"Enter,” a voice commands.
My guide opens the door and motions me inside. The furnishings are simple but sturdy, and early-morning light pours in through the east-facing window. My eyes are immediately drawn to the woman who sits at the large desk in the middle of the room. She wears a black gown and wimple, and her pale face is striking in its beauty.
Without looking up, she motions me toward one of the chairs. My footsteps echo lightly among all that space as I approach her desk. I clutch the blanket tight around me, then sit.
The abbess lifts her gaze from her work, and I find myself staring into a pair of eyes as cool and blue as the sea. “Ismae Rienne.”
I flinch, startled she knows my name.
“Do you know why you’re here, child?”
I do not know what answer she is looking for, I only know that I am overcome with a sudden desire to earn her approval. “Because I displeased my new husband?”
“Displeased him?” The abbess gives a delicate snort that makes me like her even more. “From what I hear he practically wet his braies in fear of you.”
I feel the familiar shame rise up in my cheeks and I look down at my lap.
“The fault lies not with you, daughter.” She says this so gently it makes me want to cry. I have never shed a tear, not throughout all my father’s beatings or Guillo’s mauling, but a few kind words from this woman and it is all I can do not to bawl like a babe.
“So tell me,” she says, drawing a quill and ink pot close. “Do you know the circumstances of your birth?”
I risk a glance at her face, but she is focused on what she is writing on her parchment. “Only that my mother did not wish to bear me. She went to an herbwitch for poison, hoping to purge me from her womb.”
“And yet you lived.” She looks up. The words are quiet but hold the power of a shout in the stillness of this room.
I meet the abbess’s steady gaze. “And yet I lived.”
“Do you have any idea what that means?”
“You mean other than having to spend my life in the shadows, dodging blows and staying out of sight so as not to cause others undue fear?”
“Yes, other than that.” Her voice is dry as bone. She leans forward, her eyes alight with some purpose. “Did they not claim, Ismae, that you were sired by Death Himself?”
I nod cautiously.
"Well and so. After many trials, you are now here.”
“Trials?” I ask. “Is that what my life has been? A series of trials to be passed?”
“You come to us well tempered, my child, and it is not in my nature to be sorry for it. It is the well-tempered blade that is the strongest.”
“And who exactly is us?” My whole body stills, waiting for her answer.
“You have found refuge at the convent of St. Mortain. Although in truth, Mortain is older than any saint, older even than Christ.”
“One of the old gods we now call saints,” I murmur.
“Yes, one of the old gods. One not easily cast aside by the Church. And so we call Him saint, but as long as we serve Him, He cares not what He is called.”
“How does one serve Death?” Am I to spend my life collecting bodies in the bone cart?
The reverend mother does not flinch. "We carry out Mortain’s will when He wishes to alter the warp and weft of life’s weave for some purpose of His own.”
I look at her blankly, not understanding what weaving has to do with Mortain. She sighs and pushes away from her desk. “Perhaps some refreshment is in order.”
I want to beg her to tell me more of what being Death’s daughter might hold, but I suspect this woman does not suffer fools gladly, so I hold my tongue.
She takes a flagon of wine and two crystal goblets from the cupboard behind her desk. She pours the wine into the goblets and hands one to me. The cut crystal is finer than anything I have ever seen, and I hold it gingerly, afraid it will shatter in my hands.
“Here at the convent, it is our job to train those who are sired by the god of death. we teach them to perform their duties quickly and efficiently. Usually, we find that He has given His daughters some special skill or art. Abilities that will aid you as you carry out His work.”
His work. The words are ripe with possibility. I take a sip of wine to steady myself. It is sweet and crisp on my tongue.
“If I may guess a little about you?” the reverend mother asks. I nod, and she continues. “You never get sick with the ague or the chills or the flux. even the plague leaves you untouched, is that correct?”
I feel my eyes widen at her uncanny knowledge. “How do you know such things?”
She smiles. “And I know you can survive harsh beatings and heal within days. Do you also have dreams that foretell death?”
“No.” I shake my head, sorry to disappoint her. “But sometimes I can tell when people are going to die.”
She tilts her head to the side. “Go on.”
I look down and study the wine in the goblet. “I can see them fading sometimes. It’s like watching a flame grow dim in a lantern. And once, I saw a mark. On the blacksmith. He had a faint black smudge on his forehead in the shape of a horseshoe. Three days later he was dead.”
She leans forward in her chair, eager now. “How did he die?”
“He was kicked in the head by one of the horses as he worked.”
“Ah.” A pleased smile hovers at the corners of her mouth. “Mortain has given you powerful gifts.” She takes up the quill and makes a notation on the parchment in front of her. Small beads of perspiration begin to form on my forehead and I take another sip of wine to steady myself. It is hard to air old secrets.
“So,” she says, looking back up at me. “You are well equipped for our service.”
"Which is?”
"We kill people.” The reverend mother’s words fall like stones into the quiet of the room, so shocking that my body goes numb. I hear the splintering of crystal as my goblet hits the floor.
The abbess ignores the shattered goblet. “Of course, many die without our help. However, there are those who deserve to die but who have not yet encountered the means to do so. At Mortain’s bidding, we help them on their way.”
“Surely He does not need our help?”
Anger flares in the abbess and for the first time I feel the iron will I have only vaguely sensed before. "Who are you to say what the god of death needs or doesn’t need? Mortain is an old god and has no desire to be forgotten and fade from this world, which is why He chooses to bestir Himself in the affairs of man.” She stares at me for a moment longer, then the tension leaves her, like a wave going out to sea. "What do you know of the old gods?” she asks.
“Only that they were once the nine old gods of Brittany but now we call them saints. And we must leave them an occasional offering or prayer if we do not wish to offend them or incur their wrath.”
“You are close,” the abbess says, leaning back in her chair, “but that is not the whole of it. The old gods are neither man nor God, but something in between. They were the first inhabitants of our land, sent to do God’s bidding in this new world He had created.
“At first, the relationship between gods and man was a difficult one, the gods treating us much as we treat cattle or sheep. But soon we learned to honor them with prayer and offerings, which led to harmony between us. even the early Church, when it arrived, was content to let us honor the old gods, although we learned to call them saints then. But lately, that has been changing. Just as France has gobbled up most of the smaller kingdoms and duchies so it may claim all their power for its own, so too does this latest pope work to extinguish any trace of the old ways, wanting all the prayers and offerings for his own church.
“So now more and more put aside the old ways and traditions that honor the gods of Brittany. But not all. Some still raise their voices in prayer and make their offerings. If not for that worship and supplication, the old gods would fade from this world. Surely you can understand why Mortain would not wish that. He feeds off our belief and worship much as we feed off bread and meat and would starve without it.
“So, it is our job to believe and to serve. If you choose to stay here and take the vows, you will be sworn to serve Mortain in any way He asks of you. In all things. In all ways. we carry out His will. Do you understand?”
“Is that not murder?”
“No. You would not expect a queen to wash her own clothes or lace her own gown; she has her handmaidens for that. And so it is with us; we serve as handmaidens to Death. when we are guided by His will, killing is a sacrament.”
She leans forward then, as if eager to tempt me with what Mortain offers. “If you choose to stay, you will be trained in His arts. You will learn more ways to kill a man than you imagined possible. we will train you in stealth and cunning and all manner of skills that will ensure no man is ever again a threat to you.”
I think of my father and of Guillo. I think of all those in the village who worked so hard to make my life a misery. The young boys who threw stones at me, the old men who spat and stared at me with terror in their eyes, as if they expected me to snatch the souls from their old, wrinkled bodies. The younger men who fumbled clumsily at my skirts in dark corners, guessing correctly that my father cared not for my safety or reputation. It would be no hardship at all to kill the likes of them. I feel like a cat who has been dropped from a great height only to land on her feet.
As if plucking my thoughts from my head, the abbess speaks again. “They won’t all be like them, you know.”
I look up in surprise and she continues. “Those Mortain sends you to kill. They won’t all be like the pig farmer.”
My ears are deaf to her warning. I am certain all men are like that, and I would kill them all gladly.
But she presses further, to be sure I fully understand. “He will ask for sacrifices, but it is not your role to question. Only to serve with love and obedience.” A whisper of emotion crosses her face, a memory of some pain I can only guess at. “That is the nature of our service,” she says. “Unquestioning faith. Can you do that?”
"What if I say no?”
“Then you will be taken far from here and given to a kind, gentle man in need of a wife.”
I weigh the choice that is no choice at all. To be removed from the world of men and trained to kill them, or to be handed to one like a sheep. “If you think I am fit to serve, Reverend Mother, I will do so gladly.”
She smiles and leans back in her chair. “Oh, you are fit to serve. You have already passed the first test.”
Something about her smile makes me uneasy. “I have?”
The abbess nods to the shattered goblet on the floor. “Your wine was laced with poison. enough that a sip would kill a man twice your size. You experienced slight discomfort, nothing more.”
I am shocked into silence as she so easily confesses to poisoning me, and I remember the warm, dizzy feeling I had earlier.
“Now come.” The abbess stands, walks over to the door, and opens it. “Annith will get you settled. welcome to the convent.”
Chapter Three
When I step out of the reverend mother’s office, a girl just slightly younger than I am is waiting. Just like the abbess, she is strikingly fair, with eyes the color of the shifting sea and wisps of pale hair escaping from her veil. Next to her I feel shabby and tattered, as if my very presence is a sacrilege in a convent full of beauty. But the girl smiles at me and tucks my arm through hers as if we have been friends since birth. “I am Annith,” she says. “Let’s get you to the infirmary.”
As much as I want to go with her, as much as I want to embrace this new life set before me, I hesitate. There is something I need to understand first. "Wait.”
Annith tilts her head to the side. "What?”
“If I hadn’t passed the test, would she have let me die of poison?” A chill scuttles across my shoulders at how close I came to meeting Death face to face.
Annith’s face clears in understanding. “But no! The abbess would have fetched a bezoar stone to neutralize the poison or called for a tincture of amaranth to revive you. Now come.” She tugs gently at my arm, and she is so certain and reassuring that it chases away my last remaining doubt.
Our footsteps echo faintly off the stone walls as Annith leads me down a corridor. Doors line the walls on either side of us, and I wonder what secrets these rooms hold and how soon I will be allowed to learn them.
Annith stops when we reach a long chamber with clean, white walls and a row of beds. Fresh air pours in from the window and I hear the sound of waves casting themselves upon the rocky shore beyond. A nun in a midnight blue habit works at a table with a mortar and pestle. At our arrival, she carefully puts her task aside before turning to greet us.
She is of middle years, and her black wimple does not flatter her olive skin. It does, however, match the faint mustache on her upper lip. I am filled with relief that she is not beautiful like the others. At least I will not be the ugliest one here.
“The reverend mother sends a new patient?” The note of eagerness in the nun’s voice strikes me as unseemly.
“Yes, Sister Serafina,” Annith says. “She has had a bad beating, with many bruises. Possible broken ribs and injuries to her internal organs.”
I stare at Annith with new respect. How has she learned all this? Did she listen at the door? Looking at her fresh, delicate face, I find it hard to imagine her doing anything so deceitful.
The nun wipes her hands on a linen cloth and goes to a plain wooden cupboard to retrieve a glass flask. It is not as elegant or ornate as the crystal goblet, but it is every bit as fragile. even so, she thrusts it into my hands and motions me to a wooden screen in the corner of the room. "Evacuate into that, if you please.”
