Sacred Hearts

by Sarah Dunant

  Zuana slips the letter up inside her wide sleeves and leaves the room and the sound of laughter behind her.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  IN THE CHAPEL she takes her usual place in the empty choir stalls and sits, her heart pounding. She closes her eyes and feels the wood against her back, registers the cuts of the craftsman’s knife as a piece of walnut warehouse joins to a sliver of mahogany water. So much work here, so much devotion. After a while she opens her eyes to the frescoes on the walls around her. As it is wasteful to have candles burning during the day the chapel is illuminated only by the progression of natural light, so that different parts are highlighted at different times. For this reason the cusps of the seasons have always been special for Zuana, as from her place in the choir stalls the afternoon light then favors two particular scenes. Over the years she has come to know them very well. Now she uses them to help steady her mind.

  In the first, Joseph and Mary are returning to Jerusalem after the birth of the Christ child. Mary rides a donkey while Joseph walks beside her. Baby Jesus, already a sturdy infant, sits astride His father’s shoulders, with His arms thrown out in joyful recognition toward His mother, His childish pleasure so far from the burdens of divinity yet to come. In contrast, the fresco to the side shows the cross on which He is to die, with a ladder leaning up against it and the figure of the adult Christ climbing—His step almost sprightly—up the rungs toward the lateral bar.

  When Zuana first entered the convent, the novice mistress of the day had pointed out these two images as representative of the spirit of Santa Caterina: how they showed Our Lord reaching out first toward life and then death. Even then the art was old— over two hundred years—and considered special, she said, since they knew of no other convent where Christ was depicted giving Himself up for sacrifice in this manner. She had died a year later from the fever (it was before Zuana was allowed to treat patients), but her kindness and the power of the images had fused in Zuana’s memory and in times of crisis she has often found comfort being close to them. She sits and studies them now, the letter resting beneath her hands, a modest dot of scarlet wax sealing it shut.

  So, Madonna Chiara’s family had taken care of the young man, had made sure that he did indeed disappear from the novice’s life. Dear God! But had they told her what they had done? Had the abbess known all along that instead of a post at Parma there was only the prospect of a corpse pumping blood from a dozen stab wounds into the river? No. Surely not. How could she have known? How could she possibly have condoned such a thing? Except …except that, in all of the abbess’s story, it had been the one event that didn’t make sense: why, after risking so much to be close to his love, he should suddenly choose to desert her.

  Because such young men do not care a fig for anything but their own pleasure. If he had had his way he would have taken her and ruined her.

  Is that what she truly believed? She, who has lived in the convent all her life, yet seems to know more about man than she does about God? Zuana sees her standing in the herb garden, her hands smoothing out the nonexistent creases in her robes. It is a gesture she knows well. But how well does she really know the abbess, this woman who has dedicated her life to the glory of God, the well-being of her convent, and the reputation of her family? Until, that is, one of those loyalties comes into conflict with another.

  In the chapel, Zuana puts her head down and starts to pray

  The afternoon light moves around her. Eventually she lifts her head, takes the letter in her hands, and breaks the seal.

  • • •

  IT IS ALMOST the end of visiting hour when she crosses the courtyard to the novice’s cell. By rights she should be studying or at prayer. Instead, she finds the girl lying on her bed, so deeply asleep that she does not even register her entrance. She is fully dressed, curled up like a small child, with a blanket pulled over her. Her face is pale, save for the lightly bruised skin under her eyes. The line of her chin is sharp now, the childish plumpness worn away. She will be feeling the cold, hence the body curled in on itself: before the spirit ignites its own fire, lack of food drains away the body’s warmth.

  Under the bed Zuana notices a small bundle. She takes it out and unwraps it. A lump of bread sits inside. It is fresh, her daily portion from lunch, no doubt, concealed somehow in her robes. As her appointed spiritual guide, it is Suora Umiliana’s job to be monitoring her return from fasting to food now. Since there is no nun in the convent with a sharper eye for the infraction of rules, the very presence of the bread is evidence that Umiliana is encouraging the fast beyond the end of the penance. How convenient it would be for her if this sweetest of the sweet saved souls now became a conduit to God. Her very own young mystic.

  But how long does it take to truly subdue the body? At what point did Magdalena’s fasting turn to joy? And what happens to those who never manage to light the fire within, young women with no future, who in the end do not really care if they live or die? The letter lies folded in the pocket of her robe. She moves the blanket farther up over the girl’s body and leaves her quietly sleeping.

  Back in the cloisters, the abbess’s outer door is closed. It is a sign that she is either at prayer or in conference. Zuana lifts her hand to knock, then makes out muffled voices from behind the door. The mellifluous tones of Madonna Chiara’s voice are instantly recognizable, and in recent months she has become familiar with the harsher, more sibilant sounds of Suora Umiliana. She is about to turn and leave when she hears footsteps moving briskly toward the door. She barely has time to step back before it opens and the novice mistress comes out. The meeting is so abrupt and unexpected that it takes them both a few seconds to recompose their features—Zuana to disguise her discomfort at being caught at a kind of eavesdropping and Umiliana to cover up the unmistakable look of triumph in her eyes.

  “WHAT WOULD SHE have us do, drive nails into our own hands?”

  Inside her chambers, Zuana has never seen the abbess so angry.

  “If she is so in love with humility and poverty, she should have joined the Poor Clares. Though even they might not have been strict enough for her.” She laughs bitterly, moving to and fro across the pile of the Persian rug. “Ah! Who would have thought it? A younger daughter of the Cardolini family turning out so ambitiously pious.”

  Zuana would prefer to leave now and come back when she is calmer, but she is already pulled into the orbit of her fury. Evidently she is the abbess’s confidante as well as spy. “What did she say?”

  “That God has given her the courage to speak her mind and she can—or rather will—no longer be silent.” She shakes her head. “Though I cannot recall when she was ever quiet, with or without His intercession.”

  “Perhaps she feels there are more who agree with her now.”

  “And who are they? Agnesina, Concordia, yes, Obedienza, Perseveranza, Stefana, Teresa perhaps, and a couple of the novices and younger nuns—I have not seen Carità so enthusiastic at the idea of deprivation before. Still, I would not give her more than maybe twelve or fifteen in total. Fifteen out of sixty choir nuns; that is hardly the convent. Santa Caterina is home to some of the city’s noblest women. Their families did not pay good dowries to have them living like paupers, fasting and praying twenty-four hours a day.”

  She moves to the desk, opens the glass decanter, and pours two glasses of wine. Zuana takes hers without a murmur. She has no idea when she is going to speak and what she is going to say. Strangely, it does not worry her.

  “Ha! She is playing with fire. She knows nothing of what is really going on out there. Once a bishop or a cardinal is determined, the inspections can take place with barely any warning. Apostolic visitors, they call themselves and, when they leave, an army of ironmongers and bricklayers come after them, building walls and fitting grilles and gates wherever there is a glimpse of open air. I have heard of places where the parlatorio is being redesigned as a prison, so that the nuns can only see their families through iron grilles covered with curtains. Is that
what she wants? We would have half of the city’s fathers hammering on the duke’s door complaining that their daughters were suffering ill treatment.”

  “In which case the city’s families will protect us, surely?”

  “They will try, but it seems Rome is committed to taking on even the authority of the families: those final statutes of the Council call for elections of abbesses to take place every four years.”

  It is a rule that up until now has been honored only in the breach, giving many abbesses and therefore also their families power down through many lifetimes. If it were to be imposed now, Santa Caterina would be voting for a new leader.

  “And what if they did? You would still be reelected.”

  “What? Even though I underestimate her support?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You did not need to. I saw it in your face.”

  “I …I just think there may be more than fifteen.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I do not know names,” Zuana says quietly, for she is no longer anybody’s spy. “It is more a feeling.”

  “Hmm. How much is this to do with the girl?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come, Suora Zuana, naïveté does not suit you. She has done nothing but shake the walls of the temple ever since she arrived. First the fury, then the acquiescence, then the escape, then the drama with Magdalena, and now this showy fasting, and the fainting in chapel just at the right moment. Do you think she is eating on the sly?”

  “No, I don’t. In fact I think she has become ill with it.”

  The abbess is silent for a moment. “Ah …Suora Umiliana. Of course. I fear I made a grave mistake, leaving her alone so much with her. Though at the time …” She stares at Zuana. “Well, we have come too far to have her die on us now. You must see her and get her eating again.”

  Zuana hesitates. This is the moment. There will never be another.

  “I think it would do her good, perhaps, to have some news of her lover.”

  “How could that help? It would only make it worse.”

  “Her sense of abandonment is acute. I feel it might address her despair.”

  The abbess shrugs. “From what I hear, there is nothing to tell. He is well enough, singing his heart out with a bevy of pretty girls on his arm.”

  “Madonna Chiara, I don’t think there is a more remarkable abbess than you anywhere in Christendom,” Zuana says quietly. “The things you know.”

  She shrugs it off, but it is clear she is pleased. “I know only what I have to know to help the convent.”

  “So you have no fear that he might try to come back to claim her at the vow-taking ceremony?”

  “None at all.”

  “Well, perhaps you should have. Because he isn’t dead.”

  It is immediate and perfect: the way the abbess now stares at her, the expression on her face changing not one iota. “Dead?” Her voice is strangely light. “No, of course he isn’t dead.”

  “However, it seems that the knife wounds to his face and throat will make it hard for him to take up the post at Parma. If, that is, it should ever have been offered.”

  Zuana feels her mouth dry. She lifts the glass and takes a sip of the wine. Her hand is very steady. Across the room the abbess’s face remains impassive. Then suddenly she gives a sigh: light, almost playful.

  “As always, you do yourself an injustice, Zuana. It is not I who am remarkable but you. I do believe that if you had been born into a better family you might be ruling this convent now.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, such a thing is not impossible.” There is a pause. “Indeed, with the right people behind you it might yet happen. Imagine the great dispensary you could build then.”

  “I am happy with the one I have,” she says quietly.

  “Yes, I believe you are.”

  It is strange, but there is almost a sense of calm inside the room. How amazing, Zuana thinks. When confronted with such danger to herself, this woman still seems at ease, confident. Does she feel it always? When she is praying? When she is in the confessional? How early would she have had to catch Father Romero to be sure that he was sleeping through this admission?

  “It seems now I must ask you about your sources, Zuana.”

  “I had a visitor.”

  “So I heard. Who was she?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, yes, it matters. My nuns do not accept visits from just anyone.”

  “What? Do your rules now squeeze harder than Umiliana’s?”

  The abbess stares at her, then sits back heavily in her chair, her natural grace deserting her for an instant. This time there is no smoothing of creases or removal of fluff from her skirts.

  “I did not have anything to do with it,” she says at last. “It was never—” She breaks off. “It was not my—well, sometimes one does not always have control over what one unleashes. But it was never—never—what I wished.”

  Zuana puts down her glass of wine. She has no idea whether she believes her.

  “Do I have your permission to treat the novice?”

  “And if you do, what will you tell her?”

  “That he did not desert her.” She pauses. “I believe knowing this will lessen her despair.”

  “No. No, I cannot allow that.”

  With the exception, perhaps, of the girl herself, the woman in front of her is the nearest Zuana has come to a friend in her life. She has admired, respected, enjoyed, even at moments sought to emulate her. Most of all, she has obeyed her. For this is the first and most powerful rule of the Benedictine order: to obey one’s abbess in all things.

  “And what if she continues to refuse to eat? What if she starves herself to death?”

  “Then to make sure we do not lose half her dowry we will just have to arrange for her to take her vows before she does so.” To Zuana’s astonishment, the abbess laughs. “You look shocked! Yet those are the words you wanted to hear from me, yes? Proof that as your abbess I care only about money, not souls? Oh, Zuana, do you know me so little? Is that what they say about me, this small army that is raised up now behind Umiliana? That I think more about reputation than I do salvation? Is that how it is?”

  Zuana does not reply. There is nothing to be gained from false comfort now.

  “Well, in some ways they are right. There may be times when my methods seem cruel. But believe this, if you believe anything. The battle we are fighting now is not just for the honor of the convent or the influence of one family over another. If Umiliana wins, if she creates enough noise and rebellion to bring the inspectors in, it will affect everyone.

  “After they have stripped us of our income, after they have walled us up, even in our own parlatorio, after they have banned Scholastica’s plays and taken away the instruments from the choir orchestra, they will come for you. You, who have found such unexpected sanctuary inside these walls. They will not care about your remedies and your herbs. They will break the bottles in your dispensary and take away the books in your library, and after that they will find the others, the ones that are hidden in your chest. That is what my cruelty is trying to avoid. That—the great and the small of it—is what is at stake here.”

  Zuana feels her heart moving fast against her rib cage. She will not think that far ahead. No, she could not live without her books or remedies, in a convent ruled by Umiliana. Yet how can it be acceptable to so offend God in order to be able to continue to serve Him? She, who can solve the most difficult riddles of the body, feels lost in the face of such complexity.

  “I am still the abbess of this convent, Suora Zuana. And until I am not you must obey me, or I must impose penance on you.” She pauses. “As I have done already on Umiliana. Which, of course, was exactly what she wanted me to do.” She sighs. “Think of it: the abbess’s enemy and her favorite both lying in the doorway of the refectory for the other nuns to walk over. What a gift it will be to her.”

  But this la
st appeal to the sister who used to be her confidante is too little, too late.

  “If you will excuse me, Madonna Abbess, I must return to my dispensary.”

  She gets up and moves to the door. The abbess watches her go.

  “Zuana,” she says, as she reaches the door, “she is only a young woman who did not want to become a nun. The world is full of them.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  AT SUPPER, SUORA Umiliana accepts only scraps, with a generous layer of wormwood sprinkled on top. The rest of the choir nuns and novices watch nervously as she carries it with her to the table. Once there, she chews each mouthful as if it were filled with honey, a smile playing around her lips. While it is forbidden to look at anything but one’s plate during the meal, it is almost impossible for people to keep their eyes off her. Serafina does not even need to worry about squirreling away her food at this meal, since no one is looking at her. Except Zuana.

  The meal and the reading—which no one hears a word of, though Scholastica has been especially picked for her strong voice—finally end, and the novice mistress rises and kneels at the feet of the abbess before going over to take her place in the doorway. She takes a while to get herself down on the floor. While she is adept enough at kneeling, it seems harder for her to lie prone. But then she is not a young woman anymore, and bones at this age become brittle and if broken heal badly.

  The abbess leaves the room first, graceful as ever, bringing her left foot to rest on Umiliana’s robe but carefully avoiding her flesh. In her wake, each and every choir nun and novice makes it her business to walk over rather than on the prostrate old nun, though whether it is out of respect or fear for her it is hard to tell. Either way, as convent martyrdoms go it is a fairly painless business. Now that the lines have been drawn, it seems, everyone is nervous about what might happen next.

  That night it takes a long time for the convent to settle. In her cell Zuana turns over the hourglass and watches the sand fall. How many times in her life has she sat here, trying to wash away the business of the day in readiness for the prayer before sleep? She has always envied those sisters who live lightly in the world, giving themselves up easily to the silence and stillness of God’s love. She needs that stillness more than ever tonight, for how can she take the next step in her life without His guidance?