The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley

by The Serpent Garden (epub)

  “Ah, my friend, we are men of the world. These were the greatest bankers the world had ever known. Their probity brought them the treasures of the earth for safekeeping—a great temptation to any ruler. You know and I know that they were good Christians—with a few exceptions.”

  “Exceptions?”

  “Why, in any great and ancient organization, there are some who will experiment with…different practices. In their secrecy, in their isolation, in their pride, there were some that worshiped, in addition to God and Christ, the principle of Generation, embodied in a female deity known to the ancients, and a mighty intervening power between the forces of Heaven and Hell….”

  “Baphomet…”

  “Ah, then you do know. Let us pretend no more. My masters are prepared to buy certain valuable objects from you.”

  “How do you know I have them?”

  “The rare coin you sold to the agent of Wolsey. He sent it for valuation and one of our agents was shown it. Did you know what it is? I think not. It is a coin from the reign of the Merovingian kings of France. From the time of King Dagobert. I assure you, such a coin has no business at all in the Kingdom of England, except as part of the London Hoard. Of its contents, we are absolutely sure. You see, there are similar hoards elsewhere. In some cities, the Templars were warned by those sympathetic to their cause. Wherever the renegade Templars had time to flee, they hid their chief treasures for the time they would return. The time of the fall of dynasties.”

  “What is it you want? I do not have everything. It was shared out three ways.”

  “One thing only. We want the book of mysteries contained in the casket with the treasure.”

  “The book—ah, the book. Yes, I do remember it. It was not part of my share….” The stranger watched Crouch closely as he puffed.

  “My master is prepared to pay well for it, extremely well.”

  “I might locate it for you. The other one has no idea of its value. But tell me, what was in it?” Crouch’s voice was bland.

  “Secrets of ancient magic and prophecies of power, as you have doubtlessly already surmised, Monsieur Crouch, since you must have found the text that allowed you to discover the Hoard’s hiding place,” said the man in the foreign gown. “Prophecies of the Blood which will become master of the known world, of the greatest secret in Christendom.”

  “Well then, the man who has the book might become the greatest power in Christendom.”

  “Hardly, Sieur Crouch. You see, we already have a copy of the book, and we are very numerous.” Crouch looked at him, his eyes hooded.

  “We?” he said. “Why would the Priory of Sion want another?” The brilliant stab in the dark had its effect. Maître Bellier paled, and then replied,

  “For the obvious reason, Sieur Crouch. We wish to burn it. We alone are the true guardians of the Secret, and we intend to remain so. Do remember, the man who finds it will be a wealthy man.”

  “As wealthy as the Helmsman?” Crouch looked at him, his eyes coldly triumphant. I know, his voice said. Be awed by me. Surrender.

  “I have no idea,” said Maître Bellier. “Let us pass back to what is important. Should you find the manuscript, I do not advise that you keep it. There is a danger—one that not many are prepared to handle.”

  “A danger? Hardly from a manuscript.”

  “Certain of the worthy order of whom we speak were great masters of the occult. At every site where they concealed their treasures, they bound a demon of destruction to the box for their revenge. We are in possession of the formula that will return the demon to its own place.” Whatever this Priory is, thought Crouch, they are fools, and no diabolists. If they had the ability to bring the demon into their service, they would accomplish their aims much sooner. They were no equals to a man with his years of study of the black arts. He sighed regretfully at the thought of the lost demonic child. Belphagor incarnate, at his mercy, his servant. An occultist’s dream. Would the demon, having failed once, attach himself to the woman for a second try? It would be worth looking into.

  “A pity, then, it must have gotten away,” said Crouch.

  “It would be an act of decency to get rid of the thing, but, after all, there are so many demons of destruction loose these days, what is one more?” Maître Bellier shrugged and smiled philosophically. “Sieur Crouch, I thank you for your valuable time. While I am in England, I am staying at the Saracen’s Head. Do, please, come to me if you perchance locate that book.”

  Outside, Maître Bellier’s servant was holding both mules. The street had become dark as he had waited, and he had taken advantage of a neighbor woman to light the two torches that he carried with him.

  “Eustache,” said his master as he mounted his big roan mule, “I believe the man has seen the book. He may even possess it, or part of it, himself. He knows of the Priory. The Helmsman will not be pleased.”

  “He knows of the Helmsman?”

  “But not who or where he is. The man is brilliant, I think, and ruthless. He has learned too much, I am afraid, from our little visit. I want you to watch him, Eustache, and follow him. See to whom he leads us. We must try to get to the book before he does.”

  “But suppose he has it already?” asked the manservant, handing up one torch, and then deftly mounting his mule while holding the other.

  “The Secret will do him little good. But there are those to whom he might sell it. The heirs of the Valois. Our enemies in Rome.” Bellier’s eyes looked distant, and his voice was cold. “If he, or those he leads us to, show signs of traveling abroad, we will have to arrange something.”

  Upstairs, as Crouch was helped into his nightshirt, his heart was pounding and his mind racing. What a useless busybody that French doctor was. Doubtless, he counted himself clever. But he had given away the Secret. The Priory of Sion existed, the Helmsman existed, the prophecies were valid, and their fulfillment imminent. The book was of inestimable value.

  For amusement, he calculated first what price a usurper might pay for a book of prophecy that would buoy him up and gather followers to his cause. Then he paused to estimate the price a sitting monarch might pay for knowledge of the future of France. How delightful to approach them with the wisdom of the ages. He envisioned himself holding an auction. Whom would he invite? Wolsey, for the King of England? Henry still has claims in France. Or perhaps the Holy Roman Emperor? A more likely candidate. He has more money, and France is a thorn in his side. But in truth, I wouldn’t waste it on them, he thought. Like all rulers, they are too stupid to know what is valuable. Only I would know how to use the book properly. As his mind spun out plots and counterplots, envisioning his rise to the heights of power, the passion to possess the entire manuscript began to grow and gnaw at him. He hardly slept that night.

  Nine

  I soon found that conducting somebody else’s career posthumously was not as easy as I had thought. I had imagined the hardest part would be telling all those lies to customers, but I was wrong. The biggest trouble of all was where do dead men buy their colors? That is, one could only pretend to be on an errand for one’s husband so long before the apothecary might say, “Don’t I recall your husband was buried in Saint Vedast and has a nice brass in the wall?” So I had to go farther and farther until I had tried out all the apothecaries in London and my feet hurt. And I couldn’t send anyone else in the house because they might get cheated. You have to feel and smell and touch and see the color to make sure it’s right and you aren’t getting something second rate passed off on you.

  For a while I could use what I had, but that old Eden scene used up all my greens first. Then I could buy alum anywhere, without anyone suspecting I was making colors at home by mixing that alum with essence of fleur-de-lis and pansies. I could get indigo by pretending I was dyeing a bit of yarn or maybe remaking an old dress that would be better off blue. But when you get to earth of cologne and blue and green bice and verdegris, then people wonder why a painter’s widow needs them and the only answer is not very r
espectable, because they think you’ve taken up with another painter and are secretly living in sin so that you still get your pension. That was the worst risk of all, because with the gossip that beadle might come around looking for men and find painting instead, which would have been even worse.

  After talking it over with Mistress Hull, who is a very shrewd woman, we decided we must take someone into our confidence and pay him a hefty bribe. Luckily I knew just the person. In an alley off Bladder Lane, which is near where the gold beaters are, there was an apothecary who is an alchemist and not very honest but in an honest sort of way. What I mean is that he would not cheat a person too terribly much but he believed that the law was for other people. That is why my father got on with him because Father believed that the law was for other people, too, especially guild laws which were for English painters who couldn’t get anything right so they had to shut out their betters. Master Ailwin was very good for alchemical colors such as orpiment and cedar green and white lead, and he could get anything else a person needed, even things for a little bit of sorcery on the side, like dead men’s thumbs, but I would never have wanted a thing like that. The only problem with Master Ailwin was that he had too many opinions. So you never got out of his shop in a short time but had to argue, and he did all the talking anyway. Also shady characters went in and out of his place, but that never bothered Father. Father always said life was full of shady characters and as long as they want their pictures painted, why give it any attention.

  That is why on a fair morning I put on my best black gown, the one in good wool with the little tucks around the skirt and the sleeves cut in the French fashion, and also my French hood, which was very elegant and took Nan with me to pass into the City by Ludgate and find Master Ailwin. The blue sky brought everyone into Fleet Street and there was even music from the engine in the tower on the cistern, which had bells and played hymns. On top of the tower was the image of Saint Christopher and below him were angels and below that the bells. The cistern was hard by Fleet Bridge, where everyone in the world had to pass to enter the City gate. The south side of the street was lined with fair houses built of stone, which had devices on them that were a wonder to see.

  Now here is what shows you how important fine dress is in this wicked world. When I wore plain things and was happy working hard, then hairy men from the Goat and Jug rolled their eyes and made sport offering to escort me to my door. But it was quite different when I was up to no good, wearing an excellent gown made with fine black worsted given as a bribe by my late husband’s murderer. Then even when everybody was crowding into the gate and there were carts and donkeys loaded with firewood and eggs and fruit, people looked impressed and made way, and important-looking men in merchants’ and lawyers’ gowns with their iron stares kept lowlier men from brushing up against me accidentally. It did help that Nan shooed away the dogs, because I think my important widow look would have gone away if people knew that animals follow me, which is strange.

  Really grand people did not pass by the gate at all but went by water and came up by the steps from the river. They would not have to mix at all except they might be killed passing under London Bridge if they did not get out while the boatmen shoot the rapids beneath the bridge. Then they would get back in, but it was a hard thing to have to mingle with the commons for that little bit of time walking to rejoin the boat on the other side. So I always went by Thames Street to see if there was somebody very splendid getting out so I could admire his clothes, see the parade of his servants, and watch to see if any petitioners come because then sometimes interesting things could happen.

  On Thames Street I could hear men in livery shout “Make way, make way for His Grace!” and so I knew somebody important had come up the steps and was being forced to mingle where I could get a good glimpse of him. I was hoping for a lord with gold embroidery but it turned out to be Bishop Wolsey, which the footmen kept announcing just so we wouldn’t tread on his hem and that was good, too, because churchmen of rank are allowed to speak directly with God quite often, so it is thrilling just to be near them.

  With all that shouting and jostling, the crowd parted, and I could see that in front of the bishop was a crucifer with a big silver cross. Around him and behind him in a long train walked guards and gentlemen ushers and clerks in his livery, as well as several priests in plain robes. There weren’t any petitioners, but something even more amusing to see. There was the bishop in especially splendid violet damask, all deep in his holy thoughts about God, and not looking around him at all, but just straight ahead, and following just behind him were two men in livery that I could tell were secretaries by their pen cases. One of them was thin and smooth and rather oily-looking, with pale crinkled eyelids that reminded me of a lizard’s. He was carrying a big leather case and looking very puffed up with the importance of it, so I imagined that case was full of important advice and letters for the king at Greenwich.

  The second secretary was altogether different, so they made a very comical, mismatched pair. The thin lizard one oozed along, and the other one, who was good-looking and sturdily built, walked straight and strong. He had a profile worth inspecting. A good chin, a nose that arched just a tiny bit where the bone leaves off, nice muscles down the side of the jaw…His brown curls were cut off below the ear, and where the sun struck them, they shone auburn. Not a bad sort of Adam. A pity…He turned his head, and I saw dark brows that were not set evenly but one just a bit higher than the other, which gave him a quizzical, humorous, sarcastic kind of look. His eyes were a very nice sort of hazelish brownish green, honest, but not subtle; they seemed to show all his thoughts just as if he’d written them on his forehead. The thoughts I saw there were very amusing. He was looking embarrassed, carrying a very tiny box that I imagined must have the bishop’s seal in it. He walked very near the bishop’s elbow, and the man with the case looked irritated every time he saw him get too close, as if he wished he were close at the bishop’s elbow, instead.

  “Look at that man, Nan. You can see his thoughts coming right out of his eyes.”

  “Which man? Oh, that one? I don’t see anything different.”

  “I do. He thinks he looks silly carrying that tiny box. He wishes he had the big one.”

  “They both look alike to me. Two of a kind. Noses in the air. As arrogant as their master, I’d say.”

  But the one with the little box just looked to me for all the world as if he were carrying a hen’s egg that had gone bad, which he was afraid might break and stink, but still he didn’t dare to throw it away. I wonder what’s in that box, I thought. Just then the bishop wrinkled up his nose, for the crowd was pressing very close, and then made a little circular waving motion as a signal with his hand. The man with the little box opened it most deferentially, but that sarcastic eyebrow of his spoiled the humbleness of his gesture. Inside the box, it turned out not to be an important seal at all but the bishop’s pomander, which he put to his nose. I couldn’t help it; I laughed out loud. My Adam cast a sideways glance at me, and I saw his round, hazel eyes flash for just an instant with horrified embarrassment, which made me feel almost sympathetic, so I put my hand over my mouth to cover up the laughing. But that made him turn his face away very quickly, but I could see the back of his neck was turning red, and that amused me even more.

  “That man was staring at you, Susanna. I swear.”

  “Which one, Nan?” I asked, all innocent.

  “That liveryman of the bishop’s, the one with the tiny box.”

  But the crowd was closing in tighter on the bishop, who pretended not to notice as his guards moved closer together to split them apart and clear his path. I could see that man take advantage of the disorder to hunt me out in the crowd. His eyes found me measuring him up, depth of chest, width of neck, proportion of leg to torso, and he looked right through me, his face amused. But I just looked right back with a firm and disapproving stare to let him know that it is not right for men to look at respectable widows that way, and he
snorted to stop a laugh from coming out.

  At the sound, the bishop’s eyes darted sideways to make sure the noise wasn’t an assassin or something, and his gaze flicked between the two of us as if he saw something amusing, and then it caught mine, which was really extraordinary and something very memorable for me.

  Wolsey’s face was sunken in fat warped by big worry lines from his many cares, and his eyes were very sharp and fair frightening, the right one with a lid that drooped and twitched, lending him a very sinister expression. His eyes told me he was a worldly intriguer but I could tell all those intrigues wouldn’t do him much good, because a man of God should stick to God just as a painter should stick to painting.

  But then, just as clear as clear, I saw him reading my face and knew he could see my thoughts as clearly as I could see his. He pursed up his mouth with disapproval, and then looked away. And that’s how I knew the great Bishop Wolsey and I were fated to meet someday, because our gazes had locked for one instant on Thames Street and our thoughts had changed places with each other. I could feel my heart pounding and my face, which can be a big betrayer, turning hot. Then the whole parade of them passed by to rejoin their watermen and they were gone, and I put out of my mind the feeling of fatefulness.

  In Guthrun’s Lane you can see the gold beaters deep inside their shops, pounding gold leaf fine and thin between sheets of parchment. I am good at applying gold leaf, which I did for Father, but I had no plans to be doing that again since I had no high custom and my lowlier Adam and Eve work did not need gold leaf. Just at the end was Master Ailwin’s shop, which was small and narrow but long in back where he had ovens and glassware with bubbly, smelly stuff and all kinds of jugs and jars and boxes of things you might have needed but mostly didn’t. His shutter was up, and I could see someone very large and rich-looking inside buying something. The rich man was in deep conversation with Master Ailwin, who had bushy white eyebrows and hair that grew out of his ears. I could only see the rich man’s back, but he was tall and heavy, in a green velvet gown cut like a foreigner’s, maybe Italian. He seemed angry because I could see him pounding on the counter with a big, square fist in a black glove. I hoped it wasn’t about short weight, because that might have put Master Ailwin out of business and then where would I have been? So I waited outside with Nan and several cats came, which she shooed away, and I didn’t go in because I wanted my business to be private since it involved being up to no good.