The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (24 page)

“Ah, I see. This ‘York House’ is undergoing redecoration. His Grace, the mighty Bishop Wolsey should have a single man of taste overseeing the renovation. The Italian style—that is the style to be most admired. This rather primitive arras here, I take it, is to be replaced.”

“The hangings in this room are entirely new,” said Ashton, suppressing a powerful impulse to shake Maître Perréal until his teeth rattled.

“Yes, the northern style. So angular, so dated. Here, you see, the cornices lack fluidity of line. That charming grace of the Italian—a cornucopia, or perhaps a cherub, would look well over that window. Ah, but it must be the austere taste of a man of the church—still, in Rome…”

“Rome should no more be in London than London in Rome,” growled Ashton. His accent had a Norman twang. Perréal listened politely but every so often allowed his nostrils to twitch as Ashton spoke, as if there were the smell of something slightly putrid in the room.

“Profound,” replied Perréal. “Simple, yet profound. It might be engraved over the lintel here.” He waved a hand at a doorway that lacked cherubs. Ashton caught something in the word. A trick of the
r
s. He smelled revenge.

“Master Perréal,” he said, in a voice of feigned admiration, “you are so very knowledgeable about the new styles. Tell me, when did you study in Italy?”

“Italy? Why, the Italian style is known everywhere…”

Ashton sighed heavily, with false regret. “Except here, where we are so far, so very far. How fortunate you are to have studied in Tours. I imagine Italian artists find it so much easier to travel there. How unfortunate we lack such a great center of refinement….” Ashton watched Perréal’s face stiffen. It was his
r
s that still retained a bit of the Tourangeau. “The bishop’s collection is through this doorway,” added Ashton, unctuously. “You’ll find the paneling in the cabinet a charming example of the northern style. Very simple, with that austere angularity so suited to a prince of the Church. Did you know that Lord Wolsey wears a hair shirt?” Perréal cast a look of pure hatred at his guide.

Above the shoulder-high wainscoting, the walls of the cabinet had been richly gilded and painted with a religious scene: the presentation of the infant Jesus at the temple. The figures were angular, the brightly painted and decorated draperies symmetrical, in the old style. The background, a temple not unlike the Tower with a gilded dome set upon it in place of a crenellated battlement, was depicted in a stylized fashion, entirely without perspective. Ashton watched Perréal’s face. It was a study in concealed disdain. Good, thought Ashton, my strategy is working.

“And what master painted this?” asked the French artist.

“Master Brown, of the Painter-Stainers’ Guild.”

Paintings hung on the paneling, each protected from the dust by a damask curtain. Religious scenes for contemplation, portraits of long-dead churchmen and patrons, the usual furnishings of an archbishop’s cabinet. Many were obviously the product of some long-gone studio, the faces flat and ill fitted to the ready-painted bodies, costume detail and elaborate gilding used to mask the defects of composition.

“Lord Wolsey, I take it, is not a connoisseur.”

“Oh, these he inherited from his predecessor. They have mostly historical importance.” Ashton was nonchalant.

“This one in the corner. Why do you neglect it?” Perréal lifted the curtain. Ashton smiled to himself as he heard the Frenchman suck in his breath.
The Temptation of Eve
, with rich layers of color shining through semitransparent glazes, so fresh and prettily modeled that you thought it would be possible to reach right into the depths of it. In the foreground, a vast, pink Eve, surrounded by a flowery Eden; in the background, a familiar-looking mountain, being struck by the lightning of God’s wrath. Ashton, his hands behind his back, inspected both the Frenchman and the painting at the same time. Suddenly, something struck him. Eve’s hands. Short fingered and plump, oddly familiar. Had she used her own as a model? The face, of course, was not hers. But had she used the rest of herself, too? The bosom for example, and what about that dimple at the knee? The blood began to prickle in his veins. Susanna, that shameless wretch…

“Fascinating,” said the French painter, and then, with a malicious smirk, he could not help adding: “But of course I have recently, in this very city, been shown one almost exactly like this, painted with dark varnish and blackened with candle smoke, being passed off as a work by our great Fouquet.” Smiling, he watched the muscles of his guide’s jaw clench. “It seems to me that this false Fouquet must have returned from the grave to paint the scene anew.
Hmm
. The use of glazes is excellent. The depiction of form—precise, but more literal than graceful. There is no true art here. I would say this man is Flemish. Flemish with an Italian master. I hope your archbishop did not pay too much for the work.”

“It was given to him,” snapped Ashton, turning to a great locked chest that stood upon heavy, carved legs. “The archbishop’s collection is here. He has several rare coins he would like you to identify and value. He also has a collection of portraits in miniature in the new style.”

Ashton watched while Perréal made oddly birdlike humming sounds, turning various medallions and coins over and over in his hands. “This one,” he said, “is the profile of the emperor Nero. The inscription is worn off yours, but we have several like it at Les Tournelles. These—Aha! They are Merovingian. The time of King Dagobert. Where were they found? Here? How very curious.” So busy was he inspecting the Frenchman that he never looked up when a familiar figure spoke in English from the open doorway.

“Why, Ashton, how good to run into you here. How goes it with the frog painter?” Brian Tuke, unable to resist, had come to spy out Ashton’s discomfiture. Ashton glared his beaming, slippery rival. “Ah, look,” Tuke observed, “he’s opened the first of the Dallets.” Together, they watched the supercilious Frenchman’s eyebrows rise in amazement. Differences temporarily put aside in the interests of national rivalry, the two Englishmen looked at each other and grinned.

“Who did this?” demanded the French artist.

“Just a simple provincial style,” said Tuke.

“Yes, the English style,” added Ashton. “Admit it is naively amusing.” Caught up in his baiting of the irritating Frenchman, he had forgotten how infuriated he was at this new evidence of Susanna’s trickery. A smoked-up antique, indeed. How much had she managed to trick Perréal out of? Was she incapable of shame? All over town, she must have left deceptions like this just waiting to be unveiled. Still, there was a certain appropriateness in setting the sly little paintrix on the French, just as you’d set a ferret on a weasel. The French deserved her.

“This style was developed in France. Our Fouquet…”

“The French style is confined to manuscript illustration,” observed Ashton. “I say, have you ever noticed, Master Tuke, how all those French manuscript portraits look alike?”

“Odd, I have remarked on it, Master Ashton. They all look like fishes,” answered Tuke.

“It is hardly original to separate the portrait from the manuscript page,” spluttered the Frenchman.

“The technique is new, too. Would you like to have a glass to inspect the shading? The strokes are quite invisible to the unaided eye.” Ashton beamed maliciously at the little Frenchman as Tuke produced a magnifying glass for him. What a pity I can’t introduce him to Mistress Dallet, Ashton thought. She’d make short work of him. Briefly, he imagined her attending Perréal’s funeral, all in black, dabbing at her eyes, having artfully arranged his death. So charming, so deadly. And yet his heart pounded when he thought of her. She’s trapped me, he thought. How did she trap me? Sir Septimus says she is like Messalina. Did Messalina paint portraits of her unclad body to entangle a man’s mind into thinking of nothing else? Her gestures, her comings and goings, her wily schemes had become engraved on his mind. Even away from her, he found himself imagining, What would she say about this? What would she do if this or that happened? And now these Eves. They were all over the City. Would he hunt them out, comparing each with the next, to see if his sudden suspicion was correct? Was it some kind of curse or enchantment that she had had cast that drew him, despite all that he knew of her depravity, to want only to be closer to her? He found himself mulling over random things he overheard her say. He craved to know the secret details of her life, even as he told himself thousands of times he wanted nothing to do with her. Women. Crouch was right. Remember the danger.

“The background,” added Tuke helpfully, noting the Frenchman’s rising emotions. “The blue is quite original. It is a secret process. Don’t you find it sets off the skin tones well?”

But what had upset the Frenchman was not the idea of the paintings, or even their technique, dazzling as it was. The secret of the serene sky blue he intended to discover at home in his alchemical laboratory. No, what had upset him most was the depiction of the faces. There was a trick to the lift of a brow, to the light in the pupil of the eye, that proclaimed the unknown master of
The Temptation of Eve
to be also the author of the exquisite little portraits he had just lifted from the drawer.

Perréal, artist, sculptor, and alchemist, was more than a mere designer of royal weddings and funerals. He was also a member of the Priory of Sion, that international web of alchemists, artists, builders, mystics, cavaliers, and romantics that had existed since the time of the Crusades: the Priory of Sion, severed from the Knights Templar at the Splitting of the Oak. The Templars had been destroyed, but the Priory remained, brooding over its great Secret and leaving conspiratorial messages in code across the face of Europe: stones like grave markers covered with secret carvings, secret signs and code words depicted in acrostics, poems, paintings, maps, and cryptic prophetic verse.

Now, as he stared at the picture, Perréal shuddered at the coded secrets revealed as clearly as if they had been printed in prose. He saw the sacred mountain, the home of the Secret, before the Redemption. He saw a mound, like a tomb, he saw patterns in the greenery, patterns he might have missed had he not recognized the mountain itself, bathed in unearthly light. It was all true. Maître Bellier was right. There was an outsider who had discovered what had been concealed for so long by the ancient secret society. And Wolsey knew him. Why had Wolsey asked his servant to lead him to this particular picture? Was it a secret sign? Did Wolsey wish to threaten, or was it a sign he wished to negotiate? This prince of the Church had obtained the Secret. Was he keeping it for his own power, or was the Priory betrayed? He must find out more, the Helmsman must be informed, and Wolsey and his agents must be dealt with.

“Does the man who painted these live in London?”

“No
man
painted them,” said Tuke, grinning at Ashton as they saw the Frenchman turn pale.

“The Devil…” whispered the artist. “What powers…?”

“He said,” announced Ashton, “that a man didn’t do them.” The Frenchman looked up, puzzled, at their cheerful faces.

“No man? If it was no man, then…”

“…it was a woman.” The Englishmen burst out laughing at the Frenchman’s confusion. Furious, the artist pulled himself up to his full height.

“You brought me here only to mock my art,” he said.

“Us? Oh, never,” said Ashton.

“How could you ever think us so ungracious?” said Tuke. “You? The greatest master in France? Our master is full of gratitude that you could identify his ancient treasures. See here, he has sent this purse to show his appreciation.”

“Purse? Is my honor to be purchased with money?”

“Oh, such a thing could not be imagined,” said Ashford. “Our master wanted you to see his collection so that you could offer advice on what he should do to make it more complete.”

“Yes, it requires the most subtle artistic judgment.”

“We wouldn’t want to think it might overburden you.” Bit by bit, they mollified the furious Frenchman with flattery. His raging subsided into spluttering, and eventually the spluttering gave way to rational speech.

“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

O
NCE
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.”