“Enough! Your presence is required in chapel. That is the abbess’s decision. And you are her novice.”
The girl drops her head again. “I am sorry. I just …well, I do not understand why but—but I miss it here.”
“I am sure Suora Umiliana will be able to help you with that.” She takes a breath. “If you are lucky you will get back to your cell before the Sext bell.”
The novice’s eyes slip upward. “Does that mean you won’t report me? I really didn’t mean any harm.”
Zuana closes her eyes with impatience. She thinks back to the madrigals in the girl’s chest and her unbidden arrival in Suora Magdalena’s cell. There are those who would say that ignoring the transgression of others is a transgression in oneself. “Just go now. Go.”
The girl does not need telling again. Zuana hears the door closing behind her.
In heaven, they say, the body of a saved soul is so pure and with powers so alien to those on earth that not only can it travel faster than lightning across the sky, but its senses are so heightened, so crystal-clear, that it can hear the beat of a bird’s wing a hundred miles away and see through the densest of forms as if they were made of air itself. It is almost a shame, then, that Zuana is still mortal. For it means that she does not hear the noisy sigh of relief that Serafina blows from her lips as she closes the door behind her, or see that under her robe her right hand is clasped over a bottle of dark liquid.
As she moves through the infirmary, Clementia calls out plaintively to this unlikely angel, who passes her by without even a sideways glance.
AH! SHE CAN barely breathe with the thumping in her chest. Her chest and her head. She runs her fingers over the rim of the bottle under her robe to make sure the stopper is still in place. It would not do to be leaking poppy syrup in her wake.
This is not how she had planned it. She had intended to decant some of the liquid into another vial so as not to leave a gap on the shelves but she could not find any empty ones. There had to be a store of them somewhere but for the life of her she could not remember Zuana ever using one, so frugal is she with all her supplies. As it was, when she heard the voices outside she had barely had enough time to rearrange the other bottles and slide it into her pocket before propelling herself out the door.
She had not expected Zuana back before Sext. The spreading of the illness was disrupting the patterns of the convent, and when she had seen her go into the abbess’s chambers after breakfast she had known she would not find a better time. After Benedicta had dismissed them early (that much of the story was true—the choir mistress has indeed been overflowing with new notes, so many it was hard even for her to follow them), she had noticed that the shutters were still drawn on the outer chamber, which meant they were still in conference.
How close. She swallows to get her saliva back. She is out of the infirmary now, moving back into the cloister courtyard. She remains so agitated it is hard to know whether she is relieved or still scared. What might have happened, had she not heard Clementia warbling about her angels and Zuana’s voice answering, does not bear thinking about. She must be more careful. But then she had not foreseen the time it had taken to get past the crazy one, who had heard her even though she had moved on tiptoe.
“Oh, it’s you. Where have you been? How is it out in the night? Is the holy army gathered yet?” Such a river of nonsense she spouted. “I cannot count them anymore, so you must do it for me.”
As she spoke she had yanked against the restraints like some lunatic shackled to a prison wall. See? See what happens when they keep you against your will? Eventually the mind curdles, sprouting fancies like mold on old cheese. But they will not keep her. Not for a moment longer than she can help. Once she has the keys and they agree on a plan she will be away from here, however great a scandal she unleashes. And no one will stop her, not even Suora Zuana.
That is the only worry now: how much she knows. The rest of them she can fool. Even Suora Umiliana seems to have stopped picking on her, so intent is she on the welfare of the rest of her flock now that the fever of illness as well as Carnival is in the air. But Zuana.
What are you doing here?
She sees again Zuana’s face confronting her. She had been so fierce. Had she somehow guessed that she had not come back only to deliver the book? What if she had known she was lying? What if she could smell the syrup leaking out of the bottle or detect its shape through the folds of her cloth?
At least the threat of it had made her fight back.
I came because I wanted to ask if I could help.
