Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

  “Oh, yes. We heard nothing but compliments in the parlatorio for months afterward.” Suora Apollonia, uncrushed by her earlier defeat, is back in force.

  “We shall do what we can,” the abbess says mildly. “Suora Zuana is already at work on the bishop’s next order. I am sure His Holiness will be bountiful again in his thanks. How are you doing with the remedies?”

  “They should be ready within the next week.” Zuana pauses. “I am much helped in this by our new novice, who shows aptitude and dedication in her work.”

  Some sixty or so pairs of eyes swivel to the novice benches, where Serafina sits. As they do so, Zuana catches a flash of anger in the novice mistress’s face.

  “Well, that is good to know. It seems Our Lord moves in wonderful ways to bring His beloved young lambs into the fold.” The abbess’s voice drips like thick cream. “We can only hope her ailing voice might recover in time to join us for the Carnival concert. It would be a great shame for a young woman to be isolated and constrained in her cell while the rest of the convent is so joyfully employed. Wouldn’t you agree, my child?”

  And Serafina, taken aback by the sudden attention, drops her head hurriedly to hide the rising color in her cheeks.

  “IT IS A risky business, giving a novice cause for pride while she is yet to master humility.”

  “I simply told the truth. She is clever and a fast learner.”

  The chapter room has emptied, but Zuana has been motioned to stay behind.

  “Yes, well, the rebellious ones often are. Nevertheless, it would be better for the convent if all this ‘aptitude and dedication’ could be redirected toward her throat. The two of you talk together, I assume.”

  “When we need to, yes.”

  “Only when you need to?”

  Zuana notices the lion’s heads on the arms of the great walnut chair, the way the manes have been worn smooth under the movement of centuries of restless fingers. It is no small thing, guiding the fortunes of so many souls. “If she is to be of help to me—to the convent—there are things she must know, questions she must ask and I must answer.”

  “And?”

  She pauses. “Her voice is clear enough when she talks.”

  The abbess nods. “It is interesting. Even Suora Umiliana has time for her. More than one might have expected. Perhaps it is the challenge. She says there is spirit but that her soul is closed as tight as a fist.”

  “If anyone can prize it open, it will be our good novice mistress.”

  “True enough,” she says dryly.

  At another time it is something they might talk about— Umiliana’s disapproval and its possible influence on some of the choir nuns—but it is clear the abbess has other things on her mind.

  “I have sent a letter to her father, informing him of her distress and asking if there is anything we should know about her that might help us with her reticence. But the family is away and not due back for some weeks. It seems there is the rumor of a marriage—the younger daughter and a noble from Florence.” She sighs, as if this was not what she wanted to hear. “Tell me, the first night when you tended to her, did you notice anything in her dowry chest?”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Lyrics, poems.”

  “I—er, there were a few sheets of paper inside her breviary.”

  “You read them?”

  “No.”

  “And you did not think to mention them?”

  Of course she has thought about it since. But had she reported them and they were confiscated as a result, Serafina would have known beyond doubt that it was she who had betrayed her and any chance they might have had to forge a relationship would have been destroyed. Was that why she had said nothing?

  “I …She came to us as a singer, and I thought they might be copies of songs. Madrigals, perhaps. Why? Has someone else found them?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Of course. She should have known it. Augustina may have blunt hands but her head is sharp enough to know where the real power lies. Zuana can see her bent inside the chest, rummaging for things it might be profitable to mention to others. As for the abbess? Well, unless she knows the things that are concealed, how can she decide whether or not they should be exposed? There are times when Zuana wonders if there are convents where godliness has expelled all trace of unwarranted commerce. If so, she really cannot imagine how they work.

  The abbess sits for a second, her fingers playing with the lion’s mane.

  “Possibly you are right. Certainly whoever wrote them had read his Petrarch extensively—indeed, one might say, swallowed it whole.” She pauses. “I daresay they would make fine song settings.”

  “What will you do with them?”

  “I have not decided. Confiscation at this stage would risk burning them deeper into her memory.” She sighs, as if this too were a decision not quite yet taken. “For now, they are back in her chest.”

  “And Suora Umiliana?”

  Another stroke of the fingers. “She is busy with her instruction. I am sure that once she hears the girl’s voice praising the Lord she will forget what else she was brought up singing.” She pauses. “Indeed, it would be better for us all if this novice found her voice soon. We will have half the court of Ferrara in chapel on the Feast of Saint Agnes. Perhaps some form of penance might have more impact.”

  “From what I know of her, I don’t think that will help.” Zuana’s own first taste of penance had been sour to the mouth as well as the soul: table scraps laced with wormwood followed by an hour spent prostrate by the refectory door with the sisters stepping over her as they came and went, a few of the sterner ones deliberately miscalculating their stride and crushing flesh along with cloth underfoot. Her tears had been as much to do with memories of her father’s balms as any new closeness to God. Ever since she took over the dispensary she has kept a pot of calendula ointment for those who might find themselves in need of it. “I will do what I can,” she says quietly. “I did not ask for this burden.”

  “No, no, indeed you did not. I imposed it upon you—for your own welfare as much as hers.” She pauses. “But then again, as burdens go, I do not think it is overpowering you. On the contrary, I would say that your spirit seems quite full with it.”

  Now as they meet each other’s eyes, the abbess smiles for the first time. “Well, we will not be downhearted.” She smooths her skirts. “At least we are not entertaining a gelding in the parlatorio. The bishop would have had need of more than your suppositories to cure the fit of colic that would have brought on. Though it is a shame in some ways.”

  “Is his voice so remarkable?”

  “It would seem so, yes. Apparently he holds the high notes so long he creates his own chorus of vibrating crystals from the chandeliers in the duke’s palace. Imagine that. Perhaps Our Lord will see fit to let a few of them enter paradise just so we can have the pleasure of making—” Her eyes dart off to the side. “Ah, Suora Felicità. I did not see you hovering there by the door.”

  “I am sorry Madonna Chiara.” The nun moves sheepishly from the doorway inside. “I did ask earlier if I might—”

  “Yes, yes, so you did. Though I thought we had agreed …well, never mind, you may come forward. The dispensary mistress and I have finished our business.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HE IS COME! He has found her! He was here last night, outside the walls, singing while she was asleep. Oh, it had to be him. He said he would come and he has. Two voices, one as deep as a chapel bell, that was what she said. If the other had been a perfect alto she would have known for sure, for there are few enough men who can span all twenty-two notes from the bass to the treble with such ease. How stupid she was to have fallen asleep. If only she could find out the words of the song he was singing, she would know immediately. But she dare not ask the old witch Felicità. Anything said to her would get back to the novice mistress within seconds.

  She is so excited she can scarcely keep her hands still as
she holds the candle. The flame flares and sputters. She forces herself to put it down on the table until she can recover herself a little.

  It had to be him. Except …except such things do happen at this time of year. That is what everyone said: that men—on their own or in groups—parade around the walls singing madrigals, love songs. She remembers the madness in the streets around their palazzo; sees herself and her sister (always less docile when she was out of her father’s gaze) leaning out from the upper loggia catching blown kisses and declarations of love until they are chased back to their beds by a tutting nurse, who has been enjoying it as much as they have. Carnival: the triumph of misrule and mischief.

  Recreation hour after supper was full of Carnival tales tonight, like the one told by Suora Apollonia—getting her own back on Umiliana, no doubt, for stopping the concert. How, many years ago, a group of nuns and novices had taken baskets of dried rose petals from the fumigant stores up into the bell tower and thrown them down on the crowds below, so that all the young men had started serenading them, singing love songs to Our Lord’s pure and spotless wives—except that some of them were still only betrothed. A few of the men had tried throwing up purses, and in one case even a rope to help them climb down. It had been such a scandal that from then on the tower had been locked permanently, with only the abbess and the watch sister holding the key.

  Oh, if she could only get hold of that key, the view from the tower would show her half the city. But there must be other ways. If she could work out the general direction of his voice— it must have been him—she could get to the inside of the wall there and throw a letter over. She could use the new, fatter stones. She could do that, tonight even. Yes, tonight. She would stay awake all night if necessary.

  She is far too agitated to sleep anyway. Oh, when Suora Felicità had said those words, a voice as deep as the chapel bell, it was as if a great fist had got into her chest and was squeezing her so hard she thought she would faint. Had anyone noticed? No, no, she didn’t think so. Everyone was twittering and muttering by then. A castrato singing in the convent. You would think it was the devil come to share their pallets. Really, they are like children with all their bickering and flapping. A great family of beaked sisters squabbling like a sack full of crows.

  Crows. Ah, no one had mentioned birdsong. Maybe it was not him. Because if it was, surely he would have brought the instrument with him. They had talked about it: how she would be sure it was him from the sound of birdsong soon after his voice. They had agreed, hadn’t they? Except she could no longer quite remember. Those last few encounters had been so blurred with tears. It had all happened so fast. So fast …

  The truth was that it had never been her intention to defy them all. When she was small she had been as eager as the next little girl that the angel Gabriel should be the first to pierce her heart. But instead it was Cupid who slid in through the window, and her father who opened it for him. By then he had already decided on the man she would marry—or, rather, the family name the man would bring with him. It had never occurred to him that a talented music teacher with no name might fly in and grab the prize first. It had been nobody’s fault. Or if blame must be apportioned, surely it should fall on the wonder of his God-given voice and the beauty of his settings of Petrarch’s sonnets, for the words of a great poet always water the seeds of love.

  By the time the sanctioned suitor himself came to visit, she was already so besotted that she could barely bring herself to talk to him, let alone offer him encouragement. He didn’t care. The hour in his company was chaperoned by her sister, who excelled in flirtatious coyness—so much so that after a sleepless night (or so he claimed) he returned to announce that he would prefer the younger daughter instead. Since it was his name that was doing the choosing (the dowry would follow either girl), her father had been sanguine. “Well, we had planned for the younger one to serve God, but if she is willing—”

  They only told her after her sister had agreed. By then she was so deep in love she thought for a moment it might even be good news. She and Jacopo—for this no-name singer did have a name, and a beautiful one at that—would take the smaller dowry and be glad of it. It cost so little to live on song.

  Her father’s fury had torn the tapestries off the wall. Given the choice of an impoverished singing teacher or Christ, there was only one possible bridegroom. When she refused, he had locked her in her room and refused to let her out until she gave in. Between her stupidity and her disobedience was the fear that she was already compromised. When he found the teacher at the door whispering to her, he had thrown him out of the house and beaten her almost senseless, while her mother stood by howling. Within ten days she had been on her way to Ferrara, having bribed a servant to take the name of the convent to Jacopo so that he could follow her.

  And he had. He had come for her. He was out there now, waiting.

  But …but …a worm of doubt remains. What if, after all, it isn’t him? Oh, what if she is buried alive here for the rest of her life, listening for every bird that sings at night while another bit of her withers up inside and dies?

  She glances nervously around the cell. The nun who was here before her had died of something exploding in her head. Part of her brains had spewed out of her mouth. That’s what one of the other novices had told her. Sometimes she thinks she can smell what happened here coming off the walls. She will go mad if she does not get out. It would be a great shame for someone to be so isolated and constrained in her cell while the rest of the convent is so joyfully employed. As the abbess had said it, you could almost feel how much she relished the idea.

  They had all been staring at her by then. She had been as amazed as anyone by Suora Zuana’s compliment. What words had she used? Aptitude? Determination? No, dedication. That was it. But she didn’t really think those things about her. How could she? In which case, she had said it to be kind. Yet kindness might skewer her worse than malice, since now they will be watching her even more closely. The abbess, the novice mistress, all of them …

  Her mind is racing so fast she feels almost sick. She has to quiet this mad skittering inside her so she can think straight. She takes her hands and clasps them together hard, getting down on her knees and bending over, all the force of her thought and feeling going into the words.

  Dear God, please hear me. Please let it be him. Please make him sing again and let me find a way to contact him.

  Only now it feels like another kind of madness: to be in this place and praying to God for help. If the Lord cared for her at all why had He let them put her here in the first place? She had done nothing. Well, almost nothing. A few furtive kisses here and there, the moistness of hands moving over skin and the touch of swelling tongues. They had sinned more inside the music; oh—their very souls had joined there. But no one could see that, except God Himself. Was it really so wrong to fall in love through voices? Was this His punishment? Could He really be so cruel?

  Talk to Him. He is waiting, always, for the sign. We are His children, and He is listening. Umiliana’s exhortation slides into her mind.

  “Forgive me.” She whispers the words. “Forgive me. And help me. Please.”

  She kneels in silence, waiting. The edges of the stone flags dig into her knees, and she feels an ache from all the cleaning and scrubbing burn through her body. Gradually the noise inside her head clears, replaced by the throbbing pain, and she becomes a little calmer, more concentrated. “Thank you,” she says, savoring the stab in her knees. “Thank you.”

  She gets up and goes to her chest. The excitement has been replaced by a sense of purpose. Under a cloth, next to the sheaf of papers, lie six stones, lifted from the edges of the herb garden the morning they had harvested the figwort. She picks up the largest and weighs it in her hand. It is smooth and full, as if something in the earth had been polishing it. Ha! She sounds like Suora Zuana. Rainbows in the sky, rivers of gold and silver in the earth, the cosmic spirit vivifying everything. Even stones have wonder for her.
What madness!

  Yet after they finished work today, when Zuana had brought out her lodestone and held it close to the metal spoon and they had watched the two almost leap together—well, that had been something she could understand, a force from within. Almost like the pull of music between her and Jacopo.

  She goes back to the chest, rummaging farther till she finds what she is looking for: two petticoats, both silk: one red, one white. She lays them on the floor side by side. In the night on some cobbled path, which color will stand out more, the white? She moves the candle over it, but it looks gray and ordinary, while the red shines like a puddle of bright blood. Was this the color they were all talking about, the dye that paints lips, breaks fevers, and addresses melancholy? Wasn’t that what it had said in the book written by the dispensary sister’s father? Melancholy. Even the word is sad, like a gray fog suffocating everything it touches. There have been times these last few weeks when she has almost felt it creeping across the stones of her cell, in wait for the moment when she no longer has the energy to fight. But he has come, and that is not how she feels tonight.

  My lady’s lips are red as rubies, and her hair is like a cloud of gold that is caught in the sun. But when she turns her back to me the day becomes night and frost is all around.

  She takes the red petticoat and, tearing the fabric apart with her teeth, starts ripping it into thick strips. When she has finished she takes out two of the poems, turns them over, and begins to write.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IF ZUANA HAS been expecting gratitude from Serafina, she is quickly disillusioned. In fact, for a while she finds herself working alone in the dispensary, for things do not go well for the girl. That same night after chapter, the watch sister, who has been secretly instructed to increase the number of her rounds in response to the arrival of early Carnival singers, finds the novice skulking in the second cloister trying to get back to her cell, her hands frozen and her sandals caked with mud from whatever part of the gardens she has been wandering in.