“My father does not speak to me anymore,” Zuana says quietly. “These thoughts are mine and mine alone.”
“In which case you are more at fault than I imagined. It seems you are the one with greensickness, even if you are too old for it. Has she turned your head, too? Seduced you as she has all the others, so that now you are willing to ruin the convent for her sake?”
“No, that is not how it is.” Zuana’s voice is clear, without quaver or fear now. “I love this place as much as you do.”
“You will forgive me if I harbor some doubt of that.”
“I would—”
“Be quiet!”
Zuana does as she is ordered. The abbess is silent for a moment, hands clasped tightly in her lap, as if she understands that she has overreached herself. Finally she raises her head.
“Our audience is finished. Your penance—”
“Madonna Chiara—”
“You will not interrupt me further!” For now she sees enemies all around and will have none of it. “Your penance is that from this moment on you are confined to your cell until I have decided what to do with you.”
There is nothing more she can do. Zuana bows her head to denote her obedience.
“And the novice?” she says quietly.
“If she needs further assistance, I will give it.”
BY THE OFFICE of Compline it is clear that something has happened to Zuana. Her choir stall has been empty since Sext. If it was illness, the abbess would surely have said something before the Great Silence so that she might be included in their prayers. Instead, she appears to be curiously oblivious to the absence.
As the assembled nuns settle themselves, Isabetta lifts her head toward the empty place. Her face is drawn and deathly pale in the twilight. Not all of its pallor is a result of powder.
Zuana’s instructions had been very clear. “If I am there, then just before the office begins I will bring my right hand to my forehead and hold it there, as if I am suffering some pain. That will be the signal for you to go ahead. ”
“And if you are not there?”
“If I am not there …you must take my absence as your sign. ”
Benedicta sings the first notes and Isabetta follows her lead. When she was at her weakest it had been all she could do to hold on to the order of the office, and her thoughts had often strayed into the shadows at the edges of the candlelight, where Umiliana’s stories had been at their richest: angels moving in and out of the smoke, and a young nun pierced with the joy of the Lord, her tears and blood mingling in full sight of them all. There had been moments when she had felt her own palms prickling in longing, only to discover later that she had been digging her nails into herself, leaving pathetic red weals in the skin.
But now the chapel is simply a place for nuns to pray and the office is just more words. Now she knows the only way she will draw blood from her own hands is to use a knife. Across the pews she sees the abbess, standing tall and firm. Look at her: this is a woman who knows how to use knives to get what she most wants. How much does Isabetta hate her? It is not something she has let herself feel. But she tastes it now, and it is so strong it makes her almost giddy.
Yes, she can do this.
BACK IN HER cell, at the appointed time, she gets out the pouch and, using a dark corner of the floor as her palette, mixes water into the small heap of granules. Then she takes out the knife. If she hesitates, it is only for a second, before she plunges the blade point into her flesh, letting out a hiss of pain as it penetrates the layers of skin. She shifts the knife to the damaged hand and does the same, though with more difficulty this time, to the other palm. In the candlelight the blood oozes, both bright and dark. She conceals the blade, then moves over to the corner where the mixture is wet and presses her palms hard into the puddle. When they come up they are saturated with red.
She moves back to the outer bedchamber, blows out the candle, and begins to scream.
The convent is dead asleep, but three people are fast out of their cells. The watch sister is first, but before she gets to the door the abbess is halfway across the cloisters, ahead of Suora Umiliana, who arrives as fast as her older, creakier limbs can carry her.
The watch sister waits by the cell door but does not open it or say anything. The Great Silence is more powerful than any noise.
“Benedicta. ” It is Umiliana who offers the word, breathlessly, bowing her head quickly to the abbess.
“Deo gratias.”
“This need not disturb you, Madonna Abbess. I will see to her.”
“No, Suora Umiliana.”
“She is a novice under instruction. It is my du—”
“ I will see to her.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You do not run this convent yet, Suora Umiliana. That is my privilege and burden.” The tone brooks no argument. “You will go back to your cell.”
And because there is no other way, except by physically barging past her, Umiliana turns back, and as the watch sister steps aside, the abbess goes in.
Inside, the girl is standing in the corner with her back to her, the howling now muted into a single high note, vibrating on what feels like an endless breath.
Madonna Chiara lifts her candle into the darkness. “So, novice Serafina. What is this nonsense that you break the Great Silence for?”
There is a small pause. Then Isabetta turns to face her, lifting up her hands as she does so and opening her palms. Dark red blood drips down onto the floor around her as, quietly, without hysteria or malice, she says what it has been decided that she will say.
“Madonna Chiara, I was put into this convent against my will. And against my will I have been kept here. I mean you no harm. And if you let me go, I swear I will keep silent until my dying day. But if I am forced to stay here, I promise I will bring chaos down upon all your heads.”
As she says these words, the abbess pushes the door closed behind her so there will be no chance of their being overheard.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“YOU ARE CALLED to see the abbess.”
Letizia is fluttery with agitation. Zuana, who has not slept, has been ready, waiting for hours. As they cross the courtyard she deliberately does not look in the direction of the girl’s cell, though she cannot help but notice the figures in the upper-floor window of the embroidery room. Suora Francesca, who is not able to impose silence when the chatter has nothing to say, will be presiding over a hum of gossip now. The starving novice had started screaming in the night and the abbess—the abbess herself—went to see her. Beside this news, how can they sit quietly embroidering yet another letter E on another pillowcase? But even pillowcases, humble though they are, have their place in the great scheme of things. And Zuana has made it her business to know that they are working on the last pieces of a trousseau for a young woman from a lesser branch of the d’Este family, which must be ready for delivery soon so that there can be time for fittings and further alterations before the wedding ten days after Easter. The ingredients are almost all gathered.
The head pops back from the upper window as Letizia moves past the door of the abbess’s cell without stopping.
“Where are we going?”
“She told me to bring you to the chapel.”
Zuana has worked with this girl for as long as Letizia has been in the convent. She would dearly like to ask her now what she knows. But Letizia is too anxious, and as soon as they reach the chapel she scuttles away.
Zuana enters as quietly as the great door allows.