Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

  In this respect, heaven and earth are excellently connected in Ferrara, since the sweeter the voices of its nuns, the closer to paradise a city begins to feel. And the closer to paradise, the greater the worldly gratitude its rich citizens send flowing back into the convents that house such angels. Even the least musical of novices learns this fast enough, just as it is common knowledge that some convents in Bologna or Siena or Venice attract so many high-ranking visitors that the best choir voices are excused from Matins in winter to save their throats from the chills of the night air. Of course, such overt favoritism can bring resentment, and in Santa Caterina the abbess is careful to keep the peace with a semblance of equality. Nevertheless, there are all manner of ways to show favor.

  The last note brings each voice together, rising, expanding, then falling through a graceful arc toward a silence that, when it finally comes, is as alive as the sound itself. “Huh.” Benedicta lets out a curious throaty sigh. “There is not enough clarity between the first and second parts on quia Gloria Domini super te orta es. And, Eugenia, the first two alleluias are too thin, next to Suora Margarita’s, and not sustained long enough.”

  The door of the room jumps open a little with the wind, then catches back on its hinges, giving away their presence. While the tiny figure of Benedicta does not seem to hear it, the nuns, who are used to moving from heaven to earth with almost preternatural speed, are instantly curious. Any newcomer is fodder for gossip, let alone one who comes with the vocal power to disturb a whole convent through a closed door.

  “Eugenia, can you mar—”

  Finally she registers their presence and turns.

  “Suora Benedicta.” Zuana bows her head. “I have brought the new novice to hear the choir at work.”

  “Ah!” The tiny woman’s face lights up. “Ah, yes, yes. The voice from Milan. Come, come, come. We have been waiting for you.”

  But the girl does not move.

  “Welcome. Oh, look at you. You are well grown. Your menses have come already, yes? Is your voice settled yet?” She pauses but does not seem to notice too much when she gets no answer. “You read music? Possibly you were not taught—but you are not to worry; it is not as difficult as they make out. Still, your voice will learn it quicker than your mind. I have scored your part in the Gradual for the upper register, but it can be adapted easily enough if you have more depth. It moves like this.”

  And she opens her mouth onto a tumble of hummed notes, bubbling up faster even than her speech and, to Zuana’s ears at least, impossible to follow. Serafina, though, is clearly listening, even if she never lifts her eyes from the ground.

  Benedicta stops. “Will that be too high for you?”

  In the silence that follows there is a snigger from somewhere within the choir, audible to everyone but Benedicta.

  “What? What is it? Are you not well?”

  “I do not sing anymore,” she says finally, her voice now more cracked and splintered than Zuana knows it to be.

  “But why?” She comes over to her, ignoring Zuana but grabbing hold of the young woman’s hands. “Oh, but you are so cold. You have been outside? No wonder your voice is gone. It is a chill. The wind often steals the best voices. Or a strain, perhaps, from your long journey here. You must take care of yourself and do exactly as Suora Zuana tells you. Though she herself has been given only a mediocre instrument, God has compensated her with a prodigious talent to help others.” And she beams benignly at Zuana.

  “Eugenia.” She turns back to the choir. “Come. Sing the part for our new novice, so she can have the notes in her head while her voice is healing.”

  In the front row, young Eugenia, who could barely keep her eyes open last night in chapel, is now as chirpy as a newly fledged bird. As she puffs up her feathers to sing, Zuana notices the hint of what is surely a wispy curl peeking out from under her headband, homage no doubt to the abbess’s change of style.

  “Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem …”

  The words turn to burnished silver in her mouth. She is young and one of the best voices in the choir, with a healthy appetite for the gossip and drama of convent life. Six months before, she had arrived in Zuana’s dispensary nursing a limp from an infected splinter embedded while walking on Christ’s crown of thorns to share His Passion. Only it had begun to hurt so much that now she wanted it taken out. A week later she was chasing squirrels through the orchard during free time, her high spirits more infectious and inspiring than her halfhearted attempts at mortification. Zuana has felt a certain fondness toward her ever since.

  “…alleluia.”

  Those who know might say she holds the last note a little too long, as befits a songbird marking her territory against possible newcomers. In church no doubt it would have a few young bloods constructing their own versions of heaven.

  All eyes are now on Serafina. She is standing taut, her face drawn and pale, her skin almost gray, her eyes focused somewhere out in front of her. Slowly she bends over, one arm clutched over her stomach.

  As her head comes up again, Zuana thinks for a moment she might even be laughing—something about the way she is catching her breath. In the choir someone giggles nervously. Too late, Zuana realizes what is happening.

  Serafina opens her mouth, and the retching sound that comes out is followed by an arching stream of bile.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “DRINK IT.”

  The girl shakes her head.

  “It is only water with an infusion of ginger.”

  “In which case, you drink it.”

  Zuana lifts the clay pot and takes a mouthful.

  “Ask any of the sisters; my poisons are faster-acting than my remedies. If I am still on my feet now, you can be sure it is benign.” She takes another gulp, then puts the pot down in front of the girl. “You can do as you wish, but if you want to stop the sickness I suggest you take it.”

  As she hopes, the edge of impatience in her voice sparks something in the novice’s eyes. She picks it up and drinks, small sips first, then deeper ones. They sit in silence while Zuana makes herself busy clearing away bottles and measuring bowls. When she turns back, the girl has more color in her cheeks.

  “Better?”

  “What was in it?”

  “I told you: ginger root. It is good for the stomach.”

  “I meant last night’s poison.”

  “Ah. Nightshade, wolfsbane, crushed poplar leaves, poppy syrup.”

  “And what part of that is making me sick now?”

  “The poppy, I suspect. It seems to linger in the body longer.”

  Serafina is sitting on the windowsill in the dispensary. Outside, in the distance, a simple plot of land marks the convent cemetery: a history of piety arranged in lines of small neat wooden crosses. Zuana chose to avoid it in her tour, and it is best if it remains unnoticed now.

  “Did you dream?”

  She nods slowly clearly unsure how much to tell. It is a reticence Zuana remembers well. In the early days, the horror of incarceration could make her suspicious of even the simplest intercessions and kindnesses.

  “Nightmares?”

  “I was drowning.” The girl’s voice is dark with the memory. “The water was stone, liquid stone. I kept trying to shout, but each time I opened my mouth more of it poured in.”

  How many stories like this one has Zuana heard? Her father used to keep records of them, for he was interested in how the ancients had studied dreams and what one could learn from them. Those induced by the poppy were often the wildest, as the drug seems to feed off the anxieties and fears of the person taking it.

  “The mixture can set off strange visions. But they will be gone soon enough.”

  “Unlike me?” the girl says tartly. She takes another sip. “I won’t stay here, you know. The words came from my mouth, not my heart.”

  She is fierce again, head down, determined.

  Zuana watches her quietly. Of course they will have discussed it, the two of them together in the abbess’s
chamber: how any novice forced into a convent against her will can after a year refuse to take her final vows and petition the bishop for her release. What else would they have talked about? Certainly the abbess would have seen it as her duty to emphasize the disgrace of such an action, to explain how, if the convent was unable to soothe the trouble at the source, there was scarcely a bishop in the church who would listen to such a protest, let alone a family that would be willing to take her back. So that in the end the only real choice open to a young woman was to yell herself into crazed silence or, with God’s grace, find the wit to turn rebellion into acceptance of what cannot be resisted. Just as so many others had done before her.

  “You think I’ll change my mind!”

  “I have no idea what you will do. Though since my stock of wolfsbane has been damaged by the frost, and it works as well with toothache as it does with tantrums, I hope you won’t spend too much time screaming in the night.”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t take your potions. I—ah!” She stops, bringing her hands up over her ears.

  “What is it? Are you sick again?”

  She shakes her head. “There is a throbbing behind my eyes.”

  “It’s the pressure of the headscarf. You can hear your own voice echoing between your ears? You will feel it more acutely when you start to sing. Who dressed you this morning?”

  “I …I don’t know. She had a fat nose and a wart on her chin.”

  Ah, malice rather than mischief. “Augustina. The butcher’s daughter. She grew up wringing the necks of chickens and likes to practice her skills elsewhere. You would do better to find someone else to tend your cell.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I am sure, as soon as your voice returns, the choir mistress will organize it for you.”

  She watches the scowl, then relents. It is too cruel to leave it like that.

  “I could loosen it for you now if you like.”

  The girl hesitates. Asking for help is not the same thing as giving in.

  “Yes.” There is a pause. “Please.”

  She sits statue-still as Zuana approaches and slips her hands around the back of Serafina’s head under the material to locate the pins. Close to, in the daylight, the girl’s skin is creamy now and moist with youth, the mouth full above a strong jaw, and the eyes so deep and dark—black rather than brown—that it is hard to tell the iris from the pupil. No melting Madonna beauty here but a presence nevertheless, strong, even striking.

  She reaffixes the stiff material more gently. “Don’t worry. You will get used to it fast enough. Soon it will feel more strange to be without it.”

  The girl blinks and a fat tear wells up and overflows, because of course that idea is even more unbearable. For a moment Zuana wants to tighten her arms around her and whisper into her ear all the ways in which resistance will tear her apart and how quickly wounds can heal when the right remedies and ointments are applied. The strength of her own feeling alarms her, and she moves her arms back to her sides. It has never been her role, the soothing of souls, and there is no reason to start now. Not least because some things one must learn for oneself.

  She moves back to the table and starts pulling out boards and graters. The bishop’s remedies will take more time than she has, even with the dispensation to miss orders, and one day is almost passed. When she turns, the girl is standing next to her.

  “This is where you work?”

  “Here and the distillery, yes.”

  “Who works with you?”

  “There is a conversa who helps with the patients. But in the dispensary I am alone.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “Since my voice is as cracked as my fingers, it is accepted that I am better employed on my own than in the choir or the embroidery room.”

  It’s true enough. Even when she arrived her hands had been more the laborer’s than the lady’s, and over the years they have grown worse, the skin eaten and stained by the processes of gardening and the chemicals of distillation. As for her singing— well, in the hierarchy of convent voices, everyone knows she is a minnow swimming next to fat carp. She smiles at the thought. It does not worry her. There are times when she thinks she might be offering up her own kind of music here, for surely each and every ingredient she collects has its own voice—soft, loud, dark, light—each distinct enough when alone yet capable of making all manner of different sounds and resonances when mixed together.

  At last count there were close to ninety glass bottles here, a veritable choir of cures! She has done penance for the pride of such a thought in the past, but the image stubbornly remains. Her father would have understood. He was forever in search of the music of nature, handed down through the spheres, though in church he too could barely hold a note.

  “There are so many of them!” The girl is standing staring at the shelves. “How long did it take you to collect them all?”

  “Perhaps it is better you don’t know,” Zuana says lightly. But she likes the fact that she is interested.

  “And is every one of these a different remedy?”

  “Some work alone, yes. They are known as simples. Others need to be mixed together to form compounds.”

  “So what is that?” She points up at a bottle with a small twisted root inside.

  “White hellebore.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It purges the system.”

  “Of what?”

  “Anything that is inside you. It causes powerful vomiting.”

  “Worse than mine?”

  “You can lose half your stomach with this if you’re not careful.”

  “Really! What, do you eat it?”

  “Not on its own. There is too much poison in it.”

  “So how does it work?”

  Curiosity. It is not the characteristic of a recalcitrant novice. But then the inside of an apothecary’s shop is not something that would excite every young girl’s imagination, except of course for the love potions—and Zuana has had no use for them in her study. “A way of making well people ill” was how her father saw them, though from things she heard people say about her mother he must have been ill thus once himself, however briefly.

  “You put a portion of the root inside an apple or a pear and bake it in hot ashes. When it is cooked you throw away the hellebore and eat the pulp of the fruit instead.”

  “How do you know how much to put in?”

  “It depends on how heavy or light the person is. And on the nature of what you are looking to expel.”

  “You mean you use a poison to cure a poison?”

  “In a way yes. There are a number of ingredients that change their effect depending on their mixing.”

  The girl points to another, farther along. “And this?”

  “Verbena leaves.”

  “What ills do they cure?”

  “When they are fresh, their sweat against the skin is good for headaches. When the root is cooked it dulls toothache.”

  “And when they are like this?”

  “Mixed in sweet wine with Saint Mary’s mint, they are good for monthly cramps.” Of which the convent has more than a few, for empty wombs gathered together seem to produce regulated and in many cases singular suffering.

  “Ha. I know someone who would have paid a fortune for this.” There is a touch of venom in her voice. “Do you have something to dissolve unwanted babies, too?”

  “Unwanted babies? In a nunnery?” Zuana laughs.

  Of course there are always stories. Nuns as the milking cows for the lust of the church. Luther’s poison has leaked everywhere, though a monk who married a nun would have had to construct gross heresy to save himself—and his apostate wife—from hell. However, even in Santa Caterina you hear things …such as the island convent in Venice that the confessor ran as a house of ill repute with himself as the only client. The whole of the city, it was said, had come out to watch him burn.

  “Why? Do you know someone who has need of that as well?”


  She scowls. Certainly she would not be the first daughter to find her future prospects altered by a sister’s strategic lust. But she is not about to tell Zuana her secrets. Not yet, anyway.

  “And the poppy that gave me foul dreams. Which one is that?”

  “It is there. On one of the shelves.”

  The girl follows her eye. “This one? Or this one?” She reaches a hand out.

  “No, no. And be careful with that.”

  “Why? Is it poison, too?”

  “No, it is blood.”

  “Blood? Whose?”

  “Sister Prudenza’s. She has begun to suffer from fits, and I am tending her.”

  “It doesn’t look like blood.”

  “That is because it is mixed with crow’s egg.”

  The girl looks at Zuana as if the devil had just slid from under her skirts; Zuana has to smile.

  “It is a known remedy. When taken internally in small doses regularly, it can help with fits, if the affliction is mild.”

  “And if it is serious?”

  “Then I wouldn’t be able to help her.” And she sees again a young novice, her body like a fish pulled out of water, rigid and thrashing on the cold cell floor.

  The girl puts the bottle back on the shelf as if the very handling of it might contaminate her. “Are there many you can’t help?”

  “That depends on what ails them.”

  Zuana knows what she is thinking, of course: that she is the one who will never be cured, for her ailment is too grave.