Free Muse by Mary Novik

fitting wedding gift for Cardinal Orsini’s nephew. As soon as my work was done, a few more days at most, the librarian would assign me a more mediocre task, but I could not bear to part with Dante and his Beatrice. La Vita Nuova would be in the scriptorium for a few more months while the Florentine painted the full-page miniatures. While he painted, I decided, I would make a second copy of La Vita Nuova for myself, penning it at night when the scriptorium was empty.

Eleven
    I T WAS S HROVE T UESDAY , it was cold, it was the middle of the night, and my stomach was queasy from the delicacies of the abbess’s table. I sprang awake to find Elisabeth on her knees on the floorboards, her face mottled and her eyes red. She was scraping all her belongings into her cloak. I stayed silent until I saw that she was fingering my paternoster beads.
    “What are you doing with my paternoster?” I caught the string of agates flying past, just before they hit the wall.
    “I took it to pray with, but it did no good.”
    “Where are you taking those things?” At my question, she doubled over, head to knees, and sobbed. I got out of bed to see what was wrong, and discovered that her tunic was stained with blood. It seemed to be coming from between her legs, although it was not the right time for her fleurs. I tried to speak slowly, although my thoughts were racing. “The blood will slow if you lie down.”
    “It cannot be stopped, for I have sullied Our Lord’s bridal chamber.” She showed me an ugly wart perched on her middle knuckle. “The devil’s mark.”
    “You also have welts on your wrist, Elisabeth, but they are from the hot kettles in the kitchen, not the devil. Where do you get such ideas?”
    She began to chant a crazy sermon. “The cow that leads the herd has a bell at her neck, so likewise the woman who leads the song and dance has the devil’s bell bound to hers, and when the devil hears the tinkle he says, ‘I have not lost my cow yet.’ ”
    “The bell you hear is in Gadagne. It always rings before ours here.”
    “Do you not see? I am with child! Enceinte.”
    So that was why her back was bent and her hands pressed on her belly, why she had lost her chaste odour and smelt of a man. Over the past months, Elisabeth had grown so big from overeating that I had not noticed this infant taking root.
    “Who has done this to you?”
    She shook her head, refusing to answer. One of the travelling friars, I guessed. He had taken her roughly, given the welts on her wrist, which were not from a kettle after all. But why was she bleeding? Her raving had reached such a pitch that she might disturb the nuns—sound sleepers, but not that sound. She was on all fours when the next pain caught her. I crouched beside her, afraid that she might die, as Maman had done, in the agony of giving birth. My courage had turned hollow, a horrid, wretched hollow deep within me.
    I got to my feet. “I am going for the infirmarian.”
    “No.”
    “Then the stockbreeder.”
    “Not her, not anyone.”
    For once, Elisabeth was wiser than I was. If she was exposed, she would be cast out. How many times had we been told that maidenhood had its fruit a hundredfold in heaven and that carnal love was licking honey from thorns?
    She clutched my ankle to stop me leaving. “Stay with me. You help the stockbreeder bring forth young.”
    “I have never done it by myself. This is a child—what if I fail?”
    I held her as another pain seized then released her. I helped her lie on her back so I could pull her tunic up, applying my ears, eyes, and fingers to her womb. The infant was tiny, but it was coming now. Could a child so small live? At the next contraction, she braced her feet against me and we slid, clinging to each other, against the wall. The infant surged out between her thighs in a river of running blood, with solid chunks like chicken livers. I picked the infant up gently—one heartbeat, two—then it became quiet in my hands. I choked