Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 60

‘They’ll take her to the novice cloisters,’ Clera said.

‘It’s where most of us spend time after lunch,’ Jula explained. ‘It’s not like the nuns’ cloisters – it’s full of chat – too loud to think.’ She looked disapproving where Clera looked wistful.

‘We’ll take you to the sinkhole,’ Clera said. ‘You missed it today—’

‘I’m not swimming!’ Ruli interrupted, the last of those who’d stayed.

‘Me neither.’ Jula crossed her arms and pretended to shiver.

‘We’ll just sit and throw stones,’ Clera declared. ‘And my new friend Nona can tell us why her parents gave her up.’

The Glasswater sinkhole awed Nona. It looked as if some giant had poked a finger into the plateau when it was soft and new, leaving a perfectly round depression whose vertical stone walls dropped forty feet to the surface of dark and unrippled waters. She wondered what lay beneath the surface – hiding in unknowable depths.

The pool was about forty foot across. On the far side an iron ladder, bolted to the stone, led down into it. Nona could see the layers that Sister Rule had mentioned, showing in the sinkhole’s walls, as if the whole plateau were made of one thin slice laid atop the next.

The four novices sat on the edge, legs dangling out over the drop. Nona’s shoes were the finest pair she had ever owned, the only ones made of leather. She was terrified she’d lose them and clenched her toes inside, even though they were laced on tight. For a while none of them spoke. Clera played a copper penny across the backs of her fingers with practised ease. Nona enjoyed the silence. She didn’t want to tell her story, not yet … not ever. She didn’t want to lie either.

‘Everyone tells,’ Clera said, as if reading her mind.

‘Mother died trying to give me a little brother,’ Jula spoke into the awkward gap. ‘Father got very sad after that. He’s a scribe, not a practical man, he said. He thought the nuns would look after me better than he could.’

‘My dad ships convent wine across the Sea of Marn but he wasn’t paying the duty.’ Ruli grinned. ‘My uncles are all smugglers too. The ones they haven’t hanged. The abbess came to the trial and said she’d take me in. Dad had to agree, and it saved his neck.’