When was the last time she had to use this level of dosage? Two—no, three—years ago, on a girl with an equally fat dowry but a hidden history of fits. Her first-night panic had unleashed a seizure so violent it had taken three sisters to hold her down. Had the family been more powerful the convent might have been forced to keep her, for though epilepsy is one of the few recognized causes for the annulment of vows, that, like many things, depends on levels of influence. As it was, Madonna Chiara had successfully negotiated her return, along with a portion of her dowry somewhat reduced for their trouble. Such was the diplomatic acumen of Santa Caterina’s current abbess— though what she might do with this recalcitrant young spirit was yet to be seen.
Hide not Thy face from me in the day of my distress.
The voice inside Zuana’s head grows into a whisper.
“Through the noise of my groaning my bones cleave to my flesh”
When she thinks back on it later, she cannot remember what makes her say this particular psalm, though, once started, the words are apposite enough.
“I am like a pelican in the wilderness. Like an owl of the desert. I watch and am as a sparrow that sitteth alone on the house top. ”
“It’s not working.” The girl shakes herself upright, flailing, angry again.
“Yes, yes, it is. Stop fighting and just breathe.”
“I have eaten ashes as if it were bread and mingled drink with weeping.”
The novice gives a little cry, then slumps back down again.
“For Thou hast set me up and cast me down. My days fade away like shadows, and I am withered like grass. ”
She groans and closes her eyes.
It won’t be long now. Zuana moves closer, to provide support when she starts to slide. The girl pulls her arms tight around her knees, then after a while drops her head down on them. It is a gesture of tiredness as much as defeat.
“But Thou, O God, endurest for ever: and Thy remembrance throughout all generations.”
Outside, the night silence renews itself, moving out through the cloisters, across the courtyard, nosing its way under the doorframes. The convent lets out the breath it has been holding and slides toward sleep. The girl’s body starts to lean toward Zuana’s.
“So will He regard the prayers of the destitute, and He will not despise their call.”
It is over; the rebellion has ended. Zuana registers a certain sadness mixed with relief, as if the words of the psalm might not after all be enough to guarantee comfort. She chides herself for the unworthiness of the thought. Her job is not to question but to settle.
And it is happening. The girl will be unconscious soon enough. Zuana glances around the cell.
At the entrance to the second chamber is a heavy chest. With cunning packing a nun might carry half a world within it. Certainly she would have her own linen; those whose dowries buy double cells sleep on satin sheets and goose-feather pillows. The bed frame can be turned upright without help, but even with the remains of the mattress in place she will need thicker covers. Her body, no longer heated by the force of her distress, will grow clammy, and what started as outrage might turn into fever.
“For He maketh the storm to cease, so that the waters thereof are still.”
She moves the girl gently back against the wall and goes over to the chest. The lid releases a wave of beeswax and camphor. A set of silver candlesticks lies across a bed of fabrics, a velvet cloak and linen shifts next to a wooden Christ child doll. Farther down there is a rug, thick Persian weave, and next to it a handsome Book of Hours, the cover elaborately embossed, newly commissioned no doubt for her entrance. She can think of a few sisters who will find themselves wrestling with the sin of envy when they see this in chapel. As she picks it up, it falls open to a lavishly illustrated text of the Magnificat: intricate figures and animals entwined in swirling tendrils of gold leaf, shimmering in the candlelight. And tucked inside, like a page marker, some sheets of paper covered in handwriting. Had they been read and passed as acceptable? Or did the inspecting gate sister perhaps miss them in among such riches? It would not be the first time.
“What are you doing?” She is alert again now, head jerking up despite the pull of the drug. “Those are mine.”
Mine. It is a word she will have to learn to use less in the coming months. The girl’s panic answers Zuana’s question. Not prayers, evidently. Poems, perhaps? Even letters from a loved one, as precious as any prayer …The light is too dim to make out any words. It is better that way. What she cannot read she cannot be expected to condemn.
She thinks of her own chest and how the books inside it saved her life all those years ago. What if someone had seen fit to confiscate them? She would have needed more than a sleeping draft to dull the pain.
