Flashing Iris Rose a smile, Alyce stepped behind one of the screens nearer the fire and continued to undress.
“We’re not at all local,” she replied. “We were raised with our brother at Castle Cynfyn, in Lendour. But our mother died when we were very small, and our father has finally decided to remarry. Unfortunately, our new stepmother—”
“—didn’t want rivals around for his affections,” Iris Rose finished for her. “So he’s packed you off to the convent for finishing.”
“Well, we
will
need to manage large estates someday,” Alyce replied, pulling on the new under-gown. “Our father is an earl, and our brother will be a duke when he comes of age—through our mother’s inheritance,” she added, at Iris Rose’s sound of inquiry.
“I’d heard who your parents are,” Iris Rose said neutrally. “Not that it matters to me—that you’re . . . well, you know.”
Alyce stepped from behind the screen to look at Iris Rose’s back, ramrod straight in its pale blue habit, topped by the white wimple and novice veil. For her own part, Alyce’s own image could not have been more innocent, with her golden hair tumbled onto the shoulders of her white under-gown. Still behind the screen, Marie had frozen, listening.
“Do you mean that?” Alyce asked quietly.
Iris Rose turned slowly to face her, brown eyes looking fearlessly into Alyce’s blue ones.
“I do,” she said. “In the years I have been here, I have come to know and love Sister Iris Jessilde. I cannot believe that it is evil to be—what she is. Or what
you
are.”
Alyce simply stared at her for a few seconds in shock, uncertain whether to take this bald statement as a declaration of trust or a test. But by Truth-Reading Iris Rose, Alyce could see that she believed what she had just said. As she started to reach for one of the blue over-robes, Iris Rose bustled forward and scooped it up instead, briskly rearranging its folds so that she could ease it over Alyce’s head.
“You’re very brave,” Alyce murmured, from within the folds of pale blue wool.
“Bravery isn’t nearly as important as vigilance,” the other girl replied in a low voice, as Alyce’s head popped free. “You should know that there’s a new chaplain recently come here who does not like . . . well, women with minds of their own.” She gave Alyce a meaningful look as folds of pale blue wool fell to ankle-length around her, including Marie in her comments as the younger girl stepped into view once more. “Sister Iris Jessilde would have warned you, but I got to you first. Just be very careful.”
Alyce inclined her head slightly as she settled the skirts of the blue robe. “Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind. But surely
you
have nothing to fear from him.”
Iris Rose glanced sidelong at the door as she handed one of the multi-colored cinctures to Alyce, then to Marie. “Lady Alyce, I may not be—what you are,” she said in a low voice, “but I do have a mind of my own—and perhaps tend to speak it more often than I should. He believes that women should be silent. He assigns very harsh penances when we’re not.”
“I see,” Alyce replied. “And does this paragon have a name?”
“Father Septimus. He’s young and handsome, and can be very charming, but don’t let that fool you. Mother Judiana knows him for what he is. We’re all hoping and praying that he won’t be around very long.”
Astonished, Marie glanced between Iris Rose and her sister. “But—if he’s that unpleasant, how did he get here in the first place?”
Iris Rose rolled her eyes. “His brother is a bishop down in Carthane: Oliver de Nore. Mind you, he’s only an itinerant one, but he still has a great deal of influence. Any bishop does.”
A clatter at the door latch announced the bustling arrival of a much older woman in the habit and blue veil of a vowed sister.
“Are we ready yet?” she asked, mouth primping in an expression of disappointment as she noted the two girls’ somewhat disheveled locks. “Good heavens, you can’t go to Mother looking like that! Iris Rose, you haven’t done their hair yet. Let me lend a hand. I’m Iris Mary,” she added, as she came to lift a handful of Alyce’s curls. “Dear me, this mane badly needs closer acquaintance with a comb—but you’ll wear it in a plait while you’re here among us,” she said, as she began dividing it into sections to do just that. “Now, which one are you, Alyce or Marie?”
“She’s Alyce,” said Iris Rose, smiling as she began a similar service of Marie’s ruddier locks. “And this is Marie. And you mustn’t worry, girls. Sister Iris Mary isn’t nearly as ferocious as she pretends to be.”
“Goodness, no!” Iris Mary retorted with a good-natured wink. “I am
far
more ferocious!”
The relaxed banter between the two appeared to indicate that perhaps it was permissible to dispense with overmuch stiffness or formality, though Alyce sensed, without being told, that the limits had yet to be learned, especially for those of her race, and especially in light of the warning Iris Rose had just given her.
Nonetheless, by the time both stood in the full attire of their new situation, each with hair now tamed to a single plait down their backs, the future appeared far less bleak than they had come to fear. Sister Iris Rose was humming contentedly as she made a last inspection of each girl’s attire, adjusting a cincture here, a fold of skirt there, and Iris Mary was smiling as she brought out two wreaths of dried flowers.
“By rights, these should be made of fresh flowers,” she said, handing one to Iris Rose, “but the truth is, we rarely know enough in advance to prepare them—so dried ones have to suffice. Besides, it’s winter, so the choices are few. But you’ll only wear them for your reception by Reverend Mother, until you’re veiled.”
“I hope that’s only a figure of speech,” Marie said. “We don’t intend to become nuns, you know.”
Iris Mary made a clucking sound, looking faintly amused as she put her wreath on Marie’s head. “Certainly not, child. I can imagine the sorts of tales you’ve heard about life in some convents, but I can assure you that no one is here who does not wish to be here.”
“Then, what’s this about veils?”
“Actually, they’re more like kerchiefs, tied underneath your plait,” Iris Rose assured them. “Not terribly attractive, but they’re very practical.”
“You
will
receive an actual veil,” Iris Mary added, turning to fuss with Alyce’s wreath, “but it’s simply a plain white one such as any well-bred girl might wear, held in place by a rainbow-plaited fillet rather like your cinctures—and you’ll only wear that on Sundays and other formal occasions. It’s quite pretty. But the
reason
for having you wear a version of our habit is so that you’ll blend in better with the vowed community, which is less disruptive to
us.
I promise you that there is no agenda more sinister than that.”
“You see, Mares?” Alyce murmured aside to her sister. “I told you it would be all right.”
“I suppose,” Marie replied, though she still looked not altogether convinced.
To the relief of both of them, their formal presentation to the mother superior was considerably less daunting than they had feared. Accompanied by Sisters Iris Rose and Iris Mary, they made their way out along the cloister walk and through a side door into the chapel—and this, too, was not the dark, oppressive place they had feared.
A sweetly sung hymn of welcome met them even before they passed through the rainbow-arched doorway—the combined voices both of sisters and of students; and though the day had been bleak and wintry for the ride to Arc-en-Ciel, the Chapel of the Rainbow was a place of lightness and peace, purest white where stained glass did not pierce the outer walls, and ablaze with color at east and west, both from glorious rose windows and from scores of candles set behind shades of vari-colored glass around the altar.
Enfolded in light and sound and a hint of floral incense, they followed the two sisters down a stretch of carpet woven to give the impression of walking along a rainbow, passing between the center-facing choir stalls of the students and community. Jessamy came out to meet them as they advanced, conducting them thence to the sanctuary steps, where the three of them paused to reverence the altar beyond.
Before that altar, Mother Iris Judiana rose from a simple stool to receive them, accepting Jessamy’s curtsy with a nod and a smile, then opening her arms to embrace her. Alyce and Marie had also dipped in respect as Jessamy made her reverence, and now curtsied more deeply as Jessamy drew back from the mother superior and turned to present them.
“Mother Iris Judiana, I have the honor to present my heart-daughters, the demoiselles Alyce and Marie, children of my dear friend Stevana de Corwyn, the late heiress of Corwyn. Their dear brother will be Duke of Corwyn when he comes of age, and likewise Earl of Lendour upon the death of their father, Keryell of Lendour, who has asked that they be given into your care to learn the gentle arts suitable to their rank.”
“I am pleased to receive them, dear Jessamy,” said Mother Iris Judiana, smiling as she extended her hands to the two girls. “May they be a credit to this house, and cleave cheerfully to its discipline. Let them now be enrolled under the favor and protection of our Lady of the Rainbow, signifying the same by their signatures in the great book of our house.”
With those words, she signaled them to rise, Jessamy leading them before a small table to one side, where lay an open book displaying a mostly empty page. Two much younger girls stood to either side of the table—students, by their dress—holding a rainbow-striped canopy above it. A somewhat older one in novice habit stood behind the table, bearing a quill and inkwell, and curtsied to the pair of them as she held out her implements.
“Darlings, this is my daughter, Sister Iris Jessilde,” Jessamy said softly, nodding fondly to the girl holding the quill. “It will be her honor to enroll you under the Rainbow.”
“It is for the schooling only,” Alyce said in final confirmation of their intent, as Jessilde put the quill in her hand. “We make no vow save to keep the discipline of this school.”
The older girl answered with a merry smile beneath her rainbow-edged white veil, amusement crinkling at the corners of eyes as blue as cornflowers, and the two girls holding the canopy giggled good-naturedly.
“Be assured, there is no trickery here,” Jessilde murmured. “You are perfectly free to stay or to go—save that the wishes of your father or guardians may require what you would otherwise, of course. But this is not a prison. No one will try to force a religious vocation that does not exist.”
The assurance rang of truth—and Alyce had been probing gently to be certain of it—but she still turned briefly to the previous page of the book to confirm what she was signing. A heading on that page declared it to be the first entries for the term begun the previous Michaelmas.
Feeling somewhat foolish, she signed her name with care and handed the quill to Marie, who also seized courage and affixed her name beneath that of her older sister. When they had done, Jessamy moved between them and took a hand from each, leading them back before the mother superior, with the rainbow canopy accompanying them.
There, at a sign from Jessamy, the pair of them knelt at the feet of Mother Iris Judiana, who took a pine sprig from a silver pot offered by another of the girls and sprinkled them with holy water in the sign of the Cross.
“Let these daughters be veiled according to the custom of our house,” she said in signal to two more girls, who approached with fine white linen draped over their arms.
The veiling itself was something of an anticlimax. As Jessamy removed the dried floral wreaths from both bowed heads, the girls with the veils performed their offices, bidding Alyce and Marie to hold the front edges of the veils in place while rainbow-plaited fillets were bound across their foreheads, entirely suitable for the lives they were to lead for the next few years. Once veiled, the pair were conducted by Mother Judiana herself to seats in the back row of the students’ choir stalls, these to be their assigned places henceforth.
There followed a sparse few words of welcome and of notification regarding the rest of the day’s schedule, and then an adjournment to the refectory for a plain but substantial supper. Shortly after that, they were shown to the rooms they would share, each with a roommate. Alyce’s was a lively red-headed girl called Cerys; Marie was paired with a younger girl called Iery. To their surprise, the rooms were cozy and warm, if sparse, each with a heavy wool curtain covering its single small window and several rushlights set in wall niches.
“I know it must seem rather modest, compared to what you’ve been accustomed to,” Cerys told her, indicating the whitewashed walls of their room, “but in truth, we don’t spend much time here, other than to sleep. We each have a coffer in the common room, for our clothing—except for our night gowns. Those go under our pillows. And you do have an aumbry cupboard there, on your side of the bed, for a few personal items.”
Alyce noted the arched cupboard door set into the wall on the left side of the wide bed, the crucifix at its head, and also the tiny fireplace in one corner of the room, radiating a comforting amount of heat. There was also a close stool in another corner of the room, for use during the night.
“We’re allowed a fire in the morning and at night,” Cerys added, noting her new roommate’s scrutiny. “A lay servant cleans out the night ashes and starts the morning fires, and comes back later to lay the night fire, but we have to clean out our own morning ashes after morning prayers and breakfast, and empty our own chamber pot. We usually take turns doing that. Sister Iris Anthony says that it’s good experience for well-bred girls to perform such duties for themselves, so that we’ll know what’s involved when we must manage our own domestic servants.”
“That’s probably true,” Alyce said, somewhat surprised that there had been no trace of resentment in the other girl’s tone. She tried the edge of the bed and glanced at her companion. “Cerys, do you like it here? I mean,
really.
”