The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley

by The Serpent Garden (epub)

  “I will always do everything for my lord’s sake,” said Claude, quite forgetting to hold her head steady. The artist was washing her tiny brushes in a bucket of water. How interesting, thought Marguerite, who was a great patron of artists and deeply fond of fine illuminations. The paints are water based. I thought perhaps they were oils, they are so richly colored, and that there was just too little of them to give off a smell. The artist began to pack her brushes. The box beside her was neatly laid out inside, with tiny compartments full of mysterious objects, little jars, and strange things wrapped up in paint-bedaubed linen. Claude waved her off with a gesture. “Tomorrow,” she said, “at the same time. And bring the triptych with you, I want to see the progress.”

  As the artist bowed silently in assent and farewell, closed her box, folded her curious little easel, and left without a word, Marguerite regretted that she had not stopped to ask her about the ghost. And how like Claude, to insist on speaking French to a poor foreigner who obviously didn’t understand a word. Then her breath stopped with a sudden thought.

  “Madame Claude, dear sister, that is a very clever painter.”

  “Why yes, isn’t she? She is making a devotional triptych for me, with Mother’s portrait, and angels.”

  “But she doesn’t speak French, does she? How does she know what you want?”

  “Oh, she speaks lovely French,” said Claude. “It’s a bit slow, and has the oddest accent. Not altogether English. Sort of Flemish, too, I think. But I can understand her. I don’t let her talk too much because accents give me a headache.” Marguerite’s heart froze. Everything. Revealed directly to a servant of the English. Quickly she called one of Claude’s maids to her.

  “Please, go find that paintrix right away. Take her to my chambers and have her wait for me there without seeing anyone. Tell her I will meet with her as soon as I can come away.”

  “Marguerite, my sister, is there something wrong?”

  “Why, never, dear Claude. I am simply envious of your lovely portrait. I would have one made of myself, as well.”

  The Tenth Portrait

  School of Clouet. ca. 1520. Charles II, Duc de Bourbon and Constable of France. 10 × 11”. Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

  This unusual portrait of the young Duc de Bourbon in half armor depicts the gifted military leader at the height of his power. Master of most of the heartland of France through his marriage to Suzanne de Bourbon, only child of the former queen regent of France, he maintained a household to rival that of the king himself. The watchful expression on Bourbon’s swarthy, narrow-featured face and the arrogance reflected in his dark eyes seem to presage his later armed rebellion against the throne.

  —R. Briggs. WARS OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE

  The DUC DE BOURBON WAS ONE OF THOSE WHO ARE TOO GREAT TO BOTHER WITH MERE MONEY, AND I FOUND OUT TOO LATE THAT EVEN THOUGH HE WAS VERY GRAND, HE WAS ALWAYS IN DEBT. He still owes me for his portrait, which he condescended to take away with him after offering many criticisms which I suppose were to take the place of cash. He said he would not have his portrait in small because he was greater in blood than any of the great personages I had yet painted and so would have his image greater, too. But the truth is he wanted to be in fashion, and to be in fashion he needed to have his portrait taken by me and that irritated him because I was a woman, and women shouldn’t be in fashion.

  He was very touchy about things like that and also who stood on his shadow and who sat ahead of him at the table or walked before him through a door. Everything anyone said to him seemed to set him off, but luckily I just filled him with flattery while waiting for him to pay, which he never did, but at least I didn’t say anything that caused me trouble. I painted him in his tournament breastplate and tawny velvet and silver after the great wedding tourney in celebration of our princess becoming Queen of France. This is where I discovered a special way of putting the highlights on velvet which I have made one of my secrets and which sets me in great demand these days among the gentry.

  Twenty

  THE day the queen’s servants were sent away, I was busy packing my box and wondering how I could get it and Nan and myself to Boulougne with no money and also no horses and wagons, because they were all going on to Paris, when a French lackey came with a list and said I could stay.

  “It must be that Madame Claude. She wants her angels finished,” said Nan. But all the rest of the day, people looked at me with red eyes as if I had done something wrong and by the time we left two days later I was glad they were gone, because some woman who did laundry for Lady Guildford started the rumor that I was asked to stay because I was having an affair with a lackey of the Dauphin’s and I wasn’t really English anyway, and what could you expect from someone who spoke French and put on airs the way I did. I know it wasn’t right to be angry, but I was, even though I read through the part about the Virgin’s perfect patience several times in my book in order to calm my mind. But it all just convinced me that it was utterly hopeless trying to be like her even leaving aside the fact that my station in life was not as exalted as hers and also not so virginal. Then that reminded me of the terrible things Master Ashton imagined about me and the great Wolsey, and that made me think about how the poor man was on the bottom of the ocean and dead and gone after only one most extraordinary kiss, and Tom with him because of my pride. And then I thought that maybe he had thought me an immoral woman which is why he had kissed me without asking, and now he was dead and I couldn’t explain, and that made me all mixed up and sad and angry at once.

  But work hid away my troubles, and even while we were traveling with the court to Saint Denis, which is outside Paris, I worked on the sketch for Madame’s angels in spite of not being able to start the painting until we quit traveling, because I had to get the wood for the panels and also you can’t boil up rabbit-skin glue without a place of your own because it smells odd. It was funny about those angels; they all had Hadriel’s face, though I gave them different hair. I did think about him, because after all, not everybody is given the chance to see a real angel. But I have come to the conclusion that they have their own ways and you can’t count on them for everyday, though I wouldn’t tell just anybody that. Still, it was all very inspirational and lingered on in the picture I was making for Madame Claude, who was very fond of little tiny things, especially illuminations, and looked to be a source of money because she was better about paying than many other of these great folk.

  It was a lucky thing that although I was still short of money because nobody had paid yet, I had plenty of first-quality parchment, and I just cut away some more at that used stuff Master Dallet had gotten. The part with the writing was not good enough for portraits but I thought I’d try dissolving the ink with an invention of my own and then burnishing it fine and using a good thick base coat on it so that I’d have something for some ideas of my own that were burning in my head. Somehow many of my pictures involved very beautiful babies, because still inside me was the sadness that I had had no baby except a very ugly one that was luckily dead. But if I could not have them I could paint them, much as I once painted beautiful dresses with great fervor when I was a girl in my father’s house. But in between my ideas were still many grievous thoughts about poor Tom who had followed me and died from my fault, and also Master Ashton, who told lies and thought wrong things and kissed women without permission, but still did not deserve to drown so horribly. Besides, I could imagine what they felt from having been on that lower gun deck and sure the water would come in when I crossed the Channel myself. Sometimes I had bad dreams about it.

  By the time we had gotten to Saint Denis it was very clear that Nan was needing a new shawl and some stockings and also my shoes had worn out and started letting cold water in and I couldn’t just wear clogs to a fine place like the court so I needed another pair. That meant money, so I quit dreaming about my own ideas and worked very hard and used up almost all my colors that I had brought with me finishing Madame Claude’s picture,
so I could ask her for an advance to have the frame made and maybe also get another commission. It all turned out excellently, because Madame Claude liked my angels very well, especially since they included her mother who was dead. After, when I showed her my paintings in small, she stared at them a very long time. Then her face got all twisted, and she looked into the air as if she were thinking very hard, and finally she spoke.

  “Could you make my picture like that, for me to give to my lord? If he took it with him on his travels, he could remember my face, and that I await him at home.” Poor, poor thing, even if she was a king’s daughter. Did she think a picture alone could stop that husband of hers, Duke François, from following everything in skirts? “And…and, could you make me pretty? A…a little more slender in the waist? The queen sets the fashion now…he, ah, they all talk about her slimness….”

  “However, Venus was more generous and shapely, they say,” I said, trying to be tactful. But the poor girl looked very puzzled and alarmed, and then said, “Venus? Wasn’t she a pagan?” I changed the subject to the sturdiness of the ancient queens of France, none of whom were pagan, and she finally said with a sigh, “I do look just like Mother. It is the royal blood of Brittany. Besides, they tell me that the father of that English King Henri was an usurper, with only the most distant claim to the throne. That would explain it. Doubtful blood. Shallow people run after false things.” The workings of Madame Claude’s mind were all visible, like the workings of a great clock when you go inside the church tower to see them. They creaked and clattered a great deal, too, not unlike the clock. But one forgives the noise for the miracle that it works at all.

  The reason we had to wait in Saint Denis is because that is where the coronation of our princess was to be, and the French never allow an uncrowned queen into Paris. So she couldn’t live in the palace of Les Tournelles until after the coronation and her formal entry into the city, which is a great celebration in itself. So everyone just waited and whiled away the bitter weather indoors, while the French ladies, including the duchess Claude, all attended the queen, instructing her in French customs and court etiquette. It was there that I discovered that painters are supposed to have no ears, because there they were all gossiping and scheming as if I weren’t even in the room. And they had everything female, just to keep them safe, even female dogs and a female jester, which goes to show you how French men think. So when they were by themselves, they just told stories that would make you blush, except for some old ladies who counted themselves holy because they like to hear terrible things about martyrs, no better than those monks I used to sell Adam and Eve pictures to. So of course I heard right away about how the Duke of Suffolk was coming to cheat in the tourney and what a “petite famille” he had and how our Archbishop of York or even our king had really sent him to get the queen with child because the old King of France couldn’t get her pregnant. But I had to be quiet instead of defending the queen’s honor by asking how the secrets of the wedding bed could get across the Channel that fast. Too much pertness can get an artist hanged, as Nan often reminds me. But the danger of having something wrong fly out of my mouth was lessened by the fact that it would have to be in French to be understood. Also even though it made me nervous to worry about doing something wrong in this alien court, it was not so worrisome as thinking I might see that man in black following me. It felt good to have left him far away in London.

  But I knew I had heard too much the day I came to paint Madame Claude, and that Duchess Marguerite who was collecting dirty stories to write a book walked right in and started to tell her how “Mother” told her never to leave our Queen Mary alone. I wasn’t sure who “Mother” was, because I was still new to things there, but she certainly seemed like a mastermind and nobody’s friend. I thought I might ask later who “Mother” was, but I didn’t have the chance, because I was hardly out of the room when a lady in waiting came pattering after me and told me the Duchess Marguerite wanted to see me for some great honor, and I should come and wait in the antechamber to her bedroom without talking to anybody because, of course, the honor was much too big to let anybody know about. Some honor, I said to myself, thinking about that hangman’s noose, or maybe some dreadful French oubliette somewhere. And I can’t even say good-bye to Nan, or she’ll get the same honor. Then I thought, well, maybe this is what happens to people who think unkind thoughts about husbands and then take money for lewd Bible pictures from wicked monks. It all catches up with one.

  But soon I heard quick strides and the rustle of a heavy dress, and the Duchess Marguerite motioned me into her chamber and shut the door. She was about my age, but tall and athletic, with one of those unbelievably big noses that the French think are aristocratic. The only one bigger is on her brother, that Duke François who I am sure got the king to dismiss Mistress Guildford just out of spite because she barred the door to him. The Duchesse Marguerite also had eyes and hair that matched, a light chestnut color, and the eyes looked very worried. Oh, good, I thought. Maybe she doesn’t want “Mother” to know that she was so careless with the secret. That means she can’t do anything obvious to keep me quiet. Her bedchamber was very nice, even if it was only borrowed. There was a huge, dark, wooden bedstead hung with tapestry curtains with her initials and the crest of her husband, or at least what I took to be that, all embroidered on them in gold. There were also some excellent tapestries on mythological subjects including the Judgment of Paris with Athena looking quite angry, though entirely unclad except for her helmet. That was more than the others were wearing, and I must say, it made my Adam and Eves look modest by comparison.

  “I was quite taken by the tiny portraits you make. They are quite in the style of our own late Maître Fouquet. Where did you study this art? It is most unusual for a woman to make her way alone like this.” She had seated herself on her bed to receive me, and first I knelt down to her even though they are not such a kneeling court as in England but you can’t be too careful, especially if you are in trouble. Then when she told me to rise, I stood to hear her speak. I was very cautious in the way I answered.

  “My lady, it was my father who taught me this art, which he created by combining his own secrets with the arts of the manuscript illuminators. He said it was good for a woman to learn a clean and decent trade, in case a cruel fate left her alone.”

  “Then you are alone? Quite alone?” Oh dear, this wasn’t the right direction for the conversation to take. I remembered Ashton’s warning about how crafty the French are, and I felt great danger, so I answered in a way that would let her know I was not a nobody who could just disappear without being noticed.

  “Even though I was left a widow, I have had the good fortune to be able to rely on the generosity and concern of my former patron, the Archbishop Wolsey.” The name did its magic. She put an elbow on the bolster, but her face didn’t change. Her eyes were shrewd, and her thinking process stayed invisible, unlike poor Claude’s squeaking, groaning clockworks.

  “Tell me of the Archbishop Wolsey. Is he an old man, fond of good works? I have heard he is often sickly and would send him some token of my favor.” Aha. She is a clever one, this lady, I thought. If I say something personal, she will know me for a gossip and then I’ll really be in trouble.

  “My lady, I am not privy to the archbishop’s secrets, being too humble to have knowledge of the great.” She smiled.

  “You seem properly discreet,” she said.

  “My lady, I have always taken as my guide ‘Silence in a woman is golden.’” I expected her to nod piously, the way other ladies do when you say things like that. But she tightened her mouth, and her eyes grew sour.

  “Where did you learn this maxim?” she asked.

  “My lady, from my study of a book of virtues given me by my mother. It is called The Good Wyfe’s Book of Manners, all about how one should behave in every circumstance. It also has an excellent recipe for roasting a bream, but the one for suet pudding never comes out right.” I thought I could see her mouth twit
ch under that long nose of hers. Somehow, she seemed too curious, and too humorous, to be a wicked, scheming lady as I had thought.

  “And why does the recipe fail, if the book is so excellent?” she asked.

  “Oh, I am sure I have not read it correctly. The man who wrote the book is so wise in everything, surely he could make suet pudding come out.”

  “Has he other recipes that give no satisfaction, or only that one?” she asked, suppressing a smile. I gave a great sigh.

  “There is one for husbands who take their pleasure elsewhere. It says to emulate the lady who cared only for her husband’s pleasure, and so sent her own linens to the bed of the poor woman with whom he slept, that he might have greater comfort.”

  “I have read that story,” said the duchess. “It is written in France, too. The linens had her own initials embroidered on them, and when the husband saw them he was ashamed and returned to her. So, you actually tried that?”

  “I couldn’t, my lady. My husband had pawned the linens to buy her a bracelet.” I could feel my face burning with remembered resentment. The duchess burst out laughing, though I really didn’t think it was a laughing matter.

  “But still, you would say that your experience doesn’t invalidate the recipe?” she said.

  “Why of course not. It was just that my husband must have read the book first. And since he knew the holy man who wrote it is always right, he understood that the only way to avoid having to come back was to get rid of the sheets,” I explained. The duchess snorted, which was really rather rude of her.