Immortal Muse (4 page)

He didn't seem to notice her arrival. She watched him without saying anything for a few minutes, her hands unconsciously cradling her stomach. She had agonized over when to tell him that she was pregnant—certainly not before she was absolutely sure herself. But she had missed her second monthly bleeding now, and her stomach was unsettled every morning. Two days ago, she'd gone to the
sage-femme
three streets over; the woman had nodded and congratulated Perenelle after her examination. Already, she could imagine that she felt a faint stirring in her womb, the quickening of the child.

With Marlon, even after eight years, there had been no children. She'd prayed for a child, often, to both God and the Blessed Virgin, but neither deity had ever answered. She'd thought that she would never hold her own baby in her arms or suckle her at her breast. Now, after less than a year with Nicolas, the miracle had happened, but she wondered whether he'd share her joy.

The somberness that she had sensed in Nicolas from the beginning enveloped him now. During their courtship, he had talked about them working together, but he rarely let her do so. He'd ignored her pleas for a workshop of her own, a place to do her own experiments, seeming to find that concept amusing. When he came to her bed of late, there was little affection in him; he topped her as if he were performing a duty: his face serious, his release quick. Now that he had the entire library of her father's old manuscripts to work with, all his attention was either on his efforts in the laboratory, or on his attempts to make the magical spells he'd found in the ancient manuscripts actually work—even his scrivening and manuscript-selling was ignored unless a customer insisted on attention.

Perenelle wouldn't have minded any of it had she felt that Nicolas wished her to be his partner in this enterprise. Her father Cosme had been single-minded in the same way, but Cosme had shared his passion with her. Nicolas did not; over these several months, he had made it increasingly clear that he found any suggestion she might make to be both intrusive and irritating. There had been arguments, each angrier than the last, and a few times, she'd been afraid that he might strike her, though he never had. During their disagreements, he had become increasingly vulgar and abusive toward her, and while he hadn't touched her, he had destroyed nearby objects in his fits, or thrown things about.

But she was married, and that left her with little choice. Some of the neighboring wives gossiped about far worse abuse that they or others they knew endured each day. They told her that it was the way things were between men and women, and that she should pray to God and thank Him that Nicolas provided for her well enough. She talked to the parish priest, who told her that marriage was a bond that could not be broken, and only fervent prayer would help her. Her situation could be far worse, he said.

Despite what the society and the priest said, she could have left him—she
should
have left him. Her father would have told her to do that, she knew, though a woman on her own had few resources. She had nearly made up her mind to leave Nicolas and accept whatever consequences followed when she missed her first bleeding. She stayed, thinking that perhaps the cold she'd had the week before had caused it, but then the morning illness had come and the second bleeding had been missed, and she knew.

That changed things, especially if a child could repair the rift between them. Perenelle hoped that the announcement would ease the increasing tension.

Her cordwain slippers hushed across the wooden floor. Nicolas glanced at her as she approached him and grunted. He turned back to the manuscript, which she saw was one of her father's. In her worst thoughts, she wondered whether those manuscripts were the only reason he'd married her: so that the property she'd inherited from her father would become legally his without his needing to buy them; so that her work in translating them would also be his. In front of him, the retorts chortled over the blue flames from small charcoal braziers. She glanced at the jars in front on the table and suddenly frowned. “Nicolas,” she said, “you're not doing this correctly. The powdered iron shouldn't be in this mix at all, and sulfur is a component of vitreous earth, not the fluid, and so you shouldn't be using it in the retorts.”

Nicolas craned his head back to glare at her. “You should be silent, wife, rather than demonstrate how little you understand.”

Perenelle shook her head. “I'm sorry, but I happen to know this experiment very well. I helped Father with it several—”

She stopped. Nicolas slapped the table so hard that the retorts chimed in their iron holders. “Be
silent
, wife,” he roared. “I don't need to have your nonsense filling up my ears while I'm working.”

“It's not nonsense—” she began, but even as she started to speak, Nicolas' hand drew back and slapped her hard across the cheek. Perenelle gasped and staggered back, her hand to the burning redness on her face.

Now she took a step away from him as he scowled and lifted his hand again. “Nicolas, please! I only wanted to tell you—” she began but he slapped her again, harder this time, and she stumbled, nearly falling. She sobbed. “Have you gone mad?”

“Be
quiet
, woman!” Nicolas roared. “I want no more nattering about that idiot Cosme Poisson. Your father was a dabbler and a fool, and you've inherited his stupid,
stupid
foolishness.” Spittle flew from his mouth as he raged. He advanced on her, pushing her, and she fell to the floor. Trying to break her fall, she felt her left wrist collapse under her and she cried out in pain, sobbing. “Stop that wailing!” Nicolas shouted at her, and he kicked her. She tried to shield her stomach; his boot struck her in the side just at the ribs. She doubled over, and his next kick caught her in the face. White fire exploded in her vision as she heard her nose crack. Blood was dribbling down her face and smeared her hand when she put it to her face. He drew his foot back again as she stared at red-stained hands.

“Nicolas! Stop! I carry . . .” She tried to draw a breath, but that sent fire stabbing through her side and nose. She shrieked, forcing out the words. “I carry our child.”

His foot stopped in mid-strike. He looked down at her through slitted eyes. “Liar!” he hissed, but his eyes held sudden doubt.

She shook her head desperately. Droplets of blood spattered the floor in front of her. She cradled her left wrist to herself; it was already swelling. “I swear,” she managed to gasp, her voice nasal. “I swear to God and the Virgin.”

He stared at her, his breath coming fast through his nose. She thought, perhaps, that she glimpsed pity or maybe even remorse in his gaze. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. A retort hissed suddenly on the table, and he glanced that way. “Go and clean yourself up,” he said to her. “I have work to do here.”

He extended his hand to her. She ignored the gesture, getting slowly to her feet on her own, forcing herself not to cry out again at the stabbing in her side and the throbbing of her wrist and nose.

She turned without a word and limped from the laboratory. It was only after the door closed behind her that she collapsed at the top of the stairs and began to weep.

 * * * 

She allowed Marianne to wrap her sprained wrist and wash the blood from her face, telling the maid that she'd stumbled and fallen down the third floor steps. Marianne nodded, her face impassive; Perenelle knew that the young woman believed none of it. Perenelle took off her wedding ring, saying that she was afraid the finger would swell too much. She didn't come out of her bedroom that day, trembling and sobbing by turns. She prayed, also, fearing that any moment the dark blood would start to flow from between her legs, ending the life inside her.

But that last horror, thankfully, never happened.

She contemplated leaving the house. She knew what her neighbors and the priest would say.
You must bear this. You're married, and that's the end of it. If you leave him, you'll only end up dying reviled and without a denier to call your own.
But her father's voice was louder:
You deserve more than this. You are intelligent and resourceful enough to make your own way if you must. Leave him. Leave him for your own good.

Though she heard her father's voice, she still hesitated. She had an aunt and uncle near Ussé in the Loire Valley, but she had met them only once and didn't know if they would take in a wife who'd abandoned her husband. Her father's property was now by law Nicolas', not hers, and he had rented out Cosme's old house. There was no hope for annulment of the marriage; she didn't have the connections, the influence, or the gold tournoises that would take. If she left Nicolas, she would have no income except what she could beg unless she wished to sell herself. She would have no roof over her head. Had it been only her, then there would have been no question what she would do, but in a few months she would be showing her pregnancy, and after that there would be a child. . . .

Her father had told her of a potion that would cause a woman to enter labor too early and snatch a fetus, unready, from the womb. But she couldn't bring herself to prepare the potion, even if she could have found the formula in his scattered notes, which were mostly in Nicolas' rooms. She couldn't do that, not after so long thinking that she would never cradle her own child in her arms.

Alone, she could have left. She
would
have left, she told herself, but with the child . . .

A day passed. She spread out the Tarot for herself—another skill Cosme had taught her—but the cards were as jumbled and uncertain as her own thoughts. There were both ominous hints and yet signs of hopefulness. She could get no clear reading at all. The Moon, from the Major Arcana, dominated the center of every reading, a signal that there was a darkness through which she must first pass before she could find the light once more.

She avoided Nicolas for that day and the next, though the few times they were in the same room together, he pretended nothing had happened and that he didn't notice the purpling, dark bruises on her face or the injured hand or the grimaces and groans whenever she moved.

On the afternoon of the third day, she had decided that she would leave the next morning before Nicolas awoke. She packed clothes and a few belongings into a cloth bag and put it in the chest at the foot of her bed. That afternoon, as she was sitting in a chair in her bedroom knitting a shawl for the coming child despite the pain of her left hand, she heard a rustling outside her door and Nicolas' voice. He was speaking muffled words in another language—Arabic, she thought—as if reciting a prayer.

His chanting stopped, and she heard a tap on her door. “Perenelle,” she heard Nicolas call from behind the wood. “I would speak with you, wife.”

She didn't answer, didn't know how to answer, confusion running through her head. She was shaking her head silently when he opened the door. She looked down to her knitting again as he came toward her, the clack of the needles loud in the stillness. His clothing reeked of the lab: chemicals and potions and fire. She felt more than saw him kneel at the side of the chair. His hand touched her arm, and she dropped the needles into her lap. She closed her eyes.

“I'm so sorry, Perenelle,” he whispered to her, his voice rasping and penitential. “I don't know what deviltry possessed me, but it was wrong. I've shrived myself to the priest and begged for God's forgiveness, and now I've come to you, to ask the same. My wife, I should never have raised my hand against you, and I promise you that it won't happen again. You . . .” She heard him swallow; she still couldn't look at him. “You are my inspiration, my helpmate. Since you've entered my life, I've come so much farther than I could have believed . . .” He stopped, his fingers tightening on her sleeve. “I really wish you'd speak to me, Perenelle.”

She did look at him then, if only to force him to see her battered face. His gaze moved away guiltily. “I'm with child,” Perenelle told him; she wasn't certain why—she'd intended to give him only silence. But the words came, tumbling out from her mouth as if she were afraid that if she didn't say them now, she might never have another chance. “That's what I'd come to tell you, but you were working and I saw it was one of my father's experiments and you'd made a mistake, and so I spoke and you became so angry when I'd only wanted you to be happy that our child was growing in my womb. Our child . . .” As quickly as they'd come, the words turned to dust in her throat. She swallowed.

Nicolas was staring at her. “I know,” he husked. “I heard you when you said that to me, after I struck . . .” He stopped, taking a long breath. “You're certain of this?”

She managed a nod.

“Perenelle, I'm so ashamed.” He sounded sincere, as sincere as when he'd told her that he respected and loved her, that he wanted her to marry him. “Look,” he said. “I had this made for you.” He placed a small paper packet on the knitting. “Open it.”

The packet was heavier than she expected for its size, and when she folded back the paper, a piece of jewelry slid out from the envelope into her hand, a golden chain pooling around it: an oval pendant of sardonyx, a woman's face carved into the multicolored layers of glistening and polished red-brown and white. Tiny leaves of gold held the stone. The face was carved in profile, her hair bound up in the Roman fashion. The carving was incredibly detailed and realistic, and even in profile she knew the face; she had often glimpsed it in the small mirror in the hall. Despite herself, she gasped at the beauty of the piece, and at what it must have cost.

“I gave the artisan the sketch of you I had the street artist make last year at the Hot Fair—you remember; the one we put in the front hall—and told him how to best shape your features. I had him depict you as a Muse, and I think he's caught you perfectly. Don't you? This is my pledge that I won't abuse you again that way. Please, tell me that you forgive me.”