The Sisterhood

Chapter 8


Las Golondrinas Convent, Summer 1505





Isabella lay panting on a hard bed as two nuns in black habits and a beata in a brown dress moved back and forth over her. Beyond the candles burning at the end of the bed, the room was dim. She had no idea how long she had been there, in the clutches of pain like a great beast that showed her no mercy, returning again and again to tear her in two. Isabella moaned through clenched teeth at its approach. As it subsided, she looked wildly about her, the plain bare room, the flickering shadows of the nuns. How did she get here? Everything was unreal, unknown—the bed she lay in, the people around her, her own body. She longed to sleep. Her father…a journey…the gate…It was hard to think, here it came again…she tried to resist the urge to scream. She gasped, then clenched her teeth. But in the end the scream poured out of her as the pain took hold, stronger than before.

When she finally drew breath, the beata wiped her brow again and told her to suck on a wet cloth that tasted of some bitter herb. The pain receded but she felt dizzy. What had happened? The portress, she recalled foggily. The portress had slammed the gate and shouted…the baby—oh God, here it came again…

Throughout the long night and the next day Isabella was helplessly adrift in a nightmare, aware of nothing but the pain that came and went. When she opened her eyes she saw the nuns’ worried expressions as they whispered to each other, pushed and prodded her. She tried to fight them off.

Then a steady, authoritative voice penetrated her exhausted brain, ordering her to push, push now! Over and over. The voice grew louder and more insistent, forcing Isabella to try to obey, but she had no strength left. Someone took her wrists and pulled her up, and another supported her back, and the authoritative voice came again but from a great distance, saying now, NOW…a hot, sickly smell of blood filled the room. Isabella saw her dead mother’s face, only her mother had pushed aside the black lace shroud that had covered it, shouting, “Now! Now!”

Isabella made a mighty effort and fell back, knowing she was dying. She was shaking uncontrollably, growing cold, falling, falling away. They were forcing something into her mouth but she could not taste it. The baby…she twisted her head away to beg for mercy for the baby. But they were stronger, something filled her mouth and she could not speak, she choked…poison…She surrendered to darkness.

When she opened her eyes again, sunlight streamed through a narrow window and birds were making a great noise outside. Between her legs it felt very sore and raw, and she felt both heavy and empty in her stomach. Her hand groped feebly across its new flatness, now tightly swaddled. She was wearing a coarse linen nightdress and her hair was braided. Several nuns bustled around the room whispering to each other. One carried a basin of water; another had a casket open, arranging vials inside. By the window another nun jiggled a bundle in her arms. The bundle began to wail.

It sounds like a baby, thought Isabella. Then she remembered.

There was a swish of skirts and a “Deo gratias!” The voice approaching the bed was the same firm, authoritative one that had ordered her to push. A nun with a broad, rather stern face with pronounced eyebrows, framed in a wimple, bent over the bed. A medal swung on a chain on the front of her habit, a rosary was at her waist, her arms were folded inside the sleeves of her habit, and she had a terrifying air of authority. “I am the Abbess. How are you feeling? Speak if you can, but if you cannot, rest and I will return later.”

Isabella was filled with despair. The Abbess had come to take the baby away! She gulped miserably and looked hard at the medal swinging in front of her eyes. There was a small bird on the medal and if she just kept looking at it everything would…“Isabella! Look at me!” the voice commanded.

Isabella raised terrified eyes. “Reverend Mother Abbess…the baby is innocent.”

“That’s better! You can talk. You gave us all a terrible fright that the baby would not come out, but in the end, thanks be to God, you managed it. You have a daughter, whom we baptized Salome when we thought you would die without giving her a name. Don’t you want to hold her? She has been crying for her mother for five days now. A wet nurse is all very well, but it is best for her mother to feed her.”

Salome? Feed her? The baby wailed lustily and Isabella struggled to sit up a little and winced. She felt a pressure in her breasts and her nipples stung. “Oh! What do I do?” The front of her gown grew two circles of damp.

The Abbess nodded approvingly. “Good. Your milk is coming in. You will soon manage.” With strong arms she helped prop Isabella up and beckoned the sister holding the crying baby. “Pull your gown down in front—that’s right.” The nun lay the baby in the crook of Isabella’s arm against her breast. Feeling a nipple on her cheek, Salome turned at once to clamp her tiny mouth on it and shivered as she began sucking greedily.

Weak as she was, a smile of delight crossed Isabella’s face as she stared down at the small pink scrap of humanity. “How beautiful she is! Look at her hair, so thick, and such perfect little fingers!” The baby opened one eye and stared up at her mother, as if to say, “Of course, what did you expect?” Then she resumed her noisy sucking. Isabella’s arms tightened protectively.

“We assume your father did not know,” said the Abbess.

“No,” faltered Isabella.

“Humpff! Men see only what they wish. The portress could tell what the situation was at once, and took care to close the gate in a hurry.” The Abbess’s tone was dry. “You did well to conceal your condition until the last minute. It probably saved both your lives.”

Isabella looked up and asked fearfully, “Will you send me back?”

“Do you wish it?”

“No.”

“And the baby’s father?”

“Dead,” she whispered, stroking the baby’s head. “Dead. He…I contrived to come here because his family lives in the valley—”

“The Abenzucars?”

Isabella nodded and held her breath.

The Abbess looked thoughtful. “Hmm. Their youngest son, I knew him as a child. He came with his mother and aunts to visit. A sweet-natured boy, clever. He went into the church, a kind of hostage after the family converted.”

Isabella nodded. “He told me. He was tutor to my brothers. We planned to run away, to Portugal, and then when we were separated he told me I must try and reach his family, but my father decided to accompany me…and it was not possible. And now I see Alejandro’s family would only understand that their son is dead because of me and hate me even if they agreed to take Salome, and we would be separated forever.”

“My dear, I think you do the Abenzucars an injustice, but that said, if anyone outside the convent learns the truth, there will be terrible consequences for the Abenzucars, for the baby, and for you. I think it is in your interest to take your vows and remain here with the baby, sending no word to the Abenzucars.”

Isabella murmured, “Stay? I can hardly take a nun’s vow of chastity!”

“Hmm. We are all sinners, life is precious, and children are a blessing. And many great nuns, prioresses and Abbesses, saints of the church even, were also mothers. It is a holy estate. Men and women of the church see chastity differently. Men give it an unnecessary spiritual significance and use it as a tool to control women. But for religious women, freedom from family ties allows them to progress in worship, study, and a life of practical service to God. However, you are free to decide for yourself. You may make your full confession to me, and decide in time whether you wish to remain, and whether to profess or not.”

This was stranger and stranger. “Confession to you? Surely to a priest?”

The Abbess rose and folded her hands. “Ah, our elderly priest!” she said dismissively. “We do, of course, have a priest, though he sleeps most of the time. The church takes care to provide our community of poor, feeble women with a priest, because men, even dribbling in their dotage, must hold spiritual dominion over women. Pah! The priests they send are always so old that we are obliged to care for them until they die. Fortunately the Abbess of Las Golondrinas may hear confessions and give penance and absolution.”

Isabella stared at her, open-mouthed. The Abbess permitted herself a little smile.

“A special dispensation. Granted by Bishop St. Valerius of Saragossa before he was martyred in the reign of Diocletian, because our community was so isolated in these mountains. He hoped our example would encourage celibacy among mountain women.” The Abbess rolled her eyes, as if she were asking heaven to give her patience. “I often wonder if men of the church would prefer procreation to cease altogether. So far no pope has revoked the dispensation, because we have powerful friends at court who—”

Somewhere beyond the room a woman shrieked loudly and the Abbess patted Isabella’s hand and rose to her feet as a nun bustled into the room. “Here is a sister with some food. Try to eat and then rest. We will speak later. I must go. A local woman is about to deliver, with great difficulty I fear. Come sisters, don’t forget the medicine chest and clean towels.”

The four nuns swept out, leaving Isabella alone with an earthenware bowl of soup steaming on a stool beside her, bread, a peach, and a cup of wine. Salome was asleep. Isabella lay her carefully down and drank her soup. It smelled of herbs, and there was an egg poached in it, the most delicious thing she had ever eaten. She soaked the last drops of soup up with the bread, then savored the peach slowly, letting the juice run down her chin. She took a sip of wine. Her ordeal was over, the burden of fear and concealment she had borne for so long lifted from her shoulders, and though she could scarcely believe it, she and the baby were both alive and safe. Her relief was so great it brought tears and the certainty that she would stay. She held Salome tight and whispered against the baby’s soft head, “We are safe, precious one. Your father led us here and his spirit will be with us. God is great, Salome. God is great.”