Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 47

Nona started uncertainly towards the pool, wondering how deep it was, and how hot. The streams around the village never reached much past your knees and quickly stole the feeling from everything below that point.

‘You’re not going in wearing clothes.’ Sister Apple’s voice held a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

Nona turned to stare defiantly up at the nun, her lips pressed together in a puckered scowl. Sister Apple stood with her arms folded. One silent second followed the next and at last Nona started to tug off her Caltess smock, stiff with Raymel Tacsis’s dried blood. She made a slow and awkward job of it: in the village even the littlest of the littles rarely ran around naked; the ice stood too close for that. Only around the harvest fires or in the all-too-brief kiss of the focus moon had Nona ever been as warm as there in the convent bathhouse.

‘Hurry along. I doubt you’re hiding anything unusual under there,’ Sister Apple said, pulling back her headdress as the heat got to her too. She had long hair, red and curling in the wet air.

Nona stepped out of her smock, arms folded about herself, with only the steam for modesty. She made a dart for the pool.

‘Wait!’ Sister Apple raised a hand. ‘You can’t go in filthy. You’ll turn the water black.’ She took a leather bucket from one of the many pegs lining the walls above the benches. ‘Stand over there.’ She pointed to an alcove between the benches on the left.

Nona did as directed, her whole body clenched. The alcove was wide enough for two or three people. The floor, tiled and perforated by finger-width holes, felt strange beneath her feet.

‘What—’ An explosion of hot water stole the rest of the question. Nona wiped her eyes clear in time to see the misty outline of the nun at the poolside having refilled the bucket.

‘There’s a brush on the floor. Use it.’ Another wave of hot water broke across Nona’s chest.

Nona reached, dripping, for the brush. She’d never felt anything quite as wonderful as a bucketful of hot water. Not even fresh bread and butter came close. Not even eggs, or the bacon she had smelled cooking at the Caltess. If scrubbing herself with a bristly brush was the price she had to pay to get into a whole pool of it, she would scrub.