Sky's Dark Labyrinth

by Stuart Clark

  If only he could have seen her the last time he visited, but sheets of parchment had been placed over the metal grilles in the meeting room as a precaution against the plague and all he had seen was her shadow.

  He had gone to her shortly after the Vatican summons arrived, inching down the hill convinced that he was on the verge of collapse. She sensed it of course, even though she could not see the way he had slumped in a chair. ‘You cannot travel in your condition. I can hear in your voice how unwell you are.’

  ‘I’ve tried everything. The doctors have signed an affidavit confirming my infirmity yet the Inquisition dismisses it as a delaying tactic. I’m to report to Rome at once of my own free will, or I’m to be arrested and transported as a common felon.’

  ‘But the plague is afoot. You must not travel.’

  ‘I must obey His Holiness. The Grand Duke is paying for me to lodge at the Tuscan embassy yet again. I’m told the new ambassador is young and energetic. My things are being packed.’

  ‘Is Signora La Piera proving helpful?’

  ‘She’s a good housekeeper. Mind you, at seventy, I am grateful for any assistance I can get.’

  ‘I count your birthdays at only sixty-eight.’

  ‘Well, I feel a lot older.’ Galileo reached into a pocket. ‘I have something for you.’ He heaved himself forwards and slid a folded sheet of paper between the translucent screen and the crumbling plaster.

  ‘It’s my last will and testament,’ he said.

  The shadow drew closer to the parchment. ‘Father, I beseech you not to grasp the knife of these current troubles by the sharp edge. If you do so, it will only cut you more deeply.’

  ‘I keep all your letters, you know.’

  ‘Father, wait.’ Her voice was anxious. ‘There is something I must get for you. It will only take a moment.’

  Galileo leaned back in the chair; its ancient wood creaking beneath him. His head was fuzzy and he tried not to think about the climb back up the hill.

  The shadow returned. Galileo grasped the pellet-shaped object that was slipped under the parchment screen. It was a bottle of transparent fluid.

  ‘It is the healing water from Abbess Ursula of Pistoia. It will help ward off the pestilence.’

  Galileo admired the golden ribbon that adorned its neck but did not know how to respond.

  Maria Celeste said, ‘There’s something else.’

  A second shadow fell upon the screen.

  ‘Father?’ It was not Maria Celeste’s voice.

  ‘Arcangela, my child,’ Galileo’s voice caught in his throat.

  ‘Yes.’ The word sounded as if it were the prelude to a conversation but further words did not come from her.

  ‘Are you well?’ asked Galileo.

  ‘I am.’

  His memory filled with pictures of her as a child, small and neat, possessed of boundless energy and constantly laughing. She had been quite unlike her studious sister. What had possessed her to become so withdrawn? It troubled Galileo and had become one of his midnight worries. Something inside him needed to apologise to her, yet for the life of him he found the urge unfathomable. Perhaps such apologies were all that was left to a parent when their child’s life had turned miserable for no apparent reason.

  There was some urgent whispering, and then Arcangela spoke again. ‘I will pray for you on your journey, Father.’

  Now Galileo was glad of the parchment: it hid his tears.

  The noise of new arrivals drew his attention back to the porch. Servants came running as a shadow fell across the entrance. There was a crunch of gravel and the creaking of a carriage coming to rest. A horse whinnied and stamped its foot.

  Ambassador Niccolini, his forehead shiny with sweat, swept into the embassy. He saw Galileo at once. ‘I have news. Come to my office.’ He turned to the servants without breaking stride. ‘Fetch us wine.’

  Inside the panelled office, Niccolini peeled off his jacket revealing a skinny frame. Three of him could have fitted into the space taken up by Galileo.

  A servant rattled a tray of drinks onto the table and crept quietly from the room. Niccolini faced Galileo. ‘The waiting is over. The Holy Office is ready to proceed against you. You are to be moved today to the Inquisition Palace, perhaps even questioned today. Afterwards you will be detained there until this business is settled.’

  ‘Imprisoned?’

  ‘Not in the dungeons. You will be housed in a state room.’

  ‘Did you show them the Duke’s letter?’

  Niccolini hesitated.

  ‘You didn’t, did you? What gives you the right to deny me my defence?’ It confirmed everything Galileo had suspected; Niccolini was too young for this office.

  The ambassador loosened the chemise laces at his neck and drank deeply from his glass. ‘I assure you, it would have done no good. The Holy Father’s mind is set firmly against you. It could only have damaged the Duke if I’d presented the letter and I can’t believe you would have wanted that.’

  ‘So, I am to be sacrificed.’

  ‘You have stirred such passions. You do have allies, but your defence must be your own.’

  ‘Who still supports me?’

  Niccolini regarded him with calculation. ‘Better for your cause if you do not know.’

  Once more there was a crunch of hooves on the gravel outside. Niccolini’s head shot round at the sound. Galileo’s insides turned to ice. He pushed himself to his feet and straightened his tunic top. As the Vatican envoys escorted him from the room, he realised that he was not giddy any more. His mind was clear and focused.

  The room he was taken to in the Vatican was smaller than he expected. Just three people waited inside: a secretary, here to transcribe the interview, and two clerics sitting on a small dais. One was sharp-faced with a Roman nose, perhaps not much younger than Galileo. Blue eyes stared from either side of the prominent bridge. ‘I am Fra Vencenzo Maculano da Firenzuola.’ His boots peeped out from beneath his flowing robes. They were polished so brightly they reflected the room.

  ‘Father Maculano.’ Galileo bowed his head.

  ‘This is Cardinal Pippe,’ Maculano indicated the man on his left.

  Pippe had a blunt face with a high cliff of a forehead. He looked as if he had swallowed his upper lip and his chin was heavily dimpled. Galileo disliked him on sight. Neither acknowledged the other.

  Maculano cleared his throat. ‘Now then, Signor Galileo, do you know or perhaps can you guess at the reason for your presence here today?’

  ‘I imagine that it is on account of my recently published book.’ Galileo kept his voice neutral.

  ‘What about the book requires your presence here?’

  ‘It is a dialogue about the two systems for understanding motion in the heavens.’

  ‘Would you recognise your book if it were shown to you?’ asked Pippe.

  Galileo favoured him with a long look. ‘I would hope so.’

  Pippe handed Galileo a copy. ‘Do you acknowledge this is your book? That every word in it is your own?’

  What a farce, thought Galileo. This confirmed everything he had heard about the Holy Office since Bellarmine’s death. What hope for Catholicism with these people policing it?

  He returned the book and lifted his eyes to trace the line where the ceiling joined the wall. He could sense Pippe’s impatience, so delayed answering for as long as he dared. ‘Yes,’ he said finally.

  Maculano fired another question. ‘Have you been to Rome before, in 1616, perhaps? If so, what was the occasion for the visit?’

  Galileo spoke at once, with confidence in his voice. ‘I was in Rome during 1616 to clarify certain points about the opinions of Nicolaus Copernicus, in order to assure myself that I was not holding anything but holy and Catholic opinions. So, I came to hear what was the proper opinion to hold on the matter.’

  ‘And what is that opinion?’ asked Pippe.

  ‘That it is repugnant to Holy Scripture and is to be taken only as a hypothesis, in the
way that Copernicus does.’

  ‘Who notified you of this?’

  ‘The Lord Cardinal Bellarmine’

  Pippe glanced at Maculano with barely disguised smugness.

  ‘We have a written version of that injunction.’ Maculano dangled a yellowed sheet of parchment. ‘It states that you were forbidden to hold, defend, or teach the said opinion in any way whatever.’

  A written injunction! Galileo was not expecting this. Bellarmine had never mentioned that it was to be placed in writing. The cardinal had only met with Galileo in the cloisters to tell him of the outcome. Galileo hid his surprise with a shrug. Now was not the time to deviate from his strategy. ‘I do not remember being given this in anything other than verbal form. I remember Lord Bellarmine informed me that I could not hold or defend – maybe even that I could not teach – but I do not recall that the phrase “in any way whatever” was used.’

  Maculano raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you obtain any permissions to write your latest book?’

  ‘I did not seek permission to write my book because I did not think that I was contradicting the injunction.’

  ‘Really?’ Maculano let the slightest hint of boredom enter his voice.

  Galileo seized on it. This was just a formality: they would ask him their tiresome questions; he would give them a few pat answers. Then his testimony would be filed away and forgotten. Why else all the prevaricating in calling him to the Holy Office? It was clear to Galileo now; he just needed to say the right thing and he would be on his way home.

  ‘The edict stated that I was not to hold, defend, or teach the said opinion – and I wasn’t. Rather, I was refuting it in my book.’

  ‘You were refuting Copernicus?’

  ‘Utterly. I have not defended the view of Copernicus in any way. Rather I have shown the opposite, that the Copernican opinion is weak and inconclusive.’

  There, thought Galileo, it is said. A lie to serve a higher purpose; someone has to save these people from themselves.

  Maculano turned his head slightly but continued to look at Galileo. Pippe remained seated, his expression hidden behind a hand.

  ‘We have him now. He has lied to us, demonstrably so. Perjury!’ With so much energy running through him, Pippe found it difficult to contain his gesticulations. He paced in front of Grienberger’s desk, his thoughts turning to Bellarmine. The calmness with which his old mentor had approached the Giordano Bruno case had bordered on prevarication, and Pippe was determined not to make that mistake with Galileo. ‘What more evidence do we need? Why the indecision?’

  Maculano frowned at Pippe and turned to the elderly Jesuit behind the desk. ‘What do the reports say, Father Grienberger?’

  Grienberger’s hair was now entirely white and he had cultivated the jaw-line beard favoured by Clavius, his predecessor as the head of the Roman College. Age had set fast his hangdog expression. He shuffled some papers in front of him. ‘I have the reports here. We have again examined the book of Galileo and we have again found that it teaches the Copernican error of Earth’s motion through space. This is now beyond all doubt in our eyes. Being written in a book also signals to us the desire to teach this work not just to the present generation but to future ones too.’ Grienberger inclined his head with an air of disappointment. ‘Had he intended to extend his ideas to learned men of different nationalities for discussion, he would have written in Latin. Yet he writes in Italian to entice the common people who sadly lack the education to judge his ideas, and in whom errors can so easily take root.’

  Maculano wrung his hands. ‘Why does he deny the obvious? What can he achieve by treating us as fools?’

  ‘He’s trying to save his own skin,’ said Pippe. ‘He treats us with contempt and must be punished accordingly.’

  ‘Galileo has his faults, but I can’t think of him as anything other than a basically honest Catholic,’ said Grienberger. ‘If he’d truly been intent on harming the Church, he would have stolen to France or Germany and published his book there. He didn’t do that. Instead, he seems to have a personal desire for us to embrace Copernicanism.’

  ‘He’s a liar, nothing more,’ said Pippe. ‘If Galileo continues down this path, we’ll have no choice but to burn him.’

  Despite the summer heat, Galileo felt cold, even shivery. Confined to the apartment, he was transparent to the warmth in which Rome basked. He pulled on a fur-trimmed cloak and stood at the window. The sunlight glinted from the gold of the statues, mocking him to come outside. He was surrounded by comfort, but there was nothing to occupy his mind. So he stood and stared at the sculpted figures. As the hours crept by, so each shadow inched around revealing the rotation of the Earth.

  He watched the people on the approach to the Vatican, each tiny figure dragging around its own shadow. They were the closest he came to human contact on most days.

  There was a soft knock on the door. Galileo was not expecting Maculano to be standing in the corridor, yet it was the Father’s pointed features that greeted him when he pulled open the heavy door.

  The visitor looked uncomfortable and hurried into the room, urging Galileo to shut the door quickly. He took a seat but refused a drink. ‘Galileo, I am here to reason with you.’

  ‘Reason with me?’

  ‘Yes, to persuade you to change your course.’

  ‘But I’m the victim here. I’m persecuted because of my enemies’ vicious plots against me.’

  ‘There is no one who will defend your position. Even those who applaud your efforts state the book is pro-Copernican.’

  ‘In truth, Father,’ Galileo shifted some pleading into his voice, ‘I have done nothing to defend Coper—’

  Maculano’s hand sliced the air. His voice rose in volume. ‘Drop this fiction! Each time I send the book out for review, I hope for some small nugget of doubt in your intentions, and each time the condemnations come back stronger than before. If you’d attacked an individual thinker over the inadequacy of a personal argument in favour of a stationary Earth, we might have been able to put some favourable aspect on this work. But, no, you declared war on everyone who was not a Copernican. Your position is indefensible.’

  Galileo sat down, resting his hands on his lap. They were pale and bony, with swollen joints. And they trembled.

  Maculano spoke again, his voice quiet. ‘I’m not insensitive to the virtues of Copernican astronomy. Really I would prefer that matters of astronomy be separated from holy law, but that is not how it is, or perhaps how it will ever be.’

  Galileo looked up at Maculano. Those blue eyes, which had looked so icy in the courtroom, were pleading with him now. ‘Signor, I am to question you again tomorrow. I pray you reconsider your position. If you do so, the tribunal can retain its reputation and deal with you benignly. I need not tell you what could lie in store if you persist in your denials. The evidence against you is overwhelming.’

  Galileo’s throat tightened. He swallowed but found no relief. That night, he dreamed of flames.

  Galileo found it difficult to stand in the hearing room the next day. The tremors that had begun in his hands invaded his legs. On the walk over, the Swiss Guards had supported him. Now they had withdrawn, he felt vulnerable. His beard caught in the fur of his cloak as he looked around. The movement brought on a fit of giddiness. Rubbing his temples, he felt the blood pounding through his head.

  ‘Signor Galileo, is there anything you would like to say?’ Maculano’s voice sounded distant, and the room was too bright.

  Galileo ran his tongue around his lips, moved his fingers to smear the dampness around, then forced himself to speak. ‘For several days I have been thinking about the previous interrogation. In particular, about the question of whether – sixteen years ago – I had been prohibited by the Holy Office from holding, defending, and teaching in any way whatsoever the opinion, then condemned, of the Earth’s motion and Sun’s stability.’

  Galileo sensed a different version of himself speaking, divorced from his true self. The situ
ation proved both unnerving and curiously liberating. Inside, the true Galileo clung to the truth. Surrounding this kernel was the altered Galileo that everyone else saw.

  ‘It dawned on me to reread my printed Dialogue, which I have not looked at for three years. I wanted to check very carefully whether, against my purest intention, there might have fallen from my pen not only something enabling readers – or superiors – to infer disobedience on my part, but also other details through which one might think of me as a transgressor of the orders of Holy Church.’

  It occurred to Galileo that there was something truly wicked at large in the universe. Until yesterday he had only dimly perceived it, and thought that the problem lay in man’s perception of the heavens. He had fully believed that he would be able to fix it. Now, he understood that the maleficence was so strong that he had been a fool to attempt its excision.

  The altered Galileo spoke again. ‘Not having seen it for so long, I found it almost a new book by another author. Now, I freely confess that it appeared to me in several places to be written in such a way that the arguments for the false side were stated too strongly. In particular, two arguments, one based on sunspots and the other on the tides, are presented as being more powerful than would seem proper for someone who deemed them to be inconclusive and wanted to refute them – as indeed I inwardly and truly did. Having fallen into an error so foreign to my intention, to use Cicero’s words, “I am more desirous of glory than is suitable.” If I had to write out the same arguments now, there is no doubt I would weaken them. My error then was, and I confess it, one of vain ambition, pure ignorance and inadvertence.’

  A wave of exhaustion overwhelmed him. He felt himself sway and tried to lock his muscles in an attempt to stay upright. ‘This is as much as I need to say on this occasion.’

  Maculano was nodding. ‘Thank you, Galileo. I see no reason to detain you at the palace. You are free to return to the Tuscan embassy but not yet to leave Rome.’

  As he turned, Galileo caught sight of the other cardinal, the flat-faced one, scowling. It perturbed him, even as he was ushered away down the corridor, resting on the guards again. The cardinal should have been happy with what he had said. It was what they wanted him to say, was it not?