Traitor Angels (21 page)

He led me to the edge of the room. “Are you well?” His eyes, dark and concerned, traced my face. “You look pale.”

I forced a smile. I had to get away from him and follow Robert. “Could you get me a glass of wine? Perhaps that will help my headache.”

“Of course.” He hurried away, presumably to find a servant.

This was my chance. I crept along the room’s perimeter, past the clumps of wallflowers and elderly guests. I held a handkerchief to my face, hoping anyone who saw me would think I was faint and heading outside for a breath of fresh air.

When I reached the hall, Robert was vanishing through a side door. Two elegantly dressed footmen rushed forward, offering me assistance, but I waved them off and scurried after Robert.

I stepped into a long passageway lit with flickering torches. Robert was walking a few yards ahead of me, his steps purposeful, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. My heartbeat quickened.

He darted through an opening along the passage. Throwing caution aside, I grasped my skirts in my hands and crept after him, tiptoeing to soften the sound of my shoes. Behind me, heels clicked on the floor. I whirled around to see Lady Katherine scurrying down the corridor toward me, her face tight and frightened.

“Lady Katherine!” I whispered in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“Following you.” She nodded at the entrance through which Robert had disappeared. “I saw you and His Grace race out of the ballroom, and I was worried you were in danger—”

“Where’s Antonio?” I snapped, peering along the shadowy corridor. No one.

“Still in the ballroom. He had just left my side when I saw you leave, so I didn’t have a chance to speak to him before I came after you.” Lady Katherine looked surprised; doubtless she couldn’t understand the vehemence in my tone.

I remembered how she had listened without comment when Antonio told her how he wanted to find the cave himself. Her silence hadn’t proved her complicity—but it also didn’t mean she was trustworthy. It would be easy to overpower her, though, if need be.

“Very well,” I said. “Follow me and be quiet. I think Robert must be looking for the natural philosophers—in which case, he might be in trouble and need our help.”

Nodding, she stayed at my heels as I approached the entrance Robert had passed through. I found myself at the archway of an enormous room. Candelabra dotted the walls, white candles gleaming in the holders. Between the candelabra hung gilt-framed paintings. Half pillars had been set up across the floor, each topped with a piece of sculpture that looked to be either ancient Greek or Roman.

Three men stood among the sculptures. None looked in our direction; we must have moved quietly enough. Two of them were middle-aged, the last looked only a few years older than
me. They didn’t wear fine clothes and heeled shoes like the other male guests, but instead were dressed in plain, dirt-spattered garments and riding boots. They were staring at Robert with a mix of surprise and fear. The glow from the candles softened the lines of their faces, but I knew them all the same: these were the men who had attacked us outside Oxford.

“What are you doing here?” the youngest of them growled at Robert. I recognized his wild eyes—he was the man I had cut with my sword.

“I think we all know the answer to that question.” Robert sounded calm, but at his side his left hand contracted into a fist. “You took something from me that I badly want back.”

“You’re too late,” said the tallest man. Dirt and exhaustion had left a gray film on his face. “We’ve already spoken to the Duke of Buckingham. He and the king are preparing to meet us here in the Great Chamber momentarily.”

“My friends will arrive before them,” Robert said. Antonio and me, and the men who had ridden here with me, that must be whom he meant. But did any of those men know where he had gone? Or was he merely bluffing, trying to gain more time for others to notice his disappearance and look for him? “Sir Vaughan, you have two choices,” Robert continued in a hard voice, “either hand over the vial and live, or refuse and die.”

I stepped forward to go to his aid, the heel of my shoe clacking on the marble floor. The youngest man glanced at me, his eyes narrowing. “
You
,” he growled. He turned to his companions. “That’s the regicide poet’s daughter.”

Robert spun around. “Elizabeth,” he whispered. His gaze shifted to Lady Katherine behind me, the color draining from
his face, leaving it deathly white. “My lady! If you two value your lives, you’ll return to the ballroom at once!”

“I’m staying,” I shot back.

“Me, too,” Lady Katherine said, her voice shaking.

“She can’t be the regicide’s daughter!” One of the older men gazed at me. “Clearly this is a noblewoman.”

“Don’t be fooled by her appearance.” The young man studied me, his expression rigid. “I’ll never forget her face. I had been hoping we would meet again, Miss Milton.” He tapped his ribs, where I had slashed him. “You slowed down our journey to London considerably, as I was forced to spend a few days recuperating in an inn. If it weren’t for you, we would have returned and given the king what is rightly his several days ago.” He drew his sword. “You have much to answer for.”

Automatically I clapped my hands to my arms, seeking the cool metal of my knives. All I encountered was bare flesh.

THE YOUNG MAN RAISED HIS SWORD. BEHIND HIM,
his companions watched without expression. My eyes darted around the room, searching for a possible weapon. Framed paintings, heavy drapes, white marble busts, and candles in their holders—a motley assortment, but they presented distinct possibilities.

“Come now, she’s only a girl,” Robert said. He looked at me and Lady Katherine and mouthed,
Run!

We didn’t move. Through the brown wool doublet of the young man I had stabbed I could see the outline of something long and cylindrical.
The vial.
It had to be. As long as it was in this room, I wasn’t going anywhere else.

I turned my head a few degrees to the left, catching the shimmer of candlelight on the walls. An iron bracket was only a dozen feet away from me; an instant’s work, and it would be in my
hand, a serviceable weapon.

“Your friends seem to have abandoned you, Your Grace,” said the tallest man in a heavy Yorkshire accent; he was the one Robert had called “Sir Vaughan.” His sword rang against his scabbard as he pulled it free.

The young man moved toward me, holding his sword outstretched so its tip grazed my bust. Through the layers of my clothes I could feel the point of the sword, icy cold and sharp. One thrust of his wrist and I was dead. I couldn’t rip my eyes from his—they were as angry as I remembered, dark brown, the fragile skin beneath them smudged with fatigue.

“I will enjoy this,” he said. “I hope you suffer as much pain as you put me through.”

“Don’t hurt her!” Robert shouted. Lady Katherine screamed my name.

Footsteps thundered from the corridor. The three men looked toward the entryway. This was my chance. I jumped backward. With a guttural cry of rage, the young man slashed the empty air where I had stood seconds ago. He advanced on me, cutting wildly at nothing. I stumbled back again to avoid the arc of his blade. From the edge of my vision, I caught the pale gleam of a life-sized carved marble head. Only a foot away.

I seized it. The bust hadn’t been affixed to its display pillar, and it lifted easily in my hands. The accursed thing was so heavy I stumbled backward a few paces, my arms buckling under its weight. The young man came closer, his teeth bared in a snarl. Without another thought I flung the bust directly at his stomach as hard as I could.

The bust glanced off his belly to land on the floor, breaking
in two with a resounding crack. He let out a harsh cry. Behind him, men raced into the room, their swords already in their hands. They were Robert’s friends who had ridden here with me—he must have alerted them before leaving the ballroom. Robert shouted something I couldn’t make out, and the newcomers flung themselves at Sir Vaughan and his men. The air filled with the sound of steel hitting steel and muffled grunts.

The young man sank to his knees, clutching his belly and gasping for breath.
The vial!
I had to get it before he fell on his stomach and crushed it!

I shoved him onto his back just as someone else landed on the ground at my feet. It was the fair-haired boy who had escorted me into Buckingham’s home. He had collapsed face-first, his wig pillowing out on either side to hide his face. Blood seeped from beneath his body, in a widening arc of dark red.

Something hot and sick swooped in my stomach. I looked away. Sir Vaughan’s young man lay on his back, whimpering. His hands rubbed his belly; his eyes bulged. Around his neck was looped a white string; it disappeared beneath his clothes. I grabbed the string, giving it a hard yank. Its knotted ends broke, the string slackening in my hands. I pulled on it, drawing something from beneath his shirt. It was a leather pouch, no bigger than my hand, and the color of dried mud. I closed my fingers around it. Inside was an object that felt hard and roundish—the vial.

He made a wild grab for it. I pushed him aside with my free hand, then jumped to my feet. Lady Katherine stood beneath the archway, her hands knotted in her skirts. In the center of the room, Sir Vaughan and his remaining assistant stood back to back, their swords flashing silver. Robert and his friends had
surrounded them. As the men parried and thrust, they shuffled up and down the aisle created by the rows of pillars, their shouts and the clash of their blades so loud it was a wonder the houseful of ballroom guests hadn’t come running yet.

Robert had a cut on his cheek. Above the wine-dark line, his eyes were narrowed and fierce. As I watched, he plunged his sword into Sir Vaughan’s stomach.

Sir Vaughan fell to the floor. A dark hole had appeared in his doublet. Blood began pouring from it, black against the brown wool. He scrabbled at his belly, trying to hold the severed flesh together. “My God,” he gasped out.

My hands started shaking. Dazed, I staggered backward a few steps. Robert crouched beside Sir Vaughan and grabbed the man by the front of his doublet. “Where is it?” he demanded. “Give it to me!”

“I have it!” I shouted. “We have to get away from here!”

I turned and fled.
Get out, get out, get out
, each beat of my heart screamed. I barreled past Lady Katherine through the chamber entrance. “Come with me!” I shouted at her.

The corridor was empty. No, I couldn’t return in the direction from which I had come—the king and Buckingham might be walking along that portion of the passageway even now, believing they were heading to their meeting with Sir Vaughan and his assistants.

I ran in the opposite direction, my cursed skirts wrapping around my legs and nearly pitching me headlong onto the floor. I kicked myself loose and kept going.

Somewhere behind me, someone was shouting my name—it might have been Robert. Up ahead, a door sharpened into focus;
an oblong of varnished wood, it stood at the end of the passageway. I flung it open. Cool night air wafted over my face. I had reached a garden, its manicured hedges and grass shining with moonlight.

I raced down the steps. I must have come through a side door, for I didn’t recognize my surroundings. The hedges rose all around me, forbidding and dark, walls within which I might easily lose my way. Overhead, stars pricked the black veil of the sky, casting a pale sheen of silver over the grass that I ran across. I kept the leather pouch clutched to my chest, my grip tight as a vise.

Footsteps thudded in the grass behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. Robert. He was running hard, his hand clapped to his sheathed sword to keep it from banging into his legs. The moonlight had drained all color from his face, except for his dark eyes and the cut beneath, which was still dripping.

“Elizabeth!” he yelled. “Get to the street—I have a carriage waiting!”

I reached the Strand. Skidding to a halt on the pavement, I cast a desperate look up and down the street. It was lined with carriages, probably those belonging to the ball guests. A handful of groomsmen stood several feet away, smoking and talking in low voices. Where was Robert’s? I took a step forward just as a hand clamped onto my wrist. I twisted around to stare into Robert’s face.

“Are you hurt?” He lifted a hand to touch my cheek, the gesture so gentle and so unexpected that I started in surprise. “Come into the carriage with me—we have to get away before my father figures out what has happened.”

“Where’s Lady Katherine?”

“I told her to return to the ballroom. Hopefully no one noticed her absence, and she can pretend ignorance once those men are discovered in Buckingham’s Great Chamber.”

The front doors of Buckingham’s mansion opened. A couple of footmen stepped outside, their heads turning as if they were looking for someone. Buckingham appeared behind them. He was yelling something unintelligible and gesturing wildly. We had to leave at once.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Robert grabbed my arm, directing me toward a nearby carriage. Its doors were emblazoned in gold paint with a coat of arms: a lion and a unicorn, like the king’s, but linking these two animals in flowery script was a massive
L
, for “Lockton.” It must be Robert’s.

The groomsman stiffened to attention and opened the carriage door. Robert scrambled inside first, then turned to help me up. Together we sank onto the cushioned seat just as figures appeared on the pavement outside: it was the remaining four of Robert’s friends. Without a word, they clambered in after us. Robert thumped the roof of the carriage.

“Go!” he shouted.

The carriage rumbled forward. For a moment, the six of us said nothing, filling the carriage with only the sound of our ragged breathing. We were crammed so tightly into the small space that I could barely move. I kept my hands wrapped around the leather pouch in my lap.

Gauden sat opposite me. He glanced at my bundle, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t open it,” he said sharply.

“Surely we can look at the substance we’ve sacrificed so much
to obtain,” said the dark-haired fellow sitting next to me. On my other side, Robert sighed and shook his head.

Sir Gauden scowled. “The only people known to have looked at its contents were Mr. Galilei and Mr. Milton, and they both went blind. It may be a coincidence . . . but it may not.”

Something about his words pushed a gear within my mind. Frowning, I looked out the window, watching the darkened streets roll past. Gauden was correct, of course; my father and Galileo had lost their sight, and at this juncture we could only guess at the cause of their ailment. Robert had warned me of the same thing when we found the vial in the Physic Garden.

But that didn’t make sense. In my mind, I could see Robert standing in the spare room at the Bodleian Library, his arms crossed over his chest, listening as Antonio and I discussed my father’s sonnet about a young shepherdess tending a non-native plant. He had interrupted when Antonio brought up Galileo’s knowledge of astronomy.
Who’s Signor Galilei?
he had asked. Before we could offer an explanation, he’d continued,
You needn’t seek any heavenly ground in Oxford. The only special land around here is the Physic Garden
.

Yet only a couple of hours later, after we had dug up my father’s box, he warned us not to open the vial.
Mr. Milton complained of a headache after viewing its contents, and we mustn’t forget both he and Galileo went blind
.

It was impossible for him to have known about Galileo’s blindness. Robert, Antonio, and I had spent the afternoon at the inn, closeted in our own chambers, until Antonio brought me supper. Antonio hadn’t had the opportunity to tell Robert about Galileo, and I knew I hadn’t.

The only way Robert could have known about Galileo’s blindness was if he had already studied the man.

Which meant Robert had lied to us.

I sucked in a breath. There could have been no rational reason for Robert to feign ignorance about Galileo . . . unless there was something
else
he was hiding from me. Something that would come to light if I discovered he was knowledgeable about Galileo. Something he wanted so badly to hide that he had told a seemingly inconsequential lie.

My eyes darted around the carriage. Robert and his four friends sat in silence. One of them wiped blood off his sword on the leg of his breeches; another had produced a flask and was handing it around. Robert sat so close the bones of his shoulder ground into mine. He stared at the pouch on my lap. Passing lantern light illuminated his eyes, turning them into blank, gold discs. Smiling, he looked at me.

“We should reach Lady Katherine’s home soon. With luck, she and Antonio have already left the ball and will meet us there. Then we can figure out our next step.”

My voice sounded hoarse when I replied. “Yes. A good plan.”

The carriage continued rattling through the streets. My mind was spinning. I gazed out the window at the timber-framed houses winding past. What could Robert be concealing from me?

Memories streamed through my head. Robert finding me in the woods, explaining he had learned our route from Francis Sutton. Robert pretending he hadn’t heard of Galileo. In the Physic Garden, Robert rushing off to ask the Oxford tutor which apple trees were not indigenous to England. I could still hear the tutor’s loud voice; could still hear his Yorkshire accent. . . .

And then I knew. There had been one tutor and two students. Three men in total, one of whom had spoken with a Yorkshire accent—just like Sir Vaughan.

Vaughan and his men had not only attacked us in the fields outside Oxford, they had been in the Physic Garden earlier that night, too. And Robert had gone to them. He had spoken to them on the pretext of seeking their counsel on non-native apple trees. He had talked with them at close quarters; he must have seen their faces clearly, both in the garden and later in the fields, for the night had been bright with moonlight.

Yet Robert had never shared this detail with Antonio and me. And he had feigned ignorance about Galileo.

He was a liar.

I looked down at my hands cupping the leather pouch. Instinctively they tightened, showing the delicate blue tracery of veins under my skin. Beside me, Robert shifted slightly. His long legs, encased in yellow satin breeches and white stockings, pressed against my skirts. He was so close to me. On my other side, the dark-haired boy stretched out his legs, the tip of his scabbard scraping on the carriage floor. Across from me, the three other men passed a flask, talking in low voices about how furious Buckingham would be when he found the dead bodies in the Great Chamber, their blood splattered on his precious statues.

Nausea roiled my stomach. So they had killed Sir Vaughan and his assistants. I could hope for no mercy from them. Probably the only reason I was still alive was that I hadn’t yet given them a reason to kill me.

So little made sense. Why hadn’t Robert told us that the “tutor” and “students” in the Physic Garden and the men who
attacked us had been the same people? By concealing this truth, what had he gained? I felt as though I held one half of a picture; the rest had been ripped away.

“Miss Milton,” Gauden said, “you look unwell. Have you fallen ill?”

“I—some fresh air. Stop the carriage, please.” I prayed they didn’t notice my voice was shaking.