Facifela, a gangly girl with a weak chin, looked up meekly. “It is hard to look at, Sister Casita.”
“At first,” Casita said. “But you will look. By the end of the day, you must name all of these organs to me. But the first lesson is this, so all of you listen carefully.” She reached into the body cavity and pushed things around, making a wet sucking sound.
“You, your father, your mother. The greatest warrior of your kingdom, the highest fratrex of the church, kings, scoundrels, murderers, stainless knights—inside, all of us are this. To be sure, there is variation in strength and health and internal fortitude, but in the end it matters little. Beneath armor and clothing and skin, there is always this soft, wet, infinitely vulnerable interior. Here is where life resides in our bodies; here is where death hides, like a maggot waiting to be born. Men fight from the outside, with clumsy swords and arrows, trying to pierce the layers of protection we bundle in. They are of the outside. We are of the inside. We can reach there in a thousand ways, slipping through the cracks of eye and ear, nostril and lip, through the very pores of the flesh. Here is your frontier, Sisters, and eventually your domain. Here is where your touch will bring the rise and fall of kingdoms.”
Anne felt a little trembling in her and for an instant thought she smelled the dry decay of the crypt she and Austra had found long ago. The feeling wasn’t one of fear but of excitement. It felt, suddenly, as if she sat in a tiny boat on a vast sea and had for the first time been explained the meaning of water.
Walking into the hall, she nearly bumped nose to nose with Sister Serevkis and found herself staring into the girl’s cool gray eyes.
“You weren’t repelled?” Serevkis asked.
“A little,” Anne admitted. “But it was interesting. I notice you didn’t get sick either.”
“No. But my mother was the undertaker for the meddix of Formesso. I’ve seen the insides of bodies all of my life. This was your first time, yes?”
“Yes.”
Serevkis looked off somewhere behind Anne. “Your Vitellian has improved,” she noticed.
“Thank you. I’m working hard on it.”
“A good idea,” Serevkis replied. She smiled and her gaze met Anne’s again. “I must go to my cyphers tutorial. Perhaps I’ll see you at the evening meal, Sister Ivexa.”
The rest of Anne’s classes were less intriguing, and numbers least of all, but she did her best to pay attention and do her sums. After numbers came greencraft, which she thought at first would be better. Even Anne knew that the weeds from beneath a hanging tree and the dark purple blossoms of the benabell were used as poisons. They did not discuss any such thing, however, but instead doted on the care of roses, as if they were training to be gardeners instead of assassins. At the end of greencraft, Sister Casita came in and called three names. One of them was Anne’s. The other two girls Anne did not know. They went, of all places, to the yard out back of the coven, where sheep were brought in from the fields to be milked and fleeced. Anne stared at the dumb creatures as they wandered aimlessly, while Sister Casita explained something to the other girls in their own language, which Anne thought might be Safnian. She turned her attention back to the older woman when she switched to Vitellian.
“My apologies,” the sister said. “These two haven’t made the progress in Vitellian you have. I must say, you’ve done very well in a short time.”
“Brazi, Sor Casita,” Anne said. “I studied the church Vitellian at home. I suppose more of it stuck than I thought, and many of the words are similar.” She nodded at the animals. “Why are we here with the sheep, Sister?” she asked.
“Ah. You’re going to learn to milk them.”
“Is sheep’s milk of some use in physic?”
“No. At the end of the first month, each sister is assigned a duty. This is to be your job, milking and making cheese.”
Anne stared at her, then laughed aloud.
Tears stung Anne’s eyes as the switch laid a bright strip across her bare shoulders, but she did not cry out. Instead, she fixed her tormentor with a glare that would have sent any courtier scurrying.
Sister Secula was no courtier, and she did not so much as flinch at Anne’s expression.
Another lash came down, and this time a little gasp escaped Anne’s lips.
“So,” Sister Secula exclaimed. “Only two for you to find your breath? You don’t have the bravery to suit your attitude, little Ivexa.”
“Switch me all you want,” Anne said. “When my father finds out—”
“He’ll do nothing. He sent you here, my dear. Your royal parents have already agreed to any medicine I administer— and that is the last time I shall remind you of that. But I won’t switch you again, not just now. I’ve already learned what I wanted. Next time, you may expect more than three strikes of the switch. Now—back to the task set for you.”
“No, I will not go,” Anne told her.
“What? What did you say?”
Anne straightened her back. “I won’t milk sheep, Sister Secula. I was born a princess of the house Dare and a duchess of the house de Liery. I will die as such, and I will be those things all the years between. However long you keep me in this place, and however you choose to treat me, I remain who I am, and I will not be lowered to menial tasks.”
Sister Secula nodded thoughtfully. “I see. You’re protecting the dignity of your titles.”
“Yes.”
“As you protected them when you ignored your mother’s wishes and rode like a wild goat all over Eslen? As when you were busy spreading your legs for the first buck to spout poetry at you? It seems you’ve discovered the dignity becoming your station right quickly and conveniently when asked to do something you find distasteful.”
Anne laid her head back down on the chastising table. “Strike me more if you wish. I do not care.”
Sister Secula laughed. “That is another thing you will learn, little Ivexa. You will learn to care. But perhaps it is not whipping that will make you do so. Who do you think the ladies of this coven are, lowborn peasants? They are from the best families in all the known lands. If they choose to return to the world, they will find their titles waiting. Here, they are members of this order, nothing more and nothing less. And you, my dear, are the very least of them.”
“I am not the least,” Anne replied. “I will never be the least of anything.”
“Absurd. You are the least learned in every subject. You are the least disciplined. You are the least worthy of even that novice robe you wear. Listen to you! What have you ever done? You have nothing that was not given to you by your birth.”
“It is enough.”
“It is if your only ambition is to be the brood mare for some highborn fool, for brood mares neither need nor have brains enough to want more than they were born with. Yet my understanding is that the very reason you were sent to me is that even that lowest of ambitions escapes your thick head.”
“I have talents. I have a destiny.”
“You have inclinations. You have desires. A plow-ass has those.”
“No. I have more.” My dreams. My visions. But she didn’t mention those aloud.
“Well, we shall see, shan’t we?”
“What do you mean?”
“You think yourself a creature apart, better than every other girl here. Very well—we shall give you the chance to prove that is so. Yes, we will. Come with me.”