Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 58
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Nona resolved to make it to Blade on time. Over lunch in the refectory Clera explained the meaning of the various bells that sounded throughout the day.
‘There are three bells. That’s the iron bell, Ferra, which just rang. It’s got a hollow sound and dies off quickly. That’s for the sisters, to tell them about prayers mainly. It hangs in the little belfry up on the Dome of the Ancestor. The one that looks like a nipple.’
‘Clera!’ Jula scolded. She had taken the chair on Nona’s other side and now turned to join the conversation. ‘Bray is the brass bell that hangs in the Academia, at the top of the tower. It sounds the hours, and that’s what you have to listen to for class and meals.’
‘And lights out and getting up.’ Clera cut back in. ‘Bray has a deep voice that hangs.’ She made her own deep and sonorous, a singer’s voice, Nona thought. ‘Afternoon class is sixth bell, lunch is fifth, dinner is seventh.’
‘Blade this afternoon.’ Jula rolled her eyes. ‘I hate Blade.’
‘Holies always do.’ Clera smirked.
Nona considered Jula for a moment. The girl had a studious look about her, slender despite more than a year eating at the convent table. She had mousey hair, cut at neck length. Nothing about her suggested that hunska or gerant blood might show in years to come. Almost nobody showed up quantal or marjal, however good the signs, so Jula would almost certainly be a Holy Sister. Nona knew very little about the Church of the Ancestor but the idea of a life spent in prayer and contemplation held no appeal at all. If the life in question didn’t also include being well fed and having a warm safe place to live then Nona might have felt sorry for the girl.
‘After Blade you’ll think you’ve met the hardest mistress,’ Clera said. ‘But Mistress Shade makes her seem gentle. Everyone calls her the Poisoner or Mistress Poison because she always has us grinding up stuff for one poison or another. She’s supposed to teach us stealth, disguise, and climbing and traps … but it’s always poison. Anyway, don’t ever call her Mistress Poison.’ Clera shuddered.