“Your mercy,” Annalise said. “I meant no offense.”
Precision wrinkled her mouth, which set the crevasses deeper against the sides of her nose and between her brows. “Sweet Invisible Mother, girl. Think you I wish to dawdle around forever here when I could be drinking the delights of the Land Above?”
The older woman snapped at Tansy to bring an armful of gowns from the rack behind her. Precision plucked the first and held it up to Annalise, then tossed it aside to take the next. This one made her cluck and tilt her head back and forth.
“Take off your dress.”
“What?”
“Strip. There’s no room for modesty here, girl. A Handmaiden must feel as comfortable in her own skin as in a gown of gold.” Precision stared at Annalise. “Might as well get used to it now. Besides, it’s not as though I’ve never seen a pair of plumpenpillows before.”
Annalise couldn’t hold back her laugh at the term for breasts she’d never heard before. She put her fingers to the buttons at the throat of her gown and swiftly undid them all the way to her waist. Beneath she wore a simple linen shift and stays.
“Those must go,” Precision snapped again, and Tansy sprung to action to undo the laces at the back.
“Wait, what?” Annalise put her hands on her belly to hold the garment tight against her. “You’d have me believe I’m to go ’round without proper foundation beneath my gowns?”
“A Handmaiden’s role is not for fashion, but for service. Too many a lady has fainted on her couch from the tightness of her laces. And no Handmaiden has time for frippery or can count on the help of a maidservant. Best you get used to making your own posture, not one made by fabric and bone. Off with it.”
“No wonder you are sometimes accused of being slatterns,” Annalise muttered.
Precision rapped Annalise on the knees with the edge of a measuring stick. “Bite your tongue! We may be called by many names outside these walls, but inside, none may impugn us!”
“Your mercy.” Annalise winced.
“She’s ignorant,” Tansy offered helpfully. “As many are, when first arriving.”
“And yet many have learned to sew shut their lips upon insult,” Precision said. She grunted, flicking the hem of Annalise’s shift. “Off with this, girl.”
“You’ll have me naked? This shift fits me well and is of fine cloth. Would you have me discard it?”
Precision sighed as though the weight of the world had come to rest upon her bony shoulders. “Sinder’s sweet sin, girl. I’m not going to steal it from you. But one gown won’t suit you for more than a day or so, perhaps three if you’ve no taste for sweetness upon your person, but if that’s the case, I think you’d best find another Calling, for we don’t admire lack of hygiene here.”
“I’m not . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Annalise clamped her mouth closed. It seemed best not to speak.
She stayed silent for the rest of the session while Precision measured and poked and pinned and tossed aside gown after gown. In the end she pressed three into a heap on the table next to Annalise and waved at her to step back into her original dress. The old woman fixed her with a sharp eye that belied her age, and when Annalise had finally dressed again in her shift, her belly unaccustomed to the room, Precision sighed.
“You’ve four for now. More might come, if deemed necessary. But that’s what you get for now. Pick out your stockings and boots from the bins over there. You’ve your own cloak, so you can keep that, though by the time you’re assigned to go anywhere it may no longer suit. Shifts are folded in the cupboard over there, Tansy can show you where. You’ll have one for each day from those. Even if you bathe daily, you should change your shift every morning.”
Annalise paused in front of a bin of mismatched stockings to look back at the woman. “With all due respect, Sister, my mother raised me properly.”
Precision let out another snort. “You’d be surprised at some whose didn’t. Now. Off with you, girl. G’wan. Get. I’ve more tasks to tend and no time for dawdling.”
The woman shooed them both out and slammed the door behind them, leaving Annalise staring at the pile of clothes in her arms. Tansy laughed. Annalise wondered if there was aught that Tansy didn’t find amusing.
“Come on, then. You’ll be rooming with me. And won’t it be merry?” Tansy shifted the pile of stockings and the pair of boots she was kindly helping to carry. “I haven’t had a roommate yet. All the other novitiates do, and most have two. It can be very lonely at night.”
Annalise forced her groan into silence and followed Tansy down another set of halls, down some stairs, and through a few sets of doors. She tried keeping track but knew she’d be unable.
“We have a good room,” Tansy said. “It’s at the end of the hall, away from the ones who stay up late making merry when they should be better served sleeping or studying.”
Annalise had an idea of which novitiates that might be. She paused outside the door Tansy had opened. “Are there rules against making merry?”
“Not . . . exactly.”
“But there are rules?”
“Of course. Every place needs rules.”
Mother Deliberata hadn’t mentioned them. “What are they?”
Tansy looked over her shoulder as she entered the room and Annalise followed. The other girl perched on the edge of a narrow bed made up with crisp, plain linens. Two others just like it, but bare of sheets and blankets, lined the other walls. Head to head or foot to foot, if all three were occupied. Annalise held back a grimace and sat on the bed across the room, against the opposite wall.
“Oh . . . simply that . . . well, we must at all times behave with decorum and represent ourselves as though we’d already taken our vows. It’s not a rule, I suppose. More an expectation. And we must attend the studies we’re assigned, of course, else we’ll never learn enough to be ready for our vows. And we must not leave the grounds of the Motherhouse without permission from a Mother-in-Service. Some are granted leave to go into town, but I’ve never asked.”
“What might one find in town that one doesn’t find here?”
Tansy’s cheeks pinked. “Oh . . . well, if one has coin to spend, one might find all manner of amusements. Or company.”
“Male company? I suppose there must indeed be a fair lack of that around here.” She thought of the dark-haired man, and her smile faded. Of everything she’d imagined about the Order of Solace, this description didn’t fit. “It sounds like the worst years of boarding school. Worse than that, for school ends and service to the Order doesn’t.”
“One might leave the Order, if one chooses, Annalise. And of course once you’re assigned a patron . . .” Tansy trailed off wistfully. “Well, all manner of things might happen then.”
“Indeed.” Annalise bit back further response. If she had her way, she’d never be assigned a patron. Then again, did she wish to spend the rest of her life face to toe with others?
She’d imagined a quiet life of learning and perhaps prayer—dull, to be certain, but bearable. A few years of it while she waited to be past the age where marriage was a necessity and not a luxury. What Tansy was describing was not at all appealing.
“I’d thought myself too old to need schooling,” Annalise murmured with a sigh and looked ’round the room, noting that despite the bare block walls and stark furnishings, it wasn’t entirely uncozy.
Tansy’s father’s money had made a difference. Subtle but not invisible. A carpet for the wooden floor, heavy drapes at the window. A rack of gowns, all of similar cut and color, but in fine fabric.
“One is never too old for schooling,” Tansy said.
Annalise stopped cataloging the room’s contents long enough to give Tansy a look. “It would seem I came unprepared for my term here.”
Tansy’s laughter was like the chirp of a bird in its nest. “Everyone does, I think! When I first arrived, my eyes were so wide I was fair certain I’d never close them.”
“How long have you been here, Tansy?”
“Five years.” She ticked them off on her fingers quickly, then closed them tight into her fist and gave Annalise a somewhat defensive look. “But I was very young when I arrived, you see. There was much to learn. Not everyone who arrives here requires the same training. You’ll find out tomorrow when you’re tested.”
“Will I?” Annalise wasn’t surprised, but it would have been nice if the Mother who greeted her had mentioned a test. “What sort of test?”
“Oh, all sorts.”
“Reading? Figures?”
“Yes, of course.” Tansy shifted on the bed, her chin lifting. She spoke by rote. “One who is not educated cannot properly serve.”
“What else will I be tested on?”
“Oh . . . the canon of the Faith. Other skills. Have you any other skills, Annalise?”
“Ah, that depends upon whose opinion you solicit. Yes. I have skills. I can tat a doily, darn a sock. I can, if hard-pressed, compose a poem, though I make no boast of its merit. Is that the sort of thing you mean?” Annalise had heard stories of what tasks a Handmaiden might be expected to perform. Other, more intimate skills, she was not going to mention.
“Oh, you sound so accomplished.” Tansy clapped with delight. “I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully!”
“What happens if I don’t?”
Tansy looked pensive. “Nothing harsh. Don’t fear.”
Annalise hadn’t been afraid, only curious. “Do they turn you away?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. We’re all placed in classes according to our skills. There’s no term, such as there would be in school. We move from skill level to skill level, until we can take our place as teachers to those who need instruction, or we’re assigned patrons. Handmaidens never stop learning.”
“Lovely,” Annalise said without enthusiasm. “I can only wonder that more poor families don’t send their girlchildren here for their educations, especially since the Order doesn’t indenture its novitiates.”
Tansy tilted her head. “Oh, I suppose some might . . . but I can’t imagine why anyone who didn’t have a true Calling would come here.”
“I can,” Annalise said, but then turned the subject to other places.
Chapter 6
H
e knew her name, now. Annalise. It suited her, somehow regal but not royal. Cassian knew she would never be an Anna.
After a daylong session of testing to determine her path of training, she would no doubt be tired, hungry, even bristling with annoyance. He wasn’t surprised that she’d sprung from the chair when he came in, or that her mouth had twisted and her brow furrowed. He’d have done the same, he thought, watching her.
“You!”
“Me,” he said.
Annalise had woven her hair into a single braid in the style they all wore. If asked, he’d have said he preferred the tight ringlets falling down her back, but nobody questioned him, and Cassian worked hard to never let it be known he had a preference about which anyone might ask.
“Where are the Mothers? Deliberata, Consolata, Patience?” Sudden weary laughter erupted from her. “By the Arrow, I cannot tell you how difficult I find it to believe there are women who answer to such names.”
Cassian had closed the door behind him and now he moved forward into the room. “It would behoove you to believe it.”
She watched him warily. “And you? Your name. Let me guess. Arrogance? Liar?”
“Men don’t enter the Order of Solace.”
“But men can become Temple priests.”
“Priests keep the name of their birth unless they choose otherwise. They’re not given other names.”
“You mean the men get to keep their identities.” She gave a small sneer. “They’re not required to take on a new persona to perform their service.”
“Priests must take on many things. A name, at least, changes only what others call you. It can’t change who you are.”
She sniffed and crossed her arms over her stomach. “So, what is your name? Who are you? You must have some place here, not in the stable or the yard. You said yourself they don’t allow men in the Order.”
He waited without giving himself away while she circled ’round him, looking him over. Cassian had been so scrutinized before, many times, and even her hottest gaze could not move him. Or so he told himself as she moved closer to look at the high collar of his jacket, the length of his sleeves and hem, the cut of his trousers. She studied his hair and then focused on his face.
“Temple priests,” she said thoughtfully, “shave their heads. So you are not a priest.”
Even now, so many years later, this struck a small pain just below his breastbone and deep within his gut. “No.”
“So. What are you here to test me on?”
At least she hadn’t burst into tears. “What might you think I’m here to test you on?”
“Ha!”
She stepped back, twirling so the hem of her gown swirled around her boots. They were not Order-given, he saw that, but a fine travel pair she must’ve worn here. So she had been better prepared for her journey than he’d thought. The gown, though, was different. It didn’t suit her as well as her own had.
“Is that my test? To figure your purpose?”
Cassian sat in the empty chair and put his hands on his knees. He didn’t turn to look at her, even though she stood in his line of vision. He said nothing.
The sound of their breathing grew very loud.
“You won’t tell me? The others all told me. It was tedious but not shocking, any of it,” Annalise murmured finally. “I knew my letters and numbers. I knew the story of the Holy Family, more than one, in fact. I knew how to serve tea without spilling. But now . . . now, sir, what could you be here to test?”
Her voice had dipped low, Sinder help him, deep and thick and rich as puddled honey. Women of all ages came to seek service in the Order, and they all went through the testing—but Cassian was not always called in to assist. Most often he dealt with the girls, the simpering gigglers with youth and exuberance propelling them swifter than wisdom.
Annalise was no girl.
“I know. You’re a man. I am a woman. I know what you’re here to learn of me.”