“The work goes well today, I see,” Sister Pureza remarked.
Lucrezia paused only a moment to greet her mentor.
“You’re lucky you won’t be singing the psalms in the festa,” Sister Pureza said. “It’s a strain to memorize new psalms each year, only to forget them by Advent.”
The old nun lowered herself onto the bench alongside the novitiate, took up a fistful of the birthwort, and began to snap the leaves and stems. Her wrists were thick and her movements less limber than Lucrezia’s, but her fingertips knew just where to find the joint of the leaves and she made quick work of it, falling into the side-by-side rhythm that the novitiate had come to enjoy.
“There’s a full moon,” Sister Pureza said after a long silence.
Lucrezia looked up and followed the nun’s gaze. She’d caught only the sliver of the moon through her window, and was surprised to see it brightly visible in the blue sky to the east.
“I’ve had word from the de’ Valenti house that the child is coming.”
“Yes?”
“Before I came to the convent I’d received some training as a midwife. After the dark days”—Sister Pureza made the sign of the cross as she thought of the terror of the plague—“there were few of us left in Prato who knew these female ways, and I was called upon to assist at many partum bedsides. I’ve attended many difficult births since that time.”
She kept her hands moving steadily as she spoke. “Signora Teresa de’ Valenti and her husband are generous friends of the convent, and this will be the good wife’s seventh labor.”
Lucrezia shivered at the memory of her sister’s partum screams.
“I’ll need the birthwort, and some licorice root. And I’ll need an assistant with me at the palazzo,” Sister Pureza said. “I shall bring you.”
Lucrezia gasped, dropping the herbs she held in her hands.
“But I’m not trained in midwifery,” she exclaimed. “I have no knowledge of childbirth.”
“Your training has already begun,” Sister Pureza said. “Birthwort, for the bleeding. Vervain, for the humors. Sage for purification, wintergreen for the pain.”
“But there’s so much more,” Lucrezia said. “So much more that I don’t know.”
“You’ll learn,” Sister Pureza said. “It’s sharp medicine for a young woman to see the pain of childbirth, even a young woman bound for the veil.”
A flash of white cloth moved on the other side of the cloister garden and caught Lucrezia’s eye. She tore her gaze from Sister Pureza’s and peered through the cloister arches, hoping for a glimpse of Fra Filippo. Seeing the look that passed across the young woman’s face, Sister Pureza turned also, and saw the cleric. But it was not Fra Filippo. The man’s robes were black, ornamented with a white vestment that waved as he walked briskly toward the refectory.
“The prior general,” Sister Pureza said, squinting across the hedge and past the wall of the barn, to where the man hurried in the direction of the prioress’s study. “I saw his horse earlier.”
“Yes, he arrived this morning, when you were practicing the psalms with the others,” Lucrezia said. “Mother Bartolommea brought him to the garden.”
“The prior general was here, in my garden?”
Sister Pureza always found the prior general’s presence disturbing. He lingered too long in the refectory after meals, and stayed in the convent’s guest room longer than necessary while he dined with important merchants in Prato. In short, he seemed far more concerned with power than with piety.
“Yes. He asked me about the chaplain.” Lucrezia avoided saying the painter’s name aloud, and spared herself the fluster that came at his mention. “He seemed to be agitated.”
“Agitated?” Sister Pureza leaned forward, her face puzzled.
Lucrezia saw the prior general’s abrupt movement as he crossed the courtyard, and felt a stab of apprehension. But she was with Sister Pureza, and took comfort in the old woman’s presence even after the cleric disappeared from their sight.
“No. I spoke out of turn, Sister,” Lucrezia said, shaking her head. “He was only in a hurry. We spoke briefly, for barely a moment, and then he was gone.”
“Never mind,” Sister Pureza instructed. “We have much to think about, not the least of which is our duty at the Valenti palazzo. After Terce you must pack your things, and be ready to go with me when we are summoned.”
Sister Pureza came for Lucrezia after dark, swiftly whisking her to the de’ Valenti carriage that waited in the courtyard. The streets were empty, and they quickly arrived at the fine palazzo that filled an entire block on Via Banchelli, the golden hue of its stone exterior illuminated by lanterns.
A servant in a blue cap greeted the women and led them through a low back door. They passed through a busy kitchen with rough beams painted with intricate patterns of red and green. Although it was a mild evening, a bright fire blazed.
Following the servant up a narrow stair lit by a chain of sconces, the nuns entered the private appartamento of the Valenti family and were ushered into Signora Teresa’s elaborate birthing chamber.
“Grazie, Maria,” Signora Teresa cried as soon as she saw them. Her face was puffed and she was sitting in her large bed propped against a mound of pillows and surrounded by five women: two serving her, two related by blood, plus the midwife who’d been in charge until Sister Pureza’s arrival. Robust under her white cuffia da parto, Signora Teresa groaned.
“Not a moment too soon,” she cried. “My waters have already come.”
Lucrezia looked around the chamber that had been prepared for the lady’s confinement and spared no expense. It was furnished with an enormous carved chest upon which sat a luminous maiolica pitcher, heavy gold silk curtains that hung around the bed and covered the windows, and the sedia da parto, the birthing chair, which stood in a place of honor next to the fireplace. On the other side of the room a large cassone, decorated with images of Venus, stood open, more sheets and linens visible in its deep recesses.
“Sister Pureza—” Signora Teresa’s sentence was cut off by a spasm that took her breath away.
The old nun withdrew a sage smudge stick from her bag and lit it. She handed the smoking herbs to Lucrezia, and instructed her to walk the perimeter of the room to cleanse the air. Lucrezia did as she was told, keeping her face turned away from the laboring woman even as she breathed in the smell of her sweat, sharp and fetid under the perfume of lavender water.
“Mother of God,” the woman moaned.
“Recite your Ave Maria,” Sister Pureza instructed the woman. “Put your mind on your prayers.”
The pains were only minutes apart, and Sister Pureza was worried. The younger midwife knelt in a corner of the room, holding a pair of forceps in her hand.
“Dear Mother in Heaven,” the woman in the partum bed screamed. Her hair was matted, her teeth gritted together. Sister Pureza turned to see dark, clotted blood gush from between the mother’s legs.
Quickly, the old nun grabbed a towel and a flask from her bag. She warmed her hands by the fire and took a bit of liniment in her palms, rubbing them briskly together. She carried a copy of the Practica Secundum Trotam in her bag, but it had been years since she’d needed it. She knew where to lay her hands on the laboring mother, how to apply the ointment to the perineum, and where to massage the woman’s belly to help the child through the birth canal.
She worked confidently, using her fingers to measure the woman’s opening, counting the duration of the spasms, keeping her palms on the mother’s body. Signora de’ Valenti groaned again and her belly hardened, her hands flailing for something to hold on to. Sister Pureza spoke to Lucrezia in a deep, strong voice.
“Stand next to her. Let her take your hand.”
Lucrezia moved quickly, positioning herself next to the bedpost for support and reaching out for the mother. The woman grabbed hold of her hand and screamed. The howl frightened Lucrezia.
“It’s all right,” Lucrezia said, as much to con
sole herself as to console the woman. “We’re here with you.”
Signora de’ Valenti looked up and saw Lucrezia’s face—the face of the Madonna—over her bed.
“Bella Maria, Blessed Mother.” She raised herself off her pillow and arched her neck toward the vision. It must surely be a miracle, for the face of the Madonna was here. The Virgin’s own cool fingers were between her hot ones. “Help me, Madre. Help me.”
Sister Pureza looked up from her place between the woman’s legs and stared at Lucrezia. Sometimes it was said that the sick and the ailing had a hand already in heaven, and could divine what others could not.
“Leave me on earth, Mother Mary, don’t take me away yet.”
Sister Pureza frowned, fearing the woman was having delusions that could only be explained by a great sickness of body.
“Focus on your child, Teresa,” the old midwife said. “Close your eyes and think about the child.”
A shriek, followed quickly by another, sent Sister Pureza into a squat between the woman’s bent knees. She beckoned for the first midwife to stand beside her, ready with the forceps.
“Bear down,” Sister Pureza instructed. “Bear down, use your strength.” Panting, Signora de’ Valenti squeezed her eyes shut and bore down. In her great effort her eyes flew open and she cried out in agony and in ecstasy.
“Mother Mary, Mother Mary,” she wailed. Tears blinded her as she grabbed for Lucrezia’s forearm and dug her nails into the novitiate’s flesh. “Mother Mary, deliver me,” the woman cried. There was a gush of mucus and blood, and the head of the child crowned.
“Don’t stop, Teresa,” Sister Pureza instructed firmly. “You must keep pushing, do not stop.”
Lucrezia looked down at Sister Pureza’s wimple, bobbing between the woman’s bent legs, and smelled the sharp odor of blood that filled the chamber. The birthing mother panted with her eyes closed and sweat pouring down her forehead, her dark hair matted. Then her eyes opened, she moaned, the bed shook, and Lucrezia felt herself grow faint.
There was a pounding on the door, and Sister Pureza, gruff as a stableman, shouted, “Not now, this is the moment.” In the same voice she shouted at Signora Teresa, “Pronto, now, it must be now, the child must come now, push with all your strength.”
She put a quill filled with mustard powder up to the mother’s nostril, and blew. Signora de’ Valenti’s startled eyes opened, she began to sneeze violently, and in the convulsions of the sneezes her uterus contracted, the hip bones opened the final space necessary, and the baby burst from between the wishbone of her legs into the warm linen blanket Sister Pureza held to catch him.
The old nun put her mouth over the baby’s face, sucked off the mucus that covered his nose and mouth, spat into the tafferia da parto, the wooden bowl that was by the bedside, and checked the infant quickly. He was whole, round, and fat.
Sister Pureza gave the child to Lucrezia and told her to have the basin of water moved just outside the bedroom, near the warm fire that roared in the hallway. Servants immediately sprang into action, tugging the heavy basin through the doorway.
“You must use the swaddling bands,” Sister Pureza said, fingering the ends of the linen fascia that she’d wrapped around the child. “Only uncover the part that you’re washing, and you must bundle him quickly again to keep off the chill. When the babe is clean, give him to the wet nurse. Tell the balia to put him to the breast to see if he’ll suckle.”
As quickly as she gave her orders, Sister Pureza returned her attention to the mother. The child was pink and robust, but Signora Teresa was delirious, her skin broken in a patchy fever. She continued to call out the name of the Virgin even as Lucrezia shut the door behind her.
“Dominus spiritus sanctus,” Sister Pureza prayed. She put her hands out and held them over the mother’s breast. “Veni creator spiritus, mentes tuorum visita, imple superna gratia, quae tu creasti pectora…”
As Lucrezia stepped out of the room with the infant, the servant who’d led them up the stairs came to her, tense and pale.
“It’s a son. An heir,” Lucrezia said. She looked down at the child. His face was puckered and red, his eyes squeezed shut, his hands balled in tight fists.
“And my lady?” The servant peered into Lucrezia’s face, but before words could pass Lucrezia’s lips, the woman’s mouth opened in a wide circle.
“Dio mio,” the servant cried, raising her hand to her forehead and making the sign of the cross. “You have the face of the Virgin.”
The servant turned and pointed. On the wall opposite the bedroom hung a painting Lucrezia had never seen before. It was a painting of the Madonna in crimson robes trimmed in gold, holding the Christ child and seated upon a green throne, a delicate pearl benda wrapping her hair. The Virgin’s face was her own.
“How?” Lucrezia cried. “How did this come to be here?”
“It is a gift from the master to the mistress. It was delivered by the painter Fra Filippo only this week.”
The servant looked from Lucrezia to the painting and back again.
“The resemblance is impossible,” she said, and stared again at Lucrezia.
Tightening her hold on the child, Lucrezia stepped closer to the painting. She felt a strange, dizzying sensation, the same sense of unreality that filled her whenever she thought of the painter.
“Sister!” Lucrezia heard the sharp cry from inside the bedchamber. It was Sister Pureza’s voice, but she’d never heard it sound this way before. “Sister Lucrezia, I need you at once.”
The mother groaned and shrieked, the babe in Lucrezia’s arms opened his mouth and wailed. Lucrezia’s head was fuzzy with fatigue and confusion.
“I am needed,” she said to the servant, whose face had crumpled. Lucrezia passed her the child, and hurried back into the birthing chamber, where Signora Teresa was flailing her arms and legs. Sister Pureza was prostrate across the woman, trying to keep her from falling off the bed. The first midwife was on her knees, praying.
“You must find a cloth and tie her,” Sister Pureza instructed. “I can’t minister to her this way, I can’t get her to drink anything that will calm her.”
Lucrezia hesitated.
“Do what I say, child. Take a long piece of sheeting and twist it like a rope.”
Lucrezia took a clean sheet from the pile in the corner, coiled it into a makeshift rope, and brought it to Sister Pureza.
“Tie her before she hurts you,” Sister Pureza commanded. Lucrezia’s hands shook so badly that the twisted sheeting slipped from them.
“Please,” Lucrezia said. “I cannot do it. I’m sorry, Sister, I’m too frightened.”
Sister Pureza looked at Lucrezia from head to toe.
“Come, take her hands,” Sister Pureza said. “I’ll tie her, you hold her.”
In her fever, Signora Teresa felt herself fading, and she was afraid. She turned toward the candlelight, and saw the face she’d seen before.
“Is it you?” she whispered to Lucrezia. “Is it you, Blessed Virgin? Have you come for me?”
“I am Sister Lucrezia,” the novitiate said. She felt strange, and wise beyond anything she’d felt before. “Don’t be afraid. The likeness in the painting is only a coincidence. I’m not the Virgin. I haven’t come to take you. You have a strong, healthy heir. He’s in the hands of your servant and he’s being washed now for the nurse.”
Signora Teresa, long devoted to the Blessed Virgin, heard Lucrezia’s words and let herself be calmed. Everything was all right. She took a deep inhale, and her limbs went limp. When Sister Pureza put the cup of chamomile and vervain to the new mother’s lips, she drank quietly. A short while later the fever lifted, and Signora Teresa de’ Valenti slept under two blankets while the women of her family prepared the rich desco da parto, the painted birth plate, heaped with oranges and sweets. Signor Ottavio drank a glass of port in honor of his new son, Ascanio di’ Ottavio de’ Valenti. And in the hall outside the confinement room, Sister Pureza stood staring at Fra Fi
lippo’s Madonna and Child.
“The signora was fading. She was halfway to heaven,” said the younger midwife, who’d come to stand beside Sister Pureza. “Your novitiate has the Virgin’s blessing, Good Sister.”
Chapter Twelve
Friday of the Thirteenth Week After Pentecost, the Year of Our Lord 1456
The waning moon seemed to follow Sister Pureza and Lucrezia back to the convent. The women were exhausted, and the swift carriage rocked them even as the cradle lulled the newborn to sleep under the terra-cotta roof of his family’s palazzo.
Behind her closed eyelids, Sister Pureza contemplated Signora Teresa’s health, the miraculous cooling of her skin, the soothing of her spirit. The herbs from the convent garden had never seemed more potent as on this night. When it had appeared the mother would slip into the delirium that befell so many others, Signora Teresa had looked at Lucrezia’s sweet face and her blood, her humors, the very fever in her body had been cooled.
Of course the servants had seen this transformation; Signora Teresa’s sister-in-law had witnessed it, as well. A miracle, they’d said among themselves until Lucrezia had turned and said, “There is no miracle here, I beg you not to say such a thing.” They’d all nodded, of course, but crossed themselves before leaving the confinement chamber. And when the nuns packed up their things and prepared to return to the convent, it was with the parting words of Signor Ottavio in their ears.
“Any servizio I can do for you, at any time,” the wealthy man had said, taking Sister Pureza’s old hand in his.
Now, Sister Pureza sighed without realizing she stirred.
“I’m sorry, Sister Pureza,” Lucrezia whispered, touching the midwife’s robes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say about the painting. I had no knowledge of it until tonight.”
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