The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (52 page)

“No, no. Not dead yet, you fool,” said Crouch imperiously to the thing. “You wait until I, Septimus Crouch, have ordered it.” Again, the fierce stare and commanding power flowed from his eyes. The thing made a sort of belching, squealing noise and loosened itself a bit, and the top of Robert’s face turned from purple to crimson. The other black thing seemed to writhe in a sort of suppressed eagerness, making the same curious, impatient noise in response to the first creature’s irritation. Their noise made the birds in the cage nervous. They smoothed their feathers and stared out with their little eyes, tipping their heads to see better. “This other one, the woman, is reserved for you,” Crouch gestured to the thing in the shadows with a condescending wave. The glow of red showed at its nostrils. With all the spilled paint and turpentine in the room, I suddenly wondered that these things hadn’t set it on fire with the sparks from their breath. “I shall have it pull you apart joint by joint until you tell—or, no, I see your face. Perhaps Ashton should be pulled apart first, while you look on.”

Keep him talking, my mind said. I could feel something strange rolling off the hellish things, and my hair stood on end the way it does before a thunderstorm. Talking, yes, talking. Anything.

“B-but how, how did you get here even faster than we did? It’s impossible,” I said. Crouch smirked. There was a long, silent pause. Behind him, one of the birds hopped from the perch. Its feet made a scratching sound as it walked on the cage bottom.

“The large entrance, had either of you been intelligent enough to consider it, was obviously much shorter than the small one by which we came,” Crouch gloated, his malicious eyes on my face. He turned to Robert, still buried in the monster’s coils. “Yes, Ashton, more intelligent. Education, my years with antiquities, they mean something. I recognized our own way into the chamber as an ancient aqueduct. Roman, without a doubt. Did you notice the terra-cotta tiles? How little you see. But the great entrance beneath the eagle was fine and wide; I knew at once it was the path by which I should remove myself. I was not surprised to see it ended in Bellier’s house in the rue de la Harpe. An old servant stood in my way; he stands no more. How easy to elude the fools of the Priory. And once above the surface, I summoned my hell servants here, and had them carry me here before the Helmsman could find this place.” He paused again to inspect me, where I stood, paralyzed with terror, but my mind working like a windmill. He strode in front of the huge, wavering black thing, which seemed to tower to the ceiling like a column of smoke. “How dreadful you look, Mistress Dallet. Did you dig out with your fingernails? It certainly looks like it. With the application of superior intelligence and the service of these two abominations, here, I have not so much as disarranged a hair.” The dark thing behind Crouch made that strange squealing noise again, and the other one twitched and uncoiled partway, in order to squeal back. It was a horrible sound, worse than fingernails on slate. It made my whole body shudder. I could see Robert’s whole face now, still half strangled—looking, his eyes wide with horror as he watched the scene in front of him. Crouch turned, fixing his evil glare on the thing, and it was quiet.

“But why come here? Why destroy…everything?” My Nan, my life’s work, all, all. Though I knew I had to, I could barely speak. My voice came out all scratchy, and my body felt first hot, then cold.

“You’ve hidden it well,” said Crouch. “It was convenient of you to come back to tell me where it is.”

“What is
it
?”

“The book, the book, you abysmal, covetous, devious little nit. Did you think you could hide it from me forever? It is the last thing I need before I claim my throne—here, and in the infernal.” Crouch’s eyes seemed to swell as he spoke, and I could see whites all around the tops of them. He was totally insane.

“Th-the book?” I stammered stupidly.

“The book your treacherous husband gave you to hide.”

“I—I don’t have it…”

“I think you may remember soon.” Stepping carefully, so that both creatures were in his line of vision, he lifted a finger at the second fiery-breathed creature, then fixed it with his eye. “Here there, you, beast, grab that woman-o by the arms. And don’t go breaking her carelessly the way you did the other. I’m tired of your slovenliness.” He flicked his gaze at the thing that held Robert. “And you, I want you to begin dismembering that dismal wretch you’re holding, slowly, now, while she’s watching.” Robert gave a horrible cry as the thing holding him began to uncoil from him and change its shape.

“No!” I screamed, as the second shape, squealing and grumbling, began to move. My voice frightened the birds in the window behind Crouch. They began to flutter about the cage, crying shrilly. The frantic movement and sudden sound distracted Crouch, who turned to see what it was, leaving the moving creatures both behind his back. His fierce glare removed from them, they paused, huffing glowing red, and silently began to change their shapes. I could feel my eyes open wide in amazement. The empty thing was moving in the wrong direction—away from me toward Crouch’s exposed back. He heard the rustle as it passed over the crumpled papers on the floor and whirled back to face the creatures.

“You there,” said Crouch, as he saw the dark, flaming thing unwrap from Robert, letting him drop to the floor in a limp heap, “don’t you get anything right? Move! Grab that woman-o, I say. And that man. I want you to pluck off his arms, then hers.” His face was arrogant, his eyes bulging and lunatic. He pointed his hands at the thing near Robert, and his white beard quivered as he spoke. But the things were on either side of him. He could not look at one without taking his eyes off the other.

The things were stock-still, towering there in the center of the room, their flaming breath heaving, as if deciding what to do. They looked at him with their fierce little red eyes. My skin crawled with horror, the blood stopped in my veins, and I was utterly, utterly still. All I could hear in the room was breathing—the soft
huff, huff
of human breath, and the deep,
whoosh, whoosh
sound that the fiery-breathed creatures made.

Then the first one began to ooze, silently, slowly, toward him. When Crouch fixed it with his eye, the other moved behind him. He backed up. They moved sideways. They’re playing with him, the sudden thought came to me. Crouch flicked his gaze from one monstrous creature to the other. Glancing arrogantly up and down the first one, he looked disgusted, and then clapped his hands at the creatures. “Hey, hey, you damned beast-os, do what I say-o, quick, quick. Who is master here?”

Then I heard the most terrible, deep gurgling, creaking kind of sound come from way inside the black things. It seemed to be a word. “Belphagor,” they said.

After that it was very confusing, because I could see those two big repulsive things must move toward Crouch bit by bit with the flames shooting much farther out of their nostrils and also their ears, as if they were enjoying Crouch backing and frantically shouting orders at them. Then they became sort of shapeless, oozy blobs, and Crouch stopped screaming orders and just screamed the unearthly screams of someone who is being disemboweled alive.

But then the screaming stopped short and there was just a crunching, slurping sound as those two things huddled like smoky mounds over what was left of Septimus Crouch. Behind the things at the window, the birds sat on the perch, stretching their necks and peering with their curious little eyes at the movement beneath their cage. Robert was lying like a limp rag on the floor, groaning softly. I ran to him and tried to grab him up, but he shook his head, and we huddled still and silent against the wall, our eyes wide with horror, as the two shapeless blobs tore apart the remains of Septimus Crouch and bits of him started disappearing inside them, so I think they were eating him. The curious grumbling and squealing of their conversation had an eerie tone of pleasure and satisfaction to it, and then I was sure they were eating him because I could see them pass each other gory bits and bones the way you would offer a dinner partner a pheasant’s wing or some other nice part of a dish, to make the evening more agreeable. After not much of him was left but his clothes, they sort of mopped up the blood puddle he had left the way you would sop up gravy with bread, except they used his cloak, and ate that too.

Robert was shuddering all over and muttering almost inaudibly over and over again, “Dear God, God in heaven, God, God,” but I hadn’t a word left in me. We could hear a sort of contented humming sound coming out of the imps as they spat out a couple of the smaller bones. We made ourselves very small against the wall, as far as we could from the door, just so they might leave without noticing us, but they just pressed themselves through the far wall when they were done and flew away, leaving a bad smell behind them.

“Are your bones broken?” I whispered, still fearful they might hear us, even though they were gone.

“I don’t think so,” said Robert, lying still and feeling his limbs. “But, God, I hurt.” He pulled his shirt up, and I helped him undo his points so we could see what the thing had done. The dark stains of bruises were spreading on his belly, up his ribs, down his arms. “Close,” he said. “Close. I thought it would strangle me. But every time Crouch spoke, it loosened up. I don’t think it liked him. Except, perhaps, as dinner.”

“Robert—Nan, my Nan is dead.”

“We need to get out of here before the Helmsman comes.”

“No, Robert, Nan. She must have a Christian burial.”

“No, we must flee. Crouch is gone, and who would ever believe us? The Helmsman will accuse you of the murder, Susanna.”

“Of my own Nan? Never. Who would ever believe it?”

“It doesn’t matter what people believe. The Helmsman is the greatest lord in France, and what he says is what everyone will believe. Then he’ll have you, and all within the law. We’ll have to hide you and get you out of the country as soon as possible. If only…a diplomatic mission…only the king’s orders could supersede his…”

“I won’t leave Nan.”

“You have to.”

“She would never leave me. She died for me. Just look at her poor, cold hand there, just…” But as I looked closely for the first time at the horrifying hand, I saw something flash briefly in the flickering rushlight. A hair-thin gold band on the corpse’s finger. “Robert, is that a wedding ring I see there?”

“Oh…yes, you’re right. A ring, a very narrow ring. But Nan was a widow, wasn’t she?”

“Nan never wore a ring, Robert. She wasn’t married…no, that can’t be Nan’s hand. Robert, can you turn over that body and look at the face for me? I…I can’t bear it.” Robert groaned again as he stood, stepped around the ghastly dark puddle of blood, and turned over the corpse with his foot.

“Susanna, it’s your landlady. And look, there’s money in the blood beneath her. That’s how Crouch got in here. She took the money to let him in.” Warm relief rushed through me, and I started to cry. “Nan must still be out looking for you. No, no, don’t cry now. The worst is surely over. I’ll find Nan for you.” Robert drew me up and embraced me, patting my head, my face. “See here, I’ll take you to my place and we’ll clean up. Then I’ll find Nan. I imagine she went to the White Queen’s servants to inquire for you and then couldn’t come back in the dark. She’s safe, she’s well. It’s you who must be out of here before the Helmsman comes looking for you.”

“I can’t go without Nan.”

“I’ll hide you while I find her, Susanna. Before the Helmsman thinks to follow her to find you.” I sat down before the ashy hearth of my own fireplace and put my head in my hands. “Don’t you understand, Susanna? We have acquired the most powerful enemy in France, save for the king himself. The Connétable de Bourbon commands a great force; he makes his own law. He can do anything to destroy us.”

“The Due de Bourbon. How can I hope to get away from a man like that? How can we get away?”

“It’s not as bad as you think, Susanna. It will take him a while to discover we weren’t sealed up successfully, and then he’ll have to hunt for us. The problem, the problem…” He began to pace. “…how to hide two people as obvious as you and Nan while I make the arrangements to get us out of the country.
Hmm
. A diplomatic mission…the king’s orders supersede…it could be done…. I’d have to borrow money; maybe Suffolk will back us…while the king supports the treaty, no one will dare touch those in Suffolk’s train…still, Bourbon will surely try to have you arrested on false charges…how to throw them off the scent?”

“Everything I’ve worked for—spoiled. What did I do to deserve all this, Robert?” I looked at the mess on the floor where Septimus Crouch used to be. I was a failure, a stupid failure, and all I’d done with my life was nearly cost other people theirs. I started to poke through the rubble to see what could be rescued. Oh, God, that expensive lapis, all draining between the floorboards. Slashed canvas, ruined master drawings, tramped into the sticky mess. At least I found my master drawing for the new commission intact, and there was my little traveling box of painting and drawing things, all in good order in an overlooked corner.

“You? Nothing, Susanna. But they think you have the middle portion of that book they’ve been hiding.” It was almost dawn outside now, and Master Ashford looked all about the shadowy ruins of my studio. He picked up my books. “Your books, at least, aren’t ruined. See here?” He handed them to me. “And your birds. Look at them there. They were too frightened to chirp.” He took the cage from the hook and made a little chirruping sound at them. They looked at him with their tiny black eyes and smoothed out their wonderfully small feathers and began to hop about the perches as he brought the cage to me. I looked at them very carefully and counted them, just to make sure they were still all there. Still six. One of them made a peeping sound. How strange, they didn’t even seem to know they’d saved us. Robert Ashton was walking the length of the room, inspecting the rubble. He kicked at a stack of paper and sketches in a corner beneath the table. “What’s this?” he said.

“Just paper and some old parchment I’ve been reworking,” I said, and then suddenly a new thought came so fast that I gasped. “Robert, pick up that raggedy pile of loose vellum there—the sheets that are all cut up.”