Mortal Heart (10 page)

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.

Pale moonlight spills in from the two windows, illuminating the enormous cupboard that covers most of the wall behind the desk. It might well take me all night to search each of its hidden drawers and shelves. I push away from the door, eager to get to work. Although there is only a quarter-moon, it is bright enough for me to see by, so I do not need to risk lighting a candle.

The intricate scrollwork of the cabinet is carved with strange wild beasts cavorting among curves and arches, their polished wooden eyes watching me as I try to open one of the doors. It is locked. I cast about for a likely hiding place for the key. Hopefully it is not dangling from the ring Sister Eonette wears at her waist.

My luck holds and it is in the first place I look, the drawer of the abbess’s desk, for who would dare breach the abbess’s inner sanctum without invitation?

Me, that’s who, and I will dare much more than that before I am done.

There are four keys, and one by one I try them. The third unlocks it. The first drawer coughs up nothing but bills and receipts for goods sold to the convent: bolts of dark blue samite for new habits and white wool for the midwinter cloaks, leather for shoes and grain from the local miller. In the second drawer is correspondence with Church officials about local matters, such as the leasing of fields on the mainland, and the letter from the abbess of Saint Mer just before she sent Melusine.

I turn my attention to the bottom cabinet. This one contains a number of small drawers and cubbies stuffed with more letters and old correspondence, some small coins, and half-used sticks of sealing wax. At the very bottom is a large drawer. I take a deep breath as I open the drawer, letting it out when I finally see the prize I have been looking for—the large leather-bound ledger that contains the record of every one of Mortain’s handmaidens as far back as the first days of the convent.

I grasp the book with both hands, carry it over to the window, and set it on the sill.

The pages are old and yellowed and some so fragile I fear they will come apart under my fingers. Gingerly, I turn each page, marveling at the old script, so ornate as to be nearly unreadable.

I keep turning the pages, looking for dates that correspond to my arrival at the convent. Finally, nearly three-quarters of the way through, I see
July 1472
scrawled atop a page. I run my finger down, past entries for July, August, and September, then quickly turn the page, but the next one is dated January of 1473. That cannot be correct. I arrived in the fall of 1472, toward the end of October. I turn back a page, but the last date is still September 1472.

How can that be? According to the ledger, I have never existed at all.

Perhaps the dates are out of order. I bring the heavy book up closer to my face and tilt it toward the moonlight. A leaf is missing. It appears that the page that holds all the answers I seek has been carefully torn from the book.

My pulse quickens, for is not the fact that the page is missing a sort of answer in itself?

To be certain, I hurry back to the drawer, thinking perhaps the page had simply come loose and fallen out, but no, the drawer is empty except for a large flat box. It is of some dark, glossy black wood, and I turn it over and over in my hands but can find no lid, no seam, no catch, no way of opening it. But it is heavy, and something inside moves when I shake it.

My hands tingle with excitement, for it must be something truly important to be enclosed in a box that cannot be opened. As enticing as that is, the box likely does not hold the answers that I seek, so I put it aside and resume my search for some record of my arrival.

I move to the bottom right cupboard and give a small gasp of delight when I find a neat row of small, calfskin-bound black books. I pull one out, flip it open, and am pleased to see the abbess’s elegant writing covering the vellum. As my eye moves across the words, I realize that it is a recording of the day-to-day operations of the convent. I turn a few more pages, and when my eye is caught by the name Melusine, I quickly read the abbess’s summary of her arrival. Surely that means all our arrivals would be noted in these journals as well as in the main convent ledger.

I pluck the fifth one from the end, and when I open it I see that the handwriting is not that of the current abbess but a bolder, more precise script. I glance at the dates: 1470 to 1475. With trembling hands I turn the pages, skimming the words until my own name jumps out at me. Clutching the journal to my chest as if the words might disappear before I can read them, I hasten back to the window so I may have the full light of the moon.

1472

Today the night rower delivered a small babe, a tiny wrinkled thing that cannot be but a handful of days old. According to the hedge priest and the herbwife who delivered the child, the girl was sired by Mortain, but the priest and the herbwife did not know who the mother was or could even name her. The night rower’s son’s wife has recently lost a babe and will be glad for the work as wet nurse. Thus does our Lord Mortain provide for even the least and smallest of His creatures.

1474

The child called Annith grows apace and is apparently healthy. At two years of age, it is not too early to begin her training. Indeed, she will be most fortunate among us, for few are given the opportunity to begin walking in Mortain’s path at such a tender age. Besides, the novice mistress coddles her too much and will make her soft. Best to train any softness out of her as early as possible so she may be as perfect for Mortain’s service as we can make her.

1475

The child cried and sobbed and made a terrible fuss over being parted from Sister Etienne. As punishment, she has been locked in the cellar until she is willing to sleep in her own bed in the dormitory with the other girls without fussing. I will show her that she does not need anyone to survive and that it is unwise to form such attachments. I shall have to think of some punishment for Sister Etienne as well, for she is almost as distraught as the child.

1475

It took three days to break the child, which, were it not so inconvenient for us all, would speak admirably of her will and spirit. We will take that raw stuff and mold it into a truly remarkable weapon for Mortain’s use.

1475

The child cried inconsolably when two of the barn cat’s kittens died. We explained to her that death was nothing to be afraid of, but when she would not listen to reason, more extreme measures were called for. She was locked in the wine cellar again, with the two dead kittens, in order to prove to her that she had nothing to fear from death. When she was finally quiet, she was let out. Sister Etienne said she did not speak for two entire days. Let us hope that means this lesson has been fully impressed upon her.

A hot sickness churns in my stomach, then crawls up my throat and spreads down through my arms. It is one thing to have such memories locked away in one’s head where they are subject to one’s own doubts and the softening of time. It is quite another to have them so coldly recorded upon a page, with no regret or admiration or anything to indicate the true torment of what I suffered.

I swallow convulsively as a wave of old familiar fear rises up in my throat. But I feel something new as well, something dark and unexpected. Anger. No, not anger, I realize as my heart hammers and my skin feels as if it will erupt into flames. Fury.

Outrage that the awful terror of my young life is laid out so casually, as if the abbess were reporting how many lambs the ewes dropped in the spring.

Fury at the sheer callousness and cruelty and harshness of the punishments doled out to me when I was younger even than little Florette.

I want to fling the book from me, throw it into a fire and burn it to ash, but I also want to clasp it tight as proof of what I have endured. What I have
survived.

Proof of what is truly owed me.

The Dragonette’s calm, passionless words drive home just how much was demanded of me as a child in order for me to earn my place at the convent. That feeling has chased me all my life—that I am a flawed and imperfect vessel.

My cooperation—no, my full and utter capitulation to their desires—was the price I
had
to pay for survival. It was a bargain as binding as any contract, for all that it was a silent one. I pledged to do all that she asked of me, agreed to rise to the challenge of all her bedamned tests—and in return, I would be allowed to serve as handmaiden to Mortain.

I have earned that destiny. By right of all that I have endured, I have earned this. Such was the silent contract between the Dragonette and me, sealed in my own blood and pain and terror, and no one, certainly not the current abbess, can change the terms of that bargain.

I slip the journal into the pocket of my apron and turn to the cabinet directly behind the abbess’s desk. It is nearly morning, and I am out of time. My heart hammering in my chest, I return the convent ledger to the drawer. I lift the box to return it as well, then pause, weighing its heft in my hands. To someone who collects secrets, the box is too great a temptation to leave behind. Besides, perhaps whatever it holds is important enough that I can use it as some form of leverage.