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There were no other men in the convent. Serpico had known that that would be the case before arriving, but he had never thought to contemplate what it would mean to be the only man in the convent. To the nuns, he was an oddity. There were some who stared at him with disapproving gimlet eyes (These he smiled at, trying to say ‘I am not a threat’). There were some who blushed and smiled shyly whenever he passed them in the hall (These he ignored, knowing well that there were plenty here who had not chosen to be, and that their wishes would not be enough to free them). There were some who simply stared in naked curiosity, and Serpico never knew how to respond to them, so he never did the same way twice.
This was not a place for him; that much was always clear. The mother superior interviewed Serpico regularly, and always found a way to make it clear that his presence was alien, unlooked-for, unwelcome.
“As you understand, the circumstances allowing you to be here are unusual ones. I must ask that you converse with the sisters as little as possible. This really is not a place for men…”
Yes, the circumstances were unusual.
This was not a place for him, but nowhere ever really had been. Serpico had always borne it before, and it was nothing to bear it now. It was not a change in circumstances—only setting.
He had not always been alone, though. He’d not always been gawked at like an exotic animal imported from the east for a noble’s menagerie. That was enough to bother him, somewhat, though it felt at times like he was forcing himself to feel bothered at all.
And then, there was the company of the one who was gawked at almost as much as him.
“I’m praying,” she said tonelessly, bowing her wimpled head lower towards the altar, back turned to him. “Go away.”
Winter had passed, but there was still a distinct chill in the air and in the stones. The nuns’ habits were rough but also fairly thin—Serpico had heard in passing a few complaints about the weather throughout the winter. Farnese had never complained about feeling the cold (she never had as a child either, even when sitting knee-deep in snow) even if her whole body was wracked by tremors. She’d not gotten to that state yet, but Serpico could see that her fingers were tinged a pale, chalky blue.
Serpico shifted the rough homespun blanket he’d found, passing it from one hand to another. He noticed what he was doing and stilled. “You’ll catch cold.”
“I am a daughter of the church. I am a daughter of God.” Farnese’s tone grew more brittle with every word. “I am daunted by no such privation.”
And yet her fingers were blue, and even as she spoke, her shoulders had begun to shake. Serpico took a step forwards; Farnese’s back stiffened at the sound of his boot hitting the stone floor. “Lady Farnese—“
“Don’t take another step!” Farnese sprang to her feet and whirled around to face him, the rough linen of her habit swishing too-loudly. Her eyes blazed and the air crackled around her, and for a moment Serpico was sure she would close the distance between them and bring her hand up to slap him. The idea didn’t really bother him. She’d drawn blood from him often enough; surely one more time wouldn’t bother him. Perhaps it should have.
Farnese drew a deep, shuddering breath, and her eyes merely smoldered rather than blazed, and she said, with forced, deadly calm, “Go away, or I’ll call the mother superior.”
Serpico had learned to foster a sense of indifference at an early age. It had carried him through any number of situations that would have been uncomfortable or distressing to those of even the happiest of dispositions. He had learned not to care about most things—or if he let himself care, it was only in a remote, only-half-there sort of way (More a slip than anything else).
If this convent was a prison to him, it was no different than the Vandimion estate, or the dark, claustrophobic room where he had been born. All that had changed was the setting. His circumstances were still the same.
But Farnese, Farnese, she was capable of every emotion but indifference. She could never be indifferent to anything. And Serpico… Serpico found that, to see her now, he could not be indifferent either.
It seemed that Farnese was doomed to spend a life of imprisonment, whatever the setting. A life within walls was her fate as a daughter of the Vandimion family, and beyond that, Serpico could see no way for her to survive outside of the walls of her many-faceted prison cell. But sometimes, more often lately, he wondered to himself what sort of person she would have become by the end. (Would she be a wizened woman who sat alone in a dark room, shrieking and shielding her eyes with her hands when the shutters were opened and the room was flooded with sunlight?)
He stood there for a long moment, staring at her, mouth open but unable to form no words of any kind. Farnese’s expression shifted from cold rage to equal parts anger and hopefulness, and Serpico clamped his mouth shut. He bowed, murmured something that for the life of him he couldn’t remember later, and left.
Behind him, he could hear Farnese beating the wall with her fists.
It snowed again that night, and after everything, Serpico couldn’t say he was surprised.