The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (50 page)

“The ambassador of the King of England, the Duke of Suffolk!” Francis looked up to see that damned, hulking brute stalking down the hall. You could dress the man up in silk and furs all you wanted, he thought, but he still looks like an ox.

“Your Grace,” said Suffolk, addressing Francis as if he were still duke. This low-born oaf, as insulting as ever, thought Francis. The English must still imagine that that woman might produce an heir. Without paying attention, Francis listened to Suffolk repeat his formal congratulations. What do I care about your English treaty? he thought. I think I’ll have my captains raid your shipping. The English king needs to be reminded I am powerful. But for now, I need to get rid of that beastly little White Queen and the plots that surround her. Suddenly, a splendid thought came to him. An inspiration, really. His foxy little eyes twinkled with the joke of it, and a half smile crept up beneath his extraordinarily long nose.

“My lord of Suffolk,” said King Francis, “I hear you have come thither into this kingdom to marry the White Queen, your master’s sister.”

Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, his king’s right hand, hero of war and tournament, paled sheet white.

“I don’t like it, Susanna; there’s something wrong with the whole thing.” We were on our way across the Petit Pont to the Hôtel de Cluny at the White Queen’s summons. Robert’s hat was pulled down low, and his long gray cloak was muffled around him, concealing the shortsword and dagger that he wore at his belt. In his doublet he had hidden a narrow little misericord, just in case. I had my hood up and was wearing a pair of Mistress Hull’s lumpier mittens that she had given me before she had become inspired by Hadriel and gotten fashionable. The wind bit through my cloak, which was becoming a bit threadbare, and I was scheming how to get a new one. The notion of a nice little commission from the White Queen was just right.

“It’s her seal, and a servant in the old king’s livery delivered it.”

“But the wording—it seems unlikely that she would write so. And why in French, when she could write to you in English?” Robert had gotten all jumpy lately and was sure everything was a plot. I would just tell him, what have painters got to do with plots, but he insisted on going with me if things didn’t look right to him. So far, he’d cooled his heels outside the new queen’s apartments, and also the Duchess Marguerite’s, but that didn’t stop him from being suspicious.

“Why would she write in other than the language of the court? Robert, I am glad of your company, but I am sure it just must be those angels she wanted. She’s finally gotten around to ordering them at last—and every other painter in Paris is doing coronation portraits, or banners for the parade route, or coats of arms for the canopies. Coronations—why, they’re even better business than funerals! Have I told you that the Duchess Marguerite has commissioned a dozen miniatures of her brother? I’m thinking I may take on an apprentice after all.” As we pressed on down the street toward the Church of the Mathurins, he didn’t do more than answer
“umph”
and look about him suspiciously. Here were some students hurrying toward warmth and someone from out of town, mounted on a horse in a shaggy winter coat.

“You’re not jealous, are you? I was thinking of taking on a girl, not a boy.”

“There’s something wrong. It smells wrong to me. Someone’s following us. Duck into this archway here, and he’ll think we’ve gone around the corner, and when he follows us, we’ll see who it is.” In a flash, he’d pulled me in by the elbow, and I waited quietly and peered out, just to prove him wrong. A man driving a mule loaded with firewood passed by, and I was just about to step out when I saw him. A tall, cloaked figure glided from a shadowy doorway. I pressed myself back into the arch, and we saw him step purposefully past us and begin to round the corner toward the Hôtel de Cluny. There was no question who it was. A heavy black hood was pulled over his head, but the familiar square-cut beard and malicious pale green eyes, two glaciers set in pallid mounds of skin, made my blood freeze. It was Septimus Crouch. What was it he knew? Why was he following us? Maybe Robert was right about the message, after all.

He paused at the corner and, not seeing us, began to retrace his steps. With Robert pulling my elbow, we fled down the narrow corridor behind the archway. A high wooden gate barred our way. We thought we heard footsteps behind us. The gate wasn’t locked. We pulled open the gate and closed it behind us. We were in the tiny patch of winter garden within the walls of the monastery of the Mathurins.

“Oh, Lord, Robert, we can’t be in here.”

“We can’t be out of here, either.” We heard him fumbling at the gate. “Surely, he must know I’m armed. Is there someone with him?” As if in answer, we heard another set of footsteps approaching the gate, and the sound of hurried conversation. “That cellar door, there. They’ll think we’ve gone through the church,” Robert whispered. Crouch had another man with him. Maybe more. Robert could be cut to pieces if he confronted them. I looked at the cellar door. I looked again at the gate. I hate cellars; they are full of rats and spiders and disgusting damp darkness. If it weren’t for Robert, I’d have never thought of it. But quick as a wink we were on the narrow stony stairs behind the little door while we heard Crouch and whoever it was stamping around outside.

“They came this way; I’m sure of it,” Crouch said. “You go search the church—
aha!
Look at this little door. Just the sort of place a rat like Ashton would scramble into.” We fled down the stairs just as the first crack of light from the opening door illuminated the gray stone around us. Crouch paused, and we could hear the slither of steel as he drew his long Italian rapier. As Robert pulled me deeper into the dark corridor, my heart began to pound. We came to a locked grating and felt a soft pulse of air.

“It’s the cellar. Damn, it’s locked. They’ve protected their wine too well,” he whispered as he felt about. “But here—the tunnel goes on. It’s narrower; we’ll have to crawl.”

“N-no, Robert, I can’t go there.”

“You have to. Go ahead of me. Crouch has a rapier and a long reach. He’ll skewer you if you’re behind me. We need to stay far ahead of him. If we turn back, he’ll outreach the length of my sword and leave us here like a pair of dead rats. See here, they wouldn’t have made it if it didn’t go somewhere. It probably has an entrance in the church.” Softly, softly, muffled with his cloak, he drew his misericord. “With luck, he’ll give up,” he whispered, very softly, in my ear. Then I could hear a little click of his teeth and knew he was holding it in his mouth, so he could crawl better.

My heart full of horror, I crawled into the narrow stone way. It was flat, paved with what felt like wide, smooth stones, and a trickle of damp from some unknown source was running down the center. I heard rattling at the gate behind us.

“Curses,” I heard Crouch’s voice mutter. “They must have gotten in here. I’ll have to give up.” But his speech sounded suspiciously loud and forced. Behind me, Robert seemed to breathe easier. But I thought I could still hear the soft shuffle, shuffle sound of a man on his hands and knees behind us. It was all a ruse, the little speech, to make us think he’d left so we’d go back. As long as he’s crawling, and we’re crawling faster, he can’t hurt us, I thought. There’s no room. But the thought wasn’t consoling. We couldn’t go back. That’s what he was hoping we’d do. We’d go back and he’d cut our throats; I just knew it. A man like Septimus Crouch doesn’t follow people for no reason, especially when they have received a message that might be a forgery after all. My brain was seething with desperate questions, the kind you think of when you are in a place you hate and wish you were home and are afraid you might die in the place you are. Like, why did the man hate me so much he wouldn’t back out and give up? I couldn’t ask Robert to back up; the man hated him, too. He’d run Robert through and fill the narrow way with Robert’s body and leave me trapped behind him to die there. No one would ever know he’d done it, and they’d never find us. That must be his plan. How stupid we were not to have faced him on the street. But there had been two of them up there—maybe even more. Who could have stopped them from killing us? Still we pitched downward in the dark, and I thought I could feel strange slithering things on my ankles, which made me shudder.

The corridor leveled off, then turned slightly and sloped downhill again. I felt a strange sort of cold breath on my cheek and, even in the blackness, knew it meant there was another, wider corridor on my right side. But far away down the trickling damp stones of our own, low, way, I could make out a flicker of light. I nearly cried out with relief to see it. A cellar! One with a cellerer, counting his casks! I could imagine him there, all homely, with his big apron, humming to himself. Oh, God, I’ll never think badly of cellars again! Oh, my dress, it’s ruined! The mittens, they’re no loss, but I really liked this dress. My best wool, the one Cat and Mistress Hull and Nan and I made, with all the nice little tucks and touches here and there. How can I be seen, even in a cellar, with such a woeful dress? Now Robert saw the light, and urged me on by poking me on the ankle with one hand.

At last I came to the opening, scrambled out, and stepped down beside something like a dripping fountain without even thinking, hurrying for fear Robert would be trapped behind me. He dropped out behind me with a thump, and I saw we were in the strangest room I had ever seen. Entirely underground, it had no natural source of light, and yet it must have had once, for among the strange, high shadows made by candlelight up under the vault, I saw windows that were entirely filled in with a rubble of dirt and stone. There was an ugly smell of damp and decay, of old water that hid ugly secrets in its depths. An eerie
plink, plink, plink
sound went on monotonously as single drops of water made their way from our corridor down into the wall fountain from behind which we’d climbed, and dropped into a square pond that filled the center of the room. On the far side of the water was a long table on which stood a large silver candelabrum filled with flickering candles that cast strange, pale patterns of light up among the shadows through the strange, colonnaded brick room. A servant with a candle was lighting the first of a row of torches that stood in iron brackets along the walls, between the ancient pillars that supported the roof. It caught with a
whoosh
, and orange light danced across the surface of the black waters of the pool. With a start, I recognized the man in black. And then I heard a measured, cultivated voice address us in French:

“Why, Suzanne Dolet, what a pleasant surprise. We were expecting you later, in the company of our Helmsman. But you have come here ahead of our appointed time and brought company as well. This, I assume, is Robert Ashton, no longer dead?” Behind me, I could feel Robert freeze with surprise at this speech. But I knew the man in the doctor’s gown who spoke. I had last met him in London. It was Maître Bellier.

“Where are we?” I asked him, foolishly mistaking him for a friend and relieved to see him in this strange place. The man in black paused beneath the second torch, turning toward us, the candle in his hand, to hear his master’s answer.

“Where? Somewhere beneath the gardens of the Hôtel de Cluny, I imagine. It is of no concern. Eustache, please go at once and inform the Helmsman that the guests he awaited have preceded him here.” On the far side of the pool, beyond the table, was a marble-framed doorway with an eagle on the top of it. Beyond it into the dark stretched the rocky walls of a tunnel.

I could hear Robert roar, “No!” and heard him draw his sword to pursue Eustache, who dropped his candle and drew his knife. But Bellier was armed, too, and from beneath his gown drew his own shortsword, rushing to save his servant. Without stopping to think, I ran after him around the far side of the pool, grabbing up the candelabrum from the table to batter at the man in black. Candles rolled every which way and guttered out on the floor, as the man in black tried to ward off the fiery blows. At that very moment, I heard a clatter and glanced back. Ashton and Bellier had frozen in surprise. A third person had emerged from the tunnel, rapier drawn. Septimus Crouch had joined us. The orange light crackled across his malignant face.

“You, here? You are not of the brotherhood!” gasped Bellier.

“So, at last, I’ve found your little place. I thought when the Helmsman acted, they might lead me to it, but I never imagined how.”

“This is forbidden!” cried Bellier. Crouch laughed at him. Robert, sword drawn, stood at the opposite edge of the pond from me, beneath the unlit torches, midway between Crouch and Bellier, uncertain as to which way to go.

“My dear sir, let us first cut Ashton’s throat and argue later about propriety,” announced Crouch, in that cool, unpleasant way he had. I looked at my Robert trapped between them, and, in a flash of inspiration, heaved the single lit torch that stood above me out of its bracket and into the pool, plunging the whole room into pitch darkness. There was the sound of feet, and I knew that the man in black had vanished out the marble-framed door. From the opposite side of the pool there came a clattering and banging of swords engaging in the dark, and I heard Robert cry, “Ah, I’m hit!” Swiftly, so that they could not locate me by the sound of my footsteps, I tried to crawl around the pool toward him, feeling my way with one hand on the edge. My hand met another hand, feeling in the opposite direction. Robert’s. I’d know it in the dark, so often had I run my hands over the cast of it. Behind him, there was the sound of metal crashing against stone. A finger, not mine, found my lips in the dark, and crossed them. The sign of silence. How badly was he hurt? He could feel my thoughts. The hand took my hand and put it across his lips. I could feel him smile. I could feel him mouth, “I’m fine” without any sound. A trick. He’d set them on each other in the dark. But almost as soon as he touched me, the clattering stopped, and I could hear the heavy breathing of someone hunting for us in the dark.