Traitor Angels

by Anne Blankman

  “Then tell me about the eighth book,” Antonio said.

  I described the events to him: Eve and Adam separate while going about their daily chores in the Garden of Eden. Meanwhile, Satan possesses a snake by crawling through its mouth. Then, as one, the Serpent and Satan slither toward Eve. Satan knows precisely how to tempt her: he promises she will become as wise as Adam if she eats an apple from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. She can’t resist.

  “When Adam discovers Eve’s transgression,” I said, “he bites into an apple, too. Not because he wants to grow smarter but because he knows Eve will be banished from Eden for her misdeed. He loves her so dearly, he can’t bear to be parted from her. Then they begin to argue with each other. After they fight, God visits them. He punishes them, expelling them from Paradise forever.”

  Antonio frowned. “The natural philosophical ideas your father expresses in his poem are faulty and antiquated. He presents the earth as hanging from a golden chain—which is what people used to believe kept our planet from hurtling through the cosmos. Is that what he truly thought?”

  I shrugged. “He rarely speaks of philosophical matters, at least with me. His interest has always lain in stories. One of his favorite activities is devising literary tricks. The poem even begins with one. The first scene takes place in Pandemonium, where Satan and his warrior angels have been expelled after battling God and his army in Heaven. The word ‘pandemonium’ is Greek for ‘all the demons,’” I explained in response to Antonio’s uncomprehending look. “My father’s fond of playing games with words. Even the poem’s locations are meaningful. It takes place primarily in Eden, and makes no mention of London or any other places in England. My father alludes to some cities in the Italian city-states, however, and Hell is clearly meant to be Rome: glittering, sumptuous, but, beneath the lavish surface, broken and corrupt. My father described Rome to me in similar terms many times. He visited it during his grand tour of Europe, and he said he found Rome both beautiful and fallen.”

  “Could he be hinting that additional clues are hidden in Rome or Tuscany?” Antonio asked. “Perhaps he concealed a map of the meteor cave somewhere.”

  “I don’t see how. My father never returned to the city-states, and he began hiding the clues here about twenty years ago, during the civil war. If there are more treasures or clues hidden in Tuscany or Rome, then they must have put there by someone else, possibly Galileo or your master.”

  Antonio groaned, flopping onto his back. “We’re no nearer to the answers than when we began talking tonight!”

  Exhaustion had crept into the spaces between my bones, until all of my body ached from it. I rested on my back, too, staring at the shadows from the candle flames dancing on the ceiling.

  “Our traitor angels may have been too clever,” I said. “What use is there in hiding messages when no one can decipher them? Trying to do so is like walking in the dark with your eyes closed, doubly blinded.”

  Antonio rolled onto his side. “I know.”

  For a long moment, we were quiet. I listened to the whisper of air between his lips, a sound as reassuring as clockwork. My father had six more days until the air stopped passing his lips and died in his chest. How could I live with myself if I didn’t save him? But how could I live with myself if I did and let Galileo’s secret fade into nothingness?

  There were no good choices. Only terrible options. And I knew which one my father wanted me to choose.

  Blinking hard, I stared at the golden lines on the ceiling. I wouldn’t cry for Father. He deserved my strength, not the poor gift of my tears.

  With the tip of his finger, Antonio tapped one of the buttons on my doublet. At the pressure of his hand, the button pushed down into the silk of my shirt, spreading its cold circle of brass through the fabric into my skin. The intimacy of the gesture stopped my breath.

  “Did you know, when I met you,” he said, “I didn’t want to like you at all.”

  Rolling my eyes, I pillowed my hands behind my head. My knives pressed into my forearms, the metal warmed by the heat of my skin and as familiar as a well-worn glove. “Thank you very much.”

  His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “You despised me at first. I believe I heard you telling Anne in a rather loud voice that I was—what was it?—handsome and therefore insufferable, as most good-looking fellows are.” He sent me a wicked grin. “At least you thought I was handsome.”

  “Yes, as handsome as you are modest,” I threw back at him, and he laughed again. He rested his hand on my hip, tugging until I rolled onto my side so we were face to face. The laugh froze on my lips. I gazed at him. The lean face I already knew so well, so much darker than mine. The black hair that tumbled to his shoulders, so unlike the wigs donned by most men in my country. The lips that spoke Italian, the hands that were running up and down my arm, sending delicious sparks of pleasure racing through my body. The doublet that concealed his beating heart. I rested my hand on his chest, feeling the steady thump through the fabric.

  “When I touch you here,” I said, “then I am touching you everywhere. For your heart pumps blood to the rest of your body, and your blood carries the sensation of my touch.”

  He grinned. “Pretty words,” he teased. “Do they work on all the boys in London?”

  “I don’t care about them. All I want to know is if they work on you.”

  He leaned forward, inch by agonizing inch, until his lips were so close they brushed mine. And then he was kissing me, so hard and so fast that he stopped thoughts from running through my head. So warm and insistent he transformed the strains of candlelight shining through my eyelids to black. He stole all light and worry; he took away everything surrounding us until there was only the heat of his mouth and the golden fire in my chest, turning me molten from the inside out.

  Twenty-Four

  IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN MINUTES OR HOURS LATER when I reluctantly slipped from Antonio’s embrace. My lips were so swollen from his kisses that my voice sounded shaky even to my ears. “I must go.”

  He lay on the coverlet, smiling up at me. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing the brown birthmark below his collarbone. Somehow the sight seemed even more intimate than the sensation of his lips on mine—this was one of the secrets of his body that probably only those closest to him, his brothers and parents, had seen. I might be the first person in over ten years to have laid eyes on that swath of skin. We were beginning to know each other in ways I could never have imagined. It was as though the world were slowly unfolding all around me, and it was far bigger than I had guessed.

  I expected him to entreat me to stay. But he merely lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’ll escort you to your room,” he said.

  “Truly?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my tone. “You don’t beg for more kisses?”

  He shot me a startled look. “What pleasure is there in kisses that aren’t mutually given?”

  And just like that, I was lost.

  In the corridor, we walked in companionable silence, our hands linked. At my door, he kissed me one last time. “Good night,” he said. Smiling, I ducked into my room. And even though I didn’t look at my reflection in the glass, I knew my eyes must be shining in the dark.

  “You are,” Lady Katherine said, “quite possibly the worst dancer I have ever seen.”

  Groaning, I flung myself on the divan. “I know. I’m hopeless.”

  “You aren’t trying hard enough.” Lady Katherine stood in the middle of the library, her hands on her hips, regarding me with exasperation. It was the following afternoon, and we had spent part of the day closeted in this room while she had attempted to teach me dances. In the dimly lit Royal Society meeting room I had passed as a boy, but in Buckingham’s ballroom, which would be illuminated by countless candles, it would be obvious I was a girl. Therefore I would pose as one of Lady Katherine’s friends. A decent solution, except for one problem: I did not know how to dance at all. The intricate steps of the galliard were m
anageable, although I found myself automatically slipping into the man’s role, which was much livelier than the woman’s.

  “How can you have made it to sixteen without learning how to dance?” Lady Katherine demanded.

  “It was forbidden in my home.”

  “Oh. Puritans.” She looked at me pityingly. “Does your kind truly believe entertainment is inherently sinful?”

  I remembered looking at myself in the glass at the inn in Oxford. How good it had felt to study the landscape of my face. And my body may have felt graceless when I danced, but it had felt free and strange, too. Not wrong. Not wicked, but right and true. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

  “I pity the feet of the men at tonight’s ball, for surely they’ll ache after dancing with you.” Lady Katherine’s lips twitched. I grinned at her. She had teased me—now I knew we were friends.

  If anyone had told me a fortnight ago I would become friends with an Irish aristocrat so beautiful that candles seemed to burn brighter when she entered a room, I would have laughed in his face and called him a blockhead. It was as though in my old life the earth had stood still while the other planets had circled us, and in this new life the world had begun revolving, spinning me around and around until the ground tilted under my feet and I had to walk with my arms out flung for balance. Yet I would not trade this delicious dizziness for the comfortable smallness of my old life.

  Except for Father. The loss of him was an ax, cleaving my life in two, turning all my days into a series of befores and afters.

  My smile died on my lips. Somehow I murmured my excuses to Lady Katherine and hurried along the corridors to my bedchamber.

  Don’t think about him, I ordered myself. My actions were just, and I was doing what he wanted. If tonight we met the men who had stolen the vial from us and took it back, we could share Galileo’s story with every European nation. We could trace the path of his life and find the cave that had brought him so much sorrow and joy. Citizens would be free to question their beliefs; they could explore the tenuous connections between religion and natural philosophy without fear of imprisonment or execution. The world would be changed forever.

  And Father would be proud of me. Somewhere, he would be an eternal soul watching me—and he would know what I had done. I managed to smile, even though it felt as though my heart had been wrenched from my chest.

  In my chamber, a scarlet gown had been left lying on the bed. The full skirts spread out like a bell over the white coverlet. Ribbons and intricate stitch work in paler shades of red covered the bodice. As though moving of its own will, my hand reached out to stroke the satin sleeves. They felt as smooth as water.

  “Lady Katherine knows your people don’t wear color,” Thomasine said behind me. “But she said any ball guest who sees you in this gown will never guess you could be Mr. Milton’s daughter.”

  “It’s beautiful. But I can’t borrow something so fine.”

  “Lady Katherine wanted you to have it, miss. She said the color would go well with your dark hair.”

  I smiled, knowing I would have to trust Lady Katherine’s judgment, for I had no eye for frippery and finery. “Then I’ll wear it, and be grateful.”

  “Very good, miss. We must get to work, or you won’t be ready in time.”

  Although the word “work” made me laugh, I soon realized Thomasine had spoken in earnest: preparing oneself for a ball was serious work indeed. First servants had to haul ewers of water to fill the copper tub; then I had to scrub my hair and every inch of my body with a cake of soap. Clad in a fresh shift, I had to sit motionless while Thomasine heated curling tongs in the fire before winding strands of my hair around them, and then I had to try not to panic and shout that I smelled burning hair even though my nose had caught no whiff of any such thing.

  I was brought a tray (“It’s customary to eat before a ball, so you can refuse any refreshments served there and impress others with your ladylike appetite,” Thomasine had explained, much to my amusement), and I sat at the writing table, dining on pheasant and potatoes and wondering why anyone would praise a girl for not eating enough food to feed a bird’s belly. Aristocrats were people I would likely never understand, I decided as I pushed back from the table. But then I thought of Lady Katherine’s averted eyes when she had talked about her family’s ancestral castle in Ireland. Robert lying wounded in the tall grass. The Duke of Monmouth kissing my hand. Mr. Boyle speaking excitedly about his experiments. And I could not hate them.

  I didn’t even want to. Not anymore.

  Thomasine helped me step into my skirts. With quick hands, she fastened their ties around my waist.

  “Close your eyes, miss,” she ordered.

  Something as soft as feathers dusted my cheeks. Thomasine’s finger traced the outline of my lips, her touch whisper-light. Then she pronounced me done, and I opened my eyes.

  The sight of cosmetics on my skin was so startling I couldn’t speak. My face had been powdered cloud-white, my lips painted cherry red. The shade of the gown was as rich and vivid as the sun in the final throes of daylight, blazing red and bright. In the glass, I could see gold thread must have been worked through the bodice as well, for bits glinted and caught the light. Rubies set in a gold chain gleamed around my neck. The front of my hair had been drawn into a bun, the rest left to fall down my back in loose waves.

  “Lady Katherine was correct,” I said. “No one would take me for John Milton’s daughter in this costume. But the sleeves . . .” I frowned at them. They ended at my elbows, exposing my forearms. “I can’t wear my knives.”

  “This length is the fashion,” Thomasine said. “If you wear longer sleeves, everyone will look at you.” She closed the hinged wooden boxes of powder and cerise. “His Grace and Mr. Viviani will be wearing their swords, though, miss, so you’ll have protection.”

  I looked at her narrowly. “If you know we have need of protection, then Lady Katherine must speak frankly to you.”

  “She does,” Thomasine said simply. “She’s a rare jewel, and I hope His Grace knows how fortunate he is.”

  Before I could reply, the crunch of carriage wheels on stone pavers sounded through the window. Robert must have arrived. It was time.

  Now that the moment had come, nerves swirled in my stomach like bats’ wings, strong and impossible to ignore. I pressed a hand to my belly, willing it to settle.

  After thanking Thomasine, I hurried from the room. As I strode down the corridor, I heard Lady Katherine’s voice in the hall and rushed toward it.

  When I blinked, Father’s image loomed against my lids: narrow-shouldered, auburn-haired, sitting on the steps of our London row house, his hands strumming the strings of his mandolin, an object of ridicule in his Puritan clothes. I could feel his hand digging into my shoulder for balance as we walked the streets, me describing the sights to him in a whisper. He had given me a thousand memories: the intoxicating scents of paper and ink, the wooden hilt of a dagger in my hand, the crackle of coals in a brazier while he dictated to me on winter mornings. Impatient and cantankerous and exacting, gentle and brilliant. Irreplaceable.

  Lady Katherine’s voice grew louder. “What do you think, Signor Viviani?”

  “Signor Galilei’s discovery is a powerful tool against the Church,” Antonio said. “My master has spent years trying to repair Signor Galilei’s reputation, to no avail. 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.”

  I stopped in my tracks. What was Antonio saying?

  “And I would like to find the cave and explore it for myself,” he added, sounding excited.

  “Hush,” Lady Katherine said quickly. “I think I heard footsteps.”

  A hot lance seemed to press against my chest, burning the breath out of me.

  My ears must be mistaken. Antonio would never go behind my back to seize control of Galileo’s vial. Not my Antonio, who had shown me the stars and who laughed constantly a
nd who had held me in his arms while he kissed the thoughts right out of my head. I could still see him standing next to me in the moonlight, his eyes intent on mine as he said I was the bravest person he had ever met. He wouldn’t lie to me. I was wrong. I had to be.

  For a long moment, I remained standing in the middle of the corridor. I heard a clock marking time from another room, a relentless tick-tick. Along the walls, candles flared in their iron brackets, splashing pockets of light across the stones. Everything looked too clear, too sharp, each detail imprinting itself on my mind.

  I understood. Antonio wanted to possess the vial so he could salvage Galileo’s reputation and find the meteor pool for himself. The only way to gain control of the vial had been to tell Robert and me what we’d wanted to hear . . . and trick us into believing he was on each of our sides.

  Originally he had suggested deceiving Robert. But he hadn’t stopped there. He was also planning to deceive me.

  Twenty-Five

  I TOOK A STEP FORWARD, THE CARPET RUNNER whispering under my feet. Memories rushed through my head. Antonio’s hands on mine, guiding his telescope toward the sky. Another step. Lying beside each other in a field, my telling him he could call me Elizabeth. Another step, faster. Kissing in the garden, his breath crashing in my ears until all sound had faded away and there was only Antonio left.

  I started to run.

  The stone walls and iron candelabra flashed past. My breath hitched in my chest as though I had been racing for miles. Ahead, the hall entrance was a black rectangle, its edges colored gold by the candlelight. I slowed my pace to a moderate walk, pressing my hands to my thudding heart, as if I could ease its frantic beating by touch alone. My dry eyes burned.

  Don’t you dare cry, I told myself fiercely. Later I could fall apart, when there was no one to see.

  I braced my hand on the wall, the stone scratching my palm. The pain was welcome; it was something to feel beyond this widening hole in my chest. Think, I ordered myself. What could I possibly do to beat Antonio at his own game of deception and manipulation?