Once she is back at work, the girl’s bad temper does not last long. They are halfway through the process of scooping the liquid into the pots when she makes it her business to ask about the bishop’s next remedy.
“His Holiness suffers from sore throats. So bad at times that he can barely swallow, let alone preach. We make him lozenges and syrup. Boiled treacle and honey, mixed with cinnamon, ginger, and lemon. Plus a few secret ingredients.”
“What are they?”
Zuana pauses.
“If I am to be your assistant, I should know. Unless you are worried I’ll sell them around town as soon as I get out.” There is possibly a touch of mischief in her voice now.
“Very well. When the mixture is simmering we shall add angelica, mithridate, pennyroyal, and hyssop. I doubt they mean much to you.”
“Why are they so secret, then?”
“Because as long as we are the only apothecary that uses them, the bishop’s physicians must remain faithful to us. A little diplomacy is needed here. The fact is, the bishop suffers from a third ailment—one of which he himself is unaware but that wounds others deeply.”
“What is it?”
“He has venomous breath.”
She snorts. “Did you tell that from his pee also?”
“You may laugh. But it is a serious affliction in a man who speaks the word of God. When the inquisition needed to get the old Duke d’Este’s French wife, Renata, to take communion as a test of her commitment to the true faith, he was one of the priests they brought in to persuade her, so that in the end she would give in just to stop his talking.”
“Is that true?”
“Why would I risk penance for your amusement? If you want to know more, next time you sit with Suora Apollonia at recreation, ask her about when the bishop came for his first inspection and she was one of the nuns who met him at the gates. She thought she was going to die from the experience.”
She sees it again as she tells it: Apollonia and Ysbeta, staggering their way into the infirmary with hands over their faces, fanning themselves like madwomen, making so much noise that the novice mistress of the day finally had to come in to hush them.
The disbelief on Serafina’s face gives her sudden pleasure. It is generally accepted that a little gossip can be as vital as prayer to the settling of a recalcitrant novice—well, accepted by everyone but Suora Umiliana, who is so immune to its contagious properties that most of her news is ten years out of date. Alone in her dispensary, Zuana suffers somewhat from the same complaint, but she can still dredge up a few tidbits when called upon. It has been a surprise to her, these last few days, how much she has enjoyed imparting them. But then she has never had such a vital young mind working alongside her in the dispensary.
“When I was young, my father had a fellow teacher at the university—a brilliant man by all accounts—whose breath was so foul that his students could not stand being in his lectures. When my father examined his mouth he found his gums were half eaten away with yellow pus and rot. Yet in other ways his humors were dry rather than moist. He lived on nothing but meats in sweet sauces and strong wine, so my father put him on a diet of fish and vegetables and water. After three months his gums stopped suppurating completely. But by then they were so shrunken that most of his teeth had fallen out, so the students could barely make out a word he was saying anyway. And thus does brilliance go to the grave unnoticed.”
“And your father.” The girl’s expression is once again a mixture of horror and fascination. “I mean …he thought it was …good to teach you things like this?”
“I don’t know that he thought about it much. At the beginning they were more stories than lessons.” Was that how it started? she wonders. A hunger grown from listening? Or had it been that she had always wanted to learn?
“Well, I was never, ever told such stories. And certainly not by my father.” The girl shrugs. “But if your remedies for bad breath are that good, you should dose the old crone they have put me next to in chapel. Every time she opens her mouth, it smells as if something has died in there.”
Ah! The weapon of Maria Lucia. When kindness fails, the temptation to punish takes over. Zuana skims off the last of the ragged surface of the ointment, ready to move the pots to the outside ledge of the window for the cold to congeal them. It is time to move from gossip to the business in hand.
“I’m afraid I can do nothing for Suora Maria Lucia. Her gums are already rotted beyond my skills. However, there is one thing you could do.” She pauses. “Start singing. The minute that happens, you’ll find yourself moved to sweeter air fast enough.”
CHAPTER NINE
SHE HOLDS HER hand steady and tilts the candle a little more to the right over the folded edge of the paper. The thin hot wax dribbles onto it, and she presses the two sides together quickly. They stick for a few seconds, then spring open again. The failure makes her want to scream, but instead she closes her eyes and tries again. The same thing happens once more, only by now the paper is filthy with the grease stain. The problem is the wax; it is tallow, cheap and runny. The cell already stinks of its smoke, sour and fleshy, like the animal parts it comes from. It makes her eyes water and stuffs up her nose.
At home, she and her sister said their prayers to the smell of scented beeswax: two candles in silver candlesticks by the bed, with the satin sheets turned down ready, the clay bed warmer folded in at the bottom. Their knees rested on the thick weave of a rug, and when they were finished the maid would brush their hair a hundred and fifty strokes, until it gleamed, warm as a cloak, around their shoulders. Yet here when the foul Augustina unpins and pulls off her headscarf, her hair hangs in rat tails, abandoned and filthy. She hears that some of the novices pay their conversa to wash and even brush it dry. But for that she must find herself another conversa and she is not willing to do what is needed to make that happen—in the same way that she will not take the rug from her chest and lay it over the stones, even though the floor would be less unforgiving on her knees— because it would be admitting in some way that this was now her home.
She would dearly like a little comfort, though. Sweet Jesus, she has never been so tired. It is more like being imprisoned within a Greek myth than a convent, one of those stories where the gods’ punishment is fashioned as an endless repetition of the same horror. For days on end she has done nothing but the crudest, cruelest manual labor: no rest, just another scrubbing brush on another surface, and then always more. Her limbs throb from all the rubbing and scouring and cleaning and lifting. Some mornings she is so exhausted that all she can do is cry; some nights so numb that there is not even enough energy for tears. Inside the workroom there have been times when the panic and fury have grabbed her by the throat and she has had to clasp her hands together to avoid smashing every bottle off the shelf. But if the magpie Zuana notices, she pretends that she doesn’t and just keeps on with what she is doing.
She has come close to refusing outright. “If you want it scrubbed cleaner, do it yourself.” She even said the words, under her breath though loud enough to be heard. But nothing came in return, only the sound of the older woman’s brush moving back and forth across the wood.
Stupid silence. Stupid rules. The only consolation is that at the end of every day before the bell sounds, she—the magpie— makes up this special tea, and they stop and drink it together (the nun is clever enough to know that unless she tasted it first she wouldn’t touch it either). And it is good—so good—like a river of spices moving warmth and sweetness down into every part of her body until even the worst of the tiredness feels soothed away.