Needing to be certain she is truly leaving, I follow her down the path to the beach. Hidden from view among the bushes that edge the rocky beach, I watch as the night rower helps her into the boat. She is taking two of the lay sisters with her as traveling attendants, and they will row themselves across in a second boat.
As the old sailor pushes off, she sits, stiff and straight, in the prow of the boat, her gaze firmly fixed on the mainland.
Why has she changed the very nature of my service to the convent? Is it something inside me, or inside her? And what options do I have, short of running away? For if I were to do that, it would leave her plots and machinations unchecked and unquestioned, and she might send Sarra or Lisabet out next.
Surely there are rules that abbesses must follow, and avenues of redress available when they do not. Or are we novitiates fully at the mercy of the convent?
That prospect is too grim to contemplate, so instead, I decide to do everything in my power to learn what is behind her decisions. Then I will see if that knowledge can be shaped into a weapon that can be used to force her to change her mind.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN IT IS TIME FOR me to meet with Sister Vereda for my first seeress lesson, it is all I can do not to run screaming in the opposite direction.
“You’re late,” she says when I let myself into her chambers.
“How can you say so when you cannot see the hourglass?”
She sniffs. “Monette brought my tray in some time ago.”
“Perhaps Monette was early, Sister.”
Her mouth twitches and I cannot tell if it is due to some faint hint of humor or she merely found a crumb of bread hidden in her cheek. I fold my hands in front of me and try to look contrite. “What shall you be teaching me today?”
“Punctuality, for one. And respect for your elders. If you happen to learn a bit about how to read Mortain’s will in the flames of the sacred fire, that would be good too. Bring that empty brazier closer to the bed now. And be careful not to spill the ashes.”
Once I have done that, she sends me to fetch the small bag of crow feathers we will need. Unable to see a thing in the gloom, I light a candle before I move toward the shelves. They are crowded with boxes and small caskets, piles of small bones, and a silver chafing dish. I grope carefully, hoping not to knock anything over. My hand bumps into something as cold as glass but far, far heavier. Even though it is clearly not the sack of feathers, I pick it up and bring it closer to the candlelight.
It is a small, dark vial, but so heavy that I know it is made out of crystal, although I did not know crystal could be as black as night. The surface is cut into facets, and the candlelight shimmering upon it gives the illusion of stars in the night sky. Carefully, I lift the stopper, which ends in a long, thin pointed wand. That is when I know precisely what I hold in my hand. It is the Tears of Mortain, administered to every novitiate who sets out on His path so that she can better discern His will for her.
My hand closes around the vial and I clutch it tight, as if I could absorb the knowledge and gifts the drops bestow through the crystal. It is just one of the mysteries of the convent that I have been denied.
“Annith?” comes the old voice. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, Sister. The feathers were buried under the bones. What sort of bones are they, anyway?”
As she prattles an answer, I reluctantly return the Tears of Mortain to their place. I cannot use them now, but it comforts me to know where I can find them should I ever need them.
Having no intention of spending all my days studying augury, I begin making plans to learn what is at the heart of the abbess’s decisions, for it has become painfully clear that she is not using me simply to fill some general need of the convent. Her desire to have me be seeress is personal. If it is something about me that makes me uniquely suited for the position, then why not just tell me? And if she will not, then perhaps there is something in the convent records of my birth that will explain her decision. Now that I have been awakened to how thoroughly trained I am to accept lies as truth, I feel I must reexamine everything I have been told.
It is possible that I am not truly alone in the world. Perhaps I have some family—however distant—to go to should I decide to escape.
And there it is: escape, the word I have been avoiding since I first realized I had no choice but to pretend to accept the abbess’s plans. She has changed the very nature of the bargain we made so long ago, when I pledged my undying loyalty and unwavering devotion in exchange for—what? For her to see me as unflawed? For her to allow me to pursue what I had dreamed of my entire life? Of course, I was too young to put all that into words, but she knew well enough. She has always played me like an instrument tuned to her hands, and this was no exception.
After a week of scouring the convent’s scriptorium, I acquire only a small pile of information, but it is more than I had when I started. I learn that the seeress must be either a virgin or a woman beyond childbearing years who has sworn an oath of celibacy. That is it—the only two requirements for the office. Those who are caul-born or whose eyes have been blessed with Mortain’s gift of Seeing into a man’s heart make the best seeresses, but nowhere does it say that either is required. So whatever is behind the abbess’s desire to have me serve as seeress, it is not my having something that others here do not possess. I am not the only one—or even the best one—to take on those duties.
But that is the only fruit my search has borne. I have found nothing about my own past. While I did not have a surname or place of birth to go by, Annith is a rare enough name, and I had hoped it was used only by certain noble houses. However, although I have learned that the noble houses of Brittany contain three hundred Annes, four Mildreths, and two Annelises, there is no other Annith on record.
With so very little on which to hang my hopes, I find it ever harder to endure my lessons with Sister Vereda. Thoughts of escape dance around in my head like leaves in a windstorm, and I fear she will reach out with her gnarled hand and snatch one, then all my hopes will be lost.
It is two weeks before I find an opportunity to search the abbess’s office. Sister Eonette appears to enjoy her time in there and lingers far past her morning hours. I wonder if she wishes to be abbess, and if so, would she welcome my exposure of the current abbess’s lies? I remember her heated conversation with the abbess on the day I first overheard the plans to make me seeress and realize I may have an ally in this, if it comes to that.
I do not like the unsubtlety of having to pick the lock on the abbess’s door, but it cannot be helped. I slip one of my nearly needle-thin blades into the lock, lift, turn, and sigh in relief at the satisfying snick as it unlocks.