“The convent was only my school then, not yet my home, and the nuns who taught us were forbidden to speak of it. No, I did not learn the things I am telling you until many years later.”
Nonetheless she would surely have noticed something. Such drama would have played havoc with convent discipline, and the clever ones always sense it. Zuana has learned to spot them over the years as they trip along behind the choir nun on the way to their classroom: the little ones whose curiosity is greater than the rules, their faces round and shiny as bubbles, mischief and goodness at war, the outcome as yet undecided. Oh, yes, she would have known something.
“The date will mean nothing to you now, but it was a disastrous time for such a thing to happen. The duke’s French wife, Renata, was causing a scandal at the court with her heretical sympathies. There were apostates eating at her table and some said that she had even given refuge to the arch-heretic John Calvin. The great church council was meeting again at Trento and the rumor was that the inquisition was on its way to Ferrara. An uneducated woman like Magdalena becoming a conduit to God again without the proper tutelage of the church could only bring the city the worst sort of attention at such a time.”
“What happened?”
“After some …discussion within the convent, the old abbess—who unfortunately had a sister at court inside Renata’s entourage—was removed and a new one, Madonna Leonora, appointed. With help from the bishop a more exacting confessor was brought in, and it was decided that it would be better for all if Suora Magdalena was returned to the confines of her cell again.”
Returned to the confines of her cell. In effect walled up within the walls. How had it taken place? Had she protested, howled, hammered on the door, or simply curled up on her pallet and turned her face to God? Even if He had been there to welcome her, the image sends a shudder down Zuana’s spine.
“So it was not her own decision. She was imprisoned.”
“No …” The abbess hesitates. “She was confined to her cell. And everyone—herself included—accepted it, because for the good of the convent it was better that way.” She pauses. “It is …noticeable that since then, without an audience, she has again remained without stigmata or any regular ecstasies.”
“You are saying she is a fraud?”
“No.” She shakes her head impatiently, as if this whole conversation is unsatisfactory in its use of language. “Though when she was younger it is true she was accused of that. No, I am simply saying how it has been. Only God knows what is taking place within her.”
But while that is sound enough, Zuana also knows what she saw. And a bird-boned old woman with skin like over-rolled pastry should not have the strength to manacle a strong young woman with her grasp, let alone be so transported that she allows flies to walk over her eyeballs.
“The story I have told you was only fully explained to me four years ago when I was elected abbess, and my duty to the convent with regard to Suora Magdalena was also made clear.”
Your duty to the convent, Zuana thinks, but also to your family. For what the abbess does not say—because they both know it anyway, as does every other choir sister with half a brain—is that those same tumultuous years of the early 1540s were also ones of shifting allegiances within Santa Caterina, and the appointment of Madonna Leonora to the position of abbess had seen the power return to Madonna Chiara’s family—where, despite gradations of opposition, it has remained ever since.
“I see.”
“So if she is indeed dying, as infirmary mistress you can perhaps find other ways of caring for her within these rules.”
“And what if …” Zuana hesitates.
“What if?”
“What if God really is talking through her?”
“Then He would do well to find other means,” the abbess says quietly. “Zuana, though you are not the most holy sister in Santa Caterina, you are certainly one of the more astute. This is not gossip I am sharing with you. Nor even old history. I am telling you these things now because once again we are voyaging in stormy waters.”
“But …but I thought the worst was passed. Duchess Renata is long returned to France, we have a new duke, a new pope, and the inquisition has moved on. Surely the city is out of danger now?”
“The reprieve is temporary. Our new Holy Father still has his eye on Ferrara. Without a legitimate heir, the city will return to the Papal States at the duke’s death, though God willing that will not happen. But there is a more immediate threat. You will know that among the final decrees passed by the council at Trento was one directed at convents, to purge them of any impurities or scandals by enclosing all nuns, regardless of their order or status.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t affect us. As Benedictines we are an enclosed order already.”
