“I’m a village girl, Your Grace,” I interrupted, recalling Father’s instructions. Betty sent me a sharp look, a silent warning that a “maid” like me wouldn’t dare cut short her mistress’s speech. My father stood with his head bowed, his hair falling forward to curtain his face. With his expression hidden, I couldn’t tell if he was pleased with me or if I had done wrong.
Buckingham circled me, the creak of the floorboards under his feet sounding as loud as the gunshots I had heard the townsmen fire when they were hunting birds—hard and final. I lowered my eyes. Beneath the writing table, my knife glinted in the shadows. Should I seize it and stab Buckingham?
“What a peculiar dress,” he said. “Is it your habit not to wear your sleeves, miss?”
“I—” Dear God, what to say? “I was getting dressed when Your Grace arrived.”
“I see. You aren’t very well behaved for a serving girl. Perhaps Mr. Milton permits your boldness because he likes”—his eyes slid over to where my stepmother stood—“young women.”
My face turned to flame. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
“She has a saucy tongue,” my father said quickly, “but we excuse it because she has a clever hand with a needle. My three daughters have been teaching her better manners.”
Buckingham brought his face so close to mine I could smell the musk of his perfume. “You haven’t paid enough attention to those lessons, miss, but you’d best listen to mine if you want to remain free. Tell no one what happened at your master’s house today. My spies are everywhere, so don’t think I won’t find out if you’ve disobeyed me. Do you understand?”
My head jerked back and forth like that of a puppet on a string. He laughed, patting my cheek, then turned to his men and pointed at a few of them. “Mrs. Milton will direct you in packing up her household. The rest of you, with me.” He snapped his fingers, then strode from the room.
Six men surrounded my father, forming a colorful circle around him. In the spaces between their bodies, I could barely glimpse the plain black of Father’s clothes. His head was bowed. “Please,” he said in a timid voice I hadn’t heard before, “may I be permitted to say good-bye to my family?”
Tears burned my eyes as the men nodded and stepped back. My sisters and stepmother, murmuring and sobbing, crowded around Father. I stood to the side, irresolute. Everything within me longed to go to him, to feel his hands tracing my face one last time. But was it seemly for a “servant” to bid her master farewell? Indecision trapped me in place.
Betty and my sisters fell back. Father reached out his hand, waving it through the air as though seeking something. “And my serving girl,” he said. “I must say farewell to her.”
Somehow I pushed one foot forward, then another. I took Father’s hand and pressed it to my cheek, trapping my tears between the flesh of his palm and my face. He smiled slightly.
“You’ve been a loyal servant to me.” He leaned closer. I could not breathe. This was the moment. He would tell me what I needed to do in order to save him, and I would move Heaven and Hell until I released him from whatever place they were taking him—
“L’avezza giovinetta pastorella,” he murmured.
A familiar young shepherdess? This was what Father had chosen to say to me at our parting—a nonsensical phrase in Italian? There must be something else he was trying to tell me, some secret woven into the Italian words.
He opened his mouth to speak again, but men seized his arms. “That’s quite enough,” one of them said, and they marched him from the room.
While my sisters whispered to one another, I ran after Father. In the garden, men were lashing him onto a horse. Even as I raced toward them, a man mounted my father’s horse, then reached around Father’s waist to grasp the reins.
“Wait! Please!” I shouted.
Father turned in the direction of my voice, mouthing my name. Elizabeth. My heart twisted. How could I stand by while he was ripped out of his life? How could I say good-bye to the person who meant more to me than anyone else in the world?
In the dirt road waited a wooden cart pulled by two horses. It was clearly intended to carry us and our possessions to London. Buckingham had come prepared to bring my entire family to the capital, I realized, a chill racing down my spine. Before seeing Paradise Lost, he had already made his decision. Why? And what did that mean for my father’s fate?
“Remember,” Father called, still turned in my direction, “the mind is its own place!”
Tears filled my eyes. Father had often said those words to me. Your mind can become your heaven or your hell, he had counseled in his gentle way. Only you determine what it shall be, Elizabeth. But you must build it carefully. Leave no holes or there’s no telling what may slither inside.
In a flash, I understood what he was telling me now: I must build the walls so fear could not come in.
The man he rode with kicked the horse’s flanks, and they were gone, racing along the dirt road. The other horses in the party thundered past me, their hooves kicking up clouds of dust, choking my vision until I had to cover my face with my hands. Blinded, I listened to the hoofbeats grow fainter and fainter, carrying my father away from me.
When the air had cleared, I squinted into the distance, searching for the moving black dots formed by Father and the riders. But they had already rounded the curve in the road and disappeared from sight.
Numbness spread through my body. He was gone. Moving like an automaton, I trudged across the yard into the cottage. I had failed Father. I should have disobeyed him and attacked those men or begged to be taken with him. I never should have let him leave alone with them.
The door banged shut behind me. I stood in the hall, frozen. Somehow the effort to walk even a few more steps seemed insurmountable. My ears strained to pick up the murmurs of my sisters’ voices and the thumps of trunks being opened. Soon my family, too, would be gone.
Act ordinary, I ordered myself. As far as the king’s men were concerned, I was a serving girl, who would hardly be overly saddened by the departure of her employer’s family. Setting my shoulders, I wiped at the dampness under my eyes.
I climbed the ladder to my bedchamber. Everything in here could remain—the furniture had come with the rented cottage, and my meager possessions should stay with me—so I went into Anne’s room, where we gathered her clothes in silence under the watchful eyes of one of the king’s men.
By the time the house was packed up, the afternoon sun had begun sliding down the sky in its daily, arcing journey. My stepmother, sisters, and Luce clambered into the cart. I stood on tiptoe to kiss them good-bye.
“D-do not stay,” Anne stammered.
“I must.” I blinked away tears. There was so much I wanted to explain to her—that I remained here at our father’s command, not because I no longer wished her company; that I loved her with the fierceness and purity of a river’s current, running ceaselessly without end. But the king’s men who were standing nearby hampered my tongue. Instead I kissed her cheek, whispering, “You’re my dearest friend, and no distance between us will ever change that.”
Her face creased into a delighted smile. Swallowing hard, I raised my hand in farewell. The cart rumbled over the rutted road, my sisters turning to wave to me and crying.
I stared after them until my eyes ached. At last, when the cart was gone, I turned to the empty cottage. As I gazed at the blank windows, I realized that for the first time in my life I was truly alone. The only person I could go to for help was a stranger, whose loyalties I did not know.
I was on my own.
Seven
THE WOODS SEEMED DESERTED. OVERHEAD THE tree branches clustered so tightly together they blocked out the sun, enclosing me in a well of green-black shadows. As I moved deeper into the forest, dried elm leaves crunched underfoot, betraying my presence to anyone who might be near. Up ahead, Viviani’s outline showed between the trees—a dark figure with a knife glinting in his hand.
He rushed toward me. “What
happened? Is your family safe?”
His words brought the pain flooding back. I had to close my eyes against the image of my father being led from the cottage, his shoulders sagging in defeat, his steps unsteady.
“Elizabeth?” Viviani’s hand brushed my arm. “You look ill. You should sit down.”
Elizabeth? My eyes flew open. In the shadowed dimness, Viviani’s face seemed different: softer, perhaps, the sharp line of his jaw gentled. “I’m well enough,” I said, shrugging off his hand. “And it isn’t proper for you to address me with such familiarity.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Milton.” He smiled slightly, as if he found me amusing. I glared at him. “Please tell me what happened,” he said.
“First tell me why you called my father ‘notorious,’” I demanded.
“Isn’t that how he is known?” The shadows hid Viviani’s face from me, but I heard the surprise in his voice. “I meant no disrespect. In Florence, everyone calls him by this name.”
Hmm. That made sense. The Italian city-states were populated by Catholics, who would be disposed to dislike my father’s admittedly pro-Protestant religious tracts—particularly his documents advocating the practice of divorce if the man and woman were incompatible. Embarrassment heated my face. If I hadn’t been so upset earlier, perhaps I would have figured this out on my own.
“Very well.” I waved an impatient hand at Viviani. “Forget the matter.”
Together we walked through the fields toward the cottage as I recounted the story to him. By the time I had finished, we’d reached the door. He opened it for me.
“As you can see, there’s no reason for you to remain in England.” I stepped into the hall. Somehow I had to convince him to leave so I could seek my father unimpeded. “With my father gone—” I started to say, then had to stop because my chest burned so badly I couldn’t speak. Taking a deep breath, I tried again. “With my father gone, we can learn nothing about this secret he wanted us to guard. You’re free, Signor Viviani.”
He closed the door behind us, his expression unreadable. “I’m not leaving. When I make a promise to my master, I keep it. As Vincenzo bade me to help your father and I swore to do so, I must make good on my oath.”
He slipped past me down the corridor, calling over his shoulder, “We have a day at the most before Buckingham reaches London. It’s possible someone will tell him that Mr. Milton has four daughters and he’ll return looking for you. We must flee this place by morning.”
“You speak as if we’ll be traveling together.” Couldn’t he understand that I didn’t want his aid? I hurried after him. “I’m perfectly capable of tracking down my father by myself.”
Viviani walked into the sitting room. In silence, he surveyed the smoldering brazier, the books knocked from their shelves, my leather straps lying under the table. “Yes, I see you handled matters perfectly on your own.”
As though he could have done a better job than I had at protecting my father. I gritted my teeth. Viviani went on, “Your father has powerful enemies. You’d be wise to accept any help that’s offered to you.”
Not from someone I neither knew nor trusted. “I will find my father. You may return to Florence.”
“Going after him is folly.”
“I don’t care. I’ll track him down and free him from whatever place they’re keeping him.”
“And what then? You can’t hide him forever.”
“I’ll take him to another country.” Ideas tumbled in my head like a handful of jacks tossed by a child’s hand. “To the Netherlands, perhaps. They’re battling with England over a sea trade disagreement,” I explained when Viviani looked blank. “Hollanders would be loath to help the king by returning a fugitive to him. In Rotterdam, my father and I could live without fear.”
“Stop!” Viviani gripped my shoulders, holding me in place so I had no choice but to look at his face. It had hardened to rock. “Your father didn’t ask you to go after him. He spoke instead about a young shepherdess.”
My father’s words rushed back to me: L’avezza giovinetta pastorella. Something rustled in my mind. The phrase seemed familiar. I could remember repeating it when I was a small child, sitting in Father’s study, surrounded by books.
“It’s a line from one of his early sonnets,” I said slowly. “Sometimes he used his own poetry to teach me foreign tongues. Perhaps when he said it today, he was trying to remind me of happier times.”
Viviani’s hands fell from my shoulders. “Your father’s a poet—words are his weapons. And he said to keep the secret in his poem safe. Do you have any idea what it could be?”
My hands fisted in my skirts. Secrets. Buried within poetry. Was that why Father had referenced one of his Italian sonnets—had he been trying to tell me of a message concealed within its lines?
I raced to the bookcase. Most of the shelves now stood empty, but one still contained a dozen volumes. Thank heavens Betty hadn’t bothered to pack my father’s entire book collection! My fingers flew across the leather spines, searching for a handful of pages bound together with black thread.
I found the booklet on the second shelf. As I flipped through the pages, Viviani leaned over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“This is a catalog I made of all of my father’s works.” I pointed to a page, which was divided into three columns. “Here’s the title, and then the year in which the work was written, and then the form in which it was published. See, here’s his poem ‘The Nativity Ode.’”
“As fascinating as your father’s writings are, this may not be the best time to review them.” Viviani sounded sarcastic.
I ignored him, instead skimming the next page. “My father was alluding to one of his Italian sonnets when he mentioned the shepherdess, I’m certain of it. Here it is!” I pointed to the relevant entry. “Sonnet Three. He wrote it in 1628. Hmm, there’s a notation that he revised it in 1644 and it was published in his book of poems the following year. That seems odd. He didn’t revise any of his other Italian sonnets.”
“Perhaps Sonnet Three was the only one that needed improvement.”
Shaking my head, I continued staring at the sheet, as if it would somehow surrender its secrets if I gazed at it long enough. “They all needed improvement. My father thought they were poor imitations of the love poems written by native speakers of Italian.”
My younger self had recorded additional information: Mr. John Rouse, then the librarian at the Bodleian Library, in Oxford, had purchased a copy of Father’s first book of poems in the 1640s. My father must have seen his inclusion in the Bodleian Library’s collection as a literary stamp of approval, or he wouldn’t have bothered to have me write down the information. Quickly I scanned the bookshelf, but all of the works my father had written were gone. Betty must have taken them to London.
I could hardly go after her and demand to see the book, not when the king’s men were keeping an eye on her and the rest of my family. And the places where I could find this volume of poetry were likely few, seeing as many of Father’s works had been banned or burned after the king’s return. But the Bodleian had probably kept its copy—Father had often praised the library, saying that although it was a new institution it was already the finest in England, with books from all over the world and a librarian who was committed to preserving knowledge for the generations of students to come. High praise from a Cambridge graduate, I used to think, but now I wondered if he had emphasized the Bodleian Library for another reason.
So I would remember it.
Although Viviani leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression bored, I saw the way the muscles in his shoulders pushed against the velvet of his doublet. He was tense, ready to spring into action at an instant’s notice. He could be a valuable ally—if he was trustworthy.
Father summoned him here, I reminded myself. And your options are distressingly few.
I shoved the booklet onto a shelf. “Do you still want to help, Signor Viviani?”
/> “It isn’t a question of wanting to—I must, for my master’s sake.”
I took a deep breath. “Then we must prepare ourselves for a long journey. We leave for Oxford as soon as we can.”
Gathering our supplies took several hours. Viviani returned to the village inn to hire two horses, and I crept alone through the fields, weaving between the lines of crops and praying no one would see me making my way to the Sutton estate. The fewer people who knew of my plans, the safer I would be.
I found Francis walking the edge of his property, white faced and shaking. After I promised him that my family was fine—the truth was too dangerous to share—I asked him for directions to Oxford, as he had recently completed his university studies there. Once he’d agreed to tell no one about my intended journey, he drew a crude map of the route we should take and advised me on the best times to visit the Bodleian Library. Students woke at five in the morning for prayers, he said, then broke their fast at six and worked in study halls for four hours, then for two more hours after the midday meal. Therefore the Bodleian would be emptiest in the later afternoon. We would visit the library then.
Back at the cottage, I fixed a simple supper of bread and the soup that Luce had left cooking in the hearth. In the dining room, Viviani sat across the table from me. The candlelight threw lines of gold all over him. Under the steadiness of his gaze, I found myself flushing like a child. I let my own gaze fall to the pewter dishes.
“When should we leave?” His voice broke the silence and I nearly jumped in my chair.
“Tomorrow morning at first light. In my country, highwaymen roam the roads at night. We’ll be safer if we set off at dawn.”
He shrugged. “As you wish.”
“What do you think the secret is?” I asked, eager to change the subject.
He sipped wine. “I don’t know. According to your father, he never met my master and they have little in common.”
“I can’t understand why the king would imprison my father now, after ignoring him for the past six years. What if . . . ?” My spoon clattered into my empty bowl, forgotten. “What if whatever my father hid in his poetry threatens the king’s grip on the crown? That would explain why he’s so desperate to silence my father and spirit him away.”