Viper Wine

by Hermione Eyre

  He was now reacquainted with his bearded friend Dell’Mascere, and this had brought him to a higher pitch of feeling, so his joy was spiced with pain. She knew Chater was chaste: she could tell by his tension and the bile in his voice, and his fastidious nature. But she guessed it cost him. She detected a struggle constantly taking place within him. Mortification was part of his Order, and she knew he whipped himself under his soutane. She hoped he was not spoiling the second best bedroom’s sheets.

  Chater saw she was not going to give up without a fight, and rubbing her feet a little harder, he continued: ‘It is so sad, so very sad, to see a lady destroy her face by means of artifice. Have you noticed how those who do it are always those who were formerly the most beautiful?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Venetia, enjoying Chater’s ministrations to her feet. ‘But if they were already former beauties, then the artifice is simply a third thing, no worse than decay.’

  ‘No, my lady, I must disagree. It is a crime against your Maker to render your cheeks immovable with lead. Decay is holy, in its way.’

  ‘Oh come, Chater. It is not forbidden for a woman to improve her condition, is it? I remember no Commandment, thou shalt not paint.’

  ‘The Puritans will not have paint.’

  ‘The Puritans will not have anything.’

  ‘Paint is one thing. Irreversible embellishments are quite another matter. They are far worse. They might render a woman unrecognisable to God on Judgement Day. Think of that.’

  ‘Chater, have you been reading Savonarola again?’

  He put his weight into twisting her foot, so she gasped. She would not show it was painful.

  ‘Excellent footwork, Chater.’

  He looked serious. ‘There is something Florentine about the King’s court here, yes. Now, take my Lady Porter, what has she attempted?’

  ‘Many things in her life, I should say.’

  Exasperated, Chater cracked the joint of her big toe, and worked his way down to its fellows.

  ‘Has she taken Dr Scoderu’s Virginal Milk perhaps, of sorrel and fucus? I have heard that is quite a puissant mixture. Except it would not make her face to blister . . .’

  ‘I know it not,’ said Venetia, twisting as he pinched her little toe.

  ‘Or perhaps that ghastly Alexis of Piedmont’s recipe is still in vogue, the one that calls for a young raven from the nest, fed for forty days with hard eggs only, and then distilled with myrtle . . .’

  ‘Are you interested, Chater? Do you wish for my recommendations? But your brow is still smooth. You have a few pretty greys, mingling with the dark . . .’

  Chater involuntarily raised his hand to the back of his head, and stroked downwards with aghast tenderness, but in no other way did he give Venetia the benefit of a reaction. Seamlessly, he went back to massaging her feet.

  ‘My lady, I am responsible for the conduct of your soul. I cannot let you abuse your beauty without speaking out.’

  ‘What do you mean, Chater?’

  ‘My lady understands me well enough.’

  ‘You are full of insinuation, Chater,’ she said, stressing the ‘sin’ with a sibilant ‘S’.

  He was afraid to call her on it. He needed her friendship so deeply, he did not dare to ask her outright if she was taking any medicine for her skin. And yet he had been bold enough to come this far. Poor Chater. She felt quite certain of it, now, looking at his face contorting as he manipulated her feet, that he knew she was beautiful again, and that she was restored to Sir Kenelm’s love, and she was regaining her old place at court, and that he did not like these changes, because he did not understand them, and he felt redundant, and rejected, because he had no power over her now. Before she drank her potion, they were two broken, clever creatures together, both surplus to requirements, somehow, and complicit in their loneliness and their little games of Scripture. Now she was a juicy plum again, but he seemed sadder than ever.

  ‘Sometimes I worry you mortify yourself too much, Chater. I went into the laundry once and I saw a bloodied undershirt they said was yours.’

  ‘It is the duty of true believers to mortify sin all their days,’ said Chater. ‘Mortify, make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work, be killing sin or it will be killing you.’

  ‘John?’ said Venetia, weakly.

  ‘Galileans. Should I need to remind you?’ He exhaled, and gripped her ankle with his hand. His fingers could almost close around her ankle now; she was become so slender of late, the bitch. She used to be his plump darling but now she had no use for her Chater.

  Venetia looked at his long face and realised that he was angry with her. She had expected him to love her more because she was beautiful again, and to follow her around adoringly, because everyone loves a beauty, do they not? Apart from those who prefer to keep you in your place, where you were less powerful, because they need you for themselves, and do not want to share you.

  ‘I hope you have not been listening to idle chatter, Chater.’

  ‘I hope you have not been visiting any meddling herbalist no better than a quack.’

  ‘No, i’faith,’ said Venetia with honest indignation. ‘If I were to go to anyone, I would go to the best.’

  Chater realised: she was trying to tell him that Sir Kenelm gave her a potion. It was what he had long suspected.

  In fact, she was on the cliff’s edge of telling him about Lancelot Choice and his blood-red decoction. It would lighten her secret to share it, and renew her friendship with Chater besides. It would be entertaining to see his eyes pop when she told him. But Chater was embarrassed because he thought he was trampling upon Sir Kenelm’s business, and he did not let her speak, interrupting her angrily: ‘My lady must resist the vain society here. It is not wise, nor fruitful to be afflicted by fashion.’

  ‘Is Chater now so wise he would have me in a nunnery?’ She laughed, relieved to find that her urge to confide in him had gone as quickly as it had come.

  ‘Chater! That hurts!’

  He laid down her feet and rubbed them soothingly back and forth, with the flat of his hand.

  MARY TREE: 170 MILES TRAVELLED

  WHEN I ARRIVED in London, I was lucky to meet Bess Bottomly almost at once. She hath but one hand, but she is so quick with it, you barely notice. She came up to me as I was praying beside the fine Cheapside Cross (three storeys tall with a great golden cross and a dove on top!), thanking the Lord for my delivery from the bone-shake of the coach, and praying for Richard Pickett. When Bess Bottomly saw I was at prayer she kept back until I had finished. Then she asked if I wanted to stay at her house until I found lodgings of my own. I knew she would want paying for this – I did not think her a saint – but I was grateful nevertheless. There were many other girls staying with her, and often they have visits from gentlemen who are their suitors for marriage, so Bess told me.

  I was so pleased to be safe and warm and in the company of women, all of them merry enough, as far as I could tell. Bess’s lieutenant, so-called, is one Anna Trapper, who sits and minds the door of Bess’s lodging-house. Last night I sat with her, talking.

  ‘An Abraham man came this way today,’ she said, ‘and then changed his mind and became a Ruffler.’

  This is a test, to see if I have conned her correctly.

  ‘An Abraham man begs by feigning to have been mad,’ I said. ‘And a Ruffler pretends he has been in service in the wars.’

  ‘Also known as?’

  ‘An Uprightman.’

  ‘Good. And what do those beggars who pretend they cannot speak be called?’

  ‘Dummerers!’ I crowed, for I like to get my answers right as much as the next good girl.

  ‘More Rome-booze, my darling,’ she said, meaning ‘More wine’, so I filled her up.

  ‘Who demands for glimmer?’

  ‘Those who pretend to have lost all their belongings in a fire.’

  ‘And what do I mean by a Counterfeit Crank?’

  ‘One who
dissembles falling sickness and so beg for alms.’

  ‘For alms? For alms? No, no, no, doll. No! No Abraham man, no Counterfeit Crank, no Ruffler, no Dummerer, no none of them wants alms. They wants money. Brass. Gilt. Dust. Counter. The old cross-n-pile. Right, let’s see. A Prigger steals . . .?’

  ‘Prancers.’

  ‘Prancers being?’

  ‘Horses.’

  ‘Foisters, Nippers, Lifters . . .?’

  ‘Are common pickpockets.’

  ‘And Churbers?’

  ‘Are burglars who use long hooks to steal by.’

  I was doing well, and I was frequently told by Anna that I needed to learn all this, for my own safety. By the way she looked at me and my Mark – once she licked her thumb and drew it across my cheek, as if she were trying to remove it – I could see she knew I would never find the protection of any man. So I was grateful for the education she was giving me. And yet in my heart I knew I was becoming versed in the muck of the mire, and as much as I wanted to make my way in the city, for Richard’s sake, I also wished to shut my ears and go home to Endcote Early.

  Many gentlemen suitors came offering marriage that night – some of them half-drunk, I believe. One gent came in to Bess Bottomly’s discreetly hooded but with long, yellow-gartered legs on show. I know those knees, I thought. His face confirmed what his legs suggested – this was none other than my friend Mungo Stump. He was not so pleased to see me as I expected. He looked aghast, in truth. By his face I began to see for certain I was not in a place of good repute. I told him I had not yet found Sir Keyholme Digbin, although I went out marching the streets enquiring after him every day. He coloured bright red under his flaxen hair.

  When Mungo Stump was upstairs imploring his lady love to marry him, Anna Trapper’s conversation went beyond its usual bounds.

  ‘What’s a cony-catcher, then?’

  I blushed and shook my head.

  ‘What’s a marigold-picker, eh?’

  She poked me in the ribs.

  ‘A young wench not yet broken by the Upright man is a dell. When they have been lain withal by the Upright man, they be doxies and no dells.’

  I did not like this talk, but I tried to be civil.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, without interest.

  ‘A kitchen-mort is a young girl, soon ripe, soon rotten . . .’

  I can barely think how long this talk continued, while I endured it, sorrowing all the while for the girls – my new friends – whom I realised had already been broken by an Upright man. And I realised that I should also have been upstairs with a gentleman, had I not been Mark’d across my face, and not for the first time I was wholly thankful for my affliction.

  But Mungo Stump came downstairs quickly, as if he had thought again on all his doings. He told me that my aunt Lucy wanted me to stay with her this very night. I am not so innocent as some, and I knew after only a moment or two that a lie was required here, and so crossing my fingers behind my back, I said, oh yes, I must go to my aunt.

  My leave-taking began, and with some coin, and the laying on of more Rome-booze for Anna Trapper, it was accomplished quickly, as I knew it must be, before Bess Bottomly was back. In my haste, I was frantic to think I had lost the shard that wounded Richard Pickett, but then I found it under my pillow.

  Mungo Stump took me to stay with his old housekeeper. He told me, somewhat shamefaced, that I had the name of the Keeper of the Powder of Sympathy wrong, and that I would have better luck in my endeavour after I enquired for Sir Kenelm Digby. I suppose he thought it was good sport to mislead me all those weeks ago at the tavern in Dawlish. But perhaps there is a special providence in his doing so, and thus feeling guilty enough to rescue me from Bess Bottomly’s.

  Sometimes I feel a cold hand at my shoulder that tells me I am running out of time. Richard Pickett’s groans are often in my head, and yet I feel further than ever from Sir Kenelm and his lovely Lady. Her life must be full of such gaiety and ease. When I feel like giving up, I dream of becoming her lady’s maid, and it keeps me walking. I went to the Great Cross on Cheapside again today, and tied a little piece of Richard Pickett’s bandage around its railings, to see its whiteness flutter hopefully beside the Cross.

  The Great Cross on Cheapside had been well-beloved some four hundred years, and it had grown tatty with love. Pilgrims had tied devotions and ribbons to it, and stuck holly berries in its niches and bread and wine at its foot, and in turn these attracted birds and rats, and the saints’ niches had grown soiled, while the city’s soot turned their emblems black. The Lord Mayor usually maintained the Cross, but he was Puritan in his sympathies this year, and he preferred not to polish the gay old shrine, but let it fester. Venetia had no ribbon but she tied some thoughts of hope around its railings, making a quick prayer, and picked her way onward through the puddles on Cheapside.

  She passed a horse and a stunted child, working the barrels. She saw a prostitute with a false nose, and a gang of rakes from the Sponging-House on Wood Street, stamping in puddles at people for fun. She longed to watch it all, but for fear of being recognised, Venetia put her vizarded head down, making quickly towards Fenchurch Street.

  She knew she must look like an adulteress – thankfully, she had more originality than that – but she felt monitored by the eyes of God and her husband. God and Kenelm were often conflated in her mind into a living He. He was her better part, her salvation and her eternal hope. Despite Chater’s good work, she struggled with God – but her love for Kenelm came so easily to her, so naturally, that it helped her to understand all the other loves in the world, the divine love called Agape and Christian Caritas, and so forth. To love Him was obvious. It was there in every breath. But to obey Him as well – now that was impossible. The reason being that He was so often wrong. At the moment, He imagined that He preferred her not to drink Viper Wine, but she would get round Him. He would soon see that she had been right all along.

  Margaret Choice was not in evidence, and Venetia went straight up. Lancelot Choice rose to meet her when she came in.

  ‘Did you receive my letter?’

  ‘Madam, do come in.’

  She stood in the centre of the clean-smelling salon, which seemed to have been freshly painted, and lit with more candles than before, giving an impression of increasing prosperity, even luxury. Master Choice came to her. He lifted her vizard tenderly, first loosening the strings from around her ears. His finger touched her neck and she felt an involuntary shudder.

  He guided her to the window, flinging back the drapes to provide better light. He searched her face with his eyes. ‘Superb,’ he breathed. ‘But I cannot comment until I have seen your water.’

  ‘I will send it hereafter,’ said Venetia, flinching as his thumb lifted her chin, and he inspected her cheek. Her pupils were large, which he was beginning to see was a consequence of the Wine. It gave the body all the outward signs of pleasure. It made the lips redder, the eyes engorged, the nipples pert. So some of his bolder ladies reported. He suspected it put something up their skirts, too. He also prepared it as a venerous drug, to sweeten the bed, but it was as a Rejuvenation Tonic that it was selling best. Desire, being plentiful, is cheap. But men and women will pay a higher price to quell their fears.

  ‘Your eyes are very black. Have you been taking Belladonna?’

  ‘No, a few years back I used the droppers, but not since then,’ she said.

  ‘Good, because you are my patient,’ he said, holding her by the chin, ‘so you take only what I prescribe, of course. You must never taste Belladonna, by the way, because it is Deadly Nightshade.’

  ‘I am familiar with Belladonna.’

  ‘Very good. Now, my lady: what a change. Your skin is remarkably improved. Do you know that?’

  Venetia nodded at the praise she was due, and smiled.

  ‘Have you not been using the dentifrice?’

  Venetia covered her mouth with her hand; she had been famous for showing her pretty teeth, and she found it hard to cha
nge that habit.

  ‘Did you read my letter?’ she asked.

  He returned to his desk and looked through his papers, trying to find the sheaf that was hers.

  She remembered: He is my only, but I am one of his many. This made her feel sad, for a moment, but it also reminded her that she was a paying customer, which held its own power. As he continued to search for her letter, she interrupted: ‘Your vipers – do they multiply?’

  ‘They thrive. They would breed faster if they were mindful of my lady’s beauty,’ he laughed.

  ‘Would they breed faster if they were mindful of my lady’s money?’

  ‘You would like a higher dose. This is a step we cannot take without due analysis, and it calls for . . .’

  Voices outside on Fenchurch Street broke the silence of the consulting room; an everyday, street-bustling sound, but it pricked Venetia’s ear.

  Venetia knew that voice better than she knew her own; its notes, its rhythm. It went to the heart of her and in a spasm she followed her strong, quick reflex to save herself, and she ducked out of the view of the window, hiding behind the curtains.

  Oh hell, thought Lancelot, another Bedlam-ite.

  But Venetia had reason. One of the voices floating up from the street was her husband’s. She peeped around the curtain and through the light deformation of the glass she saw his golden hair, tawny by candlelight but blond by daylight, and his cornflower-blue corderalls, his well-made shape. He was standing talking loudly in the street, looking up towards the house. There was a note of choler in his voice.

  Please to Jesus he had not followed her.

  ‘My lady—’ said Choice.

  ‘Shh!’ said Venetia urgently, but smiling, trying to make light of it. ‘Pray ssssh!’

  She ducked down again and whispered savagely: ‘If he calls, tell him I am here for dentifrice. Dentifrice – yes, Choice?’

  But Lancelot Choice could not keep up. ‘Tell who, my lady?’

  Venetia fell upon her knees. ‘Oh Mary mother of God. He has discovered your trade and my deceit and we will both be undone.’

  She felt as if she had been caught selling the family silver. Her beauty was his as much as hers, was it not? And now here she was planning to melt it down, to trade it in for something new. I was forced to come here, she silently rehearsed – you would not give me any remedy yourself. You made me do it. I did it for you.