Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

  She looks around the room. There are five beds empty now. Perhaps those suffering from the infection would be better tended here, where she could watch them more continually. But what if they infected the others? Three of the four remaining old women will probably die of natural causes soon enough—they are asleep most of the time, anyway—and even Suora Clementia seems to be fading. With the arrival of the pestilence, Zuana has been forced to keep her restrained to prevent her from wandering the cloisters at all hours of the day and night, and the old nun has taken it hard. She spends most of the time now muttering into her bedclothes, but as Zuana passes she raises herself up, suddenly agitated, trying to get off the bed.

  “Oh, you are back. The angel of the gardens is waiting for you. She is with us again,” she says, waving her arms in the direction of the dispensary, straining against the straps around her chest.

  “Shhh. There is no need to shout. I can hear you well enough.”

  “No—but I think she is wounded. She came in so quietly. Her wings must be broken. You must let her fly again. We need her to keep us safe at night.” Since the restraints went on, her mind has been fracturing into even smaller pieces.

  “Don’t worry.” Zuana is by her now, gently pressing her down onto the bed. “There are angels enough already to guard over you.”

  “No, look. There! I told you she had come. See—see—the night angel is returned.”

  Zuana turns in time to see Serafina coming out from the dispensary door, her newly washed headscarf a white halo against her head. An angel with broken wings? Hardly. But a novice with broken rules, certainly.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh. I have been waiting for you. I looked everywhere but no one knew where you were.” She pauses. “I …I brought you back the book I borrowed. I wasn’t sure where to put it so I left it on the workbench.”

  “You should never have gone in there on your own. You are no longer working with me, and it is strictly against the rules.”

  “Oh—I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Suora Clementia said it would be in order.”

  And the girl smiles at the old woman, who waves back happily, madly. “The angel—I told you—the angel is returned to us.”

  “Be quiet, sister. You will upset the others,” Zuana says tersely. “And you”—she nods at Serafina—“I will speak to you inside.”

  With the door closed, Zuana casts a quick glance around the room. Everything seems in its place, apart from the book, which is on the worktop. Clementia’s celebration continues in muted tones through the wood behind them.

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, I swear. I thought she was sleeping so I came in quietly, but then she woke up.”

  “Why are you here, anyway? You should be in choir.”

  “Suora Benedicta let us go early. She is working with the lute players on some new arrangements. She is very excited about them.”

  So excited that she, too, thinks nothing of bending the rules. “In which case you should have gone back to your cell.”

  “I am sorry. Please—I meant no harm. I told you. I just brought back the book. I thought you might need it now.”

  Zuana stares at her. Ten weeks ago she did not even know of the existence of this young woman. She worked alone amid her plants and her remedies and kept her thoughts, such as they were, to herself. But now her whole life—even that of the convent, it seems—is full of her, as if the journey of this single novice is somehow a test in which they must all participate.

  “The dispensary is out of bounds to everyone but myself. What you have done is a reportable offense. You could find yourself with grave penance upon you again.”

  “Then you must report me for it,” she says quietly, the slightest of tremors in her voice. They stand for a few seconds in silence. “I know I did wrong but …I mean …I also came because I wanted to ask if I could help. So many people are ill now. I know there is just you and the conversa, and you cannot do it all alone. I could tend them with you. You have taught me something of fevers and vomiting.”

  Zuana sighs. “It is charitable of you to think such things—”

  “No, it isn’t charity. Well, I mean, I hope it is. But you helped me. Now I would like to help you.”

  If I felt better would this be easier? Zuana thinks. What am I do to with her? What is for the best?

  “I …I wondered if you had thought of using the cochinilla.”

  “What?”

  “The dye. We talked of it, remember? About its powers. Wasn’t that one of the things you said? That as well as turning the world red it could be used to break fevers.”

  “You have a remarkable memory, Serafina.”

  The girl bows her head. “The things you said interested me. Is it a good idea?”

  “No, it is …it is an untried remedy. But I thank you for the thought. You have the makings of a good dispensary assistant.”

  There is the beat of a pause before Serafina looks up and says, “I wondered if you might have asked for me again.”

  Only now is Zuana visibly taken aback by the pride implicit in the comment.

  “Enough! Your presence is required in chapel. That is the abbess’s decision. And you are her novice.”

  The girl drops her head again. “I am sorry. I just …well, I do not understand why but—but I miss it here.”

  “I am sure Suora Umiliana will be able to help you with that.” She takes a breath. “If you are lucky you will get back to your cell before the Sext bell.”

  The novice’s eyes slip upward. “Does that mean you won’t report me? I really didn’t mean any harm.”

  Zuana closes her eyes with impatience. She thinks back to the madrigals in the girl’s chest and her unbidden arrival in Suora Magdalena’s cell. There are those who would say that ignoring the transgression of others is a transgression in oneself. “Just go now. Go.”

  The girl does not need telling again. Zuana hears the door closing behind her.

  In heaven, they say, the body of a saved soul is so pure and with powers so alien to those on earth that not only can it travel faster than lightning across the sky, but its senses are so heightened, so crystal-clear, that it can hear the beat of a bird’s wing a hundred miles away and see through the densest of forms as if they were made of air itself. It is almost a shame, then, that Zuana is still mortal. For it means that she does not hear the noisy sigh of relief that Serafina blows from her lips as she closes the door behind her, or see that under her robe her right hand is clasped over a bottle of dark liquid.

  As she moves through the infirmary, Clementia calls out plaintively to this unlikely angel, who passes her by without even a sideways glance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AH! SHE CAN barely breathe with the thumping in her chest. Her chest and her head. She runs her fingers over the rim of the bottle under her robe to make sure the stopper is still in place. It would not do to be leaking poppy syrup in her wake.

  This is not how she had planned it. She had intended to decant some of the liquid into another vial so as not to leave a gap on the shelves but she could not find any empty ones. There had to be a store of them somewhere but for the life of her she could not remember Zuana ever using one, so frugal is she with all her supplies. As it was, when she heard the voices outside she had barely had enough time to rearrange the other bottles and slide it into her pocket before propelling herself out the door.

  She had not expected Zuana back before Sext. The spreading of the illness was disrupting the patterns of the convent, and when she had seen her go into the abbess’s chambers after breakfast she had known she would not find a better time. After Benedicta had dismissed them early (that much of the story was true—the choir mistress has indeed been overflowing with new notes, so many it was hard even for her to follow them), she had noticed that the shutters were still drawn on the outer chamber, which meant they were still in conference.

  How close. She swallows to get her saliva
back. She is out of the infirmary now, moving back into the cloister courtyard. She remains so agitated it is hard to know whether she is relieved or still scared. What might have happened, had she not heard Clementia warbling about her angels and Zuana’s voice answering, does not bear thinking about. She must be more careful. But then she had not foreseen the time it had taken to get past the crazy one, who had heard her even though she had moved on tiptoe.

  “Oh, it’s you. Where have you been? How is it out in the night? Is the holy army gathered yet?” Such a river of nonsense she spouted. “I cannot count them anymore, so you must do it for me.”

  As she spoke she had yanked against the restraints like some lunatic shackled to a prison wall. See? See what happens when they keep you against your will? Eventually the mind curdles, sprouting fancies like mold on old cheese. But they will not keep her. Not for a moment longer than she can help. Once she has the keys and they agree on a plan she will be away from here, however great a scandal she unleashes. And no one will stop her, not even Suora Zuana.

  That is the only worry now: how much she knows. The rest of them she can fool. Even Suora Umiliana seems to have stopped picking on her, so intent is she on the welfare of the rest of her flock now that the fever of illness as well as Carnival is in the air. But Zuana.

  What are you doing here?

  She sees again Zuana’s face confronting her. She had been so fierce. Had she somehow guessed that she had not come back only to deliver the book? What if she had known she was lying? What if she could smell the syrup leaking out of the bottle or detect its shape through the folds of her cloth?

  At least the threat of it had made her fight back.

  I came because I wanted to ask if I could help.

  Zuana had believed her then. Or, if she hadn’t, she had wanted to enough to let the suspicion go. And she’d been right. Though the answer had been born of cunning it was not without feeling. Serafina would have helped her if she could (her, not the others; she didn’t care a fig about them) because it was clear she was not well. She had wanted to offer to make her some dandelion tea, to sit down with her and watch the drink warm its way into her vital spirits while they talked of possible remedies for the contagion.

  Just go now. Go.

  It was as if Zuana had almost been frightened of her. She knew then that she had won. That Zuana would not report her. There would be no penance. Surely God is on her side after all. Somewhere He has understood how unfairly she has been treated and how she deserves to be free.

  She sings to herself quietly to calm the thumping in her chest. Her head is full of new music now: lines of prayer that swoop and soar like evening swifts, their phrases full and lovely as any madrigal. When she is alone she can still hear the other parts in her mind, rising, fading, joining, curling around her own. Never in her life has she been inside so many voices before, and it surprises her sometimes, how much it calms and yet excites at the same time. There are moments after Vespers when if she were not incarcerated she might feel almost satisfied; when she can almost imagine how it must be for Suora Benedicta, spending every moment of her life pulling melodies out of her head. Oh, to so live for music. She cannot wait to see his face when she sings for him again, for there are things she has learned here that not even he could teach her.

  Inside her cell, with the door closed, she takes out the bottle from her robe and turns over the mattress to locate the hiding place.

  Her cunning in such things amazes even herself. She has gone through it all a thousand times: how, when, where. If someone were to ask her now, she might almost say she was enjoying herself, for as a child she always liked best those bits of learning that could be applied rather than simply memorized. “You have the makings of a good dispensary assistant.” That is what Zuana said to her just now. Well, perhaps she does. But she is bound for greater things. What they are she cannot quite imagine, for some days there is barely time to think of that—of him—at all, she is so full of it: the planning, the preparations.

  At night, to blot out the voice of Magdalena, she tries to imagine herself out of here. She gets as far as a room (Ferrara beyond the convent walls is an unknown city to her), not as rich as her father’s house but comfortable enough, with a fire in the grate and musical instruments all around, and she and he are in each other’s arms, the music they have been making suddenly stopped by kisses. She tries to imagine his mouth, lips soft like the inside of a ripe plum, and to find it again she brings her own open lips to the back of her hand, feeling the wet heat of her own saliva, the probe of her tongue, the ridge of teeth pulling playfully at her own skin. It brings with it a pinching in her gut that leaves her slightly breathless. In her mind their embrace is so close that she cannot see his features and she has to step back to try to reacquaint herself with his face, only the image of him remains blurred so that she feels a twinge of disappointment, almost a sense of shame, which unnerves her a little.

  Never mind. Soon it will be different. Soon she will see his dear face again and remember why she loves him so.

  She has made her plan. The best time will be during Carnival. With so much distraction and the excitement of performance they will have too much on their hands to police the comings and goings of a single—and now radiantly obedient— novice. And with all the activity revolving around the cloisters and the parlatorio—she has thought this through, step by step—no one will even be thinking of the storehouse by the river, where, on the other side, a boat could surely loiter in the darkness without causing suspicion.

  But for him to come in or for her to go out, separately or together, they will have to get through two sets of doors: one from the river to the storeroom and another from the storeroom into the convent. And for that she needs copies of the keys. Here lies the next challenge. Apart from the master keys held by the abbess, there are two sets. The first, kept by the cellarer, is impossible; Suora Federica has a face to match the rock in her soul, and everyone knows she wears the keys next to her skin day and night. However, the gossip is that the chief conversa is less amenable to the imprint of sharp metal between her breasts and so sleeps with her duplicate set under her bolster. Although the story has it that, like all good dragons, she sleeps lightly to protect her treasure.

  In which case she would no doubt appreciate a good night’s rest—a touch of that same relief as is sometimes generously offered to those on their way to the gallows, though it would provoke dreams that would torment them further should they ever have the good fortune to wake up again. It is not easy even with the poppy syrup in her hands, for she has to find an innocent way to administer it. Candida has the wherewithal but she is too savvy for her own skin to take on something that would almost certainly end with her exposure. No, there has to be another way.

  She slips the vial through the tear into the mattress, next to where the wax block is already nestling amid the horsehair and straw.

  The bell for Sext sounds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  PERHAPS IF ZUANA had had more time. With time she might have thought further about the abbess’s story. With time she would have checked the supplies and samples in her room more rigorously. But a few minutes later the bell for Sext sounds, and between prayer and work and more prayer sometimes there is simply not enough time.

  Over the next twenty-four hours the malady spreads further, strengthening as it goes, and in one of the infected sisters the fever becomes dangerously high. With the convent concert and play only a few weeks away, there is a growing concern that Santa Caterina will be too ill to participate or—more important—to entertain and impress others.

  The next morning’s work hour finds Zuana in the dispensary sucking on a wad of ginger root to counteract the nausea that is rising in her stomach and ignoring the way her head is burning. She is ill, that is clear enough. But she is not yet incapacitated. Either the contagion will prove too strong for her or she will resist it. There is no point wasting time wondering which it will be. It is more important
to find a way to fight back.

  She has seen all the symptoms before in varying computations, the rhythm and severity transmuting over the years. One winter such an infection might come early, moving like a fast wind across a field, bending but not breaking any of the crop. Another year it might wait, feeding off the damp and fog until it is fat with fetid water, and affecting the oldest or those with moist humors worst, drowning more than a few in their own phlegm, only to be replaced the next year by one that favors heat rather than water, burning up rather than pulling down.

  Remember, it is always best to try to contain rather than rely on curing, since by the time you have found a treatment that works the malady has often done its worst. During his lifetime her father had kept notes through the most virulent outbreaks, comparing the ages and constitutions of the ones who died with those same attributes in the ones who survived.

  “That is all very well, but once started it is easier said than done,” Zuana murmurs, as she mixes up another batch of mint and rue vinegar water for the fever.

  He had found that those people who nursed others— mothers, doctors, priests—were often most affected, which was not so surprising, for as well as their proximity it could be that God chose to take to Him the kindest and therefore those He loved best. Except that He also took at least as many sinners as would-be saints. While some resisted with tonics, others remained healthy without, as if they held the cure already within themselves. Then there were the ones who were not helped at all, even when they took anything and everything available.