She left those words hanging in the air. Cody swallowed. “I . . . ain’t never done that . . . that I know about,” he said, weakly.

“Antonia in Naples?” Fox prompted. “Isabella and Elizabetta in Florence? Those three sisters in Vicenza? Flor—”

“Hey!” Cody interrupted. “I didn’ ask for none of that! An’ I never oncet wrote back to ’em, or invited ’em t’ the’ camp or—anythin’! Ast Kellermann! He’ll tell ya!”

Giselle looked askance at Fox. Fox chuckled. “Young ladies who came to every performance, sent presents and notes to the Captain, and threw flowers at him and his horse from the audience.”

“Ah.” Giselle glanced over at Rosamund, who shrugged. “If they have been without a victim for a very long time, I suspect any excuse would do,” she admitted. She offered her hand to Cody; Fox did the same on the other side. Both hauled him to his feet.

“But . . . all right, how in Hades did man-hatin’ ghosts end up in a convent?” Cody asked in bewilderment. “I thought nuns was supposed t’ be all holy an forgivin’!”

“It was a convent of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene,” Rosamund replied. “Let’s go to my vardo. You need food and something to drink, and I can explain better when I am sitting down.”

Once at the vardos, they all sat down next to the nearest firepit. The warmth of the coals was very welcome after nearly freezing in the graveyard. Rosamund supplied Cody with a splash of brandy in a small glass and some buttered bread, and Giselle brought him water in a pitcher. He drank about half of it, then poured the rest over his head.

“The Sisters of the Magdalene are rather less a convent of nuns and rather more a set of jailors,” Rosamund said dryly. “I am not one to disparage the clergy . . . but their order is a cruel one. Girls who have had children out of wedlock, or who have dared to love the ‘wrong’ young man, or sometimes even those who have done nothing at all but perform actions their parents deem ‘disobedient,’ are sent to them. They are not taken as novices, they are not permitted to become part of the sisterhood. Instead, they are held as prisoners, forced to labor from dawn to dusk, and presumably repent of their ways, for the rest of their lives, kept out of the sight of everyone but their captors.”

Fox uttered some words in Pawnee that did not bear translating. Cody stared at her.

“As you might assume, the lives of some of these young women are not very long,” Rosamund continued. “Their children, if they live, are sent away. If they do not, they are discarded like so much refuse. This is so that their mothers do not have the temptation of a grave to mourn over, as they are supposed to be fixing all of their attention on their own sins. And at any rate, according to the Magdalenes, an unbaptized child is one destined for hell, so why give it a grave?” She looked over in the direction of the ruins. “You most likely encountered some of the ones who did not survive the births of their children. And as you can imagine, they have a great deal to blame men for.”