Traitor Angels (13 page)

My fingers wrapped around the object. It was no bigger than my hand. With a gasp of triumph, I pulled it out, sending a shower of sand raining down on the floor.

What I held was a small metal box. Its hinged top looked as though it had rusted shut. Probably it had lain in this barrel for years, the cool, damp sand slowly warping the metal and stretching reddish streaks across its surface.

Mary and Deborah rushed to my side. “What is it? Open it!”

My fingers tightened on the box. I
could
try to open it right now. A few minutes’ work and I should be able to pry the top off. And then I could know the secrets behind the vial—the secrets that might cost my father his life if I wasn’t careful.

Overhead a floorboard creaked. My head snapped up. I peered into the darkness, holding my breath, trying to trace the source of the sound. Was it Betty, pacing impatiently in the sitting room? Or were the king’s men entering our house even now?

There was no time to waste. I had to get out of there before they arrived. With shaking hands, I slipped the box inside my shirt, where it nestled against the warmth of my belly. “I must go,” I said in answer to my sisters’ bewildered expressions. “Men might come here looking for this box. If they do, you know nothing of it. You haven’t seen me, you haven’t searched the cellar—do
you understand? Your answers could mean your lives.”

“But Elizabeth, you haven’t explained anything—” Mary started to protest.

“I can’t right now! I must get away.” I clasped Mary’s hand, squeezing hard. “You have to trust me.”

Her eyes, shining with tears, met mine. “I would trust you with my life.”

Emotion welled in my throat. Despite all the differences between us, she still trusted me. It was the best thing she ever could have said.

“Good-bye, I pray only temporarily,” I said. Then I dashed up the stairs, pausing at the landing next to Anne. She looked up at me, her lower lip quivering.

“E-E—no go,” she said.

“I have to.” Blinking away tears, I kissed her cheek, murmuring, “I’ll save Father. I swear it.”

She nodded hard, choking back a sob. I turned from her quickly, before I could think myself out of leaving. Father needed me; there was no other choice I could make.

I raced through the hall and out the front door. Down the front steps into the road, where children played jacks and shrieked with laughter. I barely heard them. Sunset had pressed a heavy hand onto the earth, staining the row houses bloodred. I held the treasure to my stomach and took off at a run, making for the fields beyond the houses on the opposite side of the street. As I raced up the hill, my eyes seeking the dark shapes of Antonio and Robert, I allowed myself a grim smile. I had done it.

“I THINK,” ROBERT SAID, “YOUR FATHER MAY HAVE
been too clever for his own good.”

The three of us looked glumly at the piece of vellum in my hand. We were alone, the fields deserted at this early evening hour. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if our Oxford assailants were out there somewhere, but I saw no one. Our only companions were the bones of the dead, for the fields had been turned into a burial ground during the plague. From where we stood beneath the shelter of a group of trees, I could see the dark outline of a brick wall, presumably erected to encircle the new graves.

I turned away from the depressing sight to study the vellum strip again. After I’d found the boys waiting for me at the edge of the fields, we had led our horses to this wooded thicket, where we had pried the lid off the box and peered inside. As before,
my father had inscribed a message on a piece of animal hide. Unfortunately, this time he had written a poem that seemed incomprehensible.

“I know little about poetry,” Antonio said. “Is this typical of your father’s style, Elizabeth?”

“He experiments with different literary forms,” I replied. “He has little interest in natural philosophy, so the subject matter is unusual for him, although it does link the poem to Galileo.”

Silently I reread it, hoping a previously unnoticed word or phrase would leap out at me:

The Stars hide Their mysteries from o
u
r eyes,

Keeping us foolish whe
n
we woul
d
be wis
e
.

F
r
om naugh
t
to silver to gray, t
h
ence again,

Dazzling our sight and confounding m
e
n.

We chart their Progress Across the dark skies,

Seeking their movements, misled by old lies.

Who among Us watches as master of all,

A human fail or then an angel
f
all,

Without a flicker
o
f pain in his heart,

And Lets the
n
ew world end ins
t
ead of Start?

“Who is this master he writes about?” Robert asked. “Could he be Galileo?”

“I think the ‘master of all’ must refer to God,” I said. “My father is saying it’s impossible to imagine the Father of the Universe as uncaring—as someone who isn’t grieved when he sees someone sin. As for this final line, I think it means God isn’t narrow-minded, that he’s willing to usher in a new age of
understanding. By phrasing this passage as a question, my father is forcing his readers to consider the true nature of God.”

“This poem may provide fodder for a fascinating discussion, but it doesn’t help us.” Antonio had taken off his hat, and his hair tumbled loose to his shoulders, framing a face tight with impatience. “There
must
be something more.”

We all looked at the vellum again. The imagery was unlike Father’s, but what else? I tried to imagine him writing this as a young man, before his eyes were misted white or his hair streaked with silver. A slender figure in black, hunched over a desk as his quill moved across the vellum, swooping higher to form a capital letter before dipping lower into its lowercase follower—

Capital and lowercase letters. I reread the poem, my heart beating faster. The punctuation was utterly unlike my father’s usual patterns.

“The grammar is peculiar,” I said. “And ordinarily my father would have capitalized nouns such as ‘master’ or ‘angel,’ and the uppercase verbs ought to be lowercase.”

I looked up from the sheet of vellum to find both boys staring at me.

“It must be a message!” Robert said. “Quick, string together the capitalized words. What do they say?”

“The stars their keeping from dazzling we progress across seeking who us a without and lets start,” Antonio said haltingly. Then he groaned. “Unless my understanding of the English tongue is worse than I thought, surely that can’t be correct.”

“Let’s try ignoring the first word in each line and take only the other capitalized words,” I suggested. “Stars their progress across us lets start. Hmm. That isn’t much better.”

For several moments we stared at the vellum, as if by gazing at it long enough we could convince it to surrender its secrets to us. Again and again I tried different combinations: starting with the final capitalized word and collecting them backward, stringing together the lowercase words. Nothing. All I got for my efforts was nonsense.

Robert swore under his breath. “It’s no use. I can’t make head or tail of this message.” He glanced around the boneyard, his eyes narrowed. The sun had almost disappeared, a giant red ball limning the horizon with fire. We had been immersed in my father’s clues for longer than I had realized. “We shouldn’t remain out in the open like this. There’s no telling when we’ll come across someone who recognizes one of us. Come.” He strode toward the horses, tossing over his shoulder, “My lady will let us stay with her. Once we get to her house, we can talk more in private—and I pray we’ll get to the bottom of things. Or else I fear the answers may be irretrievably lost to us.”

Which would mean my father was lost, too. Even as I gasped in horror, Robert wheeled his horse around and took off across the fields, leaving me and Antonio to race after him just as the last vestiges of light faded from the sky and the city spread out below us, a shifting mass of shadows painted blue and black by the deepening twilight.

Once the most prized lands in London had lined the Strand, but the street had become clogged with massive homes. After the king’s triumphant return to the capital, scores of nobles had flooded back to our island after a decade of exile on the Continent, and the most fashionable place to live became Piccadilly. Lady Katherine Daly, I realized as I followed Robert through
the thickening night, may have been an Irishwoman, but she was well informed about London’s most desirable address, for this was where she kept a home.

The road was quiet except for the rumble of carriages. Although Antonio, Robert, and I rode side by side, we said nothing—indeed, there was nothing to say.

Sorrow and fury pressed down on me, bowing my shoulders and tightening my fingers on the reins. We had failed. We had no ideas, no bargaining tool to secure my father’s release, nothing that the king could possibly want. Father would remain hidden until his execution.

Up and down Piccadilly, homes were tucked away behind elaborate gateways, set so far back from the street they were wrapped in black. I saw them with dull eyes, catching only the impression of hulking blocks of stone and brick.

We turned under a large archway. Lady Katherine’s estate rose before us: a massive brick box of a house flanked by two wings and topped by a cupola whose gold-covered dome glittered in the darkness. Flaming torches lined the courtyard.

As we dismounted, a couple of passing grooms came over to relieve us of our horses. I pulled my hat’s brim lower over my face, thankful the light the torches provided was faint. The grooms bowed and murmured “Your Grace,” to Robert, who acknowledged them with a brisk nod.

“You must forgive my bruised face; I had a fall from my horse,” he said smoothly. I wondered why he bothered explaining himself to the servants, then realized he probably wanted to prevent their gossiping about his appearance. “Is your lady at home?” he asked.

“Yes, Your Grace,” a groomsman answered, then whispered
to a boy behind him, “Find one of Lady Katherine’s servants and tell her the Duke of Lockton has arrived.” The boy nodded and scampered away, silent as a ghost.

“Come,” Robert said. He led me and Antonio up a row of steps topped by a set of double doors that sprang open at our approach. I could see the glimmer of candlelight from within, flickering like liquid gold.

We entered the hall. The sound of our riding boots clicking on the stone floor seemed loud in the cavernous space. The servant who had opened the door, dressed soberly in black, bowed as we passed him. Automatically I started to bow in return, but Robert caught my eye and shook his head. Hastily I straightened.

At the room’s far end a girl of about my own age stood at the base of a staircase that rose high and split in two, each end spreading off to a different wing of the house. This must be Lady Katherine. I had assumed Robert had called her beautiful because he was expected to, but I saw now he had simply been telling the truth—she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, with a delicate heart-shaped face. Her pale pink gown skimmed her bodice before flaring into full skirts. The front half of her dark, curly hair was drawn into a bun, the rest tumbling in waves almost to her waist.

“Your Grace, you do me great honor by visiting my home.” Lady Katherine’s Irish accent lent a soft lilt to her words, turning them into music. Smiling slightly, she glided across the room. Robert dropped into a bow, kissing the hand she offered him.

“My lady, you’re more beautiful than ever,” he said.

“And I see you continue to hold your own appearance in low regard.” She giggled. “I hope you got the best of whoever it was
you fought. What was it about this time? A dice game? An insult to your honor?”

“Your good humor does you credit.” Robert rose. “Unfortunately, my lady, we’ve come here with a desperate purpose, and we beg to become your guests. My father has imprisoned hers,” he added, jerking his head in my direction.

Lady Katherine peered at me in my boy’s clothes, her eyebrows rising. “That is a girl?” she whispered.

“Yes, and I fear we have more distressing news,” Robert said. “We suspect my father possesses something that has the power to push kings off their thrones.”

There was a long beat of silence. Lady Katherine’s face had gone blank. At last she opened her mouth. “Well,” she said, “I suppose you had best stay for supper, then.”

Antonio and I were given rooms on the same corridor. Alone, I stood at the window, studying the countryside behind Lady Katherine’s estate, a rectangle of black in the deepening darkness.

My father was out there somewhere. Perhaps even in Newgate. One of Father’s friends been jailed there for his Quaker beliefs, and many times I’d heard his tales of unlighted dungeons where lice crawled so thickly on the floor that when one walked, one heard them crunching underfoot. Prisoners waiting to be hanged were kept in cellars underground, where they could watch the jailers boiling the heads of the recently executed in massive kettles, to keep the flesh from putrefying so the heads could be displayed on poles throughout the city.

I sank to my knees.
Please, Lord, don’t let this be Father’s fate. Don’t let him tremble in his own darkness while all around him the
air fills with prisoners’ lamentable cries and the stink of blood.

Eight days. That was all that was left between tonight and the next Hanging Day. We were running out of time. I would go to Whitehall and throw myself on the king’s mercy. Offer myself in my father’s place. Anything. I would save him. I had to.

A knock sounded on the door. I swiped at the tears on my cheeks. “Enter,” I called.

The door swung open to reveal Antonio. He wore only dark breeches and a white shirt. The half smile I was accustomed to seeing on his lips was gone. He looked wild, his jaw clenched, his hair raining to his shoulders as though he had been running his hands through it.

He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.

“I swear to you,” he said, “I won’t rest until your father is free.”

“Why do you care?” My voice cracked. “You should return to Florence and your master and the work you love so much.”

I covered my face with my hands, unable to look at him. My tears trickled down my palms, hot and fast.

“Elizabeth.” He said my name like a breath. His clothes rustled as he sank to his knees beside me on the floor, silk and velvet rubbing together. I kept my hands clapped to my face, shielding me in my own private world.

“I can’t go on like this,” I choked out. “Wondering all the time if he’s still alive or already dead.”

I broke into sobs. Rough and hard, they tore up my throat, and I had to gasp to get them out. Antonio’s hand fell to my shoulder, his touch gentle.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “No matter what happens, your
father’s a good man—let that thought comfort you.”

“A good man!” My voice lashed out, bitter and ragged. “He’s chosen death, even when he knows he’ll leave behind three daughters and a wife who can’t support themselves! They’ll have to depend on our relatives’ charity or go to the almshouse.”
Or the street, to work as doxies
, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say the words aloud.

For a moment, Antonio didn’t say anything. “You didn’t include yourself. Won’t your father be leaving you, too, if he dies?”

I swiped at my eyes, still not looking at him. “I can take care of myself. And I’ll do my best to help my sisters—and what does it matter to you anyway?” I interrupted myself. “You should return to Florence.”

“I care because you love your father,” he said. “That’s reason enough for me to stay.”

“You’re remaining here for my sake?”

He didn’t answer, and I dropped my hands from my face.

The guttering candlelight illuminated Antonio’s face, brushing it with gold one instant and shadow the next, flickering him in and out of focus. He was studying me closely, in a way I couldn’t remember anyone looking at me before—as though he wanted to commit each of my features to memory so that years from now he could unwrap my image from the farthest recesses of his mind and be able to recall me in exact detail. I shivered under the intensity of his gaze.

“Are you cold?” he asked. Lacing our fingers together, he squeezed my hand. The heat of his skin nearly made me jump. I knew I should move away to a proper distance. I
must
.

But I stayed where I was, now cross-legged on the marble floor, so close to Antonio our knees touched. With his thumb he traced circles in my palm, sending sparks shooting up my arm. My voice shook when I spoke. “Wh-what are you doing?”