The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley

by The Serpent Garden (epub)

  “There is only one question that perplexes me,” he said, his face returned to its normal state of disdain. “You say these Merovingian coins were found here in England. I am tremendously interested in rarities of this sort. Tell me, was anything else found with them? Jewels, a rare coffer, or perhaps an antique manuscript?”

  “That, I would not know. The archbishop collects only coins and medallions. But you might inquire of Sir Septimus Crouch, the antiquarian who offered the coins for sale,” answered Brian Tuke, his voice dripping with false helpfulness. “He resides right here in London, in Lime Street Ward, beneath the City wall. I would suggest consulting with him as soon as possible.” Behind Perréal’s back, where only Ashton could see, Tuke made a shooing motion with the back of his hand. Ashton was annoyed that even this hidden insult to a man he couldn’t stand was performed with a graceful, aristocratic languor that he could never hope to achieve. Lizard, thought Ashton. The English lizard and the French weasel. They deserve each other, too.

  “Ah, the Sieur Crouch. That explains everything,” said Perréal. How odd, thought the French alchemist. Bellier hadn’t mentioned Crouch. Maybe he needed to be told.

  “Everything?” asked Ashton, puzzled.

  “But, Maître Ashton, he is well known. He is an advanced disciple of the Grand Grimoire and of the method of Honorius.”

  Ashton’s face turned pale.

  “Oh,” said Tuke, “didn’t you know about Crouch? Quite the diabolist, they say. But I don’t imagine it’s got him anywhere. If he could really call the Devil, then he’d be rich, wouldn’t he?” Tuke smirked as he noticed Ashton’s brief, involuntary shudder.

  Fifteen

  ONCE again Robert Ashton stood in the cluttered little shop front of the Standing Cat, surrounding by squinting, lopsided green saints in various stages of gory martyrdom. He was not in livery but in his old gray doublet and baggy-kneed hose, looking as crumpled and disarrayed as if he had slept in them. His face was pale; his thick, curly hair stood out at several different odd angles from his head, and his eyes were sunken and haunted with the nightmares that had stolen his sleep. Crouch, turning into a demon with bloody fangs; Susanna, turning into a succubus; horror and desire and a man’s accusing, bloody corpse in a winding sheet, all mixed together in a ghastly brew. He was almost relieved when he was told to go to the house of the Standing Cat and give her the date of departure; I’ll see her for what she is and free myself, he muttered to himself as he pulled the latch on the door beneath the house sign.

  Mistress Hull scarcely looked up from her knitting at the bulky form that stooped to enter the low doorway.

  “You can’t go up; she doesn’t want to see you.”

  “I’ve a message for her. About the sailing. She has to be ready.”

  “Then leave it here. She’s sick. I’ll take it up later.”

  “It’s to be given to her personally.”

  “Then come back and give it to her later. She can’t be disturbed.” The needles never stopped moving as she looped the yarn first this way and then that, across her index finger, as the complex pettern crept across her needles and then spilled into her lap. The cat, offended by something in Ashton’s demeanor, suddenly unrolled itself from her feet, got up, and stalked away, its tail held straight up in the air. Even the cat insults me here, thought Ashton. I won’t be put off by this collection of viragos anymore.

  “I have orders,” he said, “and I haven’t time to wait.” He put a foot on the narrow spiral staircase to the upper rooms.

  “You have time enough to wait around trying to peer into rooms where you had no business,” announced Mistress Hull, without looking up and without losing a stitch. Ashton, one foot still on the stair, turned back to glare resentfully at the old lady. “—And time enough to insult Mistress Dallet’s reputation.” He hunched his broad back slightly, as if bracing against a high wind. His face was bleak and angry. “—And no time at all for the man in black.”

  “I won’t be used,” he said, turning and stumping up the staircase. Above, the door was open, and he could see right into the little room that was the parlor, bedroom and hall all in one. He knocked on the open door.

  “You can’t come in; she’s sick and doesn’t want to see anyone. Especially you,” a voice said, and Nan appeared from the studio to slam the door. But she was too late.

  “Sick indeed. I see no one in bed,” he said, pushing into the room.

  “You’ve done enough; go away,” said Nan, standing directly in front of him. He could see past her into the studio. Susanna was sitting at her easel, working on a panel portrait two hands’ breadth in height. The smell of oil and solvent came to him, all acrid, and he felt his eyes burn. “Go away, I say, it’s indecent for you to see her like this.” Ashton stood rooted to the spot, staring. Susanna’s hair was unbound and flowing down her back like a waterfall; a circle of reddish ringlets clung about her face, all damp with sweat. Though it was midday, she was still in her long, white nightdress. It was speckled and dotted with flecks of color, wringing wet, and clinging to her body. Her face was flushed, sweat pouring down her temples, dripping down her cheeks and the sides of her nose, and sticking in droplets on her upper lip. Her eyes were glittering with the heat and craziness of fever. In her left hand was her palette; with the brush in her right she was laying highlights onto her subject’s hair.

  Ashton couldn’t help noticing that even groggy with fever, her hand never lost its steadiness. Flick, flick, went the brush, and the portrait’s hair went from a flat shapeless mass to waving and light filled, almost as if you could see each individual hair suddenly lie there, shining. The painting had an unusual brightness, the eyes striking and bold, as if the fever had spoken to the picture. In all that he had pictured to himself of her secret life of extravagance, murderous conspiracy, and unbridled love affairs, he had never imagined her like this. A light burned from within like a flame, her face was intent on her work, her body pink, round, and inviting wherever the wet nightgown stuck to it. She glowed, passionate, for things he barely understood. This was beauty beyond artifice, uncaring, and none of it for him. He looked, and looked again; she was entirely unconscious of the impression she made. That was the most devastating thing of all. He wanted her to turn; he wanted her to smile; he wanted her to include him in that tiny universe between her eyes and the easel. He was shattered with new knowledge. He had never wanted anybody more in his whole life.

  “Quick, Nan, bar the door. The man in black is coming,” she said, never looking up. “I have to finish. I have to finish before he takes me away. Will I be dead then, Nan? You must have Mistress Hull deliver the portrait and get the money for you both. I can’t leave you without money.” At the sound of her voice, he thought his heart would stop. But this was not the kind of speaking he wanted to hear.

  “I, um, Archbishop Wolsey has ordered that you be ready in four days’ time. Friday. Packed. One box only…” He was horrified and humiliated to discover this ghastly weakness in himself. Dark, raw, unholy desire. He started to back toward the open front door.

  “See what you’ve done? This is what you’ve done to my darling. Now get out, Master Ashton, and don’t come back unless you’re invited,” said Nan.

  “I didn’t…,” he started to say. But Susanna had put down her brushes.

  “The man in black has come. I told you, Nan. I told you he’d be here.” She stood and turned, staring at Ashton. “Ah, he’s big. Bigger than I thought. His face looks like Master Ashton’s. Master Ashton has ruined me, Nan. How will the archbishop have me paint if there are evil rumors? He’ll send me away, and the guild will burn my paintings.” The pupils of her eyes were huge and black. She seemed, to Ashton, to be looking over his shoulder at something. “Go away,” she said. “Not yet; I haven’t time.” She took a step, then staggered. Nan tried to hold her up, but she was not strong enough to keep her upright.

  “Be of some use, you great oaf,” Nan said fiercely to Ashton, who stood paralyzed
on the threshold. “We have to get her to bed. She’s been like this for two days, vomiting and painting, and it’s all your fault for the evil things you’ve said. Help me.” His eyes shocked and wild, Ashton found himself shaking as he stepped back into the room and took the damp, disheveled figure in his arms. As he leaned over to put her in bed, he had to pry loose her hands, which had clutched tightly to his half-buttoned doublet. Her eyes bright and lunatic with fever, she stared intently at his face.

  “Mother,” she said, “you’ve come.” Her face relaxed and her eyes closed. At that moment, Ashton felt all twisted inside, as if he didn’t know which of them was whom, what was good or evil, real or unreal. As Nan pulled up the covers, he turned away and fled downstairs. His face burning with shame, he didn’t even pause to hear Mistress Hull call after him, “Well, I hope you’re happy now.”

  “Nan, I’m thirsty. You’ve let me sleep too long.” The shutter was up and the room dark, but I could see afternoon sun creeping through a crack.

  “You had a fever. We brought it down with cold compresses. You’ve been sleeping.” Nan woke up from where she was dozing, sitting on the bench. But she looked confused and waspish all at once, I suppose from being up too much. I felt very guilty. I always get a fever when I work too hard, and it worries her. But what should I do? Quit working? Then who would buy the groceries?

  “It was just a work fever, Nan, not a real one. Too many commissions. Lots of people would pray to have such a fever. Why are you so quiet? Has something happened? Oh, I’ve slept too long! And Mistress Ferrers’s portrait not done yet! What day must we leave for the sailing? God, I wish we weren’t going. I know it’s an honor, and will make my fortune, but foreigners, Nan! Sometimes I think I would rather be painting Adam and Eves again.” I sat up in bed. There was something I was trying to remember. Something had happened that was important, but I couldn’t get it to stay in my mind. When I would get close to it, it would just fly away again.

  “The portrait’s done and sent off already. You’ve just forgotten, that’s all.” Nan was dipping water from the basin into a cup and looking sullen.

  “Oh, there’s my nightgown, right here on the stool. Why, it’s got paint spots on it! Can’t I keep anything without spots?” I held up my nightgown to inspect it. Too bad. Well, maybe I could take the spots out with turpentine tomorrow.

  “Was I painting in it again?” Suddenly, as I was putting it on, I felt as weak as a snail.

  “Again.” I hadn’t seen Nan so cross in ages. As I drank the water she’d given me, she opened the shutter, and warm light, dancing with dust motes, came in at the window. I noticed the whitewash peeling on the sill as the summer smells flooded in from the street.

  “That’s so odd; I don’t remember a thing. It’s done, did you say? Did anything else happen? Something happened. Did someone come?”

  “We leave day after tomorrow. You’re absolutely forbidden to get up until then. No painting. I don’t want you even cleaning a single brush.”

  How strange I felt, the way one often does after a fever. Curiously light, noticing everything so precisely. The exact color of a blue-green fly that buzzed by the bedpost. The way the light flecked across the uneven grain of the table. And I could hear the sound of birds so clearly through the open, unglazed window.

  “Now I remember. Nan, I had the strangest dream; it just came and went.” Nan looked up suspiciously. “I dreamed that I was going to be with Mother and Father again. But I didn’t want to go to heaven; it really wasn’t very nice. Father was busy shouting and blaming me for skimping on the underpainting and laying on the color in one sitting. He shouted at me that painting alla prima is for bunglers and I was just wasting good materials, and I shouted right back at him it was just a new way I was trying out and he said new ways were for Italians. Oh, he was angry! So I said too bad, I wasn’t staying anymore and I was going back, because I had some other new ideas I wanted to try out. Are you sure I finished that painting?”

  “Yes you did. Mistress Hull carried it off. She said it was very fine.”

  “Then I had an awful dream, all mixed in with the first one. The man in black came for me. He was all bones. But Master Ashton came and chased him away with a big broom. He just swept him out the door.”

  “Ridiculous. That man sweep? He’s too grand to do you such a favor. He thinks of no one but himself.”

  “Still, it seemed very real. Almost as if he were here. Are you sure he wasn’t here?”

  “No, never,” she said, folding her arms. “Dreams can be liars. Remember, not one brush, not one drop of turpentine. I don’t want you putting so much as a foot on the floor.” I must have looked strange. Nan seemed suddenly concerned. “Does your head hurt?” she said, worried. “Do you want to read in that book of yours?” But for once, I didn’t want to read. I could feel something odd inside, something small, like a speck or a seed, but I didn’t know what it might grow into, and that left me troubled, with something I could not name turning over and over in my mind. I could hear a goose honking outside in the street, the clatter of horses, and the sound of children playing. I’ll soon be gone from here, I thought. Maybe this feeling will be gone, too.

  The fever had spent itself, but not Nan’s worry, which spilled over onto everything. At last she decided that her worries were a sign that she was doomed to a watery grave.

  “We leave tomorrow, and I can feel it in my bones,” she confided to Mistress Hull, who had come with a potful of soup she believed to be especially strengthening.

  “You haven’t finished, dear, how can you make a long trip unless you get rid of that pallor? You must be rosy by tomorrow, so you can become rich, painting for foreign princes.”

  “How will I stand before God at the Resurrection, if the fishes have eaten my body and carried it away?” Nan interrupted. Nan was so fussy about finding her body at the Resurrection that she even gave her cut-off hair and nails a burial. Myself, I think it’s God’s business to find all the parts, not mine, so I just burn those things so witches won’t get them. Also, everyone knows it is very bad luck if birds make a nest using your brushed-out hair, so you need to be careful not to leave it around. Mistress Hull looked very irritated at having her dreams of glory broken by Nan’s gloom. She took away the soup dish I’d just finished and fixed her birdlike eyes on Nan.

  “Nonsense,” she said. “I just had my horoscope drawn, and it’s not in the stars.”

  “Our lives in your stars?” Now Nan looked irritated.

  “Of course. I’m to get rich and happy, and my Cat well married, all because of the intervention of influential friends—that’s you, because I haven’t any others.”

  “Your stars are false. I burned the hair last night, and that’s a sure sign.”

  “You burned my hair last night? When did I say you could?” Now I was irritated, too. Nan has no right to go fortune-telling with my hair without asking first. Everyone knows if a lock of your hair doesn’t flare up when you put it on the fire, you’re doomed to death by drowning.

  “It didn’t blaze up?” asked Mistress Hull, looking worried.

  “It didn’t flare up much,” announced Nan, gloomily triumphant. Mistress Hull nodded knowingly.

  “Not much,” she repeated. “Ha!”

  “I plan to be shriven before we sail,” said Nan, in a tone full of doom.

  “If you cared about your friends, you’d make a vow to Saint Christopher’s relics and come home safe. That’s what I’d say.” Mistress Hull nodded righteously.

  “Care about your friends!” Nan stood up in such a rage she nearly overturned the bench beside the table. “Well, I like that! We’re doomed to die a watery death, and our friend isn’t even sorry!” Now I popped my feet out of bed, because they weren’t noticing me anymore.

  “Watery death, indeed! You just want it because you’d rather see us weeping than prosperous! Selfish, I call it! See if I pay for any funeral mass for you!” Mistress Hull grabbed up her pot and flounced out t
he door, giving it a hard slam.

  “That dreadful old witch! Get dressed at once, Susanna. We’re going to Saint Sepulchre’s. Stars, she says! I’ll show her! Is that silver shilling of mine still hidden in the sewing box? I’ll put the biggest candle of all in front of that relic! And it won’t do a speckle of good! I’ll show her who knows more about doom!” It was late afternoon by the time we left the house, and as we set off up Fleet Lane, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that eyes were watching us.

  Saint Sepulchre’s is not far and very fair and large, being rebuilt by a rich man in my father’s time. It has a tower with a great bell that rings the night before executions and sits right next to the Saracen’s Head. Of course I had my usual problem, and by the time we were near the inn, dogs were following, ugly spotted ones and a poor yellow hound with only one ear. Nan stopped to shoo them, and I was admiring a woman with a dashing green velvet hat being helped from her horse in the courtyard, when there was the sound of a shutter opening above us. Then I looked up and it slammed all of a sudden. The dogs wouldn’t go away at all but sat all around my feet with their tongues hanging out, and then clustered up so close around me as I walked that I very nearly tripped over them. But we shut them out of the church, which was very dim and cool and dusty, and I was glad to be rid of them.

  Nan reconsidered buying a candle, and I could tell she thought they were too high; so we decided we would just pray at the relics in the north chapel, and promise a candle if the saint got us back safely. The afternoon light was all yellowy and dim in patches between the columns in the nave, and the altar was lost in shadow. Racks of candles flickered and smoked before painted wooden saints in their niches. Here and there were chantry priests going about their business, businessmen from the parish, bent on asking favors from heaven, as well as a lady all in silk with her maid come to visit a tomb. The chapel seemed deserted except for the dark, musty carvings, and the most dismal triptych at the altar. There was a Descent from the Cross, with Christ dripping in blood to hide the fact the man had painted Him with bony legs like a grasshopper and facial bones all wrong. Also you couldn’t tell the men from the women except that some were wearing turbans to show that it was far away in the Holy Land, and the Roman soldiers were wearing French armor, which I suppose the painter thought was exotic. I found it hard to have religious thoughts in front of that painting. But I also did not feel so bad about all those vines I’d painted on Adam when I saw that trick with the blood.