Page 4 of The Starving Saints

Phosyne prods the rotted lump of flesh with one slender piece of bone, fashioned into a polished pick. It is a small bit of

flesh, received in her rations three weeks ago. She thinks it was ox, at one point. Now it is furred and pitted, oozing a

riot of colors that combine into an unpleasant, sticky black. It took a lot to get it there, as it came to her well-dried,

not fresh at all, in a controlled rot instead of an active one like this. But now it is exactly where she wants it, the pinnacle

of putrescence. Perhaps putrescence can be reversed into fecundity; the two concepts are clearly related, after all.

She prods the flesh again. The lump shudders, the puddle of ichor around it spreading another hairsbreadth. Its stench lessens,

just a little, and so Phosyne leans in, spears another little grass seed with the tip of the bone, gently nudges it into place.

Encouragement. A pattern for it to follow. New life, please; the rapid growth of seedlings, woven now into flesh.

The sun is on the verge of setting, just the slightest shift in light through her tiny window. She sees the furred layer of

tissue move a little, ripple slightly, and then the pits of it are winking, opening, closing, respiring, and she holds her

breath. She squints. Rubs her eyes.

Mutters a string of syllables that might be curses, and then rocks back on her heels.

The sun is setting, and the shifting of the light is throwing shadows. The damn thing didn’t shudder at all; it’s only her

exhausted eyes, her desperation to satisfy the king. She sets down her tools and stands.

So that’s a day wasted. She makes a note on parchment she may eventually need to boil and chew herself, though it has five layers of ink on it now, written in different colors and different directions. She can still read all five layers, if she gets enough light on it, but she thinks another iteration will finally obscure the first.

Perhaps she will take to writing in the bound volume of copied alchemical texts and treatises she has accumulated over the

last several years. But it pains her to imagine writing over even the parts she has memorized: true and shining, certain and most true, that high and low are in truth the same in each direction...

There has been no sign of Ser Voyne, at least, and Phosyne has entertained the hope that, perhaps, the king has thought better

of his threat. Perhaps the knight is more needed elsewhere. Exhausted, she stretches out on the threadbare rug on the floor,

presses one ear to it so she can hear the liquid sloshing of the cistern below, as somebody in the kitchens opens the valve

and siphons off a little of the remaining rain.

Pneio and Ornuo hop down from where they were perched on top of her corkindrill and circle her, then come close enough for

her to stroke. They nip at her fingertips. She thinks it is meant playfully. She thinks that if they wanted to eat her, they

wouldn’t hesitate to sever a finger.

Strange creatures, these boys, like nothing she has ever seen or read about. They appeared in her chambers some four months

ago, and she couldn’t explain to save her life where they came from. She had been working on something—she can’t remember

what, not anymore, and thinks it must not have been that important—and there had been cracking, a whiff of sulfur on the air,

and though she has no hearth or chimney in her rooms, she had felt a blazing heat.

Then one of her bookshelves had crashed to the floor, and Ornuo had looked up at her from on top of it, blinking wide, golden

eyes.

She’d been terrified for weeks, of course. Terrified she had caused some great calamity. Terrified she would be found out

and hanged. But the two slippery creatures had stuck close to her and caused no more mischief than a pair of tomcats. Aside

from the incident with the chicken, they had brought her, ultimately, only comfort.

“Have you decided to tell me what you are?” she asks Ornuo as he flops onto his side and presses his spine into her ribs. He wears a coy expression, and bares his teeth just a little so that she might rub one finger along them. The sound he makes is like embers crackling. “Or at least listen to reason? Provide me with a miracle?”

He lashes her with his tail, instead, then nips at her chin, and she clambers to her feet, too exhausted to serve as a chew

toy.

She’s up only a few seconds ahead of the rapping on her chamber door. Her odd companions dart into their hiding spots.

Of course; it would be too much to ask, to be forgotten once more. She groans and drags filthy hands down her face, wondering

if she can pretend not to have heard. Perhaps to already be asleep. The moment she opens that door, she will be lost. No more

time to work unobserved, and she is no closer to her miracle. The king will not be happy, because the king doesn’t understand

that if she is watched , if she is intruded upon , then the chances of her succeeding are even lower.

Still, perhaps Ser Voyne won’t stay long. Even a knight must sleep.

She hides the rotted flesh away beneath a dark earthenware bowl and hopes the lingering odor can be mistaken for something

else, scrubs her hands on her apron, and goes to the door. She doesn’t bother peering out through her mirrors, because the

knock comes again, and it is firm and considered. Phosyne hears no movement of metal over metal, however.

She opens the door.

Her minder looks down at her, from her vantage nearly a foot above Phosyne. She’s a broad woman, tall and made of muscle,

and even in the absence of her steel plate, she is remarkably, intimidatingly solid. Phosyne instinctively takes a step back.

Her eyes drop to the floor, one hand scratching at her scalp. “Well,” she says, instead of any introduction, “come in.”

She turns and goes upstairs, hoping the knight will not follow.

She’s not so lucky. Ser Voyne keeps her distance, but follows, and when Phosyne hazards a glance back, disdain is written

clear across her handsome brow. She’s likely looking at the mess of the workshop, what little is visible in the gloom, and

judging it lacking.

“His Majesty would have me summon food,” Phosyne says, as lightly as she can, as if that will set the knight at ease, “but I have not cracked that mystery yet, I’m afraid. How familiar are you with miracles?”

Ser Voyne does not respond. Phosyne reaches the box made of roughhewn wood that stores her few belongings. She pulls her apron

off and shoves it, still dirty, into the pile. She tries to remember how to be polite. How to give the illusion of subservience

even if she has no intention to actually obey.

“Because,” Phosyne continues, “miracles tend to happen when least observed, in my experience. So if you have some handwork,

perhaps, or some—some polishing to do, that will serve you best, I think.” Her voice is a little shrill, but she can’t quite

master it. “Serve us best.”

Voyne is at the window now, reaching out to trail fingers over the jumble of items that block it up. Testing. Evaluating.

Phosyne tries not to scowl.

“Do not think to give me orders.”

“I suppose I’m not His Majesty, no,” Phosyne concedes.

Ser Voyne doesn’t like that. She pulls away from the window and levels a cool stare at Phosyne, then retreats back down to

the main floor. “Tell me what you have so far. What you’ve spent your day doing.” She has years of experience with that commanding

tone she’s using, enough that it makes the skin along Phosyne’s spine prickle and tugs her toward the stairs.

When she realizes she’s coming to heel, she digs in and crosses her arms, refusing to go any farther. She feels, acutely,

how close her bones are to the surface of her skin. How much more fragile she is than the other woman.

“What I have is nothing,” Phosyne says. “So far. I’ve just wrapped up one experiment, and it will take time to devise the

next one.”

“Tell me what you have ruled out.”

Phosyne doesn’t want to; it will be a waste of time. Voyne won’t be able to understand, will likely respond with anger when she can’t. This is why Phosyne left the Priory—or, if not why (that was a matter of faith), then an early sign that it would one day come to pass. She appreciates how thorough her sisters can be, with their careful measurements, their detailed logs, their mechanical precision, but she is thorough in a different mode, one that defies easy ordering. Concepts are linked, though not always in ways words can capture. They resonate in a way undeniable to her senses, as real as anything she has seen or heard or smelled, but impossible to truly describe. And the proof of her process is this: it all works in the end.

So she says nothing. Ser Leodegardis may trust her enough to keep her housed and fed, but Ser Voyne—

“What is this?”

Oh, no. She has found the dish. Phosyne’s heart sinks as she lifts it up, then wrinkles her nose at the stench.

“Research,” Phosyne says, before she can think to lie and say, Oh , I must have forgotten it . Better, in hindsight, to be thought flighty than willfully... whatever she is.

Ser Voyne stares at the rotted meat. “No. No, this is madness,” she says. “This is not research. I have seen the nuns at their

calculations. This is filth . How, exactly, did you expect food to appear? Out of nothing?”

“Not nothing ,” Phosyne scoffs, coming closer, gesticulating with one clenching hand. “Out of a pattern. The meat is in a process, now,

yes? It is rotting. There is growth in it, and decay, both. I thought that if I introduced seeds, that might steer the process

more firmly toward growth—”

“Of mold.”

“—of meat , to allow regeneration, production of pure, clean flesh. The flesh itself was once fed by the grass plants that produced

the seeds. I need only remind it of what it once was. Or that was the idea, anyway. It hasn’t worked. I’ll try something else.”

Ser Voyne stares another moment at the lump, then covers it again, drags one gloved hand over her face. Then her eyes, blazing

with indignation, rise to Phosyne. “And this is logic, to you? This is work worth pursuing?”

Phosyne wrings the fabric of her robe, hands clenching as she looks between the workstation and the knight. Her face is hot with shame and affront. “It wasn’t my first theory,” she concedes. “Or even the tenth. But the rest, though they seemed more plausible, didn’t bear fruit. So to speak.”

Ser Voyne laughs, as if startled, and spins on her heel. She goes to the door. Relief kindles in Phosyne’s chest as the taller

woman throws the door open, makes to leave.

But then she turns back and pulls it shut behind her again, leaning against it with arms crossed over her broad chest. “Please

tell me,” Ser Voyne says, choosing each word with care, “that you’re making fun of me. That you hope your mockery drives me

away.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“This is your work. Truly.”

Phosyne straightens her spine. “Yes.”

“Then you are a fool and a waste of resources.”

That sends a bolt of panic through her. She does not eat much, but she must still eat; she must have her space; she has done

all that she can. “I cleaned the water, didn’t I?” Phosyne protests.

“And how did you do that?”

“What?”

“Your method. Your research. Prioress Jacynde is still trying to untangle it, figure out how to produce your powder. She says

you will give her no recipe.”

“She couldn’t make it, even with one.”

“ How? ” Ser Voyne demands.

“I...” Her words fail her. She looks around. A demonstration, she could do a demonstration. But even as she thinks it,

she can see how Ser Voyne will look at her, as she mixes powdered rat feces in with dried sweet william to form the substrate

of the clarifier. And that does not even encompass the whispering of poetry.

“You are wasting my time. Our time,” Ser Voyne spits.

“Then allow me to waste it in private, and not to trouble you any longer,” Phosyne snaps. She advances a step, as if to push

Ser Voyne out the doorway.

It is the wrong move. The older woman’s eyes flare with haughty anger. “You have been spoiled. I don’t know how you bewitched

Ser Leodegardis, why he keeps you like a pet dove, but if you cannot work—”

“I work very well, thank you! I have only been asked to do the impossible!”

“—Then I will put you to work.”

They are close, closer than Phosyne meant for them to get, and her rib cage aches with how fast she is breathing, how hard

her blood pulses in her veins. She hasn’t been so close to another person in months, maybe years, and for all her fury, she

can’t look away from Ser Voyne’s blazing eyes. They’re a piercing shade of hazel, and they are so bright with answering fervor.

Her whole imposing presence, her coiled, barely leashed threat, is making it impossible to think.

And then the ground shifts below their feet.

Behind her, furniture judders against the wall, the floor. Phosyne pulls away, spins on her heel, but Voyne is already ahead

of her, pounding back up the stairs, over to the window. She pushes hard against the glass pane, then starts disassembling

everything blocking it up.

“Stop!” Phosyne shouts.

“I need to see what’s happening,” Voyne bites out, and there comes another crash, this one more sound than movement. The shadows

that are Pneio and Ornuo dart out from their hiding places, find new ones. Scraps of wood hit the floor, roll down the stairs,

and Phosyne presses herself against the wall as she climbs.

By the time she gets there, Voyne has stopped halfway in her dismantling. There’s no need to keep going; the shouting from

below, the torchlight on the walls, the continued slam of stone against stone gives them the answer:

They are under attack.