Danka's hosts gave her the chance to sleep and did not force her to go back out in the snowstorm. She slept alone in a bed with heavy curtains surrounding it and didn't wake up until it was already light outside. The room was bitterly cold, so she was torn between wanting to stay under the blankets and being forced to get up and use the chamber pot, thus alerting the others she was awake. She was able to resist her bladder for a few minutes, giving herself time to think about her situation and how best to deal with it. She began to wonder if Ernockt really was the one who wanted her to go to Rika Chorna. Was it possible he sent her because he was acting under orders from the Prophets in the Great Temple? As for his group of conspirators, she didn't know anything apart from what he had told her. They could be very powerful or not powerful at all. For the moment it would be better to assume the former and that she had no hope of leaving Rika Chorna without their permission.
As soon as Danka finished a late breakfast, Zánktia took her to the main church to show her around and introduce her as a new nun to the Clergy. She had to endure constant whispered reminders of how she should behave as a nun and the complicated prayer protocol she needed to use inside a True Believers' place of worship. She would have to spend the rest of the month learning hymns and Latin phrases, when to cross herself (which seemed to be continuously), and the rituals surrounding faction's weird obsession with the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. The True Believers seemed to really be worked up about that execution.
The True Believers in the Vice-Duchy were even more removed from Danubian traditions than their counterparts in the western valley. One example was the difference between the universal acceptance of collars for Public Penance by both the Old Believers and the True Believers in the west, and the rejection of collared penance in the east. Another example was celibacy. In the western valley the True Believers "encouraged" their clergy members to be celibate, but the rule could not really be enforced. In the east, the priests had to be celibate. Another example was the priests' focus on the deities themselves. In the west doctrine focused on the Lord-Creator and his enemy Beelzebub the Destroyer. In the east there was much more emphasis on praying to the Virgin Mother and the executed son.
Celibate nuns did not exist at all in the west. In the east there was the convent in Novo Sókukt Tók and multiple schools located in various cities. During her stay in Novo Sókukt Tók, Danka had learned that for any girl whose parents were not willing to pay for a private tutor, the only way to become literate was to seek education through the True Believers. The True Believer nuns ran several schools for girls in the Vice-Duchy, but they "strongly encouraged" any girl entering their schools to become a nun. That "encouragement" became a formal requirement if the girl wanted to learn anything more apart from basic literacy. In the western valley, most guilds included teaching their members' daughters how to read and write as part of their services. The Old Believers ran schools for non-guild children and taught boys and girls alike, although the classes were separated by sex. So, in the western valley most women had some knowledge of reading and writing, while in the Vice-Duchy most women were completely illiterate.
Having to learn the protocol for a nun made Danka think about her upbringing in Rika Héckt-nemát. The parish in her hometown was controlled by the True Believers, or at least it was in 1750, the year she left. Thus, she already was vaguely familiar the main points of the True Believers' doctrine. Her family didn't pay much attention to the Lord-Creator or the executed son, but they frequently prayed to the Virgin Mother for favors such as making their chickens lay eggs or making their vegetable garden grow. The town's finer residents dismissed the Síluckts and their neighbors as worthless illiterates, so they didn't bother taking the time to make the laborers understand the more complicated doctrine coming out of the Christian Bible.
As Danka looked at all the Virgin Mother statues displayed around the church in Rika Chorna, her thoughts drifted to Lilith. In her mind the two deities, the Virgin Mother and Lilith, were both foreign goddesses. The goddess who actually had character and did things and fought back when the Lord-Creator mistreated her was a subject of her admiration. The goddess who did nothing apart from having a kid, without even bothering to have sex like a normal human being, was a subject of her derision. As for the Son of Man and execution that was the focus of the entire True Believers' religion, Danka thought: so what? People are executed all the time. Why was being crucified in Jerusalem any worse than hanging on an impalement hook in the Kingdom of the Moon? Why was one man's execution more important than another's? Of course, she knew the answers to most of those questions, having read the Christian Bible. But those answers made no sense to someone who was not, and never would be, a Christian. She considered herself a Follower of the Ancients, and if she was the last Follower in the entire Realm of the Living, then so be it. Zánktia told her they understood her distaste for the True Believer's doctrines and practices. Her hosts reminded her that their mission was to undermine the True Believers by collecting information and providing it to the Grand Duke and the Prophets in Danúbikt Móskt.
Danka responded that she'd do whatever she could to undermine the True Believers, because her hatred of their doctrine and beliefs was visceral.
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Danka moved out of the safe-house at the beginning of December. Her handlers felt she was ready to begin the next phase of training for her clandestine life by living among the city's real nuns. Zánktia took her to a house adjacent to the church to live with 17 other women, all nuns who had gone through the True Believers' school system and ordained at the convent in Novo Sókukt Tók. Danka stood out among her companions because she was an outsider and much more attractive than any of the others. She was 23, but she looked considerably younger because she had been administering herself doses of Babáckt Yaga's mushroom tea over the past seven years. The others looked her over with suspicion and jealousy. On the first night at her new home, Danka had to endure a sermon by the leading nun talking about the danger of physical beauty and how it led to carnal sin.
The nuns in Rika Chorna divided themselves into two groups: scribes and instructors. The younger women spent their days transcribing endless hymn sheets and copying or preparing church correspondence such as letters and directives. The clergy from the main church kept meticulous records of all happenings, which the Bishop wanted transcribed in clear, attractive handwriting on fine parchment. Danka frequently transformed a hastily-written note into a finely-written letter with improved vocabulary, converting it into a document that could be sent off and make the author look good to his reader. Meanwhile, the older and more trusted members of the group spent their days in a less grueling manner, giving literacy classes to local girls in a house adjacent to the one where they lived.
Danka took notes on anything she felt was important and compiled them into a sheet of parchment written with the smallest handwriting possible to conserve space and paper. She kept the reports hidden in a special pocket inside the lining of her dress. She read and memorized as much as she could of her companions' writings, making notes and passing them to her contact. She spent her sparse spare time reading every book in the house, although unfortunately most of the material was about theology and True Believers' doctrine. She received plenty of insight about the workings of the diocese and its relationship with the Roman Church, but not much else. Every few days Zánktia passed by with a delivery of washed linens and Danka slipped her the notes she had collected over the past few days. Usually there was a small paper handed to her in return, containing comments on what information was useful and what information was not, along with requests for additional notes on specific topics or persons.
Danka's handlers seemed especially interested in learning about movements within the clergy, knowing who was traveling to different locations and why. During the winter there was not much movement, but Zánktia wanted Danka to practice providing information on any traveling to prepare her to make comprehensive reports when the True Believers moved about in the summer. Danka sighed. Next summer. She couldn't imagine spending an entire summer in her horrible outfit sitting at a desk in a room full of insufferable, hostile, ugly, companions. She'd have to figure out how to extricate herself.
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Danka spent four months transcribing documents. Throughout the entire winter she never left the residence, except to go to the church for daily prayers and hymn practice. Danka's fellow scribes did not talk much to each other and talked even less to her. They sang and prayed as a group, but spent their meals and their duties in silence. She slept in a room with five other women, but never conversed with them.
The room was cold and usually Danka was so tired that she fell asleep immediately. However, about once a week she had insomnia and would spend hours lying awake, thinking about Ilmátarkt. She didn't have much time to think about him or truly grieve over his death during the past year, but lying alone in that cold bed, tormented by loneliness and sexual frustration, she realized how much she missed her late husband. She could have enjoyed a happy life with him, had the Destroyer not taken him away. He satisfied her sexually, treated her with respect, and challenged her intellect. Also, in his own manner, detached and intellectual as it was, he did love her. She could not share the pain of being a widow with anyone, so she had to grieve for him in silence, by staring into the darkness and allowing tears to run down her cheeks.
