Muse

by Mary Novik

  Before Elisabeth could present her case for canonization to the Pope, I had to die. Here in this abbey, Elisabeth and I were rivals once again, outwaiting and outsmarting each other. If I burnt the scarlet ledger, she would write in another one and hide it in a more secret place. Instead, I needed to live long enough to bury the ledger with her in her tomb.

  But what if I died before her? By outliving me, she would control my destiny, unless I could outwit her. I pushed the ledger back into its hiding place, chose a bottle of the best ink, and carried it into the cloister. I settled into the carrel with my fur-lined cloak wrapped around me and Francesco’s ring displayed upon my finger. I had not come this far to let Elisabeth’s piety defeat me now. I skewered a fresh sheet of vellum and took a moment to savour its heady scent, for I was about to write the most important document of my life. I sharpened my quill and dipped it generously in ink.

  My daughters,

  Today I begin my tale to turn you into the devil’s advocate—the keepers of my destiny. If you are reading this, I am dead, and you must take arms against Elisabeth, my foe. To equip you for this battle, I will write my own Life to set the record straight, a livre du voir-dire in which my sins speak loudly in their own defence. Safeguard this story and guard against all false biographies. Do not let the wrath of love, nor fire, nor the sword, nor devouring age conspire to destroy this book.

  It is time I told you of my birth, and my betrothal to Francesco Petrarch and the events that followed, to prove that I have led a full and carnal life. My sins of harlotry and pride cling greedily like scraps of flesh on bone, but I have worse sins to confess. I am guilty of killing Laura. By drinking the wormwood oil that I gave to Angière, Laura poisoned herself, as I intended. Most of all, I am guilty of a love that outlasts death. Can I be blamed for desiring to see my lover’s countenance more than the Blessed Face of God? I have loved my poet too long to let him slip between my fingers now.

  I first heard my mother’s heartbeat from inside her dark, surrounding womb. It mingled with my own heart’s rhythm, then changed to a harsher, more strident beat. It was then that I had my first and most famous vision of a man kneeling in a purple cassock and biretta. I could see him as if I were looking out a window made of glass. He was framed by curtains that fell in crimson folds around my mother, who lay beneath him on the bed. His face was as clear to me as the blood vessels inside her womb, his skin foxed with a tracery of veins. I looked straight into his eyes and they were as hard and blue as lapis lazuli …

  Acknowledgements

  I am indebted to all the authors who have enriched the legends of Petrarch and Laura and of the fourteenth-century period known as the Babylonian captivity, when the popes resided in Avignon instead of Rome. I was greatly inspired by visits to the historic centre of Avignon, a UNESCO world heritage site. Most of all, I owe a debt to Francesco Petrarch, who wrote remarkable poems about Laura, as well as a few about the mysterious woman who was the mother of his two children. In creating Solange, I found poetic licence in Petrarch’s advice to his friend, Philippe de Cabassoles, the bishop of Vaucluse: “If true facts are lacking, add imaginary ones. Invention in the service of truth is not lying.”

  As well as reading medieval authors such as Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer, I consulted a variety of historians and biographers, and made use of Jacobus de Voragine’s The Golden Legend in the translation by Ryan and Ripperger. I thank The New Quarterly for first publishing Gherardo’s letter from Montrieux-le-Jeune and acknowledge, with great appreciation, grants from the Canada Council and the British Columbia Arts Council, and a research grant from the Access Copyright Foundation. I am very grateful for the ongoing support of my agents Dean Cooke of The Cooke Agency, and Suzanne Brandreth and Ron Eckel of The Cooke Agency International. Special thanks to Kristin Cochrane, Lynn Henry, and the expert team at Doubleday Canada and, above all, to my dedicated editor, Nita Pronovost, whose belief in Muse has never faltered.

  Many people have supported me in the writing of Muse over the years. I thank them sincerely for their generous comments, especially my writing group June Hutton and Jen Sookfong Lee, fellow writer Paul Headrick, and friends Lynne Neufeld and Mary-Ann Stouck. Keir Novik, Karen Novik, Tom Emerson, and Bonnie Lumley boosted me up and cheered me on, and Alexi and Tilly have been a boundless source of joy and inspiration. I would also like to thank the North Shore librarians, my network of supportive friends and relatives, and the lively coterie of fiction writers who make it a pleasure to live and write in Vancouver. Above all, my love and appreciation go to my husband Orest, for his unwavering encouragement and constant faith in me.