Muse (26 page)

I considered. “You have a poet, Your Holiness, by the name of Jean La Porte. At your coronation, he was dressed as opulently as Francesco Petrarch was. I understand he has already written a tribute to glorify my vision of the flames descending at your coronation. Petrarch plays the same rôle, but on the Italian side.”

Hugues Roger kicked a screen beside me, making me jump. “You mince words. Is he a poet or a threat?”

“More of a threat because he is a poet,” I said. “The Italians will employ his eloquence to persuade the Pope to return the Holy See to Rome. But surely you expected that, Your Holiness.”

The Pope acknowledged this. “What if I offer him a priory in Pisa? Will he take himself there?”

“He might, for he is a man of honour. However, he can write diatribes from Tuscany and might write more frankly there.”

“This is true prophecy!” The Pope threw out his arms, compelling his officers’ agreement. “This woman was sent for a purpose. See how she wears the clementine roses upon her robe, but in white, a more saintly colour?”

They would soon discover, if they hadn’t already, that my relationship to Francesco had been more intimate. “Your Holiness, may I approach?” I spoke for his ears only. “I have a son, Giovanni. I have petitioned you to have him recognized in law. I pray that you will grant me my request.”

The Pope’s hand swept the men away. “Leave us. All of you. Now.” At this sharpening of his tone, the officers scattered for the door. “Hugues, you must go as well.”

The others left, but his brother whistled hollowly and landed on one of the window seats with a thud. “You cannot be left alone now that you are Pope. Your safety is in my charge as city marshal.”

“Hugues,” the Pope said in exasperation, “I believe you would suspect the Magdalene herself!” Steering me towards another window seat, he inquired, “Whose son is it, my dear?”

“I was betrothed to Francesco Petrarch. In my allegiance to him, I bore his child, but he abducted my son and cast me aside. As a femme
seule, I put myself in your hands, Your Holiness. If you help me to regain my child, I will repay you with my loyalty.” The softness in my voice said more, as
his
softness had invited.

Hugues Roger stood, knocking dried mud from his riding boots onto the painted tiles. “Why should he trust you?”

The Pope forestalled him with the hand that bore the enormous ring. “I will do all I can for your child without making a foe of Petrarch. That I will never do, for his voice carries to men of letters across Europe. Hugues, get your men to find her a title, something that restores the dignity this poet stripped from her.”

Hugues Roger’s boots sounded through the next chamber and the Pope slid closer on the window seat. “Now, describe for me—how do these blessed visions come to you, my dear?”

“With a speed that catapults me into a deep void. They arrive in pain, and when they go, I remember little of them. This can scarcely be called a blessing, Your Holiness.”

“Visions come from God, the most clear-seeing of all.”

“If they do, He sends them for you, not me.”

This earned me a smile. “Then you will have them and I will interpret them. What is a Pope without a prophet by his side?”

Eight days went by before I saw Clement VI again. I was saying vespers when he entered my chamber, followed by a dozen armed canons wearing long cassocks and pectoral crosses. Behind them followed the old camerlengo, out of breath and in ill humour, and hiding both poorly. My maids retreated, their eyes lingering on the parade of men. Apparently, the Pope had begun to say the office in the chapel, when he changed his mind and forced the canons to bump down the flights of stairs after him with all the holy paraphernalia.

I rose, but the Pope waved me back to my prie-Dieu. “Since you
were not in chapel, I came to join you in your prayers.” He listened to me chant the final psalm, which his canons duly repeated. “Why do you say vespers by yourself?”

I stood to greet him. “I have no church to say them in.”

“You must use my chapel—were you not told as much?” He snapped his head round to command his men. “Where is the camerlengo?”

Today the camerlengo was buried in a different cloak, a syrup-yellow lined with fox. “As the vicomtesse de Turenne”—he crossed himself hastily—“you are the Pope’s niece, with access to his private chambers. Sleeves are being embroidered for you with the Turenne arms.”

The Pope said, “You chanted the psalm from memory. But even if you have mastered the psalms, you need a psalter. Give her mine.”

One of the canons relinquished a magnificent psalter with reluctance. Pope Clement was staring at me in a more than pleasant fashion. Suddenly, he flipped his hand, communicating an order to the camerlengo.

The camerlengo said, “Out, out—only one needs stay as guard. A table chaplain, someone discreet. Nicolas, you.”

On his scabbard, the youth displayed the de Besse arms, a branch of the Pope’s family. His hand rested on his sword hilt, twitching slightly. I had no doubt he would be fast, if necessary. I turned a few pages of the psalter, catching the scent of wild irises, then laid it on my bed. “I know the value of your gift, Holy Father, because I was trained as a scribe at the Benedictine abbey where I was raised.”

“We have that in common,” he said affably, “for I was a child oblate at Chaise-Dieu. I might from time to time offer you my company, if you are willing.”

I dipped my forehead in agreement, since it was not a question. He had disrupted vespers to seek me out, forcing his canons to troop down the tower stairs en masse. While I was so high in his thoughts, there might be time to strike a bargain. I was in for a denier, why not a sou? “When I am not needed by Your Holiness,” I suggested, “I might be of some use in the library.”

He embraced the idea. “Daily, we acquire books by right of spoil that have to be restored. As well, you may commission new books to refresh my ears at the close of day. Perhaps you will read to me even now?”

A thin book appeared from a fold of his cassock. It was a fine rendering of the Song of Songs, which he was pleased to show me sitting beside me on my bed. Bed-coverings of fur arrived and sweet wine with trays of delicacies. Nicolas de Besse kicked a hassock into a corner to slouch on and the camerlengo bowed himself towards the door without turning his back upon his sovereign.

The Pope read his favourite verses, his voice a nightingale’s building to a tremor. His robes were scented with balsam and lemon. And his breath—had he been chewing frankincense? Next, it was my turn to read to him, marvelling that I was closer to the Pope’s ear than any of his kindred. I felt a surge of power, then something more sensual. What was it worth to touch a pope?

Gentle and patient, he was in no rush to enjoy me, but at last, his hand caressed my waist with a determined pressure. His were the arms I must fall into, and I found them sweet and welcoming. All of a sudden, his face flushed and his breathing quickened. Then the book fell and so did he, a heavy suffocating weight across my chest. In one blow, my ribcage flattened and the air in my lungs was forcibly expelled. A sword clattered on the tiles and Nicolas de Besse was there, rolling Clement off me. De Besse laid him on his back to loosen the jewelled pin at his throat. His face enflamed, his torso quiet, Clement scarcely seemed alive.

“Let us send for the doctor,” I said.

“And have all seven arrive? Better to let him rest than to listen to the physicians argue over how to treat him.” He retrieved his sword and inserted it into the mouth of the scabbard. “It will pass shortly,” he said, “with or without the doctors’ physic.”

“What causes such a fit?”

“There are seven theories, one from each doctor. A growth inside, or gravel, or sweating sickness, or the French pox. It comes on when he
cannot rule the nobles, or win a debate, or bed a woman. It always happens on the first night with a new niece.” He jiggled his sword up and down in its sheath to make his point.

So there had been other nieces, which explained why the Pope’s servants were so adept with pillows and wines and savouries.

De Besse drew his sword half-way out and sighted down the blade. “Tell no one about this seizure. If it is known, a crisis of faith will ensue.”

The implication was clear. If I told, I would die of something quick and sharp. The sword clinked back into the scabbard and Clement’s lips moved soundlessly to call me to him. His face was less flushed and his breathing more regular.

“There is no need to speak. I will not reveal your secret.” I ran my hand across his brow, a stroke that silenced him and caused his eyes to water. I straightened his cassock and lay beside him, spreading the same fur to cover us both.

Thirty-three

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, the Pope summoned me. I climbed the first flight of stairs with fear and the second with intention. At the turning, a small window gave onto the Pope’s garden, where his ménagerie was kept, and I saw the Barbary lion. This fragile insight led me upwards, for I could not go backwards to the Cheval Blanc. There were one hundred steps from my chamber at the base of the tour de l’Étude to Clement’s bedchamber in the tour du Pape, the most heavily fortified tower in the palace. From now on, I learnt, I must climb to him. When all his wooing was done, and all his love made apparent that first month, Clement had wooed me not as the Pope, but as a man. I lay in his arms with equal pleasure, for I was no more a saint than was any other woman, and more than a twelve-month had passed since I had lain with Guido.

Over the summer, the number of Italians in the Curia shrank. On Saint Matthew’s Eve, Pope Clement created eleven new cardinals, only one of them Italian. Each kissed the Pope on the mouth and received a sapphire ring. The Pope’s brother, three cousins, and two uncles were
elevated, and another uncle became archbishop of the richest see in France. With nepotism in such favour, I hoped to reunite with my son, and sought out Guido in the thicket of papal functionaries, where his talent was commending him. But as much as he tried, he could not hurry my petition to reclaim Giovanni. It lay so deeply buried that we must wait for due process to unearth it.

As the nights grew into autumn, so did my eagerness to return to the Pope’s bedchamber, where it was always summer. Musicians played new compositions, the fireplace radiated heat, and guests had their pick of liquors and sweetmeats. Clement sat propped up on the papal bed and his officers stood to conduct business or sat beside him to converse more privately. The prelates whispered to me, stroked my garments, laughed at my wit, admired me with their eyes, as I advanced towards the Pope, who savoured me through his men’s appetites. At a finger’s snap, the prelates withdrew.

Only Clement’s watchdog, Nicolas de Besse, remained with us. This was not the time to ask the Pope about my petition for my son. Nor did I wish to, for another niece would be eager to rest her head upon the ermine pillow. Since the papal bed was too short for us to stretch out fully, we embraced sitting up, then turned sideways to pleasure one another. His desire keen and quickly satisfied, his manners courtly, Clement was always regretful to dismiss me to my chamber. As I left, his stewards rushed in to sit him up, for the Pope must sleep upright in case God called him in the night.

In that first winter, I dreamt of Giovanni running towards me, reached for him, and woke, my arms empty. At first light, my steward carried in a round loaf, fragrant with coarse salt. I broke off lavish chunks to dip in oil from the Pope’s own olive trees. Since I must bear life without my son, why not bear it in luxury? When Giovanni returned to me, we would live here together, wanting for nothing. In the Cheval Blanc, cold and hunger would have been my companions. Here, I could enjoy a man’s touch again—after all, I was hair
and flesh and bone, such parts as other women were made of. And I had an education better than most men’s, which Clement did not find offensive.

I had won the librarian’s trust by repairing damaged books, which I read greedily, and was already commissioning works myself. After the library, my favourite room was the hall Clement had dedicated to the new sciences, where the hourglass and the calendar ruled men, not the book of hours. Today, few men of science were in attendance, since it was Mardi gras. I found Clement with the court astrologer, who had been working on a map of the heavens based on his astrolabe sightings in an attempt to explain the misalignment of the planets.

“Tonight,” the astrologer was saying, “the sky will be darkened by a supernatural event.”

If this was true, it would explain why the Rhône was surging, which might result in crop failure and famine for the people. A cardinal’s skullcap bobbed towards us. Hugues Roger, snapping some parchment impatiently as he bounded to Clement’s side. Being the papal whip had made his temper vile. He had none of the polish schooled into Clement in Paris, where he had been a familiar of the King. Their voices clashed, one ebony, the other ivory, then Hugues Roger lunged at me to thrust the letter beneath my nose.