‘Here.’ Sophia reached inside her cloak and took out my Damascus steel knife in its scabbard. I was so delighted to see it – and her – that I darted in and kissed her impulsively on the cheek. We both drew back, alarmed.
‘I am in your debt,’ I said, turning it over in my hands.
‘You certainly are,’ she said, walking over to the window and pulling off her gloves. ‘You don’t know what I had to do for it.’ She turned with an impish grin, enjoying my shock, leaving me hanging for a few moments. ‘You’re right to make that face. I had to walk in the gardens with the Duke of Montpensier for an hour, listening to his poetry. In this weather.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, adopting a grave expression. ‘I don’t know how I can make it up to you.’
‘Oh, you can never compensate me for that.’ She leaned back against the wall and folded her arms. ‘Shall we say we are even now? For the book, I mean?’
‘Agreed. The slate is wiped clean.’ I strapped the knife on to my belt and immediately felt more like myself with its familiar weight resting against my hip.
‘To start over,’ she said thoughtfully, looking back to the window. Her reflection rippled as she moved, distorted in the bubbled glass. A long silence unfolded. Neither of us seemed to know quite what to say, but I had the sense that she was not in a hurry to leave. I poked at the edge of a rug with the toe of my boot. She looked back to me and held my gaze with a questioning look. I watched her, trying to find the right words, the ones that would make her understand without scaring her away. I thought about Jacopo’s distinction between brave and foolhardy.
The silence was broken by the bells of Saint-André striking seven. I started, glancing guiltily at the door.
‘Do you have to go somewhere?’
‘No. Well, yes.’ I rubbed at the back of my neck. ‘I’m supposed to meet someone. But it can wait.’
‘A woman?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘No! A colleague.’
‘You’re working in Paris, then?’
‘I may be. I have the offer of a job, anyway. At the Collège de Cambrai. Lecturing again.’
She nodded. ‘Sounds like a good position.’
‘It is. The King arranged it.’
‘But you don’t sound as if you want it.’
I hesitated. ‘I’m not sure whether I should stay in Paris.’
A flicker of anxiety crossed her face. ‘Where else would you go?’
‘I don’t know. I was thinking of Prague, perhaps. The Emperor Rudolf is more tolerant of free thinkers at his court. He collects them. My friend John Dee is there now.’
‘Prague.’ She rolled the word around her mouth like a strange delicacy and gazed into the distance, as if she might glimpse new worlds beyond the black rooftops of the rue du Cimetière. ‘How lucky you are, having the freedom to travel anywhere you choose.’
‘It’s not exactly luck. More necessity. And I’m not free to travel to the one place I really wish to go.’
‘Where is that?’
‘Home.’
She looked at me as if searching for something in my face. ‘Still. If you were a woman, you would think it enviable.’
‘What about you? Will you stay in Paris?’
She shrugged. ‘For now. There are fewer options available to me.’
‘But this is not enough for you, surely? Living here, being a governess?’
It was the wrong thing to say; her expression hardened. ‘How would you know what is enough for me? There’s no shame in honest work. I came to Paris with nothing.’
‘Apart from my book.’
A faint hint of a smile. ‘Yes, all right. But things could have ended very badly for me. I have been fortunate. Sir Thomas is a generous employer, who doesn’t try to take advantage, which sets him apart from many. His daughters are pleasant enough children. I’m paid reasonably, I have a comfortable room and I am allowed to use the library. What other life is there for a woman like me, except to become someone’s wife?’
‘And that is not an option you would consider?’ I asked carefully.
‘That is a mistake I would not make again in a hurry,’ she said, in a voice like a blade.
‘But you must have suitors,’ I persisted, though I knew I should let the subject drop. ‘Young Gilbert Gifford seems keen.’
‘Gilbert Gifford?’ She let out a burst of laughter, eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Please. Such an earnest boy. He is going to save England for the Catholic faith, you know.’
‘Is he really?’
‘Oh yes.’ Her eyes danced with mischief. ‘He’s going back soon. He claims he’s been entrusted with important letters for the Queen of Scots.’
‘He told you that?’
She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. ‘I thought he was probably showing off. He wants me to think he’s an important player in the crusade against Elizabeth, like his hero, Paget.’
‘You’re right – it sounds like an idle boast to me,’ I said, carelessly, while thinking I would need to add a quick postscript to the letters in my pocket.
‘But in answer to your question, no,’ she said.
‘No what?’ I frowned; my mind was still on Gifford.
‘There are no suitors.’ She fixed me with a level stare, the wide-set amber eyes cool and knowing, revealing nothing but a hint of challenge. I was not sure how I was supposed to respond, so I remained silent.
‘Well, you should not keep your colleague waiting,’ she said quickly, after a pause, her gaze swerving away, and I had the sense that I had somehow missed an opportunity.
‘You could come to Prague with me,’ I said, startling myself. The words seemed to be in the air before the thought had even formed in my head.
She let out that same laugh of disbelief. ‘Are you mad?’
I tried to cover my embarrassment. ‘Why not? I saw the light in your eyes when I mentioned it. You crave adventure, you know you do. This life
