The queen’s own Christmas festivities were organized by the Earl of Leicester, Sidney’s uncle, and for her noblemen and ambassadors, attendance at Hampton Court during the season was not a matter of choice but of duty. The tradition of New Year gifts was more than a formality; for her courtiers, it presented an opportunity to make or mar their fortunes for the coming year, depending on whether or not their gift impressed her. Sidney was pleased with himself; over the past months, at various ambassadorial receptions and diplomatic meetings, he had managed to insinuate to Castelnau that the queen was curious to read my new book, until the ambassador had become convinced that presenting it to her was his own idea. Still eager to regain her favour, he had paid from his own pocket for the handsome black Morocco binding, with gilt edges and Elizabeth’s own coat of arms embossed on the cover in gold leaf, and had rubbed his hands with delight at the prospect of presenting me—and the book—at the New Year celebrations.
“She imagines herself a great champion of knowledge, the English queen,” he had said, tracing his fingers lovingly over the leather binding before we had set out that morning, “but she fills her court with peacocks in crimson silks. Now she shall see the calibre of philosophers France maintains.” I doubted he had actually read the book, but he was certainly pleased with its cover.
I felt his fingertips rest lightly on my back, guiding me as we neared the dais where the queen sat on a vast carved throne with her most favoured courtiers to either side and her maids seated at her feet on velvet cushions. From somewhere to my left, a stifled growl rumbled through the crowds, causing the few ladies present to squeal and the boy choristers of the Chapel Royal to gasp in excitement. Some foreign dignitary had seen fit to bring the queen a leopard for her exotic menagerie at the Tower and the poor beast now strained at its leash in a corner, its jaws bound tight with leather straps. The queen had declared herself delighted, but her eyes held a certain weariness; perhaps after twenty-five years on the throne, one has seen enough leopards. It had seemed dazed during its five minutes of royal favour; I guessed it had been given some kind of sedative which was now wearing off. Above all I pitied Master Byrd, the queen’s master of music, obliged to keep a choir of young boys focused on performing his new Christmas compositions while competing for their attention with a leopard.
Beside me, Castelnau’s steps halted. I followed his lead and we knelt, eyes still fixed to the ground. Ahead I could see the wooden scaffolding that supported the raised platform where she sat, appraising us.
“Rise,” she commanded, at length.
I stood slowly, knowing not to look up until I was addressed directly. I took in the vast skirt of plum-coloured velvet immediately in front of me, so dark it was almost black, with a central panel of intricate gold thread sewn with cherry-red garnets, tiny seed pearls, and lozenges of onyx that glittered blackly in the candlelight. I raised my head enough that my eyes were level with the white hands folded in her lap, heavy with gold rings and holding a fan of ostrich plumes, the handle decorated with the same stones in the same arrangement as those on her gown.
“Well, Monseigneur de Castelnau,” the queen said, raising her voice so the whole court could hear the amusement in her tone, “your counterpart from Bohemia brings me a leopard. Can you better that?”
“I hope so, Your Majesty,” Castelnau said, in the special ingratiating tone he reserved for diplomacy. “A leopard is a wonder of nature, it is true, but I bring you the wonders of the heavens.”
“An extravagant claim. And is this he?” The ostrich feathers waved in my direction. A ripple of laughter spread through the audience. I felt myself blush. Castelnau seemed unruffled.
“This, Your Majesty, is Doctor Giordano Bruno, author of the most original and provocative book to be published in Europe since the Pole Copernicus printed On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.”
“He sounds more dangerous than a leopard. Come, Doctor Bruno—let me look at you.”
I swallowed hard, raised my head, and looked her in the eye for the first time.
She was fifty-one years old, but her face in its white mask of ceruse with pencilled brows and scarlet painted lips seemed ageless, like the face of a statue or a character in a classical play. It was a long face, stern and imperious, perched above its wide lace ruff, entirely fixed in its self-possession. Only the dark eyes betrayed the vivacity she was apparently famed for in her youth. They raked my face now as you might scan a page of text and returned to hold my gaze, steady and unblinking. According to Walsingham, it was she who had expressed a wish to see me in person after hearing about the events in Canterbury, and he, through Sidney, who had contrived this means of presentation without compromising my place in the ambassador’s household.
“I have heard of you. You are King Henri’s tame philosopher, are you not? The one who upsets the Catholic Leaguers and the learned doctors of the Sorbonne every time you open your mouth.”
“This is true, Your Majesty. In Paris, King Henri had to keep me muzzled like your leopard, lest I offend.”
She laughed.
“Perhaps I should try that with some of my courtiers. And is your book as radical as Copernicus?”
“More so, Your Majesty,” I said, stepping forward in my eagerness. “Copernicus did not follow his argument to its logical conclusion. If the Earth and the other planets revolve about the Sun, we may also posit that the fixed stars are not fixed. That is to say, there may be no limit to the universe. And who is to say there might not be other suns out there, with other worlds?”
From behind me, I heard disapproving intakes of breath. Queen Elizabeth only nodded, her jewels catching the light, and I thought suddenly of Mistress Blunt and Rebecca, and how much they would give to be standing in my place.
“Would they be identical to ours, do you suppose, these other worlds? What do you think, Robin?” She turned to her right, where the Earl of Leicester sat beside her on a carved chair several inches lower than her own. Another man might have been made awkward by this deliberate reminder of status, but Leicester, still impeccably handsome in his fifties, with his close-cropped grey hair and angular jaw, merely arranged himself across the chair, stretched out his long legs to the edge of the dais and smiled. “Would I still be queen?”
“Your Majesty—it is impossible to imagine a world in which you were not queen,” Castelnau cut in, with a sweeping bow.
“Really?” The queen arched one thin brow. “There are plenty of your countrymen in Paris, Michel, who, together with my cousin Mary, find it all too easy to imagine such a world.” Sycophantic laughter bubbled around us and died away. “Here, let me look. Robin, hold this.” She passed the ostrich fan to Leicester, who folded it in his lap. I caught his eye and he gave me the briefest of nods. I wondered if he was remembering, as I was, the last time he and I had met in a royal palace, when one of the queen’s young maids of honour had been found murdered. The queen held her hands out for the book and I placed it into them, bowing as I did so. She laid her hands flat on the cover without opening it.
“But if the universe is infinite, sir—if we are but one world among many,” she said, in a softer voice, no longer performing for the crowd, “how do we understand our place in God’s design? What is our worth, if we are no longer the masterpiece of Creation?”
I hesitated; my answers to these questions were complex and, perhaps even to this intellectually curious woman, potentially heretical. I weighed my words carefully before responding.