The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (17 page)

But something interrupted his annual season of bitter musing. He kept seeing in his mind a freckled face with a smudge of green paint right across the bridge of the nose, and hearing a droll little voice explaining the truths of life out of a book of manners. Just as he had fixated his rage on his memory of the narrow features and neat blonde braids of Mistress Lucas, he could hear someone saying, “I suppose every dancing bear needs a keeper,” and found himself looking down at an oddly sympathetic pair of blue eyes and a buxom little figure tightly laced into solemn black. A curious pain seemed to radiate from his heart. Food poisoning, he thought. It often begins like this. He tried to recall what he had eaten. He hadn’t eaten anything. Not for a day and a half. It must be a different illness. But not food poisoning, after all. Something more dangerous, perhaps. Well, never mind. Maybe a fatal disease was the best way for everything to end, after all. There wasn’t even anyone to feel sorry for him….

She wasn’t neat and well kept, he thought, remembering the random drops of white he’d spotted at the hem of her second-best dress. I can tell at a glance that she’s willful and spoiled. And a widow, too. She’s no innocent. Then he found himself wondering what lay beneath that dress and hated himself for falling into the lures of an undoubtedly practiced temptress. She probably put the paint there on purpose to draw my eye to her ankle, he thought. A deceiver. She is no better than the rest. If anything, worse. A
practiced
deceiver. At least Mistress Lucas had never deceived anyone before, and you could blame a good bit of it on her greedy parents. But the paintrix was entirely different. A bad character, a liar, a schemer, a climber, and filthy minded, too. First she deceived everyone with that ghost story. Then she and that woman sent me packing, looking for an apprentice that didn’t exist. And just look at how she painted those lurid Adam and Eves and passed them off as the work of a dead man!

But in spite of himself, somewhere inside, a fountain of amusement began to flow. Not one, but two dead men! How did she ever keep it straight? Beneath those innocent-looking blue eyes, her mind must be whirling like the gears in a windmill. She certainly wasn’t
dull
…Roughly, he pinched off the new feeling. A widow without substance or family—not respectable, not worthy. But wait? Aren’t you playing the hypocrite, using the arguments old Master Lucas used against you? No, it couldn’t be. The facts showed that this woman was just another of the same kind, a user, a shrew with a false, designing front. Only bolder and cleverer than the last one. Again his mind fastened on her, this time on the memory of agile, short-fingered little hands, so neat and careful, but with blue under the nail of the forefinger. And hadn’t he seen a bit of curly, reddish hair escaping from her gabled headdress? That proved it. The woman was trouble; people with that color of hair always are.

Again he picked up the quill and began to write. The smooth, diplomatic phrases soothed his mind. But still something ached and bothered him inside. A touch of fever coming on, he said firmly to himself.

“Master Robert Ashton?” At the sound of the voice, Ashton looked up and saw someone he had dealt with before, a lesser magistrate in one of the courts over which Wolsey presided, who from time to time showed up to cultivate the great man’s favor with a rare coin or ancient medallion for his collection. Quickly, he sprinkled sand across his work, dried it, and put it away in a drawer before he looked up and answered.

“Good day, Sir Septimus. May I be of assistance? What brings you here?”

“Ah, Master Ashton, busy, busy as usual. What admirable devotion to duty!” Crouch’s eyes had an oddly malicious glitter. “I have found a little oddity or two that might interest the bishop. I would be most grateful if you would bring it to his attention that I have a rare Byzantine medallion to offer for sale. The profile is exceptionally well preserved. The next audience—could you assure me a place?” Ashton nodded silently. “Ah, delightful. I knew I could count on you. But, Master Ashton, why so grim and silent? I hear your latest assignment is delicious. Looking after a randy widow, what could be a more pleasing task for a young man like yourself? Have you got under her skirts yet?” Ashton drew his mouth into a disapproving line. Another simpleton, thought Crouch. He has betrayed himself. He wants her. And I have him.

“Word of my disgrace seems to get around quickly these days,” Ashton said. Crouch smiled. And now, a double purpose. Dig out a bit of information and plant the poison. He will come running to me with his confidences, and in the end, I will discover to whom she has sold it through him.

“Ah, my boy, gossip travels on wings. But all will soon be mended. It’s really just a backhanded recognition of your talent. There will be more and better to come after this, I am sure, knowing the Bishop as well as I do…”

Ashton looked up at him, pleased and almost grateful at the praise.

“But tell me, since you have dealings with her now, has the widow offered any little rarities for sale? Say, an old manuscript or some other antique treasure? I am always on the lookout for things of that sort.”

“She doesn’t seem like a collector. Her rooms are very bare.” Interesting, thought Crouch. Does she know its value, so she has it hidden, or has Ludlow got his hands on it?

“Ah, but her husband was. He possessed a number of rare treasures. Enough to keep a widow comfortably, if she could free herself from him before he poured it away on other women.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ashton, and Crouch smiled knowingly, leaning close to the young man’s troubled face.

“Why, dear boy, we are men of the world. How does a clever, vengeful woman get rid of a husband who troubles her? She sends an anonymous letter to the husband of his mistress, and the next day, the husband’s murdered body is found in the street.” With pleasure, Crouch watched Ashton turn pale. Well, well, he was falling in love with her, he thought. How fortunate I got here in time. Proximity would have done its work, and the manuscript would have been beyond my grasp. Young men, so predictable, so inflammable, so simple. A few more little confidences, and I will own him, too. “You seem upset. Live as long as I have, Master Ashton, and you will see that there is no end to the deceptions practiced by women. Look at history! The evils of the world have been brought about by temptresses: Eve, Helen, Messalina. Beautiful forms hide evil hearts.” Pleased with the effect he’d caused, he watched Ashton shudder. “Don’t blame yourself, my boy,” he added, his voice oozing confidence. “We have all been shipwrecked by the Siren call at one time or another. It is a grief no man escapes. It is through pain that the Lord would instruct us.”

“I’ve been blind. It was right in front of me all the time. And I thought I was so perceptive,” Ashton whispered, almost to himself. He looked as if something had cracked inside. His shoulders slumped, and he bowed his head, turning it away so Crouch could not see his face. Crouch beamed and put his arm around the crushed younger man.

“Don’t be ashamed to weep, my young friend. It is women who bring us to this pass. Remember, you always have a friend in me.” Crouch was a man who delighted in creating human wreckage. But this job was so simple it almost failed to please him. What was a single man? The destruction of a family was better, and to bring down a dynasty a worthy challenge. Yes, I’ll soon have the rest of that book back, he thought with satisfaction as he summoned a page at the front door to call his servant and fetch his mule.

Within the week I went to Bridewell to attend my new patron like all his other courtiers. The good part was that it was not so very far from our house, so I did not have to get up early in the cold, and also that they had very good food in the bishop’s kitchen. What with all the comings and goings on estate business, church business, and the king’s business, the house was always abuzz with visitors and knights and foreigners and priests and musicians and servants going to and fro carrying things. So I just fit right in as one more novelty except that people came to annoy me by staring as I worked and also some big hunting hounds with brass-studded collars started following me about because that’s how it was with me and dogs.

My first portraits were a kind of test because I think they still weren’t sure it was really I who did the paintings I had showed the bishop. Everybody came to inspect the things I brought out from my box that Nan carried, even Master Ashton, looking all pale, with dull, red-rimmed eyes, as if he were coming down with the ague. Well, you crowd, just watch this bear dance, I thought. You’re going to see something.

But the surprise was that Mistress Dorothy and Master Thomas Winter were children, and it made me very impressed to see that the bishop was such a good Christian as to give such kindly care to two orphans even to having their portraits taken, which is far more than the Bible says, I am sure. I began with Mistress Dorothy because she was quieter and less fidgety, and I did want to make a good impression. Then all those nosy liverymen and knights and priests goggled while Nan helped me put on my silk smock and exclaimed over the tininess of my brushes and my strokes as if they had never seen a miniature taken. But I just painted on without paying them any attention and didn’t even notice the time pass.

“Aren’t you done yet?” I could hear Master Ashton’s voice behind me as I was rinsing out my brushes. His ague had certainly made him surly. Maybe I’d been mistaken in what I had thought I’d seen in him. His eyes weren’t full of interesting hidden thoughts anymore. They were dull and hard. His face seemed like a mask.

“Work is not done until the tools are put away,” I said, which is what my father always said when I wanted to leave things and play.

“I hear you put away things very well indeed.” His voice sounded bitter. Well, Susanna, I thought, once again you let yourself be misled by a pair of interesting eyes. You just imagined you saw a light glinting in them, because you wanted to.

“Good brushes are a lot of work to make. I don’t want them spoiled for no reason at all.”

“You made them?” His voice softened, curious. Watch yourself, Susanna. Quit imagining. I found myself looking at his big hands. Like bear paws.

“Of course. They aren’t found on the lawn after a heavy rain, like mushrooms, you know.” Words put a wall between us. Bears can be dangerous, after all.

“They seem well done…practiced.”

“Of course. I made my father’s brushes. I made all my husband’s brushes, too. I suppose that’s why he married me. It saved the cost of an apprentice.” He shuddered, though I didn’t know why. Since darkness was falling, he escorted me and Nan home, but he didn’t say a word, even when he left us at our own front doorstep, under the sign of the Standing Cat.

Master Thomas I did another day, and he turned out very well, too, although he had a spoiled look to him that I wasn’t able to hide without losing the likeness. When I brought the two miniatures to the bishop, he stared at them a long time and then harrumphed and said they were well done, and no less than he’d expected. As Master Ashton brought me away from my audience, he looked more annoyed than usual, and at last, when we had left the house at Brideswell by the side door, he broke the long silence that had lasted for days, and said, “You are a bold hussy. You are lucky you got away with it this time.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, stepping over the gutter ahead of him.

“You know you gave them both the bishop’s features,” he said, catching up with me in one big stride.

“I paint what I see, no more, no less,” I said. “Besides, he’s their uncle. Why shouldn’t there be a strong resemblance? It’s only natural.”

“Oh, right,” Ashton agreed in a sarcastic voice. “You think you can get away with anything, don’t you? Either you are an idiot or the slyest, most willful woman in the world.”

“I think maybe I am a painter and you are too sly for your own good, whatever you are trying to say,” I said, and he was silent all the way to my door.

But on giving the strange conversation thought, I supposed that perhaps I deserved suspicion about my paintings because of already having been two dead people, which is rather deceptive and would tend to give a person a bad reputation. But all those snoopers and watchers that had been there while I painted those children went about with the word that I was a prodigy and a freak and then there were twice as many watchers when I took my next likenesses for the bishop, and they prodded each other to get a good view, and other rude things. They also spoke about me as if I weren’t even there, saying such things as, “She hasn’t very slender fingers, I’m surprised she can make it so tiny,” or “What’s she doing there? I say there’s entirely too much blue,” or worse, “Damned fine bosom, eh? What’s she doing painting? It’s like teaching a good hunting mare to jig.” It must be boring, waiting around as a courtier, I think, if all you have to do is goggle at novelties to pass the time. Of course, sometimes Wolsey went hunting with the king or attended him when he was far from London, and then those courtiers and petitioners and hangers-on just swarmed after him like a hiveful of bees after the queen, and I had peace and quiet.