In the Garden of Iden (11 page)

“Verdad?” said Joseph pleasantly. “And what then occurred?”

“Why, they fought, sir. At first the good esquire offered Jack Cade no violence, and would have shown charity to a poor starving fellow, but that the man boasted of his crimes, crimes too hideous to relate here. Wherefore my kinsman took his pruning bill like
this
, and the said Cade drew his sword like
this
—Nicholas, what say you, would it not be better told if we had two mannequins here, in the very posturing of battle, one to figure forth Iden and the other Cade? The better to make it all plain?”

“I will inquire the cost of Master Sampson,” said Nicholas gravely.

“Or belike statuary. More expense, but a lasting monument. Well, sir, the fight being over and my kinsman having valiantly slain the accursed Cade, he smote off the head and threw the ignoble body on a dungheap, and bore that same head to blessed Henry where he lay at London. And there, for his great deed of loyalty to his king, Iden was that same day made a knight and given a thousand marks to boot. Such was the king’s gratitude! And though the fortunes of the house of Iden have not run constant since that time, mine own success in the wool trade—no valiant work but honest, I assure you—hath furnished me with the means to make suitable commemoration of the Iden valor.”

“I am overwhelmed with astonishment,” said Joseph. “And this, then, is the very dungheap where Cade’s body lies buried?”

“Why, as to that—” Sir Walter grew a little red and looked in appeal to Nicholas, “as to that, family fortunes being what they were—”

“The history Sir Walter hath related here is very old, some hundred years or more,” explained Nicholas, smooth as music. “In the natural course of time, the original garden vanished, as all things will under Time’s crushing heel. Nor could the descendants of Sir Alexander, less favored by fortune than their sire, hold title to the ancient family seat. But when Sir Walter came into this county, having a mind to restore the family greatness, he was assured by sundry persons of good character that this was that same garden, or the place where it had been. All that you see is restored. This dungheap, therefore, hath been placed here solely for your edification.” He made a slight bow.

“As well as many another marvel unknown in Sir Alexander’s day,” piped up Sir Walter. “Whereas he grew but salad herbs and such things as befit a poor esquire, I with my fortune have made such a collection of wonders, both animal and vegetable, as ye may well exclaim over! Of course, nothing looks its best just now,” he added parenthetically. “The rain, you know.”

“What would you have them see next, sir?” inquired Nicholas.

“Oh, my roses. The nonpareils of the world, my roses.”

Nicholas led us deeper into the garden, and we saw a whole arbor where there actually did grow just about every variety of rose that existed at that time, with a couple of variegated petal mutations that were probably unique. I made a mental note to get genetic material from them.

But it was as we were going to see something Sir Walter grew in a hothouse called The Great Engiber Pea Out of Africke that my gaze was distracted from contemplation of Master Harpole’s long back. My head snapped around as I turned to stare, and I nearly collided with Nefer. Ilex tormentosum! I transmitted frantically to Joseph.
My God, he’s got a whole hedge of
Ilex tormentosum
over here!

Is that good?
Joseph queried. I responded with excited profanity.

What’s going on?
Nefer wanted to know.

“This hedge here, it is a form of holly, is it not?” Joseph inquired casually of Sir Walter.

“This? Indeed, sir. Not our English holly, but one I have heard tell was brought with Julius Caesar from Rome for some properties it hath, though what they may be I confess I know not. It is not so common as once it was, I think. In faith, I have not seen it but here this many a year now.”

Oh, what a score. Pharmacologists of the twenty-second century had three miserable endangered specimens of this plant, source of a specific for liver cancer, and here was a whole hedge. If Sir Walter had this kind of botanical loot, what else might he be growing? I looked more closely and began to spot them everywhere:
Cynoglossum nigra, Oxalis quinquefolia, Calendula albans, Carophyllata montena, Genista purpurea ascendens
… Meanwhile Nicholas was solemnly holding forth on Sir Walter’s prized Portingale orange and Cathay coriander and even a sad-looking palmetto plant. I had months of work, fabulous work to do here!

But when the sky suddenly opened and sent black buckets of rain down on us, we had to turn and run for the house. Only Nicholas seemed to know his way through the maze, which would have been difficult to traverse quickly even without the rain, the darkness, the flight between our legs of a despairing peacock, and the disappointed wails of Sir Walter.

“So much of my collection yet unseen!” he lamented. “None of my zoological wonders touched on at all. But ’tis no matter. There’ll be clement weather yet. You must see my unicorn of Hind.”

I wondered what that was, but not much. My head was spinning. Who’d have thought England was such a delightful country?

We made it to the house, and the drafty wooden floors boomed under our shoes, but there was a roaring fire laid out in what passed for the great hall. This was indeed a fairly modest little manor, but the Iden arms were blazoned on every surface.

Everyone crowded to the warmth of the fire, gasping after the run. I sidled up to Nicholas Harpole. The heat of the room had brought high color into his face. I must ask you to believe that I had no idea what had befallen me, there in that garden. My God, that the heart can be so stupid.

I said to him, in my very best Latin: “What manner of thing is this unicorn, youth?”

He straightened up from the fire and raised an eyebrow at me. Then he replied, in better Latin: “It is no more than a beast, as other beasts are. And how appropriate it is you speak the tongue of Rome.”

“Master Harpole,” said Sir Walter sharply. “Go thou and see the baggage has been placed in the chamber as I gave orders for.”

“I go, sir.” He bowed again. “Lady.” He inclined perfunctorily to me, then strode from the room. I watched him go. I couldn’t fathom it. He smelled good.

M
ASTER HARPOLE DID
not dine with us, which was disappointing, but since it was our first meal prepared by a non-Company cook without sanitary preparation training, it was just as well: I needed all my attention for the food. The bread was safe to eat, and the chicken with a sauce of oranges and lemons; but there was a venison pasty that was practically crawling, the meat was so far gone, and a custard dish ridden with bacteria of an extremely undesirable kind. I watched disbelieving as Sir Walter tucked it in happily. His system must have been used to such things.

“My friend, what a bountiful repast!” Joseph pushed his plate away, pushed his chair back from the table, loosened his doublet, and otherwise obscured the fact that he’d eaten nothing more than one chicken leg and a slice of bread. “I am stuffed like a sausage! We have not such fare in Spain.”

“It is our custom to dine heartily in England,” said Sir Walter smugly. Then he looked uncomfortable. “Though I am sure they do have most excellent feasting in Spain too. And the, um, the vintners of Spain do make a most wondrous Sack, I have heard.”

“Ah, yes, the sweet wines of Spain. How I wish I had brought some with me.” Joseph looked around to note the absence of servants from the room. He leaned closer to Sir Walter. “And now, old friend, I will be plain with you. Have no fears for your house or your people: I have come into this land, as was told you, only to take simples from your garden and for no other purpose. We will work quietly here and give no offense to any man. Ye may all worship as ye list, or think or speak as ye list; it is all one to me. Only have a care that you be discreet when speaking to other men of who dwelleth here, and we shall all be well pleased alike, you, I, and my masters. Understand my meaning, friend.”

Sir Walter leaned forward until his beard was in the custard.

“Oh, sir, mine are loyal folk—loyal to
me
—and no great talkers but one or two, who love Spain well. For the rest, why, they are young folk and cannot remember Queen Katherine that was, rest her soul, nor the wrongs done her. They fear Spain, aye; but it is a fear that will pass upon greater acquaintance, God willing.”

“Your secretary loves us not, I think,” Joseph looked sideways at me.

“A young man, a young man! In truth, he is something stubborn in his … um … Gospel reading, but he will do as I bid him, I assure you.”

“That is all my masters desire. Come, we shall all be friends. My daughter shall have leave of days to walk your garden and gather what I require. I by night shall distill such liquors as will purge cold heavy melancholy and dry up all unwholesome humors that make a man old.”

“The Greek physick,” whispered the old knight.

“Even as my masters promised.” Joseph held Sir Walter’s gaze with his own.

A silence fell. Master Ffrawney came in, with many a soulful glance at Joseph, and oversaw the removal of the dishes. I scanned Sir Walter, wondering what Joseph was going to do with him. Hypertension, arteriosclerosis, gout, caries, cholelithiasis. Plenty to keep a physician busy.

“I shall require some part of each day cloistered with you privily.” Joseph reached for a pear and examined it. Taking out his dagger, he began to peel the fruit in a long spiral. “Perhaps your secretary will assist my daughter in her labors.”

I turned my head to stare at him.

“Doubtless they will find many botanical subjects to discuss.” He smiled at me and popped a slice of pear into his mouth.

Pleading exhaustion from the journey, we retired early and were shown to our two rooms on the second floor, nice paneled rooms with a connecting door. Our baggage had been left in the middle of the floor and appeared undisturbed; no danger if it had been, because everything issued to a field agent is disguised to look like something else. Even Joseph’s book of holo codes for
Great Cinema of the Twentieth Century
was bound in calfskin with a printer’s date of 1547.

“Some bed, huh?” Nefer sank down on the big tapestried fourposter. “I get the window side, Mendoza. Oh, do we have to do that now?” she protested as she saw Joseph pulling out his tool case and setting up the credenzas.

“Yes, we do. Look around for a cabinet or something we can integrate this with. I’d like everything to be installed and invisible before the servants feel confident enough to venture back in here. Especially our friend the very tall Protestant. Speaking of whom …” He turned to give me a meaningful look.

“What?” I demanded.

“Oh, nothing. I just thought it might be a nice idea if you took it upon yourself to keep him busy. Change his outlook on evil Spaniards. Show him we’re really a bunch of nice guys. And dolls. Get it?”

I didn’t know what to say. I stared at the credenza rapidly taking shape in his hands. The drift of our conversation finally sank in for Nefer, who had been hanging upside down trying to read a motto stitched in the canopy.

“Hey!” she cried, sitting up abruptly. “Joseph, really!”

“Really what? He’s a hazard to the mission. He obviously disapproves of our being here already. You want the guy walking in on me when I’ve got his employer opened up like an oyster, installing funny-looking little glowing things? No, no. I want Mister Reformation kept distracted, preferably out in the garden with a little Spanish popsy. And Mendoza did seem rather struck by his personal qualities, if you’ll pardon my saying so, kid.” He turned to me. “And you’re young and healthy and just chock-full of hormones.”

Nefer lay back on the counterpane in disgust and resumed her attempts to decipher the motto. I watched as Joseph fitted in the last panel and lifted the unit in his hands, where it glowed a transparent blue. Finding a likely clothes chest, he swung the unit through the side, and it gave a soft beep to let us know integration had occurred. He nodded his satisfaction and went off to his room, whistling the first few notes of “Forty-Second Street.”

There was a soft knock on the door.

“Enter, por favor.” Nef jumped to her feet. The door opened, and a maidservant edged her way in, carrying a basin and a tall can of steaming water.

“Your washing water, my ladies,” she gasped, and set them down on the credenza. From a recess in the expanse of her apron she drew forth a ball of soap—marjoram-scented, what a luxury—and set it beside the water. “There will be a man brings water to his lordship the doctor,” she informed us, “but I am to serve you in all things, for clean linen and what else ye require. Have ye aught to be sent to the laundress?”

Boy, had we ever, after that voyage. “Many thanks, good woman,” I chirped, as Nef and I pulled open our respective bags and began to fling out a veritable snowstorm of shifts, stockings, and other garments both muddy and malodorous. “What shall we call thee, pray?”

“Joan, my lady,” she replied, watching without interest as the stuff piled up. Our clothes looked pretty much like anyone else’s, so there was nothing worth her attention, until I, in my enthusiasm, inadvertently snatched up with a bilge-stained underskirt my calfbound copy of the latest issue of
Immortal Lifestyles Monthly
and flung them both on the laundry heap. The magazine bounced once and clattered to the floor, landing open at the new holo releases page.

There in large blackletter was trumpeted the rerelease of
Metropolis
(the silent version, not the 2015 Spielberg remake) with a full-page photo of Maria the Robot in all her brassy glory. I raised horrified eyes to the chambermaid, who was staring fixedly at the picture of the villainous she-mechanism.
Omigod!

Nef cleared her throat. “Do not be afraid, good Joan. It is what we call in Spain an iron maiden. You have such things here, have you not, to punish the wicked? In this book it doth depict the torments awaiting sinners,” she said firmly, scooping up the magazine and snapping it shut. “For shame, thou, Rosa. Holy monks labored a year to paint this missal for thee, and wilt thou carelessly drop it?”

“I pray you excuse me, Doña Marguerita,” I stammered. “For, to be sure, those holy monks paint like the angels.”

Don’t overdo it
. “Look you, good Joan, this gown of mine hath been sadly stained by mud.” Nef thrust it at her. “I would not for all the world see it ruined. Bid the laundress take some pains with it.” And she put sixpence in the chambermaid’s palm.

Now the chambermaid’s gaze did a fast shuttle between the money and the gown, and in the thought balloon over her head Robot Maria was fading, being replaced with an image of all the nice things Joan might buy if she kept the money for herself. Having distracted Joan with this moral dilemma, Nef tucked the magazine out of sight in the depths of her bag.

“That will be all, Joan,” she prompted. With a half curtsey Joan stooped to gather up our clothes and backed out of the room, muttering her thanks.

“What’re we going to
do
?” I collapsed onto a chest, wringing my hands. “Do you think she’ll tell anybody? I can’t believe I did that!”

“Oh, it happens.” Nef, eyeing the water, stripped down to her shift.

“But they told us in school—”

“It’d be the end of the world if the monkeys saw anything anachronistic, right? Uh-uh.” She poured out water, grabbed up the soap, and began to lather vigorously. “I mean—you
know
history can’t be changed. So does it matter if an illiterate chambermaid sees something she can’t understand? What’s she going to do, write to the newspapers? As long as you can explain something away with a good story, you’re covered.”

“You don’t think I’ll get in trouble?”

“Nah.” Nef groped in her trunk and found a linen hand towel. “Because, you know what? Even when our little mistakes make it into the history books—and it happens, every once in a while—nobody notices. Well, sometimes people do, but if they try to talk about it, everyone thinks they’re crazy. In this century, anyway. So don’t worry.”

I watched doubtfully as she bathed. “But shouldn’t we make a report to Joseph about it?”

“I wouldn’t.” Having finished, she opened the window and tipped the basin out. “Unless you want him to fuss at you unnecessarily.”

“Not really,” I admitted. I sat there irresolute a moment, grateful for the advice of an older and more experienced operative, until it occurred to me to wonder whether she’d left any hot water for me.

That first night I lay awake in the darkness for hours, listening. There was the beat of rain on thousands of green leaves, outside in the wet night. The breathing of nine mortal souls, slowed and trapped in dreams. A mouse busy in the walls of the kitchen. A clock. The horses in their animal dreams, out in the stable. Distant, chaotic animal thoughts, from farther out.

But
he
did not dream. Four walls away and a floor above me, I could hear the creak of a wooden chair as he shifted his weight from moment to moment. I could hear pages turning, exactly one minute apart, page after page, perfect as a machine. I could hear his breathing and the pulse of his angry heart.