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Siena, Mid-14th Century
The cat under her hand purrs as she rubs its belly. Her gentle laughter filling the Abbey of Sant’Antimo’s gardens, her tools set down beside her to attend this one among the abbey’s many mousers. The warm sun falling gentle on her wimple. The haze of herbs and dew-wet grass mingling with damp stone in morning breeze under blue sky, just touched by a wandering edge of cloud. She looks up as the Mother Superior calls her name. The matron adding: “We have a visitor. A bishop, from Rome.”
The young nun rises quickly, head down and hands crossed in front of her habit. The cat at her feet rolling over curiously onto its belly, whiskers twitching as it watches the approaching figures.
“Please, child,” calls the richly appointed bishop. “You need not be so formal.”
“Yes, Father,” the young nun says quietly, raising her eyes slowly to take in the fine fabric of his garments, the gaudy shine of the many rings on his hands. For all that this Father hasn’t come as emissary from the papal seat in Avignon, he certainly adorns himself as lavishly as a petulant Rome, deprived of seat and power, claims those of the City of Popes do. But to her eyes, all that gilding and drapery is merely to hide the strength in those old bones, evident in how he holds himself despite his advanced age. The face he presents to the world a delicate dance. Her hackles rising as he watches her. Assessing, as she is doing.
“The Mother Superior tells me you hear the voice of the Divine,” says the bishop, steepling his hands before his robes. “Is it true?”
“I...” she begins, glancing to the Mother Superior in uncertainty. The question unexpected here, within these walls. So long since anyone’s asked.
“His Excellency comes in awe, not to punish,” the Mother Superior says kindly. “Her people, they did not believe,” the Mother Superior explains to the bishop. “They blamed her for the pestilentia having come among them, despite their faith.”
The bishop nods sagely. “They cast you out, yes?”
The young nun can’t meet his eyes.
“We found her on the road. Little more than rags on her. Feet bloodied from the journey,” the Mother Superior says, voice gentle.
The young nun’s hands fist the cloth of her habit to remember it.
“A chaste soul, favored by God. Delivered in her hour of need unto His stewards,” the bishop says reverently, shifting his hands from steepling to prayer in one smooth motion, raising them to Heaven in performative thanks. But his eyes never leaving her. “Mother Church has need of such a soul: a vessel, already touched by God. To act as … conduit.”
The young nun frowns as she looks up. “Father, I don’t—” she begins, confused.
The bishop waves away her distress. “Are you a dutiful daughter of the Church?”
The young nun nods cautiously as the Mother Superior and the bishop regard her with beatific smiles.
The bishop’s features soften still further. “Then have faith.”
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