But the real communication didn’t start until sometime after the funeral, a few days before she was due to leave for the convent, when the kitchen girl had been struck down with the most monstrous stomach cramps and headaches that had had her vomiting with their ferocity. She was a long, gangly strip of a girl from the country, at that age where she seemed to be growing too fast for her own flesh, and when Zuana had found her she was in such agonies that she could barely uncurl herself to show the source of the pain.
Come on! Have you forgotten everything I taught you so soon? he had said in her ear as she had bent down beside her.
She had been so nervous that her hand had been shaking as she took the girl’s pulse. When she couldn’t find it in her wrist she went to the neck, behind her ear, where he had taught her, and there she located it, forceful but not so fast as to suggest dangerous fever. She had set to work on the headache, making up a crown of verbena leaves in vinegar and wrapping it around the girl’s forehead, then dosing her with basil water and eau-de-vie to settle or expel whatever was wrenching her gut. And because she would not have slept even if she had gone to bed, she had sat with her through the night as she had tossed and moaned.
Well? he had said, just before dawn, at that hour which seems to suit the dead more than the living. What is your opinion now?
She had laid her hand on the girl’s forehead. “Whatever fever she had is gone. But the cramps continue. I would have expected bowel evacuation by now if there was gut poisoning. Perhaps I should increase the eau-de-vie to help expel whatever is there.”
“Perhaps. And what if there is nothing to evacuate?”
“But there is something. I can feel definite tenderness.”
“Where? Show me.”
She put her hands on the thin shift that covered the girl’s body, moving them down from her stomach gently toward the pubic bone. But the truth is she didn’t know exactly where, for while she had seen woodcuts of the insides of a woman, this was the first time she had actually had flesh under her hands.
“Here.”
But by now he had fallen silent.
The girl moaned, arching her body in response to the pressure and the pain. And now, through her shift, she noticed for the first time the fat buds of new breasts. She got up from the bedside and went into the workroom, pulling down a bag of Saint Mary’s mint and some bugloss leaves, infusing them in a mix of hot water and wine. How stupid! No wonder he had stopped talking to her.
Back at the bedside she helped the girl upright so she could sip it slowly.
“Ooh, I am dying.”
“No, you are not,” she said. “The problem is more that you are growing.”
Sometime next morning the girl passed small clots of black blood, followed not long after by a more recognizable menstrual flow.
“I should have realized.” Back in her room, she was almost too tired to undress. “How could I not realize? It was so simple.”
It is the simple that is sometimes hardest. That is why you have to continue to ask questions and keep looking.
Perhaps if I had had a mother, she wanted to say, but if she thought about this now she would have to accept the loss of two parents.
You did well enough. Go to bed now, Faustina. You need the sleep as much as your patient.
“No! Don’t go. Please don’t go.”
Do not worry. I will be here when you need me.
“BENEDICTA.” THE VOICE behind her in the dispensary is loud and real.
Zuana turns too suddenly, which causes her head to throb so that she has to steady herself to avoid falling. The novice mistress, Umiliana, is standing almost directly behind her, her cushion-fat cheeks red and veined from exposure to the winter winds.
“Deo gratias.” Has she been talking out loud to herself? Surely not.
“Do I disturb you, sister?” The older woman pauses. “I heard voices.”
“No. No, I”—Zuana stumbles, unsure of what or how much she has heard—“I was …praying. Is there something wrong?”
“A novice has been taken ill during instruction.”
“Who?”
“Angelica.”
“Angelica? She suffers with her lungs.”
“God has seen fit to afflict her that way, yes. But she bears it well.”
“I …I will come to her.” She turns back to the worktop as if to find something to give her, but the move makes her dizzy again.
“I would not worry yourself. She is recovered enough for a while. I have sent her to the chapel to pray”
But Zuana is thinking of how the infection might mix with the asthma and what they would do if the girl starts to find it hard to breathe. “It would be better if she were resting.”
“What? And make the chapel even emptier?”
She hesitates. It would help no one to have them bickering now. “It is only that the contagion moves more swiftly in places where we are gathered together.”
“So I have heard said. However, when it comes to the greater well-being of the convent, there is some disagreement as to what brings most relief.”
Zuana watches as the novice mistress’s gaze shifts away from her face down to the open books behind her on the worktop: woodcuts of the upper chest and respiratory system, with a commentary to the side of them. She is struck once again by the intensity of Umiliana’s concentration. It is no wonder that her novices find her so intimidating; it seems there is little, inside or outside the soul, that she does not notice.
“You use interesting prayer books, sister.”
“They are records. From a physician in Verona who dealt with an influenza similar to the one besetting us now.”
“And did he know the cause of it?”
Now that Zuana thinks about it, she cannot remember a time when the novice mistress has come to her in the dispensary like this. Certainly she does not need to be here. News of a novice’s illness could have been sent easily enough via a conversa.
“He had some idea, yes.”
“What was it?”
“He was of the opinion that it is connected with semina morborum.”
“Semina morborum? Bad seeds? What—that come from the ground?”
“No, they are all around us. In the air.”
“Where?” And Umiliana looks about her now with such innocent immediacy that Zuana can detect no hint of mockery.
“They are incorporeal and therefore invisible to the eye.”
“Then where do they come from?”
“They exist within nature.” As she says this she becomes suddenly aware of how ill she is now feeling.
“So they are created by God, then? On which day of creation did He make them?”
“I think there was not a particular day.” Maybe a vinegar and rue water cloth on her forehead would help. “The great Saint Augustine himself has this same idea within his work.” She will make up a further batch as soon Umiliana leaves. “Perhaps I have not explained it well.”
But it seems that the novice mistress is not that interested in leaving. “Well, I am only a simple nun. I do not have your …education in such things.” She pauses. “But I have another idea as to why such things happen. Of course, it is not as …newfangled as yours.”
As she says this she smiles, as if to show her business is not quarreling after all. Only it is hard to tell what she is really feeling, since when she smiles her eyes are swallowed up into cheek flesh.
Zuana leans back against the bench.
“You are sure I do not disturb you? I would not so presume if the welfare of the convent was not at stake.”
Zuana glances to the hourglass, which is pouring sand toward the end of her work hour. If the novice mistress has come simply to debate God’s place in medicine, she could have done it within chapter. It would not be the first time they had wrangled over such matters, and in chapter she could have been sure of having an audience to play to.