The Rose At War, page 40
Viola opened her mouth, realised the answer, shut it again.
But the canoness’ perception was sharp. ‘Our release, my fire-haired Sister. Our blessed ascension to the Great Throne, where we may at last witness His suspension and His glory. Truly, there is no greater gift.’ Her words glittered, dark and ardent. ‘He is the ultimate expression of the faith of my Order. The visage of death.’
At the word, thunder grumbled, and the canoness turned away to gaze upon the storm. Alcina shifted, but Augusta flicked a hand, discreetly and by her hip. Over the tight-beam vox-link, she subvocalised, ‘We must tread carefully, Sister. This place unsettles me, and I do not know why.’
‘I hear you.’ Alcina’s response was laden with tension.
Akemi was still staring at the books, her head turning sideways to read their spines.
‘You are a scholar?’ The canoness addressed the youngest Sister, making her start and turn back.
‘Yes, milady.’
‘Mmm.’ The old woman studied Akemi’s shining black hair, her pale skin, the relative newness of her fleur-de-lys tattoo. Like the skulls, she seemed to be analysing what she saw. ‘There is much lore here,’ she said. ‘It has been gathered from many places upon this world. Like my Sisters of this Order, our frateris militia have little use for combat. In place of such training, they tend to the headstones and shrines, as is proper, while we perform His ancient rites here, in the Great Cathedral. Sometimes, they bring to us things for which we must care – books, particularly, are vulnerable to the storm.’ There was something in her tone, an edge, the faintest hint of some deep curiosity.
Akemi responded, her voice respectfully even. ‘Yes, milady.’
The canoness chuckled. ‘You are perfectly behaved, young one.’ She tapped thin, claw-like fingers against her cheek. ‘So, little scholar, you shall stay. You shall bless me with your lore and tell me of your Order. Explain to me your flower symbol. It is a rose, is it not?’
Akemi shot a glance at Augusta. ‘Surely, milady, the Sister Superior…?’
Again, the elderly canoness waved her hand. ‘I have already said’ – the phrase was faintly sharp, a warning of discipline – ‘that combat is of little use here. A chamber awaits you, Sister Superior, and a quiet supper will be served in the refectorium. You are welcome to join us, of course. You – Akemi, isn’t it? – you will stay.’ Brooking no argument, she turned back to the bookshelf, as if searching for something she wished to show Akemi.
‘Sister Superior?’ Akemi’s subvocalised voice came over the squad-vox, wary and requesting permission.
Augusta repeated the warning she had given Alcina, then said, ‘She is canoness of her Order and we do not disobey. But speak little, Akemi, and listen to every word she offers. Ask questions, if you are permitted.’ Privately, she thanked His wisdom that the canoness had selected Akemi and not Viola. ‘We must locate our missing text. And this place perturbs me, for reasons I cannot yet fathom.’
The refectorium was a small and circular chamber, figures of saints standing about its edges, and every one with its face pared down to a skull. Some were familiar – Celestine herself was here – but there were others that Augusta did not know, perhaps representations from headstones that the frateris had found or tended. Viola fidgeted; Melia, too, seemed oddly unsettled and, after partaking of a quiet meal, the Sisters returned to their sleeping chamber still restless, their hunger satisfied but not their unease.
Once their door was closed, Viola exploded with withheld tension.
‘That was no grace that I have ever heard! We offer Him thanks for our victuals, not repentance that we must live another–’
‘Silence.’ Augusta’s response was soft, but brooked no argument. Over their private channel, she said, ‘Caia, I want a complete technical sweep of this chamber and its surrounding area, as far as your auspex can reach. And I want to know where we are in relation to the estimated crash site. Between ourselves, we will communicate only over the vox.’
‘Very wise.’ Alcina’s tone was all warning. ‘There is much here that defies my comprehension. While each Order bears its own prayers and hymns, these Sisters behave in a way that is… unusual.’ Her eyes glittered.
‘We will await Akemi, and any insight she brings,’ Augusta said. ‘But yes, I agree. There is something deeply amiss about this place. His voice speaks in my heart, and I must listen to His warnings.’
‘The canoness told us the Soul of Aeris didn’t crash,’ Viola agreed. ‘We know that the ship’s last communication was of the storm. And they won’t let me carry my weapon.’ The words had an edge, the source of her restlessness.
‘Not only that,’ Melia said, her tone dark. ‘But the young Sister who perished – she was barely in her twenties, and in full health. I consider it unlikely that she perished from cardiac failure, as we have been told…’ Melia was trained by the Order of Serenity, and the squad’s medicae. She gave a twitch of a shrug, and her pauldron clattered. ‘The canoness seems learned, she must know this. Which would mean that she has uttered an open falsehood, before Him, in a sermon of holy worship. This is more than “unusual”, Sisters.’ There was a twist of horror to her words. ‘This is unthinkable.’
Augusta nodded, thinking. ‘Sister Caia?’
‘The crash site is approximately seven miles south-south-east of here.’ Caia lowered her auspex, its green wash of light fading. ‘With the density of the storm it is plausible that the descent of the ship went unnoticed. I can tell little more from here.’
‘And are we being observed?’
‘Not by machine-spirits.’
‘There are ways, and ways.’ The comment was a thought, voiced over the vox. Aloud, the Sister Superior said, ‘Come, sing with me, my Sisters. Let us celebrate our finding of this Order, so newly joined to the Adepta Sororitas. We will raise our voices in His glory, and sing our requiem for Sister Clara. Sister Alcina, if you would.’
Alcina’s voice was a deep, full contralto; it rolled almost like the storm. It also allowed Augusta to listen. Not with the vox, but with her ears. And, as the other Sisters joined the hymnal, their harmonies as clean as the cathedral’s service had been eerie, she knew. She had heard these acoustics before.
The convent may not have the technology to overhear, but every word the Sisters said was echoing back through the old, stone passages, and – she would have to assume – directly to the ears of the canoness.
‘My apologies, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said, when she returned. Like the others, she kept her words over the vox. ‘I was able to glean little. I told her of the younger Orders, of Deacis VI and of the Bloody and the Sacred Rose. Of our most holy saints Mina and Arabella. But she offered little in return. She did repeat, however, that she does not believe that the Aeris crashed here. Until our arrival, they had not seen a single Imperial vessel, of any size or description, in possibly millennia.’
‘Millennia.’ Her armour off, laid out upon its sacred mat, Augusta knelt in her under-armour, the rose-red gambeson that helped to absorb incoming blows. The squad’s briefing had been very specific – they were to find the fallen ship, and the text that it had carried.
And it was not just the Aeris. As the Sisters had crossed the vast steams of the empyrean, approaching this tiny corner of space, so Augusta had taken breaks from her squad’s training to learn as much as she could about Letum and its ceaseless storm.
‘We know,’ she said, ‘that the Aeris is not the only lost ship. Merchants’ vessels have gone missing near here, though nothing large or significant. Individually, they are unnoticeable, tiny cogs in a huge machine. But, if you put enough cogs together…’
She stopped, thinking. What she was about to suggest was, at best, a lack of protocol, at worst, downright blasphemous, but His calling in her heart was strong. As strong as it had been on Lycheate, with the doomed, crazed Inquisitor Istrix – she knew that something was wrong.
In her mind, she saw the image-flash of the cathedral window, the lightning casting His image upon the stone.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Sisters, I am going to do something… unwise.’
Alcina raised a faintly acerbic eyebrow, but said nothing.
‘I will do this alone, take full responsibility for my actions. If questioned, you were following my orders.’
‘You’re not going out there,’ Caia said, ever-perceptive. ‘The force of the storm–’
‘That is not your decision to make, Sister,’ she answered, with a warning eyebrow. ‘I will not take my armour, it will make far too much noise. I will take my bolter, however, though only as a precaution. The canoness was right about one thing – there is no need for combat. Whatever else this place may be, it is a place of peace.’
Too much peace, I suspect.
‘Sister Superior.’ Alcina turned, squaring her shoulders.
Already understanding her second’s disapproving expression, Augusta only nodded. ‘I hear you, Sister, and you are not wrong. But we have a mission, and we must succeed in that mission. And there are times when that mission is not about a war.’ A flicker of a smile. ‘Though I confess, that unsettles me just as much as the atmosphere of this convent.’ The smile faded again. ‘By His grace and blessing, we have come through the storm. He landed us safely for a reason.’
Viola fidgeted, but said nothing.
Akemi said, ‘Let me come with you, Sister. I can be quiet, and I may… I may be able to read the gravestones’ ancient symbols, where you cannot.’
Augusta gave the youngest Sister a long look, then nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Sisters, we will stay in vox-contact. I will recite the opening words of the Treatise, every fifteen minutes, beginning at the hour of Evensong. If I do not…’ Her smile turned mirthless. ‘Then don your wargear, in His name, and seek answers of the canoness. If she gives none, then you head for the crash site and complete the mission.’
‘I strongly advise against this, Sister,’ Alcina said, sternly disapproving. ‘We should head for that crash site now–’
‘Objection noted,’ Augusta said. ‘Akemi?’
The youngest Sister, slight out of her armour but wrought from steel wire, inhaled like she was bracing herself. ‘Yes, Sister Superior. And may He bless our explorations.’
May He bless our explorations.
The convent was quiet, its cloisters open to the storm and charged with the electricity in the air. The hairs on Augusta’s forearms were standing on end and her skin prickled with it, as if covered in crawlers. From the cathedral transept, there came a twining of Evensong voices – another eerie, minor-key harmony. Akemi walked silently, her small face creased in a frown. Skulls in the cloisters’ carved ceilings leered toothily as they passed.
‘What bothers you, Sister?’ Augusta’s voice was barely a whisper, sounding in Akemi’s vox-bead.
‘Forgive me, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said. ‘I am thinking. We, alone, of possibly hundreds of ships, have been able to land here, our pilot blessed by Him to bring us safely through the storm. Yet the canoness has said this world is isolated by His design. I cannot resolve these two things. Has He brought us here? Or are we unwelcome, in defiance of His wishes?’
‘Have faith, Akemi,’ Augusta answered, her confidence complete. ‘The loss of the Aeris, and the text she bears – this was His way to guide us to this world, and to our lost Sisters. Whatever takes place, He has brought us here to see it.’
‘Yes, Sister.’ Akemi said nothing more, and they kept walking.
The cloisters were a large quadrangle, surrounding a flagstoned square with a great and many-layered fountain at its centre. Rainwater chuckled, overspilling the fountain’s edges. Side doors offered storage chambers: places where the attending frateris would care for the life of the cathedral, its kneeling mats, censers and hymn books. Another door led to the sacristy, where the Sisters’ grey robes could be stored. Carefully, Augusta pushed at it, but it was locked.
From the transept, Evensong rose to its crescendo, shivering outwards across the storm. Lightning flashed, though not closely; the thunder was a distance away.
Soon, they reached the cloisters’ outermost corner and paused. An arched and open doorway offered a short flight of stone steps and a gravel path that curved onwards through the building’s closest graveyard. The rain had thinned to a gentle, drifting mist, and upright lumens offered cold white pools of illumination. Thunder grumbled, distant now. Everything lurked ghostlike, fogged and monochrome.
Waiting.
Augusta began to wish she’d brought her armour, noisy though it was. It was so much a part of her, of her faith and capability, that she felt acutely vulnerable without it.
‘What are we looking for, Sister?’ Akemi asked her.
‘Answers,’ Augusta said. ‘There is more to this than a downed ship.’
Out across the pale light, there were shifting, grey-clad shapes, almost unseen – the frateris, tending the stones even at this late hour. In the mist, they looked like phantoms.
‘This way.’ Very conscious of her scarlet padding, Augusta moved along the side of the building, circling it carefully. Akemi followed, looking at the gravestones, some of them embedded in the wall. As they reached the back of the building, and began a slightly wider circle, Akemi stopped.
‘Sister,’ she said.
Instantly, the Sister Superior froze. ‘What?’
‘This stone’s been moved.’
‘It is surely the stone of Sister Clara?
‘Not here, Sister,’ Akemi said. ‘Clara’s ashes will be interred in the Sisters’ own sarcophagus, the canoness did tell me that much. This…’ She sounded puzzled. ‘This is something else.’
‘Explain.’
Drawing a breath, Akemi answered. ‘The canoness’ books are almost all in High Gothic. It’s a very old form, with some linguistic variations, but it’s essentially familiar. And it ties in with her claim that the frateris have retrieved them from the graves, in order to preserve them. But that…’ She nodded at the stone. It had three oddly shaped skulls engraved in its top, a prayer inscribed beneath. ‘That’s older. Much older. That stone is significantly older than the cathedral itself.’
Augusta shot the youngest Sister a sharp look. ‘So it’s been placed here since?’
Akemi nodded, her thoughts coalescing as she spoke. ‘It must have been brought here from somewhere else, laid into the wall when the cathedral was built. And that, in turn, would imply that something has been here–’
‘For longer than the Sisters.’ Augusta considered this, nodding. ‘I–’
‘Sister Superior.’
Startled, Augusta turned. She was unsettled indeed if anyone could come this close, unheard and undetected. Instinctively, her hand had gone for her bolter, but she drew it back – this was one of the frateris, a grey-cloaked figure, his hood back. His face was young and lean, and etched with shadows from the overhead lumens.
‘Yes?’ Arching an austere eyebrow, she offered no apology or explanation.
‘It is late, Sisters.’ The man’s tone was chillingly polite. ‘The canoness has asked us to ensure your welfare, and you should be resting before Nightfall prayers.’ His eyes were dark sockets, as skull-like as everything else in that place. ‘She will be expecting you.’
He leaned on the word, just enough.
‘And we will attend, of course,’ Augusta answered him, her authority smooth and unchallenged. ‘But perhaps, since you are here, you can answer a question.’
‘Forgive me, Sister,’ the young man said, as smoothly polished as the canoness’ tabletop. ‘This is hardly the place for questions. You are guests of the convent. And you should be attending milady canoness.’
There was a warning in his tone, a blade sheathed but ready. And while his words were carefully chosen, his behaviour was verging on arrogant.
‘He’s hiding something,’ Akemi said, over the vox.
‘I agree,’ Augusta answered her. ‘But what?’
The Sister Superior returned to the chamber with few answers, only more questions. Remaining within, she and the squad observed the Nightfall prayer by themselves, offering their words to His sacred effigy that had come with them from Ophelia VII.
The Sister Superior prayed for divine guidance – not the usual litany, but with words that came from her heart. The image from the cathedral window had stayed with her, as if flash-etched onto her retinae. She had distinct suspicions – graveyard world, older culture – such things were inevitable. But without tangible proof, she could hardly make accusations.
Why was that headstone in the cathedral wall? Where had it come from? And why had she seen only younger faces? Aside from the old lady, every Sister, every servitor, every member of the frateris militia had been under thirty – significantly younger than Augusta herself. The thought came with smoke-curls of sinister possibilities, coiling like the life of Sister Clara.
The Order of the Broken Sepulchre. The Sisters of Death.
There was only one way to find an answer.
In the morning, after the dawn prayer, the squad donned full armour and attended, as was proper, the canoness’ wishes. The old lady was as polite as ever, saying nothing about the previous evening’s excursion. Augusta wasn’t sure if that was simply due to decorum, or because she genuinely didn’t know.
Had the frateris not told her? Such a lack of discipline and respect – that was unheard of. Just who was lying to whom?
