The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley (9 page)

Wolsey, like a cat watching a mouse hole, waited while the old king inspected other brides and found them wanting. Quietly, he took the old man’s measure; a man trying to recapture his lost youth, speculated the shrewd cleric. He wants beauty, he wants frivolity, he deludes himself into thinking he acts only for an heir. With an almost satiric craft, the King’s Almoner had dangled the prize bait in front of him: he had offered to seal an alliance between France and England with the most beautiful and frivolous princess in Europe.

The French king hesitated; Wolsey dispatched by secret courier a life-size portrait of her head in three-quarters view, her lips parted, her eyes shining invitingly beneath long lashes (it had not hurt that the master painter was quite handsome and had a most flattering tongue). It was a picture calculated to set an old man’s blood boiling. Wolsey smiled at the remembrance of it. Even his French agent who had received the portrait had expressed his admiration. The most delicate operation, accomplished brilliantly. In what great secrecy he had had to work, to prevent a counter-scheme from being hatched against him by the English king’s father-in-law, the King of Spain, whose spies were everywhere!

Now, dinner having been planned and all his mind-compartments humming, Wolsey sent off the Master Cook. The King’s Almoner was expecting de Longueville shortly, with news from France, he hoped. Instead it was Master Ashton, the newest of his privy secretaries, and a priest whose name he ought to have remembered, but which seemed to escape him at the moment. As his servant and the strange priest were shown in, Wolsey made a point of looking up from some papers with which he appeared to be busy as if to say, Well, be quick about it.

“Your Grace, you have asked me to report any news that pertains to Longueville’s activities. I have come to you because I have reason to believe that he is carrying on a separate correspondence with France.” Ashton’s face was calm as he delivered this news, but in an unconscious gesture, he unrolled the tightened fingers of his left hand with his right. Wolsey noticed it. Ashton might as well have written his nervousness on a sign and hung it about his neck.

Ashton had good reason to be nervous; he was knowingly interrupting the great man at his labors. Being cast into outer darkness was the very least of the penalties that Wolsey imposed on those who annoyed him. And Ashton, in the course of his duties as a confidential agent, errand boy, and letter writer in four languages, had already become well acquainted with the utter ruthlessness that lay beneath the silky surface of Wolsey’s ambition. But Ashton, just twenty-five, was new to the bishop’s service and had no important family connections. He needed to take risks to rise. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, said Ashton to himself. I can’t let Brian Tuke spend all his time wallowing in the bishop’s favor. It’s Ashton’s turn for praise.

What Ashton would have been humiliated to realize was that he had been retained for the sake of an unfortunate gift that endeared him to Wolsey: to anyone with a mind to see, Ashton’s honest eyes signaled every thought that went through his head as clearly as if it were written on his forehead. It amused Wolsey to read the continual display of thoughts that passed through Ashton’s hazel eyes, and occasionally to give Ashton a prod, or even several, just to watch his face change. The fact that Ashton was intelligent made it even better. Reading Ashton made Wolsey feel older and cleverer, and was always a pleasant thing to do on a rainy afternoon, when reading documents cloyed. For this reason, he tolerated Ashton’s youthful brashness, his tendency to be too hasty and too passionate in matters he considered moral, his fits and moods, and the irritating little habits that signaled he had not been trained at court. Besides, the man was useful; he was courageous, he was nosy, he was persistent, and he was eager to rise.

Wolsey cast a long, purposefully shrewd stare at Ashton, taking in at a glance the strapping form, the mobile, intelligent face, the livery dusty with travel and hastily, hopefully, brushed. He measured with a glance Ashton’s overeager eyes, in which trepidation and calculation warred with triumphant delight at his own cleverness. Aha, thought Wolsey, whatever he has here, he’s planned a counterblow against Master Tuke. It is bound to be interesting. Brian Tuke pleased Wolsey for exactly the qualities Ashton had no hope of possessing: he was smooth, deferential, flattering, and pliant to his master’s least wish. Unoriginal and politic, his rise within Wolsey’s household was unhindered by the kind of embarrassing incident that Ashton was likely to entangle himself in. He had served longer than Ashton; he did better than Ashton. Ashton resented it, and strove mightily to overtake him. Wolsey enjoyed the rivalry immensely, and every so often did something to overbalance it, first one way, and then another, just to watch the two of them circle each other like fighting dogs in the pit. Another amusement for those dull moments between plans.

The priest, who had let Master Ashton’s silver tongue, golden coin, and mention of the mighty bishop’s favor worm the secret from him, seemed suddenly to shrivel under Wolsey’s cold gaze.

“Surely, de Longueville is too cautious to bring any deep scheme to the confessional. Are you sure it is not some frivolous social correspondence?” Wolsey made his voice icy and was rewarded by the sudden fading of the expression of cocky cleverness in Ashton’s eyes.

“It was not he who confessed, but Mistress Popincourt, who was wild with jealousy that he had secretly procured the portrait of another woman,” Ashton broke in. Wolsey made his face darkly dubious. Ashton’s eyes were filled with a sudden, deeply gratifying, anxiety. “This priest here will bear me out,” said Ashton. The priest nodded in affirmation of Ashton’s words.

“Another woman? What other woman?” Wolsey’s curiosity was piqued, and he let it show. Good, thought Ashton, I’ve aroused his interest. Now we are safe. The image of Master Tuke’s snobbish, irritated glare danced delightfully in Ashton’s mind. Next time, Tuke, it will be Ashton who walks behind the bishop, carrying the dispatch case and record books to the council meeting, not Tuke. Wolsey noted the return of the rivalrous glitter to Ashton’s eyes, and was silent.

“Hear me out, and perhaps you will draw conclusions similar to mine.” Best not to let it out all at once, thought Ashton. Through hard experience abroad, much of it spent observing ruthless men of power, Ashton had become an expert at the timing of telling a good tale. In addition, he could, when sufficiently drunk, mimic the accents and affectations of others in a manner calculated to bring the company into fits of helpless laughter. These were skills of great value to a man who at sixteen had inherited ten pounds and a horse at his father’s death, almost as useful as his neat clerk’s handwriting, and the gift of languages he had discovered in his brief career as a mercenary abroad.

Wolsey sunk his chin in his hand as he listened. His right eyelid drooped in a way that seemed most sinister to the confessor, who seemed to have lost the power of speech. Ashton paused, and continued. “At a supper at Greenwich, de Longueville was enticed by the guests into telling a ghost story. It seems a certain lord offered a commission to paint a miniature from a stained canvas portrait in large to a certain painter in the city—”

“Yes, yes, go on.” Wolsey was impatient with long stories.

“When he returned to collect the miniature, he met a priest outside the house of the artist who had come to inform the artist’s wife that her husband had been murdered across town the night before. But to the lord’s surprise, the portrait was complete anyway. The wife, unknowing, gave out that in ghostly fashion her husband had returned and finished the work.”

“Ghostly fashion indeed,” snorted Wolsey. “The man had an apprentice who finished the job and the wife palmed off apprentice work for master’s wages.”

“That was my thought, too, Your Grace. The French are so excitable, you know. The picture, of course, was reported to be a masterwork of the highest order.” Ashton pulled his face into a droll imitation of a French connoisseur of art. Try as he might to be serious, he could not disguise the fact that he loved a good practical joke. This was another quality that had caused Wolsey to retain him, despite his other defects. It made him the perfect agent. Many of Wolsey’s finest schemes had the quality of practical jokes on the universe, and it was the unconscious understanding of this that made Robert Ashton able to act at a distance exactly as Wolsey would have done if he were there in person. It was a talent that Wolsey at the same time both valued and despised, as one despises some less elegant part of oneself that should have been left behind when one rose in the world.

“Of course,” Wolsey responded. “What else would give so excellent a finish to a story? But go on.” Wolsey had become interested in spite of himself. He shifted to a more comfortable position in his big chair. Good, he’s settling in, thought Ashton.

“Mistress Popincourt divined through a slip of the tongue that de Longueville was the lord involved, and decided he had another mistress, one he favored more, for when had he ever worn her portrait around his neck? She searched his things, subtly questioned his servants, and found he had indeed had the portrait painted, and paid three pounds for it, too, which made her even more furious. But he did not have the portrait in his possession. The servant would tell no more but only blessed himself to keep the ghost off. Being curious, I made inquiries and found that de Longueville had sent off a pouch containing a small box sewn into an oiled silk cloth to Dover—”

“The portrait.”

“Exactly. It was to be entrusted to a French captain who would see it delivered to Louise of Savoy, mother of the Dauphin.” The fatal shot. Ashton’s face was serene.

“Louise of Savoy! That scheming woman! This French duke plays a double game with me!” Wolsey stood suddenly, furious. “Then the portrait must be—”

“Your Grace, in a moment you will know for certain.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your Grace, knowing your mind in these matters, and being your faithful servant in all things, I sent a fast messenger by post and intercepted the ship. My servant bribed the captain’s servant and secured the package, on loan, as it were—”

“Brilliant! I forsee a grand future for you, Ashton,” Wolsey interrupted. Ashton’s eyes lit up.

“—which I have here,” Ashton finished. Triumphantly, he produced a leather pouch and placed it among the papers and dispatch cases on Wolsey’s immense oak desk. The victorious secretary saw Wolsey’s eye glow beneath the sinister, drooping lid; he noted with mixed delight and relief the imperceptible smile and the controlled calm in the bishop’s voice as he said:

“My dear Master Ashton, will you be so kind as to show out this excellent priest and to call the clerk of my closet?”

The clerk, a young priest who was an expert at decoding intercepted correspondence, pried loose the seals intact with a practiced hand and delicately cut the threads that held the oiled silk tightly around the box. Inside was a letter folded tight, in cipher, and a plain round case, about two inches in diameter.

“The cipher is a simple one, de Longueville’s usual, Your Grace,” said the clerk, who had brought his decoding paraphernalia with him. He lit a candle from the fire and delicately applied heat to the letter to bring out any hidden writing, then set to work. In the quiet of the room, the only sound was that of his pen scratching, as Wolsey opened the portrait box with the practiced care of a great connoisseur. But even he was taken aback by the glittering little image that lay inside the turned wood box.

“The Princess Mary, as I surmised,” he said. “Louise of Savoy must wish to know the face of her enemy.” He turned the box sideways to catch the light at a different angle. Wolsey considered himself an exceptional judge of all that was most exquisite in art and music, as befits a churchman of rank. “This is a copy of the Dallet portrait. But it surpasses the original, a thing most surprising in a copy.” He held the picture closer to his good left eye. “And, I judge, it is not by Dallet’s hand.” He gestured to his code clerk, who understood instantly what he wanted, and handed the bishop his magnifying glass. “See here,” said Wolsey, peering through the glass, “the work is finer. See the hatchwork under the jaw? It is almost invisible, the strokes are so finely wrought. This work is not done in England. Or rather, it was not until now. Yes, I imagine we shall find that Dallet had a foreign apprentice—one who surpassed him, and whose name he concealed out of jealousy.”

“It is indeed most finely made,” said the code clerk, who had finished copying the brief, ciphered letter into plain English and had taken a moment to peer at the miniature painting in his master’s hand.

“Master Dallet would not long have retained his crown had he let this apprentice be known. The boy could have set up as his rival even without a mastership,” observed Ashton, his intelligent face intently peering over the code clerk’s shoulder as he, too, inspected the painting. Secretly, he gloried in the moment of shared connoisseurship. Ha, take that, Tuke. The great man confers with
me
on matters that require a
real
mind.

Wolsey set down the painting and took up the transcribed letter. “Pleasantries,” he said, “and not much more. ‘The image which accompanies this letter is that which you requested of Princess Mary Tudor, younger sister to the King of England. I can vouch personally for the fact that it is a true portrait in the liveliest detail of her character as well as her features—’ Longueville must be in regular correspondence with this woman. The wretch! Now, how can we turn this to our account?” Wolsey tapped an impatient finger on the arm of his great cushioned chair as he thought.

“De Longueville is right about her character. This artist seems to portray the very thoughts of the subject through the features. It is really most extraordinary,” said Ashton. He was a good judge of painting, and genuinely impressed and puzzled at such a display of talent from one unknown. Wolsey turned suddenly to him and said,

“And what thoughts do they seem to be? How will that Frenchwoman read this picture? Answer honestly, now.” Ashton answered suddenly, with the vigor and bitterness of a passionate soul who has just been jilted and still has the event fresh in his mind.