One end of the refectory has been cordoned off, ready for the construction of a platform stage upon which the martyrdom of Santa Caterina of Alexandria will be performed before a specially invited female audience, and a storeroom nearby has been opened to hold props and costumes. Some are being made by the nuns themselves, but the more exacting—doublets and hose for the emperor’s courtiers, boots and swords for the nun soldiers, and the wheel itself, which must appear solid only to be broken by divine intervention before Santa Caterina can be tied to it—have to be brought in from outside, courtesy of the nuns’ families. Those sisters and novices involved in the play can often be found during recreation walking briskly in the garden or around the cloisters reciting their lines, either to themselves or to one another. Santa Caterina herself will be played by Suora Perseveranza, whose habit of self-mortification does not prevent her from the pleasure of occasional performance, to which, everyone agrees, she brings a tender verisimilitude. In years past her portrayals of such shining saints have brought tears—and flowing donations—from many of the female benefactors who have seen them.
After a long spell of bitter cold the city has grown a little warmer, though not enough to drive off the mists. The change has come too late for Zuana’s fingers, which are raw from mornings spent in the herb garden fixing burlap hoods over her more vulnerable plants. While the collection of garlands and herbs and the making of the decorations and the fumigants are her responsibility too, she has been afforded some help with this, though not of the caliber to which she had grown accustomed over the last months.
With everything finally prepared, the sisters of Santa Caterina can look back and feel satisfied with their work, not least because the weeks behind them have been difficult in many ways, peppered with events that have brought sorrow and crisis as well as celebration. Events in which Zuana has found herself more affected than most.
IT HAD STARTED a few days after the Feast of Saint Agnes, when young Suora Imbersaga, whose bleeding Zuana could not stanch, was finally taken by God. She had been growing weaker for some time, until one afternoon during Vespers she had fallen into unconsciousness. She had received extreme unction from Father Romero that evening after Compline (a heroic feat, considering his sleeping patterns) and had died before Matins when the convent was at its stillest, while in Suora Umiliana’s care.
When Zuana had come to relieve her fellow sister so she might get a few hours’ sleep before the office, she had found her kneeling by the body, hands clasped and tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. With no words allowed or needed, the two women had knelt together side by side, praying and keeping vigil until the bell called them to Matins. Zuana couldn’t help but wonder at the depth of the novice mistress’s devotion; no young nun could have asked for a more faithful companion for her last hours on earth.
Early next morning, the body was cleansed and dressed in fresh robes and, after the rest of the convent had paid their respects, buried in a simple wooden coffin in the small cemetery at the back of the gardens. A mass was said for her, in which Serafinas voice brought more sense of God’s grace than all of Father Romero’s mumbled words, and her obituary, composed by the abbess and inscribed in perfect letters in the convent necrology by Suora Scholastica (whose own dramatic composition was already being memorized by half a dozen eager players), spoke of her chastity, obedience, humility, and forbearance in the face of suffering.
As such it was almost identical to every entry before it, though no one would suggest it was untruthful: at barely twenty-two years of age, Suora Imbersaga had not had a great deal of life in which to fall prey to temptation.
In her own records, however, Zuana is less forgiving, at least to herself, noting down the various compounds that had failed and suggesting a few others that might help if and when the same symptoms should occur in others. If she had had more time, perhaps …but she had not. She wonders if maybe she had been wrong to concentrate on the womb, and if the location of the pain might instead have indicated a tumor within the bladder or the bowels, for she has come across such a case—too late now—noted from a dissection done in Bologna. But in her limited experience such tumors are the ailments of the old rather than the young, and anyway, whatever the cause, she will never know for the secret has died with her. In contrast to Umiliana, whose exultation remains a scalding memory, Zuana is left with a persistent, almost painful disquiet, so that she gives herself the penance of extra prayers to try for exculpation.
