So it has gone, day after day. There are nights when she has been asleep almost before she lies down. Then, what seems like minutes later, they are hammering on the door to get her up for Matins. She sleepwalks into the chapel, props herself upright against the wood (if there is indeed a whole city at her back, she is far too tired to look for it), and moves her mouth over the words: no understanding, no thought. She might even be asleep. Others are. Yesterday one of the novices fainted—just heaved a great sigh and keeled over. What was it? Had she seen anything? Been pierced by some vision or some sign? That’s all they wanted to know. Ha! The poor girl probably just saw a feather bed by the altar or a plate of roasted pork rising up within the candle smoke, and the smell of it overwhelmed her. She herself has barely eaten anything for weeks, the food is so foul. Wait until the feast days, they all say. You will taste heaven then. But for now there are just fatty meats and watered wine. And cabbage. Sweet Jesus, if she has to eat any more cabbage she will surely start passing green water. Maybe the dispensary magpie would have a remedy for that, too. Certainly she would be able to diagnose it. God knows she can diagnose and cure everything else.
Oh, but she is a weird one, this Zuana bird, in some ways the weirdest of them all. Kind and fierce. Sweet and sour. And clever—there are times when she barely understands what she says, it has so many layers to it. She is a law unto herself. She makes a fuss about rules of silence and work and abstinence, and then a few days later breaks them all by serving ginger sweets and telling all manner of outrageous stories. All that stuff about beards and souls, heretics and bishop’s boils and poisonous breath. Even the novices when they are alone together do not gossip in such a way.
Of course, she is trying to coax her out of rebellion, just like the rest of them. Using stories in the way her father did (oh, he must have been a lunatic to teach his daughter such things), so that you can almost feel your eyes widening with surprise, and before you know it you are interested in what comes next. No piercing with swords of love here, just God’s great plan through herbs and clumps of filthy roots. No wonder she ended buried in this tomb. Who else would ever have had her?
She tilts the candle again, and now the wax moves too fast and the flame almost drowns in its own juice. She steadies her hand. Once it has gone out, it can’t be relit until the watch sister comes around at Matins with a taper. Even then you have to be careful. If she sees you have no candle left it will be clear you’ve been awake later than the appointed hour and you might be liable to penance for disobedience.
Not all those who disobey are found out, though. She’s not so tired that she hasn’t worked that one out. The last few nights when she’s opened her door a crack—the watch sister’s rounds are regular enough to be circumvented if you have the concentration to time them—she’s been able to make out flickering lights under two or three of the others. One belongs to Suora Zuana, but she has dispensation for working late (though she, too, must be dropping with exhaustion, for during all the days of cleaning she never stopped, either), as does the fat-faced sister from the scriptorium, because it seems she is writing some play or other for Carnival.
Suora Apollonia, though, has no such permission. But then to look at her you would think she is at court still, all those lacy collars and silky skirts, not to mention the hours she must spend on her toilette. Really! She has the whitest skin and the most perfectly plucked eyebrows. She must have a source for extra candles, too, since at Matins she always seems to have the same amount left as everyone else. As the supply is controlled by the chief conversa, who oversees the storerooms, there has to be a black market operating. Again, it depends on which conversa serves you, so for now there is nothing she can do; alongside her brutality, Augustina has proved incorruptible when it comes to bribery. She barely speaks, and appears—or pretends—to understand nothing that is said to her.
