“How can I tell, Sir Grenville? Give me the girl’s natal date and I will answer, but it will take time! Indeed time! The charts, the influences.” He shrugged. “All of us must die, nothing else is so certain, but whether it will be tomorrow I cannot tell.”

Sir Grenville rocked back and forth in his chair, hands clasped on his great belly. “There’s nothing in my chart?”

“Of course there is! But no feminine influences. You might assume the lack of them to be the affirmation you want.” Barnegat allowed himself a smirk. “I cannot imagine Sir John Henge showing mercy to Dorcas Scammell.”

“No. And the other matter?”

Barnegat sighed. “There are a thousand other matters. Which one?”

“An enemy across the sea.” Sir Grenville sounded positively humble in the presence of the famous astrologer. Septimus Barnegat was not an easy man to approach; he turned down the majority of applicants. Now he frowned, stared at the beautifully drawn planetary chart and nodded slowly. “You have an enemy across the sea, yes. Matters fall into alignment, indeed they do.” He pursed his lips. “He is to the east.”

“You’re sure?” Sir Grenville leaned forward eagerly. The east was Holland, and Holland was Lopez; he did not fear the Jew as much as the enemy to the west.

Barnegat shook his head wearily. “If I am not sure, I say so. If I do not know, I say so. You have no need to ask me if I am sure.”

“Of course, of course.” Sir Grenville took no notice of the reproof. “Will he be coming to England?”

The science of astrology was not easily mastered. No King, no statesman, no banker, no merchant in Europe would dream of taking action without first consulting the heavens, but not one of them truly understood the intricacies of the astrologer’s work. It was a mystery, confined to those practitioners who had given their days and nights to the study of the delicate and beautiful movements of stars and planets. There were some, a few, who scoffed, but as Septimus Barnegat was fond of saying, if the science did not work, why did the astrologers not starve in the streets? Yet sometimes, and this was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the science, it was easier to seek answers of an earthly origin than go through the painstaking, time-consuming endeavor of plotting the harmonious spheres.

Septimus Barnegat, as befitted a man of his wealth and reputation, took some earthly help. He paid his monthly retainer to Julius Cottjens, as did all the better London astrologers, and he paid for any news concerning his clients.

Barnegat knew about Sir Grenville’s fear of Lopez. He knew too that Lopez was ill. He traced a tobacco-stained finger along an elliptical line. “I detect sickness. Yes.” He glanced up at Sir Grenville. “I think there will be no voyage across the sea.”

Sir Grenville smiled. Cottjens’s news was safely confirmed. “And from the west?”