That very afternoon the Holy Office of the Faith descends upon the storehouse by the Porta Portello. By sunset it is empty. The timbers are burned, the iron carried away to be melted down for more practical usage, and the brass and gilt handed to the Church to be turned into something less troublesome. Nothing of Bruno Barrani’s great sphere remains. By order of the Council, the Arte dei Astronomi is struck from the roll of city guilds.
When the Patriarch departs for Venice, he leaves the Podestà with a written order from the doge’s treasury: return all monies as yet unspent.
Throughout the following weeks Nicholas keeps a careful eye on his wife. Slowly her grief subsides. Together, they take long walks along the banks of the Bacchiglione. The leaves lie scattered around the trees like fragments of discarded memories. But he is pleased to see that the dark, underlying mood that had preceded the events of the night of the Feast of the Holy Rosary seems to have lifted from her. He puts it down to the death of Hella Maas.
At the end of October, Ruben takes his leave of them. He has it in mind to join the Protestant community at Montreux. Bianca wishes him well, and keeps the conversation she had with his sister there to herself.
In November Nicholas is approached at the Palazzo Bo by a young student of law, an Englishman, though his dress is distinctly Paduan. He hands Nicholas a letter. ‘Don’t open it here,’ he says. ‘Should a reply be needed, seek me out.’ He doesn’t stay to give his name.
Upon opening it, in the privacy of Bruno’s study at the house in the Borgo dei Argentieri, Nicholas is confronted with a meaningless jumble of letters written in a neat, professional hand, the sort of hand a clerk at Cecil House might favour. Bianca watches as he sets to work decoding the cipher. She resists the desire to look over his shoulder to see what manner of future his quill is revealing. Don’t interrupt him, she tells herself sternly. Give him time. Thoughts of returning to England have begun to fade from her mind of late, but for Nicholas’s sake she would rather see him exonerated.
Eventually he begins to smile. He lays down the pen. ‘Mistress Merton, you’ll be relieved to know that you’re no longer married to an accused regicide,’ he tells her, the smile on his dependable jaw in severe danger of becoming a grin. ‘Apparently it was Fulke Vaesy who denounced me. He’s written a confession, admitting it was all a lie. We are free to go home.’
‘With a child well on the way?’ she says. ‘Shall we pack her in a crate like a set of pewter?’
‘I didn’t mean now, of course. Not at this very moment.’ He holds up the paper on which he has deciphered the letter. ‘Sir Robert says he could do with a second set of eyes and ears in Padua. More importantly, in Venice – England has no ambassador there.’
‘A second?’
‘The English law student who gave this to me–’
‘And Cecil is suggesting you?’
‘Not officially.’
‘Does he intend to pay you?’
‘Not officially.’
They decide to put off a decision, at least until the child is old enough to travel safely.
In December Bianca’s old family house unexpectedly comes up for rent. They move out of the Borgo dei Argentieri, taking Luca and Alonso with them. Nicholas can afford servants now: there are enough well-heeled foreign students at the Palazzo Bo for an English physician to take on as clients. And thanks to Professors Galileo and Fabrici putting the word about that there is a competent young man of physic new to the city who might be just the fellow to consult for your current troublesome malady, he has Paduan patients, too.
In the new year, Girolamo Fabrici’s revolutionary anatomy theatre opens to great acclaim. Nicholas attends a lecture there. Watching the cadaver being dissected by the great man, he cannot help but think back to the night of the Feast of the Holy Rosary. Wherever she is now, he hopes Hella Maas is at peace. Given the hurt and pain she has both suffered and inflicted, he thinks she will need a little rest – before she faces her Last Judgement.
In the courtyard of her parents’ old house, Bianca writes her will. Made on this, the first day of June, in the year of our Lord 1595, and being possessed in all respects of sound reason and health… She does not plan to die, but when childbirth is imminent one has to take precautions. Nicholas finds it hard not to weep at her bravery.
A little before sunrise on the fifth day of the month, with a soft wash of light gilding the domes of the Basilica of St Anthony, Nicholas and Galileo wait outside the lying-in chamber in the house where Simon Merton and his wife, Maria Caporetti, once lived. Nicholas has spent several hours in a state of unrest. But not once has Eleanor called to him through the haze of anxiety in his head. And whenever his thoughts have wandered briefly in her direction, she has somehow never quite materialized into any identifiable form.
When he hears the laughter of the midwives, followed almost immediately by a robust, high-pitched howling, he finds it almost impossible not to weep.
‘That’s a lusty boy, or Galileo Galilei can’t count,’ his friend says, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘By what name will he be christened?’
‘Bianca wants to name him Bruno. That’s good enough for me.’
The mathematician purses his lips in approval. ‘You should thank the saints for your good fortune. If you need any help spending the money you’ve saved on a dowry, I’ll be your man.’
Nicholas would laugh – were it not for the fact that he is too busy giving thanks that curses have power only over those who believe themselves cursed.
A cold wind is blowing off the River Thames, stirring the leaves on the trees in St Saviour’s churchyard. Towering over his wife, Ned Monkton draws her to him, placing himself between her and the small wooden cross. They have been coming here every week after Sunday sermon since early April. Ned holds her until he feels her sobbing ease a little.
‘We wasn’t cursed, Rose. It was God’s will,’ he says softly. ‘We cannot know what is in His holy plan. Perhaps He has more need of her than we do.’
‘But couldn’t He ’ave given her a minute or two of life?’ Rose asks, red-eyed. ‘Enough for us to bid her welcome, and tell her she was loved?’
‘There will be another child, Wife,’ Ned says gently. ‘An’ more than just another.’
He tries hard to sound as though he believes it. Having spent so many years amongst the dead, he has often thought he would be inured to the pain of loss. But the murder of his young brother, Jacob, five years ago had shown him that familiarity is no protection. He holds Rose even closer, to draw some of her own strength into him, then releases her because he knows she needs it even more than he does.
‘We must pray that will be so,’ she says, stepping back and wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘And I know I should not be angry with God. More than once I pleaded with him to spare you, even at the cost of our unborn child. Was that wrong of me, Ned?’