Oh, but there is beauty in here, too, Zuana thinks: the richness of the earth, the warmth of the bricks, the coolness of stone. Beauty, space, and, once you stop wanting it to be different, peace, a relief from the madness outside. If someone were to open the doors now, what point would there be in walking out into the world? Where would she go? Who would she be? The house where a young woman called Faustina grew up is home to another family now, while the city that surrounds it is a maelstrom of people who neither know nor care about her. That infinitesimal space in the world that was once hers has long since disappeared—and to appreciate quiet one must accept less excitement.
No, whatever restlessness is going on within her it is a cloud passing across the sun, the temporary blindness that comes with a morning fog. In all the gossip that filters through the walls, she has never heard of a well-born woman with her own apothecary shop or her own list of patients. I am like the green olive tree in the house of the Lord. I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. The cloud will pass, the fog will lift. For the first time in many days she feels quieter.
As her eye moves back across the garden to the cloister, it picks out what looks like a broken line—no, more of an arc— made up of random pale stones on the grass and in among the leafless trees, moving from the edge of the wall close to the river to the path leading past the outhouses back to the cloisters. At this distance it resembles a run of uneven stitches on the hem of a garment or a long necklace of white rose petals fallen onto dark ground.
Far below them on the street in front of the convent, a clash of young men’s voices rises up: laughter, shouts, what sounds like playful jeering at one another. Rose petals. Zuana moves to face the town side again. She has an image of herself, both arms held wide over the parapet into the air, opening her fists and letting loose cascades of rose petals onto the crowds of spectators below.
“May I ask you a question, Madonna Abbess?”
“If you wish, certainly,” the abbess says, almost surprised at the return of formality in her former friend.
“Is it true, the story that Apollonia tells about the tower?”
“Which story is that?”
“About how one year at Carnival a group of novices came up here with dried petals from the storehouse and threw them down on the revelers in the streets below.”
“And what happened then?”
“It seems the young men went mad. Shouted, threw up ropes, tried to climb up to reach them.”
“Hah. I have always thought Suora Apollonia should be writing plays alongside Scholastica,” she says mildly.
She bends down and picks up something at her feet. As she straightens, her fist uncurls over a handful of molted pigeon feathers. She leans over the edge and lets them go.
“Certainly such a thing might have driven young men mad.” The feathers dance coquettishly in the air before floating down. “But as you can see yourself”—and now she leans farther out and over, so far that Zuana has an image of the painting inside the cupola ceiling and begins to feel anxious—“the height of the wall and the angle of the tower over the ground are such that you cannot see directly down to the street immediately below. Or from there up into the tower.” She pulls her body back again. “So, though the petals might have seemed like a shower of grace from heaven, there was little chance of anyone actually seeing the angels who threw them.”
She wipes her hands on her robe.
“However, it is true that when the authorities found out it caused a scandal, such that new locks had to be fitted to the tower door, and a rule was instituted that neither choir nuns nor novices were allowed to enter without the express permission of the abbess.” She sighs. “I cannot tell you how many years it took me to find my way up here again.”
They stand together for a moment, watching the bonfires throwing up broad ribbons of smoke against a luminous sky. Zuana finds herself smiling. Of course she would have been one of them. She should have guessed. The Lord punishes but he also forgives. The world is full of saints who began as sinners or, if they were always good, found their goodness pitted against rules others imposed upon them. She thinks of the novice with her incandescent anger, Benedicta with her mad music, Apollonia with her fashion-white face and stock of stories. Even the holy ones: Magdalena and her visions that are not allowed; Umiliana, who, if she could, would break the rules by having even more of them. Without the rebels there would be no stories to tell, no fellow travelers to identify with.
In front of them the sky is now on fire. She thinks of the cochinilla. Using a dye to treat a fever might be seen by some as a breaking of the rules. While there is wisdom in authority, there must always be room for experiment. Though you must also know how to question the answers you find. Are you listening, Faustina? There is a lot to learn, and I will not always be here to teach it. She has not heard his voice since before the illness. So which answers should she be questioning? The dye broke the fever, yes. In doing so it turned her urine red. But what if it also stained her spirit a little? Such things have been known to happen: a good remedy having another, bad effect. Those who take mercury for the pox suffer as much from the cure as from the illness; everyone knows that. She must ask the chief conversa how she feels now that she is better. If she has time, she will write an entry before Compline.
“It is amazing how beauty offers sustenance to the soul as well as the eye, don’t you think?” the abbess says, as if this has been a conversation between them, rather than she alone who is doing the talking. “On the few occasions I have stood here with a sister since I became abbess, I have watched it bring God’s peace back into some of the saddest of hearts. Or refresh some who are simply tired and in need of rest.” She pauses. “Though of course it is not something to be talked about with everyone.”
The sunset is burning itself out now, the reds already shading into gray. Zuana glances at her. The lines on her face have been smoothed by the twilight and her skin has almost a glow to it.
“Thank you, Madonna Abbess,” she says quietly.
“Oh, I only do as the Lord bids me. If He sees one of His flock dispirited or buffeted, it is my job as abbess to bring her back into safe harbor. Come,” she says briskly, turning. “The light is going and the staircase will become treacherous in the gloom. Oh, I almost forgot. There is something I need you to do, for the well-being of the convent. It concerns the novice.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
IN THE DARKNESS Serafina shifts her weight, registering a sharp lump along her upper thigh. The pallet mattress has so little stuffing in it she can feel the imprint of the keys wherever she turns. She likes the discomfort. For a while it brought her only terror, for with her chest unlocked there was no hiding place where she could be sure that her treasure would not be found. She could have tried to buy more stuffing, of course—such a thing is possible—but it might have brought suspicion. The discovery of a little poppy syrup or an extra lump of wax was one thing—Candida was being paid to make her life easier—but a duplicate set of keys to the outside doors …well, the profit to be made from that information would far exceed any paltry gain she could offer her. So instead she had had to pay the conversa off with a good piece of cloth when she took over cleaning the cell herself. Who would have thought it? A noble young novice scrubbing out her own cell. Well, it gives her something to do to make the time pass quicker.
Time. There is so little of it left and yet what there is seems endless. She closes her eyes but knows she will not sleep. Her public docility has come at a cost. While her head stays bowed and her face remains serene, there are moments when the insides of her gut feel so twisted into knots that it is hard to walk upright. This state of constant excitement has become almost a pleasurable pain. She remembers it from before, at home—how every moment between her singing lessons was like a torture of waiting, sometimes so bad that she could barely breathe with it. Now the idea of him—the freezing, burning anticipation—blots out everything: sleep, thought, hunger.