Immortal Muse

by Stephen Leigh

  He saw her at the same time, and his lips curled into a familiar, sardonic smile. He nodded to her.

  A lance of fear impaled her, rooting her to the spot. Her mouth opened, and she could only whisper a name: “Nicolas …” Matteo was staring at her. Maroncelli—a young Nicolas, the Nicolas she’d never really known—strode by her in a miasma of perfume and a hush of ermine.

  “So nice to see you again, my dear,” he said as he passed them. He spoke in French, not Romano. “Such a lovely young face you have …”

  *

  Costanza slept uneasily that night. Her dreams were dominated by images of Nicolas—his face as it had been so long ago, aged and bearded; now morphing into that of a leering, laughing, youthful Maroncelli. She was in bed with Gia, holding him as he thrust into her, and his face above her shifted suddenly, and it was Nicolas mounting her, the bed frame pounding against the wall, thudding loudly, boom and again boom …

  She woke with a start, the thudding still echoing, and there were footsteps and forms rushing into the bedroom, lanterns swinging their beams wildly around and hands grabbing at her and Matteo. She heard Matteo shout in alarm, then groan as she heard the sound of a blow. In the erratic light, he crumpled to the floor. In the confusion, in the panic, she couldn’t think. She struggled against the hands holding her, and someone opened his lantern fully into her face. “Such a pretty face,” she heard someone say. Metal flashed in the yellow light. She felt the slice of a razor across her face at the same moment: a quick slash, then another, and another and another as she screamed and tried to writhe away and turn her head, hot blood flying away with each movement, the horrible bright pain searing her, her vision smeared with red.

  Men laughed. She felt someone tug at the collar of her nightdress, ripping it down so that she was exposed to him. She was pushed down on the bed, and she realized that they weren’t going to be content with having ruined her face. She kicked at the hands that were grabbing at her legs and trying to pry them apart, rolling and trying to summon spell words from her memory. She managed to find her feet, to run to the stand where her chemicals were stored. She grabbed at a large vial, throwing it down on the floor so that the glass shattered between her and the attackers, and she lifted her hands, palms forward toward the attackers, feeling the blood pouring down her face and neck, hot rivulets running down between her exposed breasts. She spoke the spell word of flame, directing it at the wreckage of the vial. A fury of white-hot sparks erupted from the floor, hissing and fuming, alighting on the men and igniting their clothing. She heard the men scream in terror and fright and pain, beating at the flames as they ran from the house. She recognized at least one of them: they were Bernini’s house servants.

  So Gia had sent them.

  She took the blanket from the bed and beat out the remaining flames, then sank to her knees, in exhaustion from the attack and from the loss of blood. She heard Matteo groaning and pushing himself up. “Stanz—” he started to speak, then he must have looked at her. “Il mio dio,” he breathed. “What have they done to you?”

  She reached up to touch her face with shaking fingertips, feeling the gaping, long edges of the cuts, feeling the ribbons of flesh that had been sliced open and now dangled down. Her vision went dark and she almost fainted from the shock.

  Costanza sobbed, her tears mixing with the blood.

  She heard Matteo stagger up, then run out of the house, shouting in the night that they’d been attacked, calling for help. She didn’t know how long she sat on the floor, leaning against the bed. She heard Matteo come back in, felt him press soft cloth against her face and pull the tatters of her nightdress around her. Lanterns again swung their light through the two rooms, and Costanza saw the uniform cloaks of vigilanza, the constabulary.

  “Here she is,” Matteo was saying. “They broke into our house, they assaulted me and they slashed my wife’s face and tried to rape her …”

  She looked up at the vigilante officer’s face, saw him grimace at the sight of her bloody disfigurement. “Costanza Bonarelli?” he asked, and she nodded weakly. “I have orders to arrest you for adultery and fornication,” he continued. “You will come with me.”

  As Matteo protested, as Costanza’s mind reeled, he gestured to the men with him. “Pick her up and bring her along,” he said. Matteo tried to stop them, but the vigilanza pushed him back. “Don’t make this worse, Signor,” the officer said. “I’ve no orders to arrest you, but I will if you force the issue.”

  Matteo started toward him again, but Costanza called out. “Matteo! No!” He stopped, looking at her, stricken. She shook her head, which sent stabbing waves of agony through her skull. “Go to Gia. Tell him he’s done enough.”

  With that, exhausted and fighting unconsciousness and pain, she allowed them to pull her along with them: out into the night air, out into the eager crowd that had assembled around their house, out to the waiting prison carriage.

  *

  The Castel Sant’Angelo was a dreary, shabby building, once a mausoleum for the Emperor Hadrian and now serving Rome as a prison. Costanza was in a large cell with several other women imprisoned for the same offense, some of them prostitutes and some married women who’d been caught with their lovers. Her two days in their rough company, with the rats, the human waste, the filthy straw and floors, were among the worst of her life as she tried to regain her strength, cut off from the green hearts that had sustained her. She gave one of the guards a message to pass to Matteo; she was shamed by the payment the guard demanded of her, not certain that he would even pass on the message afterward.

  But Matteo came on the third day, and she was permitted to walk with him in one of the prison courtyards. She could hear the guards laughing at him and making rude jokes; she knew Matteo heard them as well. “This isn’t fair, Costanza,” he said to her as they walked, her arm linked in his. She sipped at the energy of him, though his soul-heart was closed in and feeble. “I’ve learned that Luigi has been tried and exiled to Bologna. I’ve petitioned to have you released, but the magistrate refuses to see me. He’s another of Cardinal Barberini’s relatives, I’m afraid.” He shrugged. “I have a meeting with the magistrate’s secretary tomorrow. Perhaps by now Cavaliere Bernini will have relented.” He stopped, looking at her. “I’m so sorry, Costanza. Your poor face, and I don’t have the money to buy your release.”

  Costanza touched her cheek softly. The vigilanza had called for a doctor to treat her, and the man had clumsily sewn up the cuts on her face. They looked worse now than they had that night: angry red lines crisscrossed with black thread. The doctor had told her in a flat, unsympathetic voice that she might not die from infection since the blade had been sharp and the wounds relatively clean, but that the scars would be thick and terrible, that her face would always be a horror. He gave her the news with almost a satisfaction, implying that it was no less than she deserved.

  “It’s not your fault, Matteo,” Costanza said. “Thank you for trying. Did you bring what I asked you to bring?”

  He glanced around to be certain no one was watching. “The yellow powder, the black granules, and the white? Yes, here they are.” As he pretended to embrace her, he passed her three paper packets. “Why did you want this?”

  “They’ll keep the vermin away,” she told him. It was as good a lie as any other.

  “Ah. It’s not healthy for you to stay here,” he answered. “This place …”

  “I won’t be staying here long,” she told him, and Matteo looked at her strangely.

  “Stanz, I told you … all the bribes I will have to pay, well, I don’t have the funds yet, not until I’m paid for my last work, and even then it might not be enough. You’ll need to be patient, but I’ll have you released.”

  She hugged his arm. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “Worry about yourself. I will be fine.” She smiled up at him. “Matteo, you deserved far better than me. You did.”

  “Hush, don’t say that. Before I met you, I was nothing. Aft
er we were together, I started to truly find my craft. You helped to make me a decent artist, one worthy of Cavaliere Bernini’s studio.” He opened his hands, showing them to her: the calluses from holding the chisel and hammer. “I have done more than I ever thought I would, with you. I will always love you, Costanza. No matter what.”

  His words brought stinging tears to her eyes. She knew that he wanted her to repeat the words. But she could not; instead, she buried her head in his sleeve. “Then I hope you’ll forgive me,” she told him.

  He didn’t understand her; she knew that he wouldn’t. “For being with Cavaliere Bernini? I already have.”

  She managed a wan smile. “I wish you happiness, Matteo. I truly do.”

  “We’ll have that,” he told her. “Together. As soon as you’re out of this terrible place.”

  He patted her hand as if that ended the discussion. But she knew that his wish would never be fulfilled.

  Costanza Bonarelli: 1640

  SHE SHOULD HAVE STAYED away from Rome, but she returned a few months later.

  Witchcraft, it was whispered: witchcraft was how Costanza Bonarelli had vanished from her Castel Sant’Angelo cell the same night that Matteo had come to visit, and she was now wanted by the Cardinal-Protector for questioning. She knew that she must leave Matteo and Bernini and Rome, that Costanza Bonarelli must die, as all of her pervious incarnations had. It was especially vital for that to happen since Nicolas had found her, and she knew he was still here in the city.

  She heard the rumors about Maroncelli/Nicolas in the Castel, how when the Cardinal-Protector interviewed and tortured heretics, that his nephew was always there with him, that it was he who actually wielded the instruments, that he enjoyed the work far too much.

  She slunk away from Rome in darkness and humiliation and fear. She departed in tears at the pain she was causing Matteo for her abandonment of him. She found a goldsmith in Tivoli who had a subdued green heart and a willingness to ignore the face of a scarred young woman if the rest of her was comely enough, and she stayed with him long enough to recover and recuperate.

  But she came back to Rome because she wanted to see Gia one last time. Bernini had been charged in the assault on Luigi; the hearing with the magistrate was public and well attended. Costanza remained at the rear of the room, her face well cloaked. Her fingers, involuntarily, stroked her cheeks, where her face had healed quickly and well. Despite what the doctor had told her, the scars were already barely visible, faint white tracks on otherwise unblemished skin: whatever the elixir had taken from her, it had also gifted her with the power of rapid and complete healing.

  Bernini stood before the magistrate with his usual fiery demeanor, answering the judge’s questions curtly and forcefully. The massive glow of his green heart surrounded him and Costanza felt the pull again, though she didn’t dare touch it for fear that he might sense her presence. Costanza, peering about the courtroom, glimpsed Maroncelli standing near the bench where Bernini was giving his testimony. Seeing him, she slid back into the shadows of an alcove.

  Her hand touched the pendant around her neck, then went to the pouch on her belt, heavy with vials of chemicals. If she could get close enough to Nicolas before he saw her, if she could throw them and speak the flame spell …

  The court officer hammered his staff on the tiles for attention.

  “Cavaliere Gianlorenzo Bernini,” the magistrate intoned, cutting off Bernini’s protestations of innocence, “this court finds you guilty of an unlawful assault with intent to murder your brother Luigi and fines you 3,000 silver scudi. You will pay the fine within thirty days or face arrest.”

  Whispers erupted around the room. “So high a fine,” someone said close to Costanza. “Why, the attack was perfectly justified; they say his brother was laying with the Cavaliere’s own mistress. The whore should be the one to pay.”

  Bernini leaned forward over the witnesses’ bar, his mouth open as if he were about to protest the decision, but Maroncelli went quickly to him. He placed his arm around Bernini and whispered something to the artist. They conversed for a minute, then Bernini bowed to the magistrate and signed the document the court officer placed before him without a murmur. They started down the aisle as the next case was called before the magistrate.

  Costanza moved with them, sliding in close behind them, her fingers on the vials in her pouch, picturing Nicolas alight in flames or writhing with the touch of acid on his skin. Nicolas was still speaking to Bernini. “… already talked with my uncle. His Eminence has interceded directly with His Holiness on your behalf, Gia. His Holiness will cancel your fine, though not without demanding an alternate payment of you, one I think you won’t find too onerous. You’ve heard of Caterina Tezio … ?”

  She cupped the first vial, started to lift it from the pouch and throw it toward him.

  She let the vial fall back into its bed of cotton.

  Did she hate Nicolas that much? Yes, he had been the one who whispered the poison gossip in Bernini’s ears; it was undoubtedly Nicolas who had goaded Luigi until the man gave in to his temptations. It had been Nicolas’ orchestrations that had torn her from Gia’s green heart.

  She could attack him now, when he wasn’t prepared for her, when he wasn’t expecting her revenge. She could do to him what he’d done to her.

  Yet … Nicolas hadn’t been the one who attacked Luigi. Nicolas hadn’t held the razor that had sliced her face and nearly killed her. And surely the elixir had also taken as much from Nicolas as it had taken from her. He must suffer as she did. Surely it had bound him as it had bound her, perhaps in some other, even more terrible way.

  Worse, she doubted that she could kill him. Not this way. He would recover and heal, as she had.

  Do this, and you’re no better than him.

  She hesitated: as Bernini and Nicolas walked out into the Roman sunlight, as the crowds pressed between her and her quarry, and the hesitation meant that the moment was lost.

  She let them go, wondering if this was a mistake she would come to regret.

  4:

  ERATO

  Camille Kenny

  Today

  SHE NOTICED FIRST THAT she didn’t feel the pull of the group as she usually did. It was still there, but fainter and no longer quite so compelling. They might have been anyone she passed on the street, those with the faint touch of a green aura to them, those she might have ignored.

  David, alongside her, was most of what she felt.

  “Hey, the prodigal returns!”

  Morris was the first to see them as they entered the Bent Calliope. He waved to the others, pointing into the crowd to where the two of them stood. Camille smiled at him, and clutched her hand more tightly around David’s as she approached the group. “And,” Morris added, “it looks like we know the reason for her recent absence, too.” He appeared less happy at that, staring appraisingly at David. The smile underneath his hard eyes seemed almost a mockery; of the members of the Calliope Group, it had been Morris and Mercedes who had been her most frequent lovers, and it had been to their soul-hearts that she had most closely bound herself. Rashawn, Joe, James, Kevin: they all glanced up from their drinks without saying anything.

  It was Mercedes who came up to Camille, took her other hand, and kissed her, leaning in to whisper as she looked sidewise at David: “I see you took my advice. Good for you.”

  Camille squeezed her hand and released it. “Hey, everyone,” she said. “You all remember David Treadway, I hope?”

  There were muttered greetings from around the table. Deliberately, Camille circled the table, hugging and kissing each of them in turn before returning to sit next to David. Morris watched her most intently of all of them. He took a long sip of his beer as she sat. “It’s been what, ten days and you’ve finally surfaced. He must be impressive. So is David here willing to share?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Morris,” Mercedes told him before Camille could respond. “This isn’t your business. Camille doesn’t have to answer to
you or to any of us for who she spends time with.”

  Morris spread his hands wide as if protesting innocence and surprise. “What’s wrong? The man deserves to know what kind of incestuous group he’s gotten involved with, doesn’t he?”

  “I already know,” David said, and Camille glanced over to him. He was staring directly at Morris, and she could see the challenge in his eyes. “And Mercedes is right. It’s Camille’s business. Not anyone else’s.”

  “Including yours, I assume?” Morris asked. There was too much edge to the question, and too much mockery in his smile. “So you certainly won’t mind if… .”

  “David’s already told you what you wanted to know,” Camille interjected before Morris could finish the statement. “Right now, so everyone here knows, I’m with David. Period. End of story.” Morris’ smile went tight and fixed at that. Camille pretended not to notice. “And now, the next round’s on me, as my apology for being away so long. So everyone order up before I change my mind.”

  She ended up buying the round after that as well. It seemed to take the group’s mind away from David’s presence, and they fell into their usual patterns. Later that night, as Camille was returning from a trip to the restroom, Morris intercepted her near the bar. “So what’s really up with this?” he asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the bar’s music and the hundred conversations around them. “All of a sudden you’re not interested in us?”

  “You mean ‘us’ or ‘me,’ Morris?” she answered.

  To his credit, he managed to look embarrassed. “Look, Camille, you gotta know you really mean a lot to me. Since you’ve been around, well, things have been different. Better. I can see that more than any of the others, and I don’t want to lose that. I know I’m not the only one you sleep with, but we’ve been together a lot, and …” He lifted one shoulder. “I miss that. I miss you.”