Traitor Angels (15 page)

BACK AT LADY KATHERINE’S ESTATE, A FAIR-HAIRED
serving girl in a plain gray gown helped me prepare for supper. She chattered while she washed the dust of travel from my limbs with a dampened strip of linen, saying her name was Thomasine Adams and she had been hired as Lady Katherine’s maid when the Irish girl had been invited to London by the king himself. I couldn’t bring myself to say a word to her. I didn’t want to talk ever again.

Our ride from St. Paul’s had been silent. Not even Antonio had spoken or made a jest. Sometimes I felt the weight of his eyes bearing down on me, but I didn’t lift my hanging head to look at him. I wished a curtain could drop around me, surrounding me on all sides, hiding me from the world outside, so I wouldn’t have to see the sun rise and set and know another day had passed without my father in it. And more days would pass
without him, I knew. Because we had failed.

The king had the next clue. The
king
.

My throat tightened until I could scarcely breathe. My father was as good as dead, and there was nothing I could do to save him. Either the king now had all the information he needed to solve the treasure hunt, or my father would never tell him the rest. All because of his lofty ideals.

Tears spurted into my eyes.
How could you do this to us, Father? You abandoned your daughters and your wife, all for the sake of an old secret. Don’t you care about us? How could anything be more important to you than your children?
Despair sealed off my throat. For the first time since he had been arrested, I wondered if I would be able to forgive Father.

“His Majesty has been seeking a wife for the Duke of Lockton,” Thomasine said, “and I daresay he wanted to see if Lady Katherine would suffice.”

I nodded absently, choking back a sob and staring at my hands. The same hands Father had wrapped around a quill and moved across a page when he had first taught me to write. Even blinded, he had known the letters well enough to teach me how to form them. Because he was brilliant and he was tough. And soon he would be nothing more than dust. Tears swam in my eyes, blurring my hands.

I couldn’t help it—I still loved him, even though a part of me resented him for maintaining his silence. How could I go on without him? All of my life, I had been at his side, taking down his dictation, letting my mind open and swell from his teachings. We were so alike, feathers from the same bird. Who was I without him? And would I even want to be whoever that person was?

Thomasine’s voice was akin to a droning bumblebee, echoing in my ears as she helped me into garments lent by Lady Katherine. The snowy white shift and dark blue gown were finer than anything I had put on before. Another time, I would have been secretly thrilled to put on something so fancy, to wear colors other than green or brown.

If it would bring Father back, I would gladly wear my Puritan garb for the rest of my life. Gowns made of hissing snakes that bit me, like in the stories Father told me when I was a child.
Anything
.

“You’re ready, miss,” Thomasine said brightly.

I raised my head. In the large, gilt-framed mirror, a girl stared at me. She barely resembled the person I had seen in the glass at the inn in Oxford; this girl was dressed as an aristocrat, with the front of her hair drawn into a bun, the rest left to flow down her back. A pearl necklace had been strung around her neck. I hadn’t noticed its weight until now, its cold spheres slowly being warmed by the heat of my skin. As for the gown, it was unlike anything I had worn before: silk dyed to match the sky at twilight, and cut low to expose the swell of my breasts. The bodice was so tight I could manage only sips of air, and the enormous skirts rustled when I rose from my chair.

“Are you pleased, miss?” Thomasine asked.

It almost hurt to open my mouth, as though I were a machine long gone rusty.
Say something or you’ll hurt her feelings
. “I’m more than pleased. You’ve made me pretty.”

“If I may be bold enough to say so, you already are, miss.” Thomasine bobbed in a curtsy, then ushered me into a hallway lit by candelabra. We walked a series of long, straight corridors until
we came to the dining room—a massive, high-ceilinged space where dozens of white candles glowed on the table, casting gold on the plates and the silver tableware. Ancient-looking tapestries covered the stone walls.

The others were already seated. Lady Katherine remained in her chair, inclining her head in acknowledgment when I entered the chamber. The three boys lounging about the table stood and bowed to me. Antonio had changed into a clean doublet and breeches of sky blue. They hadn’t been among his possessions when I had gone through his room at the Rose Inn, and I supposed Robert must have lent him the clothes. The sleeves were too long, the cuffs extending over his wrists.

Robert stood at the head of the table, opposite Lady Katherine. Once again he was dressed in yellow silk, but these clothes were fresh. “Elizabeth, may I present my brother, the Duke of Monmouth? I went home to Whitehall while you were dressing and convinced him to return with me. You needn’t worry,” he added, correctly interpreting my startled expression. “There’s no one else in the world whom I would trust with my life other than my brother. We may speak freely in front of him.”

“Ah, Miss Milton, the daughter of the Puritan regicide.” Monmouth’s tone was light. He looked so much like Robert I would have known at a glance they were brothers—they had the same clear hazel eyes and impressive height. He gave me a lazy smile, then turned my hand over in his and kissed my palm. Unbidden, my eyes darted to Antonio. He was watching us without expression. Apparently hand kisses were commonplace among aristocrats and their friends. So it hadn’t meant a thing when he had pressed his lips to the inside of my wrist. What a child I was!

“I hope the food’s decent,” Lady Katherine said. “Since my brother is away for the evening, I hadn’t ordered a proper meal prepared, so I sent for fare from a cookshop.”

She snapped her fingers. Several servers who had been standing against the wall came to the table, bearing bowls of rose-scented water. Once we had washed our hands, a seemingly endless stream of servants flowed into the room bearing platters of food: a brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, a jowl of salmon. It was more food than I’d ever seen on one table.

“You are dismissed,” Robert said to the servants. “We’ll ring for you when we want you again.”

“Very good, Your Grace,” they murmured, bowing before they backed out of the room.

Monmouth opened his mouth to speak, but Robert stopped him with a raised hand. He crept to the door and looked out into the corridor. Nodding as if satisfied, he closed the door and returned to the table. “I thought some of the servants might remain in the corridor to spy on us.” He sent Monmouth a grim look. “You can never be too careful. Father taught us that.”

“Yes, and now you plan to go against him.” Monmouth shook his head, looking suddenly tired. “This is treason, Robert. If Father finds out, he’ll have no choice but to order you executed.”

“I know.” Robert’s fingers tightened on his table knife, the knuckles whitening.

“Where you go, I cannot follow,” Monmouth said softly. “I’ll help you concoct a plan, for you begged me, and then wash my hands of this business. You said earlier that this valuable paper is in Father’s possession, and though I have wracked my brain, I can’t think of how you could retrieve it.”

Robert glanced at me. “Doubtless the paper is at Whitehall. Our father’s an amateur natural philosopher, and he keeps his personal notes in his laboratory at the palace.”

The king was interested in natural philosophy? I froze. Was this a coincidence—or yet one more link in a tightening chain?

“Even if you find the paper from St. Paul’s, what good will it do?” Lady Katherine toyed with her wineglass. “His Grace explained the circumstances to me while we were waiting for you to arrive for supper,” she said when I looked at her in surprise. “Anyway, it sounds to me as if the king and his men already have Mr. Milton’s secrets in their possession.” She ticked off items on her fingers. “The piece of paper from St. Paul’s, which they found a few weeks ago and which probably started this hunt in the first place. The vial and vellum from the Physic Garden in Oxford. You may have the box from Miss Milton’s cellar, but since that directed you to St. Paul’s, I’d say you have—”

“Nothing,” Robert interrupted, and slumped in his chair.

“Maybe not.” Antonio leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Mr. Milton’s Italian sonnet sent us to the Physic Garden. And it stands to reason that the paper in St. Paul’s would have had a different message, correct, Elizabeth? Would your father have planted two clues pointing to the same location?”

I fiddled with a piece of cheese, unable to bring myself to eat. “I doubt it. That would have been out of character for him. He would have wanted each clue to direct its seekers to a new place.”

“So presumably the message in St. Paul’s alerted the king’s men to the possibility that there were dealings between Mr. Milton and some Italians—which was why they were on the lookout for any Italian visitors to his London home and why they sent
men to the cottage in Chalfont as soon as they heard about my arrival.” Antonio held up his hand for silence as we started to interrupt. “That partly explains why they went to Chalfont. But how did they know to go to Oxford? Robert found out our destination from Elizabeth’s neighbor. Perhaps the king’s men did the same. Or maybe there was another reason—such as a clue nailed to the font in St. Paul’s.”

“There are too many pieces to this puzzle, and we only have a handful of them.” Robert groaned.

Lady Katherine gazed at Antonio, realization dawning on her face. “But what Mr. Viviani is saying is, maybe the king and his men have only a handful of them, too. You
need
to find out what is written in that paper from St. Paul’s. Maybe you’ll glean clues from it that the king’s men haven’t. It’s the only road left open to you now.”

My heart lifted. Could she possibly be right—was there still a chance we could outwit the king and save my father?

Robert nodded hard. “I agree. But when my brother and I are at Whitehall, we can’t move about unobserved—there are always dozens of eyes watching us. So I can’t sneak into my father’s laboratory, and there’s no way either Elizabeth or Antonio can get onto the palace grounds. The whole thing seems impossible.”

I sagged with disappointment. He was right. The palace gates were heavily guarded.

“Maybe not,” Lady Katherine said quickly. “The Touching for the King’s Evil ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but what does that matter . . . ?” Robert trailed off, his eyes widening.

Antonio looked up from his plate. “What’s the Touching for the King’s Evil?”

“It’s a very old ceremony,” I replied, my mind leaping ahead of my words as I realized what Lady Katherine was suggesting. My heart began to beat with a rapid, steady sharpness. “The city’s ill and infirm gather at the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The king blesses them, and his benediction is thought to heal them. Everyone who attends is permitted inside the palace grounds.”

“
Everyone
,” Robert repeated. “Elizabeth and Antonio will disguise themselves as sick beggars. As soon as the rites are over, they can steal away from the Banqueting House and into the palace.” He jumped to his feet, his grin quick and fierce. “Elizabeth, I’d say it’s finally time you returned to your birthplace, wouldn’t you?”

Whitehall was hardly a sumptuous palace that befitted the city many called the greatest in the world. Instead it was an undistinguished heap of houses, interconnected by cramped courtyards and crumbling passageways. As Antonio and I joined the throngs lining up outside the Banqueting House on the following morning, I glanced at the jumble of stone buildings, searching for a flicker of a memory, anything that would tell me this was where I had spent the first few years of my life when my father served as the Latin Secretary.

There was nothing. I didn’t know if I should be grateful for the void or angry on my family’s behalf that we had lost so much and didn’t even have recollections of my father’s former greatness to comfort us. Only a week until his execution. I swallowed hard. It might not be enough time.

Don’t think
, I ordered myself. The thought of Father would make me come apart, and then I would be no good to him or anyone else.

The line trudged forward, a dismal collection of people dressed in threadbare clothes. Some were covered in oozing sores, others breathed with the air rattling in their chests. A few were little more than skeletons and so weak they had to clutch the walls for support. The air reeked with the stench of unwashed bodies. I held my sleeve over my nose to block out the stink.

At my side, Antonio remained silent. Today he looked like a stranger—like me, he had smudged his face with charcoal to dirty his skin and disguise his features, and he had donned a hooded cloak.

“It feels wrong to deceive Robert when he’s been so kind to us,” I whispered to Antonio. We planned to retrieve the paper and follow its clues until we learned the truth about Galileo’s secret, which we would share with the king in exchange for my father’s release.

He brought his lips close to my ear, murmuring, “I don’t like it, either. But what choice do we have if we want to save your father?”

I nodded reluctantly. Part of me hoped he would whisper something else, just for the chance to remain near to him, but he straightened and looked around, obviously studying the surroundings.

As we waited, I tilted my head back to get a proper look at the Banqueting House. The building, a massive structure of pale stone, was separate from the main palace. Its ground-floor windows were walled up. Robert had said the bottom story was divided into compartments for storage, but I wondered if he was only repeating what he had been told. Was it possible my father was hidden behind those shuttered windows? Alone except for crates as companions?

No, surely not. The Banqueting House also contained the Great Hall, which included a large theater that catered to London’s elite. My father’s jailers would hardly risk the possibility of their captive’s shouting for help to entertainment seekers. So where
was
he?