This is the kind of code that, in my experience, is one of the most likely sources of particularly troublesome errors/bugs. If you want to provide a Perlish interface, then I'd implement that in Perl code, not in XS code.

If you are having to deal with reference counts, for example, then you are highly likely to get it wrong sooner rather than later and more than once and probably not always notice the problem before you release the code.

Just write a tiny wrapper function in mundane Perl code and have that call the very, very thinly wrapped XS that calls the C code. Only do in XS those things that you really have to do in XS.