‘It’s Euphelia, that’s who it is. She’s the one bringing the others down.’
He bolted into a classroom and crouched inside the doorway just as two women came gliding round the corner on slippered feet.
‘She’s taking her studies very seriously,’ argued the other. ‘She’s terribly earnest.’
‘She’s just not very bright, then,’ replied the first. ‘Her understanding of the Cryptonomicon is woeful.’
Two figures swept past in the corridor. Frey caught a glimpse of them. They were middle-aged, with greying hair cut in masculine, efficient styles, and they wore the white cassocks of Speakers.
‘She has a talent for casting the bones, though,’ the second woman persisted.
‘That she does, that she does. The signals are very clear. But I wonder if she’ll ever learn to interpret them.’
‘Perhaps if we focused her more towards cleromancy and lightened her other studies?’
‘Make her a special case? Goodness, no. If we start with her, we have to do it with everyone, and then where will we be?’
The voices faded as they turned the corner, and Frey relaxed. It seemed the hermitage was still patrolled, even in the dead of night. Out to catch acolytes sneaking into the pantry, or some such thing. Well, he’d have to be careful. He didn’t think his conscience could handle punching out a woman.
He found the girls’ dormitory shortly afterwards, and slid inside.
For a time he stood just inside the door, in the dark. Moonlight fell from a pair of skylights onto two rows of bunk beds. Perhaps fifty girls were sleeping here, their huddled outlines limned in cold light. The room was soft with sighing breath, broken by the occasional delicate snore. There was a scent in the air, not perfume but something indefinable and female, present in a dangerous concentration. Frey began to feel strangely frisky.
He was something of an expert in the art of creeping through women’s rooms without disturbing them. By waiting, he was being careful. The slight disturbance caused by his entry may have brought some of the girls close to the surface of sleep, and any small noise might wake them. He was giving them time to slip back into the depths before proceeding.
That, and he wanted to exult in the moment. It really was quite special, being here.
He moved silently between the beds, looking at the moonlit faces of each girl in turn. Disappointingly, they were not quite as luscious in person as he’d imagined they might be. Some were just too young - he had standards - and others were too plain or too fat or had eyes too close together. Their hair was cut in boring styles, and none were in any way prettified. One or two slept beneath their pillows or obscured their faces with their arms, but they didn’t have Amalicia’s black hair, and their hands - always a giveaway - were too old.
He’d almost reached the end of the room when he saw her. She was sleeping on one of the bottom bunks, her head pillowed by her folded hands, mouth slightly open, face relaxed. Even without the elegant hairstyles and the expertly applied make-up he remembered her wearing, she was beautiful. Her long black hair had fallen across her face in strands; the curve of the lips, the tilt of the nose, the line of her jaw were just as they were in his memory. Frey felt a throb of regret at the sight of her, and smothered it quickly.
He knelt down, reached out and touched her shoulder. When she didn’t respond, he shook her gently. She stirred and her eyes opened a little. They widened as she saw him; she took a breath to say his name. He quickly put his finger to his lips.
For a few moments, they just looked at each other. Her gaze flickered over his face, absorbing every detail. Then she pushed her blanket
