Muse

by Mary Novik

  Men of science taught that the child took the father’s colouring and that the father’s semen gave the child its soul. If this was so, my father was a left-handed man with red hair and eyes of lapis blue. Perhaps he was the Pope, but I would never know for sure.

  Not long after the child in my womb began to show, Francesco found me sitting outside the Cheval Blanc. Under cover of dusk, we ran back and forth across the plank like children. Francesco did not appear aware that his brother had taken me to the palace and I did not wish to tell him. The fewer who knew of my bed of shame, the better. Upstairs in my chamber, we opened the shutters to the humid night and rubbed our bodies with cumin oil. The scent collected in our elbow creases, at our collarbones, behind our knees, filling the dark room as amply as our yearning. I closed my eyes, sensing where he was by his heat approaching me, then receding. After we had lain together, Francesco’s fingers rested upon my rounded stomach and I allowed myself to wish that I might give birth to his son. At this wild hope, I began to weep. He guessed that I was with child, and snatched his palm from my belly as if it were a hot grill.

  I said, “Surely we might have a child?”

  “No!” He rolled up his hose so hastily that his thumb ripped it.

  “You need a son to carry on the Petrarch name. Many clerics father children to secure their family lines—why not you?”

  His back to me, he tied his points, a task I usually performed for him. “My reputation as a poet of spiritual love would be destroyed. What about Laura de Sade?”

  With so little thought for me, he pulled on the rest of his garments and fastened his shoes. While he was pawing through the bed-covers for his new tunic, I picked it off the floor where it had fallen. I held it out the casement and, just as his eyes turned in alarm towards me, let it drop into the canal. He reached the window in time to see the expensive cloth, embroidered with the white columns of the Colonnas, churn into the paddlewheel on its way to join the filth in the city moat.

  The rage that had boiled up in me simmered just as quickly down. One day I would cry and the next day I would laugh. Was this usual for new mothers? I no longer understood myself. As summer turned to autumn, I palpated my womb, hoping for a well-formed boy, but the mass grew daily, taking hideous shapes that shifted beneath my hands. Sometimes three feet kicked me at once. At other times, the infant’s head felt large enough to be two. If only I could look inside my womb, as I had done for others. What if the child was born with eyes of lapis blue? I would be undone for sure. I prayed Francesco would never guess the child was another man’s, for such I now believed it to be. The evil of my palace visit had taken root inside my belly.

  By All Saints’, Francesco’s fear of being seen in my company had grown to a deformed anxiety. He no longer visited and his letters were bursting with advice. Do not venture out of your chamber. Write to me if you have need of anything, but do not on any account seek me out in person. Here are coins to have food sent up from the tavern. Read these books I am sending to divert you. This was more than any other courtier would have done and I was grateful, in spite of missing him. His servant or Guido Sette brought the parcels, since even Gherardo kept his distance, probably afraid I would accuse him of tricking me. I could not dismiss his part in this affair, for he had used my love for Francesco against me. But how could I blame Gherardo when I had used it equally against myself? I had gone into the palace willingly.

  Advent was upon us, plaguing the city with lashing wind and hailstorms. Although my lying-in was still some months away, I was awakened at prime one morning by biting cramps. My infant was coming early. The midwife arrived and tried to hurry me by rubbing my pelvis with a smelly ointment. She pricked my thigh to see where the blood was pooling and was startled that my birthmark would not bleed. Conmère told her it was a thimble, the sign of the cloth-makers, but the midwife thought her mad. Perhaps Conmère was, but she knew I was in pain and tried to ease it by opening the shutters to unlock my womb.

  The midwife closed them just as quickly. “There is malice in that storm.”

  Conmère cast salt into the fire, then huddled near the hearth. She warmed some wax, shaped it into a wax midwife, and stuck it with the midwife’s own pin. The midwife did not flinch, but my pains deepened and I cried out in fright, clamping my hand around her wrist to beg her aid.

  “Will I die with the child crushed inside me?”

  “Not if you bear down when I tell you.”

  Seven hard pushes and the baby was out. For all my terror, it slipped out easily, for it was tiny and serene. After a short respite, a wave of sharper pains assailed me. The midwife dove her hands back between my legs to tug out a larger infant, which was kicking. I fell back, panting, relieved that I had borne twins, not the misshapen creature with the three legs and enlarged skull that I had felt growing inside me.

  The midwife swaddled the two infants, laid them beside me, and wiped her forehead, smearing it with blood. “The boy is dead, but the girl is living.”

  Then the midwife’s face changed and I knew the worst—the girl was now dead as well. I made the sign of the cross on their pale foreheads, though it was too late, for their limbs, though perfectly formed and still warm to the touch, lay motionless. The midwife rubbed salt in their mouths and was about to close their eyelids, when she took a jump back, shrieking, “Their eyes are different colours!”

  She shot out of the room, leaving me staring at the tiny corpses. The boy’s eyes were brown, the girl’s deep lapis blue. Through the open door, I heard her voice ascending from the tavern, accusing me of being a whore who had slept with two men at the same time. She was not far wrong, for I had lain with both Francesco and the Pope that same night. The boy had been conceived under Venus and the girl under Mars. My son was a child of love who gave up meekly. My daughter had lived a few minutes longer. She fought for her life before she succumbed to the harsh wind of Avignon. I took them in my arms, feeling the weight of their small, pitiable forms. I soaked my childbed with bitter tears and slept cradling my infants, until awakened by Perrette binding my stomach to support it. My arms were empty and my children gone. I knew, without being told, that Conmère had taken them to the cimetière des pauvres.

  “You slept for several hours,” Perrette said. “Drink this to kill any lingering pain.”

  I downed the potent liquor in one gulp, stood up to test my arms and legs, and found that I felt better when I moved about.

  “We must go downstairs to eat,” she said, “or the innkeeper will come up to demand the same rent from you as he gets from me.”

  We ate what the innkeeper put before us. He looked at me oddly, but when I paid him generously, his curiosity faded, as it usually did. He told us that the rising storm had attacked the Pope’s towers, loosening the building-stones, and that some of the townsfolk had got it into their heads that God was blasting the Pope for his sins. The door rattled as one of the Pénitents gris entered, filled his jug with ale, confided something to the innkeeper, and hurried out.

  The innkeeper collected our trenchers. “The city marshal’s men are searching the quarter. You’d better find somewhere to hide.”

  “Who are they looking for?” I asked.

  “The sorcières who caused the storm.”

  We were too late, for the midwife had returned with two armed sergeants. She pointed at me, testifying that I was the malefactor who had given birth to monstrous spawn with many-coloured jewels for eyes.

  Perrette knocked the bench over as she rose. “What do you want with her?”

  “We have come to collect you as well,” one of the sergeants said. “The devil is at work in this mistral. All the harlots must surrender for the crime of storm-raising.”

  Twenty-four

  THEY TOOK all three of us—Conmère, Perrette, and me. As we were paraded north, we were joined by other women suspected of sorcery, who were being routed from ale-houses by other sergeants. One of the ale-wives stood her ground until a punch split her lip and made her m
alleable. A serving-girl ran away in fright. A sergeant chased her down, stabbed her twice, and left her body where it landed. We were docile now and moved quickly when prodded.

  Once through the city gate, we merged with harlots who had been hauled out of brothels in the Bourg Neuf and the rue de la Madeleine couchée, where for years they had gone about their business comfortably, befriending clerics in the papal court and paying a tax to the city marshal. As we were driven up the rue de la Curaterie, Conmère began to lag. We were now at the rear with only a single sergeant behind us. When a vespers bell sounded, Conmère spat, cursed, pointed to the thunderclouds, and accused the black pope of hideous evil. The sergeant went after her, calling her an old poule, a vieille sorcière, and kicked her to make her stumble. A cornered animal, she cursed him in the old tongue. My thoughts were also raving, fed equally by despair and rage. What if the same darkness rivered through me and was called forth not by vision, but by a madness like Conmère’s?

  We caught up to the group of harlots. At the cross streets, the wind clawed at shutters and hammered doors. The first peal of thunder sounded and I shoved Conmère into a cellar behind a canvas portière. Perrette was leading us like a flagship, her hair and laughter flying in the wind, by the time we reached the Change. The night was slippery with menace, but not slippery enough to keep the poor inside. Behind us, keeping their distance, was a flux of curious people. Some of them carried burnt olive branches to invoke Saint Barbara, whose night this was, to repel the approaching thunderclouds.

  Here at the Change, where the grandes rues joined like spokes into a hub, dividing the city into seven wedge-shaped parishes, the city marshal was waiting for us. He jerked his sword up and down to divide the captives into seven groups, one for each parish. This done, he demonstrated what he required of his sergeants by catching Perrette by the hair, calling for a lantern, and pouring the lamp fuel over her. She gave me a toothy smile as she was marched out by two men who kept her at sword’s length to avoid getting fuel on their own clothes. She threw her head back, laughing, but as she reached the corner leading to Saint Pierre, I saw her struggling against her captors.

  The city marshal ordered his men to march the seven groups outwards from the hub, depositing a fuel-soaked harlot at every bell-tower. Each was to ring the bell to ward off thunder. If lightning struck her, she would go up in flames as a deterrent to the advancing gale. This supreme assault upon the vengeful storm began at once, with the men-at-arms hissing like drovers as they whipped out their herds of women.

  My group, the smallest, was the last to be driven out. We were pushed north into the parish of Saint Étienne. At each bell-tower along the way, no matter how broken or unshapely, whether it rose from chapel, friary, or mansion, one of the sergeants doused a harlot with fuel, pressed a blade into her back, and ordered her up the winding stairs. I had just been singled out by a sergeant with a drawn sword, when I heard a scream and spun around to see a bright shout of flame. One woman had been drenched in fuel before the lamp was fully out and had instantly caught fire. The folk bellowed their approval, claiming her incineration as proof of sorcery. But had her death mollified the storm? It was unlikely, for the thunderclaps were getting closer and the first stroke of lightning split the sky in half.

  My sergeant-at-arms marched me towards Notre-Dame cathedral, my hood torn, my hair scattered by the wind. As we passed the Pope’s palace, the row of guards stood ready with their poleaxes, each in his cuirass, steepled helmet, and distinctive nose-piece. A guardsman stepped from the ranks with an ugly smile, his falcon nose-guard as familiar as his leathery face. The Falcon halted my sergeant, pointed at me, belted out an order, then pointed at Notre-Dame cathedral. The sergeant refused to relinquish me. He wanted the satisfaction of escorting me himself.

  We started up again. This time I had two blades at my back instead of one. Perched on its outcropping of rock, Notre-Dame-des-Doms was taking the brunt of the northerly. This was the Pope’s own church, the first to sound the angelus bell. While the two men argued about who was in charge, I walked ahead to the church porch, unhooked the lantern, and extinguished it myself, sparing them the trouble. We were now without light to see by. I doused myself with the lamp oil like a willing scapegoat, but spilled most of the foul-smelling liquid onto the ground instead. The sergeant prodded me into the narthex, staying clear of my oily clothing, leaned against the wall, and gestured to the bell ropes. They hung down the hollow chimney so the canons could spare their legs by ringing the small bells from below, but when I grasped a rope, the Falcon sneered. He unbuckled his cuirass to drop it on the pavingstones, then forced me into the corkscrew stairway. Two hundred steps led upwards to the highest bell of Avignon. I knew because I had once defied curfew to climb them with Francesco to view the city spread like a splendid future before us.

  A step and a jab from behind with his dagger, a step and a blow. There were now just two of us, the Falcon and me. Before we had gone up fifty stairs, he trod on my skirt deliberately to crash me down. His dagger fell, clanging far below, and he was atop me, pushing my skirts out of his way. However, the stairwell was tight and he was having trouble manœuvring his heavy frame into position. These were fortified stairs, which curved to the left around the pillar to cripple a right-handed swordsman attacking from below. If he drew his sword, it would hit the centre pole before it struck me. When his weight shifted, I thrust him backwards, knocking him down three steps. Then I scrambled up the staircase, circled past the minor bells, and aimed towards the largest, the one the folk called the Iron Pope.

  At the landing, I paused to ease the stitch in my ribs and surveyed the great, greedy, angry city—Avignon. It was a city with as many lawyers as churchmen, a city full of assassins and cutthroats. One of those cutthroats would soon emerge from the stairwell beside me. There was no need for the Falcon to hurry, for the only direction I could go was up. I scaled the ladder-stairs inside the spire and stepped onto the narrow platform that surrounded the giant bell. Up here, the wind was gusting spitefully, changing directions with such force that I could scarcely stand upright. The spire itself was swaying, no doubt the reason the canons preferred to ring the small bells from below. I knotted my skirts to keep them from flying, supported my back against the grille-work, and spread my feet, waiting for the bell rope to swing towards me so I could grab it without plunging down the chimney.

  Far below, the mass of people travelling along the main arteries was a writhing, sinuous being. The maelstrom of bodies mirrored the dark, swirling waters of the Rhône. I thought I could hear Perrette ringing Saint Pierre’s bell. Several towers around it were already blazing, but the sacrifice of these harlots had not appeased the thunderstorm. With each roll of thunder, the lightning forked closer, and I was clinging to the tallest spire of Babylon, the one most likely to attract its wrath.

  Necks craned, fingers pointed, and the mob spotted me on my swaying roost. I gripped the grille-work as a lightning bolt jagged past, missing Notre-Dame but attacking Saint Pierre in a blow of light. Saint Pierre’s bell clanged fiercely, then flames erupted from the tower. If Perrette had made it to the top to shout her challenge to the thundering skies, she had been silenced. The mob roared, adding her to the count of dead sorcières.

  I had no time to pray for her, because the rope swung towards me. I caught it and pulled the bell for all my life was worth. The biggest bell in Avignon, its peals were deafening. I rang to frighten off the devil I did not know and to summon the God I knew too well—the God who had taken my mother and my stillborn infants, the God who created whoring popes and vicious guards. I rang to tell Him to come to get me if He dared. If I was going to die, I would blaze out in a spectacular way, flaming into an inferno.

  Another bolt jagged across the sky, lighting up the Falcon, who had arrived on the platform across from me. My robe stank of lamp oil, but he had absorbed almost as much fuel from pressing himself against me. I watched him wonder where the next bolt would come from and saw him turn—his su
rprise making him almost human—as a tongue of lightning licked his shoulder, igniting him. Kindled by fire, he fell backwards through the open arch. I heard the cries of the mob below and imagined what they saw: a harlot burning all the way down, her arms and legs convulsing, her brains boiling inside the helmet of her skull.

  If the folk thought me dead, I would prove them wrong. Feet braced, I yanked the rope backwards and forwards in time to the breath racking up and down my ribs. I pulled and pulled, almost tearing my arms from their sockets, until at last the sergeant tapped my shoulder with his blade. He was teetering on the thundered, broken platform and his moving lips told me that I had rung so hard and so long that my bell was the only one still pealing. The noise had deafened me, but neither God nor the devil had dared to claim me. The sergeant mouthed his plea: would I render mercy for his offence against me? When I had done so, my courage broke. He steadied me on the ladder, then led me down two hundred steps into the narthex, where I saw, rather than heard, the canons pulling the bell ropes to ring the angelus.

  The crowd stilled as I emerged from the cathedral porch. It was now the first hour of the fourth of December in the year 1334, Saint Barbara’s Day, and I had been awake since prime the previous day. The tempest had passed through, littering the piazza with broken tiles, orphaned shutters, and unrecognizable debris. Massive building blocks had plummeted from Pope John’s old palace and whole branches had been ripped from the trees upon Doms rock.

  The canons stationed me on the rocky esplanade, where I could be admired from the piazza below. Townsfolk were gathering from all quarters of the city and the first rooks flew down to scrutinize the pickings. I must have looked half-burnt, for the oil on my robe and hair had attracted the flying char from the thunder-blow upon the spire. At least I was not on the cart of corpses the becchini wheeled around the piazza so the scorched harlots could be spat upon and cursed as sorcières. Foragers were surveying the black mess where the flaming guardsman had fallen. His legs were still connected to his trunk by a rope of skin, but his arms and head had landed further off. The men circled warily—prodding the remains for cloven hooves and horns, or the bony spine of a forked tail.