Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

  But the old nun now glares at both of them, her undisguised disapproval making it clear that a convent beset by such troubles is a convent in need of more than the help of a rebellious novice. Oh, Serafina thinks triumphantly, but you have no idea how much trouble is still to come!

  After a while Letizia braves the silence to ask if she may be allowed to leave. “Suora Federica has no one else to help her now. She will skin me alive if she is left alone much longer.”

  “I would very much hope that she does not resort to such an undue punishment.” Now that the moment of crisis has passed, the abbess is almost gracious again. “You may go. Tell me, how is the chief conversa?”

  The girl shakes her head. “Very poorly. Suora Zuana had said she would come to her later.”

  “Ah, we are beleaguered on all sides.” The novice mistress’s cry has a note of anguish in it.

  Letizia ducks out of the room as Suora Umiliana falls to her knees by the bed. “Oh, Lord Jesus, help us in our hour of darkness and bring respite to this good sister who works in Your name.”

  She bends her head, deep in prayer, as if pointing out that amid all the drama this is the work that should really be done. Serafina hesitates for a second, then sinks to the floor next to her, eyes closed, praying silently but so hard she fears the words might be spraying out of her: Please God, please God, help me, too…

  There is silence for a while. It is unclear whether or not the abbess herself is praying, but when her voice comes it is remarkably matter-of-fact. “I think that will do now. Serafina, you may go to your cell.”

  The girl rises, eyes down, meek-voiced. “Mother Abbess, do I have permission to speak?”

  “Very well.”

  “I want to offer my help to the dispensary. To nurse the sick.”

  She feels the novice mistress’s cluck of impatience behind her. It is not easy, having to charm two such different mistresses, though charm them she must. If she has learned one thing over these last months it is that her own sister’s simpering brought her more joy in life than all the natural defiance she herself displayed.

  “I could help. Suora Zuana taught me how to treat fever… I mean, I know I am unworthy …that I have behaved with gross selfishness”—here she glances at the novice mistress—“for which I am deeply sorry. I …I have even feared that Santa Caterina may be being punished in some way for my bad behavior, and I—”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, girl.” Madonna Chiara cuts across her sharply, but not before Serafina has registered how her comment has affected Umiliana. “Half the city is infected and Our Lord has better things to do than take notice of a puffed-up novice. If there are amends to be made, you can make them in the choir.”

  Serafina looks so genuinely anguished now that even the abbess is slightly taken aback.

  “Madonna Abbess.” She hears Umiliana’s voice over her head, quiet but firm. “Might we have a word?”

  There is a small pause. Serafina keeps her eyes to the floor. She must not be seen to be part of this, and when the abbess orders her to leave the room she is up and out within seconds.

  She stays close enough behind the door to hear the murmur of voices, though not to make out the words. She wonders what Zuana would have to say if she could join them now. Would she have been able to fool her, too? She hears the footsteps and backs away from the door as it is opened by the novice mistress. But it is impossible to tell anything from her face.

  Back in the room she stands before the abbess, eyes to the ground.

  “You are to go to your cell directly and spend the rest of the hour in private prayer.”

  “Yes, Mother Abbess,” she says, with perfect meekness.

  “If the convent has need of you we will call you later.”

  “Thank you.”

  And thank you, Suora Umiliana, she says silently. She could not have planned it better herself: this way, before she is given the chance to slip her hands under a certain mattress, she has time to retrieve something from beneath her own.

  “Suora Umiliana,” she says quietly, “might I come to you for further instruction sometime today? I feel myself in the greatest need.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  AND SO IT happens that in preparation for caring for others, Serafina finds herself first addressing the sufferings of Christ Himself.

  The old nun and the young novice meet together that afternoon in the chapel, with the great crucifix in their sight. Outside, the weather is almost clement for the time of year but the chapel remains as cold and damp as the grave. Umiliana, in contrast, heats the air with words, never letting her eyes move from the girl’s face while she describes passionately the ways in which beside the pain of Jesus Christ all the pain of the world is as nothing, how every drop of blood He shed was like a flood washing over the surface of the earth, taking man’s wickedness with it, so that through His sacrifice we are given the chance to live again, whatever our sins.

  Then, to reinforce the message, she gives the novice a passage to read out loud from the teachings of Santa Caterina of Siena. It is a clever choice, for in her way Caterina was a great rebel herself, pursuing her ardent love for Christ against the more conventional marriage planned for her by her parents. Hers was a disobedience, however, that was exquisitely rewarded, as the passage shows, describing how after years of self-mortification and prayer the Lord saw fit to come to her and offer her His wounds to kiss, opening His side for her so that His blood flowed like milk, and as her lips tasted it she was filled to the brim with love, as if the spear had gone into her very own flesh.

  Serafina has a good voice and the novice mistress listens attentively, joy like a soft sweat on her skin, almost as if the miracle is happening to her then and there. The saint’s words are so powerful, so visceral, that even the girl herself is affected—so for that moment she stops thinking of the pad of ointment concealed under her shift, or the white pebbles strewn in the grass to mark her way to the spot by the wall where, having taken the imprint of the chief conversa’s keys, she will throw the package over for him to catch.

  Later, when the convent is on its way to supper and she is called instead by the abbess and given dispensation to miss the meal in order to assess the condition of the chief conversa, she is surprised by how calm she feels at the prospect. She remains unperturbed when she walks into the tiny dank cell, buried away in the corner of the second cloister and reeking of sweat and old menstrual blood, to be presented with the sight of the woman who lies there, arms as thick as ox legs and her face puffed up with fever. No doubt it helps that the patient is barely conscious, for it means that as Serafina leans down to listen to her breathing it is easy to slide her hand under the pallet far enough to locate a thick metal stem, then a wedge of key teeth. She still has to be careful, though, since the conversa Letizia stands directly behind her, assigned as an assistant but no doubt also a spy to report back anything that is worthy of reporting.

  She removes her hand and goes to work on the woman’s wrist, searching for a pulse amid the fat flesh. She has no idea how ill she is but she smells as though she is dying and there are specks of froth around the edges of her mouth.

  “She is in need of eau-de-vie and basil.” She turns to Letizia. “There is a bottle on the workbench. Suora Zuana left it there just before she became ill. Can you bring it to me?”

  At first Letizia is having none of it. While she may be a good nurse, she knows when she has been given power of her own. “I have to stay with you at all times. That’s what the abbess said. Anyway, I don’t know which bottle you mean.”

  “You will smell it clearly enough. Look at her. See how sick she is? If we are to help her I need that bottle. Get it. Now.” And she takes her tone from the one Zuana used when they were in the cell with the mad Magdalena. “Unless you want it known that you were the one who allowed her to die.”

  The girl hesitates, then turns and goes.

  It is done fast enough in her absence. The keys are big and heavy, and ther
e is a moment when she fears that the waxy block will not be long enough to take the imprint of both of them. She is possessed by a sudden urge to slip them under her robe and walk out with them. It is the end of the working day; surely no one will need them until tomorrow morning at the earliest. But if she takes them now she must use them tonight. And that is not the plan, and there is no way she could tell him; even if she could, he could not get it organized in time. No. If it were tonight she would have to do it alone, and when she tries to imagine herself moving through both sets of doors and standing alone out on the dock, an ink-black expanse of water in front of her, she knows she couldn’t do it. There are limits even to her courage.

  She uses the ball of her palm to push the keys evenly into the pad of wax. They sink satisfyingly deep, which means it is not easy to extract them without muddying the imprint. She cannot rush it but she also cannot waste time. As it is, she barely has time to push the keys back then wrap the pad in the strips of silk petticoat and slip it under her robe before she hears Letizia’s footsteps behind her.

  Together they lift the woman’s head off the pallet and administer the dose. Afterward she still seems more dead than alive. At least there has been no need for Serafina to use the poppy syrup.

  “There is nothing more we can do for her now but let her sleep.”

  She stands up and as she does so feels the package slip from under her breast and has to bring her hand up to hold it through the cloth to stop it falling. She worries that Letizia may have spotted the movement but the girl is on her knees by the pallet still, busy with the patient, smoothing the grubby sheet and tucking its edges, pushing her hands so far under the mattress that surely her fingers will have found the cold metal of the keys by now; almost as if it is part of her job to make sure they are still there. She glances up at Serafina and for a second their eyes meet. Oh, yes, this place is full of cunning. How right she was to resist the temptation.

  Nevertheless, she is sure Letizia must have seen something, for as they walk across the scrubby courtyard back to the main cloister she keeps staring at her, small keen glances. “What is it? I told you, don’t look at me like that.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “If it is nothing, why do you keep looking?”

  The girl shrugs, then looks shyly back to her. “I just wonder what she sees in you, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean? Who?”

  She purses her lips as if she knows she should not talk, but the opportunity for gossip, or maybe the taste of revenge, is too much for her. “Suora Magdalena. The way she keeps asking after you.”

  “What?”

  “She thinks I am you. Every time I bring her food or go in to empty the bucket, it’s the same: Serafina. Serafina, is that you? Are you come again? I knew you would.” And she makes her voice go high and wobbly as she says it.

  “She says my name?” And Serafina feels a hollowness open up inside her again, as if someone is scraping at the bottom of her gut with a knife.

  “Oh, yes, though I don’t know how she knows it, for as Jesus Himself is my judge, I never told it to her.”

  “What else does she say?”

  The girl shrugs again but there is no time for further revelation as they are already in the main cloister, busy now with its traffic of silent sisters on their way from the refectory back to their own cells for prayer or recreation. Letizia bows her head and disappears back to where she came from, leaving Serafina struggling to make sense of her words. She sees again those rheumy, unblinking eyes and the wild, frozen smile. Had Christ offered Suora Magdalena His wounds to kiss, too? Tasting the blood, sucking up strength from His overflowing love? No wonder her grasp had been so strong. Ugh! No, no, she will not think of this now. The old woman has nothing to do with her. Soon she will be out of this place, leaving all its holy madness behind. All she has to do is play the humble novice for a while longer.

  She slides into the throng, passing one silent figure and then another. When the fog mingles with the twilight as it does today, it is almost like a gathering of phantoms, the hushing of skirts and the padding of feet offering up its own kind of spectral conversation. She lifts her head in time to catch Suora Apollonia’s ghost-white face moving past her in the thick air. Their eyes meet and she drops her gaze, as is the rule, but Apollonia keeps on looking, as if she is seeing something of interest there. During recreation this most worldly of choir nuns sometimes holds court in her cell, gathering together the more fashion-conscious sisters to play music and tell stories over glasses of wine and kitchen tidbits. Novices are not allowed, but it won’t be long before some of them are sisters in their own right and she is always on the lookout for the next generation of rebels.

  Serafina passes the entrance to the infirmary. She has not seen Suora Zuana since the morning, after chapel. The wax seal needs a safe home, but if she is quick she might check on her now. And also perhaps manage to replace the syrup on the shelf. Once in her cell she will not be allowed out again except for Compline.

  Inside, she is amazed to find the dispensary sister not only conscious but propped up in the bed, her head resting heavily back against the wall. She finds herself smiling, even laughing a little, as she hurries toward her.

  “You are awake?”

  Zuana stares at her as if trying to orientate herself. “Serafina? I …what are you doing here?”

  “I have dispensation from the abbess. I …we were fearful for you.”

  “What happened? Did I faint?”

  “I think so.”

  Her skin is almost gray, though her lips are a rich scarlet. Not the mark of God’s love but of her own experiments, Serafina thinks, as she pulls the cover over her.

  The move upright seems to have exhausted her. “It was the cochinilla,” she says wearily.

  “Yes. You threw it up all over the floor. We thought you were bleeding to death. Everyone was very worried. You had the most terrible fever.”

  She shakes her head. “I …I remember drinking it, then feeling very ill.”

  Serafina hesitates, then reaches out her hand tentatively and places it on Zuana’s forehead, first with the back and then with her palm, as she has seen the older woman do with other patients.

  “Oh!” She takes her hand away, then puts it back again to confirm, as if she cannot quite believe it. “But you are cool! The fever has gone.”

  Zuana frowns up at her, touching her own forehead. She locates the pulse on her wrist, registering it for a few seconds. “So it would seem.”

  “But how? I mean—it couldn’t be the cochinilla. You vomited it up.”

  “You said there was some on the floor. Did it smell as if it had passed through my stomach?”

  “I …er, I don’t know. It smelled”—and she tries to remember—“musty? There was a little left in the bowl. That’s how I realized what it was.”

  “I didn’t drink it all. As I fell, the rest must have fallen with me. Did you give me anything else?”

  “No, no, just bathed your head with the mint and vinegar. I was scared to do more in case you vomited it up again.”

  “What time is it?”

  “The hour before Compline.”

  “What day?” she says impatiently.

  “Oh, still today.”

  “So—six hours. The remedy takes six hours. I have to write it down.” And she makes a move to get up.

  “No. I mean, you’re not well yet.”

  But she is still moving. “I am well enough.”

  “Wait. I’ll get the book for you.” She gets up. Then hesitates. “Am I allowed to go into the dispensary alone?”

  Zuana puts her head back against the wall and smiles weakly. “It seems you have been there anyway.”

  “Oh, only with the ab—” She breaks off. No, that is not true. She was there before the abbess. But she does not want to draw attention to it now.

  Inside the dispensary she spots the stain on the floor and feels—what? — almost joyful? Yes, joyful. Suo
ra Zuana is better. She will not die. Had she really been so worried for her? It seems that in some part of her she must have been.

  But there is no time for that now. She takes the bottle of syrup out of her robe, quickly transfers some of it to the waiting empty vial, then slips the original back onto the shelf. The row of bottles nestle up to one another again. It has been missing for barely twenty-four hours. She can only hope it was really not noticed. Now she still has to get back to the cell with the wax imprint, for the bell is ringing for private prayer, and the cloisters will be deserted soon enough.

  “How is the convent?” Zuana says, as soon as she returns with the book. “What of the chief conversa?”

  “Her fever is high. I gave her a dose of basil and eau-de-vie a while ago.”

  “You?”

  “I told you. They gave me dispensation to help. The novice mistress said it would be good for me.”

  Zuana stares at her. “Well. We will make a dispensary mistress of you yet.”

  But Serafina’s duplicity is now so far advanced that the compliment makes her uncomfortable rather than pleased.

  “Santa Caterina doesn’t need another healer,” she says quietly. “It already has you.” The feeling is made worse by the awareness that the block of ointment wax under her robe is growing ever warmer from her skin, and she cannot afford for the imprint to be less than perfect.

  Zuana starts to pull herself out of the bed again. “Give me the book. I will write the notes while you prepare another draft.”

  “I …I must go. The bell is ringing.”

  “It will only take a few minutes, and I will make sure the abbess knows why you are late. Come. Help me get out of here before Clementia realizes she has a new companion.”

  LATER, WHEN SUORA Zuana arrives for Compline, weak but nevertheless on her feet, the rest of the convent is amazed, for everyone knows by now that she was found half dead from bleeding on the dispensary floor. If speech were allowed they might congratulate her, even marvel a little at how, despite her pale face, there is such a ruddiness of health to her lips. As it is, Federica is the only one who regards her at all suspiciously—but then she is impatient to start her marzipan fruits and is alert to the color of strawberries wherever she sees it.