The Sisterhood (19 page)

April 1523

Such a thing has happened! Yesterday evening the Foundress appeared to the Abbess in the cloister, so quickly that the Abbess scarcely had time to realize what was happening before the Foundress delivered her instructions and disappeared. The Inquisition will come to Las Golondrinas, though when is uncertain, and the Abbess must prepare now to send our medal and Gospel away for safekeeping. A mission convent of our order is to be established in Gran Canaria. The Abbess must select twelve to go: four professed sisters, four novices who have not yet taken their final vows, and four middle-aged beatas chosen for their health and good sense. The most senior nun shall be authorized to act as Mother Superior to hear confessions, and one of the party must act as a scribe and write an account of the journey. In due course, other members of the order would follow.

Dictating all this to me for the Chronicle, the Abbess paced the scriptorium. “I do not know whether we are meant to send the medal and Gospel at once or wait until the mission is ready and send them with a later party. What if they were lost because I acted too hastily?”

“Perhaps too cautious is the preferable course,” I replied. “Remember the damage the rats caused here, and how we have had a special metal-lined casket built in the wall of the scriptorium to protect the Chronicle now. We should wait until we know there is a similar safe place to keep the Chronicle in Gran Canaria. Who knows what conditions the mission will find in Gran Canaria, or how they will find a suitable building. Perhaps it is best to wait for word that all is ready, and then the medal and the Gospel can go.”

“Yes, I think that is best, Sor Beatriz. We will wait until the mission has prepared a place for them.”

June 1523

The convent threw itself into the preparations, and two months later all is ready. The Abbess sent two men from the village to Seville to arrange passage for the missionaries on a ship bound for Gran Canaria. They returned with news that the ship’s captain served with the explorer Columbus, and our party will be in good hands. Next came the matter of choosing who was to go.

The Abbess consulted her council of older nuns, then came to me in the scriptorium, looking grave. “We have come to a decision in the council, Sor Beatriz, but you must make a decision, too. The mission must have a scribe…”

“You wish me to go to Gran Canaria?” I was astonished. My leg now troubles me so that I am often unable to walk, and my writing hand is sometimes so stiff and swollen I cannot write at all.

The Abbess shook her head. Suddenly I knew what she was going to say next. The earth began to sink beneath my seat, my heart gave way in my breast, and I clutched the sides of the lectern for support.

“Salome is the most able and intelligent of the novices, and you have taught her a scribe’s duties. Young as she is, she is best qualified to be scribe to the new house, and I need not tell you how the written word has helped to bind the order in sisterhood for centuries. Now it will continue to bind us across the sea. I will not send her without your agreement, but you will have seen her expression when we speak of the mission.”

I had. Now the room around me dimmed and something tightened in my chest so I could not breathe. The suddenness with which life can change! I struggled to consider wisely, without thinking of myself. I knew Salome was not just ready to obey the Abbess but eager to go, though she tried to hide it from me. The Abbess waited quietly, not urging or pressing me, but my duty was clear. The order had given me and my child sanctuary and peace when I had thought there was none in the world, and now it was my turn to give the order something in return, as well as allowing my daughter the only chance she might have to experience life beyond the convent’s walls. She is nearly eighteen and should take her final vows next year. I felt a premonition that I should never see her in her nun’s habit.

I summoned my courage and consented. Salome came running in soon after, breathless with excitement. “Oh Mother! The Abbess says you have given your permission! I so long to go, but then, my heart breaks at the thought of leaving you!”

I promised God would watch between us and unite us in our prayers, and repeated the Abbess’s words about the records Salome would keep. She threw her arms around my neck and promised breathlessly to write a full account of all she saw and experienced. “I can scarcely believe I am to be the scribe, Mother! And the Abbess has promised you will come with the next party of nuns as soon as it is safe for them to come, that my profession will not take place until you are there. We shall not be separated for long. Only until we have made our new convent comfortable for aged nuns and cleared a pathway for their litters, poor old dears!” Salome added impishly. “But I will perform my new duties faithfully and make you proud. And ships come and go to Gran Canaria, so I will send letters with a full account of our doings back to the convent, and they will entertain you so well you will wish I had gone sooner!” Then she was in tears at the thought of leaving me, and for the next
few days was in a state of agitation, alternating between anticipation and grief.

So was the whole convent, from the servants to the oldest nuns. But, regardless, lists were made, instructions dictated, trunks were packed and repacked.

Too soon, all was ready, and the night before they were to set off the Abbess heard the confessions of the twelve who were going. The next morning, after a sleepless night, a special Mass was said and a quick breakfast eaten, or mostly not eaten. Our nerves were stretched to the limit.

The priest, who had fallen asleep after saying Mass, was shaken awake to read out a letter of approval from the bishop, blessing our undertaking to bring the word of God to the heathens of Gran Canaria and prevent the Muslim infidels spreading the poison of their faith. As dawn broke across the mountains, the carriages rolled away to Seville. Salome lifted the leather curtain to wave until they disappeared from sight.

The convent and my heart feel empty, but Salome will write when they arrive, and we all look forward to her letters and news of our mission.

I clung to that thought throughout the months that followed.

July 1524

No word has come from Gran Canaria, but the Abbess has had an unwelcome missive from the Holy Office. This letter was ominously different from their usual exhortation to guard against lust and gluttony and sloth and to adhere strictly to the requirement of enclosure to ensure we remain untainted by the world and its
vices—. This one stated they have information that our convent harbors a
Morisco
’s bastard like a worm in an apple. They will send an investigator to determine her identity and punish those responsible for her presence. The Abbess is ordered to begin inquiries to identify possible suspects for the investigators to question at length.

I said that my father must have found an informer among the convent servants, though possibly not a very clever one. “How thankful we should be that Salome is no longer here. And she is gone with the special blessing of the bishop! I can truthfully say there are no
Moriscos’
children here,” said the Abbess.

When she left I thanked the Almighty for Salome’s deliverance from the scrutiny of the Inquisition and repent of my missing her. God is great.

September 1524

Deo gratias
, the investigators have not come. We had heard terrible stories of their remorseless search for heretics in other convents, and knew that some of our order were bound to be taken to join the nuns in Inquisition cells. Our reprieve was due to an outbreak of a terrible illness, with coughing and fever, aching joints, and a burning rash. It has spread through our infirmary and then the orphanage, taking the oldest patients and the youngest children. Lately many of the nursing sisters have been ill as well, while two of the older nuns who caught it died. The Abbess had me write a letter warning the Holy Office that many men in the pilgrims’ hostel had contracted it. It caused the men to suffer horribly in their private parts, and while the disease had caused blindness in some, it
delivered others from carnal temptation, as they no longer had any hope of indulging their lustful urges.

We received the reply that God had surely visited this scourge upon the convent for our sins, but that the Investigator would postpone his visit for the time being.

With so much illness, we have neglected our gardens and the harvest has been poor. We fear for the winter. The good Abenzucars have made us a gift of olives, dried figs, and dates, together with oil from their harvest, which will mark the difference between life and death for many this winter. Little twin girls have arrived, beautiful children of two as finely dressed in silks and jewels as any courtesan. Their double dowry will be useful to purchase ingredients for our
polvorónes
in the spring, but oh, their mother! To part with one child must be agony. To part with two, must be like death itself.

A celebration to mark the profession of two of our older orphan girls took place in the
sala grande
, while another orphan seized the opportunity of the celebration to run away with a young man from the village, causing great scandal. We cannot discover how the young people were able to meet or form such a plan, as the girls are not allowed out of the convent. Yet my heart wishes them well.

There is no word from Gran Canaria. I pray daily, hourly, for our mission and for Salome.

May 1526

Now the weather is very warm and our flocks of goats and sheep have increased hugely this year. Their bells make a pleasant
sound as they graze, and the swallows sing in the eaves once more. But the Chronicle—indeed all my work—is neglected. Since Salome left, an inflammation flares up repeatedly in my bad leg, preventing my sitting at my desk for long, and my hands trouble me so that sometimes I cannot write at all. If only I could find a suitable apprentice or assistant among the novices! But it is exacting work, and those who have the patience for it lack a good clear hand, while those who write beautifully have little patience.