A sense of helplessness and futility washes over me. I look out the window, wondering how to explain to her the complexity of what I am feeling when I can scarce explain it to myself.
“Is being the next seeress not enough of a prize that you must grab my tasks as well?” Although she keeps her voice pitched low, anger hums through it.
I turn from the window, hoping she will see the truth of my words writ clear upon my face. “I do not wish to be seeress and would gladly trade with you! It does not feel special. It feels like a trap—a trap that I will be stuck in until the day I die. But more importantly, I have no skill, no aptitude for it, and I cannot understand why the abbess has chosen me for such a role.”
She shakes her head. “And now you act as if you know more than the abbess. Truly, Annith, you have let the nuns’ praise go to your head.”
She is the third friend of mine to be sent away, and I am terrified that I will not be so lucky as to have all three survive. I fear for Matelaine in a way that I did not for Ismae or even Sybella. She is so much younger and less experienced. “Matelaine, I do not wish to part—”
“After Ismae left, you and I were the closest in age, and I saw that you were lonely, and I was lonely, and I thought maybe we could be friends. Well, I understand now. We will never be friends. You need not worry that I will make that mistake again.”
Her words cut me to the quick. I reach out and grab her hand, squeeze it. “We have always been friends. But Ismae—well, she was one of the first true friends I had ever had. Of course I was closer to her, just as you are closer to Sarra and Lisabet over Loisse and Audri. It does not mean that Loisse and Audri don’t have a place in your heart.”
There is a long moment of silence, then Matelaine wrinkles her nose. “Well, I’m not particularly fond of Sarra,” she says, and I am filled with a giddy sense of relief. Then her face grows serious. “You always hold a piece of yourself back, Annith. For all your love and affection and kindness, there is always a part of yourself that you withhold from others.”
And of course, she is right. For one sharp moment, I teeter on the edge of sharing my past with her, my awkward, painful childhood, but I cannot. Not now, when she must be preparing herself for the challenges ahead. I squeeze her hand again. “When you return,” I tell her, “if I am not sealed away in that cursed room and unable to speak to anyone, I will tell you about that part of my life.”
She smiles then and gives my hand a return squeeze. “I will look forward to hearing it.”
I surprise her by throwing my arms around her and giving her a fierce hug. “Be safe, Matelaine. I will pray for you every day until your return.” Tears sting at my eyes and try to crowd their way up my throat. With one last encouraging smile, I turn and leave before the abbess arrives.
Chapter Ten
FOR ALL THE TRAINING I have done, for all that I have practiced stealth and cunning and deceit, I never dreamed that my first true use of those skills would be against the very convent I serve.
Because I do not want the abbess to change her mind about leaving, I become as biddable as the sheep she wishes me to be. I do not even give in to the temptation of letting my mind stew over all the questions and issues that plague me, for fear that she will sense it somehow.
It is like putting a lid on a boiling pot.
My new role at the convent is announced that night at dinner amid much merrymaking and goblet-raising, as if the abbess is determined to show me just what a joyous occasion it is. I smile so much that my cheeks ache with it, and I look demure, as if slightly stunned that such an honor should be laid at my feet.
By the next day, as the abbess makes her final preparations to leave, the other girls have begun to look upon me with poorly hidden suspicion, as if I suddenly have the ability to snatch the very thoughts from their heads, and they withdraw from me. They edge away on the prayer bench, claiming to remember something they forgot, then choose different seats when they return. All these girls whose bruises I have tended, whose bodies I have trained, and whose secrets I have shared now act as if I have suddenly sprouted wings or a second head. They have started to separate me from their daily lives just as Sister Vereda is separate, and I feel a lifetime of isolation stretching out before me, as endless as the sea.
Of course, it is too much to ask that the abbess should leave the island without one final meeting between us. I marshal every fiber of deceit and subterfuge I possess and weave them into a façade of calm acceptance to wear for our encounter.
“I have told all the other nuns of your new duties so they know you are not to participate in any further training exercises except as seeress.” She is not sitting behind her desk but standing beside it, putting a few final things into her valise.
I smile cheerfully. “Very well, Reverend Mother.”
“Sister Vereda will start with small daily lessons that you can then practice on your own.” She pauses in her packing. “Annith, I cannot tell you how important it is that you apply your considerable talents to these tasks. The gathering political storm is bearing down on our country. From all reports, the duchess’s court has splintered into factions, leaving her and our country even more weak and vulnerable than before. We must bring every skill and every resource we possess to her aid.”
“But of course, Reverend Mother. I will use every talent at my disposal to serve Mortain and our country in this most dire time.” I wait to see if she catches it, the way I have avoided promising to devote myself to my new seeress duties, but she is so distracted by her imminent departure that she does not appear to notice.
She rattles off a few more last-minute instructions. Apparently, just because I am to be seeress does not mean I am not to serve as her right hand as well. When the meeting is finally over, I wish her a warm farewell, then turn to leave.
“Annith?”
I pause with my hand on the door. “Yes, Reverend Mother?”
“Is everything all right between us?” The note of longing in her voice surprises me. After all that has transpired, after all her bullying and cajoling, can she believe things might ever be right between us again? I look over my shoulder and give her a smile so warm I almost manage to convince myself of its sincerity. “But of course, Reverend Mother. Everything is exactly as it should be. I will pray daily while you are gone.”
I do not tell her that the nature of those prayers will involve asking Mortain to help me find a way to expose her actions for the lies and betrayals that I believe them to be.