“But you are the wife of one of my father’s pupils?”
“Yes. Well, in a manner of speaking.”
“You are sure I am the one you are looking for?”
“Oh, yes, if you are Suora Zuana… My husband did know your father. We keep an apothecary store near the west gate of the city, in Via Apollonia. When he was a boy he met your father often when he used to come in. He said he was a wonderful man.”
The woman is nervous. She smiles. It is a good smile: one that crinkles her eyes and, without the restriction of a wimple, lights up her face.
“So, how can I help you? He is ill, I hear?”
She takes a breath. “There is illness, yes. But I am come on behalf of a gentleman.”
“Not your husband?”
“No, my husband—oh, it’s not what you think. My husband knows I am here. This gentleman—he has been a patient. My husband found him. He was injured, badly injured. We helped him. Without our help he would have died.”
While she is nervous, she is also determined. By rights, Zuana should not be listening further, for there is no connection here to justify the visit, but there is something about the woman that she likes. Or maybe it is the novelty of being here in this room, with a hubbub of people around her, as if it were not a convent at all but a receiving room in some great house where people gather to enjoy ordinary life. The chaperone nuns are moving between the groups. One of them looks over at Zuana; it is unusual to have the dispensary sister here. Zuana smiles and nods at her. She smiles back and moves on.
“Perhaps you should tell me what happened,” she says to the woman.
“Yes, yes, thank you. Some weeks ago my husband was coming back into the city from collecting plants in the country. His horse had gone lame and he had had to walk the last miles, so it was late at night. He heard shouting on the riverbank, and when he approached he disturbed an attack. Some men ran away but there was another on the ground. He had been stabbed and they had tried to cut his throat. My husband stopped the blood as best he could—they had not severed any vital artery—and brought him back to the house. For many days we thought he might die, for he had bled a great deal, but my husband used case wort and yarrow on the wounds and he began to recover.”
“You help your husband with his work?”
The woman blushes. “Yes. A little. We have no children; I was not able, so—well, it is cheaper than an assistant.”
“You like it?”
She gives a little laugh. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
Zuana nods. Father, husband, even sister. Someone to talk to. Someone who is as interested as you are. It is all she has ever really wanted.
“And what is it about this story that has brought you here to me?” she asks gently.
“The young man told us that the men who tried to kill him had been his friends, people he had met when he came to the city, for he is a stranger here.”
“Then why did they try to kill him?”
“He didn’t know. My husband said he must go to the city watch, for he could recognize his attackers. But he said it would be no use as they were from noble families and he would not get justice.”
Zuana can feel the cold moving through her. “Did this young man tell you his name?”
“Yes. Jacopo Bracciolini. He is a singer. Well, I don’t know if he still will be with his face and throat slashed, but he taught singing in Milan.”
Zuana shakes her head. She must get up now and walk away.
“Did he send you here?” she says, more sharply.
“No. When I heard his story I offered to come. He is a good man and he nearly died.” She pauses. “He has written a letter, which he asked me to deliver to you. It is for a young nun, a novice called—”
“I do not want to know who it is for. I don’t know this man and I cannot take anything from him.” She is standing now. “The novice has taken vows and will soon take others, and she is not allowed to receive letters.”
She spots the chaperone across the room looking over at them. The intensity of the conversation has attracted her attention. Zuana sits again and drops her eyes.
“But rest assured I will pray for his full recovery” she says more calmly. “And thank you for coming.”
“Please. Please.” The woman’s voice is low but clear. “It is difficult, I know, but this is a good man. I have spent weeks caring for him. He is not asking anything, only to say goodbye. He is going away and wants to wish her well. He will not bother her again.”
Zuana is shaking her head but it is partly to keep the woman’s voice out of her ears. There is great conviction in the way she speaks. If she was nursing you, you would surely be comforted by her strength as well as her gentleness. Or perhaps this love story has touched her heart. Certainly she would have reason to value love, for without the fondness of her husband a barren woman is easy enough to shrug off in favor of another.
“Have you read it?”
“No. But he is a good man, I swear.”
Now the chaperone has come up to them.
“How are you, dear sister?”
Zuana smiles. “Oh, very well, thank you, Suora Elena. Well, except for this sad news. This is Signora …Vesalio. Her husband was one of my father’s most talented students at the university. He is very sick and she has come to me for advice. But more than any remedy, I think, we must all pray for him.”
The sister stares at the woman, reading the humility in her dress as well as her face. “Rest assured, good woman, we shall add him to our prayers,” she says, smiling, and moves away.
Zuana keeps her head down, as if she is indeed in prayer. Opposite her, the woman holds her hands loosely clasped in her skirts. Under her palms Zuana sees the edge of the folded paper.
“Why me? Why do you come to me?”
“Because he said you were a kind and good nun.”
“He does not know me.”
“He seems to. And he was right. You are …kind and good. I wish I had known your father…” She trails off.
Zuana stares at her for a moment. Later she wonders when she made up her mind. Or perhaps she never did. Perhaps it was only her body that took the decision.
She moves her hands across the divide of their laps until they cover the woman’s own. She is pleased to note that their fingers are equally stained.
“Dear God, look down on Your servants here and help this young man back to health so that he may use his voice to praise You.” As Zuana says the words, the woman releases her grip on the letter and she takes it within her own fingers and holds it there.
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
Zuana pulls her hands back and folds her skirts around them. “You had better go now,” she says quietly.
“Thank you.”
The woman stands and moves swiftly away.
“Oh …Signora Vesalio.”
The woman turns.
“Tell your husband to try honey and cobwebs mixed with white of egg on the neck and face wounds. It will help to salve the scarring.”
Zuana does not immediately leave but sits, her hands folded over the letter, looking out over the room. She watches Suora Perseveranza, her body held upright to compensate for the belt around her middle, in animated conversation with a well-dressed married woman of similar age and features. At her feet a child, a sweet little girl with a mass of fair curls, is balanced against her knees, her mouth grubby with biscuit crumbs, her hand picking at the wooden rosary beads that hang from her aunt’s hips. How old is she, three? Four? Already too pretty to be the next nun of the family. But there is time yet. Come an attack of the pox or some disfiguring accident, or even a gradually perceived slowness of mind …
Zuana slips the letter up inside her wide sleeves and leaves the room and the sound of laughter behind her.
CHAPTER FORTY
IN THE CHAPEL she takes her usual place in the empty choir stalls and sits, her heart pounding. She closes her eyes and feels the wood against her back, registers the cuts of the craftsman’s knife as a piece of walnut warehouse joins to a sliver of mahogany water. So much work here, so much devotion. After a while she opens her eyes to the frescoes on the walls around her. As it is wasteful to have candles burning during the day the chapel is illuminated only by the progression of natural light, so that different parts are highlighted at different times. For this reason the cusps of the seasons have always been special for Zuana, as from her place in the choir stalls the afternoon light then favors two particular scenes. Over the years she has come to know them very well. Now she uses them to help steady her mind.