Muse (13 page)

I had wanted to put such visions behind me when I left the abbey and was now sorry that I had so artlessly revealed this one to him.

He handed me a sheet. “I’ve turned my thwarted passion to good use by writing a poem while you lay in your trance, as alluring as the goddess Diana when Actæon spied on her, and almost as unclothed.”

With some difficulty, for the ink had run into the wet paper, I read,
Non al suo amante piú Dïana piacque, quando per tal ventura tutta ignuda la vide in mezzo de le gelide acque … Diana could not excite her lover more when by a stroke of luck he gazed upon her naked beauty in an icy pool
. Then, after a few more lines about my hair, the stunning confession,
Quand’egli arde ’l cielo, tutto tremar d’un amoroso gielo … Even in the hot sun, I tremble with love’s chill
. He had finessed the vowels into an erotic pattern of sounds that rose to a climax in
tutto tremar d’un amoroso gielo
. Did he really feel such love for me? Deeply moved, I pressed the poem against my skirt to dry it.

“It is a madrigal, lively and musical. However, I dislike this new paper of yours, Francesco, because it gets wet and rips, unlike parchment.” I realized that I sounded peevish, but I was unsettled by how far my shadow stretched across the ground. “It’s late and we have a long ride ahead of us.”

Full of summer, we had thought the light would last forever, but the sun was nearing the horizon, showing us the direction to Avignon. He was instantly remorseful, and collected his writing materials to stuff them into the saddlebag.

“You have paid a steep price for my madrigal, Solange. Forgive me. I have put you at risk.”

Our horses retraced their steps downstream as the evening star rose in the west. We would not get back through the city gates before the Pope’s trumpet sounded, yet there was magic in the hour, as if lovers were not subject to curfews or wild beasts. The new poem had made Francesco sanguine and neither of us wished the day to end. We rode for some time, unwilling to jog the mare out of her drowsy pace, until a small chapel appeared between two cypresses, silhouetted by the rising moon.

Francesco leapt from his mount. “I remembered it was here and steered towards it, hoping it was not a ruin. Let us stop overnight, for it is safer than riding across country in the dark and falling prey to roving boars or lawless men.”

We opened the door, content to find a floor of polished earth and candles in a small shrine to the Virgin. We would rest in this paradise, then set out at dawn to return to Avignon. As soon as we had stretched
out to sleep, Francesco was fingering the hem of my robe. When I did not protest, his hand rose to my thigh, to discover the age marks scored into my flesh.

“What barbaric rite is this?”

“There are sixteen cuts, one for each year of my life before I met you.”

“A scholar uses a calendar, not a knife.”

“You sound like a professor of law.”

“Do I?” He was smiling now, a little too sure of himself. “Then I must try to sound more like a lover.” He put his arms around me and pulled me close to recite soft Tuscan verses.

“And this?” I thumbed the scar in the curve of his collarbone, which spoilt the perfection of his chest. “Some barbaric custom that men have?”

“A gift from a brigand on a forest path from Bologna.”

I touched my mouth to the sword-bite, then to his lips. Now that I wanted him, I saw in every touch of his, in every word, a kindness. What was there to be afraid of in this courteous man, except that he might talk too much and take too long?

The air was warm and full of night sounds and we were too young to waste the night apart. We could not shed our clothes quickly enough, for our bodies had much to say to one another. When the moment arrived, I yielded with no hesitation. I opened to him willingly and we were soon enjoined in pleasure, sucking joy from one another’s flesh. This act, so new to me, so quick, so carnal, was also spiritual, for in that mutual joy our base affections were transmuted into purer metal, as alchemy turns lead to gold. Surely this ecstasis, like being pierced by a flaming spear such as angels carry, was how the soul felt when it pierced the resurrected flesh. A nightjar whirred as it took flight above the chapel and I came back into myself slowly, cautiously, knowing I had been forever changed.

“Does this mean we are betrothed?” I asked, since I had given myself to him without a promise.

His pause was brief, little more than a sharp intake of breath. “Let us say a vow together.”

In that sacred place, we plighted our troth. I did not insist on waiting for a witness, for our love had carried everything before it. Such love was for eternity. The moon, now full above, was a chaste observer as our lips sought kinship in the night, then strayed to taste the saltiness on each other’s skin. The spirit was truly there in that moment with my beloved as the morning star rose in the east. I fell asleep with his arm as a banner of love across my hip and woke to a wasp sitting on my mouth, stealing the sweetness from our kiss, waiting—but waiting for what?

Seventeen

A
T THE START OF
holy week, Francesco and I walked towards Notre-Dame-des-Doms cathedral to meet Gherardo and their friend Guido Sette, who had arrived from Bologna to seek work as a canon lawyer. It was the sixth of April in the year 1327 by Francesco’s system of timekeeping, which I was trying to use to please him.

When we emerged from rue Saint Antoine, where the moneychangers gave way to the Florentine bankers, the northwesterly funnelled between the buildings to drive the city’s evil straight at us. Some grit flew into my eye and I stopped to get it out while Francesco stood close to protect me from the wind. In the flow of people coming towards us, I saw Gherardo and Guido and stepped away to a more formal distance. Francesco and I had lain together so many times since our trip to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse that I had bought a good bed for my chamber at the Cheval Blanc. Even so, Francesco wanted to keep our betrothal secret until he found a way to rise in Avignon, though Gherardo and Guido had guessed at our intimacy.

Gherardo loped towards us like a wolfhound, then sprang up to rattle a sign to startle Francesco. Moving was harder now, since bodies were surging towards the square outside the episcopal palace, where Pope John resided. The ritual we had come to see was underway and the red chapeaux of cardinals bobbed in the crowd. However, it was not the holy procession that we had expected, for the city marshal’s men held up poles with death-warrants nailed to them. When we saw these, we tried to turn back, but the mob shouldered us forwards. Three Franciscan friars were hanging from posts in the square. It was apparent that they had been flayed alive, since their feet were broken, their backs were scored, and their habits, soaked with their own blood, hung from their waists.

Guido, walking ahead, turned to warn us. “Don’t look, Solange. Their tongues have been cut out.”

His warning came too late, for I had seen the horror. I burrowed my head deeply into my hood and pinched it closed at my throat.

Gherardo’s voice held none of his usual humour. “The Pope is cleansing the city for Easter.”

“We must pretend to enjoy the spectacle, or be seen as heretics ourselves,” Francesco said.

The church was playing on the people’s fear that Christ might not rise this year if heretics were abroad. No longer was it enough to drag the guilty through the streets, then let them moulder in the Pope’s jail. Men who had got drunk for the holy day were sobering quickly as they entered the square and looked around. Few women were about, mainly bawds or women hardened by unsavoury work. The well-dressed monks who had dared to show themselves were from the worldly orders, not the spirituals.

The folk parted as sergeants marched through another Franciscan, accompanied by an executioner with a warrant on his pike. Wood had been piled around a stake in the lee of the wind and the sergeants forced the friar to climb on top, then tied him barbarously to the stake with
wire. I clutched Francesco, whose arm shook as he steadied me. If we bolted, we would only draw attention to ourselves. A sergeant torched the wood, sending the flames leaping towards the friar, who gave off saying his paternoster in Latin and shouted for mercy in his native Provençal. As yet, the flames were only licking his heels, for the timber was green and smouldering, but some wood-cutters had dragged over a sledge of dry faggots, which they were selling to the spectators to build up the fire.

“I suppose his crime was embracing Saint Francis’s vow of poverty,” I said. “How can you bear to watch, Francesco?”

Sweat was breaking out on his forehead. “Because I value my life more than that friar’s. Do not flinch, for anyone who pities him will join him on the pyre.” He paid the faggot-seller for a large bundle. “Help me heave this on to make the fire burn faster.”

We threw it at the friar’s ankles and the flames blew up his robe. He would soon be out of his agony, for he could not live much longer. I saw why the sergeants had used wire. It was the only thing that kept him upright against the stake. The crowd roared at the holocaust, shouting wild huzzas. I was choking on the fumes from the burning hair and flesh, worse than the smoke from hooves and skin on carcass-burning day. A wave of nausea overtook me and I fell upon my knees with my hands joined at my breastbone, as if in prayer.

“Stand up!” Francesco said. “You will be spotted as a sympathizer.”

I had no power to obey, because the crowd came between us, and carried Francesco some distance off. Either my vision was impaired or preternaturally sharpened, for as my eyes fixed on the horror, a thundercloud appeared, transforming the sky into a mass of jagged black. God had smelt the burnt offering and was in a rage at the torture of one of His spirituals. He descended in a whirlwind of wrath to fan the fire around the roasting carcass, waiting for the moment to collect the friar’s soul. All at once, I saw God suck the glowing red soul into the sky’s black vortex, as easily as sucking a flame through a hollow straw.

I was still kneeling in the square, but only a few bones remained tangled in the wire on the stake. The friar’s tunic of flesh was gone and all that remained of him was whirling flakes and char. The vision had left as quickly as it arrived. I kneaded my eyes, scrubbing the dirt more deeply into them. Had I seen everything, or nothing? My voice rose, joining the mob’s tumult in a nonsense jumble that did not resemble speech. Then a man’s voice overshouted mine—a cardinal hailing his distant swordsmen, who flailed their weapons to clear a path towards me. One of the Pope’s guardsmen joined them, a man with a leather nose shaped like a falcon’s. Again the cardinal shouted, but I could not rise from my knees. How could I stand when everything was swirling and weaving?

Then my friends appeared out of nowhere. Francesco and Gherardo each grabbed an arm to jerk me to my feet. Before I got far, I lost my footing and went sprawling, a sack of wheat thudding to the ground. The brothers grasped my shoulders, Guido caught hold of my legs, and the three stood me up to propel me through the mob. The swordsmen gave chase, weapons held high, with the Falcon at the head of the pack. We slipped through a dodge into an alley, barred the heavy door behind us, and escaped down the ruelle des Chats past Saint Pierre. Our pursuers would have to detour around the Pope’s palace and by then we would be well away to the south.

We ran until we were safely in the Jewry. In the vacant streets, the last gust of the dying wind rattled a canvas portière to reveal a pair of exotic eyes, one of the Jews keeping to their dwellings in fear of disturbing the Christians during holy week. When we got through the south door of the Jewry, my rescuers shook off their hoods and slowed their pace.

Francesco stopped beside me, his hands on his thighs as he took deep breaths. “If they had caught you, they would have thrown you on that fire.”

He wiped his brow with the inside of his elbow. He had got a good scare, as had we all, and I implored his forgiveness with my eyes. How could I explain what I did not understand myself? He had liked my talent well enough when I had dreamt about the laurel wreath at
Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, but that had been bliss and this was terror. While I had been kneeling next to the scorching fire, I had no power to move or speak—or so I thought. On the last score, I was wrong. It seemed that I had had plenty to say.

“You spoke a heap of gibberish in a cryptic language,” Gherardo informed me, full of his usual brass now that we had outrun the swords.

“What sort of gibberish?” I asked.

“You prophesied the fall of the papacy,” said Francesco. “According to you, if Pope John continues to persecute the spirituals, God will return in a column of avenging fire to blast him. Today was just a foretaste of His divine wrath.”

Guido defended me. “She is not in danger, for she spoke in riddles.”

“There may even be some profit in it,” Gherardo said. “When Anne de Panisses told the last pope that she saw God blessing him with a tongue of fire, she received a prize of thirty florins and will likely be beatified.”

“What is prophecy to one pope is necromancy to another,” said Francesco. “If Pope John dislikes Solange’s riddling, he will charge her with heresy and extract her tongue. She has a gift that neither of you comprehend, one that can be perceived as evil as readily as good.”

“No one can identify her, for her face was shaded by her hood,” said Guido.

“Given a whiff of the Pope’s torture chamber, you would betray Solange,” said Francesco. “Perhaps I would also. We are none of us heroes, Guido.” He looked down the rue de Sainte-Clare. “The little church of the Clarisses is ahead. Let us go inside until the sergeants have withdrawn.”

“They may have left already,” said Guido. “I will go back to see.”

The nuns were coming out of the church after the morning office. We waited for them to return to their cloister and then crept into the nave—quiet and austere, a haven after the turmoil outside. Gherardo lay on a bench and crossed his arms over his chest, pretending to fall asleep.
We were all feeling more frightened than we were willing to admit. While Francesco wandered around the church, I looked for an image of Our Lady to thank for our deliverance, and found a wooden statue of such antiquity that its face was black and fissured. As I knelt to this arcane Virgin, the calming voices of women washed over me and I realized that others were in the apse, praying as earnestly as I was.