Page 9 of The Starving Saints
The sun is setting, and the shifting of the light is throwing shadows. The damn thing didn’t shudder at all; it’s only her exhausted eyes, her desperation to satisfy the king. She sets down her tools and stands.
So that’s a day wasted. She makes a note on parchment she may eventually need to boil and chew herself, though it has five layers of ink on it now, written in different colors and different directions. She can still read all five layers, if she gets enough light on it, but she thinks another iteration will finally obscure the first.
Perhaps she will take to writing in the bound volume of copied alchemical texts and treatises she has accumulated over the last several years. But it pains her to imagine writing over even the parts she has memorized:true and shining, certain and most true, that high and low are in truth the same in each direction...
There has been no sign of Ser Voyne, at least, and Phosyne has entertained the hope that, perhaps, the king has thought better of his threat. Perhaps the knight is more needed elsewhere. Exhausted, she stretches out on the threadbare rug on the floor, presses one ear to it so she can hear the liquid sloshing of the cistern below, as somebody in the kitchens opens the valve and siphons off a little of the remaining rain.
Pneio and Ornuo hop down from where they were perched on top of her corkindrill and circle her, then come close enough for her to stroke. They nip at her fingertips. She thinks it is meant playfully. She thinks that if they wanted to eat her, they wouldn’t hesitate to sever a finger.
Strange creatures, these boys, like nothing she has ever seen or read about. They appeared in her chambers some four months ago, and she couldn’t explain to save her life where they came from. She had been working on something—she can’t remember what, not anymore, and thinks it must not have been that important—and there had been cracking, a whiff of sulfur on the air, and though she has no hearth or chimney in her rooms, she had felt a blazing heat.
Then one of her bookshelves had crashed to the floor, and Ornuo had looked up at her from on top of it, blinking wide, golden eyes.
She’d been terrified for weeks, of course. Terrified she had caused some great calamity. Terrified she would be found out and hanged. But the two slippery creatures had stuck close to her and caused no more mischief than a pair of tomcats. Aside from the incident with the chicken, they had brought her, ultimately, only comfort.
“Have you decided to tell me what you are?” she asks Ornuo as he flops onto his side and presses his spine into her ribs. He wears a coy expression, and bares his teeth just a little so that she might rub one finger along them. The sound he makes is like embers crackling. “Or at least listen to reason? Provide me with a miracle?”
He lashes her with his tail, instead, then nips at her chin, and she clambers to her feet, too exhausted to serve as a chew toy.
She’s up only a few seconds ahead of the rapping on her chamber door. Her odd companions dart into their hiding spots.
Of course; it would be too much to ask, to be forgotten once more. She groans and drags filthy hands down her face, wondering if she can pretend not to have heard. Perhaps to already be asleep. The moment she opens that door, she will be lost. No more time to work unobserved, and she is no closer to her miracle. The king will not be happy, because the king doesn’t understand that if she iswatched, if she isintruded upon, then the chances of her succeeding are even lower.
Still, perhaps Ser Voyne won’t stay long. Even a knight must sleep.
She hides the rotted flesh away beneath a dark earthenware bowl and hopes the lingering odor can be mistaken for something else, scrubs her hands on her apron, and goes to the door. She doesn’t bother peering out through her mirrors, because the knock comes again, and it is firm and considered. Phosyne hears no movement of metal over metal, however.
She opens the door.
Her minder looks down at her, from her vantage nearly a foot above Phosyne. She’s a broad woman, tall and made of muscle, and even in the absence of her steel plate, she is remarkably, intimidatingly solid. Phosyne instinctively takes a step back. Her eyes drop to the floor, one hand scratching at her scalp. “Well,” she says, instead of any introduction, “come in.”
She turns and goes upstairs, hoping the knight will not follow.
She’s not so lucky. Ser Voyne keeps her distance, but follows, and when Phosyne hazards a glance back, disdain is written clear across her handsome brow. She’s likely looking at the mess of the workshop, what little is visible in the gloom, and judging it lacking.
“His Majesty would have me summon food,” Phosyne says, as lightly as she can, as if that will set the knight at ease, “but I have not cracked that mystery yet, I’m afraid. How familiar are you with miracles?”
Ser Voyne does not respond. Phosyne reaches the box made of roughhewn wood that stores her few belongings. She pulls her apron off and shoves it, still dirty, into the pile. She tries to remember how to be polite. How to give the illusion of subservience even if she has no intention to actually obey.
“Because,” Phosyne continues, “miracles tend to happen when least observed, in my experience. So if you have some handwork, perhaps, or some—some polishing to do, that will serve you best, I think.” Her voice is a little shrill, but she can’t quite master it. “Serveusbest.”
Voyne is at the window now, reaching out to trail fingers over the jumble of items that block it up. Testing. Evaluating. Phosyne tries not to scowl.
“Do not think to give me orders.”
“I suppose I’m not His Majesty, no,” Phosyne concedes.
Ser Voyne doesn’t like that. She pulls away from the window and levels a cool stare at Phosyne, then retreats back down to the main floor. “Tell me what you have so far. What you’ve spent your day doing.” She has years of experience with that commanding tone she’s using, enough that it makes the skin along Phosyne’s spine prickle and tugs her toward the stairs.
When she realizes she’s coming to heel, she digs in and crosses her arms, refusing to go any farther. She feels, acutely, how close her bones are to the surface of her skin. How much more fragile she is than the other woman.
“What I have is nothing,” Phosyne says. “So far. I’ve just wrapped up one experiment, and it will take time to devise the next one.”
“Tell me what you have ruled out.”
Phosyne doesn’t want to; it will be a waste of time. Voyne won’t be able to understand, will likely respond with anger when she can’t. This is why Phosyne left the Priory—or, if not why (that was a matter of faith), then an early sign that it would one day come topass. She appreciates how thorough her sisters can be, with their careful measurements, their detailed logs, their mechanical precision, but she is thorough in a different mode, one that defies easy ordering. Concepts are linked, though not always in ways words can capture. They resonate in a way undeniable to her senses, as real as anything she has seen or heard or smelled, but impossible to truly describe. And the proof of her process is this: it all works in the end.
So she says nothing. Ser Leodegardis may trust her enough to keep her housed and fed, but Ser Voyne—
