As she crosses the courtyard she passes Umiliana, her novice flock trotting behind her. A few of them stare openly across at her, a mix of admiration and curiosity on their faces.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“WITH GOD’S GRACE we gather in this the first chapter of Lent to prepare ourselves for the beauty and discipline of abstinence. But before we speak of what we will give up, let us for a moment celebrate what we have.”
The abbess rests her hands lightly on the carved lions’ heads and looks out over a sea of eager faces. The room is full to capacity—choir, nuns, novices, even converse—all in their place. The only ones missing are the old and the infirm, most notably the oldest and the most recently ill.
“In the last days I have received letters from guests and benefactors thanking us for our hospitality. To read them all would spark a contagion of pride that would take another period of Lent to address.” She smiles to allow the humor to penetrate. “However, a few words, I think, are in order. They come from no less a personage than the duke’s sister Leonora, who rose from her sickbed to attend with members of her family.”
Clearing her throat, she lifts her body a little higher in her chair. The small touches of flamboyance encouraged by Carnival are put aside now: the full petticoats have been removed, her wimple is severe, with no lace trimmings to it, and a plain silver crucifix is substituted for the jewel-encrusted one. She looks for all the world like a woman who can take care of her flock.
“To all the holy sisters in your care, please convey the joy and deep spiritual sustenance felt by myself and my companions during your Carnival concert and theatrical performance. We left the convent gates secure in the knowledge that our beloved city is in safe hands with such loving and holy women interceding on our behalf.
“It goes on with the same glowing sentiments, before ending thus: I must also say that while my soul sings, my lips are still rosy with the taste of wild strawberries. If it does not take you away from your duties to God, I would be grateful for the recipe, so I might instruct my own kitchen to deliver such delicacies. Suora Federica, I believe that is directed to you.”
The kitchen mistress, however, is less than delighted. “Must we tell her? She has a niece at the convent of Corpus Domini. If the recipe goes to her, it will also go to them, and by next year everyone will have it.”
“In which case perhaps you might modify it a little to ensure our primacy is retained.” The abbess gives a small tinkling laugh, and the room answers in kind. Zuana glances toward Suora Umiliana, who is watching the others though not joining in herself. She is handling her impatience gracefully.
“Meanwhile, Suora Scholastica, I am to send two copies of The Martyrdom of Santa Caterina to sister convents in Venice and Siena who have heard that we were performing a new work. And Suora Benedicta, I have received a letter from Rome, from no less a figure than Cardinal Ippolito d’Este.”
In the second row, the choir mistress’s face lights up like a star.
“It seems that news of our settings for Saint Agnes’s feast have reached his ears, and he is sending as a gift to the convent a score for The Lamentations of Jeremiah, commissioned from the renowned Giovanni da Palestrina, with the hopes that we might perform it during Easter week.”
Benedicta shakes her head, but whether in disbelief or to tease up some new threads of music it is hard to tell.
“In terms of donations received and promised, assuming that the new dowries come in on time, I can now confirm that we will be able to start work on The Last Supper for the main wall of the refectory next winter.”
Someone claps her hands and a few of the younger nuns actually cheer. It has been almost forty years since a fire caused by a candle left burning after supper wiped out the original frescoes. This will be an opportunity for Santa Caterina to have a great work in the fashion of the day, along with the excitement of a fashionable artist installed behind screens for the time it will take to complete it. Zuana is less enamored of the latest style of painting, which seems to her to be interested more in exploring the violent contortions of the body than in finding the anatomical truths beneath. Nevertheless, she cannot help but be impressed. Such large-scale commissions are expensive. She finds herself wondering what might have happened if Serafina had not survived the treatment. The death of a novice before taking her final vows would trigger the return of a proportion of her dowry. A successful escape, however, would surely render it all forfeit. It is not something Zuana has thought about until this moment.
Perhaps she is not the only one to note the connection between the girl’s health and the fresco; a couple of the choir sisters have been glancing toward the side seats where, amid the row of novices, a small space marks her absence. The abbess, who is better at reading minds than souls, lifts her hands to recover everyone’s attention.
“Finally, before we move on, we should pay tribute to another sister to whom we owe particular thanks. As you will know by now, following the success of the concert and the play our youngest novice, Serafina, was taken suddenly and gravely ill with fits and fever. Without the intervention and vigil of our dispensary mistress, it is likely that we would have lost her. The art of healing is one of Our Lord’s greatest gifts, and Suora Zuana’s expertise and devotion enrich all our lives inside Santa Caterina.”
This is remarkable praise indeed, and the room responds with a rustle of appreciation and smiles. Zuana is so taken unaware that all she can do is smile and drop her eyes.
The abbess, however, has picked her moment well. All present—choir nuns, novices, and converse—are happy to acknowledge their dispensary mistress. The fact is that even before Carnival, Zuana’s star had been rising. Her part in taming Serafina’s rage and delivering her to the choir, her handling of the contagion—including her own illness—and now the drama around the novice’s illness, ending, as it did, so theatrically, all this has naturally brought her to prominence. After years of seeking ways to fit in unnoticed, Zuana has unwittingly become a player in the drama of convent life. And, it would appear, an acknowledged favorite now of the abbess herself.
“I think it is time to go on to the rota for Lent fasting. Yes, Suora Umiliana?”
“Madonna Chiara. If I may?”
In the middle of the second row Umiliana stands, hands clasped together, and turns to address the choir sisters behind her.
“Before we move on we should surely mark a further wonder, one that more than all the others shows the glory of God within our midst.” She pauses until she is sure she has everyone’s attention. “I speak of the arrival of Suora Magdalena in the novice’s cell and the part she played in this …miraculous, marvelous recovery. For those of us who saw it for ourselves, it was as if Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself was in that cell, helping to guide the young woman back to life.”
The room is very still now.
“If I may continue?” She looks to the abbess once more, who nods her head almost imperceptibly.
Umiliana turns to Zuana. “Suora Zuana, you arrived there before any of us. Perhaps you might recount for us what took place.”
Zuana, the center of attention for a second time, looks up into Suora Umiliana’s piercing gaze.
“I …I am not sure I saw any more than you, dear sister. I had been in the dispensary making a potion, and when I returned, Suora Magdalena had left her own cell and was at the bedside of the novice, praying.”
Though the words are entirely truthful, it is clear that they are not what Umiliana wants to hear.
“And was there not something of …of wonder about her? Some vision of the Lord that touched both her and the sick girl?”