by Mary Novik
I shoved the pamphlet at Francesco. “Get Colonna’s nephew out of this square. It’s a crucible today.”
While Francesco looked around for his pupil, I folded my stall and retreated into the shadows. I would wait for the guardsman to leave, then lose myself in the crowd. He approached Gherardo and must have questioned him, for Gherardo took umbrage, smacking his blade on his forehead, then saluting his opponent with a feint between the legs that almost castrated him. The Falcon lowered his nose-guard and tapped his blade on his helmet to return the challenge. Gherardo needled here and there with his weapon. Soon they were dancing about each other, putting on a better show than cranes displaying during courtship. The students circled in their long black gowns, heckling, yelling, badgering, so that Louis de Montpellier was losing his battle against the noise. After a few minutes, he cut short his lecture, and wisely disappeared.
A duel was now in progress. The two men scuffled about, raising a cloud of dust and oaths and pushing onlookers into doorways. Gherardo took a run and overshot, gashing the Falcon’s leather sleeve—a lucky blow, for Gherardo was no swordsman. A returning stroke caught him across the cheek. Gherardo sank against the wall, the Colonna nephew took his place, and the guardsman had to defend himself, though only an idiot would lift a sword against a Colonna. The students tossed their books onto ledges and threw off their gowns to join the farce. The square became a mêlée of motley garments, eager swords, and hats of every badge and plumage. Somewhere in the dirt and heat was Cardinal Colonna’s heir, about to be blooded in his first campaign.
Francesco propped Gherardo against the wall to inspect his bleeding cheek and I emerged from my doorway to hand them an ink rag to stanch the blood. All at once, pounding out of the hot sun, five men on horseback were galloping down the rue des Études towards us, the horses’ hooves kicking up enough dust to whiten the buildings. A pack of Colonnas, riding from the north with gleaming spurs, probably alerted by a student seeking a reward. Francesco—at last remembering that he wore their badge himself—stepped into the fight to pull out the Colonna boy just as the white charger bore down upon us.
The rider shouted, “Put up your weapons!”
The man could only be Cardinal Colonna, since his nose was hooked and his shout imperious. The cardinal reached to his hip, grasped the hilt of his sword, and swung it in an arc to bring it out of the scabbard. Then the warhorse cleared the square by kicking its hind legs in a circle, as it had been trained to do in combat.
The cardinal brandished his sword at the scholars flattened against the buildings. “Show yourselves, all you who caused this fight!”
Francesco and the nephew stepped from the crowd. To Francesco’s credit, he stood by his young charge. His chin was level, neither tilted up nor down. The Falcon was beside them, his cuirass unbuckled at his waist and his chin bent shamefully to his chest.
The cardinal rebuked him. “As a member of the papal guard, you are charged with keeping the peace not breaking it.”
The cardinal’s sword arched back into his scabbard. The Falcon had been made a sweating, public fool. As he backed away from the cardinal, his helmet dangling from his hand, he knocked into Gherardo, who raised a rude fist in an attempt to stir the guardsman up again.
The cardinal addressed his nephew. “Step forwards, Agapito Colonna.”
The youth held his blade high, exultant. “What sport, Uncle! You should have …”
“Where is your silver belt?”
The boy groped around his waist. His zona was missing—no doubt unhooked during the fight by a student who had recognized its worth. The charger’s foreleg landed near the nephew. I was close enough to see that the horse was not white after all, but a magnificent grey.
“Why were you in this brawl?” the cardinal asked.
The youth fell to his knees. “Monseigneur, I fought to uphold the Colonna honour in this public place.”
Gherardo sniggered and I elbowed him to stop. The less attention we drew to ourselves, the better. The cardinal demanded a prayer book and the master of his horse produced one. When the nephew had the book, the cardinal ordered, “Swear your fealty to me for all to hear.”
Francesco, feeling the youth’s humiliation, knelt beside him to accept his own share of the blame, and afterwards reached for the book to swear upon it himself.
The cardinal cut him short. “From you, Petrarca, your word is good enough. You will give me a full accounting in my palace. Now, serve me as you are paid to do and help this tyro mount.”
Having just stood up, Francesco was made to kneel again so the nephew could stand upon his thigh. The cardinal pulled his nephew into the saddle with him, spurred his charger, and the horsemen fell in behind, driving the students back against the walls. Francesco scrubbed the filth from the knee of his new hose. Then, without a parting word to me, he set off at a brisk pace towards Cardinal Colonna’s livrée.
Twenty-two
A FEW MORNINGS after the scuffle with the guardsman, Gherardo arrived at the Cheval Blanc. His swagger was subdued and the scar on his cheek had started to fester.
“Turn your head sideways.” I held him by his hair while I poured marc over the wound. When he motioned towards the leather jug, I relinquished it. “You don’t usually ask my permission.”
“I’ve got myself in a stew.” He took a gulp, then continued talking without any encouragement. “Agapito Colonna liked it well enough, but there were others who objected.”
It took me a moment to decipher this. “Such as Cardinal Colonna, or Francesco?”
He appraised his scar in my looking-glass. “Remember the guardsman with the falcon nose whose blade did this? He had me watched until I bedded the nephew. Now the guardsman is blackmailing me. If I don’t pay up, he’ll take his story to Colonna. You must help me or I’m euchred and so is Francesco. You know how hard he worked to earn the cardinal’s approval.”
Indeed I did. For all Gherardo’s bravado, he was as fearful of hurting his brother’s chances as I was. In that, we were allies. I held out a purse of coins, but he shoved it away.
“I have enough to live on for a year.”
“So it was you who stole the nephew’s zona! Where did you pawn it? Not in Avignon, I hope.”
“I sold the belt to a rogue silversmith and kept the medallions to sell one at a time.”
“Then pay the guardsman what he asks.”
“He wants something warmer, not for himself but for an old cleric in the palais des Papes.” Gherardo bit his thumbnail. “He has seen us together in the city and thinks you are our sister. He knows you have the gift of clairvoyance.”
“You mean you blurted it out. He has been seeking me since the auto-da-fé. Now you have exposed me as the woman who predicted the fall of the papacy!”
Another shifty bite of his nail. “The guardsman will turn a blind eye to my bedding of the nephew if we aid him in this enterprise. It will be an easy job for you, Solange. The old cleric in the palais is on his deathbed and wishes to talk to the spirit world. Go to him and have one of your visions. He will believe every word.”
“You know I cannot bring them on at will.”
He shrugged off the difficulty, his mouth working like a bellows. “Just pretend you hear the dead speaking. Say something in that sibylline voice of yours.” He spoke more boldly now. “I will come for you at vespers. If you refuse, I might land in the pillory.”
Gherardo admired his scar in the mirror and was gone. In spite of his bravado, he was frightened. The last sodomite put on the pillory had been stoned until his head was pulp. Even if Gherardo escaped that fate, the Petrarch honour would be tarnished. The thought of Francesco finding out that I had played some part in it, even so little as refusing to help Gherardo, was too much even to contemplate.
At dusk, I was surprised to find Francesco at my door, full of apology for deserting me after the swordfight. He carried a gift, a trader’s cache of precious spices. He lit my tapers, dripping pools of wax on my furnitur
e in which to stand them up, while I heated red wine, stirred in threads of saffron, and poured it into wooden bowls. We drank liberally to celebrate his first visit since returning from the north.
“It is unwise for me to be seen in public with you, Solange. The cardinal knows me as a man of literature—a writer of Latin epistles and sonnets to a high-born lady.” Five gilt buttons emerged from a parcel he had brought, then a length of cloth. “You can tell it’s from Bruges by the way it is folded. Two ells, as fine as gauze, dyed with cinnabar. The colour reminded me of your hair.”
He wound the cloth about my head and shoulders, let it slip around my waist, then spun it off me. My clothes flew off so quickly that neither of us knew who did it. He caressed the birthmark above my knee, his thumb lingering on the lines that radiated outwards.
“The mark of Venus.” He rubbed his hands until they were hot, then placed them over my eyes.
I put his hands where I wanted them.
“The mons veneris,” he said, kissing me there.
He supported the small of my back to lower me, and entered me gently, as we had joined in the chapel at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. On that night, we had plighted our troth in the sweet season between the evening star and the morning star. Hesperus and Phosphorus, they were called, different names for Venus. But today I could not lie in my lover’s arms until dawn.
When we drew apart, my lips sought the sword-bite near his collarbone. “It’s almost vespers. You must go.”
“I have a poem to show you.”
“Not now. I’ll be at your house at sext tomorrow.”
“I’ve moved into Colonna’s livrée. You can’t go there.”
“Then meet me in the nave of Saint Pierre.”
As he left, the angelus sang out at Notre-Dame-des-Doms. The lesser bells at other churches followed, each with its own tone and duration, until the air tumbled with bell-song. Gherardo came up the staircase as the Pénitents gris, who were always late, struck their out-of-tune gong.
Gherardo said, “I dodged Francesco alongside the canal. Is that why you are so unready?”
He had brought Perrette, telling her he was taking me to conduct a séance. Soon she was lowering her brazil-red robe over my head and removing her own combs to pin up my hair.
“Leave it down over her shoulders,” Gherardo said. “I’m told the old cleric likes a girl with a bit of red in her hair.”
While they dressed me, I sucked on the jug of marc like a pedlar. I had been drinking it neat to fortify myself since Francesco went out the door.
“You Petrarchs make use of her too freely,” Perrette said. “Why do you try to pass her off as your sister? I have never seen an Italian woman with eyes and hair like this.” She reached for the gauzy cloth from Bruges.
“Not that, not tonight,” I said.
Outside, I climbed into the dog-cart Gherardo had hired. He had taken unusual care with his own appearance, and even combed the rented hound for fleas. The cart negotiated the narrow streets through the Change, carrying us to the hind gate of the old episcopal palace where the guardsman waited, sniffing at the air with his falcon nose. He had asked for the Petrarchs’ sister and he would get her. I consoled myself that he did not know who I really was.
As Gherardo wrangled the dog-cart back up the path, the Falcon disappeared into the darkness ahead, leaving me to follow him along the winding corridor towards I knew not what. He led me up a corkscrew staircase, then wrenched open a studded door. We traversed the inside of the labyrinthine fortifications until we emerged in palatial quarters on the upper floor.
The Falcon showed me into a chamber that was a paradise after the dank passages with torches set too far apart for light. A steward put a glass of strong drink in my hand, then returned to peeling a Persian fruit and rolling the slices in scraped sugar. Here was a blazing fire and burning sconces. From the ceiling hung bed-curtains embroidered with a black falcon, a sinister crest that explained the guardsman’s leather nose. Amongst the grim attendants, I saw two médecins, one with a doctor of physic’s hood. On an ermine pillow lay an old man’s head, shrouded in a cap-and-earflaps such as corpses wore. The senex’s eyes were closed, his breath spent, his jaw slack. When I was announced, his eyes flickered and his gums trembled into speech.
“So you are the Petrarchs’ sister,” he said in Provençal. “I have been seeking you since the burning of the heretic friar. Is it true you can hear the voices of the dead?”
I answered warily, “I have visions, but they are more like fits. I speak in riddles that I cannot hear, as if my ears are stopped with wax.”
At this he fell into a kind of stupor, and I looked towards the médecins for assistance. One was holding a flask of urine to the light to inspect its tincture. He poured some into his palm to smell and taste. I went to the table where the doctor of physic was casting a horoscope.
“Why was I brought here?”
“We need someone with the power of Venus to forestall the force of Mars, which is trying to dispatch the old man’s life. Try to have a vision to calm him.”
“Who is he? What family is the black falcon?”
“The Duèze from Cahors. Give him what peace you can since he is close to death.”
I returned to the bedside to hold the man’s frail hand. What had my mother said to me in parting? I conjured up her deathbed and spoke her final words aloud. “Go with the good father and do not look back. I will be well where I am going.”
This seemed to soothe him, but his ears and cheeks were feverish. I called for balm-water, moistened an embroidered cloth, and bathed his forehead, neck, and chest to conquer the heat. At last he fell into a deep, nourishing rest. His palsy was gone and so were his attendants. It had been a long night and the strong drink was fermenting inside me. I wanted nothing more than to sleep, and must have said so, for the old man’s eyes sprang open.
“Climb into bed, my dear. Warm me, for I am cold.”
He drew back the blanket to show me bone-white feet that were knocking together like old teeth. He lay curled on his side because his bed was not long enough to accommodate him from head to toe. I entered the bed and tugged the curtains closed. What harm could come from comforting a dying senex, holding him as a mother would her child?
I woke sometime later to find out, for he was kneeling between my thighs. My skirts were pushed up and he was climbing on me with surprising agility for one who had been moribund a few hours before. Like Priapus, he had revived, his penis now as mighty as a crescent moon. I grasped his shoulders to roll his dwarfish body off me. He would hit the floor like an old jar crashing from a height. Before I could shove him off, a coarse hand parted the curtains and a leather nose appeared. I reached for my miséricorde, but the Falcon scraped his thumb across his Adam’s apple to warn me he could easily slit my throat. Clearly, I had been brought here to dispense not mother love, but the carnal kind.
In this room, evil held all the swords. As the old man sucked new blood from my marrow, I stained the ermine pillow with my tears. I tried to think of Francesco sharing Cardinal Colonna’s fine table, discussing literature with the great men of the city. What was my sacrifice to his hard work, his promise?
Now that the morning sun was invading the chamber, lighting up the bed-curtains from without, I saw that they were subtly woven with triple crowns. The papal tiara. This was no member of the Curia but the Pope himself: John XXII, whom all Avignon knew to be at death’s door.
His attendants drew the curtains and he climbed from the bed, well pleased with his recovery. The doctors saluted him with squat bows and shows of obeisance. They cared little for me now that they had used me, although I had driven back the force of Mars. The flaps on the Pope’s deathcap flopped like asses’ ears as he danced a little dervish jig, exposing himself beneath his nightshirt. All the hair had been scraped from the back of his legs where they had rubbed against clerical robes all his life. He pissed into the urine flask, splashing the médecin with the renewed force of his stre
am.
At least no one would accuse me of stealing his manhood with sorcery. I rose in shame—stiff and ill and queasy. I shook all over, humiliated and broken. I could not control my hands, which ran up and down repeatedly to smooth my robe, only serving to press the wrinkles deeper. I caught sight of myself in the pier-glass, as tousled as an overripe peony. I had worn Perrette’s robe and might as well have worn her cap with crimson ribbons to broadcast my whoredom.
I hammered on the chamber door with my fists, but it would not give, for the bar was down and the bolt was in the socket. The Falcon stood with his legs spread like a broad gate. He jerked his thumb towards a seat beside the old man. When I did not move, he gestured that he would hoist me up and carry me there if I did not use my own two feet. I sat down beside the Pope and was made to share the meal the minions had laid out, plate after silver plate mounded with nauseating dainties. The Pope fed me lewd purple figs from his left hand, and when my mouth was full of undigested pulp, he grasped my chin to draw my lips towards his greasy face. Full of disgust, I raised my head to look into eyes of lapis lazuli—eyes as bright and familiar as mine had been when they stared out from the Pope’s own looking-glass.
Twenty-three
WHEN MY MOTHER was a young woman, this Pope, then a bishop and even then an old man, had frequented her chamber in the Cheval Blanc. From inside her womb, I had seen his dark blue eyes and a face as foxed with broken blood vessels as if a painter had illumined it with carmine. The bishop had mounted her, engendering a child with eyes of costly lapis. At what cost, I finally understood, for as I had been trapped inside her body then, so I had a prisoner inside my own womb now.