Sacred Hearts (39 page)

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?”

Zuana picks her words with special care. “The novice was certainly much comforted by her presence. She opened her eyes for the first time since the remedy had sent her to sleep.”

The novice mistress stares at her coldly. How quickly enemies are made, Zuana thinks.

“Oh, but the girl was dying. It was a miracle!” Suora Felicità’s words burst out as if she can no longer keep them within, for fear of their exploding inside her.

There is a tiny shimmering silence, as if the whole assembly is now holding its breath. This is indeed a chapter meeting worth waiting for.

“Suora Felicità.” The abbess’s voice is gentle and measured by contrast. “Those are strong words to describe an event that, as far as I am aware, you did not yourself witness.”

“I? Well, I …not exactly.”

The abbess turns her attention to Zuana, her gaze cool, professional. “Suora Zuana, you treated the novice, and you were in the cell with her all night and before anyone else arrived. It is most important to know if you saw or noted anything—felt any sense of this …this
vision
that is being talked about.”

“I …what I saw …” And she struggles toward the right words, ones that tell the truth in her heart as well as her head. “What I saw was Suora Magdalena praying over the young girl—praying most devoutly, and speaking of the Lord and how He was there with her.” She pauses. “I myself did not see anything, but I cannot help but think He was listening to her prayers.”

“Indeed,” the abbess says gravely. “As He will have listened to all our devotion and intercession. Thank you.”

Umiliana moves as if to speak, but the abbess has not finished yet.

“And if I remember our conversation this morning correctly, Suora Umiliana—for this is an important matter—when you yourself came into the cell you did not experience any
vision
either.”

Umiliana frowns. It is hard to know with whom she is most upset: the abbess, Zuana, or Suora Felicità. Or even perhaps herself.

“I saw Serafina—who had been gravely ill only a few hours before—recovered. And I heard her say that she also had seen Him.”

Again there is the slightest murmur in the room.

“But you yourself did not?”

The novice mistress hesitates …then shakes her head.

“And the other sisters who were present in the room afterward—is there anyone who saw anything?”

The novices glance nervously at one another. Among the choir nuns it is clear that Perseveranza would dearly love to be able to speak but knows she cannot lie. In the row in front of her, Zuana sees both twins shake their heads in unison. The silence grows.

The abbess nods. “Thank you, all of you. And particularly you, Suora Umiliana. You do us a great service to bring up the matter of Suora Magdalena. I had intended to speak of it later, but perhaps this moment is opportune.

“Suora Magdalena, as we know, is an old and chaste soul who would give her last breath for the welfare of a young sister. She has always been the most humble of nuns, with no wish to draw attention to herself. In fact, it has long been her fervent wish to be left alone and undisturbed, to serve God as He saw fit. As a few of the older sisters in the convent can testify—Suora Umiliana, you yourself are one of them—that wish was granted many years ago by both the abbess and the bishop of the time, and the convent has been bound by it ever since.”

Zuana is busy with numbers now. The novice mistress is older by how many years than the abbess? Five, maybe ten; though caring as little as she does for her appearance it is hard to tell. Either way, in
1540
when all the fuss had happened she would have been a young choir nun. And it is always the young who are most affected.

“However, as you point out, it seems that she has of her own accord broken that vow now, in the light of which, I think we must look to her welfare. She is exceedingly frail, certainly not well enough to be moving around the convent on her own without help. It seems to me that the best course of action is for us to transfer her to the infirmary, where Suora Zuana can give her the personal care she needs as she approaches the end of her life.”

This change of mind is so perfect and expressed with such sincerity that Zuana is rendered speechless for a moment.

Umiliana, however, has no such problem.

“If she is now to leave her cell, if the convent decides that is best for her, then surely she could also be allowed to attend chapel and mass and take the host. I know there are sisters who would happily carry her there if she so desired.”

There is an audible gasp. On the surface it is the drama of the sparring between abbess and novice mistress, but there is something else going on here: some of the older nuns, the more natural allies of Umiliana such as Agnesina and Concordia, will no doubt have memories of the services where Suora Magdalena’s appearances coincided with weeping stigmata. And, given the excitement in the convent, some of the younger ones will surely have heard rumors by now.

“Suora Umiliana, you have spoken my own thoughts aloud. However, such is her fragility I do not think that will be possible,” the abbess says smoothly. “In fact, I have discussed the matter with Father Romero already. Indeed, he visited her this morning when he came to hear the confession of the novice.”

Whether he did or did not visit Magdalena, there is no one in the room to contradict her, since they were all at work hour. Anyway, why should anyone doubt the word of their abbess? Although Zuana finds herself doing just that.

“She was, alas, unconscious and so not able to take confession or receive the host. But he has promised to come again.”

“Oh, is she dying? Are we to lose our holiest soul having only just found her again?”

Suora Felicità’s voice is now tearful, so that a few of the young ones look positively alarmed. Umiliana glances at her sharply. It is one thing to pit your wits against a skilled opponent, another thing entirely to find yourself undermined by your own side.

“We must all die in the end, Suora Felicità,” the abbess says gently, “and we must not be selfish. For Magdalena herself it will be the greatest celebration to be taken by God.”

The words, so humble that in other circumstances they might have been spoken by the novice mistress herself, still the room. In her chair on the dais, the abbess sits upright and graceful.

“Suora Zuana? As dispensary mistress you have seen our dear sister the most recently of all of us. Perhaps you might give us your thoughts on her strength or frailty?”

She turns to Zuana and her eyes are shining. To look at her you would think she was positively enjoying herself. At recreation the more mischievous nuns sometimes speculate on what a perfect wife for a great noble she would have made, running his family and his palace as efficiently as she runs the convent. They do her an injustice, Zuana thinks. It is not a mere palace she should run but a state. For surely in its way that is what she is doing here. Right down to a network of spies and agents to help keep her authority intact.

“When I saw her this morning she was unconscious and most weak. She is also suffering from chronic bedsores. In my opinion it would be kinder if she was moved as little as possible.”

A network in which Zuana appears now to have been granted a position of considerable authority.

“And if it was so decided, would you take over her care in the infirmary? You have in the past expressed grave concern over her state, I know.”