Free Treason's Daughter by Antonia Senior

reasserts God’s place at the heart of the cosmos.’
    â€˜How so, Will?’ Challoner asks, his face rapt.
    â€˜You know, sir, that the Antichrist in Rome was disturbed by the upset to the accepted wisdom.’
    â€˜As was I, Will. If you take Earth from the centre of creation, where does that leave us as part of God’s design?’
    Hen nods. ‘The third rock circling the sun. Why not the second, or the fourth? It traduces us.’
    â€˜And our Lord’s sacrifice. Indeed, Miss Challoner. But Kepler’s elliptical vision does two things. One, it allows us to predict with extraordinary accuracy the movements of the celestial beings.We can anticipate their course across the sky. Second, none of it makes sense without the sun, this perfect ball of fire at the exact centre of the orbits, not near enough to the middle as Copernicus thought. It controls the movement of the celestial bodies and keeps them on their course. And it creates a cosmos that resonates with harmonies and symmetries. Music is harmony. Mathematics is the same. And none of the elegance and beauty that Kepler discovers makes sense without the divine touch of our Lord.’
    He touches the book lying between them on the table with the same type of reverence Ned saves for the Bible.
    â€˜You cannot conceive of the beauty of the cosmos, Miss Challoner, both in what we can see with the naked eye, and in the underlying structure that men like Kepler reveal to us.’
    His eyes are shining as he talks, the words tumbling out of him, and Hen is reminded again of Ned when he is caught by a theological idea. Even as the thought makes her warm to him, she is caught by a sudden envy: that Ned and Will can roam the city and have unfettered access to all that is new and exciting. She imagines them sitting in a tavern, trading ideas, surrounded by argument and liveliness. And she must sit here, waiting for the world’s knowledge to come to her through them, when they can spare the time.
    Just as the envy threatens to overwhelm her, Will smiles, and says: ‘You will understand this passage, I am sure.’
    She allows herself to be pulled back into the easy atmosphere.

    Hen is sitting in the library, reading, when a tap at the window startles her. She looks up, thinking she dreamed it. Anothertap. She realizes someone is throwing stones, and she opens the window. Leaning out, she can peer over the garden wall, and sees her father there in the street, an absurd boyish grin spread across his face and a huge package under his arm.
    â€˜Ha! Pudding! I knew you would be there! Let me in at the front, will you?’
    â€˜Father, what are you about?’
    â€˜I will show you soon enough, pudding, but quick now. Harmsworth should be in the cellars – I set him to count the bottles this morning. And the rest of them in the kitchen. Creep around and open the door, there’s a good kitten.’
    She does as he bids and opens the door. He holds a finger to his lips and jerks his head mutely, telling her to follow him. He leads the way through to the library, and she closes the door behind them, giggling with the elaborate mystery of it all.
    He laughs too, and pulls her into a hug. ‘Oh, you will love this, my pudding.’
    â€˜What is it, Father?’
    He places the object reverentially on the table, peeling off the wrapping to reveal a long wooden chest. Inside, nestling in a velvet cushion, is a moulded wooden stand, with a round and gleaming brass ring perched at the end.
    â€˜Look. Our new microscope. I told you of them, I believe.’
    â€˜Father!’
    â€˜I know, my pud. A ship I had an interest in docked in the Pool yesterday. The factor had orders to stop, if possible, in Italy, and spend an extraordinary sum on this.’
    He picks it up. ‘I almost can’t bear to look through it. What if it is a disappointment?’
    â€˜I’ll look!’ Hen reaches for it.
    â€˜You will not!