Muse

by Mary Novik

  “Your Holiness, only the ignorant believe this woman saved the city by summoning the moon back after the eclipse. And as for saving it from flooding? A hundred men with buckets could do so faster. Place no more store in prophetic harlots and turn your face from this Babylon towards imperial Rome.”

  I fought to regain my composure as Ceccano elbowed Colonna and the Italians jostled Francesco in appreciation. Even the French cardinals were ignoring the Pope’s ferula, which he was banging against the floor, enraged that a superior orator had trampled his case on home ground. Reluctantly, the audience obeyed the call to order. Clement glared at his astrologer as if it were his responsibility to prevent all natural disasters. When the astrologer, who was perspiring, could not rally, the camerlengo tapped his heart and began crossing himself. Would Clement be drawn into the debate? He was known for his skill at oratory, but speaking impromptu was not his forte. Clement consulted his officers—Hugues Roger, the camerlengo, and the captain of the palace—then flipped his glove to signal that I should retaliate.

  I was still recoiling from Francesco’s assault when the Fisherman’s ring signalled me. That brilliant flash revived me. I turned my humiliation to anger and my anger to the Pope’s cause, gathering the shreds of our case. “The cardinals may be glorious planets, but they are controlled by the Pope, the sun. The sun rules the solar system as the head rules the body and as the lion rules the lesser animals.” I knew, as soon as the argument was out of my mouth, that it was blunt. It was like raising a sail on an unstable craft in a mistral. The wind and the river showed no mercy.

  “The Pope might well be the sun,” Francesco agreed, enjoying himself, “but the papacy revolves around Rome, just as the sun revolves around the earth and as a lion quakes at the bite of a dog.”

  The Pope’s case capsized and the Italians threw their hats into the air in triumph. The Florentine bankers surged around Francesco, slurping praises on him, and the Tuscan youths slapped him on the back. His forehead ashen, Clement stared at the bare walls of the audience chamber as if Pope Benedict’s severe décor was to blame for the liberties taken by the foreign courtiers in it.

  Hugues Roger’s gaze scoured me, landed upon my Turenne crest, and glanced off scornfully. If I did not wish to be stripped of my Turenne lands, I must play the vicomtesse. There was no strength in hiding behind the Pope’s skirts. If I was discredited as the Pope’s prophet today, I would be fed ground emeralds tomorrow. But how to get the crowd’s attention? I looked for the bucket in which eels were soaking in vernaccia to soothe the lion when he tired of ceremony. The stable-boy had fished one out and fed it to him after the wolfhound’s attack. Now I held up a dripping eel until the lion roared, then threw it into his mouth. Once a few heads jerked my way, I fed the beast another. After a third I had every eye upon me and began.

  “The Italian dog cannot intimidate the king of beasts, the Pope! Francesco di Petrarca de Florentia speaks of cardinals by using symbols, as poets ought, but consider—for you are men of reason not mere poets—how cardinals actually behave. The feuding of the Colonnas, the Orsinis, and other nobles has made a blood-bath of the Italian states. The Pope’s life would be worth sweet salt amongst those barbarous tribes—at most, a peppercorn. Let him remain safely cradled in the arms of Avignon!” I extended my arms, in their bright Turenne sleeves, to emphasize my point, then shouted over their cheers, “Ubi papa ibi Roma.” Where the Pope is, there is Rome.

  My appeal to reason had transformed the listeners into savages. La Popessa! they screamed, pounding one another’s shoulders. Citizens and foreign courtiers had enjoyed the debate equally, although it had ended in a draw. No longer caring a whit about the eclipse’s meaning, they were hungry for the Pope’s famed hospitality and lavish board. With three blows of his ferula, Clement closed the debate and stepped from the dais to lead his parade of guests towards the Grand Tinel.

  Thirty-six

  FRANCESCO SWEPT towards me in his great robe, part of the group of Tuscan youths on their way to the banquet. One of the petrarchinos snatched the laurel crown from Francesco to perch it jauntily on his own head. Soon the youths were laughing and tossing the crown from hand to hand to try it on themselves.

  “Francesco di Petrarca,” I hailed him. “Although you think little of Pope Clement, you might find his library worthy of your praise. Would you care to visit it?”

  He halted, scanning my face for anger, which I suppressed with difficulty. I wanted news of my son and this was the surest way to get it. He could not resist such an invitation, as I knew. I took him to the library, gave him an hour alone with the books, and found him sinking into a rare work by Cicero when I rose from my carrel.

  He let the pages drift reverently closed. “So this is where the vellum is being hoarded. These books are not here for the cardinals or their sons, who have inherited little taste for literature.”

  “The volumes on this wall are for the Pope’s own use. This is one I commissioned.” I fanned the leaves of an illuminated manuscript.

  A gesture dismissed it. “A bedchamber book.”

  “Yes,” I said, meeting his eyes, “such as you and I once read to each other.”

  This nettled him. “Is the Pope amorous after granting benefices and indulgences all day?” Louder now, insistent, “How does the Pope perform in bed?”

  I did not shift my eyes away. “Like a Benedictine.”

  Taken aback, he stared. “That was unforgiveable of me. I wish the words unsaid.” He looked contritely around the shelves and carrels. “I see your hand in this great enterprise, Solange. I have heard that you have attracted scribes from Paris and Flanders to work in the scriptorium. You have achieved your desire of commanding a remarkable library.”

  I handed him a slim volume of his own poems, penned in my finest script with decorated initials. His years of shifting words here and there had fashioned an exquisite harmony in the patterning of vowels. “Forty poems by Francesco Petrarch that will stand the test of time,” I said. I wondered whether he was still breathing.

  At last, he lifted his eyes from the volume. “You have chosen better than I would myself. I have written few poems of this worth of late. Will you lend me the book?”

  This is what I hoped he would say. “I will, if you lend me my son.”

  He extracted a square of parchment from his velvet gown. It was a portrait of a boy, aged about five, with Francesco’s eyes and hair. I could scarcely see him through my tears.

  “I meant in the flesh,” I said. When Giovanni came to court, he would run happily into my arms as I saw him do each night before I fell asleep. But what would the child see? Would he recognize his own mother?

  “That cannot happen.”

  “I have waited patiently these three years.”

  “Hardly patiently. You have used Guido to heckle me for news.”

  “Is Giovanni in Carpentras with your old tutor?”

  “So you have been searching for him there? The boy has a better hiding place. Your servant Des-neiges is with him still and he learns apace with his own tutor.”

  I had indeed been looking. Guido had sent men across the Sorgue basin. They had followed Francesco to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and back on his new horse. Either he was too clever for us or he saw little of the boy.

  “Your rôle in his life is over,” he said. “I do not wish my son corrupted by the court.”

  “By the Whore of Babylon, you mean. You must be fatigued with hauling such dung for your Roman masters. But you didn’t speak only for Colonna today. You spoke for yourself.”

  “It’s true. I meant to warn you.”

  “In the most public way.”

  “Do you deny your position in the palace? You are an odalisque, une horizontale. Look at your sleeve. You wear the Pope’s brand.”

  “This is the coat of arms for my lands at Turenne.”

  His mouth was grim. “Which you will never be allowed to see. Be warned. The Pope’s men will drag you down as swiftly as they raised
you up, for you have been privy to their secrets.”

  “And you have grown envious and petty. You visit court to beg favours like the others, repaying the Pope’s generosity with insolence.”

  “You refer to his gift of Pisa. Well, Pisa came to naught.”

  “Then he will give you another benefice at my behest—unless it would rankle for you to be in my debt?”

  “Why do you persist in thinking ill of me? I admit I went too far in the debate. Forgive me, I did not wish to hurt you quite so deeply.”

  “But you do wish to hurt me? You admit as much?”

  “You are the Pope’s consort. More than anyone, I wish that you were not. You are the most desired woman in Avignon, but you neglect your own heart.”

  “What does that mean—that you would have me back? Lead me to Giovanni and I’ll give up all of this.” My hand swept across a thousand of the finest books in Christendom, but he shook his head. “Then let Giovanni live with me in the palace. He will learn from the scholars, read books that you will never read yourself. Clement will treat him kindly.”

  “Like his Barbary lion? He would be on display as you were in the audience chamber—the love-child of the Countess of Turenne.” He became grave. “Even now our son’s life may be in danger. For Giovanni’s good, I will ask the Pope to legitimize him. The world being what it is, our rivalry is inescapable. But in this matter of Giovanni, you and I must agree. Legitimization will protect his life and remove the stain of bastardy.”

  As soon as he said the words, I knew them for a truth. Clement would never allow me to raise another man’s son in the palace. That was why my petition had fallen on deaf ears. Clement had most likely blocked it without telling me. I was so distressed I could scarcely speak. “It would break Giovanni’s ties to me.”

  He spoke softly. “They are already broken. He thinks his mother is dead.”

  “You cannot have told the child this!”

  “It is kinder to stay dead than show him who you actually are,” Francesco reasoned. “He could never hold up his head amongst men.”

  Certainly Giovanni had little future as the son of a femme seule, even one who had risen to my rank and titles. Some part of me had known this all along.

  “I wish to leave Cardinal Colonna’s service and go back to Italy, to my father’s town of Florence. They expelled him with a price on his head, but now they wish to pay me honours. I will accept them for Giovanni’s sake. He will stand on my shoulders as I stood on my father’s. The further I take him from Avignon, the safer he will be. Shall you give us fair wind?”

  “You’ve left me no choice, since I want Giovanni to be out of harm’s way.” I reminded myself that although many noblemen fathered children, then washed their hands of them, Francesco was acting with integrity. Giovanni would be raised in the manner I had always wished for him. My son would wear the Petrarch arms in pride.

  “Now let us be friends,” he said, “since Fate has decreed we can no longer be lovers.”

  His look was full of regret, as though he was put out with Fate, her decrees, and everything about her. When I extended my hand in friendship, he pressed it against his heart. A hand’s-breadth away, his soul tugging at mine, he was easy to forgive. We gazed at each other for many minutes, knowing we might never be close enough to touch again. I had discovered my own way to his heart—and he still had one.

  At last, I let go. I went to the library door and locked it with my key from the inside. Francesco threw off King Robert’s velvet gown, spread it across the floor to cushion us, and drew me down beside him. Soon he was unpinning my hair as he used to do. Once a few jewels were unfastened, the strands tumbled in a glossy heap. I rubbed my hands to heat them, then touched the sword-bite in the hollow of his collarbone. Now something less spiritual came between us. He, too, was feeling it. From underneath his cloak of honour sprang up a full, well-muscled appetite.

  My lips neared his, then withdrew. “I still have some power over you.”

  “And I over you.”

  His hand ran along my inner thigh, reclaiming territory ravaged by his foe. No one had made such a claim as his upon my flesh. Even when I had been with Clement, I kept my inwardness sacred to Francesco. Beneath my fingers, as I undid his points, his leg muscles tensed. He had been celibate too long and I had learnt a thing or two about pleasing men since I had last lain with him. I stripped off his hose to caress the belly of each thigh, and when he was naked to my eyes, I clothed him with my hips. He rolled me over, his hands supporting my back, then he rose up and entered in sweet plunging glory.

  After we had both surrendered equally, we lay on our backs, taking in great greedy gulps of one another’s air. Now that his eyes had fallen closed, I felt for my miséricorde and snipped some of his dark hair—a souvenir that might prove useful, like the angel Gabriel’s feather that the Virgin plucked during the Annunciation. After a while, he began to stir. His palm swept the floor as he groped for his hose in the daze of a man whom pleasure has taken unawares. Celibacy had loosened its grip upon him. He was now easy about the eyes and would be easier in his poetry, too, not so tightly bound in figures. I wrested his gown from beneath my spine and held it out to him, the nap of the velvet so crushed that it might never spring upright again. There was nothing left to say. Only the key spoke—two revolutions in the lock, a clank, a push—and he was gone.

  Lust, enflamed by intimacy, had triumphed over Francesco’s resolutions and I conceived on that second Sunday of Lent in the year 1343. The moon was new, her most fertile phase. I gave Francesco a gift of joy and took from him what he could never reclaim—another child to replace my son. However, when I searched for the shank of his hair, it was missing. Either the draught had blown it into the scraps and threads that the scribes had dropped on the tiles, or Francesco himself had stolen it.

  Thirty-seven

  I RODE IN PROCESSIONS behind Clement VI, sat at his left in tournaments, and rinsed my fingers in his silver bowl. I plucked off the hood of my falcon to send him soaring through the air. What did I care if the Avignonnaises whispered behind gloved hands? Even when Laura was amongst them, I did not wish to change my state for theirs. I had pricked my hand and dropped the blood into spring water. The drops floated, telling me that I was carrying a daughter.

  Now I followed Clement’s canopy through the porte des Infirmières towards Châteauneuf-du-Pape, my hair erected to such a height that it rivalled the Pope’s three-crowned tiara with its cross. The people lining the way had waited for hours to see us. The more outrageous my surcot, the more the folds of rich cloth rode up around my belly, the more they loved me. I kept to my horse in the beating sun until we made our first night’s stop at the bastide de Périgord. In the morning, our cavalcade continued to the Pope’s summer palace on the right bank of the Ouvèze, having collected a Florentine ambassador who called Clement Notre Seigneur and asked questions when he was least wanted. I guarded my tongue around him, for he was a parasite who wrote things down and conveyed them to his countrymen.

  After a week at Châteauneuf-du-Pape, we rode to the bastide de Gentilly at the invitation of Cardinal Ceccano for the dedication of his new chapel to Saint Martial, Clement’s favourite saint. We were met by sixteen cardinals, plus counts, bishops, damoiseaux, captains, chevaliers, down the line to écuyers wearing spring livery branded with both Ceccano’s magpie and Clement’s rose. Half the cardinals were related to the Pope. Even musicians could be bought and sold, for one of Francesco’s friends was leading a motet sung by the Pope’s young nephews, future bishops with runny noses. In the audience chamber, I watched the seigneurs of both land and church filling their cups at a fountain spewing five colours of wine, from deep grenache to the clearest Saint Pourçain. A tenor began to sing from behind a screen. A woman’s voice joined in, like oil anointing skin. They clung together, calling and answering, rising and falling in a suggestive rhythm.

  Two noblemen strode across the hall, their silver belt tongues slapping their thighs.
They paused near me, not bothering to hide their scrutiny. “What a quantity of gold and ermine is loaded on her person,” the shorter said, in a Paris accent. “Surely Avignon noblewomen do not bare their breasts so boldly?”

  “That is one of the city’s spectacular harlots,” his companion replied. “The Countess of Turenne. The Pope finally got himself a courtesan who can read and write. She is as rich as Crœsus from selling fiefs, the few the Pope did not give to his family.”

  “How much power does she wield?”

  “More than most cardinals. Watch her work the Pope. To see her fawn, you would almost think she cared for him.”

  I spun towards the welcome sight of Guido in his palace notary’s gown, pushing his beaker beneath the fountain’s spouts, one after another, until he had collected all five wines. I embraced him discreetly, then drank some of the pinkish fluid in his cup. “If you can tolerate this mixture, Guido, you will make a good archbishop. What news do you have of the Petrarchs?”

  “Gherardo walked eighty miles south to Montrieux, where he has found asylum.”

  “In the monastery? An odd place to wash up, but he will be calmer there. Has Francesco taken Giovanni to Florence?”

  “Not yet. He’s not been able to shake free of Colonna. Each time I see you, Solange, your garments fit tighter. I suppose your strutting makes the Pope feel virile, but you are also provoking the Italians. It irritates them to pay you homage. Where will it lead? Are you sure you know?”

  “You tell me, Guido. You are Italian. What does Annibal Ceccano intend by all this overarching splendour? He bullies the Pope to return to Rome, yet has built three châteaux here himself. Everyone seeks Clement’s favour, even those who attend me in the guise of friendship.”

  “Did you know Francesco refused to compose a tribute for this banquet? Instead, he has shut himself up at Fontaine-de-Vaucluse to write tirades about the court’s wickedness. Sonnets, I think.”