked far above a pair of lectors, but challenging a Divine bordered on treason.
He gave me a speculative look. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but everyone in the city knows by now, so it isn’t much of a secret. Mother Dolours was almost elected Divine four years ago. Her Holiness only got the position because Mother Dolours turned it down.”
I paused in surprise, considering what I knew about the Holy Assembly in Chantclere, who were responsible for electing new Divines when the old ones died. “Isn’t the Assembly’s vote binding?”