Page 38
Story: The Starving Saints
The door does not move again.
She goes to her spyglass and peeks through to the hall. Nobody is visible in the limited scope. Just empty stone.
It makes no sense. But this is an opportunity: her workbench is long enough to span the doorway, and Phosyne can block it all up once more. For the first time since Ser Voyne was assigned as herminder, she can have real privacy again. There’s a threat outside, and she can truly take shelter, and give herself the time to think and remember.
But why would somebody knock, and then leave so quickly? Phosyne’s teeth chew at her lower lip, and then she opens the door a crack, just to get a better look. A wider vantage.
There’s nobody there.
Phosyne looks back into her room, sees the rot and filth, smells it anew. She shudders, feeling disgust for the first time. The ownerless knock hangs in the air around her, a temptation, a question. Search for the answer, or retreat back into her moldering hovel, trying to unravel why her invocations would be worth listening to?
She steps out onto the stairs. She closes the door tight behind her. She rests her head against the wood.
Soft footsteps pad down the stairs.
Phosyne follows.
It’s very similar to how she chases down her ideas. They come out of nowhere, in sudden flashes, and she is helpless to do anythingbut pursue them. Something similar, she thinks, happened before Ornuo and Pneio arrived. She had been stringing up her corkindrill, face-to-face with the beast’s sharp teeth, and she had leaned in, put her head inside the jaws, and—
“Sefridis!”
Phosyne staggers to a halt, and realizes she’s gone all the way down to the ground floor, where the garrison should be stationed.
Like last night, it’s empty, except for the person who called her name.
Her old name.
It’s one of the nuns, thin-faced and desperate. She lookshunted, and Phosyne instinctively looks past her for a threat. She sees none. The room is empty. The woman tugs on her sleeve, and Phosyne looks at her again, mouth open with a question.
“You must come with me,” the nun demands. “You must help.”
“Prioress Jacynde?” Phosyne ventures, though this feels wrong. Her old name, and a direct plea for help? Jacynde would never do either. And this nun, she is young, younger than Phosyne by at least five or ten years. Little more than a child.
Phosyne doesn’t recognize her face.
The little nun nods. “Yes, the Prioress, she’s—but you must see for yourself.”
She should say no. She owes the Priory, if not Jacynde, for so much of her education, her life until just recently. And yet if she is responsible for the impossible food the night before, the coming feast, the appearance of the Constant Lady...
“Where is she?” Phosyne asks. “Is she—is she with the visitors?”
The little nun wrings her hands. She is the very image of pathos. “She was,” the nun says. And then terror seems to clot her throat, if the whites of her eyes are anything to go by.
“Of course, I’ll help as I can,” she says, blood turning to ice.
The nun nods, relief making her tongue her lips a moment, and then she turns and is off, racing for the chapel.
Phosyne follows.
The yard is still full of people, though Phosyne cannot see the king, nor the saints, nor Ser Voyne. They have to weave throughthe crowd, and Phosyne hears them weeping, praying, cheering. The crush of hopeful bodies is almost too much, and twice, Phosyne nearly loses track of the little nun.
But when they reach the chapel tower, the crowd doesn’t thin; it abruptly stops.
It makes no sense. There should be a crush of parishioners here, too; if the faithful can’t touch the hem of the saints’ robes, they should be on their knees inside, thanking the icons instead. And yet there is nobody.
Her guide is the only sister she sees as they slip into the chapel, though Phosyne cannot see the whole wide room. Now, at midday, the open walls only let in sharp shafts of light and a dim glow; otherwise, the rest of the room is cool and shadowed. But at this time of day, there should be at least ten women here, engaged in various devotional tasks, or sitting with the faithful. Tending the timekeeping candles that burn despite the availability of the sun for measuring each hour, the better to calibrate each measurement. Instead, Phosyne can only make out the shadowed form of somebody standing at the far end of the hall, their posture too martial to be praying.
She doesn’t have time to look closer. The girl’s hand tugs on her sleeve again, and Phosyne turns to follow.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38 (Reading here)
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131