by Sarah Dunant
Before they close the lid, the abbess unwraps something from beneath her cloak and sets it under the young girl’s bandaged hands. It is a jeweled crucifix, less precious than the one she uses for special feast days but rich enough to buy the beginnings of a new life for the person who possesses it. The instructions have already been made clear: on no account should she attempt to sell or pawn it within the city of Ferrara or its dominions. But once the young couple is far enough away, it is theirs to do with as they see fit. No one will question where it came from, and even if they did there will be no record of a precious cross missing from any convent in Ferrara, and certainly none of any escapee who might have stolen it. The novice Serafina will be long dead and buried by then, her obituary, largely indistinguishable from a hundred others, inscribed in the convent necrology by Suora Scholastica’s elegant hand and part of her dowry passed on to the convent.
The girl had listened and understood. “I don’t deserve this,” she had said, staring at the crucifix.
“I don’t know about that, but I fear you will find it hard to live without it.”
Though now, as the two women stand looking down at her, surely the same thought is going through both their heads.
“Because she is so weak I gave her too little rather than too much,” Zuana says quietly. “I pray it will be the right amount.”
Her words put speed into their step and they close the chest (picked for its empty knots, through which a certain amount of air will flow) and return to the mortuary, where they face the problem of how to weigh down the empty coffin enough not to arouse suspicion when it is carried to the chapel and burial plot the next morning.
Zuana has the answer ready. From the dispensary she brings an armful of books and lays them at the bottom.
The abbess stares at her. “We are both sacrificing jewels, it seems.”
Zuana shakes her head. “She is not so heavy—and like you I have greater ones. Many of the remedies in these I have tried and found wanting. The better ones I have already memorized.”
“Good.” She pauses. “Perhaps it would be wise for you to memorize more.”
Zuana feels the hollowness open up inside her. “When? When will it come?”
“I do not know for certain. Her leaving will steady us for a while. But it will happen, for in the end it does not depend on us. If it is not this bishop, it will be the next, or the one after him.” She smiles. “I am sorry.”
But of course Zuana has known it all along. How bad will it be? Though she can fill her mind with information, she will be able to do little with it if they see fit to destroy her choir of cures. She imagines the convent graveyard in the future, with two neatly dug new graves. Perhaps God will see fit to take them both by the time the worst happens.
“Come,” the abbess says briskly. “We had better finish this.”
Together they fashion a softer shape made from the abbess’s old shifts wrapped around the books, then cover the whole thing with the thick muslin. The abbess has already agreed with Father Romero that by the time he comes at dawn to conduct the service the coffin will be nailed down. Until then either Zuana or she herself will keep the night vigil over the “body.”
There is nothing more to do.
“God be with you, Suora Zuana.”
“And with you, Madonna Abbess.”
And so, leaving Zuana with the coffin full of books, Madonna Chiara calls for the chief conversa and supervises as four sturdy younger converse hoist the trousseau chest onto the cart and pull it through the gardens in the fading light down to the storehouse, where it is placed in the outer chamber, ready for the bargemen to find it there the next morning.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
HER PALMS THROB. Her palms throb and her throat hurts. Her throat hurts and she cannot breathe well. When she opens her eyes she is blind. In the few seconds it takes her to remember and make sense of where she is, she is gripped by panic, which smothers as powerfully as the layers of heavy fabric that cover her face when she tries to move.
She relaxes her body and tries to breathe more calmly. There is air but it feels thick in her nostrils, and she knows from a thousand stories of premature burial that it cannot last forever.
But she is not buried. She is in the trousseau chest. In the storehouse. And somewhere out there, behind the door, on the river, is a boat even now perhaps pulling up and …
Yes, yes. That is surely what is happening. They have been through this, Zuana and she, a dozen times: how, as soon as the convent is asleep, Zuana will make her way across the gardens and, using the abbess’s keys, let herself through first one door and then the other. She will open the chest, the girl will get out, and together they will go through the outer doors to wait on the dock until …
She must have woken too early. I cannot say for certain how long the drug will last. It would be better if you woke sooner rather than later, for it will be hard to move you if you are still under its influence.
She had listened to every word, never taking her eyes off Zuana’s face as she explained it once and then again. She trusts this woman absolutely and knows she would never do anything to hurt her. But while Zuana does not say it to her directly, she also knows that this is the first time she has used this remedy, so she cannot be certain one way or another how strong or how long.
What if she did not give her enough? What if she has woken halfway through? Perhaps she has not yet reached the storeroom. There may be converse in the room even now, ready to heave up the chest and move it down the stairs out into the grounds. Be quiet, Isabetta, she says to herself. Be calm. You must not make any noise now. Or waste any air.
She begins to pray There is so much to pray for. That she will make this man a good wife. That for all they have been through, they will care for, as well as love, each other and be mindful of God’s commandments. She prays that God will look after all those she leaves behind. She begs to be forgiven for her many trespasses, as she now willingly forgives those who, in their way, trespassed against her. Suora Umiliana, who meant no harm even if she could not help but cause it. The abbess, who did what her duty demanded but without whom she would not be free at all. And Suora Zuana—oh, Suora Zuana! — what can she ask of God on her behalf? As she searches for the words she feels the calm slipping away as the weight of cloth sinks more heavily on her face. She feels the urge to sing—to hear her own voice as a companion—but she does not dare.
How long has she been awake? Too long now, surely. Her head aches. Yes, the drug must have been strong enough. In which case how can it be that Zuana has not come? What if …?
What if? The two words release a wave of terror that seems to use up all the air around her so that she finds herself gasping.
What if someone is taken ill in the night and Zuana cannot get here?
What if in some way the plan has been found out?
What if there never was a plan?
Or what if this was the plan all along?
Sweet Jesus, what if this is the abbess’s final revenge to ensure her silence, and she is not in the storehouse at all but in the mortuary? Or worse—what if it is done already and she is even now buried, deep under the earth in the graveyard, as punishment for having brought the convent so close to ruin? What if, after all, she is going to die?
Once thought, it cannot be un-thought. As the panic hits she forces her bandaged hands up through the layers of silk till her knuckles crash into the lid above. The holes in her hands burn and throb as she pushes. But the wood is too heavy. Is it nailed down? Oh, dear God, it must be nailed down! She fills her lungs with whatever air is left and starts to shout. It will end as it began: with terror and tears and useless hammering against wood in the night.
“Help, oh, help me! I—”
And now she hears it: a knocking and scraping above her, then the sound of a key clunking and shifting in the lock, and a lid being lifted and pushed back.
“Hush, oh, hush. You must not make noise. I am here.”
> The layers of cloth are pulled off and she takes a great gulp of air. In the darkness she makes out Zuana’s broad, smiling face above her.
“I thought—”
“I know …I know. But there is no time now. Come, come. The watch sister was a tiger tonight, and it took me longer to get away.”
Zuana’s voice wraps itself around her, encouraging, cajoling, as it has done for so long.
“Here, drink this. Acqua-vita. Just a few sips. It will give you strength. I have put some in a bag for you. Give me the crucifix. Where is it? Did you let go of it? No, I see it here. I will put that in the pouch too. I have made up two vials. One is for the apothecary. A good dispensary can never have enough acqua-vita, and the other you may trade for some small monies to get you out of the city. Ah, quickly, quickly, Isabetta. Can you walk?”
As they move across the room they can both hear it now— something bumping against the wood of the dock outside.
Zuana fumbles with the lock on the door. It opens with a fearful creak; the wind and rain have swollen and twisted the wood since the last time they were both here.
The dock is longer than she remembers it. On one side it slides away into black water. But at the other end, close to the convent’s rowboat, another small boat is docking, with a candle lantern at its prow. There are two figures aboard. Two? Zuana’s heart jumps for a moment. But he would have to bring someone to help, of course. The loyal apothecary, perhaps.
The man in the prow climbs up and onto the dock. Zuana holds up her own lantern to meet him. There is light enough to see that he is tall, lanky, with a scarf tied high around his neck. Down one side of his face runs a jagged dark line.
Isabetta sees him, too. She stands frozen to the spot. So frozen that in the end Zuana must give her a little push.
She moves slowly, groggy still, half limping toward him. They stop when there is still space between them. One might think they would fling themselves into each other’s arms. But instead it seems they are not sure they know each other anymore. After a second’s pause, he puts out a hand toward her and she gives him her bandaged one in return. He holds it most gently. The moment appears to last forever.
“You must go.” Zuana’s voice pushes them on. “Go now.”
The girl turns and smiles quickly, and then they are on their way; the two of them clambering into the boat, the ropes freed from the mooring, the second man maneuvering the craft backward, turning, then rowing quickly out into the water until they are eaten up by the darkness and all one can hear is the splash and chop of oars.
Zuana stands listening until the sound dies away. Then she goes back inside and locks the door. She replaces the wedding shift and the top sheets, smoothing out their surfaces as best she can, and puts the lid back into place before moving into the inner storeroom and from there out into the convent grounds, locking each door carefully behind her.
She makes her way quickly back across the orchard and gardens toward the second cloisters. As she passes the herb plot, it comes upon her to wonder whether or not the calendula will be sprouting yet, and she makes a note to check it first thing at work hour, for she has grown somewhat lax in the affairs of the dispensary of late, and it will not be long until spring is fully upon them.
In her cell, she says a prayer that their new life together will be pure, and then prays for the souls of all those around her in the convent, for their benefactors, and for the rulers of the city, both alive and dead, before lying down to sleep.
As she lets her mind slide away, she recites a few of the remedies from the books that will be buried in the graveyard tomorrow. From now on, every night, she will memorize a few more. Of course she will never be able to reproduce her library in her head; that would be impossible. Not even her father could do so much.
The work of revealing God’s secrets through nature is not meant to be easy, Faustina. You would do well to remember the words of Hippocrates: “Life is short, the art long, opportunities fleeting, experiment treacherous, and judgment difficult. ” Ah, such humility in a man born so long before Christ. For all our knowledge now, he is yet to be surpassed.
Well, she will do the best she can. Though it would be better if she could find an assistant among the novices, a young soul with energy and aptitude, so that together they might form a chain, to hand on to those who come after the fruits of that which she now knows.
Tomorrow she will talk to the abbess about it.
She closes her eyes and sleeps. And the convent sleeps silently around her.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ALL THE CHARACTERS in this novel are imaginary, as is the convent of Santa Caterina, though its history and architecture draw on Sant’Antonio in Polesine, in Ferrara, which still exists today as an enclosed Benedictine community.
The history in which the novel is embedded, however, is all fact.
One of the final decrees of the Council of Trent before it disbanded in December 1563 was a rushed but detailed reform of nunneries, in response to the fierce challenges and criticisms thrown up by the Protestant Reformation. These changes, which were extensive, took time to be implemented, depending on the zeal of the local bishops, the order, the convent, and the opposing influence of local families.
But eventually reform did come. In the city of Ferrara, the power of the d’Este family protected the convents for a while, but the failure of Duke Alfonso III to produce a legitimate heir, despite three wives, meant that in 1597, after his death, the city and its dominions were absorbed into the Papal States. By the turn of the century, when rampant dowry inflation resulted in almost half of all noblewomen in Italian cities becoming nuns, convent life had changed forever.
Inspections—or visitations, as they were known—brought in the new rules. All contact with the outside world was brutally restricted: stray holes or windows bricked up, grilles put in place everywhere. Walls were made higher (sometimes with the last courses of bricks put up without mortar, in case anyone should try to lean a ladder against them, to climb in or out). Churches were redesigned so that the congregation saw nothing of the nuns within. Parlatori were similarly divided, with grilles and drawn curtains so that families could no longer freely mingle. Performance and music suffered particularly. In some cities, plays and all forms of polyphony were banned, and convent orchestras—apart from a single organ—prohibited. Inspectors visited nuns’ cells and confiscated furniture, books, and all kinds of “luxuries” and private possessions.
This repression did not go unchallenged. Once the inspectors had gone and the gates were closed, in many convents a certain laxity returned, and the battle went on over a number of years. In some places the nuns refused such changes; in a few they even fought physically to retain their freedoms. They were, however, always subdued.
In terms of documentation, a few voices of protest have survived. In the early 1600s, Arcangela Tarabotti, the eldest of six daughters and lame from birth, wrote a polemic on the evils of enforced convent entry that was published some twenty years later. Perhaps as poignant and more succinct is the following fragment from a letter sent in 1586 by a nun from Santi Naborre e Felice convent in Bologna to the pope himself:
Many of us are shut up against our will and deprived of all contact with the outside world. Living with such strictness and abandoned by everyone, we have only hell, in this world and the next.
This novel is dedicated to those women, and to the legion of others who came before and after them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANK YOU TO the staff of the British Library who, with unfailing efficiency and good humor, delivered truckloads of books to Humanities Reading Room One, a place where, should one be able to find a seat, a writer comes close to heaven on earth in London.
Vivian Nutton, Professor of the History of Medicine, University College, was kind enough to help me with the medicine and science of the time; Professor Kate Lowe at Queen Mary’s College, University of London, was boundlessly generous and knowledgeable about the world of Ital
ian Renaissance nuns; and Professor Craig Monson at Washington University, St. Louis, and Laurie Stras and Deborah Roberts of the innovative musical consort Musica Secreta all opened my ears and my heart to the wonders and complexities of convent music. Sacred Hearts owes a great deal to all of them. Its mistakes, however, are entirely my own.
In Ferrara, Italy, visits to Corpus Domini and Sant’Antonio in Polesine provided emotional as well as physical geography, while the city itself is so welcoming and visually evocative of its past that I fail to understand why it isn’t overwhelmed by tourists (though that is also one of its great pleasures).
I am grateful to Professor Elissa B. Weaver and to Cambridge University Press for allowing me to quote some lines of translation from her 2001 book on convent theater (details in the bibliography).
As always, deepest thanks go to Clare Alexander and Sally Riley my agents; my American editor, Susanna Porter; and in London, Elise Dillsworth and the one and only Lennie Goodings, head of Virago Press.
Writers are not the most even-keeled of human beings when working on a book. I’d like to apologize to my daughters, Zoe and Georgia, for the excessive number of conversations about nuns in our house, and, for their critical support, to thank Eileen Horne, Christopher Bollas, Gillian Slovo, Maria Maragonis, Don Guttenplan, Ian Grojnowski, Scarlet MccGwire, Joseph Calderone, Sue Woodman, Christina Shewall, and Isabella Planner. But final thanks must go to Tez Bentley who, as well as giving my words the polish of his rigorous subeditor’s pen, suffered (and I do not use the word lightly) alongside me when the going got really rough. It is fitting, perhaps, that for a novel with no men within it there should have been one on the outside whose sanity and generosity kept me from madness.
