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.