Traitor Angels (26 page)

In its flickering glow I could see the bakehouse more clearly. It was one small room, its walls blackened with soot, its floor and three trestle tables coated with a film of flour as gray as long-dried ash. Several barrels stood stacked against the far wall. A pallet lay on the floor behind the tables. Sitting motionless upon it was my father.

He looked exhausted. Wrinkles scored his cheeks and forehead more deeply than when I had seen him last. Flour dusted his black clothes, like snow on tar. His hair hung about his face in uncombed knots.

“Father!” My harsh cry seemed to burst directly from my throat. I rushed toward him.

Sir Gauden emerged from the shadows behind my father. Before I could shout a warning, he had dropped to his knees and laid the flat of his blade against my father’s throat. I skidded to a halt.

“Elizabeth!” my father called out. “Is that you?”

When he spoke, the skin of his throat rippled, nicked by the edge of the sword. A few drops of blood welled up, then slid across the gleaming blade like balls of red glass.

“Don’t hurt him!” I shouted. “Please!”

“Oh, I don’t want to hurt
him
,” Robert said.

Something in his tone turned the blood in my veins to ice. Slowly I turned to look at him. He stood between the tables, toying with the latch on the lantern’s glass door. “I want,” he said softly, “to hurt
you
.”

I gasped as I realized what he meant. He hadn’t been able to break me when he had deprived me of food and drink—so he would break my father instead. He would torture me until my father shattered and confessed he had hidden something in Mr. Hade’s home.

“Father,” I shouted, “no matter what they do to me, you must stay silent! Do you understand?”

“Elizabeth!” my father rasped out. “Get out of here—they’ll try to kill you!”

“I won’t leave you!” I yelled.

The door crashed open behind me. I whirled around. Standing in the doorway, his chest straining with labored breaths, was Antonio. On either side of him stood Lady Katherine and Thomasine, daggers glinting in their hands.

THE ROOM FROZE. I COULDN’T TEAR MY EYES FROM
Antonio. He looked terrible. The color had drained from his face, leaving it bone white. His hair fell to his shoulders in a wild tangle. A bruise stretched sickly yellow fingers along the length of his jaw. He was still dressed in the clothes he had been wearing when I last saw him; now the black satin breeches were wrinkled, and dirt streaked the front of his intricately stitched doublet. He held a sword at the ready.

When our eyes locked, he let out a shuddering breath. “Elizabeth!”

“Get out.” My voice was so rough I didn’t recognize it as my own.

Bewilderment flickered across his face. “What—”

“Silence!” Robert thundered.

In the lantern light, Antonio looked pale and exhausted.
His eyes, though, were unblinking as they focused on Robert. “
You
,” he growled with such venom that the hairs on the back of my neck rose. “I could rip you limb from limb for what you did to Elizabeth.”

“Your betrayal was far worse.” Robert smiled slightly when Antonio started.

“What are you talking about?”

“His Grace tricked me!” Lady Katherine cried. “I swear to you, Miss Milton, I didn’t understand what I was doing! His Grace told me to ask Mr. Viviani what he would do with Galileo’s vial if your father hadn’t been imprisoned. His Grace was waiting in the next room, and he coughed when he heard you coming, which was the signal for me to pose the question to Mr. Viviani.”

Antonio’s words, uttered before we left for the ball, rushed back to me:
Signor Galilei’s discovery is a powerful tool against the Church. . . . If I brought it to the officials in Rome and promised to keep it quiet in return for Signor Galilei’s pardon, I’m certain they would agree.

He had said “if.” It could have been idle chatter. Not a plan to steal the vial in an attempt to salvage Galileo’s reputation. Just a response to Lady Katherine’s hypothetical question. Even now I could hear her asking,
If Miss Milton’s father hadn’t been captured, I wonder what we could have done with Galileo’s secret. What do you think, Mr. Viviani
?

Antonio had responded precisely in the manner I would have expected from him—indeed, precisely as Robert had hoped. And his words had pulled us apart, making it easier for Robert to manipulate us.

Not once had Antonio suggested stealing the vial.

“Then it was all a trick!” I breathed. “Antonio didn’t betray me.”

Robert blinked, a slow shuttering of his lids over eyes as cool as glass. He didn’t speak. I whirled around. Antonio hadn’t moved from the door. The hand holding his sword had begun to tremble, but whether from emotion or fatigue I couldn’t tell. His voice cracked when he said my name. “Elizabeth, I promise I wouldn’t deceive you—”

“He’s telling the truth,” Lady Katherine interrupted, throwing a scornful look at Robert. “His Grace returned from the ball full of stories. He said you and he had been separated in Buckingham’s garden. Mr. Viviani didn’t believe him and attacked His Grace.”

“You need to shut your mouth,” Robert growled. He rushed toward them, but Antonio jumped in front of Lady Katherine, sweeping his blade. Robert leaped back. His face darkened.

“You might manage to slay me before I draw my weapon,” Robert spat. “But you’ll never get out of London alive. Once my men know I’m missing or dead, they’ll move Heaven and Hell to avenge me. You’re already as good as dead, Florentine.”

“Then I’ll die fighting,” Antonio said.

Pride fired in my heart—a hot conflagration that pushed against my ribs, eager to escape. My Antonio, with his dear, tired face. His broad shoulders that sagged with exhaustion, his voice that cracked with strain. And yet he stayed. A hundred times he could have returned to Florence, but he hadn’t. I had vanished, and he had remained. For my sake. I knew it by the way his eyes flickered over to mine, tracing my face as if he wanted to remember it forever.

“And I’ll fight beside you,” I said to him.

Antonio gave me a relieved smile. He’d just started to speak when my father called from the back of the bakehouse, “Take heed, daughter! I hear someone moving!”

Robert was edging toward the back of the building, away from me and Antonio. He scowled at Sir Gauden. “Keep Milton quiet, can’t you!”

My father was still sitting on the pallet, his neck bared for Gauden’s blade. A shallow red line marred the skin of his throat. My eyes flew to Robert. “Don’t move,” I said.

“Your father’s the only person I see in mortal danger,” he growled. “You’d be wise not to anger me.”

“Kill him and you’ve lost the chance to learn the secret of
Paradise Lost
.”

Annoyance flitted across Robert’s face. Instead of responding, he glanced at Lady Katherine. “Indulge my curiosity, my lady. How did you know to come here tonight? I myself was unaware of Mr. Milton’s hiding place until a short while ago.”

The dagger in her hand shook so badly it had become a silver blur, glinting against the pale pink of her gown. “For the last two nights, Mr. Viviani has haunted Whitehall’s gates in the hope you would leave and lead us to Miss Milton. Tonight, when he saw you and a group of your courtiers riding out, he followed at a distance. As soon as he saw you rowing across the Tower moat, he raced to me and Thomasine. We sped to the Tower in my carriage, reaching it just as all of you entered your coach. I am gladder than words can express that we returned in time to see Miss Milton, but”—she hesitated, her lips compressing into a line, as if she were trying to hold in her tears—“but I wish with
every particle of my being that we had been wrong about who had imprisoned her.”

Something warm spread from my chest down my arms and legs, pooling in the spaces between my bones until all of my body felt alive and thrumming from it. My friends hadn’t abandoned me. Every moment I had spent in a cell, they had been seeking me. Not once had I been alone.
Not
once
.

“I’ve grown weary of all of your voices.” Robert, his eyes flat, glanced at Sir Gauden. “Mr. Milton, you have until the count of ten to tell me about the secret in your poem or I will throw my dagger into your daughter’s chest.” He paused. “I have excellent aim.”

“I beg of you, don’t!” my father cried. Gauden yanked his hair, forcing his head back. He pressed the point of his sword into my father’s throat, digging so hard a small red circle welled up.

“Say nothing, Father!” I yelled.

I raced around the table toward Robert. His eyes widened with surprise, and he fumbled with the sword at his waist. Before he had unsheathed it, I cracked him across the face as hard as I could. He let out a startled cry and staggered a few steps away, cupping his nose. Lines of blood snaked between his fingers; in the dimness, they looked black.

“I’m safe!” I started to shout to Father just as Robert yelled, “Kill her! I want her dead!”

“No!” Father screamed. “The secret is hidden in Mr. Hade’s home! It’s a map—a map of the exact location of the cave outside Padua where Galileo found the sunken meteor!”

The room seemed to hold its breath. Robert’s hands fell from his nose. Blood continued to gush from it, and when he spoke,
blood dripped off his mouth. “Ah, Elizabeth’s old weapons instructor who lives on London Bridge. Very clever.” He glanced at Sir Gauden. “Now kill him.”

“No!” I screamed. Dimly I heard Antonio shout something. From the corner of my eye, I saw him racing toward my father and Sir Gauden. Twenty paces distant. He would never reach them in time; already Gauden was bringing the sword down in a silver arc. Ten paces away. I whirled around and shouted at Lady Katherine, “Throw me your dagger! Now!”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise, but she obeyed, flinging the dagger at me. I caught it by the handle and spun around. The sword was descending toward my father’s neck; he was struggling in Gauden’s grasp, his face white with terror. I didn’t hesitate. I threw the dagger as hard as I could at Sir Gauden.

It embedded itself in his upper arm. Only the silver hilt, studded with jewels, showed. Gauden’s eyes bulged; his mouth gaped like that of a fish. He clapped a hand to his arm, trying to pull the dagger out, and let his sword fall to the dirt floor with a soft thump.

Antonio reached them. He pulled his arm back, winding up for a blow, then plowed his fist into Gauden’s eye. Gauden crumpled at once. As he fell, he collapsed against my father, knocking him to the floor.

“Father! Are you all right?” I dropped to my knees, scrabbling at Sir Gauden’s body.

Antonio helped me tug Gauden’s limp form off my father’s body. We dumped Gauden unceremoniously on the floor, where he lay motionless, still unconscious. As my father struggled to sit up, I wrapped my arm around his waist, steadying him. His
familiar scent of tobacco and wool, now mixed with flour and grease, wafted over me, and a lump rose in my throat.

“Father,” I managed to say, but couldn’t push any more words out of my mouth.

“Where’s the Duke of Lockton?” he gasped. “Don’t let him get away!”

I looked over my shoulder. Robert had hurried to the bakehouse door, but Lady Katherine and Thomasine stood in front of him, blocking his way out. From the back, the line of his shoulders looked rod straight.

“Don’t cross me,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Please don’t go.” Tears shone in Lady Katherine’s eyes. “I love you, Your Grace. Robert. Don’t retrieve this map, I beg of you.”

He shifted slightly, so I could see his profile. Blood now coated his mouth; his lips looked as though they had been painted red. “Get out of my way!” He grabbed Lady Katherine’s arm, trying to yank her aside, but she stood firm.

“No!” she shouted. “I won’t let you go so that you can ruin your soul!”

Metal rang out as Robert drew his sword. Even as I relinquished my grip on my father and started to rise, Robert thrust his weapon forward in one smooth movement. The sword buried itself up to the hilt in Lady Katherine’s stomach. She looked down, vague surprise registering on her face.

“What . . . ?” she whispered.

Time seemed to stop. Unable to understand what had just happened, I stared at Lady Katherine. Her face had gone white, and worry creased the ordinarily smooth skin of her forehead. She lifted a trembling hand to her cheek, pushing away a stray curl, as if she
needed to see better in order to comprehend what had occurred.

Robert pulled out the sword. Its blade was stained scarlet, glimmers of silver showing in a couple of places that hadn’t been slicked with Lady Katherine’s blood. It clattered onto the ground, flinging droplets of blood in every direction. Robert let out a shaky breath.

Lady Katherine sagged against the wall. Her mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. A red hole had appeared in the pink silk of her bodice; even as I watched, it widened, spreading out on either side of her navel, like a nightmarish version of an embrace. Slowly she slid to the ground, leaving a long, dark smear on the flour-streaked wooden slats. Her body began to shake, her feet drumming a rapid tattoo on the dirt.

Robert stared down at her, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. His eyes were dark and grim; his mouth was set in a thin line.

Beside him, Lady Katherine’s head lolled on her neck. Thomasine threw herself onto her knees beside her mistress’s body, sobbing and chafing Lady Katherine’s hands. Robert backed away, his eyes panicked, his lower lip trembling. I felt rather than saw Antonio stand next to me, for I couldn’t look at him; all I could see was Lady Katherine’s mouth continuing to open and close without making a sound.

I let myself sink down next to her. Her lips were still moving. She was saying something, a whisper so faint I had to rest my ear against her mouth to hear it.

“Robert?” she murmured, sounding confused. I jerked my head around. Robert was lurking in the shadows at the far side of the room, near my father. His head was bowed.

“Where’s the vial?” I shouted.

Robert looked at me, his eyes glazed with shock. “The vial?”

“Yes, the vial, curse you! Lady Katherine is dying, and its contents will save her!” When he did nothing, I yelled, “Don’t you care about your betrothed?”

His face changed then—a tightening of the muscles along his jaw, perhaps, something so subtle I couldn’t tell exactly how the transformation had taken place. But he had become calm. With the heel of his hand, he wiped at the blood on his mouth, leaving dark streaks fanning out from either side of his lips.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I care for her.” He paused. “But I care about myself more.” He ran a careful hand down the front of his doublet, smoothing it. Bloody lines from the tips of his fingers now marred the satin, scarlet-black on yellow. Through the fabric I could see the vial’s slender outline; he was carrying it close to his heart, as Sir Vaughan’s assistant had.

Antonio took a step toward him. “Give it to us!”

“No,” Lady Katherine murmured. “I don’t want it.”

Pink bubbles dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin. Her insides must be awash in blood, with nowhere for the welling substance to go but out.

“Help her!” I shouted at Robert. “Give us the vial or we’ll take it by force!”

“You heard my lady,” he said. He looked at me then, his eyes hooded by the faint candlelight. “She doesn’t want it.”

Antonio’s hand brushed mine. “Elizabeth, he’s right. We can’t treat Lady Katherine against her will.”

I jerked away from him. “She’s ill—she doesn’t know what she’s saying!”

“Elizabeth.” There was an immeasurable sadness in Antonio’s face. “She knows.”

Blinking hard, I rested my hand on Lady Katherine’s cheek, praying my touch gave her comfort.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” Thomasine said through her tears. With a lurch of my heart, I realized she was giving Lady Katherine her last rites. Beneath my cheek, Lady Katherine’s cheek went slack. I waited for it to rise with another breath.

There was none.

A ragged cry hurled itself up my throat. I jumped to my feet, seeking Robert in the shadows. Near the far wall lay Gauden, still motionless, and close to him crouched my father, his head swiveling as he tried to make sense of the sounds within the bakehouse.