She—Perseveranza—opens her mouth, and a breathy singsong voice comes out. She is not the convent’s greatest actress but there is a passion to her when it comes to portraying martyrdom, and once given the stage she is not afraid to use it.
The emperor claps his hands to begin the debate. The scribes open their books and pontificate but Santa Caterina passionately rebuts every argument. From offstage comes a loud crash, followed by a cry. The actors momentarily freeze, glancing nervously in the direction of the noise. The audience hears a stifled giggle and hushing. The debate starts again. Words fly. Caterina trumps her opponents, and the emperor claps his hands to mark the end of the debate, only to trap part of his beard between his palms so that it pulls away from his face and he/she has to hold on to it as the curtain closes. The smiles are everywhere now. Everyone except the actors yearns for such mistakes, for in a world so finely ordered they offer a taste of splendid, infectious chaos.
Out from behind the curtain three young women in peasant costumes emerge to talk about the wonder of the young virgin (and give the converse time to move the scenery). One of them, Eugenia, offers up a song about the joys of nature. The audience is entranced. She is a pretty thing, and with her veil and habit gone she moves her body elegantly to the music. It is as well that there are no men in the audience to admire her, though they might find her a little thin for the fashion. Before Serafina’s arrival she had been the nightingale of Santa Caterina, and she has clearly taken her dethronement hard. I must mention it to the abbess, Zuana thinks. She moves her head to try to spot Chiara—she will be in the front somewhere, next to the most influential of the guests—but the crowd is too thick.
The song ends and the audience offers up a little gasp of pleasure. Onstage, Eugenia positively glows with her triumph. Zuana glances back to see what Serafina is making of the challenge.
But Serafina is not there. Her seat is empty.
Zuana turns and looks farther along the row—perhaps she has moved to get a better view—but it is hard to tell, as the room outside the throw of the candle flames is gloomy.
In the twilight beauty of the bell tower in Zuana’s mind’s eye, the abbess speaks to her again. Officially, as it is within the first three months, she should not be allowed to watch the play, but she has done the convent such service with her voice that I feel it would be cruel to deny her the entertainment.
Could she have left? Become so tired that she must retire to her cell? Surely not. No novice, however fatigued, would miss such entertainment. Though if she had slipped away no one would have noticed, for the whole audience, especially those toward the back, are transfixed by what is taking place onstage.
Zuana acknowledges a sharp twinge in her gut.
Of course, usually the novice mistress would look after her, but she will be too busy with the other performers. So I would like you to keep a watch on her.
She slips out of her seat and moves behind, to the back of the refectory, to check more thoroughly.
Though it would be better if you do not make your observation too obvious. She has worked hard these last few weeks, and I would not like her to think we do not trust her.
There is no one there. The girl has disappeared.
Zuana makes her way toward the door, trying not to disturb those around her. The last thing she sees is the curtain opening to reveal two of the converse scuttling offstage too late after setting up the wheel.
Outside, the upper loggia of the cloisters is growing dark and it takes a few seconds to adjust her eyes. Once she does she is surefooted: down the stairs and across the courtyard toward the girl’s cell in the corner. The door is shut, no light from underneath.
She turns the latch and pushes it open.
She has not been in here since that first night almost three months before. She has an image of a young woman flattened against the wall, hair wild, howling for her lost freedom. I am buried alive in this tomb. The snarl of fury. So much rebellion. So much life …
In the deep gloom she makes out the shape of a figure in the bed. Where has it all gone? She remembers the weight of her body as the sedative started to work. “It will not make me give in.” And now what? Was she really so broken? So ready to curl up and die here, just like all the rest?
“Serafina?”
She moves toward the bed. But even before she reaches it she knows what she will find, realizes suddenly what is happening here; understands it exactly, deeply, completely, as if she had known it always but chosen not to look. And a wave of cold and hot wonder runs through her.
The words came from my mouth, not from my heart.
She rips back the bedclothes. The fat bundle of cloth roughly fashioned to the shape of a human figure looks pathetic even in the gloom. She picks it up, and it unrolls to reveal a Christ doll in the center. There are those who would see the use of the baby as a blasphemy.
She is moving fast now, out of the cell along the corridor toward the gatehouse. The parlatorio is dark and the gateroom empty; there is no sister on duty here, as everyone is given dispensation from their work to see the play But both outer doors are locked and bolted, and the only keys will be in the pockets of the chief conversa and the abbess.
So if not here, then where? And how?
As she crosses the courtyard into the second cloisters a great crash of thunder explodes into the air. In the refectory, God is entering the drama. The noise is such that it penetrates the infirmary, and a few seconds later Clementia’s voice rises up, moaning, straining against her cords. Will it be angels or devils this time? But it brings with it another glancing memory: the girl coming out of the dispensary, hands hidden in her robe. And behind her Clementia’s insistent voice: The angel from the gardens is waiting for you… See, see, my night angel is returned.
Inside her ranting what had she been saying? Yes, Serafina had been caught once out of her cell after dark. And had suffered penance for it. But now that Zuana thinks about it, that had been after Clementia had been put under restraints, surely? In which case, how often might she have seen her before then?
She has worked hard these last few weeks, and I would not like her to think we do not trust her.
Has everyone been fooled?
Through the second cloisters she moves into the grounds. This is forbidden territory after dark, and though she has done it once—no, twice, with special dispensation, to collect an herb that was needed urgently—she is less sure of her way. She recalls the image of the convent from the perspective of the tower: the gardens, the pond, the fruit trees, and out to the walls. And with it comes the straggling line of pale rocks and stones, like ragged stitching, moving from the edge of the second cloisters to— where? A point near the wall by the river’s edge. Pale stones. On the ground in daylight no one would notice them, but at night, unless there was no moon at all, their brightness would mark a path, which once picked out could be navigated swiftly enough.
Now that she knows what she is looking for, it is easy to find, and as she follows the line, lifting her skirts to avoid the undergrowth and brambles, she remembers an angry young novice picking up a handful of stones and hurling them into the pond, while she, her appointed guide and mentor, showed her around the grounds, describing the wonders of a convent with its walled river storeroom, through which a great wealth of trade moves in—and out—through double-locked doors to the world beyond. Sweet Jesus, has the girl remembered and used everything?