Chapter Text
Jemima MacNeill wondered, not for the first time, if she was really getting paid enough.
She’d stuck through her employers’ frequent demands for late night, urgent transcontinental flights; the nightmarish, never-ending Tetris of arranging appointments, meetings, dinners and drinks, and for none of them to clash and cause an embarrassing incident; the humiliating ordeal of picking up the twins from ballet, French class, gymnastics. All of it, she’d comforted herself, was meant to be another rung on the endless step ladder reaching up, up, up, and one day into diplomatic service. Or at least another roundabout rotation into its proximity.
But now, as Jemima sweated in her pencil skirt and blazer under the Mediterranean sun outside a bona-fide convent in the middle of nowhere some hours north of Malaga, she really did suspect that it was time to brush up her resume. Subject herself to another round of horrid standardised testing for the civil service again. Even an NGO. Anything would be better, surely.
Her colleague pulled at his shirt collar as they waited for someone to let them in through the heavy, ancient gate. Sweat was already staining the cotton. Mark was a little older than her, which still meant he wasn't old at all. He was more comfortable in front of his MacBook screen at the family office, running figures and forecasting returns on investments, than traipsing around the Iberian backcountry on the hunt for long-lost family members. But, it seemed, he’d been pulled along on this screwball comedy too.
Finally, the girl who’d taken their business cards and disappeared somewhere into the bowels of the medieval building returned, peering through the little slot at the gate at them. “Alright. Señora MacNeill, you are welcome to enter. Señor Harrington, you will need to wait outside.”
“You what?” Mark stuttered, flashing Jemima a look of panic.
“You’re a man,” the girl replied, tone earnest, eyes mirthful. “The only men allowed into the seat of the Order of the Cruciform Sword are priests and servants of the Roman Catholic Church.”
“I’ve been christened… I think…” he muttered, but gave it up for lost. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” he said eventually, “with the aircon on. Please don’t get yourself abducted. The big man will kill me.”
Jemima gulped. The heavy door swung open. The girl waited for them, in what Jemima presumed was her full nun gear — long skirts and long sleeves of a habit, a long navy blue wimple covering her hair. She had a Bluetooth headset peeking out at the hem over her ear, and the effect was surreal. Jemima realised she’d never actually seen a nun in real life. And certainly not one doubling up as a security guard.
“Please, follow me,” the nun continued smoothly. “Mother Superion is aware of your arrival.” She glided away, and Jemima’s heels clicked awkwardly as she raced to follow her. The gate slammed shut behind them.
“Mother Superion?” She asked, curious at the title.
“Mother Superion is the Head of our Order, Señora,” the nun replied. “She is responsible for this Chapter in Andalusia. This is the technical headquarters of the Order, though we have branches all across the world.”
“I see.” Jemima felt dreadfully out of place. She dabbed at the sweat on her forehead with a tissue, nervous of dislodging the sticky sunscreen and foundation she’d smeared on in an airport bathroom this morning. “And, erm, what’s your name, señora…?” Her SQC in Spanish had not prepared her in any way for this interaction. Nor had the mandatory Religious Education class she’d endured at secondary school, during which the teacher had tended to put on Indiana Jones movies and nap.
“Not señora,” the nun corrected her gently, “sister. I am Sister Abigail. I’m still a novitiate, though. Not a full nun, yet.”
“I see,” she said again. “So why did you join the, erm, the Order?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sister Abigail said, kindly. “To fight evil. That’s what the Order did against Adriel. And has done for a thousand years.”
“Oh.” Jemima had no answer to that. “Well done, you.”
They walked through a maze of long, stone corridors adorned with pictures of saints and Jesus; there was also a truly impressive quantity of weapons hanging from the walls. Swords, shields, maces, axes, and something she thought an ex-boyfriend had once told her was a “halberd” were at every corner. Occasionally, they were passed by other nuns, alone or in small groups, all dressed identically to sister Abigail. There was something graceful in their movements, contained, and they passed smoothly with small nods to their guest. Jemima felt in contrast graceless and out of place, sweaty and rumpled, lumpy and swollen against the svelte, delicate nuns.
They stopped at a door, identical to myriad others, and Sister Abigail knocked sharply.
“¡Adelante!” They pushed open the door to reveal a small, tightly packed study. Floor to ceiling bookshelves dominated much of the space, except for a stretch of wall to the left where a statue of a weeping woman in blue was at the centre of a small shrine. There was a large wooden desk which looked something like an altar. At the desk, rising to stand, was a woman, another nun.
She was of early middle age, perhaps, though it was hard to tell. She had an aquiline nose and keen, penetrating eyes. Around her neck was a heavy cross, the same cross Jemima had noticed everywhere here — even-armed against a circle. Her nun’s habit was darker than Abigail’s, and looked thicker and heavier. In her left hand was a cane, on which she leaned only slightly. She held out a hand to Jemima. “Señorita MacNeill. Thank you for coming. I hope you’re well?”
“Erm,” Jemima stuttered. “Yes, señora?”
The woman smiled, though it was not an especially warm expression, and looked at her guide. “Thank you, Sister Abigail. Can you bring tea and coffee for our guest?”
“Of course, Mother Superion.” The girl bowed — honest-to-God bowed — and darted away, leaving Jemima with the hawkish figure of the nun.
“Please, take a seat,” The nun said brusquely, gesturing at the chairs before her desk. She sat too, the cane staying close to her side. “Are you staying long in Spain?”
She asked the question without much interest, but Jemima felt compelled to respond. “I don’t think so. I only flew out this morning. I’ll be expected back tonight.”
“Back to London?”
“Yes … ma’am.”
“Ma’am.” The head nun let out an undignified snort. “I’m not the queen, Ms. MacNeill.”
Jemima blinked.
Another sharp knock made her start, but it was only Abigail, deftly managing a tray of tea, coffee, water and little round biscuits. She slipped it easily on the desk and bowed again, before leaving them to it.
“Galletas Maria,” the nun nodded to the biscuits. “Please, do help yourself.”
Jemima, feeling awkward and clumsy, poured hot coffee from the press and added cream, before taking one of the biscuits — surely a local delicacy. The nun did not do the same. She merely watched her expressionlessly.
So in the absence of anything else to do, she bit into the biscuit.
It was a rich tea biscuit. Her nana kept a tin of the very same, dry, bland things in her kitchen cupboard. It wasn’t anything special at all.
The nun tapped at her desk. “So. Remind me why you came here, Ms. MacNeill.”
Jemima almost spluttered on her hot coffee. Impassively, the nun handed her a napkin, and she recovered as best as she could. “Erm. So I think you will have seen my card. And we phoned the convent yesterday.” She put the damn rich tea biscuit down, remembering the rehearsed speech. “I work for the family office of Giles Reardon-St. Clair, based out of London. We understand Giles’ eldest daughter, Charlotte, is a member of the Order here?”
“Charlotte Reardon-St. Clair,” the woman mused, and there was something sly in her voice. “Let me check our records.”
Jemima sat there awkwardly as she went to one of the large cabinets behind her desk and pulled it open. There were hundreds of paper folders in there, some ancient and dusty, others new and crisp. Some were thick and dog-eared, others contained barely a few sheets. The nun plucked out a folder with puzzling speed considering her apparent indifference to the proffered name, and turned to face her. Jemima became aware that the nun didn’t really seem to need her cane that much. Her palms, already clammy, seemed to break out into a new sweat.
The folder was one of the thicker ones. The nun dropped it to the table with a dull thud.
“Charlotte Reardon-St. Clair,” she said, again, turning the name over in her mouth, “we never knew her as that, Ms. MacNeill. Not here in the Order. She took on a new name when she joined us, seven years ago.” She opened the file, and slid it over to her. “We knew her as Sister Beatrice.”
Sister Beatrice. Jemima looked down at the file, where an identity form or something similar rested at the top. It was handwritten in dense Spanish, she guessed. Or Latin. There was a passport-style photo stapled to the top corner of the form. It showed a young woman she’d never seen before.
Mixed race, as expected. Olive skin and big, brown eyes drilled into the camera with a deep, serious gaze, under sloping brows. Her hair, thick, straight, and so dark brown as to be almost black, was pushed back from her brow. There was still a youth to her face, adding a soft curve to her cheeks and her jaw. This must have been taken when she joined the Order as a teenager. Jemima could see the family resemblance.
There was the imprint of a round stamp distorting the image, embossing the crossed keys of the Vatican onto Charlotte’s shoulder and the form. It was a bit like she’d joined the military, Jemima thought.
“Yes,” she said uselessly, “that looks like her.”
“And what, may I ask, do you want with Sister Beatrice?” The Mother’s eyes were flinty, sharklike. Jemima felt uncomfortably caught under her attention, like a moth pinned to a board.
They looked at each other for a second. Jemima wasn’t sure how much she was meant to say. She hadn’t prepared for interrogation by clergy as part of her morning routine. “She’ll be turning 25 in a couple of months,” Jemima replied, reluctantly. “That entitles her to a portion of her family estate.”
“Nuns typically swear vows of poverty, Señorita,” was the arch response.
“Yes, well,” Jemima was desperately uncomfortable now, the hot coffee only making her feel hotter, the crumbs of the rubbish biscuits catching in her throat, her makeup thick and smeared in the Spanish heat, “her dad thinks that she should fully understand what she’s giving up if she’s determined to stay with … all this.”
“Hmm.” the nun leaned back in her chair, studying her some more. “Well, I would be happy to introduce you, but I can’t. You see, Beatrice is no longer a Sister Warrior of the Order of the Cruciform Sword.”
“I… what?” Jemima felt like someone had just pulled the chair out from under her. Charlotte wasn’t even here?
“Yes, a great pity,” the nun continued. “In her short time here, she excelled. But we all must answer the call of God in our own way. And Beatrice’s journey is her own. Mostly.” There was a knowing expression on her face, like she was laughing at a joke Jemima had missed.
“Do you… do you know where she is?” Jemima asked, shell shocked. Mr Reardon-St. Clair would not like this one bit.
“I do not,” and Mother Superion sounded positively gleeful . “She left some months ago, not long before Christmas.”
“Months?” Jemima sagged back into her chair. “Oh god. We’ve lost her.” She’d lost Mr Reardon-St. Clair’s eldest daughter.
That resume was getting brushed up ASAP. Maybe on the plane home.
“No need to be so dramatic, Señorita,” the nun sniffed. “And I would ask you not to take the Lord’s name in vain in this house of God. We may yet be able to find her. Sister Abigail!”
The girl once again rapped on the door and slipped inside, and Jemima was wondering if she’d actually stumbled into some sort of East London performance art. Maybe her alarm had never gone off this morning and none of this was real.
“Sister Abigail, can you send for Sister Camila, please? She may be training the other girls at the range.” She wasn’t even going to begin to parse that.
The ensuing seven minutes were some of the longest of Jemima’s life. She checked her phone, surreptitiously, and sent Mark, waiting in the car, a message. This is so weird. If I don’t come out in an hour, call the police.
The text hung unsent. An angry little exclamation mark flashed up next to the green bubble.
“There’s no cell signal within these walls, I’m afraid,” the nun said serenely, waving an arm. “They’re almost a thousand years old and five metres thick. We find it a great boon for our contemplation, you see.”
Jemima gulped.
Abigail returned, this time with another young woman in tow. She was diminutive, pale skinned and young-faced, with the hint of curly black hair poking out from under her wimple. She smiled, brightly, slightly out of breath. “How can I be of assistance, Mother?” She had a soft Spanish accent, and her voice chimed brightly, with an almost childlike timbre.
“Sister Camila, sit,” and something like genuine warmth crept into the older woman’s voice. “We have a guest with us. She’s looking for Sister Beatrice.”
“Sister Beatrice?” That bright smile disappeared like the sun behind clouds. Sister Camila looked at Jemima sharply, and something about that look from such a young, slight woman made her want to disappear through the wooden floorboards beneath her. “Why are you looking for her?”
“Erm.” She really was not putting her best foot forward here. Her employers would be horrified. “I represent her family. They’re looking for her to talk about her entitlement to the estate.”
“Oh.” Sister Camila looked back at her superior nun. Or whatever it was called. “She didn’t tell me her family was looking for her. Should I tell her?”
“You know where she is?” Jemima couldn’t help it. “You talk to her?”
“We’re not a cult , Ms. MacNeill,” the woman in charge said, primly. “There is no restriction on our Sisters maintaining friendships and connections within and outside of our Order.”
Camila rooted around in the roomy pocket of her habit. Jemima hadn’t known they had pockets. Kind of practical. The little nun pulled out a handful of something which clattered onto the desk before she found a mobile phone, and Jemima gaped because they looked like shotgun shells—
Mother Superion held up a hand. “I think Ms. MacNeill would like to make her way back home to London sooner, rather than later, Sister Camila. I leave it to your judgement, whether you oblige her request or not before she leaves. You know Beatrice better than any of us still here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have another appointment to keep.”
“Can I —” Jemima lunged for the thick folder still on the desk, something to take back for her struggles, but the woman swept it up before she could even get close.
“I’m afraid not,” the mothership said smoothly, “this is the property of the Catholic Church. Please, Sister Camila, if you’ll show our guest out. Feel free to give her a tour on the way. Help her understand how Sister Beatrice served God while she was with us.”
The dismissal was clear. The pint-sized Sister led Jemima out of the office and along the corridors again, and before two turns she was once more hopelessly lost.
“Let me give you a quick tour of the convent, Ms. MacNeill,” Camila said airily, “We call it the Cat’s Cradle. Are you Scottish? You’ve got lovely red hair.”
Jemima wasn’t prepared for the conversation, and started. “Yes. From Stirling.”
“Oh, how nice!” Camila responded chirpily. “My mother’s from Inverness.”
“Oh,” Jemima replied weakly, “small world. Do you see her often?”
“Not really,” Camila said. “It’s hard for her to get here. And we don’t make many social calls after all.”
They proceeded in silence.
“So, Beatrice’s family are looking for her,” Camila started, her sing-song voice stubbornly light, giving nothing away. “I didn’t know she had any family left. They never came visiting when she was here.”
“No,” Jemima said, nervously. “I don’t know why not. I only started working with them a few years ago.”
“And you never thought it was strange? That they had a daughter in a convent in Spain that they never saw?”
“I, erm,” Jemima felt judged, and picked apart, and dismissed by the girl, who must have been five years younger and half a foot shorter than her. Probably five dress sizes smaller, too, she thought peevishly. Sister Camila was positively impish. “I actually never knew she existed. Mr Reardon-St. Clair only told me about her yesterday. And then sent me to find her.”
Camila hummed. She swung open another large, heavy exterior door to reveal a huge courtyard. Jemima stared.
Women were fighting . Right there. In the courtyard. Hand to hand. With sticks. With swords. With chains. They moved in regimented fashion, dressed in weird, austere tactical gear which appeared to resemble optimised habits. A few were dressed differently — a Black woman with short, uncovered hair and a sleeveless shirt instructed one of the drills, rippling muscles of biceps and triceps and forearms standing out in a way Jemima realised she’d never seen on a woman, or at all outside of the gym she periodically braved for a few weeks after every New Years’. A man bearing the dog collar of a priest also watched on, shirt sleeves pushed up to reveal heavily tattooed, scarred arms.
“What the fuck… ?” Jemima spluttered.
Camila looked at her and smiled, slightly smugly. “This is what the Order of the Cruciform Sword was founded for, Ms. MacNeill. We fight evil. Remember the battle for Madrid, last year, against the false prophet Adriel? We were there, fighting for God and against his evil. Look back at some of the footage, you might even see Sister Beatrice there. She was the best we had.”
“Oh,” Jemima said faintly, and yes, she must definitely be in a dream. She didn’t remember taking any illicit substances last night, between getting to her shared house in Clapton, putting on her pyjamas, eating leftovers from the fridge, and falling asleep to reruns of 8 out of 10 Cats , but here she was. She pinched the flesh of her forearm, hoping to pull herself back to reality. It just hurt.
One of the groups fighting let out an excited shout, attracting her attention. One of the women launched herself up, wrapping legs around her opponent’s neck and bringing them both heavily to the ground in a complex, acrobatic, violent motion. It was like WWE. Or a Bond movie. Certainly not like a convent. She couldn’t picture Giles Reardon-St. Clair's child here, training, fighting — leaving.
“Why did Sister Beatrice leave?” Jemima asked, absently, watching the spar continue.
Camila was silent for a moment. “You should ask her that yourself.”
Jemima spun her head to look at her.
“I don’t know her address or anything. And I really don’t know if she’ll want to talk to you. You guys really did a number on her, you know that?” Camila gestured, and Jemima followed her out of the midday sun, back into the cool stone corridors. “But I can’t make the decision for her. So I’ll tell you where she is. She’s in Split, in Croatia.”
“Why is she in Croatia?”
Camila shrugged. With her quick steps and Jemima’s longer stride, it didn’t take long for them to reach the front gates again. “I think she just wanted to get out of here, to be honest. Spain and Italy lost their charm a bit after everything that happened.”
The gate swung open, another novitiate managing a literal portcullis control with practised ease, like it was the Reardon-St. Clairs’ intercom, or a hotel aircon remote. Camila offered her hand to shake, and in the absence of anything directing her to the contrary, Jemima took it. She looked at the nun’s smiling face, at the harnesses and armour across her chest, at the handgun holster at her waist, previously covered by her voluminous sleeve, and felt faint.
She really, really wasn’t getting paid enough.
“Go to Split if you’d like to find Beatrice, Ms. MacNeill,” Camila said lightly. The gate began to close between them. Behind them, she heard a car door open, Shania Twain spilling out incongruously from its stereo to butt against the stone walls.
“And, if it helps,” Camila said, almost entirely swallowed up into the walls of the convent, “she probably won’t be alone. She’ll be with a girl called Ava. Ava Silva.”