“Who’s in charge here?” Gael asked a pair of postulants.
“The deaconess,” they said in unison as they dropped their eyes to the ground. From their reaction I had an idea of the type of person this deaconess might be. Gael must have had the same notion. Her stare went flat. “Where is she?”
One of the girls pointed to a large squat building opposite the church. Set amid a meticulously groomed flower garden tended by a trio of white-robed postulants, its solidity refuted the adornment. It looked like what it was—a prison. A bell stand stood in the middle of an arc of intertwined rose vines.
“She has a talent for nature,” Custos said, “if not nurture.”
We tied our horses to the most convenient rail and escorted the girls inside. The postulates tending the garden looked at us with wide-eyed stares, as if we were willingly marching to our deaths.
I blinked twice to let my eyes adjust to the dimmer light and saw a woman of middle years behind a desk, her dark hair shot with streaks of silver. The lines on her face testified to the years she wore, but there remained enough traces of her youth to testify to a luminous beauty. She rose, the motion gracefully imperious, and nodded greeting without smiling.
“Deaconess.” I bowed. “The customs of the church here in Aille are unfamiliar to me. How should I address you?”
Her eyes flashed her irritation. “Given that I dislike being interrupted—especially by those wearing steel—as seldom as possible.”
“I’m guessing hospitality is not your talent,” I said.
Her lips curled. “There is no talent for hospitality in the Exordium,” she said.
I smiled. “And you are living proof.” I pointed at the two girls. “We’re taking at least two of your postulants with us.” I moved toward the corridor behind her desk, and thankfully the rest of our company did the same.
The deaconess moved to block me. “What makes you think you can walk in here and give orders to me in my own demesne?”
I tapped the sword strapped to my waist. “That steel you spoke of, Deaconess.” She darted a look over my shoulder. “If you’re looking for the men Bishop Gehata put here to guard them, you’re wasting your time. If they’re sensible, they’re on their way north. If they’re stupid enough to disobey a direct order from the last Errant”—I nodded to Bolt—“they’re headed to their own funeral.”
Her eyes widened, and she searched Bolt’s face. “Errant Consto?” she breathed.
Bolt’s expression soured. “I hate it when people look at me that way.”
Her steel-shod resolve quickly deserted her, and she nodded to the hallway behind her. “There are four more guards at the end of the hall, but two of them are hardly more than boys.”
I looked at Bolt. “I wish that worked everywhere. Who are they guarding, Deaconess?”
“A girl, but Bishop Gehata never said who.” She licked her lips. “I don’t know. I swear it.”
“But you suspect, don’t you?”
“Is there another door out the back?” Bolt pointed down the hallway.
When the deaconess shook her head, he nodded to Rory. “Ready your knives, lad. I doubt they’ll be willing to walk away.” He faced Gael. “If any of them get past us, don’t bother with mercy. It’s a waste of time.”
He and Rory disappeared down the corridor. I pulled my sword and tried to adopt the inherent grace that came with a physical gift. If I was lucky, I’d be able to distract any cosp long enough for Gael to put them down.
“What do I do?” Mirren asked.
I pointed to the far side of the room. “Stand over there with Custos, and don’t get killed.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked to Gael. “Is he jesting?”
Gael looked like a cat, crouched and ready to pounce. “Not this time, no.”
A challenge came from the mouths of one of the guards, and then a scream of pain and the ringing sound of steel on steel. A moment later Bolt beckoned to us.
Gael led the deaconess at sword-point down the hallway. Leaving the girls with Custos, Mirren and I followed. Two men were down and two more—boys, really—were standing to one side, disarmed. I avoided the stares of the dead men, unwilling to deal with whatever horror or recrimination the deaconess might offer.
“Give me the key,” I told her.
She stared at the dead men on the floor. “They kept it.”
“That might have been a clue,” I said in disgust.
Gael bent to search the dead guards. A moment later she straightened to place a key in the lock. She opened the door to the windowless room, but Mirren stepped in front of her. “She might prefer someone who looks like her,” she said. “Come here,” she called. “You’re safe now.”
An Aillean girl of thirteen or fourteen, with the features typical of her country came into Mirren’s arms. Curious to see if her small cell offered any proof of her destiny, I entered. The Merum order had never believed in coddling their postulants and the interior bore testimony to that philosophy. A raised platform of planks covered with a sheet and blanket served as her bed, and a single ladder-back chair with a miniscule writing desk constituted the furniture. To one side an hour candle had been burned in precise increments.
It was the desk that drew me. Threads had been picked from the sheet and blanket to form a likeness of the deaconess that any artist would have envied. Next to them were portraits of the guards, done in painstaking detail. I stepped back into the hallway.
“Her name is Herregina,” Mirren said.
I knelt and watched the new queen of Aille blink against the light in the hallway. “I saw the pictures you made. How long have you been able to do that?”
She blinked, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I did one before,” she whispered,
