The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (26 page)

“And what’s that, my treasure?”

“Just how did he know where we live?”

Master Ashton came the next morning before dawn with the horses and stood outside the door while I tied up my box, even though I asked him in. He just looked away down the stairs as if he were thinking and kept opening and shutting the fingers on his left hand with his right, in some odd sort of absentminded gesture. I noticed he held his left elbow close to his side, as if it were stiff. His hair, too, was new combed, all dampened in a valiant attempt to make it lie flat beneath his hat, and his face fresh shaven and quite pink with recent fierce scrubbing. He was wearing his good livery, a foolish thing for a long trip. I noticed his eyes followed my every move.

“What’s that?” he said, eyeing my easel, all folded up next to my box and tied with twine.

“It’s not a box, so it doesn’t count. It’s my easel. The archbishop can’t expect me to paint without one, you know.”

“You should get another there.”

“They don’t grow on trees, even in France. And this one I had made especially for my work.” He growled, but he had to agree, even though he didn’t like it.

“And what’s in this thing,” he asked as he shouldered my box, “lead shot?”

“Only a few little things. Just what I need to get by. Nan said I should have been allowed two boxes—one for necessaries, and one for paints.”

“Nobody gets two boxes. Only gentry,” he said, tramping down the tightly coiled staircase, the box on his right shoulder. It was packed so tightly it didn’t even rattle: two pairs of stockings, an underskirt, and my nightdress padded the tightly rolled bundles of knives, burnishing tools, brushes, chalks, and dried pigments. Weighing it down were my muller and slab for grinding colors and a heavily sealed bottle of sepia. Finally, squashed in flat on the bottom of the little chest, there were my books and sheets of good-quality paper, several plain, turned wooden cases, and the last of my parchment, including that good old piece with the writing, which was now shrunken and full of holes where I had cut away bits for use.

Outside, his servant was waiting holding the horses, an old brown mare and a big, rawboned roan gelding, with pillions behind the saddles, and a swaybacked packhorse from Wolsey’s stable with another bundle and a seaman’s chest strapped to the packsaddle.

“Oh,” I said, looking at the packhorse’s burden, “are you coming, too?” Pink light was beginning to stain the sky and paint the fronts of the half-timbered houses with a soft, rosy gold.

“I’ve been sent to France on other work. Exiled, really. Probably thanks to that weasel, Tuke.” He paused in thought and drew his mouth into a grim line. Then he looked at me a long time. “Don’t think I’m going to be trailing you about anymore. Seeing you to the fleet is the last of this job.” He turned abruptly and handed up my easel and my box to his man, who loaded them onto the packsaddle. Nan handed him her bundle, and he strapped everything down tightly. There was a mounting block before the Goat and Jug, and there he led the big roan to boost me up behind. It had a wicked eye, I thought. For once, all was silent behind the latched shutters of the tavern. I’ll miss you, street, I thought. I’ll even miss the Goat and Jug. Ashton had gathered up the reins, and the horse shifted under us. Mistress Hull and Cat stood in the doorway, weeping—Mistress Hull with missing us and Cat with annoyance that she could not go see the court of France herself.

“Good-bye and Godspeed, Tom,” cried Mistress Hull, embracing him. “I won’t be recognizing you when you come back, all full grown and filled out.” Ashton turned suddenly in the saddle.

“What do you mean? He’s not going,” he said.

“Not going?” I answered. “But he must—you promised….”

“You’re not the Queen of Persia, Mistress Dallet, and you have no need of such a train of followers. One maidservant is all you are allowed.” He looked at the figures in our doorway, almost puzzled to see the shock in their expressions. “Didn’t they send word?” he asked.

“Never,” I said, clutching the cantle of his saddle and addressing his back. “You know he has to go. I told you why.”

“That tall story about an assassin?” he said scornfully, looking again at Tom’s stricken face. The boy had come to stand at his stirrup. “Is it true?” Ashton asked. His voice had softened, and he sounded puzzled.

“Yes,” said the boy.

“And for that you left your master?”

“It was his plan, sir. I know the man saw me. Later he came to my master’s, asking after me. My master told him I had died of the pestilence.”

“What do you know of grinding colors?”

“Mistress Susanna uses such little that…”

“In short, you know nothing at all, and she has no earthly need for you.” He shook his head, with the strangest look of commiseration. “Still, it could be true, why else…?” he said to himself. Then he undid the purse at his belt and leaned out of the saddle to press a few coins into Tom’s hand. “Here,” he said, “I’m sorry, but the bishop himself approved the list. Go find yourself another master. A woman painter’s apprentice? It suits a boy ill. Find an upstanding man who can raise you to a proper trade.” At these last words I bit my lips hard to keep the rage from coming out. All in a moment, he’d belittled me, my trade, and thrown away Tom the way you’d drown a litter of kittens, doubtless telling himself it was all for the best and he was an unusually thoughtful fellow. Men! They think they are the gods of creation and capable of passing judgment on anything. As the horses clop-clopped out of Fleet Lane, I writhed with the thought of having to sit as close as a pair of lovers all the way to Dover.

“Quit moving so, I feel the saddle shift,” he said, leaning over to feel the girth. We had come nearly even with the cistern, on our way back to Bridewell, to join the rest of the bishop’s party that was going to join the wedding fleet.

“I’m not moving at all,” I said.

“It’s loose. The old windbag puffed himself up. Let go a moment.” I let go of Ashton’s waist and he took a foot out of the stirrup and pushed it back to get at the girth to tighten it. “
Aha
. He feels me pull it up and puffs again. A sign of my latest fall from favor, to be given the most spoiled nag in the stable.” He grunted, leaning down again to check the girth. At that very moment something shot between us, over his bent back. There was a hollow sounding “
thunk
” as the missile embedded itself in one of the timbers of the overhanging second story of the house near us.

“My God!” I cried. “What was that?”

“Get out of here, before he reloads!” cried Ashton to his servant, but the sound of the bolt and the alarm in our voices startled our horse, which threw its head up and scrambled sideways. “Damned screw!” he said, trying to bring the roan’s head in and put his foot back in the stirrup at the same time. There was a vicious hiss as something passed directly in front of us; the horse rose beneath me, and Ashton’s broad back came straight at my nose. The houses swam crazily around my head as the horse reared and in almost the same moment I found myself hitting the street hard. Lying there limp and still feeling my bones, I saw the horse rear again, as Ashton, one foot still out of the stirrup, held his seat, still cursing. Shutters were flung open.

“Get that nag out of here! Can’t you even ride?” a man’s voice shouted. But he could ride; I’d never seen a better man worse mounted. The crazy horse filled the street like an explosion, and he was still on it, sweat rolling down his face, his jaw grim, his eyes determined.

“Close the shutters; someone is shooting!” he cried. Perversely, at his cry, all the rest of the shutters on the street opened, and filled with nightcapped faces. All in an instant, I thought I saw, from where I lay in the street, still staring groggily upward, a movement among the bells in the tower over the cistern.

At that very moment the loosened saddle rolled beneath the horse’s belly, pulling the whole harness with it, and I heard Ashton fall to the ground with a crash. There was a scuffle, the clatter of horseshoes on stone, and the rattle and jingle of loose tack, and I saw that one foot was still entangled in the stirrup. Steel-clad hooves danced perilously close to his head as he struggled to pull his foot loose. Cursing, he lost his grip and was thrown back flat into the road, still held by his foot. The horse, eyes rolling, bucked once and began to head away in big strides, Ashton still struggling and entangled. If the roan took it into its head to run, Ashton would be dragged to death over the stones. I could see him trying to protect his head with his arms. There were shouts of alarm from the windows. I pulled myself up and ran, limping, for the horse’s head, but as it saw me run, it tossed its head away and moved faster. Its evil yellow eye glared at me, and it showed me the big, ugly green-flecked teeth in its foaming, open mouth.

By this time, Ashton’s man had turned back and dismounted, leaving Nan holding the pack mule, but he was not close enough to reach us in time. I snatched at a dangling rein, and pulled hard. The horse whirled about, dragging Ashton’s struggling body in an arc across the stones and through the muck in the gutter at the center of the street. His entrapped foot was near my hand. Dropping the rein, I heaved at the stirrup with both hands, forcing his foot loose. The horse, half bucking and half running, the saddle dragging and rattling beneath its belly, ran off down the street, accompanied by a chorus of guffaws out of the open windows. Ashton lay in the street, not moving, blood running down his dirt-stained face. His eyes were open.

“Headed straight for the stable,” he whispered. “I’ll never live this down.”

“Is anything broken?” I asked.

“My reputation. My best coat. My pride. Maybe my head. I swear Tuke bribed someone to set me up with that old screw. He can’t ride a baby’s pet donkey, and now I can’t show my face at the stable. Jesus…my back…” He winced as he tried to move his legs. “It’s just as well I’m headed for France, if I can ever get up. I can hide my shame there until this is forgotten. If ever.”

“Look there, I can see a bolt in the timber. Someone was trying to kill you. If you hadn’t bent over at that very moment, it would have been in you, I swear.”

“They’ll think I just produced the bold to strengthen my story. It’s impossible to worm out of being the butt of a practical joke. Especially one of Tuke’s, that smooth, smiling son of a bitch.”

“I can tell them it wasn’t made up. Nan and your man can, too.”

“They are servants. And as for you, they’ll say you’re just amorous. Ashton…goes courting. A joke…for every stable boy and page in London…” He groaned and tried to sit up. “God, my head,” he said.

“You see how easy it is to break a reputation,” I said, but he was too busy thinking about himself and sitting there and checking his bruises to listen.

“Master, are you hurt? Take the other horse.” His man’s grizzled face was full of concern as he knelt down close to help him.

“No, Will, I’ll walk. I wish to wallow in my degradation. Go ahead of us and get the surgeon. My head’s cracked.” Still lying there, he wiped the blood from his eyes with the back of his hand, then inspected it. “And I’m cut,” he said, as if taking inventory. Slowly, painfully, he got up out of the gutter. He was standing now, wiping off his clothes and looking glumly up at the faces that lined the open windows. There was the sound of laughter as he bent down to pick up his hat from the street.

“There’s an elegant cavalier,” said a voice.

“A fine way to impress a lady,” added another.

“What did he say they were doing? Shooting? A likely story.” Silently, Robert Ashton plucked the bolt from the timber above his head and stuck it in his belt.

“But, Master Ashton, the man who shot?”

“I’m sure he’s long gone. There’re too many witnesses now. The people here would set up the hue and cry, and he’d be caught.”

“I’ll walk with you,” I said. “It’s not so far, and it will work the bruises out.” He didn’t say a thing. His pores oozed humiliation.

“Stupid. Stupid. I should have checked sooner. But no. I had to be off. Taking you. Stupid. Women.” He shook his head.

“Women? Why do you say women? Are we at fault somehow? Men are crazy, I say. How can you be more upset about your horse returning with a loose saddle than about a man shooting a crossbow out of a tower at you?”

“Not
a
crossbow. The bastard must have had two. How else could he have reloaded so quickly? No. He wasn’t shooting to hit me.” Suddenly I had a horrible thought.

“Suppose he was shooting to hit me?” I asked.

“You? Whatever for? No, if he wanted to hit anyone, it was me. If I wanted to conjure up a conspiracy, I’d say it was someone who knew of my business abroad. But no, I swear it was some fellow Tuke hired, to give me a scare, and maybe make the horse shy in the hopes I’d not checked the girth, which I hadn’t. No, he knew me, how it’s been for me…. Whoever did this knew me too well to be anyone but Tuke…. He figured I’d be rattled this morning, I might not check. Who else but Tuke?” He was limping along, his head straight ahead, not even looking at me as he spoke. Sometimes he shook it as if an invisible argument was going on in his mind. He seemed almost as if he were talking to himself.

“Rattled? By what? Why that?”

“Why do you think?” he said, avoiding my eyes, then hunching his shoulders and setting his head down. We had come to the gate of the stable yard now. It was lined with ragamuffins, all laughing and pointing. He glanced up at the crowd ahead of him with damaged eyes but set his head back down again, as if facing a high wind, and walked straight forward, looking at no one. Knights and priests, already mounted for the journey, tipped back their heads and guffawed at the sight of Robert Ashton, once arrogant and officious in the wearing of his master’s rank, now filthy and bedraggled, trailing a spoiled, runaway horse home on foot. Even better, he was escorting the stuck-up freak, the lady paintrix, equally bedraggled and brought low. My good dress, I thought, brushing off a bit of dirt I’d missed on one elbow. I limped as I followed behind him. I ached everywhere. It wouldn’t make the trip to Dover any better. A fine joke. It was a joke.