Authors: Anne Blankman
I LOOKED AT THE FOREIGNER. IN THE HALF DARKNESS,
his eyes gleamed, catlike. I knew nothing about him, not even his name. But I had to respect my father’s wishes, even if I didn’t understand them.
“You’re welcome to visit our house, sir,” I said. “I can bring you to my father now.”
“Then we can leave straightaway—I’ve just come from settling my account with the innkeeper.” Fleetingly I remembered the men’s laughter through the walls. So that had been this boy and Old Tom, chuckling while they exchanged coins.
The boy bowed slightly from the waist. “I’m Antonio Viviani, assistant to Signor Vincenzo Viviani, court mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. My master and I are cousins—distant cousins. I need to gather my things,” he added, glancing at the bags on his bed.
Tuscany
. Was this Viviani related to the Tuscan Artist in
Paradise Lost
? Oh, who cared anyway? Father had deceived me. His stupid poem could molder into dust, as far as I was concerned.
In silence I waited while Viviani threw his clothes into his bags. Together we crept outside. Early-morning sunlight had burnished the dirt road with gold. In silence we trudged along its edge. Maybe the letter had been a mistake, written during one of Father’s hideous headaches when pain blunted his reason. This Viviani could leave England on the next boat bound for Calais. And my father could continue to survive, forgotten.
“Your desire to protect your father is admirable,” Viviani said, breaking into my thoughts. “Although I”—he hesitated—“I don’t understand your . . .”
He trailed off, but I knew what he was trying to say. No doubt he thought I had reacted to his arrival with unwarranted vehemence. If we’d been an ordinary family, I would have agreed with him.
“You know about the recent war in my country?” I asked.
He nodded, his expression remote. I could imagine what he was thinking—the same thing that so many foreigners had thought when England descended into war some twenty years ago. They had called us barbaric, for we had done what few nations had dared to do: we had beheaded King Charles the First for dissolving Parliament and unleashing a civil war on us.
“My father’s voice was one of the loudest supporting the king’s execution. He even wrote about it in
The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
, a month after the king was beheaded, trying to persuade others that the execution had been just.” I kept my gaze trained on the fields, unable to look at this stranger and the
condemnation I would surely see on his face. “That was seventeen years ago, and by then he had become the most celebrated political writer in the land. After the king was killed, Mr. Cromwell asked my father to serve in the new government.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Viviani nod. “I’ve heard of England’s rebellion.”
“The new government lasted only a decade before it fell apart,” I said. “Then Parliament invited the dead king’s son to return from exile in Europe. And my father was condemned as a regicide. Parliament meant him to be the twentieth and final man to be hanged for the crime of killing a king.”
“Yet he still lives.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. The memories were too sharp. All at once I was a girl of ten again, terrified and bewildered, living with my maternal grandmother and wondering what had become of my father. He’d gone into hiding right before the old king’s son had returned to our shores in 1660, and for months we’d awaited the dread news that he had been found and arrested.
When King Charles the Second rode triumphantly into London, my sisters and I stood in the street while the crowds cheered and threw flowers onto the cobblestones. Never had I seen such a man: a giant at six feet tall, about thirty years of age, with black hair curling to his shoulders and skin as dark as a Spaniard’s. His silver garments dazzled my eyes, which were accustomed to years of Puritan black and brown.
Behind him rode another man in sumptuous garb, his long face framed by light brown hair. He blew me a kiss. I raised my hand to wave at him, but my grandmother’s fierce whisper
stopped me. The man was the second Duke of Buckingham, the king’s dearest friend since childhood, she told me, and if I valued my father’s life I would do well not to catch his attention, even if it was with something as innocent as responding to a blown kiss in the street.
Blinking hard, I forced the images back. Those chaotic days were long past, the regicides and suspected traitors dead or gone, except for my father, escaped to new lives on the Continent or in the New World. All I could let myself care about was the fact that we were alive. As long as we remained anonymous, we would stay that way.
“Yet he still lives,” I repeated at last. “He had influential friends who lobbied for leniency, arguing that a blind poet posed no threat to our new king. After his name was removed from the death list, he returned to me and my sisters from wherever he’d been hiding in the city. He never told us where he’d gone. Soon after, the king’s men came for him. He was imprisoned for three months.”
I tensed, waiting for the inevitable comments—
Your father deserves his blindness, for that is God’s punishment for his revolutionary past. His antimonarchy stance might be pardonable, but his approval of the king’s execution is not
. They were remarks I’d heard countless times before.
But Viviani said nothing. His hat’s brim shadowed his face, so I couldn’t see his expression, but I heard the thoughtfulness in his tone when he finally spoke. “Your father has suffered greatly. I understand why you’d wish to protect him from anyone whose intentions you don’t know.”
“Th-thank you,” I stammered.
We’d reached my family’s cottage. Without a word, I ushered Viviani into the hall. The whitewashed plaster walls and bare floorboards must have told him we were poor, but his lip didn’t curl in derision. Instead he stood by the door, waiting.
“My father’s probably in his sitting room,” I told him. “I’ll take you—”
Footsteps clicked in the corridor. “Elizabeth? Who is this man?”
Recognizing the sharpness of Betty’s voice, I stifled a sigh and turned. Betty stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. “This is Signor Antonio Viviani,” I told her. “He’s the assistant to the mathematician of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Father has invited him here as our guest. Signor Viviani, this is my father’s wife, Mrs. Milton.”
Viviani’s arm brushed mine as he swept off his hat and bowed to my stepmother. Her eyes flickered over him, widening as she took in his fine clothes.
“I apologize for the simplicity of our home,” she murmured. “We weren’t expecting you, Mr. Viviani.”
He straightened. “Mrs. Milton, I realize my appearance must be a surprise. As I wasn’t certain of the reception I’d receive when I arrived last night, I sought lodging at the village inn, but now I see my fears were unwarranted, as you’ve welcomed me so graciously.”
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. How cleverly he had forestalled my stepmother’s protests over his arrival! I couldn’t figure him out, for each moment seemed to draw forth a different part of his character, as though he were made of many shifting parts—like the interior of the newfangled
clocks I’d seen once, orderly on the outside, a mass of whirring gears and pieces within.
“I’m afraid you’ll find your accommodations somewhat rough,” Betty said, “but you’re most welcome to them. Elizabeth, he’ll take your room and you may share with Anne. Get him settled.”
“I must bring him to Father first.” And clear up this matter before it went much further. I jerked my head at Viviani, signaling for him to follow me. With each step I took, I felt his eyes boring into the space between my shoulder blades. Could he tell how unaccustomed my family was to visitors? How unsophisticated we were? And why did I care what he thought anyway?
In the sitting room, my father was perched in his usual chair, a brazier of burning coals at his feet to warm his aching joints. Behind him stood his most prized possession—a glass-fronted bookcase, its shelves crammed with leather-bound volumes. The books were a terrible extravagance, but one both Father and I had thought was necessary. They were like air to us.
“Elizabeth?” Father’s head turned in my direction. “Who’s with you? Those aren’t footsteps I know.” His voice held a note of fear, and I hastened to his chair, taking his cold hands in mine.
“A young man called Antonio Viviani is here,” I whispered. “He says you summoned him to England.”
Father’s weathered face split into a smile. “Viviani,” he said under his breath. “Thanks be to God.”
My mind whirled. “But . . . you always warned me not to enter into dealings with Catholics! Don’t you remember? You said their nations have grown too powerful and pose a terrible danger to England’s security. You told me their faith is the only one we mustn’t tolerate.”
“Don’t question me, daughter.” A dull red crept up Father’s neck. “This young man’s master and I have never met, but our task has tied us together for nearly thirty years.”
“But, Father—”
“You’re my child.” He gritted the words out, as though they were bits of gravel trapped in his mouth. He leaned forward, a signal that I was supposed to come closer. I brought my face so near to his I could see the tiny lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. “It’s your duty to obey me without dissent. To have you question me again in front of a stranger would grieve my heart.”
I reared back as though he had slapped my face. “Father, I beg your forgiveness,” I murmured.
He ignored me. “Sit down, Signor Viviani,” he said in Italian, “and tell me about your life in Florence. I’m most eager to learn about your experiments. Elizabeth,” he added, frowning, “surely your stepmother has need of your strong arms to stoke the kitchen fire.”
The dismissal was so clear I couldn’t pretend to mistake his meaning. Yet I remained kneeling at his feet and unable to move. This was horribly wrong. Not once had he shut me out. Until now. When he’d returned from prison, thin and exhausted, I’d sat with him in the evenings long after the supper dishes had been washed and while the candles burned low in their holders. I’d traced the shapes of the Hebrew letters his faltering fingers had written, and I’d parroted the Italian phrases he had taught me.
I
had been his special companion. No one else. And now he spoke to me as though I were no more than a serving girl.
Behind me, someone cleared his throat. From my crouched position, I whirled, nearly falling backward in my haste. Viviani
stood by the window. There was something in his face I couldn’t make out; it might have been pity.
Shame burned my cheeks. “Very well, Father. I’ll leave you to your discussion.”
I rushed from the room, ignoring Viviani’s bow. Father’s voice floated through the open door after me.
“When I was a bachelor, I visited the Italian city-states myself,” he said in his impeccable Italian. He would share those stories with a stranger, when I ought to have been the one listening to his tales? “They are full of many wonders. Of all the cities I saw, I admired Florence the most for its elegance, not only the elegance of its language, but of its inhabitants’ wit.”
“It’s a most learned city,” Viviani agreed, but I barely heard him. A lever seemed to snap in my mind.
Florence.
Where this Antonio Viviani and his master resided and my father had stayed during the autumn of 1638—eight and twenty years ago. He’d said that a shared responsibility had bound him and Vincenzo Viviani for nearly thirty years. Did the origins of the supposed “portentous secret” date from this long-ago trip to Florence? And how, when my father seemed determined to keep his own counsel for now, could I convince him to tell me?
AT THE END OF THE CORRIDOR, A LADDER
stretched up to two loft bedchambers. Clutching Viviani’s bags, I climbed it one-handed. Well, there was one bright piece to the fact that my father and Viviani were closeted in his study, discussing whatever had been deemed too important for my ears: if Viviani had been following me, I would have given him quite an educational view up my skirts. Small favors, I supposed.
On the landing, both doors were closed. I slipped into my room, on the right. Even in the faded sunlight, it was obvious the room was a shabby box: the walls bare of decoration; the bed the old-fashioned sort with a wooden frame and a poor man’s mattress of straw, instead of wool or feathers.
I loved every inch of it.
This was the first place where I’d slept alone. Where I could fling open my shutters and stare at the stars pinning back the vast
canopy of the heavens and wonder what secrets they concealed. Why did each constellation move around its center, but the stars within the grouping never rearranged themselves in a new order? And why couldn’t I see the golden chain from which our earthly home dangled, like a pendant on a necklace? The world was clothed in mysteries.
And I, as a mere girl, had no right to yearn to decipher them. Celestial matters belonged squarely in the realm delegated to men. Father had told me so, when I’d been a child and he’d regaled me with tales about his month in Florence and the time he’d met the infamous man called Galileo, who’d been under house arrest for thinking differently about the motions of the heavenly bodies than the Inquisitors in Rome permitted. If I’d been a boy, perhaps I could have become a natural philosopher, someone who studies the workings of the world and designs experiments. As things were, I had to content myself with gazing at the stars.
But I knew, deep down, it would never be enough.
“Enough of this maudlin thinking,” I muttered. I grabbed my spare shift, gown, and nightdress from the clothespress, then hesitated over the stack of pages I’d hidden beneath them. The pages were covered with my drawings of the constellations. I couldn’t take the chance that Viviani would go through my things. Holding the stack of papers to my chest, I went to my sister’s room next door and knocked.
Anne’s dragging footsteps sounded from within her chamber. She opened the door, peering at me. “Wh-what—you—doing?” she asked, nodding at the clothing and papers cradled in my arms.
“Staying with you, but only temporarily,” I said. “May I come in?”
“Y-yes. B-b-b . . .” Her voice faded, the muscles in her throat working as she struggled to push the words out. They wouldn’t emerge, we knew, or if they did, they’d stream forth in an unintelligible garble. Frustration flickered across her face. She smacked the side of her head, and I caught her hand, my garments and pages falling to the floor.
“Don’t!” I said in a fierce whisper. “Don’t you dare hurt yourself! It’s all right,” I added as she started to cry. I grabbed her in a tight embrace, pressing our faces so close together I could feel the wetness of her tears on my cheek. “I understand you, Anne,” I managed to say despite the lump in my throat. “Please don’t be upset. I can understand what you’re saying, I promise.”
She made a low, distressed sound. As always, I wondered if her life would have been different if our mother hadn’t died after Deborah’s birth. Maybe our mother would have known how to help Anne learn to talk clearly or to read—at the least, she probably would have known how to comfort her. Our father didn’t seem to, but then again, we’d suffered so many losses after Mother’s death that he must have been overwhelmed. Six weeks after Mother died, our toddler brother, John, passed away from a fever, and only a few years later our father’s second wife and their baby daughter died, too.
I pulled back in Anne’s arms, forcing a smile. “I’m sorry to trespass on your privacy, but I could hardly stay in my bed when there’s a man in it, could I?”
She gaped at me. “Ex-explain!”
“If you require explanation of why a man might be in a woman’s bed, then perhaps you should ask Betty for another lecture on how it is between a man and a woman.”
Anne looked horrified. Laughing, I wrapped my arm around
her shoulders and helped her hobble to the bed. She started laughing, too. After I’d guided her onto the edge of the mattress, I picked up my clothes and papers.
“We have a houseguest,” I told her. “He’s come from Florence at Father’s invitation. And yes, he’s handsome,” I said quickly, knowing Anne would want to know. Her face brightened. “Probably, like most good-looking fellows, he knows it and is therefore insufferable.” I held up the stack of papers. “May I hide these in your clothespress?”
She nodded. “Y-y-you show.”
“You know I can’t show these to anyone but you. Everyone else would mock me.”
“We—we best.”
I kissed her cheek so she wouldn’t see the tears gathering in my eyes. “Yes, because we’re best friends. Forever, Anne.”
From the village the church tolled the hour, twelve slow notes that hovered in the air, each trembling before being swallowed by the next. It was time to fix the midday meal. I groaned, realizing I’d forgotten to buy bread from the baker. Betty would box my ears, no doubt.
“We’d better get to the kitchen,” I said.
As always, when Anne clambered down the ladder after me her uneven legs buckled. From a few rungs below, I kept a steadying hand on her backside.
In the kitchen, Luce stood at the table, slicing a loaf of bread—someone, probably Mary, had remembered to go to the bakery—and Deborah was arranging sliced beef and sweetmeats on platters. Mary was fussing with a bowl of salad greens. Betty was nowhere to be seen.
“There you are!” Mary exclaimed. “I was wild with worry when you went racing off. This foreigner doesn’t appear to be a bad sort, does he.” She tugged on my cap strings, which had come undone. “I went outside and peeked at him and Father through the window. He’s rather handsome.”
“I suppose,” I muttered. “Did you hear what he and Father were discussing—”
A sudden wild pummeling shook the back door in its frame. A man’s voice shouted, “By God’s grace, let me in!”
“Merciful heavens!” Mary flung the door open. Francis Sutton staggered into the kitchen. He wore no hat, and his blond hair streamed loose to his shoulders. Through the tangled strands, his face looked pale, his eyes frantic.
“You all must flee at once!” He whirled to Mary. “The king’s men were just at my home, asking for directions to your cottage. Whatever they want with your family, it has to be for a grave offense, for their party numbered at least a dozen, and they must have ridden all night to arrive here so early. I beg of you, begone from here before it’s too late.”