All the air seemed to rush from my chest. Antonio.
I pulled on the reins as hard as I could. A jumble of thoughts streamed through my head: No, please. I slid off the saddle. My legs were shaking so badly I didn’t think they would support me, but somehow I was running across the field, the long grasses slapping at my chest. Dimly I heard our pursuers riding away.
Antonio lay motionless, his face pressed into the dirt. He still wore his broad-brimmed hat, which hid the condition of his head from me. I prayed a horse hadn’t kicked him there, for I had never heard of a man recovering from such an injury. My hands grasped Antonio’s shoulders, preparing to turn him over, and his hair brushed my fingers. The strands were stiff and curled.
It was a wig. No human hair felt like that.
“Crofts,” I whispered. Not Antonio. A small pocket of warmth bloomed in my heart, but I couldn’t let myself reflect upon my relief now. I rolled Crofts onto his back.
He was conscious, but barely. His eyes fluttered open and closed. Moonlight touched his face, showing the damage his assailant had wrought. His lips were swollen and split. A bruise already stretched along his jaw. When he coughed, flecks of blood flew from his mouth. A few drops landed on his cheek, the little circles marring his pale flesh. He kept his arms curled over his chest, making me wonder if any of his ribs had been broken.
Antonio dropped down next to me, sliding his sword into its sheath with a whine of metal. He was breathing hard. There was a shallow cut on his forehead, and his doublet had been torn, revealing his white shirt beneath.
“Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.
“I’m well enough. We must look after the duke.”
“I have failed in my duty.” Crofts’s voice was weak. His eyes snapped open, moving wildly until they focused on me. “My attacker dragged me from my horse. I tried to stop him, but he got the box.”
I closed my eyes, enfolding myself in darkness. So these enemies of ours had gotten my father’s clues. Oh, Father, I thought despairingly, how on earth can we help you now?
“Can you get up?” Antonio asked Crofts.
I opened my eyes to see Antonio with his arm around Crofts’s back, struggling to help him sit upright. Something in my chest twisted at the sight. This Crofts didn’t know Antonio or me, and by all rights he should have hated my father for encouraging his grandfather’s execution. Yet he helped us, simply because he didn’t want kings to transform into tyrants—even though it meant opposing his own father.
He ground out a curse between clenched teeth. “I should have stopped them from getting the box—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I interrupted, brushing a stray curl from his jaw, which had already begun to swell.
“We’ll take you back to the inn,” Antonio said. “Then Elizabeth and I must go on ahead to London without you. As long as we can reach her family’s home first, it doesn’t matter that those men got the box.” He sent me a grim look. “I hope the horses aren’t already tired. We’re about to embark on the race of our lives.”
Crofts insisted on going with us, though, saying his position of privilege would open doors that would otherwise remain closed to us. Rather than waste time arguing, we hurriedly bound his ribs—he swore none were broken, although I wasn’t certain I believed him—and helped him onto his horse.
The position of the constellations told us in which direction the east lay, and we directed our horses toward the horizon where the sun would appear—toward London. We didn’t dare stay on the roads, so we raced across the open countryside. I kept wondering if we would overtake our pursuers, and what we would do if we did, but I didn’t see a soul. Who were those men, though? And how had they known where to find us?
Time ceased to exist. Fields stretched on and on, etched with silver from the moon. At last the stars gasped and died. There was only the black weight of the sky, and in the east, a pale swath of gray.
Crofts’s horse slowed to a shuffle. Crofts sat slumped in his saddle, his head lolling on his neck. Was he ill? Or had his injuries grown too painful? Antonio and I pulled up alongside him.
“We shouldn’t stop,” Crofts mumbled.
I started to reach for him, then hesitated. He’s a king’s son and you’re the daughter of a suspected regicide, I reminded myself. Then I saw how his fingers dug into his ribs, as if he were trying to hold them together, and every wall separating us seemed to crumble. I pressed my hand to the exposed flesh of his neck. It was burning hot and damp with sweat.
“He’s ill,” I said sharply to Antonio. “Get him down, and quickly. We must break his fever.”
“I’m well,” Crofts protested as Antonio and I scrambled off our horses. Antonio laid him on the ground while I searched the sumpters for the water skins. By the time I had returned with them, Antonio had removed Crofts’s shirt. I wet a strip of linen and wiped Croft’s chest and face with it, praying its cool touch would bring him some relief.
“We may have to bleed him,” Antonio said. “Part of his blood could be poisoned from the fever. We must find the warmest place on his body, then cut there, before the polluted blood can circulate.”
My hand paused in the act of drawing forth my knife. “Circulate? What do you mean?”
“The heart pumps blood and moves it throughout the body.” Crofts’s voice was a shaky whisper. “My grandfather’s physician discovered it years ago, but few people believe in the theory.” He coughed. “Don’t bleed me. Please. When I was fighting the Hollanders, I saw so many men on my ship die from their injuries.”
As Crofts paused for breath, Antonio sent me a questioning look. “Do you remember I told you about England being at war with the Netherlands over our sea trade routes?” I asked quietly. “The king’s brother, the Duke of York, and the king’s twin sons have fought in some of the battles at sea.”
“I watched as cannonballs blew them apart,” Crofts murmured, “and as blood poured from their wounds. It made me wonder if we must keep the blood in our bodies or die without it.” He coughed again, laying a dirty, bloodstained hand on his ribs. “I beg you not to bleed me, Elizabeth.”
My name sounded so strange coming from his lips—he had addressed me as a friend. If anyone had told me a few hours ago that the king’s son would call me by my first name, I would have thought he’d lost his wits. Now I knew I would do anything, fight anyone, to keep this boy safe, for he could have died while trying to help my family. I rested a gentle hand on his brow.
“I promise I won’t, Your Grace,” I said.
“You’re kind.” His eyes drifted closed. “You remind me of my mother.”
He said nothing more, his breathing shifting into the shallow rhythm of the slumbering.
“We should rest,” Antonio said. “I know you must be desperate to continue to London, but we can’t maintain this pace without killing the horses or ourselves. We’ll have to hope those thieves won’t notice the notation in Hebrew or that they won’t be able to translate it.”
I let out a shuddering breath. He was right. “Yes, we should sleep.”
Neither of us, however, made a move to unpack the bedrolls. Instead we sat side by side on the hard ground. My skin prickled. I looked behind us, but there was nothing except for the unending fields. No attackers, no one at all. They must be far ahead of us by now. Helplessness and fury crested within me like a wave. If only we hadn’t brought Crofts with us—maybe we could have caught up to our assailants and retrieved the box.
It was no use mourning what could have happened. Sighing, I hugged my knees to my chest. I could smell blood and leather on Antonio’s skin. He looked into the distance, frowning as if deep in thought, his tired face framed by the tangle of his hair.
“Who’s the duke’s mother?” he asked.
“Lucy Barlow—she was a Welsh gentlewoman who died several years ago. There are rumors the king secretly married her, which would make the dukes of Lockton and Monmouth legitimate and the rightful heirs to the throne.”
&n
bsp; Antonio’s eyebrows rose, but I said hastily, “I can’t imagine the king would have been so foolish. When Crofts and his brother were born, the king was still a young man living in exile. His father had recently been executed, but the stories go that the son never gave up hope of reclaiming the crown someday as Charles the Second. I doubt he would have jeopardized his future by making a disadvantageous match.”
For a moment, we sat quietly, listening to the wind rustle through the fields. My thoughts turned to the men who had overtaken us outside Oxford. “The man who attacked me said something very strange—he asked God to curse my father and his ‘traitor angels.’” I hesitated. “It reminds me of the way my father described Satan and his followers in Paradise Lost as an army of rebel angels. Do you think he was saying that my father is like the devil?”
Antonio shook his head. “Maybe . . . But how could he know about Paradise Lost in the first place? You told me that your father has kept his poem secret from everyone except for you and a few trusted friends.”
That was true, and I knew those friends well—none of them would have told anyone about Father’s poem except in vague terms. So what had the man meant? That my father and his allies were fallen men who were somehow betraying God? I shook my head in frustration. There was so much we didn’t understand. “Who do you think are the other angels he mentioned?”
“Maybe Signor Galilei and my master—after all, it does seem as though the three of them entered into some sort of arrangement thirty years ago. But why would they be called ‘traitor angels’?” He frowned, looking frustrated. “And who were those men after us anyway?”
“The king’s men,” I guessed. “They could have forced our location out of Francis Sutton, like Crofts did.” My stomach twisted at the thought. “I hope they didn’t hurt him.”
Antonio sighed. “I hope so, too. We should sleep.” He got up and took a step away, then spun back to me, his expression fierce. “When I saw that man riding toward you with his sword outstretched, I thought—” He broke off, the muscles working in his throat as he swallowed. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Without another word, he strode to where the horses stood and began rubbing them down, speaking to them in a low, comforting voice and leaving me alone to stare after him, wondering what he had meant to say and listening to my heart beat madly in my chest.
Fourteen
BY THE TIME WE HAD WOKEN AND EATEN A HASTY meal of bread and dried fruit, the sun was crawling to its noonday zenith. Crofts’s fever had broken; his skin was no longer streaked pink, and though he kept a careful hand on his ribs, he spoke without his breath catching in his throat. While we saddled the horses, he insisted that there should be no ceremony between us and that we call him by his Christian name. Addressing a king’s son so intimately was such a shocking breach of etiquette I could barely push “Robert” out of my mouth. When I said it, though, he smiled and looked pleased.
We raced across the countryside, pushing the horses until their mouths frothed and their flanks grew slick with sweat. The sun pounded mercilessly on our heads. Every time I closed my eyes against its glare, its yellow spark burned against my lids. A few times, we glimpsed travelers on the road—farmers riding a cart piled high with vegetables, nobles rolling along in a carriage. No trio of men on horseback. My heart sank in disappointment. We’d lost them—and maybe the race to my family’s home as well.
When the sun began dropping in the sky, we stopped on the outskirts of a forest. The horses were stumbling from exhaustion, and we didn’t dare continue for fear of roaming highwaymen. We led the horses between the trees, plunging deeper into the welcoming cloak of the woods. At last we found a stream to wash in. Antonio grinned at me as he stripped off his ripped doublet, and I wondered if he was remembering how I had stared at him yesterday when we cleaned ourselves in another stream. Flushing, I looked away.
“This drought has been unbearable,” Robert muttered. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves and was scrubbing dirt and blood from his forearms.
“Except for the weather, your country seems like a good land.” Antonio grinned. “Well, that and the food.”
A reluctant smile tugged on Robert’s cracked lips. “The food is poor, I’ll grant you that. My brother James and I lived in France when we were children, and we feasted on delicacies unlike anything I’ve tasted here.”
Antonio strung feed bags over the horses’ mouths, saying, “Yes, I doubt most Englishmen have even heard of macaroni.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
They both laughed. “My point exactly,” Antonio said.
We sat in a circle, leaning our aching backs against tree trunks. The trees crowded so close to us that I felt as though we had been enclosed in a pocket made of shifting green and black shadows. As we ate, the boys told me of wondrous foods: frogs’ legs; fried zucchini flowers; roasted pigeons wrapped in bacon and figs stuffed with black grapes; and macaroni, a substance Antonio struggled to explain, likening its consistency to tender, pliant string, then laughing uproariously at my revolted expression.
“What do you think the liquid in the vial is?” Robert asked abruptly.
It was as though a lever had been thrown. My laughter died on my lips. All day I had been trying not to think about the box’s contents, for fear my questions and my inability to answer them would drive me mad.
“It must be the result of one of Signor Galilei’s experiments,” Antonio said. “He worked in many areas—astronomy, mathematics, physics, the motion of the tides. It could be anything.” He paused. “Whatever it is, though, it must be dangerous, or Mr. Milton wouldn’t have warned us not to open it. I’ve been wondering . . . Mr. Milton suffered a terrible headache after viewing Signor Galilei’s liquid. Is it possible that looking at the liquid could have affected both men’s vision? Signor Galilei might have been working on it for years, and that could have resulted in his going blind before he met Mr. Milton.”
A knot that had been tied tight in my chest seemed to loosen. “Then you don’t believe their blindness was caused by sin.”
“Of course not.” Antonio looked surprised. “All the time we are discovering new truths about the nature of the universe—why shouldn’t we also be learning more about the God who made it? Perhaps he’s nothing like previous generations have thought, and the more we uncover about the ways our world is made the better we’ll come to know him.”
“Men have been burned to death for speaking as you do,” Robert warned. “You’re walking on treacherous ground, Antonio, and so was Mr. Milton—if the contents of the vial can snatch crowns away from kings, as he claimed. But how can this substance possibly have such far-reaching political consequences?”
“It seems impossible,” I said. “But if this liquid can somehow destroy a monarch’s power, it makes sense that our king wants to suppress it.” I stared at the ground turning black in the dusk; I was unable to face either boy. “If the king wants the vial in exchange for my father’s life, I must give it to him. And whatever we find in the sand barrel, I’ll give that to him, too.”
“Is that truly what you think your father wants you to do?” Antonio’s voice was low. “He said his life didn’t matter—that we needed to survive and protect his poem at all costs.”
“I know what he said,” I snapped. “But I can’t accept his instructions! I have to save him—not only for his sake, but for my sisters and stepmother, too. They can’t support themselves, and without him, I don’t know what will become of them.”
At last I looked up. Antonio was watching me with a mixture of pity and sorrow. Robert’s face was contorted in an angry scowl.
“Then you’ll be giving my father what he wants!” Robert jumped up and paced, his boots kicking up eddies of dust from the parched ground. “Don’t you understand that whatever reason my father has for hunting down the vial can’t be honest? Not if he’s hunting for the vial in such secrecy! Maybe he wants it not only to protect his throne but also to push other kings from theirs! He
could become a tyrant if we let him. My love for my people won’t let me stand idly by while you give in to his demands.”
“Then we stand on opposing sides,” I shot back.
His eyes, dark and furious, locked onto mine. I couldn’t look at him for one more instant. I had to get away. I raced between the trees, the skinny black trunks blurring on either side of me. When I reached the edge of a clearing, I stopped, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.
Dimly I heard someone walking behind me, but I didn’t bother turning around. Robert could yell at me until he grew hoarse, for all I cared. I’d never change my mind. No matter what sacrifices I had to make, I would save my father. Once the king released him, I would take him and my family to another country, where we could live in safe anonymity, far from our monarch’s grasp. And if the prospect of bidding farewell to Antonio tugged on the strings of my heart, I ignored it.
“My master often told me how the Inquisitors broke Signor Galilei,” Antonio said quietly from behind me. “He had been friendly with the pope and some of the cardinals on his examining team, but they abandoned him. He had to make a terrible choice—insist his discoveries were correct and endure torture and imprisonment, or renounce his findings and publicly confess he was a heretic.” Antonio touched my shoulder, the weight of his hand comforting. “He chose life. Like you. I’ll stand by your decision, Elizabeth. Let Robert think that we’ve discussed the matter and we agree with him.”
I whirled around. My eyes traced Antonio’s silhouette, dark against the filigree of the trees. He had removed his doublet when we washed in the stream, and his white shirt was the only part of him easily discernible, a faded gray in the dimness cast by the thickly clustered elms.
“You think we should lie to him?” My voice was a hoarse whisper. “That . . . that’s a sin.”
“Who says a lie is a sin when it’s told for the right reason?”
“Then we’d be helping the king—letting him become a tyrant.”
Antonio sighed. “I know. But you have to decide—your father’s life or the king’s crown.”
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