Free Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant

“You can do as you wish, but if you want to stop the sickness I suggest you take it.”
    As she hopes, the edge of impatience in her voice sparks something in the novice’s eyes. She picks it up and drinks, small sips first, then deeper ones. They sit in silence while Zuana makes herself busy clearing away bottles and measuring bowls. When she turns back, the girl has more color in her cheeks.
    “Better?”
    “What was in it?”
    “I told you: ginger root. It is good for the stomach.”
    “I meant last night’s poison.”
    “Ah. Nightshade, wolfsbane, crushed poplar leaves, poppy syrup.”
    “And what part of that is making me sick now?”
    “The poppy, I suspect. It seems to linger in the body longer.”
    Serafina is sitting on the windowsill in the dispensary. Outside, in the distance, a simple plot of land marks the convent cemetery: a history of piety arranged in lines of small neat wooden crosses. Zuana chose to avoid it in her tour, and it is best if it remains unnoticed now.
    “Did you dream?”
    She nods slowly clearly unsure how much to tell. It is a reticence Zuana remembers well. In the early days, the horror of incarceration could make her suspicious of even the simplest intercessions and kindnesses.
    “Nightmares?”
    “I was drowning.” The girl’s voice is dark with the memory. “The water was stone, liquid stone. I kept trying to shout, but each time I opened my mouth more of it poured in.”
    How many stories like this one has Zuana heard? Her father used to keep records of them, for he was interested in how the ancients had studied dreams and what one could learn from them. Those induced by the poppy were often the wildest, as the drug seems to feed off the anxieties and fears of the person taking it.
    “The mixture can set off strange visions. But they will be gone soon enough.”
    “Unlike me?” the girl says tartly. She takes another sip. “I won’t stay here, you know. The words came from my mouth, not my heart.”
    She is fierce again, head down, determined.
    Zuana watches her quietly. Of course they will have discussed it, the two of them together in the abbess’s chamber: how any novice forced into a convent against her will can after a year refuse to take her final vows and petition the bishop for her release. What else would they have talked about? Certainly the abbess would have seen it as her duty to emphasize the disgrace of such an action, to explain how, if the convent was unable to soothe the trouble at the source, there was scarcely a bishop in the church who would listen to such a protest, let alone a family that would be willing to take her back. So that in the end the only real choice open to a young woman was to yell herself into crazed silence or, with God’s grace, find the wit to turn rebellion into acceptance of what cannot be resisted. Just as so many others had done before her.
    “You think I’ll change my mind!”
    “I have no idea what you will do. Though since my stock of wolfsbane has been damaged by the frost, and it works as well with toothache as it does with tantrums, I hope you won’t spend too much time screaming in the night.”
    “If I did, I wouldn’t take your potions. I—ah!” She stops, bringing her hands up over her ears.
    “What is it? Are you sick again?”
    She shakes her head. “There is a throbbing behind my eyes.”
    “It’s the pressure of the headscarf. You can hear your own voice echoing between your ears? You will feel it more acutely when you start to sing. Who dressed you this morning?”
    “I …I don’t know. She had a fat nose and a wart on her chin.”
    Ah, malice rather than mischief. “Augustina. The butcher’s daughter. She grew up wringing the necks of chickens and likes to practice her skills elsewhere. You would do better to find someone else to tend your cell.”
    “How do I do that?”
    “I am sure, as soon as your voice returns, the choir mistress will organize it for you.”
    She watches the scowl,