The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (32 page)

Then I saw him in my mind, trying to send Tom home. I should have listened. He was right. He had the foreknowledge that is given to the doomed. He had tried to save Tom. He had tried to tell me things, prophetic warnings. He knew. He had always known. The image of Master Ashton, like some sorrowful, disapproving night spirit, seemed to hover in the blackness beneath the ceiling. My heart felt raked and battered with grief.

The Seventh Portrait

Lucas Hornebolte. ca. 1520.
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
2 × 3½”. Gouache on vellum. Hinged gold case on chain.

The earliest-known portrait of Charles Brandon, first Duke of Suffolk, celebrated courtier and boon companion of Henry VIII. Thickset, dark bearded, and ruggedly handsome, Charles Brandon first rose from a comparatively obscure background to prominence through military prowess and a series of dubious, financially advantageous marriages. This portrait is set in a closed frame on a fine gold chain, doubtless as part of a woman’s toilette.

—Exhibition catalog, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen

N
ow
I
HAVE ALREADY TOLD YOU HOW
I
CAME TO PAINT THIS PORTRAIT WITH A VERY FIERY GLANCE AS THE
D
UKE OF
S
UFFOLK SAID HE WANTED, BUT
I
DID NOT SAY THAT LATER ON HE ORDERED A COPY OF IT MADE IN SECRET.
I marked the copy in a hidden place because I was sure it was for a lady and because of a curiosity inspired by wickedness I wanted to know it from the first one if I ever saw it again. That is why I have put this portrait here in my story because it was much later that I came across the portrait’s copy, all set in a gold case on a chain, and in very different circumstances than I had ever even dreamed of. As it has turned out, I have been beholden to the duke on several occasions, both for the custom he has given me and also for things he did for himself, in which my portrait was involved and which worked to my advantage, as you will see later on.

Sixteen

Y
OU
say she is beautiful? The picture did not lie?” The rain was rattling at the narrow, Gothic windows of the Hôtel de la Gruthuse, the king’s residence in Abbeville, some fifty miles from the harbor at Boulogne. There he had promised to meet his new queen in splendor. Hundreds of troops, high officials, influential churchmen, and the greatest noble families in the land had overrun the little town. Behind them came an army of cooks, servants, musicians, banner painters, and carpenters to create the pavilions, feasts, and balls for her reception. Now they swarmed in and out of the halls, kitchens, and cellars of the great house. In addition, a good two score courtiers waited on the king, even at this informal moment.

“Your Majesty, she is as beautiful as an angel,” said the Cardinal d’Amboise, leaning forward slightly toward the king, who sat in a great cushioned chair, his gouty foot propped up on a stool before him. “Monsieur de Vendôme was with me to greet her at the dock. He will bear me out.”

“A paradise,” said the Duc de Vendôme. “Words cannot do justice to her beauty.”

“Yes, yes, a miracle of beauty,” murmured the courtiers, most of whom hadn’t even seen her.

“And to think such a creature was produced by the English,” said the king. “Those…merchants. Did you know, Monsieur d’Amboise, that the English ambassador demanded to see the jewels with which I would endow my queen and then asked to have them all sent to England? No, no. I told him I intend to give her only one at a time, once we are wed, and to be paid for each one in many kisses.” The king’s eyes glittered in anticipation, and a wolfish smile crossed his ravaged face.

“Most right, Majesty. And what a joyful payment that will be.”

“I cannot wait. I must see her.”

“That cannot be, Majesty; until the official reception here even a royal groom must not see his bride.”

“Am I not king? I will arrange something…unofficial. Accidental. A hunting party. I will surprise her en route. Send a message to Monsieur d’Angoulême, who has gone to meet her at Ëtaples, that I and my hunting party will meet her, by purest coincidence, at the Anders Forest. Have him ride ahead and arrange it.” Within minutes, a fast courier left the stables with the word that the king would be wearing cloth of gold on crimson when he went hunting, so that Mary would be dressed in the identical colors as she traveled, for custom decreed that the King and Queen of France must always wear the same colors when appearing in public.

The last of the golden leaves still clung to the high, arching trees of the forest as the princess’s party made its way along the muddy, rutted road. Ahead of her rode more than a hundred men: nobles and ambassadors, uniformed squires, heralds, macers, trumpeters. Behind her the row of heavy, gilded carts carrying her huge train of ladies, maids, and immense wardrobe labored through the mud, each pulled by six great horses, harnessed one before the other. In the rear, following the carts, were the two hundred men of her military escort, minus the troops lost in the wreckage of the
Lübeck
. At the sound of the king’s hunting horns in the distance, the procession halted in a wide meadow, already brown and dappled with impending winter. At a distance, through the trees, they could see the bright uniforms of mounted French guardsmen. As the two hundred guards of the king’s hunting escort poured into the clearing, they parted, to allow the cluster of nobles and churchmen surrounding the king to advance toward the English party. Then English and French nobles alike drew aside to allow the “accidental” meeting. The princess, young and fresh, reined in her white palfrey, pretending surprise. She was wearing cloth of gold, and a crimson hat settled rakishly over one eye. Her cream-and-rose English complexion, her slender figure and glittering youth elicited mutters of admiration from the French nobles who rode beside the king.

“But her hair—it’s red,” whispered one of the French nobles. Red hair was a sign to the French of unbridled sexual appetite and haughtiness.

“Oh, not at all. It’s golden,” was the reply of a more tactful courtier.

“Perhaps a reddish gold,” added another. There was a snickering sound behind him.

“The king will have his work cut out for him.”

Above the clatter and creak of harness and the pawing of horses, voices in English could be heard in grudging admiration of the wealth and trappings of the French king. Shrewd eyes on both sides assessed the state of health of the elderly bridegroom.

“Look at him there, that old man, licking his lips and gulping his spittle,” the Italian ambassador whispered cattily to his companion. “If the French king lives to smell the flowers of spring, you may give yourself five hundred years.”

The king, mounted on a Spanish war horse trapped in checkered black and cloth of gold, rode forward to her, and she doffed her pert little hat to him. He smiled and paused. She motioned a footman to help her dismount, that she might pay him formal homage, but he waved his hand to stop her. Bright eyed and shrewd, the young bride looked at the dark, hungry eyes of Louis XII and realized that he was hers. The great king was won. She had only to hold him. Smiling, and remaining mounted, she blew him a kiss. The king pushed his great horse forward to her, threw his arms around her neck, and kissed her there in front of the mounted company. No one could hear what he said, but she smiled and nodded, and he, in his turn, spoke and smiled. Then he turned to go, giving a signal to his guards to stay with the princess. The “accident” was over. The king raised one gloved hand, and at the signal, Francis of Angoulême rode his big chestnut stallion to the side of the princess’s white palfrey. At the moment of ceremony, only rank and court precedence had influenced the king’s choice of a companion for his new queen. And so in a moment, with the heedlessness of a child playing with fire, the old king set the most practiced seducer in the court to accompany his young bride for the rest of the journey. Gathering his old nobles to him, he turned his horse back in the direction he had come. As the sound of horns proclaimed the departure of the king and his escort, Francis turned to Mary.

“I am afraid the trip will be long and dull,” she said, glancing up through her lashes. At last, a Frenchman who was not short. A Frenchman of rank, and of an age to appreciate her properly, even if his nose was too long and his eyes a bit narrow and foxy. Compliments are always better when they come from someone young and visibly charmed. Perhaps the court of the old king would not be as dull as she imagined.

“In the presence of such beauty, no journey could ever be dull,” answered Francis, but his faun’s smile and knowing eyes gave the routine gallantry a secret edge. How lovely, how infinitely desirable, he thought. Look at how she threw that kiss, look at how she speaks to me. English-women. Wild, mannerless, without morals. A practiced temptress. And red-haired. A prey to ungovernable lust. As soon as the wedding is over, she will be wanting a lover, he thought. I know the type. Francis thrilled to the danger of the chase, the quiet bribery of maids, the warning whistle of a guard at the window, the vanishing down secret passages, the stolen pleasure in another man’s bed. A triumph to conquer another man’s wife. An even greater triumph when she is a queen.

The Eighth Portrait

The Triumphal Entry of Mary Tudor into Abbeville. The Master of the Angel Triptych.
7
×
10”. Oil on wood. Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts.

This badly scarred, unfinished panel is chiefly of historical interest. It depicts the typical elaborate procession with which the rulers of the Renaissance entered the cities that lay along a route of travel. Here, Mary Tudor, the younger sister of Henry VIII of England, meets her future husband, King Louis XII of France, their marriage sealing a diplomatic alliance between England and France. The unfinished figures at the left edge of the painting show the characteristic warm, rosy underpainting identified with
The Master of the Angel Triptych,
which gives his finished figures much of their charm. X-ray examination of the scars across the face of the painting seems to confirm that the painting was somehow damaged in the Master’s workshop itself, and therefore was left incomplete.

—
G. Manning.
T
HE
P
AGEANTRY OF THE
R
ENAISSANCE

I
always
INTENDED TO FINISH THIS PANEL, BUT SINCE IT WAS IN OILS, ALL
I
COULD DO WAS SKETCH IT OUT AND THEN IT HAD TO WAIT UNTIL
I
HAD MY OWN STUDIO, AND THEN AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE QUEEN THERE WAS NOBODY WHO WANTED TO PAY FOR IT SO IT JUST SAT THERE AWHILE AND
I
KEPT PUTTING OFF FINISHING IT FOR THE SAKE OF OTHER COMMISSIONS AND GROCERIES WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO ANY ARTIST, NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS.
Then after the terrible thing that happened in my studio it was one of the pieces I could rescue so I kept it for a souvenir and show it to you here so you can see the grandeur of the Queen of France’s entourage even in an unfinished state. The other part I will tell you later, but I don’t have a picture of that.

Seventeen

I
tell you, it is we who go first, following the queen in the wedding procession.” I could hear the sound of stamping and clattering. If they were throwing things, I didn’t want to go in. That is the problem with serving people of great estate. You don’t get to choose. And if it were me, I’d choose not to get hit by some flying boot, and instead I’d take my runny nose and fever to bed. Just my luck to get thrust by an errand into the middle of a quarrel.

“And I say no flute players go first; it is the trumpeters. Have we not gone before her in the procession entering the city?” Trumpeters have big lungs. I sneezed in my sleeve again and put my hands over my ears. Then I took a deep breath and stepped into the musicians’ dorter, which was in ordinary times a wine cellar. Knowing musicians, the proprietors of the house had taken out the casks, however.

The princess and her large following had been given a house separated from the big, ugly old Hôtel de la Gruthuse by only a garden. But it was very crowded, for besides the guests of rank she had brought from England seventy-five lords and gentlemen, fifty household officials including her secretary, chamberlain, treasurer, almoner, and physician, and more than forty ladies and maids as companions as well as Lady Guildford, who had been her governess since she was small and was now her chief Lady of Honor. That is not to count all the running footmen, stable boys, servants, a jester, and me. So you can imagine everyone was always stepping on everyone, especially trying to prove how close they were to the queen and quarreling over who went first.

“No, no, no!” cried a slender priest. “The singing priests and boys follow first in the procession behind the queen and her pages, then the instruments, then the trumpets, who double back to stand at either side of the hall beside the dais. Oh! What are you doing here?”

“Tell her not to sneeze in here. She’ll poison the air.”

“Mother Guildford wants a flute player to accompany Mistress Boleyn on the lute, while the queen is being readied for the banquet.” Genteelly, I wiped my nose with my sleeve again.

“And a singer?” the clerk’s voice was plaintive.

“Mistress Boleyn and Mistress Grey sing very nicely already, thank you. And Lady Guildford will have no more men than needful in the queen’s chamber.” Then there was considerable quarreling and grumbling about what a dragon Mother Guildford was and finally they picked out one of their number. Hurriedly, he put on his livery coat, then followed me up the winding stairs and passages to the state chambers.

In the midst of all this hubbub, jockeying, and jealousy, I passed in and out of the chambers of great ladies with hardly any notice, carrying my paint case where I willed, and Lady Guildford favored me because I took her likeness once in England and made her look most distinguished instead of full of wrinkles. And when there were games and music on a rainy afternoon, I was there, too, for amusement, taking sketches of gowns and faces. For to calm my heart after losing poor Tom and Master Ashton, I had begun the drawings for a little panel of the queen’s triumphal entry into Abbeville, and all the ladies liked to comment on the progress of the work and ask that their complexions be made pale and their jewels large. There was something about painting all that splendor, and a world better than it is, that took some of the ache away. It was an elegant little wood panel I was working on, not bigger in size than three hands’ breadth, and our princess, now styled the Queen of France, sat in her litter at the center of it, as bright as the rising sun.

So except for the flute player and one very old footman, it was a quiet ladies’ time that afternoon, while the maids of honor combed out the queen’s hair and laced her into her big gown for the reception banquet and ball being given in her honor by the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême. Two ladies opened her coffer of jewels, and two more brushed her cloak and shoes. Even so, there were many who just waited to be of assistance, or sang good English songs in harmony to the sound of the lute and flute. The music echoed strangely in this ornate foreign chamber. In the corner, I was working on a sketch of Mistress Boleyn at the lute to be sent to her father. Quietly supervising it all, Mother Guildford glanced up every so often with her eagle’s eye from her embroidery tambour.

Suddenly there was a crash and the door was thrown open. Everyone turned and stared. We could all hear the sound of men speaking French and laughing beyond the open door. A pale-looking footman barely had time to announce the Duke of Angoulême before several very drunk men tried to push their way into the room. The tall one in the damask gown and crimson hose I recognized from the ceremonies. Duke Francis, swaggering with drink, his gown thrown back to show his slashed doublet and embroidered codpiece. Beside him was a dark-haired man I had seen before, and behind that man two more who looked familiar. Mother Guildford set down her tambour and hastened to the door, blocking it.

“Her Majesty receives no one at this hour. She is not yet dressed to receive a gentleman of your rank, monsieur,” the old lady announced firmly.

“Nonsense, she is my honored mother.” The duke swayed as he spoke. “I have come to pay homage to her. See, Bonnivet? I was right about the color of her hair. As red as can be. Either you are blind, or you have lied from gallantry.” The queen’s long hair was flowing over her shoulders, not yet confined beneath its headdress. I could see that her eyes were shocked, as if she saw something new and menacing in the man that Mother Guildford was keeping from her chamber.

“Step aside, woman, my lord of Angoulême wishes to greet his guest of honor, with the affection due a relative,” the man called Bonnivet said.

“The Queen of France sees no one today before the banquet,” announced Lady Guildford. The queen’s ladies took advantage of the delay to hurry her into an antechamber out of sight of the duke and his companions. I could see the duke’s eyes narrow. He was not used to being crossed, I could tell, especially by women. French are that way, you know. Touchy. Especially about things like that. They’re always pulling out their swords because someone stepped on their shadow or insulted the way their moustache grows or something. I could see him deciding not to make a scandal by pushing past an old lady who would probably scream and make a terrible stir, but I could also see him being very insulted that he didn’t get his own way, even if he
was
drunk.

“The old woman gives herself airs,” he growled as he turned away. “I’ll see to
her
.” The sound of malcontented grumbling followed them as they swaggered away.

“So, you see, Nan, it was really a terrible scandal. And I think that the duke did it just to see if he could catch a glimpse of her undressed.” I was huddled up in bed at last, wrapped up against the cold, and coughing as loudly as the last trump. Everyone was off at the banquet, and since it was in the annex of the king’s hôtel, we could hear the shouting and music from the hall and the scurrying of cooks and lackeys just by opening the shutters on our little attic window.

“Oh, if you’d heard what I heard from the boy who turns the spit—see what I’ve brought? They hardly even missed it, they had so much. Besides, they never even noticed me in the bustle. Everything’s going on out there. They’ve even lighted some big bonfire on the other side of town. Everyone’s celebrating.” She took a napkin off the dish and revealed several slices of ham, all spicy and hot, to go with the loaf of bread and flask of French wine she’d gotten.

“Oh, you are clever, Nan. How would I manage without you? That looks very good. I think I’ll live.”

“I think you will, too, God be thanked, but not the way you’ve been rushing about. You don’t want that cough to settle in your chest. I’ll make a poultice tonight. Now, about that boy, let me tell you.
He
says he got it from the cook, who speaks French even better than you do, who got it from a liveryman in the duke’s household. That man has a
terrible
appetite, just terrible. When he’s in Paris, he never attends to business, just roisters at houses of ill fame with his friends—that Bonnivet, and Fleurange, and all of those that he grew up with, all of them old hands at troublemaking. They ride through the streets looking for likely women, then follow them home and demand them from their husbands or fathers—or deceive them, or bribe them, or take them by force. They just don’t hear the word no. And women of the court—oh! You can’t even count his conquests, and him only twenty. His sister and his mother, they just look the other way. And his sister, that Duchess of Alençon. She gathers men and women together to debate things no proper person discusses. And do you know what’s worse? They say she’s writing a book.”

“A book? And her not a nun? Why, that’s a scandal, Nan.”

“The scandal’s worse than that. They say it will be a dirty book, Mistress Susanna, a book of racy stories that she’s been collecting about love affairs at court.”

“Oh, my. Cut me another piece of that ham. Then I do believe that what I thought is right. That man wants an affair with our princess. After she’s married, she’d better keep her door locked.”

“He won’t get past Mother Guildford, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t care if he were the king himself, he’d get nowhere with
me
, and he’ll get nowhere with
her
. He doesn’t understand Englishwomen. When we are looking after our own, we are made of iron.”

“I’m afraid I’m feeling made of slime just now, Nan. Pass me that cup. Even wine tastes odd with this horrible cold.”

“Well, you’re to be pardoned this time,” said Nan, and her face softened with the sad memory. “It’s hard here, and I loved that boy, too.”

“It’s not just him, you know that, Nan.” Nan stiffened with indignation.

“The man defamed you, Susanna. Stealing a kiss doesn’t make it right again. He never apologized, never at all. And after all you did for him! If I could wish a man back from the dead, I would wish it for him, though as far as I’m concerned I’m much happier never seeing him again. But he should come back to make good to you, so you can see him plain, and not keep mooning over him as if he were some martyr and dead saint. That’s what I would wish! For him to stand here, as rude as ever, so you could be rid of him for once and for all!”

“I’ve tried to put away my thoughts on him, Nan. I can’t help it, I keep thinking on him. I want to tell him he was wrong. I wasn’t making my way in the world like these bad French ladies. I do honest work. Well, sort of honest,” I added as an afterthought, thinking about all those Adam and Eves. Well, whatever it looked like, it wasn’t as bad as telling everyone’s secrets in a book of racy stories. But maybe I was wicked, for thinking over and over again about that kiss, instead of offering prayers and pious meditations to God about sin. Why had I suddenly begun to yearn for sin so much and me not even married, when being wedded to Master Dallet had made me yearn only for virtue? Ah, God, Robert Ashton was dead and rotten at the bottom of the ocean. Was it a judgment on me for my wickedness? My thoughts had strayed so far from those recommended for the virtuous widow in Chapter the Ninth of
The Good Wyfe’s Booke of Manners
, that I had grown ashamed to open it up. And my heart kept hurting, or maybe it was my chest, from coughing.

The next morning, preparations began at dawn for the wedding, and I managed to get a perch in a crowded window with a view of the garden to see the procession. There was a light wind, and it brought cinders onto the sill, where one of them caught the back of my hand. It was a tiny, blackened fragment of floating paper, with a letter, in even deeper black, still visible on it.

“What’s this?” I sniffled. “They’re burning books?” I felt all feverish, and the garden seemed to sway in the gray, early-morning light. A potboy squashed in beside me answered.

“Oh, it must be from the great fire last night. Half the town, they say, burned on the other side of the river. I heard the Italian ambassador complaining he was nearly killed.” Oh, I thought, now I’m going deaf, too.

“I didn’t know. I had a fever last night. I guess I didn’t hear the fire bell.”

“They didn’t ring it. It would have spoiled the ball last night. They say they might have stopped it sooner if they’d had more men to pull down the walls.” First the storm, then the fire, I thought. I’ve never heard of so many bad omens before a wedding. How can it turn out well?

“See there, the English knights. How many? One…two…I count twenty-six. Not bad. Ah, the queen looks much better dressed in the French fashion.” The Frenchwoman on the other side of me was making her own personal assessment of English glory. Behind the heralds and macers followed the musicians with all their different instruments and the singing priests. Now the princess had stepped from the wide stone doorway, accompanied by two great lords, Norfolk and Dorset, who stood on either side of her. She paused a moment. Laden with jewels, almost dwarfed by her huge dress of cloth of gold and ermine, she looked small and lost. The cold wind ruffled her gown and set the embroidered silk banners in the procession flying. The gray light shone dully on the golden gown and glanced feebly from the heavy burden of jewels, making them look almost black. Music, praises, and the shouts of admirers filled the garden. Then the heavy, bearded old lords in their ponderous, jewel-encrusted gowns assisted her down the steps. Behind her followed thirteen of her favorite ladies, and each of them was escorted by two gentlemen, as well. Behind them, the procession seemed to go on endlessly. The brown, autumnal garden, passageway to the great hall in the Hôtel de la Gruthuse, was all blooming with moving color. I stayed in the window until the last page had vanished into the wedding hall. I suppose somehow I thought it was my duty to try to impress the scene, the costumes, on my mind for some unknown future purpose, but I found them blurring strangely. All the singing, and praises, and glitter, seemed oddly darkened, as if some evil shadow had floated over them. Maybe it’s just the fever, I thought, as I made my way back to bed. The rain, which had broken briefly, began to pour down in sheets. In the distance, far beyond the gray towers of the Hôtel de la Gruthuse, I could hear the roll of thunder.