Traitor Angels

by Anne Blankman

  “There weren’t any Jews to protest,” Crofts told Antonio. “They were expelled from England hundreds of years ago. Only in the last few years have they begun trickling back in.”

  He didn’t say why, but I knew: Mr. Cromwell had offered Jews the right to practice trade, provided they bothered no one. Crofts’s father, the king, however, had done even more for the Jews: he had promised them religious tolerance. Maybe, I thought with an uncomfortable twinge, even the king carried some kindness in his heart.

  At dusk the Physic Garden’s imposing stone archway looked bluish white. As one, the three of us hurried beneath it. Orderly rows of plants, much shriveled by the drought, stretched out before us. Some rows had blank spaces where plants should have been, reminding me of a mouth with missing teeth. The scent of herbs I couldn’t identify carried on the breeze. Except for a university don walking with a couple of students, all of them easily identifiable by their long black robes, the gardens were deserted.

  “Rosemary is good for treating nausea,” the tutor was saying in a broad Yorkshire accent. “And rue can be added to wine to ease a headache.”

  We slipped past them. In the gathering dimness, the gardens feathered out as far as I could see in all directions.

  “Where do we go?” Crofts asked. “The Physic Garden covers several acres, so our search must be methodical.”

  “I was thinking on the walk here—does the garden contain any apple trees?” Antonio asked.

  I gasped. Apple trees—of course!

  “I know where they’re planted,” Crofts said. “My family and I have toured the garden many times. Come!”

  We dashed down the long paths between the plant beds. Crofts took several turns, stopping finally at a long line of medium-sized trees. There had to be at least twenty of them, spindly black silhouettes, their branches laden with dry-looking leaves.

  But what now? My father couldn’t have concealed something within a tree. He must have buried an object at its base. The question was, How could we guess which one?

  In silence we walked the lines of trees. Judging by their middling height, they were about twenty years old. Perhaps they had been planted at around the time my father had revised the sonnet. Frustrated, I gritted my teeth. How could he have brought us this far and then deserted us without more answers?

  “There must be additional clues in the sonnet,” I said. Frowning, I ran my father’s poem through my head again. An expert shepherdess tends a non-native plant while an Englishman watches her. . . . I spun around and stared at the trees. A non-native plant. At least one of these trees must have been grown from foreign seeds.

  “I know,” I breathed. “We seek an apple tree that isn’t indigenous.”

  Crofts nodded. “That must be it! But . . . the university uses this garden as a teaching tool for its botany students, and they probably gather seedlings from all over the world. We have no way of knowing which— I have an idea,” he interrupted himself.

  He sprinted in the direction from which we had come, blending into the shadows until I could no longer see him. Each beat of my heart felt like the tick of a clock, counting away precious time we might not have. Antonio and I looked at each other grimly.

  Just then Crofts returned, his face creased in a grin. “I spoke to the university tutor we saw when we came in. He said the third and twelfth trees in this row came from seedlings transported from the New World.”

  A gear seemed to move within my mind. “The number three is significant in Paradise Lost. The divine trinity of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit is juxtaposed with the wicked threesome of Satan, Sin, and Death. Galileo is mentioned three times. And the sonnet that led us here was the third one in my father’s book.”

  “It must be the third tree.” Antonio and I rushed forward and dropped to our knees on either side of the tree’s base. I pushed my spade into the ground, expecting it to give easily. But it had been baked solid by the drought: the dirt was hard and unyielding. To be so close to my father’s secret and unable to reach it! I let out a growl of frustration and hacked at the earth, sending clumps of dirt flying through the air. I was dimly aware of Crofts standing behind us, waiting.

  The ringing of metal on metal stilled my hands. I jerked my head up to look at Antonio. He was staring at the ground in front of him, his face tight with concentration.

  “I’ve hit something!” he whispered.

  A chill crawled up my spine. A small hole, no more than two feet deep, yawned in the ground at Antonio’s feet. Inside it sat a small box. Metal gleamed through the layer of dirt covering it. With shaking hands, Crofts picked it up and brushed it clean. Then he held it out to me.

  “The honor should be yours,” he said. “You’re his daughter, after all.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  The box felt cool, its surface gritty with dried dirt. I pried open the lid, its hinges protesting with a metallic shriek. The inside was lined with green velvet, so worn in places that it had been rubbed smooth. Nestled in the velvet were a rolled-up strip of vellum and a silver tube. The latter felt cold and was capped at one end. When I shook it, I heard liquid sloshing inside. I ran my fingers over the cap, wondering if I ought to pull it off. I hesitated. Father was a cautious man; he would have left instructions for handling such a peculiar object.

  Crofts laid out the vellum on his lap, then shook his head. “There’s writing here, but it’s too dark to read it.”

  My heart was slamming so hard against my breastbone that it was difficult to breathe. “We must find light.”

  “Wait.” Antonio scooped the mound of dirt back into the hole, then patted the ground with the flat of his spade, trying to conceal the evidence that anyone had been here. I watched him with mounting impatience.

  Once Antonio was done, we raced out of the garden, making for the university building, where a couple of ground-floor windows glowed gold with candlelight. Their soft illumination was all I needed to see the letters scrawled across the piece of vellum. The vellum itself was a piece of animal hide, probably calf’s hide, and was soft and butter yellow. I recognized the small, careful handwriting as my father’s. This must have been penned before he lost his sight and had to rely on others as his scribes. He had written in Latin—the universal language, known by all learned men. He must have wanted anyone to be able to read this page, then, not only Englishmen.

  The vellum was dated Junius MDCXLII—June 1642 in Latin. My throat tightened. I knew why that period of time was significant. “My father must have written and buried this when he came to Oxfordshire to meet and marry my mother,” I said. By then he had already traveled to Florence and met Galileo and was working as a tutor and writing poetry while all around him England slowly descended into civil war.

  “Tell us what it says,” Crofts urged.

  I looked at him in surprise. Surely a king’s son, even one born on the wrong side of the blanket, was versed in Latin.

  “My upbringing in exile hardly provided an atmosphere conducive to education.” He sounded embarrassed.

  Not wishing to cause him further shame, I hurriedly translated as I read aloud: “In the month of June in the year of our Lord 1642, I, John Milton, poet, vow that the following story is true and witnessed by my own eyes. Four years ago, while journeying through the Italian city-states, I was introduced to the son of the natural philosopher Galileo. He arranged for me to meet his father at his villa outside Florence in Arcetri, where he lived under house arrest for thinking differently upon the motions of the heavenly bodies than the tyrants in the Church in Rome did. There I found an elderly man, much pained in his body but still brilliant in his mind. As the skies turned black and glittered with stars, we walked in the olive orchards outside his home toward the hill from which one can see Fiesole on one side and the plains stretching toward Pistoia on the other—

  “Fiesole!” I interrupted myself. In Paradise Lost, the Tuscan Artist who sees Satan through his telescope is mentioned as living near Fiesole. If I nee
ded further evidence that my father had intended this literary figure to represent Galileo, then surely this was it. With a guilty twinge, I realized I had misspelled the place name in Father’s poem.

  Crofts made an impatient gesture, and I picked up the thread of what I had been reading: “When the night had grown cold and the stars had hardened to balls of ice, Galileo said we had kindred minds, and therefore he knew he could trust me. We walked to his laboratory, where he showed me a small quantity of a silver liquid he kept hidden in a bottle covered with black paint. The substance was so bright it dazzled my eyes and left a stabbing ache in my head for hours afterward. It lies in the tube which you have found, and which I beg you not to open yet. You may disregard my warning, of course, but if you do I swear you will endure nothing but endless torment. If you wish to know how to keep yourselves safe, there is much you must learn about this liquid first—why it has the power to topple kings from thrones and why Galileo and I could not destroy it, although we longed to with every beat of our hearts. You will only have proved your right to know these truths by assembling every piece of the puzzle that Galileo and I have created for you.”

  There the missive ended. For a long moment, the only sounds were our ragged breathing and the far-off chiming of church bells, marking the hour of ten o’clock. Slowly, like a sleeper trapped in a dream, I lifted my gaze from the vellum. Antonio’s dark eyes burned into mine.

  “There isn’t anything else?” he asked hoarsely.

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. How can this liquid destroy kings? Is this substance what the king is so desperate to conceal?”

  Antonio reached for the vial.

  “Don’t,” Crofts said sharply. “Mr. Milton complained of a headache after viewing its contents, and we mustn’t forget both he and Galileo went blind. Perhaps that is the ‘endless torment’ Mr. Milton meant. And— What’s that?” he interrupted himself. He pointed to a line of squiggles running along the bottom of the strip of vellum. “They look like drawings of some sort.”

  I peered at the tiny, twisted shapes: . The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I recognized those markings. “They’re words, not drawings—my father is fluent in biblical Hebrew, and he taught me. You would pronounce it as bekhol bethi. It means ‘in the sand of my house.’”

  “‘In the sand of my house?’” Crofts repeated. “What the devil does that mean?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. It sounds like a line from the Bible, but I don’t recognize it.” I stared at the vellum, the letters stark and black against the yellowed animal hide. “My father seems to have put together a treasure hunt,” I said slowly, thinking. “And designed it in such a manner that only those he deems worthy can solve it.”

  Antonio touched my hand. “In the letter your father sent to my master,” he said urgently, “he wrote that the only people who could put together the clues would be those who were well educated and knew the details of his life—because he hoped that men who knew about him would agree with his political beliefs. Your father might be referring to his house, Elizabeth. Where was he living in 1642?”

  I couldn’t snatch hold of my whirling thoughts. “He—he was living in London, but he moved frequently. And I can’t imagine he would have left the next clue at one of his previous lodgings, out of fear that the next occupants might happen across it. He would have taken it with him—he would have taken it with him,” I repeated as my words’ full significance hit me. “This clue must be hidden in my family’s home!”

  “But which one?” Crofts demanded. “Your lodgings in London or Chalfont?”

  I didn’t even need to reason that through. “London. My father has never considered any other place his home—he’s a London man through and through. But the sand—I don’t understand it . . .”

  In my mind’s eye I saw myself descending the cellar steps, as I had done most mornings, and dipping a cup into a barrel to get sand, which I would use to blot the pages I would cover with my father’s dictation. I gasped. “The next clue is in the sand barrels in the cellar of our London house!”

  Antonio grabbed the vellum and vial, dropping them into the box and shutting it with a clang. “Come on,” he said, and the three of us took off running.

  Thirteen

  EXCITEMENT LENT WINGS TO OUR FEET AS WE slipped through the quiet streets. With each step I took, I imagined I felt eyes boring holes into my back, but when I looked behind us there was no one. In the wind, the lanterns swung wildly, throwing arcs of light across the roads.

  At the inn, I crept upstairs while Antonio and Crofts saddled the horses. None of us had unpacked our things, and I made quick work of grabbing our bags and tiptoeing outside, where I found the boys waiting in the stables. Crofts had raided the inn’s kitchens for provisions, leaving behind a handful of guineas as compensation.

  Wordlessly we strapped our bags to the horses. Every flutter of the breeze made me start, but the night was quiet, the courtyard deserted except for us.

  We led the horses to the street. As we swung ourselves onto the saddles, Crofts said, “Go slowly. We don’t want our speed to attract anyone’s attention. Once we reach the countryside, though, ride as hard as you can.”

  Although I longed to urge my horse to go faster, I kept my hands easy on the reins. The horses picked their way over the cobblestones, their hooves ringing.

  When we reached the city outskirts, we kicked our spurs and sprinted toward the fields. I kept my eyes trained on the jagged line of trees on the horizon. We plunged into the fields, the long grasses slapping our horses’ legs. Beneath the crashing of my breath in my ears, I caught something else: the faint thud of hoofbeats on packed earth.

  I twisted around in my saddle, straining to see in the darkness. Already the lanterns of Oxford were some distance behind us. The stars had begun to come out, raining silver on the fields. By their faint illumination I could just pick out three black silhouettes—the curved shapes of men hunched low on their horses’ backs. They were racing directly toward us. One of them shouted, “Faster! Don’t let them get away!”

  They were after us.

  Shock stole my breath. Were they highwaymen? Or Buckingham’s spies? They must have concealed themselves in the fields, lying in wait for us until we passed—but how had they known where to find us?

  For a horrible instant, my eyes met Antonio’s. His were wide, and his lips were set in a grim line.

  There was no time, though, to think. I kicked my heels against my horse’s sides, urging him onward. We thundered across the fields so fast that the grasses became an endless blur. My heart was slamming so hard into my breastbone I could scarcely breathe. With one hand I clutched the reins; with the other I reached for my sword, my fingers closing around the hilt just as a speck of black appeared on the periphery of my vision. It was one of our pursuers racing ahead of me, but he was still little more than a dark streak under the star-dotted sky.

  Then he wheeled around to face me, pulling so hard on his reins that his beast shrieked and reared back on its hind legs. Its front legs kicked, narrowly missing my horse’s head. I let out a harsh cry and yanked on my reins, trying to force my horse to move back. It staggered to the side, whinnying in terror. The other rider’s horse kicked again, its hooves coming within a hairbreadth of my arm.

  “Elizabeth!” Antonio shouted from somewhere.

  My horse reeled and I nearly lost my seating. Don’t fall, don’t fall. Digging my knees harder into the horse’s flanks, I drew on the reins once more, yelling, “Stay!” With my right hand I pulled my smallsword free from its sheath with a rattle of metal. From behind me I heard the sounds of fighting—clanging steel, panting breaths, muffled shouts.

  The other rider’s agitated horse danced from side to side. In the silver-spangled darkness, its owner looked ghostly, all traces of color washed from his face. With a jolt, I realized I recognized him as one of the students from the Bodleian Library this afternoon; he had been sitting at a table, darting irritated l
ooks at us until we retired to another room. He had to be one of Buckingham’s men—but how had he known how to hunt us down? Now he held a sword aloft.

  Without warning he charged at me, his weapon descending through the air toward me like a silver line. At once I whipped my sword into a protective blocking position above my head. Steel sang as his blade hit mine. A tremor shot up my arm. I didn’t let my arm fall, but pressed with all my might, trying to force his sword away from mine. We remained seated on our horses, our faces inches from each other’s. I could see the brown dots along his jawline where his barber hadn’t shaved closely enough and the shadows beneath his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. The scent of rose water clung to his skin—a rich man’s perfume.

  “What do you want?” I yelled. My arm trembled from the effort of blocking his sword.

  The man glared at me, his face a mask of rage. “To stop your father! May God curse him and his traitor angels!”

  “What—”

  But I never had the chance to finish the question. With a bellow of rage, the man lifted his sword higher, as if he was preparing to lop off my head with one blow. He had left his chest exposed, though, and I saw my chance. I slashed at his side—two quick lines that formed an X. I took care not to make the cuts too deep, using just a shallow swipe of my sword to stop him in his tracks.

  He let out a horrible cry and sagged forward. His sword fell, landing in the grass with a soft thump. He clutched his side, gasping. Lines of blood trickled between his fingers. In the night, the blood looked black.

  “Come!” a man shouted from behind me. “We have it!”

  My assailant streaked past me, clutching the reins one-handed, the other hand still holding his side.

  “After him!” I shouted at my horse, digging my heels into his flanks. The terrified animal merely turned in a circle, whimpering. As we wheeled around, I caught sight of a crumpled form on the ground, a tangle of arms and legs surrounded by tufts of grass. It lay unmoving.