Sacred Hearts

“Where are we? What is on the other side now?”

“Borgo San Bernardino,” Zuana says, orienting herself. At times when she was young, she accompanied her father on visits to his patients, and as a result she knows—or at least once knew—the city better than most. “It starts from the river and moves northwest toward the market square, the cathedral, and the palace.”

The girl looks confused.

“You don’t know the great d’Este Palace or the cathedral? They are the marvels of Ferrara. Those and the university, which has a medical school to rival Padua and Bologna in its teaching. The next time you are in chapel with time to spare, run your fingers over the backs of the choir stalls. The city is all there, fashioned through a thousand little cuts of the wood.”

But the girl is fading now, the cold and the disembodied life behind the walls suddenly pressing down on her.

“Come.” Zuara touches her arm. “It is time to go back inside.”

THEY REENTER THE main cloisters to the sound of the chapel bell, marking out the end of rest time and the begi

The girl’s head lifts sharply, like an animal taking in new scent.

“It is a setting for the Feast of the Epiphany. You like to sing?” Zuana puts the question casually, then watches as a manufactured scowl comes over the girl’s face in response.

“I have no voice anymore,” she says hoarsely.

“Then we will all pray for its return—as should you. The convent’s choir mistress—who, you should know, is the abbess’s cousin—was taught composition by no less a man than the duke’s father’s chapelmaster, and her settings are famous throughout the city. She is eager to meet you. The best voices get to practice when others are working. You would be amazed at the privileges that come from being a songbird here.”

Their route to the music room takes them by way of the scriptorium, where a dozen desks are positioned to catch every last ray of daylight, with a dozen heads bent diligently over them, the silence broken only by the tapping of pens against inkwells and the scratching of nibs across paper. At the podium, Suora Scholastica, her face as large and bright as the full moon, smiles up at them as they stand in the doorway. Zuana nods back. When she is not copying holy words, Scholastica is writing ones of her own, dramatic plays of saints and si

They move farther along the upper cloister, past the embroidery room, where an intermittent starling chatter slides out from underneath the door. Francesca, the supervising sister here, is lenient with high spirits, believing as she does that laughter is one of God’s methods of purifying the heart, and as a result some of the younger nuns congregate here and take advantage of her. While there are those who disapprove, Zuana is more forgiving: in her eyes small transgressions can often prevent bigger ones.

Today, though, the starlings can wait. That single pure voice has now become a dance between many, a shoal of silvered fish slipping in and over one another in a fast-flowing stream, and Serafina’s footsteps move faster in response. When they reach the music room, Zuana pushes open the door quietly and moves aside to let her in.

Given the color of the sound, it is almost a shock to find the room so monochrome. In the gray light a nun sits bent over a lute, while others stand grouped in fives and sixes. A few move their heads to the music but most are statue-still. They all hold texts in front of them, but their eyes are constantly pulled toward a small figure in front whose arms flutter up and down, fingers bent as if she were plucking each and every note from her own set of invisible strings in the air. The atmosphere is so charged with concentration that no one seems to notice them come in. Zuana glances toward Serafina. Though she might later spend a lifetime denying it, there is evident appetite in her now. And wonder.

Even Zuana herself, whose voice has always been more seagull than lark, ca

In this respect, heaven and earth are excellently co

The last note brings each voice together, rising, expanding, then falling through a graceful arc toward a silence that, when it finally comes, is as alive as the sound itself. “Huh.” Benedicta lets out a curious throaty sigh. “There is not enough clarity between the first and second parts on quia Gloria Domini super te orta es. And, Eugenia, the first two alleluias are too thin, next to Suora Margarita’s, and not sustained long enough.”

The door of the room jumps open a little with the wind, then catches back on its hinges, giving away their presence. While the tiny figure of Benedicta does not seem to hear it, the nuns, who are used to moving from heaven to earth with almost preternatural speed, are instantly curious. Any newcomer is fodder for gossip, let alone one who comes with the vocal power to disturb a whole convent through a closed door.

“Eugenia, can you mar—”

Finally she registers their presence and turns.

“Suora Benedicta.” Zuana bows her head. “I have brought the new novice to hear the choir at work.”

“Ah!” The tiny woman’s face lights up. “Ah, yes, yes. The voice from Milan. Come, come, come. We have been waiting for you.”

But the girl does not move.

“Welcome. Oh, look at you. You are well grown. Your menses have come already, yes? Is your voice settled yet?” She pauses but does not seem to notice too much when she gets no answer. “You read music? Possibly you were not taught—but you are not to worry; it is not as difficult as they make out. Still, your voice will learn it quicker than your mind. I have scored your part in the Gradual for the upper register, but it can be adapted easily enough if you have more depth. It moves like this.”