by Sarah Dunant
As to the causes—well, the answers were as plentiful as the contagions. In his last years, her father had been drawn to the theory (which, like many, was built on an ancient one) of a physician colleague in Verona who argued that such diseases traveled by means of tiny malevolent seeds in the air that sat inside clothing and materials and, having entered the body, attacked and overcame the healthy seeds they found there, turning them into an enemy force within. Yet if they were so small as to be invisible, how could any doctor tell where they were hiding? Why were some more dangerous than others? And how, short of burning everything, even the air itself, could we destroy them? To the lack of answers he had brought only more questions. In the end, the outcome was the same: if it was not actually the plague or the pox, whatever it was eventually moved on, only to be replaced by something else the next year, and then another, not entirely unlike it, two years after.
In some ways Zuana is lucky to be kept so busy for if she were not she might find herself thinking of that winter, sixteen years ago, when her own life had started to unravel. The weather itself had been unusual that year, mild right into the beginning of February, and the infection, when he contracted it, had seemed benign enough, though he was old by then—over seventy—and already no longer quite as boundless in his energy. He had sneezed and wheezed, then turned hot and cold, but after two days in bed with a fever, which she had treated according to his instruction, he had got up again, declaring himself to be cured and with the appetite of a horse.
They had dined at table—he had had broth, roasted meat, and a bottle of good Trebbiano wine—and they were sitting together by the fire companionably reading, as was their habit. He was studying one of the recently arrived volumes of Vesalius, as he often did those days, and was deeply absorbed.
When it happened it had been so quick she could barely remember it. She had heard a fast intake of breath, as if he had come across something that annoyed or amazed him—recently he was as much in dialogue with his younger colleagues’ findings as he had first been in awe of them. She had looked up to see or ask what it was that had incensed him in time to register a frown on his face as his head slumped down onto his chest. For a second it seemed as if he had simply fallen asleep, as he did sometimes those days after a good dinner, but then, slowly—so slowly that it seemed as if time itself might have stilled to mark the event—he had leaned to one side and keeled over onto the floor, his hand sliding off the book heavily enough to tear the page as it went.
She had got to him almost as he hit the ground, screaming out for the servants and trying to raise him up. She had done all he taught her: loosening his collar, calling his name, rolling him onto his side—though his body was as heavy and loose as a great sack of grain—and pouring water from the jug into his slack half-open mouth. But already it felt as if there was nothing there. He, her father, was gone. No movement, no breath, no hint of a pulse, nothing. It was as if life, not wanting to cause any fuss or bother or the need for remedies or nursing, had slipped out of him in that one single exhalation of breath.
Later, when the priest had come and the body had been lifted and carried out to lie on the table in his workshop, and the place was full of servants and people wailing, she, who had been too stunned to cry, had gone back to the book on the table to find that it was the sixth volume, dedicated to the thorax, and that the torn page was an illustration from the dissection of the heart showing how the blood moved from the left to the right side. It had been a subject of some vexation to him, this chapter, since it exposed an apparent contradiction between the authority of the great Galen and the evidence of Vesalius’s own knife. Vesalius himself later went so far as to publicly declare Galen wrong—the blood did not, could not move that way, as it was evident to his own eyes that there were no holes in the wall of flesh through which it could travel.
When, many years on, the news of this reached her through the grille, she wondered if perhaps that was what her father had been thinking about when the fit took him, or if the correspondence between the dead organ on the page and the loss of his own vital spirit was a simpler affair, left there deliberately so that she might in some way understand this death better. Certainly with the silence of his heart came the silence of everything, from the sound of his voice to all those thoughts and words from the great library of his experience not yet written down and therefore lost forever.
Get up now, Faustina.
And yet, God be praised, an echo of his voice had returned.
You have mourned enough and there is work to be done.
He had been right. She could not grieve forever and there were things to be done. Almost before the priest had said the last prayers you could hear the flapping of vulture wings in the antechambers, and if she didn’t stop crying soon, how would she notice when his most precious volumes started to slide off the shelves, or how his papers were disturbed by teachers or ambitious students coming to pay their respects and take back a few things they had “left with him for safekeeping”? It was flattery of sorts. A doctor with connections at court left a hole waiting to be filled by others; and what young woman—even if she could command any offers—could possibly want books of herbs and remedies as part of her dowry?
But the real communication didn’t start until sometime after the funeral, a few days before she was due to leave for the convent, when the kitchen girl had been struck down with the most monstrous stomach cramps and headaches that had had her vomiting with their ferocity. She was a long, gangly strip of a girl from the country, at that age where she seemed to be growing too fast for her own flesh, and when Zuana had found her she was in such agonies that she could barely uncurl herself to show the source of the pain.
Come on! Have you forgotten everything I taught you so soon? he had said in her ear as she had bent down beside her.
She had been so nervous that her hand had been shaking as she took the girl’s pulse. When she couldn’t find it in her wrist she went to the neck, behind her ear, where he had taught her, and there she located it, forceful but not so fast as to suggest dangerous fever. She had set to work on the headache, making up a crown of verbena leaves in vinegar and wrapping it around the girl’s forehead, then dosing her with basil water and eau-de-vie to settle or expel whatever was wrenching her gut. And because she would not have slept even if she had gone to bed, she had sat with her through the night as she had tossed and moaned.
Well? he had said, just before dawn, at that hour which seems to suit the dead more than the living. What is your opinion now?
She had laid her hand on the girl’s forehead. “Whatever fever she had is gone. But the cramps continue. I would have expected bowel evacuation by now if there was gut poisoning. Perhaps I should increase the eau-de-vie to help expel whatever is there.”
“Perhaps. And what if there is nothing to evacuate?”
“But there is something. I can feel definite tenderness.”
“Where? Show me.”
She put her hands on the thin shift that covered the girl’s body, moving them down from her stomach gently toward the pubic bone. But the truth is she didn’t know exactly where, for while she had seen woodcuts of the insides of a woman, this was the first time she had actually had flesh under her hands.
“Here.”
But by now he had fallen silent.
The girl moaned, arching her body in response to the pressure and the pain. And now, through her shift, she noticed for the first time the fat buds of new breasts. She got up from the bedside and went into the workroom, pulling down a bag of Saint Mary’s mint and some bugloss leaves, infusing them in a mix of hot water and wine. How stupid! No wonder he had stopped talking to her.
Back at the bedside she helped the girl upright so she could sip it slowly.
“Ooh, I am dying.”
“No, you are not,” she said. “The problem is more that you are growing.”
Sometime next morning the girl passed small clots of black blood, followed not long after by a mor
e recognizable menstrual flow.
“I should have realized.” Back in her room, she was almost too tired to undress. “How could I not realize? It was so simple.”
It is the simple that is sometimes hardest. That is why you have to continue to ask questions and keep looking.
Perhaps if I had had a mother, she wanted to say, but if she thought about this now she would have to accept the loss of two parents.
You did well enough. Go to bed now, Faustina. You need the sleep as much as your patient.
“No! Don’t go. Please don’t go.”
Do not worry. I will be here when you need me.
“BENEDICTA.” THE VOICE behind her in the dispensary is loud and real.
Zuana turns too suddenly, which causes her head to throb so that she has to steady herself to avoid falling. The novice mistress, Umiliana, is standing almost directly behind her, her cushion-fat cheeks red and veined from exposure to the winter winds.
“Deo gratias.” Has she been talking out loud to herself? Surely not.
“Do I disturb you, sister?” The older woman pauses. “I heard voices.”
“No. No, I”—Zuana stumbles, unsure of what or how much she has heard—“I was …praying. Is there something wrong?”
“A novice has been taken ill during instruction.”
“Who?”
“Angelica.”
“Angelica? She suffers with her lungs.”
“God has seen fit to afflict her that way, yes. But she bears it well.”
“I …I will come to her.” She turns back to the worktop as if to find something to give her, but the move makes her dizzy again.
“I would not worry yourself. She is recovered enough for a while. I have sent her to the chapel to pray”
But Zuana is thinking of how the infection might mix with the asthma and what they would do if the girl starts to find it hard to breathe. “It would be better if she were resting.”
“What? And make the chapel even emptier?”
She hesitates. It would help no one to have them bickering now. “It is only that the contagion moves more swiftly in places where we are gathered together.”
“So I have heard said. However, when it comes to the greater well-being of the convent, there is some disagreement as to what brings most relief.”
Zuana watches as the novice mistress’s gaze shifts away from her face down to the open books behind her on the worktop: woodcuts of the upper chest and respiratory system, with a commentary to the side of them. She is struck once again by the intensity of Umiliana’s concentration. It is no wonder that her novices find her so intimidating; it seems there is little, inside or outside the soul, that she does not notice.
“You use interesting prayer books, sister.”
“They are records. From a physician in Verona who dealt with an influenza similar to the one besetting us now.”
“And did he know the cause of it?”
Now that Zuana thinks about it, she cannot remember a time when the novice mistress has come to her in the dispensary like this. Certainly she does not need to be here. News of a novice’s illness could have been sent easily enough via a conversa.
“He had some idea, yes.”
“What was it?”
“He was of the opinion that it is connected with semina morborum.”
“Semina morborum? Bad seeds? What—that come from the ground?”
“No, they are all around us. In the air.”
“Where?” And Umiliana looks about her now with such innocent immediacy that Zuana can detect no hint of mockery.
“They are incorporeal and therefore invisible to the eye.”
“Then where do they come from?”
“They exist within nature.” As she says this she becomes suddenly aware of how ill she is now feeling.
“So they are created by God, then? On which day of creation did He make them?”
“I think there was not a particular day.” Maybe a vinegar and rue water cloth on her forehead would help. “The great Saint Augustine himself has this same idea within his work.” She will make up a further batch as soon Umiliana leaves. “Perhaps I have not explained it well.”
But it seems that the novice mistress is not that interested in leaving. “Well, I am only a simple nun. I do not have your …education in such things.” She pauses. “But I have another idea as to why such things happen. Of course, it is not as …newfangled as yours.”
As she says this she smiles, as if to show her business is not quarreling after all. Only it is hard to tell what she is really feeling, since when she smiles her eyes are swallowed up into cheek flesh.
Zuana leans back against the bench.
“You are sure I do not disturb you? I would not so presume if the welfare of the convent was not at stake.”
Zuana glances to the hourglass, which is pouring sand toward the end of her work hour. If the novice mistress has come simply to debate God’s place in medicine, she could have done it within chapter. It would not be the first time they had wrangled over such matters, and in chapter she could have been sure of having an audience to play to.
“No. You do not disturb me at all. Please, I would very much like to hear.”
Umiliana takes a step toward her now, as one might do if the intention was to share a special confidence. Her gaze slips over Zuana’s head to the wall of vials and pots behind her. My choir of cures, Zuana thinks, then checks herself. Never once has the novice mistress had recourse to them. Whatever pain she may encounter she keeps to herself. If that is strength, does that somehow make others’ suffering a weakness? Umiliana’s eyes move back to connect with her own. Certainly something is happening here, and she would do well to pay attention to it. She tries to concentrate.
“It seems to me that God may use such contagion for a purpose, sending it into people and places where He feels He is not worshipped properly.”
Their faces are close now. If the seeds are indeed turning more potent inside me, I must be careful not to breathe them out directly onto her, Zuana thinks. She looks away to the side. “Yes. Well, that …that can also be true.”
“Ah! So you are aware of it, too?”
“Of what?”
“The way He feels toward Santa Caterina. About what is happening here—how the convent is changing.”
“Changing? I …am not sure—”
“That night when Suora Imbersaga died, you did not sense something? You did not feel His blessed presence in the room?”
Certainly she had experienced something. “I …I felt His great compassion, that He had seen fit to end her suffering.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. But more than that. You did not feel that His taking her to Him was a sign of how He felt about Santa Caterina? That such a good soul would do better in His care?” And now she pulls back slightly. “You were much moved that night, Suora Zuana, I could tell. I would say more than I have seen you for years.”
“I was …I …yes—” She breaks off, not knowing what to say.
A soul as smooth as a bolt of silk. Those are the words her supporters use about Santa Caterina’s novice mistress. Though others might add and a tongue as sharp as a toothpick. Yes, Zuana had been in pain that night, though it had been more about what she could not feel than what was revealed. Had God really spoken to Umiliana and not to her? There was no question but that there had been an intensity of sweetness in her sorrow. No question either but that the young nun was deserving …But does that make Zuana so undeserving that she had noticed nothing?
She is aware that the silence is growing, can feel herself sweating further under the heat of Umiliana’s concentration. My work is to tend the plants and alleviate suffering, she thinks stubbornly, not to dabble in convent politics. If the abbess were here she would know what to say. Particularly with the welfare of the convent at stake. Well, it seems she must say something.
“The convent has grown in numbers in recent years. I think all change brings more change with it.”<
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“Yet Our Lord Jesus Christ does not change. His love, His sacrifice. And neither does our duty toward Him. We are bound to serve Him in obedience and humility, not look to the outside world for sustenance and praise. The great bishops at Trento warned against such contamination. Yet look around you, dear sister. Do you not think that in our hunger for ever more dowries and glory we take in too many young women who love themselves more than they love God?”
Ah, so it is the problem of young souls. Everyone knows it has been a source of distress to her for some time. Not to mention this latest challenge. “If you are talking of the young novice Serafina.” She pauses, not sure for a second what she is about to say. “I think …I think with your help—and God’s music—she is slowly finding her way.”
“Do you? I am not so sure. I think the Lord is crying out to her but that now she uses her voice to stop her ears against Him. And why not? These days Santa Caterina is more interested in training voices for profit than for prayers. Perhaps you do not see it because you do not remember, but this was once a convent of great devotion. Novices would feel it all around them. Angels would wrap Suora Agnesina in their arms during Matins, and Suora Magdalena had only to open her hands in chapel for blood to pour out from her wounds. But she is locked and forgotten in her cell.” She pauses. “Though I am sure that He still comes to her. Does He not?”
Ah! So even the novice mistress is not immune to the power of gossip. Surely this, too, is its own form of contagion, Zuana thinks: how words once spoken have no need of repetition, since instead they can travel through the air, invisible, incorporeal, becoming potent as soon as they are ingested. She has a sudden image of the world as it must be seen by the angels, vibrating with a cornucopia of unseen matter, a mix of the benevolent and the malign. On what day was all of this created? She wishes her father were here so she could ask him. But that is not the matter in hand. The matter in hand is Suora Magdalena and her possible transcendence. Is this what the conversation is really about? Could it be that the holy novice mistress is simply using the welfare of the convent as bait to catch a bigger fish? Such cunning seems—well, somehow unworthy of her.
