Oh, but she is a weird one, this Zuana bird, in some ways the weirdest of them all. Kind and fierce. Sweet and sour. And clever—there are times when she barely understands what she says, it has so many layers to it. She is a law unto herself. She makes a fuss about rules of silence and work and abstinence, and then a few days later breaks them all by serving ginger sweets and telling all manner of outrageous stories. All that stuff about beards and souls, heretics and bishop’s boils and poisonous breath. Even the novices when they are alone together do not gossip in such a way.

Of course, she is trying to coax her out of rebellion, just like the rest of them. Using stories in the way her father did (oh, he must have been a lunatic to teach his daughter such things), so that you can almost feel your eyes widening with surprise, and before you know it you are interested in what comes next. No piercing with swords of love here, just God’s great plan through herbs and clumps of filthy roots. No wonder she ended buried in this tomb. Who else would ever have had her?

She tilts the candle again, and now the wax moves too fast and the flame almost drowns in its own juice. She steadies her hand. Once it has gone out, it can’t be relit until the watch sister comes around at Matins with a taper. Even then you have to be careful. If she sees you have no candle left it will be clear you’ve been awake later than the appointed hour and you might be liable to penance for disobedience.

Not all those who disobey are found out, though. She’s not so tired that she hasn’t worked that one out. The last few nights when she’s opened her door a crack—the watch sister’s rounds are regular enough to be circumvented if you have the concentration to time them—she’s been able to make out flickering lights under two or three of the others. One belongs to Suora Zuana, but she has dispensation for working late (though she, too, must be dropping with exhaustion, for during all the days of cleaning she never stopped, either), as does the fat-faced sister from the scriptorium, because it seems she is writing some play or other for Carnival.

Suora Apollonia, though, has no such permission. But then to look at her you would think she is at court still, all those lacy collars and silky skirts, not to mention the hours she must spend on her toilette. Really! She has the whitest skin and the most perfectly plucked eyebrows. She must have a source for extra candles, too, since at Matins she always seems to have the same amount left as everyone else. As the supply is controlled by the chief conversa, who oversees the storerooms, there has to be a black market operating. Again, it depends on which conversa serves you, so for now there is nothing she can do; alongside her brutality, Augustina has proved incorruptible when it comes to bribery. She barely speaks, and appears—or pretends—to understand nothing that is said to her.

Well, until she gets another servant she must make do with what she has. It could be worse. When she takes the time to curb her panic, she can see that. Yes, this place is foul beyond words. But had it been a convent in Milan, the abbess would have known the family, no doubt have heard the gossip, and alerted them to the fuss she was causing. Here she was still an ordinary rebel rather than one with the mark of Cain. They have even given her work in the one place where she might learn something useful, if she keeps her wits about her. She is lucky that way, for she has always had a good memory. He had only to sing a melody once for her to have it. Not that anyone else cared. Certainly not her father. He had only had her voice trained as a complement to her dowry, to go with a pretty face and a docile temperament. Like her sister. Her sister—ha! — who was so “shy” her eyelashes couldn’t help but flutter whenever a man who was not her father looked at her.

She gets up and rolls the blanket back against the bottom of the door to block any sign of candlelight. It is almost time for the next watch round. When she returns to the table the candle is sputtering again, the wick curling over into the thin lake of hot wax. She tries to lift it up to save the flame but it spits once, twice, then goes out. She gathers up the drops around the wick, fast to avoid the burn, trying to flick them onto the paper while still molten, but in the dark it is useless. She can feel tears at the back of her eyes as hot and angry as the wax. Self-pity. Self-pity born of tiredness, that is all the tears are, and she will not give in to them. She lies down on the bed and curls the blanket around her. Once the watch has gone by she will get up again.

She has promised herself that in between watches tonight, with or without the candle, she will move out of the cell and time how long it takes her to get as far as the gardens and back, so she can start the routine.

But by the time the sister passes her door, she is deeply asleep.

ZUANA REGISTERS THE watch sister’s footsteps and looks up from her books, stretching her spine to counteract the ache in her lower back. The candle on the desk is half burned. It is well past the hour of retirement, but all this caring for the novice has left her no time for other work, most important the condition of young Suora Imbersaga in the infirmary, and she has asked for, and been given, permission to stay up a few hours later. The geranium and willow compound she tried had stemmed the bleeding for a while, but that morning the young woman passed another clot of blood, and she has become weaker since. When Zuana checked on her after Compline her face had been ghostly pale, though her pulse was stable.

The woodcut diagram in front of her shows a view of a body’s intestines. The face is blank, with arms and legs crudely drawn, but from the stomach down there are a mass of diagrammatic lines, with arrows coming out of each and every area. As far as she can ascertain, the problem in the young woman’s body is coming from inside the womb. In her experience once a woman starts flooding outside of her moon cycle, the problem can quickly become grave; it is as if the womb somehow loses the will to stay healthy without children growing in it. But what if it is not that? What if the bleeding comes from some tear or obstruction within her kidneys? It would certainly explain the pain; her father often spoke of stones being expelled through the urethra and how as they passed down from the kidney men would writhe and cry out in an agony worse than any torturer’s screws. Yet if that is the answer, why has the only expulsion here been liquid and not mass?

She closes her books and kneels to say her final prayers. Her knees crack as they reach the ground. She will be forty years old soon, too old to spend her days scrubbing floors and worktops, though remembering the last few days and the novice’s newfound curiosity, she does not regret it. Before it can start to bring comfort, the discipline of service must first take its toll. In this she and Suora Umiliana would no doubt agree. She thanks God for her health and prays for His help in allowing her to continue her work. She asks Him to guard and take care of young Sister Imbersaga, in pain in the infirmary, and for all the other nuns within these walls, both sick and well. She prays for the souls of her mother and her father and for all those who continue his work helping and training others; for the benefactors of the convent and all their families; to hold them within His love and guide their journeys through life and, where necessary, to lessen their stay in purgatory. And finally she prays for the journey of the novice, who, while still angry and confused, seems—with His infinite love and mercy—to be showing signs of a willingness to settle. God be praised.

When she finishes, she gets up and goes quietly to the door, opening it and stepping out into the corridor, from where she is able to make out any crying or distress from the infirmary below. But everything is still and quiet.