The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (51 page)

My visual memory is perfect. Once I’ve seen something, I don’t forget it, and in the first flash of sight, the plan of this room had been impressed on my brain. I felt for the corner of the pool, then pulled Robert toward the hole behind the lion fountain. And none too soon, either. There was a flickering of lanterns in the marble-framed doorway, and the room was lit again by feeble light.

“What’s this?” inquired a commanding voice, and from where we were hiding, we could see the Constable de Bourbon, holding a lantern, surrounded by several armed men and led by the man in black.

“They’re gone,” said Bellier, looking wildly about him in the sudden light. His gown was slashed and his flat hat with the earflaps was floating dolefully in the pool.

“The Dolet woman and the man?”

“And Sir Septimus Crouch, the English servant of that unspeakable demon you made partnership with. I warned you, and now he has wormed his way into the heart of our deepest secrets.” Bourbon, arrogant and dark, looked at Bellier with a stare that would paralyze a snake.

“It’s the Helmsman,” whispered Ashton, curled up as tightly as an unborn baby with me, there in the tunnel. “Astonishing. Bourbon is the Helmsman.”

“Brother Bellier, will you and your servant kindly remove the chest with our record books? Brothers, go at once and seal the entrances to our tunnels. Our meeting place has been discovered; it must be abandoned at once. It is the law. And those who violate our secrets must die. We will seal them in for all eternity. It is just.” Even before he had finished giving his commands, the armed men had gone by the way they had come, and we had begun crawling up the tunnel as fast as we could, in hopes of beating them to the entrance.

The thoughts I had going up were even more unpleasant than the thoughts I had had going down. What if the way they’d come was short, and this way long? Then we’d meet a sealed entrance and die in the dark. My heart kept swelling up with horror and slowing me down. Robert kept poking me from behind to go faster, but it was darker and more horrible, with no light at the end to see by. We passed the broad opening, now on our left. “Robert,” I whispered, “let’s go this way; it’s bigger.”

“No, the other way, it’s not far, and we know where we are.” We crawled for what seemed an eternity, and I was sure I would meet a snake or some horrible slithery thing, and I felt tears coming down my face and Mistress Hull’s very strong but ugly mittens tearing apart on my hands, worn straight through by all that crawling. But then I could go no farther.

“Go on, go on,” Robert whispered in the dark.

“I can’t—a big rock—something—they must have rolled it.”

“Oh, damn, we’re not even at the grating yet. No one will even hear us.”

“Back down, Robert, and we’ll try the other way.” But I knew if they’d gotten this far, there was no hope. I could feel Robert back away, then hear him sigh, and the faint whisper of a prayer. If I get out of this, God, I’ll never go into a cellar again. No stone corridors, no halls I can’t see the end of. I don’t care if I have to live in a tent. Then I started praying, too, but in my mind, so that Robert wouldn’t know how terrified I was. We reached the broader way, and Robert disappeared into it, pulling at my skirts to make sure I knew where it was. Now we could stand up, but to my horror, I heard the patter and squeak of rats and felt their furry bodies brush against my ankles.

“Rats, a good sign,” Robert muttered. “They’ve got to get in somewhere.”

“Somewhere tiny,” I said. “Have you seen how little a hole a rat can get through?” I was shaking all over. I hate rats, too. And rats in the dark? That must be what they have in purgatory.

There was a bit of cool breeze, and we saw a tiny hole in the upper part of the tunnel, a web of heavy roots, and the edges of broken, displaced bricks. “There’s your rat hole,” I said. “Not big enough for us.” We pressed on.

“Look, light,” whispered Robert, and around a curve in the tunnel we saw a little niche in the wall, with a lamp with a deep oil well and floating wick, whose tiny flame glittered and shone in the dark like the answer to a prayer. Around it, stubs of candles were stuck onto the niche by their own wax. “It must be how they went in and out,” he said. We lit candles from the lamp, and could see the rest of the length of the tunnel. Sealed, too. We pressed against the heavy oak door. Not a crack, not a hope. We felt the edges, and the points of nails, poking through here and there, told the story. They had nailed it shut. I just sat there, all curled up, and cried, while Robert held me.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” he said, his voice full of despair. “I’ll get you out of here, I swear.” Hadriel, Hadriel, I wept silently, where are you now, you careless thing? I’m needing more than the idea for a new kind of painting. You’ve got me into this; it’s all your fault for urging on my wicked ideas about leaving my proper place in life. Now look at how I’ve ended up! I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. Open this hole and let me out, I shouted in my mind.

“That’s a good idea,” said Robert. “Worth a try. Anything’s worth a try.”

“What idea?” I asked.

“The one you said. We’ll try to open up the rat hole.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said.

“Of course you did. I heard it plainly.” He urged me up, and with the aid of the candles, we found the place much more quickly. Now as we looked about us with the light, we saw that we were not actually in a tunnel but a half tunnel roofed with a low, crumbling arch of brick and mortar that looked like part of a ceiling. The floor was compacted rubble. Farther on, the tunnel was dug through some sort of earth and in places lined with stone or brick, as if it were following the line of old walls, and then crossing them.

“These are buildings,” I said. “Buildings beneath the earth.”

“Of course they are,” he answered. “You can see the top side of them in places where they poke through. Ruined walls in the gardens, parts of other buildings. Maybe even cellars. People never bothered to clear away the walls; they just built more on top of them. But I had no idea there was so
much
of this place. The palace of a very great king—outbuildings, baths. These fellows in the Priory must have hollowed them out.” He passed me his knife, then took his misericord and began to chip at the mortar of the bricks nearest the hole. I took off the remains of my mittens and did the same, my hands freezing with the cold. We worked and worked. Each loose brick was a triumph, each root-entangled stone a disaster. Gradually the little patch of sky we could see through the hole blazed red, then purple, then turned black. I was hungry, I was tired, and I thought the tears would freeze my face. Robert labored on, his jaw clenched, his expression grim.

“You’re smaller,” he said, when the hole in the decayed brickwork had grown sufficiently. “I’ll put you on my shoulders and you must cut away the roots above the bricks.” So I hacked and chopped with his knife until he could push me up and through the hole. I lay on the frozen ground above, breathing deeply of real air and and weeping with relief. Then Robert’s own head popped up and through the hole and I grabbed the back of his leather doublet and pulled as he struggled up and out of the pit beneath the tangled roots of a wintering apple tree, like some midnight mole. We were in a walled garden. Above the walls stretched the night sky, spotted with winter stars.

“Take me home, Robert,” I wept. “I want to go home. I’ve had enough of grand things. I want to be home in the House of the Standing Cat again.”

It was well past midnight by the time we got to the tall old house on the Pont au Change. I was frozen through and glad to see when I looked up at the fourth floor windows that there was a light in our room. “Look up there, Robert. Nan’s there. She’s waiting for us.” Nan might even have supper kept warm for us, and it would be warm and cozy, and she’d exclaim over me and tell me how worried she’d been and everything would feel all right again. Inside, we found that the landlady wasn’t there to give us a candle to light our way up the stairs, but by now we were very practiced in climbing in the dark. With our hands on the walls, we went right up as neatly as a pair of owls. There was a bit of a glow, as if from rushlights, coming from beneath the studio door, but when I got to the door it wouldn’t open, even though I pulled the latch and pushed on it.

“Robert, help me push. The door is stuck shut. Nan, have you latched it? Come and open the door,” I called, knocking softly, so as not to wake the other tenants in the building. We leaned on the door, and gradually it moved just a little bit, as if something were stuck behind it. There was something dark and slippery on the floor, coming from beneath the door. Then all of a sudden, it felt as if whatever was blocking the door had moved, because it opened wide from my pushing, and something snatched me inside and blocked the door behind me. I could see the ruddy light of several rushlights propped about my workroom that there was a big, dark puddle on the floor seeping out under the door, and also behind the door a hand nearly as white as my plaster ones, but coming from a sleeve attached to a dress all soaked in blood and unrecognizable. The body lay on its face, its headdress torn off and grayish hair mixed with dark all tangled where there was still part of the head for it to be attached to. There were apron strings, still tied neatly at the back of the waist, but red, red. Jumbled brains lay on the floor, as if something had been eating at them. Nan. Oh, Jesus, Nan, all mangled and dead. Waiting faithfully for us, she had met this horrible end.

“Blood,” I said, all shocked, and I could feel coldness coming over me.

“Why yes indeed, it is blood,” said a voice from the shadows. I knew at once who was in the room with me. I saw boots, I saw a heavy cloak, and I saw a white, puffy face with lines, all standing in the shadow by the fireplace, which was empty with the ashes scattered. All through the room, I could hear a steady drip, drip, drip. My skins of oil were slashed, my colors scattered everywhere, and the brushes I had made all tramped into the mess of oil and turpentine and dye powders on the floor. Drawings torn and crumpled, lay all about as if scattered in pure rage, and I could see my half-finished panel of the queen at Abbeville slashed across from pure malice. Plaster limbs lay shattered on the floor, as if a great slaughter had taken place. My chest of treasures was upended, my books lying open on the floor among tumbled cloth and Nan’s half-done knitting. Behind the evil figure, in the half light at the window, the wicker cage still hung, the birds inside silent, huddled together in fluffy little balls, with their feathers puffed out.

“Septimus Crouch. How did you get here?” demanded Robert, from behind me.

“You’re surprised to see me? No more than I am to see you,” replied Septimus Crouch. “You seem to have taken the long way back. A pity you weren’t entombed. I had hoped for it. No, Ashton, don’t even think to touch that sword. Hey there,” he said, suddenly speaking into the dark of the room. “You; yes, you. Take the sword-o from him. No, not the hand, you fool, the
sword
, that thing-o there at his side. You hold the hands, so he can’t move. I want to talk to them first, before you take them apart.”

All in a flash, I saw the most terrifying shapeless thing, only vaguely human, detach itself from the shadows. It was a full head taller than any man living, and flames came from its nostrils. Crouch fixed it with the gaze of his evil eyes, and I could see the white all around the rims of them. Then I saw it flash and change, moving like a lightning strike, and then I could see Robert struggling in its coils, as if in the grasp of a giant serpent. Then I heard an eerie chattering and grumbling sound answering it from the corner and realized there were two of them in the room. I could hear the
huff, huff
of the second one’s breath, just like the bellows of a blacksmith’s furnace, and see the glow. It was standing in the corner diagonal from us and opposite Crouch, waiting impatiently. I could feel its irritation, rolling off in waves, like a strong scent. I was so terrified, I couldn’t decide whether to try to flee or to throw up.

“I suggest you not struggle,” said Sir Septimus to Robert Ashton. “They have been very impatient lately. And it’s their first trip out of the house since…ah, well, under
my
command. Green, green, but they’ll get used to it. That foolish old woman tried to hit one of them with her lantern, and just look what happened, before I could even order them to stop.” I looked down at Nan, too frozen with terror even to weep, and around at the devastation of my work, and at Robert, coiled up so tightly in the black thing that all I could see was the flash of the whites of his eyes.

“You monster,” I said.

“Monster? My dear Mistress Dallet, I assure you, I am far beyond being a mere monster,” Crouch purred. “The very imps of hell are at my command. I have become Evil Incarnate.”

“Why? Why me? Look at all this. You’ve ruined everything.”

“Oh, I haven’t ruined
everything
. At least, not yet,” said Septimus Crouch. “You still walk and talk. So does Ashton. You had best tell me where you have hidden it while you have yet the power.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Don’t you dare touch me,” I said.

“You still keep your mask, you sly, scheming little vixen? The poor innocent with the vicious depths. How deviously you plan, how ingeniously you conceal yourself. What you have not realized is that you cannot deceive
me
. The mystic mirror has shown me what you really are—your plots, your diabolical cabals.” His eyes seemed to glow with some strange, knowing malice. So penetrating was his look, I began to wonder if there weren’t
something
I was scheming about, just because he was so sure of it. I felt the dirtier for his looking at me. “And as for touching you,” he went on, “I wouldn’t dream of it. See these delightful, if somewhat uncouth beings here? One of them is barely restrained by my word from strangling the appalling little turncoat, Ashton. Just look, he’s turning quite purple, or at least that part that I can see.” Horrified, I could see that Robert was slowly being crushed alive.