We had barely taken two steps into the hall, though, when my sisters surrounded us, half laughing, half crying.
“That’s enough.” Father’s voice cut through my sisters’ sobs.
He stood in the door frame leading to the parlor, dressed in the same flour-smudged black clothes in which I had seen him last, his face still smeared with soot. Despite his gruff tone, I smiled: he hadn’t even been able to bring himself to wash, not while he waited for news of me. He had been worried.
“Come now,” he continued scolding my sisters. “Elizabeth and Signor Viviani must be dropping on their feet. Mary and Deborah, fetch them food and drink; let us have them fed and rested in case we need to flee our house in advance of the flames.” He shuffled into the parlor, calling over his shoulder, “I want to speak with you, daughter, before the king sends his men for me again.”
Antonio and I looked at each other. “He doesn’t know yet he’ll be safe for the rest of his life,” he said.
I took Antonio’s hand, leading him into the parlor. “Then let’s tell him the welcome news together.”
My father wept when he learned that Paradise Lost would be published. Antonio and I didn’t tell my father every part of the story. The vial, still nestled in my bodice, remained ours alone. After the meal, we were sent to separate bedchambers, with the assurance that we would be roused if the fire grew close to our neighborhood.
Alone in the bedchamber I used to share with Anne, I stripped off my borrowed clothes. Even under the sheets, I clutched the vial, unwilling to let go of it for an instant. Every time I closed my eyes, images pressed against my lids—remnants of the last twelve hours. Lady Katherine, her mouth opening soundlessly as she stared at the sword protruding from her stomach. Robert staggering across the burning room toward us, smoke drifting from his boots. The black-and-red water rising to meet us as we hurtled through the air.
Again and again my eyes flew open, needing the comfort of the plain whitewashed ceiling. At last, though, fatigue dragged me down a dark well of oblivion, and I fell with relief.
The fires raged for days. At night the sky was red from flames that chased away the stars and blackness until there was no distinction between light and dark. By daybreak on Thursday, more than four days after the fire had begun, all of the flames had finally been put out. My family’s home had been spared, although the fire had once come so close we’d thought we would have to camp out in Moorfields as hundreds already had done.
After a somber morning meal, my father asked me to come into his sitting room.
“Now we can resume our work,” Father said. “Elizabeth, you still have the final three books to copy, I believe, as yesterday Lady Katherine’s servant brought over the pages you’ve already written out. As soon as you have finished them, you will read the entire poem to me, so I may revise as I see fit. As for Signor Viviani, I’m most grateful to him and his master for their gracious assistance, but as you must understand, there’s no need for his continued presence. Galileo’s discovery has been lost to posterity, and the need for you and Signor Viviani to keep it safe is gone. He may return to Florence when he wishes, although he is, naturally, free to stay as our guest if he requires more time to recover from the physical hardships he has undergone.”
He sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. Shocked into silence, I stared at him for a long moment. It was evident from my father’s calm expression that he believed what he had said: in his mind, nothing had changed, despite everything we had experienced. He expected the past to fly away like the bits of ash on the breeze outside.
But I wasn’t that breeze anymore, blowing in whichever direction my father commanded.
My dry eyes burned. “Father, I can’t suffocate my true self or deny it any longer. I love natural philosophy—I need it as I need air to breathe. I’ll write out the final books of Paradise Lost for you. And then I’ll continue Galileo’s investigations into the workings of the stars and the motions of the planets—”
“The young man,” Father interrupted, an angry red suffusing his face. “You believe you’ve fallen in love with him. That explains your sudden inclination for astronomy.”
I stood up, my chair scraping on the floorboards. At the sound, my father’s head snapped in my direction, and I could almost believe he saw the determination on my face as I said, “I’ve loved the skies for as long as I can remember.”
“What sort of nonsense is this?” Father demanded.
“I want to be a natural philosopher,” I continued, my insides quaking as though I was about to be sick. But I didn’t stop talking. “You have told me that liberty exists in our minds. Well, I choose to be free, and nothing you say will dissuade me.”
Father’s face crumpled and he dropped his head into his hands. “Then you’ve chosen a hard life, and I’m sorry for it. You will either have to live as a man or resign yourself to a lifetime of ridicule and scorn. Maybe it’s my fault. If I hadn’t brought you into men’s matters . . .” He dragged in a shaky breath. “It’s too late now. Fetch me the family Bible.”
Wondering what he could possibly want with it, I retrieved it from the bookcase and set it on the writing table.
“Open it to the page of your birth,” he said.
I flipped through the book until I found the proper page. There, in his cramped handwriting, my father had recorded the details of my entry into the world: A daughter, Elizabeth, born this twenty-eighth day of March in the year of our Lord 1650. The neighboring sheets contained other births and deaths—the arrivals of my siblings, the passing of my mother, my brother, and my first stepmother, followed by her and Father’s baby daughter. All these beginnings and endings, small words that said so little but meant so much.
“The king has revised history,” Father said, “by claiming the fire started from a stray ember in a baker’s oven. The Duke of Lockton will be hailed as a hero until he’s finally forgotten under the weight of the years. My internment will never be known. All traces of Galileo’s discovery have been wiped clean. Now it’s your turn to decide if you want to rewrite your life.”
He hesitated. “You are my beloved child. But I must think of the good of the entire family. If you insist on pursuing your love for natural philosophy, then you’ll expose the rest of us to scandal and condemnation. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for your sisters to find suitable husbands or employment. So if you must follow the longing of your mind, you can be a Milton no longer.” He tapped the tabletop with his finger. “Choose—rip out your page or remain with me.”
Tears filled my eyes. I knew what this meant. Once I tore out the page chronicling my birth, I would be erased from my family—forever. Elizabeth Milton would cease to exist. And who else I would grow into, I couldn’t guess.
But I knew what I had to do.
Moving like a girl trapped in a dream, I felt my hand reach out for the Bible. I grabbed a corner of my birth page and pulled. I balled up the page in my hand, my heart beating fast.
Father let out a muffled sob, then gestured for me to bend down. I leaned close to him, letting his hands roam over my face. He moved slowly, as if he needed extra time to cast my features in stone in his mind. This time, I touched his face, too; the sharp planes of his cheeks, the wrinkle-grooved forehead. At last he sighed, as if satisfied, and his hands dropped to his lap.
“My head aches, and I must rest,” he said. “We shall continue our work tomorrow. Once we’re done with Paradise Lost, you may be on your way.”
“Very well.” My voice sounded strange to my ears—rusty, as if I hadn’t used it in a long time. “But I must tell you, when the time comes for me to depart, I’ll ask Anne if she wishes to leave with me.”
Tears glimmered in his milky eyes. “I’ve always been glad for the friendship between the two of you.” His voice cracked. “Good-bye, my Elizabeth.”
I opened my mouth, but could not speak. I kissed his hand—the dear, age-spotted hand I loved so much, which had once been able to wie
ld its own quill and which now must depend on others for almost everything. Quickly I slipped from the room and found Antonio standing in the hall.
“I heard everything,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I moved into the circle of his arms, breathing in the mingled scents of smoke and sandalwood. “I’m no longer his daughter,” I whispered to his shirtfront.
“Your father has set you free,” he said softly, “as my parents did me, years ago. I promise, someday you’ll be the stronger for it.”
Numbly I stepped out of his arms. A part of me already knew he spoke the truth. Perhaps someday the rest of me would, too. I swallowed down the lump in my throat, saying, “I think it’s time.”
He didn’t need to ask what I meant. The fate of the vial had lain heavily on our minds for days, and the object itself had not once left my grasp. Even now, it was nestled in the pocket sewn into my underskirt—a steady presence that bumped against my leg when I moved.
“Let’s walk and discuss this,” Antonio said. “We can’t take a chance of anyone overhearing.”
Outside, the deserted street was half hidden by a lingering veil of smoke. We walked slowly, hand in hand, heading south into the heart of London. Everywhere I looked, I saw a dead city: houses with a single wall standing and all their windows blown out, holes where homes had once stood, clumps of melted metal and glass, the carcasses of dogs and cats who hadn’t run away fast enough. It was almost impossible to guess where we were, for most of the city’s landmarks had burned to the ground. I felt as though we were walking through a desert where everything looked the same, like leagues upon leagues of sand stretching to the horizon.
We had to clamber over piles of rubble. In some spots, the cobblestones were still hot, pressing heat through the soles of my shoes, and I had to bite back a cry of pain. We kept walking, Antonio and I, into that vast ruin of a city. The streets were mostly empty, except for a few people poking through twisted huddles of junk: cracked stones, burned timber, pieces of shattered glass glittering among them like diamonds. Most Londoners must still be camped out in the fields on the city’s outskirts.
I pulled the vial from my pocket. Gleaming silver, it lay in my hand.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then Antonio said in a ragged voice, “Signor Galilei’s good name was ruined when the Church found him guilty of heresy because of his discoveries about the motions of celestial bodies. If the truth about the vial was known, then people would question the stories in the Bible—and the Bible’s claims that the earth stands still. People could reexamine Signor Galilei’s theories from a natural philosophical standpoint, not a religious one. His reputation could be restored.”
I touched his shoulder gently. “Yes. But we can’t trust people with the vial. The Church and governments will want it suppressed. Some people will be desperate to possess it for their own purposes. Others will have their hearts broken when they learn of its existence and doubt their faith.” I took a deep breath. “It has to be destroyed.”
Antonio bowed his head. “I know,” he whispered. Then louder, “Maybe someday Signor Galilei’s reputation will be salvaged by other means. Or the world will become tolerant enough or advanced enough that we can share this story with it.”
“We haven’t lost,” I said. “We saved my father’s life and his masterpiece—and now we both see the world with new eyes. That matters, Antonio. And we should write about Galileo’s discovery, preserving it for future generations. The story isn’t gone. But the day hasn’t yet come when we can tell it to others.”
Antonio looked up, his eyes strained. “You get rid of the vial. I—I can’t.”
Clutching the vial, I walked across the broken cobblestones. Through the parting veil of smoke, the ruins of St. Paul’s reared up. Many of the stones in the walls had shattered, leaving gaping holes through which the interior could be seen, a twisted mass of burned wood and melted metal. The stained glass rose window was gone—turned to liquid by the fire’s heat, I guessed. The portico was in pieces, the big blocks of stone split asunder.
The cathedral’s lead roof had melted, sending rivulets running down the sides of the building, leaving long, dark tracks in their wake. The masonry in the roof had crumbled entirely and fallen through the marble floor, exposing the crypt underneath; I could see the wreckage through the enormous holes in the walls. Flames were still flickering in the crypt—fed by the piles upon piles of papers and books and pamphlets stored there, I realized, remembering that one of our neighbors had said the city’s printers and booksellers had placed their wares in the crypt, reasoning it was the safest place for them as the fire approached.
My throat closed. All those books—gone forever. The largest church in my country, a wreck of broken stone and twisted metal.
“My city’s gone,” I whispered. “This is a dead place now.”
“No.” Antonio took my face in his hands, tilting my chin so I had no choice but to look into his fierce eyes. “London will rise once more, and she’ll be stronger than ever before. She will be reborn, a phoenix from the ashes. She can never be destroyed.”
“You’re right,” I said, partly because I believed him, partly because I needed to. “London still lives.”
I walked to the nearest hole in the wall. Dozens of feet below, flames danced in the crypt, a bowl of flickering red and orange. For a moment I stared at the flames, letting my mind empty. Then I dropped the vial into the fire. It fell through the air, a slender arc of silver, before vanishing altogether.
It was a good place for the vial: in the darkness and the flames, surrounded by stone. I found it comforting to think of my countrymen someday sitting in pews in a rebuilt church, heads bowed in prayer, while the vial’s melted remains lay below them. This was a union of faith and natural philosophy, these two subjects that seemed so incompatible. But perhaps they weren’t, if we only knew how to open our eyes wider.
Antonio laid his arm across my shoulders, drawing me near to him. Linked by his touch, we crossed the ruined churchyard.
“At night, when I try to sleep,” I said in a low voice, “I see Lady Katherine in my mind. She was such a kindhearted person, the first thoroughly decent aristocrat I ever met . . . and Robert killed her as though she were nothing.”
“Perhaps to him she was,” Antonio said.
“She will matter to me for the rest of my life,” I said. “It’s comforting to believe her soul is out there somewhere. In the heavens in the sky, maybe, or woven into the firmament of this earth for all time.”
Only a few weeks ago, my comments would have terrified me. Now they no longer felt blasphemous, but good and right.
Antonio halted our progress, nodding at the sky. It was colored gray by the dome of smoke that continued to hover over the city. “The sun has risen again. The earth has continued to rotate on its axis. We’re still spinning through the galaxy.”
“The world hasn’t stopped.” I managed to smile.
“And we’re alive and we’re here together.” His eyes were intent on mine. “I must know—what do you wish to do now that you’re free? Whatever road you take, do you plan to travel it alone?”
My heart began pounding. I understood what he was asking me. “Whoever decides to walk with me must understand I’ve chosen a hard path.”
He didn’t drop his gaze. “I’ve never wanted an easy life, either. You might like Florence. It’s a beautiful, learned city. My master is receptive to new ideas, whether they are philosophical or social. And if others can’t accept you, we’ll move on to the next place.”
Would we be forced to wander as Adam and Eve had? Or would we someday be able to find a home? I looked at Antonio, and gladness welled in my heart until I imagined it would burst out of my chest. Whether we wandered or not, it didn’t matter, for we would be together and studying the subjects that gave our lives meaning. “Antwerp grants freedom to all of its citizens,” I said. “That might be a good city for us to try.”
“We have a half-doze
n languages between us and no Flemish,” he said. “Oh, well. I’ve always liked a challenge.”
I grinned at him. “And you still haven’t shown me sunspots.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “An oversight I will correct at the first opportunity.”
Smiling, I stood on tiptoe to press my lips to his. We kissed again and again in the abandoned churchyard, while overhead the smoke hung like clouds. But when I closed my eyes and let darkness press against my lids, I could almost imagine Antonio and I stood beneath a sky full of stars.
Author’s Note
Although Traitor Angels is a work of fiction, many of the characters and events in this book are factual. Please note that this section contains several spoilers, so read no further if you haven’t finished the book!
Elizabeth, Antonio, Robert, Lady Katherine, Thomasine, Francis, Luce, Mr. Hade, and all of Robert’s associates are fictional characters. Although everyone else was a real person and this story is woven around several real events, Traitor Angels is very much a work of fiction.
Today John Milton is generally regarded as one of the most influential political writers in English history. He was born in London in 1608 and attended the University of Cambridge, where he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1638, like many members of the gentleman class, he embarked on a “grand tour” of Europe. While in Florence, he managed to procure a meeting with Galileo Galilei, who had been sentenced to house arrest for life by the Italian Inquisitors. To this day, no one knows what the two men discussed. It’s clear, however, that Milton admired Galileo, because he later commemorated the scientist in Paradise Lost and in his famous anticensorship tract, Areopagitica.
The popular image of Milton is that of a dour-faced Puritan, but in reality he was a complicated man who was far ahead of his time. He smoked and drank; when he was sighted, he carried a sword; and, unlike many Puritans, he didn’t think entertainment was inherently sinful but considered it an essential part of life. He really did believe that religion had no place in government. The revolutionary ideas he expresses in this book are based on his writings.
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