Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

  “Before we move on we should surely mark a further wonder, one that more than all the others shows the glory of God within our midst.” She pauses until she is sure she has everyone’s attention. “I speak of the arrival of Suora Magdalena in the novice’s cell and the part she played in this …miraculous, marvelous recovery. For those of us who saw it for ourselves, it was as if Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself was in that cell, helping to guide the young woman back to life.”

  The room is very still now.

  “If I may continue?” She looks to the abbess once more, who nods her head almost imperceptibly.

  Umiliana turns to Zuana. “Suora Zuana, you arrived there before any of us. Perhaps you might recount for us what took place.”

  Zuana, the center of attention for a second time, looks up into Suora Umiliana’s piercing gaze.

  “I …I am not sure I saw any more than you, dear sister. I had been in the dispensary making a potion, and when I returned, Suora Magdalena had left her own cell and was at the bedside of the novice, praying.”

  Though the words are entirely truthful, it is clear that they are not what Umiliana wants to hear.

  “And was there not something of …of wonder about her? Some vision of the Lord that touched both her and the sick girl?”

  Zuana picks her words with special care. “The novice was certainly much comforted by her presence. She opened her eyes for the first time since the remedy had sent her to sleep.”

  The novice mistress stares at her coldly. How quickly enemies are made, Zuana thinks.

  “Oh, but the girl was dying. It was a miracle!” Suora Felicità’s words burst out as if she can no longer keep them within, for fear of their exploding inside her.

  There is a tiny shimmering silence, as if the whole assembly is now holding its breath. This is indeed a chapter meeting worth waiting for.

  “Suora Felicità.” The abbess’s voice is gentle and measured by contrast. “Those are strong words to describe an event that, as far as I am aware, you did not yourself witness.”

  “I? Well, I …not exactly.”

  The abbess turns her attention to Zuana, her gaze cool, professional. “Suora Zuana, you treated the novice, and you were in the cell with her all night and before anyone else arrived. It is most important to know if you saw or noted anything—felt any sense of this …this vision that is being talked about.”

  “I …what I saw …” And she struggles toward the right words, ones that tell the truth in her heart as well as her head. “What I saw was Suora Magdalena praying over the young girl—praying most devoutly, and speaking of the Lord and how He was there with her.” She pauses. “I myself did not see anything, but I cannot help but think He was listening to her prayers.”

  “Indeed,” the abbess says gravely. “As He will have listened to all our devotion and intercession. Thank you.”

  Umiliana moves as if to speak, but the abbess has not finished yet.

  “And if I remember our conversation this morning correctly, Suora Umiliana—for this is an important matter—when you yourself came into the cell you did not experience any vision either.”

  Umiliana frowns. It is hard to know with whom she is most upset: the abbess, Zuana, or Suora Felicità. Or even perhaps herself.

  “I saw Serafina—who had been gravely ill only a few hours before—recovered. And I heard her say that she also had seen Him.”

  Again there is the slightest murmur in the room.

  “But you yourself did not?”

  The novice mistress hesitates …then shakes her head.

  “And the other sisters who were present in the room afterward—is there anyone who saw anything?”

  The novices glance nervously at one another. Among the choir nuns it is clear that Perseveranza would dearly love to be able to speak but knows she cannot lie. In the row in front of her, Zuana sees both twins shake their heads in unison. The silence grows.

  The abbess nods. “Thank you, all of you. And particularly you, Suora Umiliana. You do us a great service to bring up the matter of Suora Magdalena. I had intended to speak of it later, but perhaps this moment is opportune.

  “Suora Magdalena, as we know, is an old and chaste soul who would give her last breath for the welfare of a young sister. She has always been the most humble of nuns, with no wish to draw attention to herself. In fact, it has long been her fervent wish to be left alone and undisturbed, to serve God as He saw fit. As a few of the older sisters in the convent can testify—Suora Umiliana, you yourself are one of them—that wish was granted many years ago by both the abbess and the bishop of the time, and the convent has been bound by it ever since.”

  Zuana is busy with numbers now. The novice mistress is older by how many years than the abbess? Five, maybe ten; though caring as little as she does for her appearance it is hard to tell. Either way, in 1540 when all the fuss had happened she would have been a young choir nun. And it is always the young who are most affected.

  “However, as you point out, it seems that she has of her own accord broken that vow now, in the light of which, I think we must look to her welfare. She is exceedingly frail, certainly not well enough to be moving around the convent on her own without help. It seems to me that the best course of action is for us to transfer her to the infirmary, where Suora Zuana can give her the personal care she needs as she approaches the end of her life.”

  This change of mind is so perfect and expressed with such sincerity that Zuana is rendered speechless for a moment.

  Umiliana, however, has no such problem.

  “If she is now to leave her cell, if the convent decides that is best for her, then surely she could also be allowed to attend chapel and mass and take the host. I know there are sisters who would happily carry her there if she so desired.”

  There is an audible gasp. On the surface it is the drama of the sparring between abbess and novice mistress, but there is something else going on here: some of the older nuns, the more natural allies of Umiliana such as Agnesina and Concordia, will no doubt have memories of the services where Suora Magdalena’s appearances coincided with weeping stigmata. And, given the excitement in the convent, some of the younger ones will surely have heard rumors by now.

  “Suora Umiliana, you have spoken my own thoughts aloud. However, such is her fragility I do not think that will be possible,” the abbess says smoothly. “In fact, I have discussed the matter with Father Romero already. Indeed, he visited her this morning when he came to hear the confession of the novice.”

  Whether he did or did not visit Magdalena, there is no one in the room to contradict her, since they were all at work hour. Anyway, why should anyone doubt the word of their abbess? Although Zuana finds herself doing just that.

  “She was, alas, unconscious and so not able to take confession or receive the host. But he has promised to come again.”

  “Oh, is she dying? Are we to lose our holiest soul having only just found her again?”

  Suora Felicità’s voice is now tearful, so that a few of the young ones look positively alarmed. Umiliana glances at her sharply. It is one thing to pit your wits against a skilled opponent, another thing entirely to find yourself undermined by your own side.

  “We must all die in the end, Suora Felicità,” the abbess says gently, “and we must not be selfish. For Magdalena herself it will be the greatest celebration to be taken by God.”

  The words, so humble that in other circumstances they might have been spoken by the novice mistress herself, still the room. In her chair on the dais, the abbess sits upright and graceful.

  “Suora Zuana? As dispensary mistress you have seen our dear sister the most recently of all of us. Perhaps you might give us your thoughts on her strength or frailty?”

  She turns to Zuana and her eyes are shining. To look at her you would think she was positively enjoying herself. At recreation the more mischievous nuns sometimes speculate on what a perfect wife for a great noble she would have made, running his family and his pal
ace as efficiently as she runs the convent. They do her an injustice, Zuana thinks. It is not a mere palace she should run but a state. For surely in its way that is what she is doing here. Right down to a network of spies and agents to help keep her authority intact.

  “When I saw her this morning she was unconscious and most weak. She is also suffering from chronic bedsores. In my opinion it would be kinder if she was moved as little as possible.”

  A network in which Zuana appears now to have been granted a position of considerable authority.

  “And if it was so decided, would you take over her care in the infirmary? You have in the past expressed grave concern over her state, I know.”

  But how much does Zuana really want the role? It is not a question she can answer now. She bows her head.

  “If it is the will of the convent, I would be honored to do so.”

  The abbess smooths her skirts and turns to the audience.

  “So. Let us put it to the vote. The motion before the sisters of Santa Caterina today is whether to move our aged and beloved Suora Magdalena from her cell into the infirmary, where we may ease her passage into God’s hands.”

  The novices watch as the choir nuns come up one by one to the front and, with their backs to the rest of the room to ensure anonymity, pick out a small wooden ball from the bucket— white for yes, black for no—and drop it through a hole into the voting box.

  When everyone has voted, the box is emptied and the balls are counted by the sacristan and witnessed by the gate mistress; the motion is declared duly carried. It is noticeable, however, that among the winning white balls are a greater than usual number of black.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  SHE IS EMPTY. Quiet. Still. Maybe stiller than she has ever been in her life. It must be the aftermath of the poison. During her time in the dispensary, she had wondered about the drama of the hellebore: what it might feel like to have one’s insides ripped apart, scraped out nigh unto death. To be so purged, so emptied out. Almost as if one might be able to start again. Another Serafina. Newer, lighter, cleaner, with no hand gripping her heart and twisting her guts. No man to love and yearn for anymore. Because it seems, after all, that he never loved her.

  He does not care, you see.

  He does not care. Yet how could that be? What of all the poetry? The music? The harmony of voices, the starburst sweetness of mouth on mouth, skin on skin, the mingling of souls that made them for that instant pure, afraid of nothing? Ah, now—now it is too late, she knows that she did really love him; that, amid all the rebellion and hot blood, the very exhilaration of being alive, separately and together, Jacopo had been a man worth loving, himself generous, filled with song and no malice.

  Except, it seems, he wasn’t. Instead, he, like she, had been a master of deception. Yet how could that be?

  At any other time these thoughts would have been like hooks in her flesh, but there is nothing left to lacerate. She is so tired, too tired to think properly. Certainly this new cleansed Serafina cannot hold on to anything for very long. Her head feels as light and empty as her body. It is not so awful; more like dizziness, like holding a high note for longer even than your longest breath allows, hearing it vibrate, shimmering inside your head.

  Perhaps this sensation is the result of her confession? The scouring of her soul as well as her stomach. She has told the old priest everything. With the screams of the pierced and the sliced still inside her, how could she not? Everything—the bliss, the rage, the terror, the disobedience, even the self-destruction—such a fast-flowing river of sin. How much of it he heard she has no idea, for both their eyes were closed as she spoke. But at the end he had prayed for her, imposed a penance of confinement with bread-and-water fasting for two weeks, and given her absolution.

  Two weeks’ confinement and fasting. It is not such a torment. In fact she welcomes it. In the time since she opened her eyes on the cell full of nuns, she has relished the solitude. How can she bear to face people again? As for the fasting, well, her hunger is so familiar to her now that even when she does feel the need to eat, she feels a greater sense of triumph when she overcomes it. Her gut has been full of undigested rage and panic for so long that to be without anything inside her seems a marvel in itself.

  Whether it comes from the quiet or the exhaustion, she prays more: simple prayers held inside simple phrases. I am sorry. Help me. Forgive me. Childish, almost. Each time she sleeps she wakes to the sight of the crucifix on the wall, but often when she looks at it she sees instead the figure of the man in the marshland, walking toward her with the sun as a radiating halo behind him. The moment when he first came she had thought it might have been Jacopo, because his hair also fell curling around his shoulders and he, too, walked with a long stride. But she knows now that it was not Jacopo but Christ Himself and that He came to her through Suora Magdalena. Why and how this happened she does not know. She is certainly not deserving. Yet, oh—He brought her such comfort then! And now. For He also is generous, filled with song and no malice.

  As for the future, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …well, she does not think of that. How could she?

  • • •

  “SERAFINA.”

  She knows Zuana is in the room. She heard her come in and registered the noise of something being placed on the table. But once she opens her eyes she will have to speak to her, and of all people she is the one who will surely make it all begin again. Nevertheless …

  “Serafina.”

  She turns her head and blinks.

  Zuana is sitting on a small chair close to the bed. Next to her is a wooden plate with bread and cheese and a bowl of hot soup. She had forgotten how familiar this face is: the broad open forehead with its furrowed lines of thought and those clean clear eyes, smiling now along with the mouth. No malice here, either. Despite everything, she is pleased to see her.

  “Praise be to God for your recovery. Do you still have pain in your stomach?”

  “No.”

  “Any nausea?” She leans over and takes the girl’s pulse, red-stained fingers on the thin pale wrist.

  The smell of the cooked food brings a rush of saliva into Serafina’s mouth, but she swallows it down again. Only when I imagine eating, she thinks. “No.”

  “What about dreams? Are you having bad dreams?”

  “No.” She sees the man in the mist striding toward her. “No, not anymore.”

  “Good. Here, I have brought you some cheese and fresh soup and bread.”

  “I am not hungry.”

  “Still, you should eat.”

  “I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I am given penance.”

  “Penance?”

  “Father Romero. He heard my confession. My penance is confinement and bread and water for two weeks.”

  A frown moves across Zuana’s face. “Did no one tell him you had been ill?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you sit up?”

  She attempts to pull herself up, but it is an effort.

  Zuana goes to help, and as her hands touch her, for an instant Serafina is pulled back into the maelstrom of that night— hanging suspended in strong arms as her bowels open and her stomach screams. Such intimacy makes her embarrassed now, almost ashamed. She moves away, pulling the blanket around her.

  “I am sorry”—she keeps her eyes on the blanket—“if what I did got you into trouble.”

  Zuana shakes her head. “There is nothing to be sorry for. You have confessed your sins. And you are forgiven.”

  “I told him everything,” she says, looking straight at her now, the words thrown down like a gauntlet. “All of it.”

  “I am glad,” Zuana says gently.

  “Do you think it a fair penance?”

  “I can’t say. Though it is not healthy to starve yourself after such violent purging.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I am not hungry,” she says again. Then: “Suora Magdalena has not eaten for years.”

  “That is not tru
e. She just eats exceedingly little, so that over the years her body has grown used to it. I think she is not someone to emulate in this regard. Not at this moment.”

  “That is not what Suora Umiliana says.”

  I wonder what else Umiliana says, Zuana thinks to herself, though no doubt some of it she can guess. “Who else has visited you?”

  “Suora Federica came. She brought me a pear—look, here.” She pulls it out from under her pillow, the green marzipan coated in particles of dust. “I don’t want it. You take it.”

  Zuana shakes her head. “Keep it until the end of your penance. It will be something to look forward to.”

  To look forward. Such a simple idea, like waiting for the sun to rise again in the morning. It is a grave sin for any novice to try to escape the convent and an equally grave one to aid or abet her. Serafina has confessed and been forgiven. Zuana should be looking to her own soul now. There is nothing more she can do for the girl. Still …

  “Serafina, listen to me. The hellebore along with the poppy is a poisonous evacuator, and the dose that I gave you was not small. You will feel strange for a while. There will be lethargy and sadness, some confusion in your mind, even.”

  “I don’t feel anything,” she says flatly.

  “That will be part of it. But it will pass.”

  She stops because she does not know what else to say.

  The girl puts her head back against the wall. “I did see things,” she says quietly. “Terrible things.”

  “It was the potion. Remember that: only the visions of the potion.”

  “Have you ever seen such things?”

  As she looks at Zuana her eyes are huge in her face. And black, black as lumps of charcoal.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “And wondrous ones, too?”

  “I …yes, in a way.”

  “But you have never seen Him?”

  Zuana does not wait long on this. “No.”

  “Why not? You are a good nun.”

  “No. I …I am—”

  “Yes, yes, you are. I know.”