Heresy (3 page)

“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.”

The palatine simpered unattractively. “Well, that is not for me to say, of course, but I think it is well-known by now at the English court that the palatine Laski is granted the very best of Her Majesty’s hospitality.”

“And now that she will not have the Duke of Anjou, I wonder whether we her subjects may begin to speculate about an alliance with Poland?” Sidney went on mischievously.

The palatine pressed the tips of his stubby fingers together as if in prayer and pursed his moist lips, his little piggy eyes shining with self-congratulating pleasure.

“Such things are not for me to say, but I have noticed in the course of my stay at court that the queen did pay me certain
special
attentions, shall we say? Naturally she is modest, but I think men of the world such as you
and I, Sir Philip, who have not been shut up in a cloister, can always tell when a woman looks at us with a woman’s wants, can we not?”

I snorted with incredulity then, and had to disguise it as a sneezing fit. The minstrels finished yet another insufferably jaunty folk song and turned to a more melancholic tune, allowing me to lapse into reflective silence as the fields and woods slid by and the river became narrower and less noisome. Clouds bunched overhead, mirrored in the stretch of water before us, and the heat began to feel thick in my nostrils; it seemed Sidney had been right about the coming storm.

“In any case, Sir Philip, I have taken the liberty of composing a sonnet in praise of the queen’s beauty,” announced the palatine, after a while, “and I wonder if I might recite it for you before I deliver it to her delicate ears? I would welcome the advice of a fellow poet.”

“You had much better ask Bruno,” Sidney said carelessly, trailing his hand in the water. “His countrymen invented the form. Is that not so, Bruno?”

I sent him a murderous look and allowed my thoughts to drift to the horizon as the palatine began his droning recital.