But she had cared less about the freshness of the printing than the pictures themselves: page after page of the most fantastical plants and creatures as recorded by men who had voyaged to the very edge of the world to catalog God’s creation. In contrast, her father’s interest in them had been as a source of medicine more than wonder; that great pointed horn from the rhinoceros was rumored to have miraculous healing properties, as potent as the unicorn’s. Years later, when she had caught sight of the bishop’s profile during service—the mass that accompanied his visit was endless, so that even the most saintly drifted off at times—the similarities had been immediate, even down to the horn of his miter sticking out from the top of his head. She had shown the image to Suora Chiara that same night, and they had laughed over it together. It had been barely a month later that the old abbess had taken to her bed with a running fever and the family factions had started gathering in anticipation of the next election.
“I daresay you have never heard of the lamia either.”
“Lamia? No.”
“Ah, if the accounts are to be believed, this is the most astonishing creature. Half tiger and half female, a woman’s face and breasts inside the fur, so that those who come across her in her natural habitat of the jungle don’t see the tiger until it is too late. Besotted, they rush toward her until they are close enough, at which point she leaps from the undergrowth and embraces them in her claws. You really know none of this? What did they teach you, your tutors in Milan?”
“I was taught well enough. Poetry. Music. Song.” And her tone is suddenly fierce. “The most beautiful things in the world.”
It is the first sign of a vivacity not bred from rage or desperation that Zuana has seen in her. Poetry, music, song. No, most certainly not bred for the veil, this one.
They work in silence for a few moments. The bait, however, has been too rich.
“You say you saw these animals in a book?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have it still? Is it in your chest?”
“In my chest?”
“Yes. Your father’s books that you brought with you when you came.” She shrugs, glancing up at the shelves where the herbs and remedy books that she uses most often are kept. “Everybody knows that was what your dowry was made up of.”
While the girl may not be sharing her own secrets in recreation, she must be listening avidly enough to those of others.
“Will you show it to me?”
Zuana, of course, is caught now, since the thing she must say truthfully must also be a lie. Such images, wondrous or not, are no longer the stuff of a good dispensary sister’s workshop.
“Even if I had such a book, Suora Umiliana would certainly not approve of its study.”
“Oh, she approves of nothing. Except prayer and death!” The words explode out of her. “Really. That is all she talks about: how the flesh decays and how we must be ready, praying every moment, for we may be taken at any time. I tell you, if she had burning nodules or gums full of pus she wouldn’t come to you but welcome them in as God’s messengers.” She shudders. “She makes me feel as if my insides are already being eaten by worms.”
She is not the first novice to find herself gripped by such images. Partly it is their age: girls around puberty taste everything more sharply, and though she might condemn poetry as the wordplay of the devil, the novice mistress, Zuana has noticed, is not above using some of its tools when it suits her, especially if she has smelled the poison of physical desire leaking out somewhere. Of course it is a great and honorable tradition within salvation: the elevation of the spirit through the vanquishing of the flesh. What were Tertullian’s words to converts to the cloth? “If you desire a woman, try to conjure up an image of how her body will be when she is dead. Think of the phlegm in her throat, the liquid in her nose, and the contents of her bowels.” He would have made a good doctor, as well as a great scholar.
“I know Suora Umiliana can be fierce sometimes.” Zuana picks her words carefully. “Yet she has a great flame of faith inside her, and she cannot help but want others to be warmed by its heat. I am sure once you give yourself up to her you too will feel it.”
But the girl does not want to hear this. She turns back to the pans, and the moment between them is lost. After a while, across the courtyard the choir voices begin.
