Viper Wine

by Hermione Eyre

  The Censor stood with his hands folded, a tall figure in his royal purple gown, making his customary speech.

  ‘We, being informed that your practice was a low operation no better than a quack-salver’s, and your co-conspirator, Thomas Leake, an unskilled glyster-pipe pusher, specialising in powdered pigs’ bones, and you a medicastra, or that is to say, a base and female Empiric—’

  ‘Ay me.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Who learned all she knows of Physick under a country hedge—’

  ‘Nature’s cures are my cures,’ she interjected, looking at the Censor with one pale blue eye, and another clouded by cataract.

  ‘And so, Madam Garley—’

  ‘Gurley,’ she said. ‘Begg Gurley.’

  ‘If you will. Madam, we find cause to censure your trade in the strongest terms, and investigate your operations.’

  ‘Can’t it wait, sir?’ she said in a soothing voice, like a big pigeon. ‘Master Leake’s coming back within the day. He’s gone up Islington way, to do some fishing. It’s the Lord’s Day, isn’t it?’

  She was attempting to cast a spell on him with her gentle voice, and her pale eyes, and he would not look at her in case he gave in.

  ‘We have tested your wares with our expertise, our physician’s assay, and thus we learn’ – he pointed with his wand at the heap of shimmering powders – ‘that your Gold contains no Gold but Fool’s Gold, that your Frankincense is two parts lavender, and that your Tincture of Coral is chalk stained with cherry juice.’

  Begg made a gesture close to a shrug and turned her face away.

  ‘All your wares must be impounded. None can be trusted. What further miseries must you cause the sick, the needy, by selling them these adulterated candies, when you could be treating them honestly by bloodletting them at the right time of the moon . . .’ The Master was about to expatiate on the importance of astral timing, when he caught sight of a mouldy box behind the counter marked ‘Begg’s Cabinett of Egsquisite Rarity’.

  ‘And what further criminal dissembling do we find here? Myrrh that is nothing but your own perfumed ear wax, perhaps? Ah, the favourite Unicorn’s Horn—’

  ‘Now leave that be, for that is the real thing,’ cried Begg, standing up heavily. ‘I paid a pretty pound for it. A king’s ransom, that was.’

  The Physician Censor shook his head gravely. He popped the lid off the small box, sniffed the white ground.

  ‘Where did this come from?’

  ‘From a unicorn’s forehead, of course.’

  ‘Begg Gurley, I tell you: the True Horn is so powerful you would never afford it. No physician can, come to that. If they could then London would be a healthful place indeed.’

  He tipped the box upside down, creating a small snowfall of valuable scurf. Begg Gurley yelped, seizing her fist in the air, her tongue vainly protuberant.

  ‘Now we will sweep up and soon be gone, and your fines will be charged accordingly.’

  Just at that moment one of the boys came in from the back room carrying a box and some scales. He said something in the ear of the Censor, who suppressed any satisfaction as he made his final pronouncement: ‘And on top of everything, your weights are off, so I am confiscating these as well.’

  Aware, in theory, of the College of Physicians’ raids, but unaware that one was being visited so thoroughly upon his fellow apothecary a few streets away, Master Choice continued, unperturbed, to welcome his best customer. He had not seen Venetia for almost a month, and he was interested to see the results of his labours.

  ‘Well, what do you say?’ asked Venetia, stepping into the light and revealing a half-healed face to her Creator.

  Master Choice looked at her steadily, and did not speak.

  Choice’s premises had expanded, so he commanded a full house on Fenchurch Street. Upstairs was kept clean and dainty, draped with fashionable flame-cloth hangings, while downstairs was given over to the ever-expanding pits, the furnaces, the vats and racks. To contain the problem of splatter, there was even – of this Master Choice was particularly proud – a dedicated disembowelling closet.

  Choice usually came closer, so Venetia could feel him breathe upon her, but this time he moved away, as if he were trying to see the whole picture rather than the brushwork. He still did not speak, and he frowned as his eyes roved across what he had done.

  Most customers were now scheduled to strict half-hour appointments. Some were more trying than others. Little Lettice spent so long expressing her thoughts on the war in Saxony, the use of the colour red in the clothing of unmarried women, and, in order to explain the Wine’s effect upon her, the usual hues and clarities of her chamber pot, that Choice wondered if she was unhinged by the Wine, or if she were always a babbler. When her allotted time was over, he turned away to the wall and started humming to himself while he wrote up his Observations, made a note of the astrological position, and tidied away his Instruments. Lettice did not infer the significance of these actions. She talked on without ceasing. He also needed to stand, and open the door for her, before she would leave.

  In his innermost heart, Choice looked at Venetia’s face, and asked himself, Ye gods, what have I accomplished?

  To his customer, he spoke thus:

  ‘Well, madam, I have delivered six Viperish Infusions to my lady’s face, in symmetrical manner, across the forehead, in the crucible of the frown – which is between the eyebrows – around the eyes, and in the crease twixt nose and lips. The fruits of my labour are now before me.’

  And, he might have added, all around him: two of Venetia’s infusions had paid for a portrait of Master Choice, which now hung above the sign of the star; two had gone towards the rent; and the last two, prescribed belatedly, eased the pressing cumulative deficit of his coffers, and allowed Margaret Choice a new mattress.

  Aletheia Howard’s patronage was a great financial blessing, although she had warned him most peremptorily that she was una Contessa, but she would not pay una Contessa’s fee, so he must charge her uno prezzo giusto – a fair price. He laughed as if she were an ill-informed woman and said that prices varied according to the season, the availability of vipers, the composition of the Wine . . . Aletheia looked hard at him and said she had great experience of the antiquities merchants of Naples, and that she would pay what her friend Olive paid.

  Lancelot Choice still had not replied to Venetia’s question. He swallowed.

  ‘I see before me a forehead that has no creasing upon it, and no trenches. I see eyes that are free from crow’s feet, a little swollen, but not so much that my lady’s eyesight is impaired, no?’

  ‘I retain my perfect sight, thank you.’

  ‘And as for the cheeks, well, they are fuller than they were. Time and palpations will bring them into shape a little more. Now, I need to see the motion of your notions. Is it that time of the moon with you that you might give me a wee smile, my lady?’

  Venetia smiled without emotion, like a string puppet.

  Olive was now in the habit of sending Choice scrawled billets-doux, in exchange for his vials of Viper’s Wine. Of course, she paid for her Wine, but she had started to feel that it was cruel to acknowledge his matchless weekly offerings with money alone. So she wrote back with thanks, observations on her health and kind solicitations. Every week he replied with more wine, and their phantom correspondence kindled Olive’s desires to ever stronger heat.

  Endymion was home again, loving-stern, full of expectation and demand. He wrote to her from Le Havre, telling her to ‘make much of herself’ before his return. She put on her new stomacher of incarnadine satin, laced about with silver, and her petticoat of tabby rose, little thinking that when he saw her he would set about her with a horse’s bit, a metalwork contraption from Vienna, designed not for breaking in beasts but for men’s gratification. She refused to wear it, but she let him prick her sides and rump with his toy whip, which sent him faster into tilt, as he shouted old jousting cries and battle oaths. His roughness made Olive’s fanta
sies the sweeter; how she longed to condescend to Choice, to lavish herself upon his surprised and grateful person.

  When he saw Venetia’s smile, Choice felt a cold stone on his heart: this will do for me.

  Her face was still her own, give or take a lumpy, swollen aspect, not unlike a water-corpse. The puffery looked unfortunate, though it served to eliminate her runckles. But he had gone too far, and the movement of her smile was stiff and uneven, like warped parchment, tighter on one side of the face than the other.

  ‘Thank you, my lady. Hear what I say to you now: there’s no cause for concern. With time and palpations . . .’

  Venetia turned her back on Choice and strode towards his mirror, his new bevelled mirror. He chid himself for speaking amiss: whenever people are told there is no cause for concern they always cry panic.

  ‘Good Choice,’ she said in a small voice, which he dreaded would become shrill, a scream as she looked in the mirror. But the low purr continued. ‘Dear Choice, thou art a Daedalus, a fabulous artificer.’ In the mirror, she turned her face this way and that, like a lady trying on an invisible hat. He wondered if it was a distorting mirror, a scrying glass, to show her such a different image than the one he saw. ‘Your art is beyond my happiest imaginings. I am only sorry we did not do this sooner. I think a little more, here and there, and I will almost be ready.’

  ‘Indeed, my lady,’ swallowed Choice. Ready for what?

  ‘Although, of course, like the painter, you will find your work is never finished. Titian used to sign his work Titianus Pinxit – Titian was painting this. You should use the continuous verb as well. You will always be needed by me, Choice. Continually! If I must to the country, you shall thence as well.’

  She turned and beamed at him, and seeing her left cheek stretch taut as calfskin, he recoiled, stepping backwards, until he was up against the closet. He could see himself in the mirror now, trapped behind her, pale and surprised, his fake, customer-soothing smile still garnishing his face.

  Choice had intended to create a dependency in his customer but now that ambition had so manifestly been achieved, he needed a few moments to understand his own startling success. Her attitude was surprising, and even senseless, given the condition of her appearance, and he blinked as he tried to believe she was truthfully happy, not firing some ironical barb, nor prating distractedly. But she was genuinely satisfied. And she was no mad lady. It was a sideways slip-slide of her brain, he supposed. About the nature of our own bodies, we can be mightily self-deceived. He remembered the Abbot at Westchester who ate himself to death. Oh lucky Choice, to have such another as his customer! This goldmine could run deep.

  Her reason was strong, but her appetites were stronger – for love, for cards, for Wine, and eventually, for beauty. Choice perceived this, and played upon it. In that dark January when Choice persuaded Lady Digby to try his Viperish Infusions, he tempted her with all the skills of his quick tongue: flattery, accompanied with a little denigration, designed to make her doubt herself. (‘You are radiant, my lady, but you are runckled, and there is nothing worse than runckles, for they multiply . . .’) Then he explained the latest cosmetic Infusions practised in Italy, with diagrammatic explications and the like – for he knew her soul was Considerate, prone to cognition, rather than feeling. She was discriminating. She preferred to survey a topos from many angles before proceeding. In this respect she was somewhat like a man. All the while Choice managed to maintain – and in this he was most sly – the air of someone who did not want to give his expertise away lightly. He did not press the Infusions on her but kept them back, carefully concealed, like a valuable miniature in a kid-skin pouch. He made her suspect he might be guarding it for another, more deserving customer. He played upon her vanity and ambition like a flute.

  ‘Next, Choice, I would like you to work your Ingenuity, your marvellous skill, upon my lips. “Rubious portals of pearls” that they once were, to Ben Jonson. Or – this was Wat Montagu, I think –

  “From cupid’s hallowed gates, let fly

  The words of love I lay my glory by.

  Thy lips all bounties give, all peace supply . . .”’

  She sang the words, letting the notes float loudly across the room, putting on a show for him, twisting her wrists sinuously, like a mad Courtesan. It must have been a sport she learned a time ago at court.

  ‘Or Venus, mistress, let me die . . .’

  The music that she heard in her head took her a final twirl, before she sank before him in a smiling curtsey.

  Choice clapped, out of embarrassment, because he wanted to make it stop. And yet he had to admit, she was magnificent, in her bravado. It was commonly said that women had no Character at all, but that seemed not to be the case with the women that came to his shop of beauty. If anything, they had too much.

  He could see that her lips were still well-formed, and yet the pigmentation of her cupid’s bow had become less distinct with time, and the out-size puffery of her cheeks made her lips seem less full, so they had become lost in the overall design of her face. He wondered how he could possibly accentuate them. He had never treated lips before. He paused, choosing his words daintily, as ever. Since he was a boy his eloquence had worked for his own protection and promotion. How could it be otherwise, with six brothers and no way of getting his mother for himself?

  ‘Until Saturn is out of its retrograde, you will do harm by moving your face. The Viperish Infusions are working, and for the sake of their, ahem, continued success, you should guard your face and rest it quiet.’

  Choice hoped this would keep her from showing herself abroad too much, and frightening the clientele.

  He could see by Venetia’s face that she did not think much of his suggestion. She was always being told to stay in bed, safely away from view, until she was ready for churching after childbirth, or her husband was home, or the pox was no longer abroad. Well, she would not stay closeted. Not this time. Besides, she was going to mass with the Queen at Whitehall on the morrow.

  ‘And my lips? When will you bring them to that pitch of beauty I require?’

  There was such trust, such dependence, in her voice, that Choice’s tongue flickered with pleasure, as he marvelled at how this knot he had tied could grow tight, and tighter still.

  ‘O lady, worry ye not, we will bless your lips with venom.’

  A LETTER FROM THE MOUTH OF HELL

  TO MY DEAREST Son, Kenelme Digby Esquire, I write thee now from the side of a great beast. The beast’s colicky stomach rumbles all night long (as yours did once, when you were newly born) yet I can sleep well enough, because I am of that strong Digbean constitution, which you are too. What a blessing we both have in that. The beast snores even now as I write, and light rocks are sent bouncing around your father’s head and the ground trembles a little. The beast, as I tell you now, in manly confidence (please be sure your mother does not take this letter, and read it) is a tall and glowering mountain. I am about two-thirds up.

  I set out accompanied with a strong cohort of local Cicerones, which is to say guides, tho. their number has diminished as the climb has become perilous, the air thicker and so on, and now I am left with one good man [there was some crossing out which young Kenelm could not read]. It seems, dear son, that in the last hour or so my one remaining guide has left me and taken with him the cooking-pot. Perhaps it was the darkness which is lately seen in the sky at noon which offence’d him. All is well, at any rate, as he leaves me to my profound Observations uninterrupted.

  Many Unnatural Disturbances beset this country as we approached the beast. Inland basins were all dry or suck’d up as if the land thirsted for water. At Castellammare di Stabia the sea began to boil and churn. At Santa Maria di Pugliana great rocks were hurled down upon the village, and the church bell rang of its own accord. On Sunday the sea tide turned sharply, leaving fishermen’s boats stranded and dancing fish exposed along the shore. Then the wave was thrown back at the land with great vehemence. None can say what this indicat
es, although there is a belief amongst the populace that the local landowner, absentee, and reviled for stopping up one of the public wells, is rebuk’d by this action of nature.

  Strangest of all to relate was the profane hush which settled over everything: the sweet wind, foamy sea, racing sky – all these were mysteriously suppressed, or suspended, so that the World itself seemed not to turn. No birds sang, flies vanished and horses were as amaz’d as men. This was, they say, the final Sign or Import of some great Violence to come. This came to pass on Tuesday. Today is Friday. Please to keep this letter safely in case the beast wakes and my notebooks are destroyed—

  Kenelm was interrupted here, because his lantern was extinguished, although he could not discern why. A gust of sulphurous wind had dowsed the wick perhaps? Feeling slow on his feet, Kenelm stepped outside his little pavilion made of Ottoman rugs and elegant pilasters, pitched upon the rocky mountain-slope, and now sorely asquint, but still standing. He strode a healthy distance from his camp, to a promontory where he could breathe better, and he looked across the tranquil moonlit bay towards Ischia, where the sea doubled the luminescence of the moon, and he recognised God’s benediction.

  It began to rain – he could hear the noise of the raindrops falling all around him. And yet the pitter-pat was too sharp, too biting, and he realised the sky was sending down not rain but tiny particles of stone. They hit his head like miniature agassi or hailstones, bouncing off his shoulders. He went back inside his pavilion, and cradled his head within his arms, until he fell into pleasant dreams of standing atop this ill-mannered mountain.