“O God, rebuke me not in Thine indignation, neither chasten me in Thy wrath, for I am weak and my soul is in anguish. ”
But once the spasms start in earnest, they are so violent and frequent that there is no time for speech, let alone prayer. It is physically exhausting work. The bowls Zuana brings fill and refill. When the diarrhea begins, the girl’s body is racked by double agony. The stench fast becomes almost unbearable. They roll up their sleeves and tuck their habits into their belts to avoid the worst of the contamination. They strip her down to her shift so she will soil herself as little as possible and wrap her hair in a piece of material to keep it from falling over her face into the vomit. But they can do nothing about the sweat that pours off her or the way her limbs shake uncontrollably from the spasms that crack through her body.
There are those who swear to the efficacy of hellebore as an aid to exorcism, since any demon trying to bury itself deeper to escape the burns inflicted by holy water will find its hold on the body severed from within. While Zuana has never had cause to use it in such a way, she has seen it work enough to understand what that might look like: the torso so gripped by spasm that it can go as rigid as wood, lifting the backbone high off the bed as if some spiteful spirit is controlling it from within. But what she has never witnessed before is its effect on top of such a powerful soporific. The battle between a body wanting to let go and the eruptions seizing it from within is truly terrible to watch, so that there are times when the girl feels like a rag doll held between the teeth of a great dog that shakes her to and fro before flinging her down on the ground, only to pick her up and start the whole thing again minutes later.
“Don’t be frightened, Serafina,” she finds herself whispering, as they lift her back up in anticipation of the next wave. “Remember how we said that sometimes one must use a poison to cure a poison? It will not last forever.”
But the poppy and the hellebore have her too deeply in their grip, and it feels as if there is no reaching her. Across the girl’s body, Zuana meets the abbess’s eyes and sees in them a look of such unashamed admiration that she feels almost shy. On the wall above the bed the figure of Christ looks down from a wooden crucifix. Suffering upon suffering. Who is to know how much is enough? Which sins can be forgiven and which remain?
As she falls backward into Zuana’s arms again, the girl murmurs something.
“Srree—m srree.”
Zuana puts her head close to her mouth to try to hear more but it is gone, swallowed up in a long growl of pain as her insides contract again.
Somewhere toward the end of the night the abbess leaves. She will have to appear at Lauds, and before then she must return the stolen costume to the props cupboard, cleanse and dress herself, and get at least some sleep. By now the spasms have become less frequent, and for a while Zuana wonders if the worst may be over. But almost immediately a new wave of vomiting begins, and it is all she can do to manage the girl on her own.
They had pulled the mattress down on the floor to give the girl some respite from the hard stone, and once the spasm has passed she lies flattened on it, her breathing fast and shallow, her skin covered in a mist of sweat that returns however many times Zuana mops her. How successful the hellebore has been will only become clear when the spasms finally stop and she becomes conscious again. But Zuana has no idea if—no, she will not hear that word—when that will happen.
“Out of the deep I have called unto Thee, O God. Lord, hear my voice. Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. ”
Outside, rain starts to fall, gentle at first, then much fiercer, with a wind driving the water. Whoever is still out after the madness of Carnival will be chased home by it. Our Lord is washing the streets clean in time for the beginning of Lent. Tomorrow the city will wake with a collective hangover and turn its face to abstinence and repentance. And if the repentance is sincere, then surely He will listen.
“If Thou, O God, shall mark iniquities, then who shall stand unaccused? Yet there is pardon of sin with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.”
The downpour is so relentless that soon she can hear water from the roof gushing out in streams through gargoyle mouths onto the flagstones in the courtyard beneath. She has a sudden desire to be out in it, to be standing in the middle of the deluge, drowning in its freshness.
