The Sisterhood

Chapter 9


From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, Las Golondrinas Convent, Andalusia, January 1509





Peace on all who read this.

By the Abbess’s command, I, Sor Beatriz of the Holy Sisters of Jesus, scribe of Las Golondrinas Convent, begin this Chronicle of our order. We trust that whatever befalls the convent, this record containing the Gospel of our Foundress and the traditions which guide our work will survive to bear witness to the truth at some future time.

The Abbess says that to begin, we must imagine a stranger to the order opening this book, perhaps many years hence. To introduce such a reader to the matters contained in the Chronicle, she thinks it helpful if I begin with my own consecration into the order, the reasons for my appointment as scribe, and the particular circumstances which led to the keeping of this book. Otherwise I would never venture to write of my unworthy self, first or indeed at all, but it is my duty to obey the Abbess in all things.

After three years as a novice following the birth of my daughter Salome at the convent, I took my final vows and the name Sor Beatriz on Salome’s third birthday. She shared the joy of the day, and sat by my side at the feast of welcome in the sala grande. The other sisters fed her tidbits and sweets like she was a baby bird.

Salome shares my cell. The Abbess will not permit my child to be separated from me to live among the orphans, saying in her forthright way that at least one child in the convent shall have her mother. I hardly dared hope for such indulgence. The child keeps a nun’s day, waking briefly when I rise in the early hours for Terce, then joining us in the chapel for Mass. She is very obedient, understanding that her mother and the others must have quiet at certain times as they examine their consciences or meditate, and that at other times we are very busy, so that she spends most of her waking hours with the orphanage children sharing their dolls and toys as I go about my work. The rest of the time she is petted and chided and prayed with and told stories of the saints by all the sisters. I share her with many mothers.

I expected to be assigned the lowliest tasks in the convent, but the Abbess wished me to assist elderly Sor Angela, who had presided over the scriptorium for thirty-five years. Though strong in her faith, Sor Angela was a fierce guardian of her domain. Under her direction I cataloged and dusted books and scrolls and manuscripts, mixed ink and prepared quills, trimmed candles, kept the seals and wax in their places, made sure there was clean sand for blotting, and saw that each child in the orphanage had her own small missal and lives of the saints. The one thing which earned Sor Angela’s grudging approval was my handwriting—she repeatedly said it was a blessing I had at least been taught to write quickly and neatly. When Sor Angela died in her sleep a month ago, the Abbess said that I was best placed to assume her duties.

Until now the scribe dealt mainly with convent correspondence—business matters and requests for methods of preparing medicines or the arrangements in our infirmaries, as well as overseeing the records and books and documents stored in the scriptorium. Our Abbess, who is young and likes order and efficiency, has never liked the keeping of our records in a haphazard method on scrolls, and has always believed the convent should have a proper Chronicle, especially so there is a meticulous record of the times when our beloved Foundress has appeared to the convent in a vision. On these occasions the Foundress has always appeared for a particular purpose—to give advice or a warning. Her words were always dictated meticulously to the scribe, that they might be consulted when necessary.

The scriptorium was of course open to all the order—it has been our rule since the community’s earliest days that knowledge is shared and all the nuns are educated, able to read and write, to know arithmetic and Latin. But Sor Angela allowed no one else to touch the scrolls, insisting that they be stored in a particular order that only she understood, in a certain alcove, behind a curtain. Even the Abbess hesitated if she wished to consult the scrolls, both because of Sor Angela and because locating anything was difficult. But while Sor Angela ruled the scriptorium nothing could be done.

Sor Angela did not know that it was also my duty to keep watch on her, as she occasionally knocked over a candle without realizing. Alas, had she set the scriptorium aflame, it could have done no less damage than her method of storage.

Last week as I was mixing ink to answer a letter, the Abbess came and wished to read the account of the Foundress’s words when she last appeared in a vision, an event that had taken place over thirty years earlier. She would not have me stand and fetch it, so I directed her to the alcove where the scrolls were kept, and had just dipped my nib into the ink when the Abbess’s screams shattered the peace. I dropped my pen and hurried to her as fast as my bad leg allowed, fearing she had disturbed a nest of vipers and had been bitten. Instead, behind the curtain, the alcove was a mess of ragged pieces of chewed sheepskin and shreds of vellum—the work of rats! The Abbess and I were quite overcome by the horror of it and wept together for the loss.

“Perhaps,” said the Abbess, drying her eyes with her sleeve, “it is not quite so bad as it looks.” But it was. Even without the rats, many scrolls had disintegrated, brittle with age or mildewed and illegible. Some crumbled to dust in our hands.

As we sifted through the mess the Abbess sighed. “A letter has come from the Holy Office of the Inquisition that makes me uneasy and I was seeking the Chronicle entry of the last time our Foundress appeared. I believe it was shortly after our Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand married, and she warned they had vowed to unite Spain under the Christian faith, drive the Moors out and, with the pope’s blessing, would strengthen the Inquisition’s powers to purge the country of heretics and infidels. The Foundress warned of terror to come and advised how to protect the Gospel. That is what I need to know. Because the letter says they will begin a systematic examination of religious houses like ours which enjoy the patronage of the royal family, as ‘the involvement of the royal family requires regular confirmation of the purity of the faith and the absence of heretics.’ They are looking for Muslims and Jews of course, and even if there are none, the Inquisition has methods that will discover them, or at least conversos who are automatically suspect. Bah! It is an evil thing the Inquisition does, to sow division among those who serve God and help the poor. Our order has lived peacefully under Romans and Visigoths and longest of all, our Moorish rulers. We have always held the Prophet Muhammad in great respect, and like both Jews and Muslims, the first Christians attributed all things to God’s will. We have much in common, whether Jew, Muslim, or Christian, only God can judge among us. And yet the church sows dissention and bloodshed. And we must do what we can.” She had made a pile of scraps while she spoke, but it was impossible to see how one of these shreds joined to one another.

Then I made a happy discovery—the most recent scroll, being newer, had fared better, chewed but still partly legible. “Here is something, Abbess. This piece fits with that one. See…one can make some sense of the writing…In the reign of Abu l-Hasan Ali, Sultan of Granada, our Foundress came to us…”

The Abbess exclaimed, “A miracle! Deo gratias. I believe it was in the reign of Abu l-Hasan Ali! Is the rest legible? Can you make it out?”

“Not yet. I will try and copy out what is legible and find the sense of it. But Abbess, I have an idea. Why not use this opportunity to begin a proper Chronicle of our order, as you have always wished? We could use the Abenzucars’ gift.”

The Abenzucars—a bittersweet name, even now—had sent us a very fine gift for the scriptorium: a large book of blank vellum pages, beautifully cured so they were almost translucent, superior to the old scrolls, which stank of goat. It is bound in leather and gold, and even has a gold swallow on the cover. It was sent in thanks for a healing balm of herbs from our garden, herbs that will not grow at a lower height, supplied to the Abenzucars when their youngest daughter would not heal after childbirth and they feared for her life. The girl recovered, Deo gratias. Salome’s aunt. “The book will be easier to protect against rats than the jumble of old scrolls and will last for many years.”

The Abbess nodded and rose to her feet, brushing the dust off her hands. “We must remember, God sends even disasters for a purpose. Yes, use the Abenzucars’ book. It is large, and if you write small and close, it will hold a great deal. And of course, a single book can be protected—and transported—in a way the scrolls cannot. And I see another advantage. Our Gospel is disintegrating; it could be copied into the new Chronicle before it, too, is lost.”

The Gospel! I had not thought of that, but the Abbess was right. Although the rats could not damage it where it is kept in a silver casket, time was destroying it. Though the nuns of course know the Gospel by heart, it is a custom of the order that on the eve of a nun’s consecration, she has a special audience with the Abbess to receive the Abbess’s blessing and words of welcome, and is shown our great treasure, the ancient Gospel. When my turn came I watched nervously as she lifted it from its silver casket. The precious document resembled a bundle of dry leaves, crumbling with age so that flakes of it fell on her lap. In truth its condition, even unchewed by rats, is little better than our poor destroyed scrolls.

The Abbess was right, our Gospel must be copied soon or it will be lost. But it must also be kept from the Inquisition, for the same reasons they must not find this Chronicle with its mention of the Foundress’s appearances and the Abbess’s medal. Both undermine the doctrines and power of a church where men have refashioned God in man’s image, and denied women’s true spirituality. Discovery would doom us all, and the destruction that would follow would prevent the truth ever coming to light, as the Abbess believes will happen someday.

The Abbess rose to her feet and brushed her hands together briskly. “Copy the Gospel into the middle of the book—in Latin, just as it is now—and let our Chronicle be written around it to symbolize our order’s embrace of the holy book. And if everything is together it will make better sense if someone is to read it many years hence. Let the maid tidy the scriptorium, and tell her to put the scraps on the fire when you have finished with them.”

Obedient to the Abbess’s wishes, I worked by day and by candlelight to recover the following account of the Foundress’s last appearance:

1470 Anno Domini. Peace…all who read…reign of Abu l-Hasan Ali, Sultan of Granada…the Abbess a vision…Foundress…news…Infanta Isabella of Castile defied King Henry…Infante Ferdinand…of Aragon…Spain…God’s kingdom…Moors crushed and banished…Queen Isabella…pilgrimage to Las Golondrinas…the Carthaginian road…Beware the Inquisition will…remember the fate of the Cathars…Carcassone…Gran Canaria…a mission the Gospel…the medal.

The Abbess and I interpret this as a warning of the Inquisition’s interest in Las Golondrinas, on the queen’s account. Queen Isabella did make a pilgrimage here after the final defeat of the Moors, and vowed to be a patron of Las Golondrinas to honor the courage of a Christian order that kept the light of faith alive through centuries of the Muslim darkness. Royal ladies are still our patronesses and protectors, but the Foundress surely intended to remind us of the fate of the “heretic” Cathars when the “Catholic” army destroyed Carcassonne, burning and hanging all who would not recant. Was the Foundress warning us that to protect the medal and the Gospel we must establish a mission in Gran Canaria?

But when? And how?





Summer 1509


In spring and summer, when the road up the mountain is passable, the children come. We received two today. They have very fine clothes and are both about one year old. I record the amount of their dowries in the Dowry List. We have no more information to add to the records; they have no names other than the ones we give. They say arrangements are made for the children’s removal from court in great secrecy through a chain of wretches who act as go-betweens, so that none will know the children’s ultimate destination. Most come in the care of peasant nurses who can tell us nothing of their true identities.

Poor nameless innocents. Do the mothers, if living, long for their daughters? I think of being separated from Salome in this way and give thanks to God every day for our refuge. Word has reached me that my father now believes—possibly informed by one of the servants—that I was with child when he left me here. He has sworn to be revenged, but I trust in God’s protection.





Winter 1510


It is a hard winter. Snow has fallen continuously in the mountains. Yet in the pilgrims’ garden, by some miracle, the spring does not freeze.

Salome joins the other girls in the schoolroom and learns her prayers in Latin and her numbers. She plays at “writing” at a makeshift table of wooden planks. She wishes to copy me in everything and sits with her adorable face twisted in concentration, practicing her letters. Then Salome looks up at me and a smile lights her face—the way it once lit her father’s when I entered the schoolroom each morning.

There have been wonderful occurrences. The sky was filled with shooting stars at Epiphany, three nights in succession. Despite the cold, an almond tree has blossomed out of season and local people report seeing a fiery dragon in the sky. There is much hunger in the villages, and the Abbess and the sister in charge of stores are eking out our supplies of grain, oil, and dried fruit to make sure all have something. The nuns, of course, fast as much as possible—faith is a great sustainer of life—but the children in the orphanage and the patients in our infirmary must eat. We fight a constant battle to protect the food stocks from the rats. May God preserve us all until summer and the new crops.





Spring 1512


A sudden spring thaw during Lent brought disaster to the village last week. As the snows melted, a landslide buried a lower slope where the village’s goats and sheep were grazing. The animals were swept away and five men herding them have been brought to the infirmary, badly injured. The infirmary sisters struggle to save four of them, but the fifth will certainly die; he has a pregnant wife and many children who depend on him and whom we must help.

Our stores are nearly bare at this time of year and the Abbess has used the last of our hoarded sugar and flour to make polvorónes. The dying man’s brother has volunteered to take them to sell in the city via the ancient but steeper mule track through the trees. At Easter our polvorónes are in great demand in the rich households, and the brother can buy as much food as they can spare in the Valley of the Swallows to share out among the hungry villagers. In the convent we are reduced to a thin gruel, but nuns can survive on prayer. Salome has most of my share. She is too thin and her skin has a translucent look.





Summer 1514


News reaches us that the Spanish governors of the island of Hispaniola are criticized for their treatment of the natives there, and in Seville many are dead of the plague. We pray for the priests who have condemned the violent treatment of the Indians and say novenas for an end to the pestilence, for the dead and dying. The Holy Office sent another letter emphasizing the faithful are required to report any suspected of being false Christians. The Abbess was bad tempered for the rest of the day.

The slope below the convent has been terraced, and the apple trees and new olive trees are thriving. Our chickens increase and peck among them, though we must be careful all are shooed into their enclosure at nightfall, on account of the foxes. We will have special Masses said for a good harvest this year.





Spring 1518


Two visiting friars sought permission from the Abbess to speak to me at the locutio in the scriptorium on a medical matter. They were seeking a remedy for the bite of a mad dog. They whispered through the grille in the scriptorium that they had heard there was an infidel remedy that was infallible, and they were desperate for their bitten brother. I ceased my work and went to find the treatise by Avicenna but their furtive urging made me suspect they were Inquisition informers. Since Avicenna was a Muslim doctor, I told them that the remedy I copied out for them was given to us two centuries ago by a Christian hermit who had lived in a mountain cave nearby. Perhaps they had heard of the book written by his acolyte? A very holy man. The remedy had been revealed to him by San Hieronimo. I cautioned them, the remedy would only be efficacious if applied with a pure heart while special prayers to the Virgin and St. Anthony were recited.

The friars cannot read.





September 1520


Late this summer two royal princesses followed in the late queen’s footsteps and paid a visit, accompanied by many noble ladies. Their entourage made a great spectacle. Their coaches were drawn by pure-white mules, and they were accompanied by outriders with colorful banners, a large mounted guard in livery, and many Jesuits. The princesses had a requiem Mass said in the chapel for their grandparents, Isabella and Ferdinand, and their widowed mother, Queen Juana who is confined to a convent in Tordesillas. The gossip among the ladies-in-waiting was that ever since being widowed many years ago, she keeps her husband’s preserved corpse in her cell for company and is greatly disturbed in the mind. Others said that the story of her husband’s corpse is a fabrication, that she is sound of mind and kept prisoner against her will. Poor lady, a woman is powerless against the might of the church and secular authorities who will declare her mad or weak or both to justify their disposal of her.

The princesses stayed for three days, taking part in the daily life of the convent at Mass, prayers, and meals, and even donning straw hats to pick vegetables in our garden. The orphanage children sang an anthem for them, quite beautifully we thought, and afterward they gave each child a gold coin, including Salome whom they assumed was one of the orphanage girls. The princesses renewed their grandmother’s promise of patronage and made a generous gift to the convent before departing. The Abbess was quite exhausted afterward.

Salome sits by my side half the day. She finishes her lessons before the other girls, and grows restless. She is quick with her Latin and Greek and can read Italian and a little French. I require her to sit still and practice her writing, stressing the importance of a neat, even, and legible hand, with no ink blots—despite her tearful protests that this is impossible. She stamps her foot when I oblige her to recopy mistakes, but she is learning to write with a beautiful, even hand.

The Abbess assigns Salome small scribe’s tasks, sharpening quills or preparing the ink, and since Salome is conscientious and always washes her hands before she touches a book, the Abbess allows her to look at our beautiful illuminated missals. Some very fine ones were donated by our royal patronesses, with gold lettering enclosing holy pictures in the most beautiful detail of saints and angels and the Virgin, castles and knights, animals so finely drawn that even their little whiskers are discernible, fields and forests, sun and moon and stars, a glowing glimpse of a heavenly world. Salome loves them as much as the Abbess and I do, and has developed a fine sensitivity to the paintings in the convent, too.

She dislikes many of those donated by the pilgrims—compared to our beautiful manuscript they are often quite badly drawn, a triumph of faith over skill, but the Abbess insists we must hang all such gifts. The dark corridor we pass through on our way to the sala de las niñas each morning is full of the worst ones.

But finer paintings occasionally come to us with an orphan’s dowry, and Salome helps the Abbess choose which to hang in the sala de las niñas. There are paintings of the Virgin and infant Christ and of child saints, showing the gentle influence of the Italian school with lovely rich colors, sensitive faces, and exquisite perfect landscapes in the background exuding the warmth of divine grace. They make the sala de las niñas a kindly room for the orphanage children.

At fifteen Salome is tall for her age, with her father’s dark-blue eyes and my gold hair, before it was shorn. She does not see why she may not have a novice’s habit yet. I tell her all in good time, though my heart is in turmoil for her future. Although I have found peace and contentment as a nun, because I was in love once I perceive that my daughter has an equal capacity for passion. I would not like her to be obliged to take the veil like the orphanage children, yet I do not see how she is to experience life outside the convent, or marry. And of course I would not send her away alone. When I ponder what is best for Salome, I imagine Alejandro and I had managed our escape to Portugal. We would now be discussing the future of Salome and our other children by the fire of a long winter’s night. But it is ungrateful to repine. Salome’s life will be as God wills.





Summer 1521


Salome is sixteen and has finally acquired the novice’s habit she longed for. She thinks it is a promotion from the schoolroom, and that it makes her the equal of the other girls who enter the novitiate at sixteen. She is lively and affectionate and full of mischief.





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.





August 1527


Though it has been four years, whenever the bell at the gate rings we pause in our work or prayer, hoping that at last it is a messenger bringing a letter from our mission. Instead the bell has rung because the summer has brought a great number of pilgrims and sick people. They say the plague has returned in the cities and we have many penitent pilgrims who fear the illness is God’s punishment for their wickedness. Both the men’s and women’s hostels are overflowing and we pray most will recover before the roads are no longer passable and we have many more mouths to feed for the winter. It is the harvest season and all are hard at work from sunrise. The Abbess works as hard as any of the younger nuns. In addition to nursing in the infirmary, yesterday she was busy gathering onions and garlic to lay in straw in the cellars, and preserving our last under-ripe peaches in honey. But she grew breathless and was persuaded at last to leave this work to others.





June 1530


Hope for our mission is extinguished altogether. Each spring the Abbess has sent village men to inquire among the ships’ captains in the harbor in Seville for what they know of Gran Canaria and a convent there of the Order of the Holy Sisters of Jesus. But though many sailors know Gran Canaria, none have anything to tell our messengers and say that our party have certainly been taken by pirates or drowned in a shipwreck. The whole convent mourns their loss.





October 1538


Yesterday a pilgrim came who claims to be an artist and swears to recompense us for his keep with a painting. This, we know from experience, means that he intends to stay a long time, as these paintings take months. The Abbess groaned that the number of penitent artists donating their work to the convent was truly marvelous—they must all lead very wicked lives. And as the paintings are usually terrible, the penance is usually ours. The Abbess says that most of it would send Salome into fits of laughter. Yet she feels we must hang it all somewhere. A few find their way to the walls of the sala grande, but most are hung in the darkest and oldest corridors. The Abbess insists only portraits may hang in the locution parlor and as there are few of these she is spared the worst.





March 1539


The sweet smell of polvorónes fills the convent night and day. The court has ordered a great many for Semana Santa, and wealthy families follow suit. All the sisters and beatas are taking it in turns to cook them, and the kitchen maids keep busy stoking the oven round the clock. I help in the kitchen as much as I am able. At least it is warm by the ovens, though standing makes my back ache.





September 1539


The swallows have flown away for the winter. My hands grow stiff and I often find it difficult to hold the pen. I think often on my sins, and notice the grayness of everything—the clouds, the weather, the dying light of autumn.





Spring 1540


Easter approaches again, the long dark days of the Lenten fast draw to an end, snow melts, and though it is very cold, in the cloister the sun warms the bones of elderly nuns like me while the convent waits for the warm wind to bring the swallows back from Africa. The Abbess has not been well this winter, and spends most of her time propped in a chair in front of her locutio. I divide my time between the scriptorium in the morning and assisting her in the afternoons with the day-to-day business of the convent. The Abbess’s younger sister, recently widowed, has come to live at the convent as a lay sister. This beata, Sor Emmanuela, has made over all the wealth she inherited from her husband to us, and I have been cataloging her fortune and property.

I am often short of breath and I do not believe it will be long before I join the nuns laid to rest in a cave behind the convent, like the early Christians in the catacombs of Rome. And one of the orphan girls will fill my shoes. I long for a competent assistant.