The abbess moves her hand back from Zuana’s face. The girl is right. Though the skin is flushed she looks quite serene, not like someone who has vomited up her own insides. Chiara pulls herself up, her composure regained. “We must hope you are right. Go and get a conversa so we can carry her to her cell.”

Now that she is back in control, there is no opposing her. Serafina rises meekly from the floor.

“And when you return you will tell me what you were doing in the dispensary in the first place.”

But Serafina is not so easily disconcerted. “I came to bring back a book of remedies that Suora Zuana lent me to read and which she had need of now.” And she points to the notebook sitting obviously on the workbench, as if it had just been placed there.

As she moves by the unconscious Zuana she slips it quickly back onto the shelf.

IN THE SECOND cloister, the laundry room is belching steam into the courtyard, but inside there is only one conversa at work and she is as old and gnarled as a dead tree, barely able to lift a wet sheet, let alone a sturdy nun. Moving to the kitchens, Serafina finds Letizia shedding tears over a mountain of half-chopped onions. Suora Federica howls when she thinks she is going to lose her, until she hears the reason.

“God in heaven, what a day! First the chief conversa, now Suora Zuana. I will be cooking for a convent of corpses if we are not careful.”

“Don’t worry. We will bring them both back to health soon enough.”

And such is the young novice’s certainty—even joy— as she delivers this prediction that Federica marvels at the transformation that has taken place in her over the last few weeks and wonders if she had, perhaps, been a little heavy-handed with the bitter ashes she had mixed into her penance scraps.

As the two young women move swiftly back across the courtyard into the main cloisters together, Letizia glances at Serafina with an undisguised curiosity.

“What is it? What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.”

“Then keep your eyes to yourself.”

Back in the dispensary, they lift Zuana off the floor and move her through to the infirmary. The intention is to take her to her cell, but as they go Serafina says, “Madonna Abbess, perhaps we should put her in one of the beds here? That way, whoever takes over the dispensary can also keep watch over her. And as she recovers she will be able to advise and help. She would not want to be separated from her patients.”

Possibly because it is a sound idea, or maybe because the body is so unwieldy and heavy (knowledge must weigh more than flesh, Serafina thinks as they struggle to carry her), the abbess agrees.

They move her to the nearest bed, the one left empty by Imbersaga’s death.

As the abbess returns to the dispensary, Letizia makes a move to tend to Zuana but Serafina elbows her out of the way, covering the inert sister with the thin blanket and dabbing her forehead with the cloth.

“Dear Mary, Mother of God! What is happening here?” In the doorway the novice mistress is a sudden wind of anger. “Novice Serafina. You are meant to be at silent prayer. This is—” Then she catches sight of Zuana on the bed and, at the end of the room, the abbess emerging from the dispensary.

“Do not disturb yourself, Suora Umiliana.” Madonna Chiara’s voice makes it clear that the situation is under control. “Suora Zuana was taken ill and the novice is helping, as she knows the cause of it.”

But the old nun now glares at both of them, her undisguised disapproval making it clear that a convent beset by such troubles is a convent in need of more than the help of a rebellious novice. Oh, Serafina thinks triumphantly, but you have no idea how much trouble is still to come!

After a while Letizia braves the silence to ask if she may be allowed to leave. “Suora Federica has no one else to help her now. She will skin me alive if she is left alone much longer.”

“I would very much hope that she does not resort to such an undue punishment.” Now that the moment of crisis has passed, the abbess is almost gracious again. “You may go. Tell me, how is the chief conversa?”

The girl shakes her head. “Very poorly. Suora Zuana had said she would come to her later.”

“Ah, we are beleaguered on all sides.” The novice mistress’s cry has a note of anguish in it.

Letizia ducks out of the room as Suora Umiliana falls to her knees by the bed. “Oh, Lord Jesus, help us in our hour of darkness and bring respite to this good sister who works in Your name.”

She bends her head, deep in prayer, as if pointing out that amid all the drama this is the work that should really be done. Serafina hesitates for a second, then sinks to the floor next to her, eyes closed, praying silently but so hard she fears the words might be spraying out of her: Please God, please God, help me, too…

There is silence for a while. It is unclear whether or not the abbess herself is praying, but when her voice comes it is remarkably matter-of-fact. “I think that will do now. Serafina, you may go to your cell.”

The girl rises, eyes down, meek-voiced. “Mother Abbess, do I have permission to speak?”

“Very well.”

“I want to offer my help to the dispensary. To nurse the sick.”

She feels the novice mistress’s cluck of impatience behind her. It is not easy, having to charm two such different mistresses, though charm them she must. If she has learned one thing over these last months it is that her own sister’s simpering brought her more joy in life than all the natural defiance she herself displayed.

“I could help. Suora Zuana taught me how to treat fever… I mean, I know I am unworthy …that I have behaved with gross selfishness”—here she glances at the novice mistress—“for which I am deeply sorry. I …I have even feared that Santa Caterina may be being punished in some way for my bad behavior, and I—”

“Don’t talk nonsense, girl.” Madonna Chiara cuts across her sharply, but not before Serafina has registered how her comment has affected Umiliana. “Half the city is infected and Our Lord has better things to do than take notice of a puffed-up novice. If there are amends to be made, you can make them in the choir.”

Serafina looks so genuinely anguished now that even the abbess is slightly taken aback.

“Madonna Abbess.” She hears Umiliana’s voice over her head, quiet but firm. “Might we have a word?”

There is a small pause. Serafina keeps her eyes to the floor. She must not be seen to be part of this, and when the abbess orders her to leave the room she is up and out within seconds.

She stays close enough behind the door to hear the murmur of voices, though not to make out the words. She wonders what Zuana would have to say if she could join them now. Would she have been able to fool her, too? She hears the footsteps and backs away from the door as it is opened by the novice mistress. But it is impossible to tell anything from her face.

Back in the room she stands before the abbess, eyes to the ground.

“You are to go to your cell directly and spend the rest of the hour in private prayer.”

“Yes, Mother Abbess,” she says, with perfect meekness.

“If the convent has need of you we will call you later.”

“Thank you.”

And thank you, Suora Umiliana, she says silently. She could not have planned it better herself: this way, before she is given the chance to slip her hands under a certain mattress, she has time to retrieve something from beneath her own.

“Suora Umiliana,” she says quietly, “might I come to you for further instruction sometime today? I feel myself in the greatest need.”