Immortal Muse

by Stephen Leigh

  Perenelle passed the door to the study where the men had gathered on the way to her tiny laboratory—the best aspect of their new, larger house on the rue Saint-Denis. Perenelle had sent in Marianne with refreshments an hour ago; the maidservant had left the door slightly ajar. Perenelle paused at the jamb, listening to the voices inside.

  “… Provost Marcel will bring us down with him.” That was Benoît Picot, a minor bourgeoisie official, and also a banker in the cité. “He might claim to have the Third Estate in mind, but I tell you that he’s become mad with his power and he will overreach. I have it on good authority that he’s in discussion with the king of Navarre, and that he’s also spoken to the English about opening the city gates to them. He’d give us over to the filthy Black Prince himself.”

  “I agree,” she heard Nicolas interject as other voices grumbled their agreement. “The Provost urged the mob to murder Marshals de Conflans and de Clermont, and that has turned Dauphin Charles and the nobles against him. The court is now set against the Provost, and so he turns to Navarre and supports the Jacquerie in their rebellion. Neither of them will save the Provost, but I worry that he’ll get us killed in the process.”

  “What do you propose we do about it?” Picot asked.

  There was a long pause, and Perenelle started to pass on when she heard Nicolas clear his throat. He spoke in not much more than a whisper, and she had to lean toward the crack of the door to hear him.

  “I propose that we do to Étienne Marcel what he did to the Marshals,” Nicolas said.

  Perenelle nearly gasped aloud at that. Afraid that Nicolas might have heard her, she hurried on down the narrow, dark-paneled hallway to her laboratory. She started to shut the door behind herself, but stopped, seeing two other people in the small room.

  “What’s wrong, Maman?” Verdette looked up; she was seated on the floor just inside the door, her dress pooled around her on the oaken planks with her dolls set between herself and her nursemaid Élise, a young woman of fifteen whom Nicolas had hired a year ago. Élise was blonde, comely, and large-busted, with wide, flaring hips and a plump, sensual mouth. Perenelle knew what the entire household knew: Nicolas had hired the girl for more that her skill with children. Nicolas and Perenelle had slept in separate beds since Verdette’s birth, and he only rarely came to her bedchamber at night, though as if in penance, he’d given her the laboratory she’d wanted all along now that they had moved into a larger house.

  Perenelle vastly preferred her laboratory to Nicolas’ presence in her bed. Élise could take Perenelle’s place under his un-tender ministrations; in any case, he’d tire of her soon enough, as he had the others who’d preceded her in her position. The passion of affairs was a flower that withered even faster than that of love.

  She hated that Nicolas had his mistresses, but she found herself unable to speak out to him about them. Whenever she tried, she could hear Nicolas’ voice in her head, and her doubts and fear vanished like snow on a warm spring morning.

  Perenelle touched the pendant around her neck. She did that often; as it always calmed her.

  “Nothing’s wrong, my petite alouette,” Perenelle told her daughter, crouching down to stroke the girl’s curls. At five, Verdette still had a bit of her baby pudginess, but that was rapidly fading, and Perenelle could see Nicolas in her dark, sharp gaze and in the set of her mouth. Perenelle glanced more harshly at Élise while still talking to Verdette. “I thought I’d told you not to play in here,” she said. “The chemicals here are dangerous.”

  “I’m sorry, Madame,” Élise answered. “The door was unlocked, and she ran in here with the dolls. I wouldn’t let her near the chemicals or your experiments. We’ve been very careful.”

  “That’s not the point, you silly goose,” Perenelle said, exasperated. “She’s not to come in here at—” She stopped, seeing a scrap of parchment peeking out from under Verdette’s frock. “What is that?”

  “I found it in Papa’s library,” Verdette said, pulling out the scroll. She unrolled it; Perenelle recognized it, one of the papers that interested Nicolas far more than her: spell incantations in Greek, illustrated with drawings of fantastic, grotesque monsters with clawed hands, cloven hoofs, and barbed tails. Perenelle and Nicolas had engaged in long discussions about this, even before their marriage. Nicolas believed the way to the greatest power lay through incantations and spells; Perenelle believed that it was via the alchemical formulae and recipes.

  On the scroll, the monsters writhed in terror and agony while lightning snarled around them; a wizard stood to one side, hands extended while the lightning flared from his fingers. Letters were written in Greek underneath the illustration, but the manuscript itself was brittle and riddled with brown-edged lacunae; the text was incomplete. “It was out on his reading desk. See how pretty it is, Maman?”

  “I don’t care, Verdette. You can’t touch these—they’re very precious and rare. Élise, if you can’t control her, I’ll have to—”

  “You’ll have to what?” The voice came from the doorway: Nicolas’ voice. “What’s going on here?”

  Verdette’s face blanched. She grabbed for the scroll and started to clumsily roll it, tearing the ancient parchment further. Nicolas saw it and bellowed furiously, starting to push past Perenelle toward the girl. “No!” Perenelle roared back at him. As he glared at her, as Verdette started to cry and Élise cowered against Perenelle’s workbench, rattling the retorts and jars there, Perenelle ducked her head. “Let me take it from her, my husband,” she said, more calmly. She stroked the sardonyx cameo pendant around her neck, deliberately, knowing it would remind him of the promise that he’d made to her five years ago, when she’d been pregnant with Verdette. Sometimes that worked when Nicolas was in a rage. Sometimes.

  Nicolas was still scowling, his hands clenched at his sides as Perenelle backed away from him, crouching down beside the wailing Verdette but never turning her back on Nicolas. “Give me the scroll, Verdette. Let it go. Gently, gently, and stop crying. There’s no need for that.” She took the scroll from the girl. Verdette clung to Perenelle’s skirt, hiding behind it. The child was no longer crying, but Perenelle could hear her voice catching with silent sobs. “Now, apologize to your Papa, and tell him you’ll never, ever touch anything in his library again. Go on, tell him.”

  Perenelle was watching Nicolas carefully, ready to stay between him and Verdette if he threatened her. Verdette had been just beginning to walk when Nicolas had first beaten her: the infant had stumbled into a table and knocked over a vial of ink on papers on which Nicolas had been working. Before Perenelle could reach her, Nicolas had plucked up the crying girl by one tiny arm, wrenching it so that Verdette screamed, and began swatting her with an open hand. Perenelle hated the look on his face, an expression almost of pleasure, the expression she’d sometimes glimpsed on his face when he’d tupped her angrily. She’d caught his arm as he brought it back to hit Verdette again, and the fury in his face then had frightened Perenelle more than ever. But, slowly, he’d released Verdette, then yanked his arm out of Perenelle’s grasp. He’d stalked from the room without another word.

  That was the first time. There’d been others: rarely, thankfully, but always brutal.

  At such times, she thought of taking Verdette and fleeing, as she had before, but the resolution never stayed with her. She would hear the Nicolas of her early love in her head and the anger would leach away so much that the decision seemed unimportant. And Nicolas, as if to buttress her cooling temper, always reminded her of the law. “The girl is my property,” he told her more than once. “If you leave, I can take her back and let the courts deal with you for taking her from me. She’s mine.” Then he would look at her and smile. He would reach out and lift the pendant. “You don’t want to leave me, Perenelle. You know how much you mean to me.”

  She would believe him, despite herself. It was as if her mind could hold no other truth.

  She hugged Verdette, still hiding in her skirts with her arm while
staring at Nicolas. “Go on,” she said softly. “Apologize to Papa, then Élise will take you back to your own room.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” Verdette said in a tiny, barely-audible voice muffled by cloth.

  Nicolas said nothing. He still glared, his fists tight to his sides. “Go on, then,” Perenelle said. “Élise, take her out …” Élise took Verdette’s hand; together, they sidled out of the workshop past Nicolas, who stood aside to let them go. Perenelle felt relief surge through her, though she resolved to speak sternly to Élise later. She held out the scroll to Nicolas. “She tore the edges a little, that’s all,” she said. “Nothing critical was lost. If you wish, I’ll make another translation and copy tomorrow for you …”

  “I’ve already taken from it what I need,” he grumbled, but his hands relaxed and he took the scroll without looking at it.

  “You’re upset by your meeting with the merchants?”

  “Why do you say that?” Nicolas snapped. His eyes narrowed. “What did you hear of our talk?”

  “Nothing,” Perenelle told him. “I only heard raised voices as I passed by, and I know how the Provost aggravates you.”

  “The man’s an idiot and should have stayed with his drapes,” Nicolas spat. His hand tightened again around the scroll. “Marcel would hand us over to Charles of Navarre and the English, but King Jean will be ransomed from the blasted English soon enough and set back on the throne, and then where will we be?”

  “You know this to be true?” Perenelle asked the question, but she knew the answer herself. She had seen the portents in the Tarot, and the cards had left little question in her mind when she had read them lately. She assumed that Nicolas, who also read the Tarot, if not as well or deeply as Perenelle, had seen the same in his arrays.

  “I know it,” he answered.

  “Provost Marcel is a powerful force in the city. He’s still not a man to offend, husband.”

  “He’s not as powerful as he was, and he threatens all the bourgeoisie with his ambitions.”

  “Then we should pray to God that He brings down Marcel.”

  Nicolas laughed at that. “You may pray if you wish, wife,” he told her, “but it is men who will need to act to answer those prayers.”

  *

  The city broiled, the populace seared by a relentless July heat.

  There was a dinner that night. Clouds had begun massing on the horizon during the late afternoon, and a strong breeze had begun to blow. Perenelle hoped it would rain, despite the muddy mess that it would make of the streets; she might at least not be sweltering in her surcoat and underdress—they were heavy linen, dyed with the expensive red dye Nicolas had procured from the clothier two streets over, and brocaded with stiff golden thread. The underdress was a pale blue, adorned with small jewels where the sides of the surcoat opened to reveal it. Her head was already beginning to sweat under the netted bowl of the newly-fashionable wig, though the style of her surcoat covered her shoulders, rather than leaving her neck and shoulders bare, as some in the court did now. Perenelle thought the new style fine for young women, but not for matrons like herself. The only jewelry she wore was the sardonyx pendant Nicolas had given her so long ago; she wore it because it was beautiful, but she also wore it because she couldn’t bear to be parted from it, and so that Nicolas would see it.

  The dinner was Provost Marcel’s affair. That by itself was troubling. The rumors were that Charles of Navarre and his men were close to the city, that they would enter Paris at the Provost’s invitation. From the Left Bank to the Right, and all over the Île de la Cité, the factions were stirring.

  No one was in much of a mood for a gathering, but the Provost’s invitation was not to be turned down. Nicolas, for his part, appeared almost jolly at the thought. “You are all to remain inside,” Nicolas told the staff as they were preparing to leave. “Marianne, you and Telo are to bar the doors and don’t let anyone in you don’t know. We should return by midnight.” He called to Telo, now a strapping lad of seventeen, and pointed to the door that Marianne was holding open. “You’re to be the door guard tonight,” he said. “You’re to stay right here until we return. Do you understand?”

  Telo nodded. “Nicolas,” Perenelle asked, concerned, “are you expecting trouble tonight? Why these precautions?”

  Beneath his best cloak, Nicolas shrugged. His face was impassive behind the hedge of his beard. “I expect nothing,” he answered, “but it’s good to be prepared for anything in these days.”

  Perenelle frowned. She crouched down to hug Verdette good-bye, and looked at Élise over the girl’s head. “Make sure that Verdette stays out of trouble, and otherwise, do as Master Flamel has said. Let no one in that we don’t know. We’ll be back soon. Verdette, you’ll behave, won’t you? I want you to say your prayers especially well tonight, and go to bed early. I think it’s going to storm. You’ll do that, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Maman,” Verdette said, her face so solemn as she nodded that Perenelle had to laugh.

  Nicolas had already left the house. Perenelle stood, patted Verdette on the head. “Say a special prayer for me,” she told the girl. She nodded to the servants, then followed Nicolas outside.

  The July heat had also gifted the entire city with the overripe smell of a midden. Her surcoat was long, and Perenelle gathered up the train over one elbow so that it didn’t become soiled during their walk. The central gutter of the rue Saint-Denis was clogged with offal and there had been no rain in over a week to wash away the effluvium—that would be another blessing if a storm came tonight. Overhead, the sky was already dark, the clouds masking the moon and stars. Perenelle found herself wishing that she’d read the cards earlier; there was a sense that something was to happen tonight. The street was strangely empty, only a few people venturing out. The closest shops were shuttered, their window ledges pulled in.

  Nicolas waited for her at the gate of their house; he crooked his arm to her as she approached—in public, he was always careful that their marriage appear entirely proper and happy. He even managed a smile as she took his arm, and he noticed that she glanced at the sky. “If the storm breaks while we’re at dinner,” he said, “we’ll borrow an oilcloth from the Provost. After all, he’s a draper.” His smile widened, as if he’d made a joke.

  Nicolas set off down the rue. He carried a staff in his free hand, though it wasn’t his formal cane, but an oak limb that she’d noticed in his laboratory a few days ago, the whorled knob of the top strangely dark, as if it had been in a fire.

  The uncapped end of the staff clunked dully on the cobbles of the rue. “So, Madame,” he asked, as if he were making conversation at the dinner, “how goes your work lately?”

  She hesitated. Since Nicolas had given Perenelle her own laboratory, he’d rarely asked about her progress. Despite his gift of the space, he seemed to believe that she could accomplish nothing and that her puttering about was nothing more than a silly female dalliance, whereas his own work was vital and all-important. He’d laughed when she’d declared, in the first days of her work, that she would seek to unlock the Great Work: the Philosopher’s Stone.

  Nicolas had respect for Perenelle only for her ability to decipher and translate the old texts, a task at which she was far better than he. That was the payment she made for her laboratory—she had to translate and copy all the many manuscripts he purchased. She had to give him the knowledge they contained, even if she wasn’t permitted to make copies for her own research, nor did he ever acknowledge her help.

  Sometimes she resented the labor, but she stroked the pendant and those feelings would eventually recede. Nicolas loved her, despite his gruffness, his temper, and his neglect. She could hear his voice as it had been, kind and gentle, and her irritation would recede. He needed her; that was enough.

  She knew that what Nicolas sought in the old manuscripts was more visceral and immediate than her quest for the Philosopher’s Stone: the spells and incantations of power. The only part of alchemy that interested
him was the “Solve et Coagula” portion of the Great Work: dissolving the prima materia so it could be reconstituted in the coagula part of the formula—mercury turned to solid silver, lead to gold; the white and red stones. That way led to riches, after all.

  For her part, Perenelle had no interest in that aspect. She had turned her attention to the property of the Stone that was said to heal and to give immortality: the liquid part of the stone, the elixir of life.

  “It goes slow,” she answered. “I fear that the answers I’m seeking aren’t in the manuscripts we’ve yet found, and I feel as if I’m groping in a dark room while my hands are covered in thick mittens. I can reproduce all the experiments my father started—as you know—but what eluded him still eludes me. The mice to which I’ve fed my poor attempts have all died a normal death, or they die early.”

  Nicolas laughed. The sound of his amusement bounced from the shop signs and buildings around them as they approached the bridge to the Île de la Cité, where the Provost’s apartments were located. “And your work, husband?” she asked him.

  “It goes better than yours,” he answered. “I have begun to unlock the mystery. The manuscripts begin to talk to me.” His lips tightened grimly. “And at an auspicious time.”

  “What’s happening, Nicolas?” she asked him. “What are you expecting?”

  He didn’t answer at first. They stepped on the Ponte au Change, the Seine rolling underneath on its slow, wandering way to the sea. “The Provost oversteps himself,” he said finally. “And it will cost him dearly.”

  “Something will happen tonight?”

  “Perhaps,” he answered. “But you will act as if you expect nothing. You will smile and be the perfect wife and companion, or you will regret your foolishness and Verdette will as well. You will show nothing. Do you understand me?” His arm tightened against her hand with the words. “Say it,” he hissed.

  Her eyes had widened, and she wanted to touch the pendant, though she couldn’t with him restraining her. “I’ll show nothing,” she said.