Sarah Dunant - Sacred Hearts

She finds a place to sit near her dispensary mistress and spreads her skirts around her.

“Over the years I have come to realize that we nuns are wondrously adept at seeing what we believe.” She hesitates. “Or rather believing what we want to see, perhaps even when it is not there.”

Both her words and manners are a long way from the rage with which they had parted company less than a day before. The rule of their order is clear on such things: a Benedictine nun must not give way to anger or foster a desire for revenge. She must love her enemy and make peace with an adversary before the setting of the sun. And she must never, ever despair of God’s mercy. It is an arduous list, and the abbess must be seen to be a shining example to all around her.

Even when she had not agreed with her, Zuana had admired her more than any abbess before her. Would that she could feel that way again.

“It appears I have you to thank for the fact that she did not stab herself in the middle of Matins.”

“It was not simply me, Madonna Chiara. The girl herself has no wish to do you or the convent harm.”

“No, she did make that clear. Nevertheless she hates me. The eyes show more than the words.” She pauses. “Well, in her place I would hate me, too. I assume you supplied the extra blood to make the performance complete?”

Zuana hesitates, then nods.

“It was most impressive. I hope you left enough for Federica’s blessed cakes. Though it is likely that there will be no Carnival feast by next year.”

“There will be a feast,” Zuana says firmly. “You will still be abbess. And then, as now, you will be much loved and admired.”

“Oh, Zuana, please. Do me the courtesy of refraining from false praise. We are, I think, beyond that. We are here to negotiate, are we not? In which case let us get on with it.”

“Here?” Her eyes slip to the crucifix.

“Why not? We will never have a better witness. And I would not like it to be thought that we sought to hide anything from Him.”

And so Zuana speaks, first of the disease and then of the remedy. The words she uses are clear and simple, as befits a good physician or scholar who has studied something deeply and wishes to convince others of its efficacy. The abbess, for her part, listens well, never once taking her eyes off Zuana’s face.

ON THE CHAPEL floor, on the cross, Christ’s face is turned away from the two nuns. The falling angle of the head suggests a man close to death rather than one still in agony. For Him at least the worst is past and there is resurrection to come.

“Do you know the greatest fear women have when they enter a convent against their will?” the abbess says at last. “It will surprise you, I think, for often they do not even know it themselves. It is not about children, or the latest fashion, or even stories of the marriage bed. No. At root it is that if they do not find comfort in God, they will die of boredom. Boredom.” She smiles. “I must say, in all the years I have been abbess of this convent, thanks to sisters such as yourself and even Umiliana, that has never been my problem.

“It is very clever, Zuana, your plan. You have always had the clearest mind when it comes to understanding problems and finding a solution. Still, it is not so much a remedy as blackmail.”

“Oh, it is not meant to be.”

“No? And if I still refuse? What then? I daresay there is enough dye left for her to disturb a good many offices. You have not seen her hands. She was most enthusiastic with the knife. If she were not in ecstasy, Suora Umiliana certainly would be. But of course you know all that. So tell me, this ‘remedy? You have used it before?”

“Not exactly. It is not possible to try it with any certainty upon oneself.”

“No, I would think not.”

“But I have studied a number of sources.”

“From apothecaries or storytellers?”

“I …I don’t see—”

“Ah, Zuana!” The smile lifts her lips, but does not reach her eyes. “For someone who knows so much, you are sweetly ignorant. Two noble lovers, one dying to be reborn in the other’s arms: Mariotto and Giannozza …Giulietta and Romeo …they go by many names. You’ve never heard the tragic tale? Well, it is too late now. The good Fathers of Trento consigned Salernitano’s stories to the flames. Though I daresay that will only make them even more popular.”

“You are right,” Zuana says quietly. “I know nothing of such stories. The sources I have for the remedy come from a traveler from the East and from my father.”

“…Sources we must do our best to protect.” The abbess slides her hand over her skirts, a gesture that denotes business as usual. “So you had better tell me the rest of it. How, for instance, will her ailing young pup learn what he must do?”

“She will send him a letter.”

“What? You have an address for him?”

Zuana drops her eyes.

“And you are sure he will respond?”

“Yes. I am sure.”

“And if something goes wrong? What if this potion of yours does not work? What if she dies?”

“She will not die.” Zuana’s voice is strong. “Though”—she hesitates for a second—“though if that were to happen, you need have no fear, for her secrets would die with her.”

“You have thought of it all. Except perhaps for one thing. It is clear what the convent will lose by your plan: an unwilling songbird novice and most of her considerable dowry. But as to what we might gain?”

And Zuana, who is not surprised at all by this question, now speaks again.

This time there is no hesitation.

“Very well, you had better have her write the letter. She will not stay thin forever.”

NOW, AT LAST, the ingredients can be mixed together.

Under Zuana’s tutelage, the girl writes to a young man who has sworn to love and marry no one but her. While the letter contains enough phrases of longing to leave no doubt of her feeling, its main purpose is to issue instructions, and in this the words are Zuana’s, for there can be no mistakes here. When it is finished, instead of the censor, the abbess reads it herself, seals it, and dispatches it by private messenger.

If there is any doubt as to the young man’s fidelity, it is dispelled within hours. The messenger is kept waiting so he can bring back an answer straightaway. It is almost as if the recipient had been waiting for it—which, of course, in some ways he had. The reply is delivered directly into the abbess’s hands, so that she is the first to read the outpouring of passionate love from the young man who will be instrumental in the escape of one of her novices. The irony is not lost on any of them.

The next day the abbess makes an unexpected visit to the sewing room to make sure the novices and sisters there are chattering less and sewing a little harder, so the trousseau will be ready and packed for dispatch within the week.

For her part, Zuana is busy with her books and her choir of cures. She is cross-referencing between two sources: her father’s own notebooks and a volume by one Alessio Piemontese, who claimed to have traveled the world in search of nature’s wonders and secrets. Though the ingredients in both are the same, there are discrepancies of measurements between the versions. In the end she errs in favor of her father’s, though it comes along with his warning—This has not been tested by myself but comes from verbal sources of others—scrawled close to the edge of the page.

For these few days Isabetta, in contrast, does nothing, which in some ways is hardest of all. By now she does not even bother to conceal the food she is not eating at table, so that everyone can see how viciously she is starving herself. For the rest, she sings and prays ostentatiously, hands together or hidden in her robes, face chalk-white, body hunched and fragile as she trots like a newborn lamb in the footsteps of the novice mistress.