The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley

by The Serpent Garden (epub)

  There was just a bit of dim, colored glow about the window, so you couldn’t really see the thigh bone and the piece of hair shirt in the saint’s reliquary at all, even though it had a little crystal panel to let people peek in. Besides, it was set too far up for me to see properly, in a niche high on the wall with a lot of dusty woodwork carved with ugly faces and plantlike things under it. Over it was the saint, carved in wood and painted very gaily, with his gown all tucked up for wading, and with Baby Jesus on his shoulder. There was a bank of candles lit in front of the statue that gave off the rich, heavy odor of melting beeswax. Above them, twinkling in the reflected light of the candles, little ships and hearts in silver were hanging up around the reliquary as thank offerings. I was just feeling embarrassed that Nan was being so stingy with the saint when I thought I saw a shape in darker black standing quietly in the black shadows behind the screen that stood on the far side of the chapel altar.

  “Pssst, Nan, do you see somebody there?” I whispered, pulling on her sleeve.

  “Why of course she does,” said a man’s voice. The shadow moved and became visible. I could see a stray bit of light catch pale green eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. Above them, two coils of white rose from his forehead like ram’s horns. There was the sound of a boot on the hard tile floor and the soft whisper of his velvet robe as he stepped toward us out of the shadows. “I, ah, discerned you might pay a visit to the saint on the eve of your journey. And I craved, for the sake of your husband, whom I loved like a son, to give you some assistance to help you meet the demands of foreign travel. And, too, I can offer you a letter of introduction….”

  “Bishop Wolsey has arranged everything for my convenience,” I answered, my mouth almost too dry to speak.

  “Ah, Bishop Wolsey. Tell me, has he given you a letter to deliver?”

  “I don’t need letters of introduction. I’ll be serving the princess.”

  “No message? How strange. Not even a painting delivered by your hand?”

  “Why would he entrust me, a woman, with letters? I go to paint two wedding miniatures. I am sorry, I must be going.” I dodged away from him, but he was too fast. In a few long strides, he had caught up to me. He grabbed me by the shoulder and whirled me around, pressing me back into the screen. The agreeable mask dropped and I could see lunacy glittering in the eyes.

  “Don’t lie to me. I have means to see secret truths. The mirror showed you plotting; I saw you in your chamber making secret conversation with a man in a dark cloak. Ha! You’re surprised? Never underestimate my powers. And now I tell you, the secrets your husband stole from me—you traded them to Wolsey and carry them now to France. Who would ever suspect a woman? But ever since you gave the bishop your favors, he…”

  “I did not,” I said, trying to push his hand away.

  “How dare you!” said Nan, who is ordinarily very quiet around gentlefolk.

  “Ashton has betrayed you,” said Crouch. “Don’t you understand? Ashton is mine.” He leaned closer. I couldn’t move. I turned my face away from Crouch’s to keep his foul breath from me. My bones felt liquid with revulsion.

  “Sieur Crouch, how well met, and how unexpected. Surely I do not interrupt some important business?” A foreign voice, even and polite, spoke from beside the columns just outside the chapel entrance. A strange man, with a narrow, intelligent face, was standing there in the nave behind Sir Septimus just like a guardian angel. Crouch took his hand off me and turned to meet him.

  “Bellier,” I heard him say.

  “I have long yearned to meet the famous paintrix, Sieur Crouch, and when I saw her pass beneath the window of my little lodging, I hurried forth, only to find that you seem to have taken up collecting miniatures ahead of me. Perhaps you could introduce us?” Crouch stood there, too furious to speak. “No? Please accept my apologies for being so abrupt, Madame Dolet, but I am Maître Bellier, theologian, traveler, and collector of rare works, at your service. I have in my possession an exquisite allegory of yours, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which I would love to discuss with you sometime at your leisure.” He bowed grandly, which seemed to enrage Crouch even further.

  “So it’s you who have it, Bellier. That explains your gloating image. I saw your evil eye glinting in the gold. Is it you who has the dark cloak? By coming here you have revealed your secret. How dare you think you can come so as to gloat at me? Do you know my powers?” At the word powers Bellier sniffed and smiled condescendingly. Though Crouch was taller and wider and more threatening than the strange man, it warmed my heart to see how this Master Bellier seemed to stop him dead with his piercing glance and cynical, knowing smile. There was a weakness in Crouch; he was vulnerable to someone. The sudden paralysis of will that Crouch had caused in me began to fade. “But you do not yet have all of it, remember that,” Crouch said to the foreigner. I would have been pleased to see him so angry and so rattled, except that his anger also contained something very frighteningly insane, which made my hair want to stand on end. And what was this “it” that he didn’t have all of? What was stirring his mind to ever-greater madness? While the two of them faced each other, I began to slither sideways as silently as possible. Nan saw what I was doing, and tiptoed to the chapel entrance. Crouch put a hand on his dagger, but Bellier just tipped back his head and smiled, and I could see the hilt of a short sword protruding from an opening in his foreign robe. I took another few steps.

  “Ah, Sieur Crouch, I see Madame Dolet is anxious to return home before evening. I am afraid I must take leave of you to accompany her on her way. I wouldn’t want her to be struck by a falling tile.” I couldn’t understand a thing that he meant, but it seemed to strike Sir Septimus very hard and make his eyes blaze with rage. He didn’t take a step as Master Bellier took my arm as if I were some great lady and led me out into the nave, with Nan following behind.

  The late-afternoon shadows were long as we stepped out of the great arched doorway of the church. The dogs had tired of waiting, I guess, and were gone. As we passed the open courtyard gateway of the Saracen’s Head, I could see that a merchant, his mules, and several drivers were crowded inside, and hear the cries and commotion of ostlers and stable boys running to their assistance.

  “I am afraid, Madame Dolet, that the Sieur Crouch is quite evil,” said Master Bellier, in an agreeable voice as we passed the corner of Saint George’s Lane.

  “I already know that,” I answered.

  “You would. A painter of such mastery could not miss the signs in his face. The crosses on the line of Mars…and he has grown quite frantic of late…. Now, about that charming allegory of Eden that you created, tell me about the symbolism. We do not, for example, see Adam’s face, and he is entirely covered with vines….” I was silent with humiliation. That is how bad business and a sinful past come to trap a person just as she is on the eve of truly remarkable success and respectability. It was just like the moral tale in chapter the fourth of The Good Wyfe’s Book of Manners only worse because it was happening to me. If Crouch hadn’t been following me with evil designs in his heart I would have run away from that foreigner with his earnest, probing questions, but instead I just answered with only one word at a time, which wasn’t very polite.

  “Why are you so quiet, Madame Dolet? Is there some secret you wish to impart. Your delightful art…Tell me, what significance has the mountain?” Gingerly, he led me around a pile of entrails and kitchen garbage in the street, keeping me under the overhang of the houses as we passed into Fleet Lane.

  “I copied it,” I said.

  “Copied it?”

  “From another painter.” We were almost at my door.

  “Ah, another painter, yes,” he said, in a strange voice. “One living here?” I couldn’t bear to tell him. Suppose my father who was already so mad at me up in heaven that he said I was worse than an Italian heard him?

  “No,” I said.

  “So charming, so modest,” said Maître Bellier. “Do you ever travel? I often do. I ma
intain my principal residence in Paris, though it has been ill kept since I became a widower.” Mistress Hull had the shop shutter down for air, and you could see right into where Saint Simon with the squinty eyes and misplaced navel reigned in glory over his corner of ghastly painted saints. Again, Maître Bellier smiled his amused, cynical smile, and I knew right away he was an excellent judge of art.

  “The House of the Standing Cat. Your house, I believe? We shall have to speak again, Madame Dolet. I know it is fated.” He looked deep into my eyes. Now he was white haired and rather too old for me, but you know how foreigners are. And he really did have an interesting sort of face, with excellent, if somewhat narrow bones beneath the skin. “My admiration for you will lead our destinies to intertwine,” he said in a deep, meaningful way. But I was all stiff and pink with embarrassment, because I was sure it was my Adam and Eves that had stirred him up. I hoped he would go away quickly and not make a scene. Luckily he was a gentleman and went away after kissing my fingertips, which I wiped off.

  “Well, there was a gentleman,” said Nan. “Here we’ve never seen him before, and he pops up and does you a service just when you needed it. I do believe he’s interested in you.”

  “He just likes paintings, Nan. You shouldn’t mistake him.”

  “No, I can tell. He’s interested in more than paintings. Otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned that he’s a widower and doesn’t always live in an inn. I wonder what that house he mentioned is like? He seems well-off, too. Did you see his gold chain? And that ring with the curious design? The ruby was the largest I’ve ever seen. And here we are going to France. Think about it, Susanna. You might do well.”

  “I thought we were doomed, Nan.”

  “Oh, that was before we visited the saint. Now, you see, he’s listened, and this strange gentleman is a Sign.”

  “Another Sign? Well, at least you think this one’s favorable. There’s only one thing I don’t understand.”

  “And what’s that, my treasure?”

  “Just how did he know where we live?”

  Master Ashton came the next morning before dawn with the horses and stood outside the door while I tied up my box, even though I asked him in. He just looked away down the stairs as if he were thinking and kept opening and shutting the fingers on his left hand with his right, in some odd sort of absentminded gesture. I noticed he held his left elbow close to his side, as if it were stiff. His hair, too, was new combed, all dampened in a valiant attempt to make it lie flat beneath his hat, and his face fresh shaven and quite pink with recent fierce scrubbing. He was wearing his good livery, a foolish thing for a long trip. I noticed his eyes followed my every move.

  “What’s that?” he said, eyeing my easel, all folded up next to my box and tied with twine.

  “It’s not a box, so it doesn’t count. It’s my easel. The archbishop can’t expect me to paint without one, you know.”

  “You should get another there.”

  “They don’t grow on trees, even in France. And this one I had made especially for my work.” He growled, but he had to agree, even though he didn’t like it.

  “And what’s in this thing,” he asked as he shouldered my box, “lead shot?”

  “Only a few little things. Just what I need to get by. Nan said I should have been allowed two boxes—one for necessaries, and one for paints.”

  “Nobody gets two boxes. Only gentry,” he said, tramping down the tightly coiled staircase, the box on his right shoulder. It was packed so tightly it didn’t even rattle: two pairs of stockings, an underskirt, and my nightdress padded the tightly rolled bundles of knives, burnishing tools, brushes, chalks, and dried pigments. Weighing it down were my muller and slab for grinding colors and a heavily sealed bottle of sepia. Finally, squashed in flat on the bottom of the little chest, there were my books and sheets of good-quality paper, several plain, turned wooden cases, and the last of my parchment, including that good old piece with the writing, which was now shrunken and full of holes where I had cut away bits for use.

  Outside, his servant was waiting holding the horses, an old brown mare and a big, rawboned roan gelding, with pillions behind the saddles, and a swaybacked packhorse from Wolsey’s stable with another bundle and a seaman’s chest strapped to the packsaddle.

  “Oh,” I said, looking at the packhorse’s burden, “are you coming, too?” Pink light was beginning to stain the sky and paint the fronts of the half-timbered houses with a soft, rosy gold.

  “I’ve been sent to France on other work. Exiled, really. Probably thanks to that weasel, Tuke.” He paused in thought and drew his mouth into a grim line. Then he looked at me a long time. “Don’t think I’m going to be trailing you about anymore. Seeing you to the fleet is the last of this job.” He turned abruptly and handed up my easel and my box to his man, who loaded them onto the packsaddle. Nan handed him her bundle, and he strapped everything down tightly. There was a mounting block before the Goat and Jug, and there he led the big roan to boost me up behind. It had a wicked eye, I thought. For once, all was silent behind the latched shutters of the tavern. I’ll miss you, street, I thought. I’ll even miss the Goat and Jug. Ashton had gathered up the reins, and the horse shifted under us. Mistress Hull and Cat stood in the doorway, weeping—Mistress Hull with missing us and Cat with annoyance that she could not go see the court of France herself.

  “Good-bye and Godspeed, Tom,” cried Mistress Hull, embracing him. “I won’t be recognizing you when you come back, all full grown and filled out.” Ashton turned suddenly in the saddle.

  “What do you mean? He’s not going,” he said.

  “Not going?” I answered. “But he must—you promised….”

  “You’re not the Queen of Persia, Mistress Dallet, and you have no need of such a train of followers. One maidservant is all you are allowed.” He looked at the figures in our doorway, almost puzzled to see the shock in their expressions. “Didn’t they send word?” he asked.

  “Never,” I said, clutching the cantle of his saddle and addressing his back. “You know he has to go. I told you why.”

  “That tall story about an assassin?” he said scornfully, looking again at Tom’s stricken face. The boy had come to stand at his stirrup. “Is it true?” Ashton asked. His voice had softened, and he sounded puzzled.

  “Yes,” said the boy.

  “And for that you left your master?”

  “It was his plan, sir. I know the man saw me. Later he came to my master’s, asking after me. My master told him I had died of the pestilence.”

  “What do you know of grinding colors?”

  “Mistress Susanna uses such little that…”

  “In short, you know nothing at all, and she has no earthly need for you.” He shook his head, with the strangest look of commiseration. “Still, it could be true, why else…?” he said to himself. Then he undid the purse at his belt and leaned out of the saddle to press a few coins into Tom’s hand. “Here,” he said, “I’m sorry, but the bishop himself approved the list. Go find yourself another master. A woman painter’s apprentice? It suits a boy ill. Find an upstanding man who can raise you to a proper trade.” At these last words I bit my lips hard to keep the rage from coming out. All in a moment, he’d belittled me, my trade, and thrown away Tom the way you’d drown a litter of kittens, doubtless telling himself it was all for the best and he was an unusually thoughtful fellow. Men! They think they are the gods of creation and capable of passing judgment on anything. As the horses clop-clopped out of Fleet Lane, I writhed with the thought of having to sit as close as a pair of lovers all the way to Dover.

  “Quit moving so, I feel the saddle shift,” he said, leaning over to feel the girth. We had come nearly even with the cistern, on our way back to Bridewell, to join the rest of the bishop’s party that was going to join the wedding fleet.

  “I’m not moving at all,” I said.

  “It’s loose. The old windbag puffed himself up. Let go a moment.” I let go of Ashton’s waist and h
e took a foot out of the stirrup and pushed it back to get at the girth to tighten it. “Aha. He feels me pull it up and puffs again. A sign of my latest fall from favor, to be given the most spoiled nag in the stable.” He grunted, leaning down again to check the girth. At that very moment something shot between us, over his bent back. There was a hollow sounding “thunk” as the missile embedded itself in one of the timbers of the overhanging second story of the house near us.

  “My God!” I cried. “What was that?”

  “Get out of here, before he reloads!” cried Ashton to his servant, but the sound of the bolt and the alarm in our voices startled our horse, which threw its head up and scrambled sideways. “Damned screw!” he said, trying to bring the roan’s head in and put his foot back in the stirrup at the same time. There was a vicious hiss as something passed directly in front of us; the horse rose beneath me, and Ashton’s broad back came straight at my nose. The houses swam crazily around my head as the horse reared and in almost the same moment I found myself hitting the street hard. Lying there limp and still feeling my bones, I saw the horse rear again, as Ashton, one foot still out of the stirrup, held his seat, still cursing. Shutters were flung open.

  “Get that nag out of here! Can’t you even ride?” a man’s voice shouted. But he could ride; I’d never seen a better man worse mounted. The crazy horse filled the street like an explosion, and he was still on it, sweat rolling down his face, his jaw grim, his eyes determined.