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“Stop! Stop. Have I not been clear? Have I not been direct? No magic outside these walls.”

“But people are dying and the priests cannot stop it.”

“Exactly,” she said, putting on her habit over her nightshift. “This is the worst time to attract attention. If we have success, we will make the priests look ridiculous, and it will go badly for us... They will say we have conjured demons. And he will say we have made terrible sacrifices in exchange for this cure.”

Ginevra understood immediately that he referred to the recently appointed papal inquisitor, Fra Andre di Perugia. Before the flood and sickness, the unusual zeal with which the new inquisitor approached his position had been the talk of the town. How he had hired two hundred men to his personal retinue, granting them the unusual permission to carry weapons inside the city walls. How these men slunk about, shouting “Heretic!” at anyone from whom they might extort a fine. Most extreme, how an academic was whipped through the streets for wondering whether earthquakes might occur separate from God’s intervention. The poor man was put into the stinche, the city’s jail, and all his possessions confiscated. He was fined 200 florins and his left hand was amputated when he couldn’t pay it. But Ginevra was not to be deterred. Her dream had been so clear.

“Healing sick people is no heresy, Sister. Even the inquisitor must know that. You have not seen as I did, walking about yesterday. There are many thousands—”

“Enough. You must bear it,” Agnesa interrupted. “This thing will leave us in a few months, but poor women are a constant in this world. Do not draw attention to yourself. We must still be here to care for them when this is all over. Now get out, it’s too early for this.”

Ginevra left, resolved to act as she saw fit. Agnesa might be afraid of the inquisitor, but she was not. She paced ruts in the courtyard all morning, waiting to cross paths with her mentor and continue the conversation. Finally, she stopped her as the old nun was crossing to the women’s ward. Ginevra knelt before her, hands clasped.

“Please, Sister, I beseech you—our people are dying when they may live. We will be subtle, we will be quick. Nobody will know that magic happened. Except for us, who will know we have done right by our fellow man.”

“Get UP. Get up, you make a scene. Come with me. Now.”

Ginevra followed Agnesa back to her cell. The nun shut the door. She pried up the tile under her bed, and took out the obsidian—black and streaked with gold. She placed it in Ginevra’s right hand. “Speak of this to no one. Tell me not what you do with it.” She left Ginevra standing alone in her cell.

Ginevra opened her left hand, where she’d twisted Vermilia’s ring around on her finger. The orange stone had been so tightly pressed into her flesh that the goddess Nemesis was imprinted in her palm.

She left the convent, quietly triumphant, and did what the obsidian told her: drop it over the side of a bridge, into the Arno. She wondered if it was very expensive or if it would be hard to find another one. The stone called out from the river and told her not to worry about all that, but to bring a wineskin to the banks and fill it and bring it to those who thirsted.

Ginevra did as the stone said, and then brought the full wineskin to the poor crowded quarters, where people were desperate enough to drink river water offered by a stranger. Some were too sick and could not get better. But others saw their spots fade, felt their fevers cool. Ginevra rejoiced, and went again to the home of Ludovico, throwing handfuls of rocks at his window until a pane cracked, and he finally gestured that they should meet in the kitchen of the palazzo.

“Didn’t you see me at your window yesterday?”

“Ginevra, it’s not the time for visitors.”

“I know, but I come with the best news.”

He did not respond, nor did he reach out to take her hand or touch her waist, nor had he called her his Beatrice, but just plain Ginevra.

“I’ve found it, My Heart,” she said quietly, and pulled out the wineskin. “Drink this and you will be safe from disease.”

“Really?” he said, his voice suddenly imbued with emotion.

“Yes, really, I promise you.”

He took it and drank, and then smiled at her and put his hand on her shoulder. She relaxed a bit at the touch, but still, her shoulder was not her waist.

“There’s enough for your whole household,” she said.

“Thank you, Ginevra, I will not forget this. But now you must go, it’s not a good time for us to visit.”

“But you’ll write to me, when it is?” she said, hearing her own desperation.

“When it is a good time, I will write.” He kissed her on the forehead and then walked through the doors that led to the palazzo of his father, where Ginevra was not allowed to follow.

It was not long before she was noticed. Florence was not so big and people peeked out through their shutters and saw her going from house to house when nobody else was about.

Whispers spread as the poor became well while the wealthy still wasted away: there was a woman who was not afraid of the disease, who was not afraid to touch the ones coughing and spewing out vile humors. People began to leave their shelters to seek her out, and if they found her, she would not turn them away, but followed them to their homes where their children lay dying to administer the enchanted water.

She went into every parish, into places where the disease was thickest, and walked out again unaffected when all others who tried to do so were struck with the illness themselves. Soon, so many people said things like “bless you” and “God protect you,” and gave her food from their own meager stores, that she forgot all about discretion, all about Agnesa’s warning, about the woman burned to death on the ladder and the man whose hand was cut off for wondering about earthquakes.

NINETEEN

BONES, BONES, BONES