The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (29 page)

“Eve…” he said. “Eve tempting Adam, Eve bathing, Eve combing her hair.”

“You see? He’s insane. You’ve made him that way.” Susanna was looking at Ashton suspiciously.

“You have a dimple at the base of your spine,” said Ashton. “They’re all you, from the neck down.” Susanna turned bright red from the roots of her hair all the way down to the top of the décolletage that Ashton was inspecting.

“You—you lecher!” she exclaimed. “You’re drunk! You called me here to insult me! Just look at that filthy stuff! You should be ashamed!” With a single indignant gesture, she scooped up the pewter wine goblet and poured its contents melodramatically on the hearth. The blackish crimson splattered on her hem, on Nan’s, and on the old bitch dog, who opened her eyes. Drops hissed in the fire, and a spreading puddle formed at her feet.

“Women!” came a cry from across the room. “They never let a man have any fun.”

The pupils of Ashton’s eyes were unnaturally huge, even for the ill-lit, smoky room. Susanna could hear his heart pounding. The bitch hound roused her wrinkled old body from the hearth and began to lap at the puddle.

“Get up,” she said, pulling at his arms. “Will, go get a bucket of water. We’re going to douse him. Then we’ll make him eat. You want a spell lifted? Well, this is how it’s done.” He groaned, then fell back again. His eyes began to wander.

“There’re two of you again. No, three. Will you paint three Eves? I thought there was only one….”

“Susanna,” Nan’s voice was urgent. “Look at the dog.” The dog had fallen on the hearth in convulsions.

“That’s not wine—it’s poison,” said Susanna. Shocked, the three of them watched the dog shudder and stiffen in the ashes, oblivious to the sparks that lit on her yellow coat.

“You bastards, you’ve poisoned my master!” Will cried. “Who did this? I swear, I’ll have the law on you!”

“You must get a purge immediately,” cried Nan. But Will had already run out the door in search of an apothecary.

“The man in black,” whispered Ashton, his pupils huge. “I’m seeing him. He’s small, with a white, wrinkled face, and little black eyes like raisins. Now I’m seeing a devil, all green and naked, sitting up there on the rafters in the smoke. My dreams are floating in the room like colored clouds.” Susanna shook him frantically. “Don’t close your eyes, Master Ashton. Open them, open, I say! You’re not dreaming. The man in black’s real. You’ve been poisoned by him, I swear.”

“Poison,” he said, his voice weak. “I thought it was…an evil spell.”

“Cast by my mistress.
Hmph
. Men! When have they ever believed any but the worst about a woman?” Nan said with a sniff, surveying the scene.

“Belladonna,” said the physician, when the purging was done and he had inspected the contents of the bowl to his satisfaction. His severe, dark gown rustled as he stepped into the great fireplace and touched the dead dog with his toe. It lay there as stiff as a poker, covered with ashes, before the fire irons. “Enough for ten dogs in that cup, I’d imagine. It sets up a thirst. In a place like this, everyone would assume he was drinking himself to death, the way the others all are. I imagine someone decided the lower doses were not killing him fast enough, so they made this last cup much stronger. The eyes tell the story. The pupils. And the hallucinations. Who is this man, anyway?” Master Ashton, feverish and disheveled, lay on the bench, his eyes huge and staring, a fine tremor shaking his arms and legs.

“A secretary of Archbishop Wolsey’s privy cabinet,” answered Susanna, her face twisted with worry.

“
Hmph
. No surprise there. Probably carrying messages. There’s always intrigue where the great ones gather. He’ll live. I want him carried from this house. You’re his man? Are his things upstairs? Go fetch them. You two—yes, you, you stout oafs with the earrings. I’ll want you to carry him. Of all the dens in this town, this is the worst. Landlord, I see you skulking there. If there is any talk of a bill, I’ll report you. You deserve to have this place burned down around your ears.”

As the two sailors slung him up between them, the physician turned to Susanna. “Just as well there’s someone with sense around here. Whatever possessed you to pour away the cup? Never mind. I’ll have him up and about in a few days. Once the poison’s gone, it’s gone. Wolsey, did you say? I hope his gratitude takes the form of something metallic. Clerical blessings are skimpy sustenance.”

But Susanna was trembling all over. The next morning, news came that the
Great Elizabeth
had been lost on her way to rendezvous with the wedding fleet at Dover. The king would not sail on the
Great Harry
after all but return home, and the princess set out on her wedding journey without his escort. Evil omens, they increase, thought Susanna. We should have bought the candle, even if it was too expensive. She could not purge her heart of the feeling that the wedding fleet was doomed.

“What think you of the new Flemish style of trunk hose, Master Arnold?” Crouch was standing on a low wooden dais in the center of a small, paneled room in the most fashionable tailor’s establishment in all of London. Fog swirled against the narrow, diamond-paned windows, but the chill had been taken off the room by a handsome brazier that stood smoking in one corner. At Crouch’s feet knelt the master tailor himself, his mouth full of pins, setting the hem of a nearly finished brocade gown at a dignified knee length.

“Ump,”
said the tailor, then, transferring the pins from his mouth to the pincushion, answered at greater length. “My lord, the largeness of the padding is to set more in fashion the spindly shanks of the Flemish gentlemen. Good Englishmen’s legs, being always more handsome, are better set off with moderate padding at a shorter length, and more elegant slashing. His Majesty has lately ordered a most regal pair of trunk hose in cream-colored silk, with slashings in crimson, embroidered around in gold. They are none so wide and long as the Flemish, or, God forbid, the Germans which are most uncouthly huge, for His Majesty shows the handsomest leg of all. I would say, do as His Majesty does, for his is the finest judgment. Here, my lord, you will see that the murrey and silver sets you off marvelously well.” An apprentice removed the pincushion and handed his master a burnished silver mirror to hold before Sir Septimus for his approval.

Handsome still, he thought. Septimus, you bravo, you are a handsome figure of a man. Fuller than in youth, but fullness lends gravity. The silver that streaked his square-cut, dark beard harmonized elegantly with the silver embroidery at his collar. The great, curling streaks of white rose in the dark hair that stood up from the corners of his brow pleased him, with their hint of the diabolical. You are a splendid-looking fellow, he said to himself. But at the very moment of the thought, the sound of a sarcastic laugh seemed to split the mirror. Crouch started back with shock, but the tailor never moved. Had he heard the raucous, smoky laugh? He couldn’t have.

“Crouch, you are one vain old bastard,” came a malicious voice from the mirror, and Crouch, to his horror, saw his own reflection gradually fade and a new set of features begin to take its place.

“No, no don’t move it,” he said to the impatient tailor. “I’m still looking.” Quelling his rising panic, Crouch sent out a silent thought.
Who are you?

You know me
. A ghastly green face, with a huge nose full of bristly hairs, tiny red eyes, and a mouth full of pointed teeth began to form up in the mirror. Watching Crouch’s face gradually change from horror to covetousness, the face in the mirror laughed again.
You seek me here, you seek me there, you’ve been hunting everywhere
.

My lost demon, thought Crouch. But how do I imprison him in the mirror here, in the middle of a fashionable shop, without my grimoires, my black candles? He knows it. He taunts me.

I mock you for a mortal fool. Do you hear me laughing? I have just collected the soul of your goldsmith. One by one your servants vanish.

You want to be mine, too.
Crouch turned a soothing, caressing thought on the demon.
You wouldn’t be here to taunt me if you didn’t crave it
.

And now you try to seduce me like a women, eh, Crouch? Ha! You have to offer me something better than that.

I swear, I’ll catch you.

As you’ll catch the Helmsman?
At this, Crouch’s wide, sagging mouth compressed into a thin line of fury.
I saw your trick, Crouch. You told Wolsey the conspirators of the Priory menaced his precious treaty, and he sent his man Ashton to find the Helmsman
.

Ashton will return to me first, and I will know all.

No he won’t. Say good-bye to your scheme. Ashton is no longer yours.
Sir Septimus’s heavy, hairy eyebrows lifted. When had a man ever escaped him, once his claws were deep into his soul? Rageful pride seized him. Impossible, he thought.

You’re losing your touch, Crouch. Ashton belongs to that busybody round-faced widow now.

“Never!” shouted Sir Septimus into the mirror.

“My lord, is it the set of the collar that displeases you?”

“Oh—oh, that. Yes, it’s too wide. Entirely too wide. Perhaps it needs to stand up more. Stiffening. That’s what it wants.” Crouch sounded rattled. The mirror once again reflected only his own face. But in his mind, he could still hear the infernal spirit’s rusty laugh. Rising fury stained his face. No demon will mock
me
, he thought. I will destroy Ashton.

“Is next week soon enough?” With concern, the tailor saw Crouch’s face redden and the veins stand out, blue and throbbing, on his neck.

“Oh, yes, by all means. Next week. Sooner, if possible.” The terrified tailor ushered Sir Septimus out of his cutting room with a thousand bows, collapsing onto a bench once the door was safely shut behind him.

At last the weather broke, and the fresh breeze blew apart the gray clouds in the sky. I made myself cheerful by wishing it and delivered to Suffolk the nine fine drawings in ink and wash that he had ordered for his master and companion, the king. Thanks to the purse he gave me, I was able to do my duty for Tom, who had made himself so useful to me with carrying and minding my things. I paid a hefty bribe to the mate on the
Jesus of Lübeck
to smuggle him over among the horse boys and counted myself very clever that he should escape the great dangers we had seen so handily. Besides, I really could use a boy to help me, and I’d a thousand times it would rather be Tom than some sly foreign creature who would try to steal my secrets.

By the time the news came that we were to sail with the tide at four in the morning, I had arranged for everything to my satisfaction except for Master Ashton, about whom I had heard nothing even though I had sent two messages by Tom to him but had gotten no answer. Tom said he didn’t want to answer, which struck me as very ungrateful of Master Ashton, considering that I had in a way saved his life, even though I hadn’t told Tom the story of it.

So it was that we went down to the docks by starlight, in the hour after midnight, in the company of the attendants of the maids of honor. The great fleet had been loading all night, by the light of torches. For plate could sit in the hold until the weather broke, but living creatures could not. Squealing palfreys were lowered into the hold in slings, while servants, attendants, and lesser fry staggered laden up the gangplanks. Flame glittered and danced in the black water as little boats ferried back and forth to the fourteen great ships, bringing late soldiers and sailors clad in green and white, the King’s colors, from the shore out to the ships that were standing in the harbor. Huddled on our baggage among the clatter and shouting, we were waiting our turn to be loaded from the dock, when I saw Ashton pushing his way past the crowds of navvies and torch bearers to meet us. He was dressed in his dark traveling clothes and plain, flat hat, so different from the brightly dressed household officers who were traveling on the princess’s ship. Even in the ruddy glow of the torches, he seemed wan and pale. Silently, he escorted me and Nan to the gangplank. Laden footmen, household officers with last-minute instructions, and musicians who carried their shrouded instruments on their backs were struggling past us up onto the immense ship. I saw the princess’s chaplain and priests on the deck above. The flickering torchlight caught the gilding and carving on her forecastle as it loomed high above us.
Henri, Grace à Dieu
. Above it, the towering sails and their web of rope faded into the endless dark. The greatest of the great king’s fleet. Ashton’s face was somber and shadowed in the dark beyond the torches.