The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (19 page)

“I thought you only cheated Sir Septimus.”

“Well, after all, a Frenchman’s a Frenchman, isn’t he?”

“What is it, exactly?” I asked, feigning innocence, which was not easy, seeing the wreckage of my nice glazes.

“Well,” he said in a learned, pompous voice that sounded exactly like Master Ailwin when he is showing off, “this is an allegory of the Holy Grail, painted by the dead French master Jean Fouquet. See? Here are Adam and Eve, representing Original Sin, and there is the redemption, waiting on the mountaintop, bathed in golden light.”

“But how do you know it’s about the Grail?”

“It’s the mountain, mistress. All students of the occult know that mountain, even without the fortress on top. Why, Master Ailwin has a woodcut of the very place. It’s Montségur, the heretic Cathar fortress. There has always been a tale that they had smuggled the Grail from the Holy Land and kept it hidden there. But once the Cathars had all been killed by the Inquisition, no one could find the hiding place. Whoever finds the Grail can rule all Christendom, they say. Or if it’s an unbeliever, he can destroy it. We do a great business in Grail secrets. This one will be splendid. See how the vines and the serpent appear to make letters?
P, S
. Those are occult symbols. So’s this thing here, and the way Adam’s turned around so you can’t see his front. It’s all a code. I tell you, this stuff is nearly as good as the Stone, or invisibility ointment.”

“Invisibility ointment? How can you sell that? The minute people aren’t invisible, they’ll come back and get you.”

“Oh, no. You have to purify yourself with just the right rituals, and say a very complicated formula perfectly, without hesitation. They always hesitate. So—no invisibility. Sometimes Master says there’s a curse on anyone who doesn’t say all those words perfectly. So then they’re sure to hesitate. One little stammer, and zip! Then they’re cursed and have to come buy an exorcism manual. That reminds me, we need some new ones printed up. You don’t know a good cheap printer, do you? I have to make all Master’s arrangements these days, and our old printer’s been arrested.”

“Why don’t you just have them copied?”

“Then they’d be more costly, and you know the master. He says it is unjust to keep all these secrets only for the rich.”

“But they’re false secrets, Tom. You just said so. Wouldn’t he think it better to cheat the rich than to cheat the poor?”

“Well, it’s those meetings of the society. They keep him all roused up. And these days, he can’t keep more than one idea in his mind. ‘All for the poor,’ he says, ‘we must end this damned injustice.’”

“The society? What society is that?”

“Oh, Mistress Susanna, I shouldn’t tell. But I know by your kind blue eyes that you won’t think them wicked. It’s the Society of the True Religionists. They meet to debate the Testament, to determine the date and manner of the Second Coming. But mostly, they argue about the nature of heaven. Does it have ale, as well as milk and honey, what sort of music is played, is dancing allowed, if you’ve been married more than once, do you get to live with all your wives, that sort of thing. You mustn’t tell on them. Even though it’s heresy, it’s a harmless sort, and keeps them occupied.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to meet my husband in the afterlife. I hope he’s properly sealed in hell.”

“Oh, sweet Mistress Dallet, he must have been wicked indeed to ever be cruel to
you
…. Oh, my, there’s trouble in front.” The sound of shouting and stamping came to us through the open door. “Mistress Dallet, I’ve finished with your packets. There’s the back door, so you needn’t cross through this quarrel. I need to help Master. Oh, why can’t God give him his sense back again?” He slipped the money I gave him into the cashbox, picked up a heavy iron bar, and rushed off to the front to assist Master Ailwin.

“Cheated! I’ve been cheated!” came the howl from the front. I crept closer and hid behind a stack of kegs. Who was cheated? I could see the sleeve of a legal gown gesturing wildly. A lawyer cheated? Good, it served him right. I peered out. Oh, it served him more than right. It was that horrible lawyer, Master Ludlow, who had come and taken away Mother’s bed. But his usually pale face was quite crimson now. “These verses of prophecy don’t tell me where it’s located?”

“No, Master Ludlow, for you have only the end of the book. These are mighty prophecies of the distant future. The fall of the Kings of France will destroy the Kings of the Earth, a great emperor will arise who conquers both Christian and heathen lands alike, then he falls into chaos—this must mean the end of the House of Valois is at hand, brought by the Finder of the Secret….”

“Oh, a curse upon all scribes and clerks! Why couldn’t they have put the Secret at the end of the book? Who cares about the fall of kings? Of course kings will fall to the holder of the Secret! Now I understand it all! It’s the Secret that damned Crouch is after. And it’s in the middle of the book! Why should he rule the world when it can be me? He has the center, the Devil take him! He got to the dead man’s house first!”

“Come, come, now, Master Ludlow, there are other ways to the Secret. We have just purchased from a foreign dealer in curiosities a rare allegorical painting by the famous dead French master Fouquet….”

I had heard quite enough. I tiptoed out by the back way and into the alley. I had waited far too long, and twilight, and with it danger, was sinking over the city streets. Setting my face straight ahead, I hurried into the street toward home. Behind me I heard footsteps. They sounded as if they were following me from the alley. Terrified, I glanced behind me.

“Mistress, mistress, wait.” Puffing, the apprentice caught up with me. He was still holding his heavy iron bar, and his knife was at his belt. “I’ll escort you home,” he said. “You’ve been delayed too long. The streets are full of…” Suddenly, he pulled at my sleeve to stop me. The lawyer was hurrying down the street, his face furious. In the cool violet light, a figure stepped from beneath the overhang of a tall house. We could not make out the features, but that was unnecessary. The large, menacing shape was eerily familiar.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Ludlow. You know I can’t forgive a man who cheats on an agreement. Do you have it with you?” I knew the voice. Who was it? I searched my mind.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“The manuscript. You have brought it to Ailwin.” Now I recognized who was speaking. It was Septimus Crouch there in the twilight. “What else would bring you here?” he said. “It was you who sent the letter to the captain. You arrived at the painter’s house first and seized his possessions….” With a rising horror, I realized what I was hearing. It could only be Captain Pickering that he meant. It could only be my house that held the Secret. I thought I could hear something fluttering in the alley, like an immense trapped moth, and felt a coldness, as if some evil being were present. No, it couldn’t be. It must be my heart beating.

“I don’t know what you mean. I was acting for a client, that’s all….” The lawyer seemed to flick his head from side to side, as if hunting for the sound.

“You have it, Ludlow. You have it here. Both parts. The mirror showed me that you had it. It showed you conspiring against me for my part. Do you understand what a fool you are? You can no longer deceive me; no one can, while I own the mirror. And now you will give me the parts you have stolen from me.” In the violet, summer-scented air above, I could hear a suppressed, high-pitched squeak of excitement, like the cry of a bat. Some evil, gloating thing seemed perched above us on the rain spout.

“I haven’t got them. I swear it. It’s the center you want. I haven’t got it. My part’s useless, useless, I swear….”

“Feel this, Ludlow? It’s eight inches of Spanish steel pricking your liver. If you do not want to be skewered with it, come into this alley, where the passers-by will not disturb our little conversation.” I could feel Tom’s arm pressing me against the wall of the shop, into the shadow, as the lawyer entered the fast-darkening alley, the menacing figure of Septimus Crouch close with him, embracing his neck as if in friendship.

“I haven’t the center, Sir Septimus. I—I couldn’t get it. Here—take my portion—gratis, free. In—in token of our friendship.” The lawyer reached beneath his robe and held out some sort of bundle to the antiquarian.

“In token of your oath to me, I now own your—soul—” There was a ghastly cry, and the lawyer fell to the ground. Smiling, the antiquarian leaned over the groaning body and felt through his clothes with his gloved hands. Then the strange, heavy eyebrows drew together, and the pallid, lined face grew distorted. “Gone! Not here! You lying whoreson, where did you hide it? At home?” He shook the dying man, and a sort of gurgling sound came from him; black blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. “I swear, I’ll find it, if I have to go to the ends of the earth.” Swiftly, he cut the lawyer’s purse from his belt, and then stepped quietly from the alley and vanished from view. Deep purple rimmed the edge of the sky now, and the first stars had come out. How odd, how terrible, to be bleeding to death on a sweet summer’s night. Was this how the curse had ended? Had it been my fault, somehow? What would happen to me now?

“Master Ludlow, Master Ludlow.” Tom was leaning over the body. “Lie quiet, now, and we’ll carry you into the shop.”

“I am killed, boy. It’s my corpse you’ll carry. Seven years…it has been…since I pledged my soul. And now…the contract is up. Beware the demon master, boy…don’t be lured…by false promises of wealth…ah, God, I am damned….” The gurgling breath had faded away to nothing. The tall, close-set houses had blocked the last of the twilight from the alley, and we were thrown into absolute darkness. But there, in the stillness of fear, I thought I heard the soft “huff, puff” of a heavy man’s breathing.

“Assassinated by street ruffians, you say, Eustache?” Maître Bellier smiled as he put down the cup his servant had offered, then took up the lark’s wing delicately between thumb and forefinger. “Ah, this is excellent,” he said, crunching it down, bones and all.

“The sauce, Master, or the assassination?”

“Both, of course. Our hostess has developed a sure touch, since you have instructed her. It is the garlic, I think. Or possibly the rosemary. Delicate, but fearless. And the Sieur Crouch has now collected the entire manuscript for us, proving in so doing that it was not sent to Rome.” Before him on the table was propped a curious painting. It depicted a most lascivious Eve, being spied upon by the serpent as she bathed. It was brown with age.

“Master, I suspect he does not have it, or at least all of it, if it was in fact divided,” said Eustache, pouring more wine into the silver goblet. “I have been watching his house. Almost immediately after the, ah, accident, he went to Maître Ludlow’s rooms, under the pretext that he must recover some books he had lent to him. He searched frantically, then left, his face desperate, and hurried off somewhere. That leaves the third person.”

“The widow? Then it is already in the hands of Wolsey, you may be assured of it.”

“It may not be.”

“But her sudden fortune…”

“Master, I have investigated. The widow has been engaged as a paintrix. She makes portraits.”

“A likely story. Have you seen one?”

“I have not, but I have been told they are very good. I suspect she has entered into a secret partnership with a foreigner who paints for her.”

“Or an arrangement has been made to give her the appearance of a legitimate trade while she serves his secret vice…The bishop is a canny man. Or one of his servants is. No, it must be he, not some lesser priest. Who else would go to such trouble to cover his tracks?” Bellier finished the wine in the goblet, then wiped the tips of his fingers on the napkin his servant handed him. “Eustache, what you have brought me here is a puzzle. What do you see in this picture?”

“They told me it was very old. I saw immediately it must be concealed. An allegory of the Secret, to anyone who can read it, exposed to the public! See, here? The arrangement of the apples in groups of three? The stone, and the shape of the cloud? Here are the initials
P, S,
Priory of Sion, worked into the picture, and here is the portrait of our sacred mountain, a depiction of the Original Sin at the beginning of time, which God answered with our Secret and the destiny of the world.”

“No, look closer at the color. It is new, smoked up by those charlatans in Guthrun’s Lane.” With a hand, he quelled Eustache’s expression of indignation. “It was doubtless intended for another customer, when you demanded they sell it to you. Eustache, your following of Sieur Crouch has led you to more than you even know.” He smiled ironically, then continued. “I have seen a copy of this very painting kept behind a curtain in Maître Montrose’s rooms. He is ignorant of its meaning. Someone is taunting us, I believe. Someone who knows the Secret.” He reached out with his dinner knife, and scraped lightly across a corner of the painting, then rubbed it with his thumb. The fresh color, still slightly smoke stained, emerged. “Yes. New, you see? Very new. You can even smell the pigment still.” Eustache picked up the picture and ran it under his nose.