<h3 style="text-align: center">Violet
There was never any point in my twelve years living with the temple priests that I expected them to lay unwanted hands on me. When I first arrived and was taken into their care, I was so young and so shaken from what had just occurred that I didn''t have the wits to cast suspicion. As I grew older, and more aware of the ills of the world, I still retained full trust and confidence that I would be kept safe in my place of living. Every one of those Sunmount priests, young and old, has my utter respect and admiration. I lived and worked beside them, and like them I kept to a vow of chastity, and although the priesthood was meant only for men they never made me feel like anything other than another of their brethren. For this, they have my eternal gratitude.
The same, as you might surmise, cannot be said of the trouble-making girls at the Eastwall convent. From my very first day, I knew I was an object of fixation. I told myself their heckling and grabbing was simply an expression of jealousy, since there had been some comments suggesting I was spoiled as a favorite of the headmother. If there was any other reason for their interest, I was too na?ve and good-hearted in my thinking to put all the facts together.
Nevertheless, their handsiness was plain, and I slept most nights in that bunk with the idea in the back of my head that I had to be vigilant. I''d even debated sleeping in my clothes for propriety, but I decided that would bring more mockery than respite. As such, I settled for the Western-style nightgowns that the other sisters preferred, and tried not to think about the way the sheer fabric was presenting me as I walked through the dormitory.
Then, one moonless night, with a fitful storm thrashing outside, my worst fear came true. I woke with a start from an unpleasant dream and found a woman''s hand pressed hard over my mouth. From the pressure of it, I could not scream, and my eyes shot open with a sudden understanding that something quite unpleasant might be in store. In the dark, I saw that all the other sisters were asleep. There was no gang waiting to subject me to some secret initiation. The hand, thankfully, belonged to Headmother Heprose, and she knelt over me as she made a motion for quiet.
Believe me when I say I was quite relieved to see that it was her. She beckoned for me to come, pointing to the open dormitory door that led to the hallway. It was clear she did not want me waking the sisters in my departure, so I slipped as quietly as I could up from under the covers of my bunk. I did not stop to put on my shoes or look for any more clothing. I followed the headmother, who was dressed in her robes, and when I reached the hall I found Josephine also in her nightgown.
It was rare that I saw Josephine in undress, because she had been assigned to the dormitory on the opposite side of the second floor from mine. In the light of the candle the Headmother held, I inadvertently found myself staring through the fabric of Josephine Wistree’s nightgown, realizing her body was in shape and color quite different from mine.
"We''re leaving tonight," said the headmother. There was an additional smoothness to her voice when she spoke in this low, secretive tone, "The three of us. Sister Valekind will mind the girls."
I didn''t know where we were going, but I knew better than to ask. In times of action, the Headmother wanted only the most practical questions. "Should I get my bag?" I said to her, indicating the locked trunk beneath my lower bunk. I knew that I could not move and open it without waking all my other bunkmates.
"You''ll get everything you need from the Secret Police," said Headmother Heprose. "Get changed."
As she said this, she handed black robes and trousers to me and Josephine. We paused as we held the outfits, unsure whether to return to our bunks or go to the washroom.
"With haste," said the Headmother, looking impatient. As such, we both removed our nightgowns where we stood, changing into the NS robes while our superior watched us in silence. Josephine, I was well aware, was watching me as I dressed.
"What''s happened?" she asked, to fill the silence.
"Violet was right," said the headmother. "There was a bombing at the military airfield in Pax. Same kind of bomb they seized downtown. Not Clementic."
"We''re going to go mindsearch the suspects?" Josephine whispered.
"I already did," said the Headmother. "I just got back from Pax’s Secret Police headquarters, and I got us a lead in Dawncastle."
"But, that’s…" Josephine gasped. She was quicker than me at putting the whole thing together. "We''re leaving Paxana?"
"Dawncastle is Paxana," said the Headmother. "That''s clear from the emperor, clear from the Western treaties, clear for just about everyone except for these independence thugs. Dawncastler separatists, they’re the new prime suspects. They just took the leg off the most decorated general in the Army Corps. High Command wants blood, so the Secret Police are going to sail us to Cauldrontop, and we''re going to rip up the town till we get our men."
I thought all this through. In my twenty-three years, I had barely considered Dawncastle at all. In my mind, at that time, it was a remote land, a peninsula of poor and provincial people who spoke an odd language and had for a century been our subjects. They wore colorful gown robes, and had unusual ways, and beyond that I really knew nothing.
"I don''t speak Dawncastler, Headmother," I said. I remembered from my classes that my teachers had described it as a very tough language to learn.
"Neither do I," said Josephine. She sounded afraid, like she didn''t want to go.
"And you don''t speak goat, but you could still crack their minds just fine," said the headmother. "I want you with me, and I don''t want a word of this to anyone till we''re back."
I saw that the headmother was wearing a purple armband on her black sleeve. It had a white circle with the letters ‘NS’ painted on it in black. The specific shade indicated that she was a National Sorceress headmother. When we finished dressing in our blouses, trousers, and robes, the headmother handed similar armbands in blue to myself and to Josephine.
"This will put the fear of the deathsgate into anyone who looks at you wrong," said the Headmother, urging us to wear them. Jo and I both took them and put them on, covering our sleeved left biceps. "Headmother," I said, looking down at the blue below my shoulder. "This armband''s for a sister, not an apprentice."
When there was no answer, I looked up at the headmother''s eyes. They seemed to flicker orange in the candlelight. "So make yourself worthy of it," she said, and did not speak further on my rank.
Everything had been arranged to be carried out swiftly and with secrecy. A black car driven by a secret policeman had come to meet us at the convent, and it cut straight back through the rainy dead of night to the quay at the Archcove docks.
Rain poured in sheets, bouncing off concrete and shipping pallets. I remember the way the yellow electric lights illuminated cones of it as it came down. Josephine and I had been seated in the back of the car, and Headmother Heprose had ridden next to the driver. The three of us women got out, and the driver remained. We walked in a cluster from the car toward the dock, our long robes flapping in the salty wind as we advanced. The headmother, naturally, was in front. I was glad she was, because it was so hard to see that I worried I might take a wrong step and plunge into the depths of the ocean if I was not careful.
The docks, I realized, ran day and night, and so even at this hour there were lowborn workers whispering about us as they stared from the shadows. No one dared come close. When we got down to the end of the quay, we saw a Navy captain standing at the start of a gangway behind him. The rickety metal ramp ran to the deck of a twelve-man torpedo ship. I would learn soon enough that the ship was LPO Pirouette, and that the captain was a distinguished officer by the name of Xander Norquary.
His ship, unlike most I had seen in that harbor, was painted black. It was long and low, with a wide, flat deck, and seemed like it was designed to be unnoticed. There was an elevated bridge in the center, stiff and square, with windows that looked out on all four sides. I could not tell what was below or how many people were aboard.
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"Sorceress," Captain Norquary said with respect, bowing to our headmother.
"This is everyone," said the headmother, dispensing with formality.
The Navy captain nodded. He had dark hair and sideburns, and a face both handsome and kind. I felt in that moment that I could trust him. "The Secret Police are already aboard," he said, speaking only to Heprose and ignoring the two of us sisters. "We expect some storms in the Sea of Paxana and arrival at Cauldrontop before first light."
I couldn''t believe we were really crossing the sea, really leaving the home isle. I had never expected any of this when I first arrived in Eastwall.
"Good, Captain, lead the way," said the Headmother.
Then she walked aboard Pirouette, and the two of us followed. There was a narrow walkway around the side of the bridge, with a railing to stop you from plummeting over the edge. The headmother went first, and both Josephine and I hung back a few paces as we followed her and the captain toward the aft.
"I''ve never been outside Eastwall before," Josephine said to me in confession, "and I''ve never been on a ship."
"Neither have I," I said back to her. It made me feel better that this city girl was even more provincial, in her own way, than myself. I had never left the isle, but she hadn''t even ever left her own home prefecture.
"Still," I said, "we should try to seem put together in front of the Navy and the Secret Police. We''re representing the convent and the whole Corps here."
"I just can''t believe she chose us," said Josephine.
"I can," I said back. "The rest of the sisters are green, daft, or flying off the handle. This is a serious assignment."
Josephine paused, and I paused too, and with the storm and the rain and the rocking of the ship the whole thing seemed quite dramatic. Her blond hair clung to her rosy face in strands, with her hood just above her eyebrows. She looked at me with a strange sort of reverence. "Yes, Sister Shrineborne," she said, in reference to my armband.
The sea was quite rough once Pirouette left the port. Headmother Heprose had gone up to the bridge to discuss official matters with the captain and his first mate. Josephine and I, meanwhile, had been told to sequester in a small yellow room with two small portholes and a single cot.
It was warm, although not as warm as we would have liked after being out in the freezing rain. Everything we had worn on the walk from the car to the ship was soaked straight through. I had removed my top robe and blouse, as well as my socks and shoes, hanging them all to dry from metal hooks near the door of the cabin. The length of my robes had mostly prevented my trousers from getting too soaked, so I kept those on for the sake of preserving scant modesty.
I sat on the bed, examining the electric lamp above and the welded metal drawers. It was all so modern, and yet so unglamorous. I felt grateful to not be seasick from the rocking of the ship.
Josephine removed her own black clothes and hung them up by mine. She kept only her cotton knickers on. Now, in the plain light, I could see indeed that her fairer coloring recurred in its own way all across her body. I watched her walk from the hooks to the bed with the storm gnashing just past the portholes. Then my thoughts went to home.
"What are you thinking?" she asked me, as she saw my eyes searching in middlesight. Josephine was an intuitive one, and she could tell in that moment that I was trying to reach beyond our plane.
"I''m trying to reach my parents," I said in honesty.
"You can do that?" she asked. I could tell she was surprised.
I swallowed, and then I shook my head negative. "No, it never works."
Josephine''s hair was still soaked and matted. She reached a hand up to touch it, feeling its flatness, and pulled it back to hide its length behind her neck like it was slicked with pomade. "Do I look like a boy with my hair like this?" she asked me.
I looked her up and down.
"Not really," I said, for obvious reasons. There was nothing about her figure that was masculine.
She pulled one strand of blonde hair around and held it like a mustache over her upper lip. "How about now?" she asked.
I felt too exhausted to engage in repartee. "You just look like Josephine," I said.
She let her hair fall against the sides of her face again.
"Well, I am."
Then, as I thought she might, she got onto the bed with me. I couldn''t help but watch the way the curves of her body changed when going from standing to lying. So much of it, although she was fit and taut, was still dependent on gravity. She stared at me as I stared ahead and tried again to reach out to my parents.
Then, softly, Josephine placed a hand on the place below my ribs where my abdominal muscles were tense. I said nothing, and I did not stop her. I could feel her watching me to see what I thought, but my face showed little. Squirming up on the bed, she pressed her nose into the side of my jaw. It was a firm nose, firmer than mine, and narrow as well. Then she pressed her lips to the spot where her nose had just been.
"I''m not jealous of your boyfriend anymore," she said, like it was a confession. "I just think every girl needs a friend while she''s in the Corps."
I looked over at Josephine and thought about what she was saying. This was all so new to me, so strange, that I barely had the words for it. To be honest, I didn''t even have the thoughts for it.
"And if you''re not even engaged to him, and if you''re not doing anything with a man, then it''s nothing bad at all," Josephine went on. "I''m sure your boyfriend wants someone looking out for you, looking over your shoulder, when you''re in danger."
I continued to listen to her, and still said nothing. I felt her fingers slide upward, toward my ribs, sticking a little in places from the clammy cold of the rainwater that had drenched us. She moved her hand like she was appraising the landscape of my body, the firm spots, the spots that would give.
With her index finger, she began to draw a slow, tender circle on my left breast. The skin tingled, and some other things changed in a way I had not expected and did not understand. After a shallow breath, I decided to lay a hand on hers, to get her to stop. The result was that I pressed her hand against my own beating heart.
We looked at each other again, face to face, and I saw melancholy mixing with whatever else made up her youthful countenance. "You don''t have to like me, Shrineborne," she said. "I''ll keep on liking you anyway."
At that moment, the metal handle of the cabin door creaked unlocked. Thinking it might have been a sailor, I jumped, and grabbed a pillow to cover my shirtless chest. Josephine turned, not covering herself, and watched the door half open. Thankfully, it was only Headmother Heprose.
The headmother looked us over, and I could not tell what she was thinking.
"Three hours to port," she said. "Try to sleep."
"Yes, Headmother," said Josephine.
I watched the door shut again. I did, in fact, sleep, and Josephine made no further moves I could call impropriety.
Dawn came much quicker than either of us would have liked, given our exhaustion. Rising, we found our clothes mostly dry, and we dressed in full before going up top to see where Pirouette had taken us.
A breathtaking golden dawn shined through the scattering storm clouds far to the east. Above us, the skies were clear, and the air was immaculately clean. I gripped the railing on the deck of the ship and saw the Dawncastle city of Cauldrontop sprawling ahead. Nearly every building was painted some bright color, mostly red, and the roofs were all shaped in that whimsical Dawncastler style. It was indeed poor, I could tell, because the roads were dirt and there was hardly an auto in sight.
The hills behind the city were tall and verdant. I could hear the motor of the torpedo boat chugging, pushing us forward into the harbor of Cauldrontop Bay. Josephine joined me at the rail, looking out at the strange land, and kept a foot of distance.
A bright red bridge spanning the mouth of the bay stood before us, quite low indeed. I turned back to look at the bridge behind me, and wondered if Pirouette would clear it. Then a new motorized action answered my question.
"Look," said Josephine, pointing ahead.
With wonder, I watched the middle sections of the bridge begin to mechanically raise, like two hardcover books, clearing the center of the mouth so that Pirouette could enter.
"We built that," said Josephine, "for the Dawncastlers. We''ve built them lots of things. Army engineers did. People like your boyfriend."
I was relieved to see that Josephine was cheery, that she was not too put out by whatever hadn''t happened in the night. "Oh, he''s not in the Army, technically," I replied.
"Still," said Josephine, "it was his sort of people. Smart people."
As we passed through the space where the bridge had parted, I saw dozens of Dawncastler kids in quilted robes standing on the sides of the raised bridge. They looked down at the two of us and waved in earnest excitement.
Headmother Heprose came up behind. "So much for port before sunrise," she said, displeased. "You two should think about coming below."
I scowled and wondered why she would say that. Then I remembered the stories Tom had told me of assassins taking shots from afar to try and kill Paxanan politicians. "You don''t think there''d be, what, a sniper, do you?" I asked with fear.
The Headmother considered her response, then spoke. "It might make our work a bit easier if less than the entire city of Cauldrontop knows there''s NS arriving."