Giordano Bruno 01 - Heresy

by S. J. Parris

  Chapter 1

  On a horse borrowed from the French ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth of England, I rode across London Bridge on the morning of May 20, 1583. The sun was strong already, though it was not yet noon; diamonds of light scattered across the ruffled surface of the wide Thames and a warm breeze lifted my hair away from my face, carrying with it the sewer stinks of the river. My heart swelled with anticipation as I reached the south bank and turned right along the river toward Winchester House, where I would meet the royal party to embark upon our journey to the renowned University of Oxford.

  The palace of the Bishops of Winchester was built of red brick in the English style around a courtyard, its roof decorated with ornate chimneys over the great hall with its rows of tall perpendicular windows facing the river. In front of this, a lawn sloped down to a large wharf and landing place where I now saw, as I approached, a colourful spectacle of people thronging the grass. Snatches of tunes carried through the air as musicians rehearsed, and half of London society appeared to have turned out in its best clothes to watch the pageant in the spring sunshine. By the steps, servants were making ready a grand boat, decked out with rich silk hangings and cushions tapestried in red and gold. At the front were seats for eight oarsmen, and at the back an elaborate embroidered canopy sheltered the seats. Jewel-coloured banners rippled in the light wind, catching the sunlight.

  I dismounted, and a servant came to hold the horse while I walked toward the house, eyed suspiciously by various finely dressed gentlemen as we passed. Suddenly I felt a fist land between my shoulder blades, almost knocking me to the ground.

  “Giordano Bruno, you old dog! Have they not burned you yet?”

  Recovering my balance, I spun around to see Philip Sidney standing there, grinning from ear to ear, his arms wide, legs planted firmly astride, his hair still styled in that peculiar quiff that stuck up at the front like a schoolboy hastened out of bed. Sidney, the aristocratic soldier-poet I had met in Padua as I fled through Italy.

  “They’d have to catch me first, Philip,” I said, smiling broadly at the sight of him.

  “It’s Sir Philip to you, you churl—I’ve been knighted this year, you know.”

  “Excellent! Does that mean you’ll acquire some manners?”

  He threw his arms around me then and thumped me heartily on the back again. Ours was a curious friendship, I reflected, catching my breath and embracing him in return. Our backgrounds could not have been more different—Sidney was born into one of the first families of the English court, as he never tired of reminding me—but in Padua we had immediately discovered the gift of making each other laugh, a rare and welcome thing in that earnest and often sombre place. Even now, after six years, I felt no awkwardness in his company; straightaway we had fallen into our old custom of affectionate baiting.

  “Come, Bruno,” Sidney said, putting an arm around my shoulders and leading me down the lawn toward the river. “By God, it is a fine thing to see you again. This royal visitation to Oxford would have been intolerable without your company. Have you heard of this Polish prince?”

  I shook my head. Sidney rolled his eyes.

  “Well, you will meet him soon enough. The palatine Albert Laski—a Polish dignitary with too much money and too few responsibilities, who consequently spends his time making a nuisance of himself around the courts of Europe. He was supposed to travel from here to Paris, but King Henri refuses to allow him into the country, so Her Majesty is stuck with the burden of his entertainment awhile longer. Hence this elaborate pageant to get him away from court.” He waved toward the barge, then glanced around briefly to make sure we were not overheard. “I do not blame the French king for refusing his visit, he is a singularly unbearable man. Still, it is quite an achievement—I can think of one or two taverns where I am refused entry, but to be barred from an entire country requires a particular talent for making yourself unwelcome. Which Laski has by the cartload, as you shall see. But you and I shall have a merry time in Oxford nonetheless—you will amaze the dullards there with your ideas, and I shall look forward to basking in your glory and showing you my old haunts,” he said, punching me heartily on the arm again. “Although, as you know, that is not our whole purpose,” he added, lowering his voice.

  We stood side by side looking out over the river, which was busy with little crafts, wherries, and small white-sailed boats crisscrossing the shining water in the spring sun that illuminated the fronts of the handsome brick-and-timber buildings along the opposite bank, a glorious panorama with the great spire of St. Paul’s church towering over the rooftops far to the north. I thought what a magnificent city London was in our age, and how fortunate I was to be here at all, and in such company. I waited for Sidney to elaborate.

  “I have something for you from my future father-in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham,” he whispered, his eyes still fixed on the river. “See what a knighthood gets me, Bruno—a job as your errand boy.” He drew himself upright and looked about, shielding his eyes with his hand as he peered toward the mooring place of our craft, before reaching for the oilskin bag he carried and pulling from it a bulging leather purse. “Walsingham sent this for you. You may incur certain expenses in the course of your enquiries. Call it an advance against payment.”

  Sir Francis Walsingham. Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary of state, the man behind my unlikely presence on this royal visitation to Oxford; even his name made my spine prickle.

  We walked a little farther from the body of the crowd gathered to marvel as the barge was decked with flowers for our departure. Beside it, a group of musicians had struck up a dance tune, and we watched the crowd milling around them.

  “But now tell me, Bruno—you have not set your sights upon Oxford merely to debate Copernicus with a host of dull-witted academicians,” Sidney continued, in a low voice. “I knew as soon as I heard you had come to England that you must be on the scent of something important.”

  I glanced quickly around to be sure no one was within earshot.

  “I have come to find a book,” I said. “One I have sought for some time, and now I believe it was brought to England.”

  “I knew it!” Sidney grabbed my arm and drew me closer. “And what is in this book? Some dark art to unlock the power of the universe? You were dabbling in such things in Padua, as I recall.”

  I could not tell whether he was mocking me still, but I decided to trust to what our friendship had been in Italy.

  “What would you say, Philip, if I told you the universe was infinite?”

  He looked doubtful. “I would say that this goes beyond even the Copernican heresy, and that you should keep your voice down.”

  “Well, this is what I believe,” I said, quietly. “Copernicus told only half the truth. Aristotle’s picture of the cosmos, with the fixed stars and the six planets that orbit the earth—this is pure falsehood. Copernicus replaced the earth with the sun as the centre of the cosmos, but I go further: I say there are many suns, many centres—as many as there are stars in the sky. The universe is infinite, and if this is so, why should it not be populated with other earths, other worlds, and other beings like ourselves? I have decided it will be my life’s work to prove this.”

  “How can it be proved?”

  “I will see them,” I said, looking out over the river, not daring to watch his reaction. “I will penetrate the far reaches of the universe, beyond the spheres.”

  “And how exactly will you do this? Will you learn to fly?” His voice was sceptical now; I could not blame him.

  “By the secret knowledge contained in the lost book of the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, who first understood these mysteries. If I can trace it, I will learn the secrets necessary to rise up through the spheres by the light of divine understanding and enter the Divine Mind.”

  “Enter the mind of God, Bruno?”

  “No, listen. Since I saw you last I have studied in depth the ancient magic of the Hermetic writings and the Cabala of the Hebrews,
and I have begun to understand such things as you would not believe possible.” I hesitated. “If I can learn how to make the ascent Hermes describes, I will glimpse what lies beyond the known cosmos—the universe without end and the universal soul, of which we are all a part.”

  I thought he might laugh then, but instead he looked thoughtful.

  “Sounds like dangerous sorcery to me, Bruno. And what would you prove? That there is no God?”

  “That we are all God,” I said, quietly. “The divinity is in all of us and in the substance of the universe. With the right knowledge, we can draw down all the powers of the cosmos. When we understand this, we can become equal to God.”

  Sidney stared at me in disbelief.

  “Christ’s blood, Bruno! You cannot go about proclaiming yourself equal to God. We may not have the Inquisition here, but no Christian church will hear that with equanimity—you will be straight for the fire.”

  “Because the Christian church is corrupt, every faction of it—this is what I want to convey. It is only a poor shadow, a dilution of an ancient truth that existed long before Christ walked the earth. If that were understood, then true reform of religion might be possible. Men might rise above the divisions for which so much blood has been spilled, and is still being spilled, and understand their essential unity.”

  Sidney’s face turned grave. “I have heard my old tutor Doctor Dee speak in this way. But you must be careful, my friend—he collected many of these manuscripts of ancient magic during the destruction of the monastic libraries, and he is called a necromancer and worse for it, not just by the common people. And he is a native Englishman, and the queen’s own astrologer too. Do not get yourself a reputation as a black magician—you are already suspicious as a Catholic and a foreigner.” He stepped back and looked at me with curiosity. “This book, then—you believe it is to be found in Oxford?”

  “When I was living in Paris, I learned that it was brought out of Florence at the end of the last century and, if my adviser spoke the truth, it was taken by an English collector to one of the great libraries here, where it lies unremarked because no one who has handled it has understood its significance. Many of the Englishmen who travelled in Italy were university men and left their books as bequests, so Oxford is as good a place as any to start looking.”

  “You should start by asking John Dee,” Sidney said. “He has the greatest library in the country.”

  I shook my head. “If your Doctor Dee had this book, he would know what he held in his hands, and he would have made this revelation known by some means. It is still to be discovered, I am certain.”

  “Well, then. But don’t neglect Walsingham’s business in Oxford.” He slapped me on the back again. “And for Christ’s sake don’t neglect me, Bruno, to go ferreting in libraries—I shall expect some gaiety from you while we are there. It’s bad enough that I must play nursemaid to that flatulent Pole Laski—I’m not planning to spend every evening with a clutch of fusty old theologians, thank you. You and I shall go roistering through the town, leaving the women of Oxford bowlegged in our wake!”

  “I thought you were to marry Walsingham’s daughter?” I raised an eyebrow, feigning shock.

  Sidney rolled his eyes. “When the queen deigns to give her consent. In the meantime, I do not consider myself bound by marriage vows. Anyway, what of you, Bruno? Have you been making up for your years in the cloister on your way through Europe?” He elbowed me meaningfully in the ribs.

  I smiled, rubbing my side.

  “Three years ago, in Toulouse, there was a woman. Morgana, the daughter of a Huguenot nobleman. I gave private tuition to her brother in metaphysics, but when her father was not at home she would beg me to stay on and read with her. She was hungry for knowledge—a rare quality in women born to wealth, I have found.”

  “And beautiful?” Sidney asked, his eyes glittering.

  “Exquisite.” I bit my lip, remembering Morgana’s blue eyes, the way she would try and coax me to laughter when she thought I grew too melancholy. “I courted her in secret, but I think I always knew it was only for a season. Her father wanted her to marry a Huguenot aristocrat, not a fugitive Italian Catholic. Even when I became a professor of philosophy at the University of Toulouse and finally had the means of supporting myself, he would not consent, and he threatened to use all his influence in the city to destroy my name.”

  “So what happened?” Sidney asked, intrigued.

  “She begged me to run away with her.” I sighed. “I almost allowed myself to be persuaded, but I knew in my heart that it would not have been the future either of us wanted. So I left one night for Paris, where I ploughed all my energies into my writing and my advancement at court. But I often wonder about the life I turned my back on, and where I might have been now …” My voice trailed away as I lowered my eyes again, remembering.

  “Then we should not have had you here, my friend. Besides, she’s probably married to some aging duke by now,” Sidney said heartily.

  “She would have been,” I agreed, “had she not died. Her father arranged a marriage to one of his friends but she had an accident shortly before the wedding. Drowned. Her brother wrote and told me.”

  “You think it was by her own hand?” Sidney asked, his eyes dramatically wide.

  “I suppose I will never know.”

  I fell silent then, and gazed out across the water.

  “Well, sorry about that,” Sidney said after a few moments, clapping me on the back in that matter-of-fact way the English have, “but still—the women of King Henri’s court must have provided you with plenty of distractions, eh?”

  I regarded him for a moment, wondering if the English nobility really did have as little fine feeling as they pretended, or if they had developed this manner as a way of avoiding painful emotion.

  “Oh yes, the women there were beautiful, certainly, and happy enough to offer their attentions at first, but I found them sadly lacking in worthwhile conversation,” I said, forcing a smile. “And they found me sadly lacking in fortune and titles for any serious liaison.”

  “Well, there you are, Bruno—you are destined for disappointment if you seek out women for their conversation.” Sidney shook his head briefly, as if the idea were absurd. “Take my advice—sharpen your wits in the company of men, and look to women only for life’s softer comforts.” He winked broadly and grinned.

  “Now I must oversee the arrangements or we shall never be on our way, and we are to dine at the palace of Windsor this evening so we need to make good progress. They say there will be a storm tonight. The queen will not be present, naturally,” he said, noting my raised eyebrows. “I’m afraid the responsibility of entertaining the palatine is ours alone, Bruno, until we reach Oxford. Steel yourself and pray to that universal soul of yours for fortitude.”

  “I WOULD NOT be the one to boast, but my friends do consider me to be something of a poet, Sir Philip,” the palatine Laski was saying in his high-pitched voice, which always sounded as if he was airing a grievance, as our boat approached Hampton Court. “I had in mind that if we tire of the disputations at the university”—here he cast a pointed glance at me—“you and I might devote some of our stay in Oxford to reading each other’s poetry and advising on it, as one sonneteer to another, what say you?”

  “Then we must include Bruno in our parley,” Sidney said, flashing me a conspiratorial grin, “for in addition to his learned books, he has written a comic drama in verse for the stage, have you not, Bruno? What was it called?”

  “The Torchbearers,” I muttered, and turned back to contemplate the view. I had dedicated the play to Morgana and it was always associated with memories of her.

  “I have not heard of it,” said the palatine dismissively.

  Before our party had even reached Richmond, I found myself in complete agreement with my patron, King Henri III of France: the palatine Laski was unbearable. Fat and red-faced, he had a wholly misplaced regard for his own importance and a great love of the
sound of his own voice. For all his fine clothes and airs, he was clearly not well acquainted with the bathhouse, and under that warm sun a fierce stink came off him, which at close quarters, mingled with the vapours from the brown Thames, was distracting me from what should have been an entertaining journey.

  We had launched from the wharf at Winchester House with a great fanfare of trumpets; a boat filled with musicians had been charged to keep pace with us, so that the palatine’s endless monologue was accompanied by the twitterings and chirpings of the flute players to our right. To add to my discomfort, the flowers with which the barge had been so generously bedecked were making me sneeze. I sank back into the silk cushions, trying to concentrate on the rhythmic splashing of the oars as we glided at a stately pace through the city, smaller boats making way on either side while their occupants, recognising the royal barge, respectfully doffed their caps and stared as we passed. For my part, I had almost succeeded in reducing the palatine’s babble to a background drone as I concentrated on the sights, and would have been content to enjoy the gentle green and wooded landscape on the banks as we left the city behind, but Sidney was determined to amuse himself by baiting the Pole and wanted my collaboration.

  “Behold, the great palace of Hampton Court, which once belonged to our queen’s father’s favourite, Cardinal Wolsey,” he said, gesturing grandly toward the bank as we drew close to the imposing red-brick walls. “Not that he enjoyed it for long—such is the caprice of princes. But it seems the queen holds you in great esteem, Laski, to judge by the care she has taken over your visit.”