She lives so much in her own head now (with so many novices involved in the play, the religious instruction has been reduced until the performance is over). Even at her most rebellious as a child she was never so alone. The only contact she has is within the choir, and while the actual singing steadies her a little, the rawness returns as soon as it stops. There are moments when she craves company, a way to soak up some of the tension inside her, only she is terrified of what someone might spot in her, even though most of them are half mad with Carnival anticipation themselves. Except for Suora Zuana. The dispensary mistress seems oblivious to it, almost distant. Yet out of all of them Zuana is the one she cannot see, the one she fears most. She goes out of her way to avoid her, and when they pass each other, on the way to chapel or in the cloisters, she is certain she can feel the older woman watching her, probing to see what is going on within her.
Their time spent together in the dispensary feels like a lifetime ago. The ointments, the spitting treacle, the ginger balls— she thinks about them more than she wants to. She tells herself it is because the nun is clever that she needs to be careful of her in case she suspects something. But it is more than that. What started as anxiety has turned into something more uncomfortable, a gnawing that has nothing to do with hunger but comes instead from guilt. Guilt that the one person who has helped her, shown her kindness and understanding (God knows, more than her own mother ever did), will be seen to have failed with her and brought disgrace upon the convent—perhaps even be blamed in some way for her escape.
These thoughts make her angry and she tries to push them away, but when she is awake at night they return. What if they punish Zuana? Take away her privileges, stop her working on her remedies, even confiscate her books? How would she live then?
Serafina considers leaving a letter saying that it is nothing to do with Zuana, relating how much she has helped her, but she knows that would make things worse. She would pray for her, only prayer is not possible anymore. How can she ask God’s help for anything now? Whatever the wrongs done to her, they are nothing compared with the one she is about to commit.
She closes her eyes again and tries to sleep. From somewhere in the gardens comes the screeching and yowling of a catfight. She relishes the noise, finds it exhilarating rather than alarming. She brings her right arm up and lays it across her belly feeling the flatness of her empty stomach, the ridge of her hip bone, as a hot and cold shiver runs down into her groin. So be it. Even if she brings the world down upon all their heads, there is no going back now.
Oh, you will never be His bride if you go by the easy path. You fool yourself that you can fly to heaven without wings. But there is no value in being good after death.
THE VOICES DIE away and the harp brings the song to a close. An audible hum of appreciation moves through the audience. The parlatorio is packed, all the best seats taken by the women: a sea of jeweled hairnets, starched ruffs, slashed sleeves, and pinched waists with such expanses of satin and brocades flowing around them that every time they settle themselves they bring their own rustling accompaniment to the music.
In front of them, on a set of benches, Zuana sits with those few choir nuns who are not called upon to perform. They face the stage and keep their backs to the audience so that there is little risk of making eye contact with the men, who are crowded in at the back, unrecognizable in cloaks and masks: brothers, fathers, uncles, and cousins, not to mention a sprinkling of those who, though they will have argued family status at the gatehouse, have just come for the singing, their Carnival calendar taking them around to all the best concerts in town, with Santa Caterina high on the list this year.
At the front the choir and convent orchestra face each other, as if to pretend they are performing for themselves alone. Suora Purità has her head and hands poised over the organ, Lucia and Perpetua are bent over lute and viol, while Ursula keeps her fingers cupped around the strings of her harp as if she is still cradling the notes she has just released. At her feet sits a flute, which she will play later. Its presence in the room has already caused a lively debate in chapter since there are those—some outside as well as in—who would consider it almost indecent for a woman to be seen in public playing any instrument with her mouth. The fact that the flute is there at all is testimony to the passion of Benedicta’s arguments, along with the thinly veiled threat that it may not be possible to perform her arrangement of one of the more popular song cycles without it.
