Of course she cannot say that to them, or show it, or even think it. Because they are cunning, these pious, pecking birds. Oh, yes, already they are trying to get inside her thoughts. Not all of them. Not the fat, warty servant one who dressed her this morning, so angry and clumsy that her face now hurts from the tightness of the ugly headscarf strapped and pinned around her. But the others: the hairy-faced novice mistress and the abbess— oh, especially the abbess, she with the girlish curls and the kind-but-not-so-kind manner. Inside all her understanding words about how hard it is to be so young and lovely and plucked from the world (and what would she know about it?), or how Our Dear Lord Himself did not expect her to find it easy, but that in His loving mercy He would guide them all to help her …inside all that caressing had been a constant stream of questions: “How old is your sister?” “Is there promise of marriage for her?” “When did you start your menses?” “How often did you have confession?” “Did you both have singing and dancing lessons?”
Of course, she hadn’t told her anything. In some ways she didn’t even mind the poking; it meant her mad behavior the night before must have had some impact, since the abbess was clearly worrying that she might have been sold a fake. In fact it had made her feel better to say nothing. Or, if she did speak, just to hold to the same phrase she had used with the dispensary magpie, though her voice came out scratched from all the howling the night before: “The words came from my mouth, not my heart.”
It had made the abbess angry, her refusal to talk. Not that she showed it, not directly. Instead she had put on a pious face and emphasized how the bishop was such an important, busy man and the shame of scandal, the ruin of the family… After a while she had stopped listening and started singing songs silently inside her head instead, until the abbess became impatient and finished the interview abruptly. And while all the concentrating on not concentrating had made her head ache, she had felt pleased with herself. Because she had been in this stinking prison a whole twenty-four hours, and it had not dented her resolve one bit.
Now, as she walks across the cloisters—how cold the stone is all around her, truly like the inside of a crypt—alone with her thoughts for the first time that day, on her way to meet last night’s magpie, she promises herself that she will not be so scared or mad anymore but, instead, will use her wits as much as her fear. Yet even as she thinks it she feels a great rush of fire inside her, such a combustion of fury and panic that she wonders if it might consume her before it ever reaches the world outside.
No, no, she cannot stay. She cannot. A whole year before anyone will even listen to her! Three hundred and sixty-four more days of poking and prodding and dead time full of endless prayer. Even if she could hold to her resolve, it would kill her. No, she has to get out. Though such a thing might bring down a storm of scandal on her father’s house, she will do it. Well, he is not so blameless. He lied to her, locked her up, betrayed her. In such a case, a father is no longer a father, and she is no longer his daughter. Only now the flame of panic flares up again, and she feels sick to her stomach and has to stop as she walks to spit the bile out of her mouth.
Anyway, he will not let her rot in here. No. She knows that. Oh, God, she knows that as certainly as she knows the sun will rise tomorrow, except that in this infernal city there is only fog and gray so that no one can actually see it happening. No, he will not forget her. In some way or other he will find her, just as he said he would. Until then she will make herself ready and bide her time, and whatever happens she will not let the fire inside get the better of her.
THOUGH ZUANA IS bound by the rule of obedience, it is the memory of the distress of her own first days that determines her patience and good humor when Serafina comes to her that afternoon.
The after-effects of the drug are obvious. Where last night the girl was all spit and fury now she is sullen and heavy. Whoever has dressed her this morning has bound her novice headscarf too tight, and there is an angry indentation along her forehead and her cheeks where the starched material is biting into the soft skin. As the drug subsides she will notice a pain in her head as well as her heart.
Her eyes are so dull that for a moment Zuana is not sure that she recognizes her.
“God be with you, novice Serafina.”
“And with you, Suora Jailer.”
Yes, she is remembered. Jailer. The word had been her own, but in the novice’s mouth it is newly shocking. Of course, the girl knows that.
“How do you feel today?”
“Like a dog who has been poisoned on bad meat,” she says, her voice raw and scratched.
