The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (39 page)

“Lord Belphagor, I respect a mind that is a subtle web of scheming. Like is drawn to like, you know. Trust me not because of my word of honor, which is indeed worthless, but because of my respect, which is worth far more than honor. I respect you as my master in deviousness and evil. Besides, I am necessary to you, just as you are to me. Why not trust me? Aha, here’s the place. The Pont au Change. We’ll soon have enough French money to carry out your plan. Lord Belphagor. Now watch out for these money changers; they clip the coins. And sometimes the gold is false.”

“My nose smells true gold. No mortal can deceive Belphagor.” Crouch was silent but smiled inwardly. He paused, surveying the street with an arrogant stare, and then stepped down on the mounting block before a tavern with a sign featuring a monstrous cask guarded by a sleeping giant. As the lackey held the spotted horse, the black imps in the form of mules grumbled softly to each other in a language that only they understood.

“After we have changed our money, you might deign to look at some of the wonderful shops of antique curiosities on this bridge, my lord,” said Crouch, as they entered the low door of a money-changing establishment.

“I don’t see why you like them. They certainly aren’t antique to
me
,” said Belphagor. “I’d rather stop in for a drink.” As they vanished into the shop, a drunk came out of the Giant’s Cask and stared at the two black mules, who were waiting without being held. Then, with inebriated curiosity, he peered closer at their nostrils. His eyes widened in horror, and he fled right back into the tavern.

The shop door opened again, and two contented figures emerged. “You see, my lord? It works every time.”

“I still don’t see why we have to change it at all. I thought you told me money was the universal solvent.”

“It is, it is, Lord Belphagor, but each country has its own. I spoke in general terms.”

“And this tourney everyone is so mad for. Why, that man simply couldn’t stop going on about the foreign lords who’d come for it. Is it worth seeing? I’d hoped to visit an orgy or two, or perhaps some murders while we were in town on our business, but everyone seems to have given them up for the tourney.”

“It is planned for five days, and with any luck, you’ll have enough mayhem to please you, my lord. And then there’re the banquets at night. Plenty of assignations and things going on in dark corners, I’ll warrant. So you see, you will have both orgies and murders in the most respectable and ornamental form.”

“Ah, I see, I see. Crouch, you are changing my idea of pleasure. Civilization, how splendid. Sin with artistry. I feel myself growing more refined daily. And to think, I once settled for simple things. I think I’ll have some more new clothes made. The French style is more splendid than the English. What think you to an Italian brocade, embroidered with brilliants? I intend to cut a figure at this tourney. And…oh, yes…” He broke off and looked at the mules. “I’ll be wanting something a little more impressive than mules. You boys will have to become chargers. Big ones. Nothing less than the best.” The two mules looked at each other, their red eyes full of annoyance, and grumbled again in the strange language.

At the place where the Pont au Change joins the Right Bank, there is a very tasteful little gallery where just the right statue or tapestry may be purchased at a bargain, if you are lucky, and where a gentleman in need can get a very good price for a table clock or perhaps the family nef, or saltcellar, without waiting or dealing with distasteful people of the lower sort. But best of all are the paintings that can be found there. Just the thing to add elegance to an otherwise barren reception room or cabinet. Subjects worthy of public or private contemplation, religious, secular, mythological can be seen mounted on the walls all the way to the ceiling, though how the proprietor gets them down is a mystery, for she is a crippled hunchback, and very pale from illness, her hair gone quite translucent.

Still, the neighbors speculated that she might well have been married, if it were not for her deformity, for her face is very lovely. And the artists of Paris found something sympathetic there besides a ready buyer for speculative works otherwise unsaleable. Perhaps it was the sight of a new work in the Italian style, or the serene smile of an ivory Madonna on display in the corner, or the humorous, encouraging look in the dealer’s face as she said, “Why, the brushstrokes here on the hand are perfection itself! What do you mean, the count would not take it? He has missed owning a masterpiece.” But whatever the mystery, a man could come in discouraged and leave full of inspiration. And sometimes a woman, too, for many of the illuminators of the city were the daughters and wives of the makers of rare books, and the woman in the shop also dealt in exquisite manuscripts and antique missals and books of hours.

“Ah!” said Hadriel, flinging off his old gray cloak and stretching out his wings. “Not a customer today! They must all be off trying to wangle an invitation to the tourney. The social event of all Paris! A little higher, my dears, and to the right.” High up near the ceiling, a half dozen twittering little cherubs, their wings beating faster than a hummingbird’s, were holding a heavy gilt picture frame with a stained canvas portrait of Saint Jerome in it. A seventh was pounding a big nail into the wall with a hammer. “Yes, that’s it! Perfect!” cried Hadriel, clapping his hands with pleasure, and the little curly-headed creatures fluttered down and settled on the counter, putting away the hammer beneath it.

“I saw Uriel today. He was flying over the city in a storm cloud. What will you do if he catches you, Hadriel?” asked one of the cherubs.

“Why, I’m just doing my job. Can I help it if I’ve had an inspiration about doing it? And it’s ever so much more efficient this way. Flying here, flying there, whispering in people’s ears to inspire them, I tell you, it was a poor use of my time. This way, I just set up shop and they all come to me. Artists, would-be artists, everyone who loves beauty and craves wonder comes here, and I inspire them in great batches. Once I have the kinks worked out of my plan, I’ll set you all up in branch offices, as the Italian bankers do. Oh, I tell you, I could have worn my wings off, just flying between Rome and Florence! And there were so many neglected. Why, I haven’t had time for the Scythians in centuries. Same old horses. Same old panthers. What’s the good of being the angel of art if you are confined to such a narrow, old-fashioned way of doing business?”

“They won’t like it, you know, the archangels. They don’t approve of changes. You’ll get in trouble,” announced another little cherub, his dark brown eyes serious.

“Oh, pooh! Where would the world be without new things? It’s time those old fellows quit being so stiff! After all, I don’t inspire the same old art all the time. Otherwise, these mortals would still be painting bison on the rocks. And now, just look!” Hadriel announced happily, gesturing around him. “I don’t think I’ve had so much fun since I stopped at Mistress Susanna’s house. Why, I’ve half a mind to take time off and go see that tourney myself. The way these Parisians carry on about it, it really ought to be worth seeing.”

“Hadriel, you’re playing too much. You know if they find out, they’ll be angry with you. Suppose they tell the Father?”

“But isn’t it fair to take a little time for yourself if you’ve saved so much by inventing a better way of doing business? Entirely fair,” said Hadriel, answering his own question. Taking a comb from the pocket of his extraordinary robe, he peered into a mirror mounted on the wall for sale and combed his translucent curls down flat over his forehead. Then he turned his head this way and that to admire the effect.

“Hadriel, can we go, too?”

“Oh, yes, me too, me too!” cried the others.

“I thought you didn’t approve of playing,” said Hadriel.

“We don’t.”

“We’ll be working.”

“Yes, we’re working for you. It’s all your fault,” the cherubs’ high little voices twittered. They were neither girls nor boys, just as Hadriel was neither man nor woman, although humans, who think their own way of doing business is the only one in the world, were continually trying to assign a sex to them. The Father had made them first, then changed around his plans when he made humanity, although no one knew why. After all, He wasn’t entirely satisfied with either model, as everyone who has ever given it thought knows. Hadriel himself thought perhaps He had been bored, but then, Hadriel always did have rather odd ideas. The archangels had spoken to him more than once about his problem, and Hadriel always promised to be good, but then he forgot. Then, all over the world, artists got into trouble. They painted bearded patriarchs in the nude, studied anatomy in secret, and dug up ancient pagan statues for copying. It gave everyone ideas, and the world started to change, and the archangels went hunting for Hadriel again, to impress upon him the awful damage his eccentricities could have in a world of simple, gullible souls.

“Why, that’s so,” answered Hadriel. “The blame’s all mine. Shall we lay bets on the champion? No fair influencing the outcome. You have to promise.”

“Agreed!”

“Let’s go!”

“Vacation!” shouted the little angels, as they rose like a flock of birds right through the ceiling and out into the cloudy gray sky over the city.

The Eleventh Portrait

Francis, Duke of Angoulême as Dauphin of France.
Eighteenth-century engraving from a lost original.

Francis is here depicted before old age had thickened his jowls and torso, and before growing the beard seen in all his mature portraits. Slender and handsome, connoisseur of arts and letters, he was already a spendthrift and a favorite of the ladies, the very model of a Renaissance courtier. The original portrait, a miniature described as set about with brilliants and engraved with a dolphin on the obverse of the case, vanished during the French Revolution.

—Lebrun.
A
H
ISTORY OF THE
K
INGS OF
F
RANCE

O
ne
OF THE FIRST PORTRAITS
I
DID FOR THE
D
UCHESS
M
ARGUERITE WAS A PICTURE OF HER BROTHER, ON WHOM SHE DOTED MOST IMMODERATELY, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS WILD AND SPOILED.
After all, what would you expect from a man who had Madame Louise as a mother, who was the kind of lady who just had to run everything even if it was all for his own good? Besides, in my experience with the great ones, which grows more every year, they are all spoiled, so it is just a matter of what kind of spoiled. And if they appreciate fine art and write poetry and have an open purse like Duke Francis, why, then, it’s just right. Far better than spending it all on horses and ornamented tournament armor. When you find ones like this, it is important to pamper them and tell them frequently how much higher their thoughts are than ordinary people’s, and that refined appreciation is the mark of nobility of soul, and things like that. It keeps them from getting nasty and gets you invited back.

Twenty-one

F
RANÇOIS
d’Angoulême and his brother-in-law, the Duc d’Alençon, mounted on a pair of pacing palfreys, were riding the length of the wall of the Parc des Tournelles, inspecting the progress of the construction on the lists. Ahead of them, the row of little watchtowers, flat-topped and gray, vanished among the trees at the end of the park. Behind them, on the dozens of similar ornamental towers of the great palace, the silk banners of the French king flapped dismally beneath a cloudy sky. The shrill cries of the tame peacocks that wandered in the park seemed to augur another storm.

“I don’t like the looks of the sky,” said d’Alençon, looking upward into the rolling gray clouds. He took off his right glove and held up his hand to feel for any stray drops of rain.

“The ladies will not so much as dampen their headdresses,” said Francis with an expansive gesture. “Over here, above the stands, there will be a canopy of canvas, painted with rare designs.” In the cold, carpenters swarmed over the stands, and there was the sound of hammering and sawing. “Then the lists will stand here, when completed. The English will have their pavilions there….”

“That seems an ill-favored place.”

“They would not appreciate better,” said Duke Francis, dismissing the issue with a wave of his gloved hand.

“The Duc de Suffoke, they say, is a barbarian. Entirely untutored. And yet his king trusts him with the greatest affairs of state.”

“I have made inquiries. He borrows his subtlety, such as it is, from the devious Archbishop Wolsey. I plan to disgrace him utterly on the field.” Francis’s tone was easy, confident.

“This may not be so easy. Have you met the man yet? He has arrived with Milord de Dorset, the other English champion. The Duc de Suffoke is built like a bull. What he lacks in brains, he has made up in brawn. The other English knights are buying French horses, but he is shipping in his own. He spares no expense in his attempt to defeat the finest of French chivalry.” They had ridden to the far end of the lists by this time, looking at the green grass which would soon be nothing but churned up mud, mixed with blood. They turned, now, riding back toward the royal apartments. Beyond the stone walls that surrounded the park, they could see the flat towers of the Bastille looming against the gray sky, marking the boundary of the city walls.

“I do not think he will find that as easy as he thinks,” said Francis, his eyes sly. “I have a plan. In the spirit of chivalry and friendship between our nations, I have asked both him and Dorset to be my aides in the sponsorship of this tourney.”

“Aha,” said d’Alençon, “that means if you are unable to take the field…”

“They will have to stand against all comers, even their own answerers to the French challenge.”

“So, should the English do too well, which of course, they will not, then…”

“Then I retire and the English defeat the English.”

D’Alençon’s response was an appreciative chuckle. Then his face grew grave as he thought of something else. “Do you think,” he said, “that there is anything to the rumor that is sweeping the court about the English champion’s true purpose?”

“You mean that he is sent by the King of England to get an heir to the throne of France? In this, he will be defeated, too. My wife and your wife, my sister, are with her every hour of the day. She will never be alone, especially with him. Have you ever yet known my mother to be defeated in women’s business?” Francis laughed. But even as he did, the image of that slender, red-headed, bright-eyed girl rose before his eyes. Too fine a wife for an old man, he thought. Unbidden desire rose in him, the desire for an unattainable woman. Hadn’t old Louis the Twelfth himself put away his ugly, deformed wife, the daughter of a king, in favor of the previous king’s wife, the heiress of Brittany? All things would be possible to him when he became king. He would have this woman. Now. Later. He willed it, Francis of Angoulême, heir of the house of Valois.

“What if it rains?” asked the Duc d’Alençon, looking about him at the field.

“I have planned a series of
indoor entertainments
,” said Francis, his voice bland. Somehow, d’Alençon knew that feasting and dancing were not all that were meant.

Cold ocean fog rolled through the narrow streets of Calais, the English foothold on the Continent. It was early morning, but the sun was not visible through the grayness. Heavy horses, each ridden bareback by his groom, moved in a column like fabulous monsters through the gloom. Each animal worth a fortune, they were surrounded by armed soldiers, their fodder, tack and armor, blacksmiths, trainers and attendants following in a train of heavy wagons. The duke’s horses, the finest in England, were being transported to the great tourney at Paris.

At the Sign of the Ship, a boy holding a bundle stood in the doorway. “Don’t delay, or you’ll have to run to catch up.” The man leaning in the doorway coughed even making this brief speech. He was thin and gray faced from recent illness, and his eyes were set in dark hollows.

“Master Ashton, it’s the chance of a lifetime. How can I ever thank you?”

“Learn the business, boy, and make a success of it. It’s just your good fortune that I knew Master Denby, and that he needed a boy. Your experience with apothecary makes you valuable; it’s not everyone who’s quick enough to learn the art of horse physicking.”

“But…but I shouldn’t leave. How can I, when you’re not well?”

“Go now, and don’t look back. You’ve stayed long enough already with me here, and it wasn’t always easy, I know. It’s I who owe you, and not the other way around.” The first of the covered carts was rumbling past, and the boy recognized the postillion on the wheelhorse, who waved to him and gestured to the back of the cart.

“Good-bye, then, and thank you.” The boy ran and swung on the back of the cart, and hands inside pulled him up. Since they had been pulled from the floating wreckage of the
Lübeck
, a strange bond had developed between the two. Tom was no swimmer; it was Ashton who had pulled him to the rope-tangled remains of the foremast and tied him there. And Tom had stayed on when a lighter-headed creature might have fled the near-fatal illness and violent delirium that had come to Ashton from long exposure to the icy water. How curious fate is, thought Ashton. If Susanna had not defied me and smuggled him here, they’d be burying me. And if I hadn’t been brooding over her and courting death on the deck, I would have gone down in the hold. And then, what Tom told me about her…suppose I have been wrong, a fool? He paused, aching inside. Well, for all he has been through, Tom deserved this chance, thought Ashton, and fortune has brought it to him. At least it has been kind to someone. He limped inside to sit by the fire and stare morbidly into it, refusing to break his fast, despite the temptations offered by the innkeeper’s wife.

“You’ll miss that boy, won’t you?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “I know I shall.”

“You’re a woman.”

“Well of course I am. What else?”

“Then you can tell me about women. You’d know all about them, wouldn’t you?”

“I should think I would,” she agreed, taking the dirty mugs and wooden trenchers from the table. She carried them off to the kitchen, and Ashton stared gloomily into the fire again. When she returned to wipe the table, he said,

“Explain to me how you would judge this about women. If a man heard from a gentleman that a certain woman had done an evil deed, and then from another that he trusted that he knew of proof the woman had not done it, would you imagine that the woman was guilty or not?”

“It would depend on how evil the deed was, and what the secret interests of the gentlemen in question were.”

“One is secretly in love with her, but doesn’t know that I know.”

“Then I wouldn’t trust him.”

“The other is a schemer, possibly a murderer. He posed as my friend.”

“Well, I wouldn’t trust him, either. Suppose this schemer fellow had tried to seduce her secretly, and she refused, and spreading an ugly rumor was his revenge?”

“That could be, too.”

“Then there is only one way of finding out. You must ask the woman herself.”

“She could be a liar, but if she is innocent…I have been too cruel to deserve an answer.”

“This is where I will speak to you as a woman, Master Ashton. You may have forfeited her friendship, but she will be glad if you are man enough to erase this stain on her honor.”

“Oh…I’m not speaking of myself…just of a general case, that’s all….”

“Oh, and I’m not speaking of you either,” she said, throwing her damp towel over one arm and taking the poker to stir up the embers of last night’s fire. “I’m just speaking of general cases, too.” She turned and looked at him. “Speaking as a woman, you’re about the worst-looking general case I ever saw. If you like her that much, you’d better go apologize and make good if you’ve been spreading the story. I mean, as a general case, in the opinion of this general sort of female person.”

Heavy rains had fallen, churning the lists into deep mud, and dowsing the bright pavilions and gaily painted stands of the tournament grounds. But at last, the sun had broken through the rolling November clouds once more, and the banners were unfurled and the stands filled with the very cream of the French court. In the place of honor, the king lay on a litter, his beautiful new queen beside him. The dead horses and dead knights from the previous days’ encounters had been unceremoniously hauled away, for there were hundreds more where they came from, and dying brought no glory, only rapid disposal. It was a great pity, the muttering could be heard in the stands, that the English were ahead. It was especially the fault of Le Duc de Suffoke, who had run fifteen courses victoriously, shivering lances, unhorsing opponents, and littering the field with dead and wounded French contenders. It was almost unfair, he who was so uncouth in dinner conversation, and who was incapable of turning a verse in admiration of a lady, to collect so many victories against men of better family and higher chivalry. It must be cheat of some sort. An English cheat. And did you see how he bowed and scraped and preened himself before the queen, as if he were somehow upholding her honor, rather than undermining the glory of her new nation? And the queen applauded his victories. Everyone could tell by her eyes that she followed the victories of her countrymen with undue enthusiasm.

Invisible to mortal eyes, a half dozen little angels, fidgeting with impatience, sat on the canopy that sheltered the royalty of France.

“Where’s Hadriel?” asked one of the little creatures, shaking his blond ringlets.

“Gone to mind the shop. Who are you betting on?” asked the dark-eyed one, smoothing the iridescent feathers on his tiny wings.

“This time the French. I’ll wager three.”

“Only three? I’ll put five on the English.”

“Five? That’s a lot of good deeds for just one day, especially since Hadriel is always so busy, busy, busy! You’ll never have the time.”

“I’ll have the time and more. It’s you who will be busy, because
I
say the English will win.”

“And
I
say the French. They are ever so angry. They have a plan. Just you wait.”

“No cheating. Hadriel said so.”

“Oh,
I’m
not cheating, but they are. Go see for yourself, then come back and tell me you put five on the English.” The first little angel dangled his plump, pink feet over the canopy’s edge, swinging them back and forth. Beneath them, the queen looked up and saw the most curious ruffling motion of the canopy’s fringed edge. The wind’s coming up, she thought. We might have to move the king indoors again. She thought she heard a fluttering but decided it must be the sound of the royal banners flapping above the canopy in the wind.

The dark-eyed cherub flew all around the French pavilions. Beneath him was a confusion of men and horses, litters, surgeons, armorers hammering out dents, squires polishing helms and breastplates, stable boys, masters of the horse, and pages running errands and carrying messages. He flew through the canvas wall into the silk-hung pavilion of the Dauphin and perched on a suit of armor standing all polished and ready in the corner. Francis, dressed in the heavy, quilted doublet he wore beneath his armor, was surrounded by his knights and esquires. Before him stood the hugest man ever seen in France, a veritable giant with a blondish brown beard and large, fierce features.