by S. J. Parris
Thomas shakes his head. ‘He said only that Dunne had been sleeping when he left.’
‘You can speak to him yourself if you like,’ Drake offers.
‘This is a bad business, Francis.’ Thomas gives his brother a hard look. ‘If the men have begun murmuring against the story you gave out—’
‘It is a bad business altogether!’ Drake pushes the table away and stands, flushed by his outburst. He takes a deep breath and lowers his voice. ‘It has been since the minute we found him. But we can go neither forward nor back until we learn the truth about his death.’ He exhales slowly. ‘And now, Bruno,’ he says, turning to me with an effortful smile, ‘the Judas book. Perhaps you will find something there to shed light on this matter.’
He crosses to a corner of the cabin and unlocks a cupboard set into the wooden panelling. From it he retrieves the package we had seen earlier at the Star. I feel a tremor of anticipation in my fingertips at the prospect of opening those fragile pages. He places the book on the table in front of me.
‘Thomas, let us leave Doctor Bruno to his scholarly work. I will make a tour of the ship, speak to the men. You might do the same aboard your own vessel. Reassure them that all is in order.’
I like to think I detect a gentle note of admonition in this last sentence, and smile to myself.
‘You intend leaving him alone with it?’ Thomas points at me, apparently outraged.
Drake turns to his brother. ‘What do you imagine he is going to do – jump out of the window? There is an armed guard outside the door, he would not get very far. And if anyone tries to steal it from him, well – Sir Philip assures me no sane man would attempt to best Bruno in a fight. Isn’t that right, Bruno?’
‘I can defend myself if need be, Sir Francis,’ I say, hoping I will not be called upon to prove it.
Reluctantly, Thomas Drake moves towards the door, with a last glance over his shoulder that seems designed to let me know he has the measure of me. Drake nods once, and closes the door behind them.
Afternoon drifts into early evening. At intervals the sun pushes through the clouds and fractured light scatters in liquid patterns across the wooden panels of the captain’s cabin and the wide desk. I have almost stopped noticing the gentle rocking of the ship, the creaking of timber, the hundred other noises that belong to the sea. Losing track of time, I forge on, sentence by sentence, absorbed in the words before me as my hand copies them to a fresh paper, transforming the curlicues and spirals of the Coptic letters into robust Latin. Frequently I have to pause, take a deep breath, collect myself. These words could be more volatile than all the powder and shot stored in the holds of all these ships put together.
My thoughts are disturbed by a sharp knock on the door. I look up with a start; it must be a visitor for Drake. I have been so absorbed in the book that I have no idea whether the guards are still outside. Shoulders tensed, I turn the paper face down, grasp the handle of my knife and call ‘Come!’
The door opens a crack to reveal a man who could be one of my countrymen. His hair is black and curls to his shoulders, his face is tanned a deep olive brown and his eyes are so dark it is hard to tell where the pupil begins and ends. He wears a gold ring in each ear and his beard is unevenly trimmed. Between his cupped hands he carries a covered pewter tankard. Wisps of steam drift from beneath the lid. His expression when he looks at me is wary, more so when his eyes flit to my hand on my dagger. I remain still, watching him.
‘Captain Drake tell me I bring you this,’ he says indifferently, indicating the tankard. He speaks English with a thick accent. This can only be Jonas, the former prisoner now elevated to the status of translator.
‘¿Qué es?’ I ask, pointing at the tankard.
‘¿Usted habla español?’ His face relaxes a little and he steps forward, though his eyes are still fixed on the knife. I let go of it and gesture to him to come in. He closes the door and holds the tankard up, explaining in Spanish that he has made an infusion of herbs beneficial for settling the stomach. ‘Para el mareo,’ he adds, with an encouraging nod. I am about to explain that I am not seasick, when it occurs to me that this must be a ruse of Drake’s, to give me a chance to talk to the Spaniard in private.
‘You know about medicine?’ I ask, in Spanish.
He shrugs. ‘My mother was a gypsy. She taught me how to use herbs for healing. I know a little of poultices and infusions. Enough to be of use to men at sea.’ He gives a diffident smile and lifts the hinged lid of the tankard; steam gusts out, with a strong scent of fennel and something else, a sickly-sweet tang I can’t place. I think of the two mugs in Robert Dunne’s cabin, the smell of spices, the reports of his strange, wild drunkenness, and my hand freezes in the act of reaching for the tankard. This man was in Dunne’s cabin the night he died, was quite possibly the last person to see him alive, and he may already know that Sidney and I have looked through the dead man’s belongings. I glance down at his woollen jerkin. The buttons are all made of wood, and intact. Even so, perhaps I would be wise not to touch whatever is in this mug.
I smile nonetheless and take it from his outstretched hand, inhaling the steam.
‘It’s good,’ he says, seeing my hesitation. ‘Everyone asks me for this when we are at sea, trust me. I am Jonas,’ he adds, with a little bow.
‘Giordano Bruno of Nola.’
‘I know.’ His eyes stray over my shoulder to the wide table behind me, where the manuscript and my notes lie spread out in full sight. ‘You are making a translation of the book?’
I follow the direction of his gaze. ‘Yes. Where are you from?’
‘Cadiz, once. But I have been at sea since I was a boy.’ He pauses; that same half-smile again. ‘I have never felt at home anywhere on dry land.’
‘But you feel at home on an English ship?’
He does not miss the sceptical tone and immediately his face closes up; I have impugned his loyalty, to his country, or to Drake, or both, and he is offended. ‘Do you?’
‘I would not claim to feel at home on any ship. But for now I have no choice.’
‘No more do I,’ he says meaningfully. He sighs and folds his arms across his chest. ‘Ah, I know what you think. They all think the same. El Draco – he captured my ship, insulted my motherland, stole everything. Why would I stay with him, if I am a true Spaniard, if not to betray him? I see how they watch me. They think I spy for my country, for King Philip. You are thinking the same. But I tell you this, Italian.’ He looks away to the window, as if he doesn’t care either way. ‘If there is a spy on this ship, it is not me.’
The strangeness of this remark does not escape me.
‘There are enough men in this fleet who know of Captain Drake’s plans for the Spanish Main,’ he continues. He points through the window to the town. ‘Plymouth crawls with merchants and traders from Europe, the harbour is full of their ships. Yet if letters find their way into Spanish hands, all eyes will fall on me.’ He keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the window, his voice low. ‘To be a foreigner among Englishmen is always to be guilty of something. The crime itself doesn’t matter. You understand this, perhaps?’
I nod with feeling, recalling my brush with English justice last summer. ‘In London, barely a day passes when I am not called a filthy Spanish dog.’
He laughs. ‘Take it as a compliment, my friend, to be thought a Spaniard.’
‘Why do you stay with him, then?’ I ask, sensing that his guard has relaxed a little.
‘That first voyage, when he captured the Santa Maria, he kept me with him because I knew the waters of the Spanish Main, and I can translate. He needs me to negotiate with the Spanish.’
‘I heard he negotiates with a sword.’
He waves this aside. ‘These are stories told by the Spanish. We are fond of exaggeration. Like you Italians, in my experience.’
I acknowledge the truth of this with a smile.
‘El Draco is courteous, though it suits my countrymen to say otherwise. When he took my ship,
he put her crew in the longboats and sent them home unharmed.’
‘Except for the priest,’ I say, thinking of the Doughty brothers running the frightened young Jesuit through with a sword.
‘That was not Captain Drake’s doing,’ Jonas says, with some ferocity. ‘The Spanish claim he cuts off the hands of prisoners. I never saw any such thing. I had better treatment from him in one voyage than I ever had from a Spanish captain in all my years at sea. Consider – I was a prisoner, but at the end of the voyage he paid me as one of his crew. So.’ He shrugs. ‘I stayed in England. There was nothing left for me in Spain.’
And Drake had paid you for switching your loyalties with money stolen from Spanish ships, I think, watching him. No wonder you couldn’t go back. But I can’t help questioning how deep this new loyalty runs. There is something in Jonas that strikes a chord with me; I recognise myself in him, and not just because we look alike. In his eyes I see the same restlessness, the hunted look of the exile, the man who knows he has nowhere truly to call home. For the present, it seems he has thrown his lot in with Drake, but I know well how easy it is to deceive with appearances. I am trying to think of a way to broach the subject of Robert Dunne without making him suspicious, when he unfolds his arms and points to the tankard.
‘You need to drink while it’s hot. Otherwise it’s not so beneficial.’
‘I prefer to wait for it to cool a little.’
He watches me in silence, then lets out a sudden laugh. ‘You don’t trust me, huh? Even you – you think, what is he making me drink, this Spaniard? Perhaps he means to poison us all one by one, in the name of King Philip?’ He shakes his head, still laughing, but there is a bitter twist to it. ‘If I were going to poison anyone for Spain, would I not start with El Draco? He is the one with the twenty thousand ducat reward on his head, not you.’
Jonas takes the tankard from my hand and drinks a long swig of the steaming concoction before calmly handing it back to me and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. When I see that he has swallowed it, I feel I have no choice but to follow suit. It tastes woody, with a strange sweet aftertaste that makes me wince.
‘See? No one has died.’ He grins. ‘Yet.’
‘I apologise. I meant no offence. Another death aboard this ship would certainly seem like a bad omen.’
He gives me a sharp look. ‘A bad omen? Yes, that is how they speak of it. Poor Robert. God rest his soul.’
‘You were friends?’
Again, that sideways glance, as if he knows I have an ulterior motive. ‘We were shipmates for nearly three years when we sailed around the world. He was a good man. You don’t expect—’ He throws his hands up in a sudden, savage movement. I sense that there is some emotion at play here that he is doing his best to hide, though he lacks the practice of the English in that regard.
‘Did you speak to him before he died?’
‘Why do you want to know this?’ His eyes narrow to dark slits. Where Gilbert Crosse couldn’t wait to spill his suspicions, this man is unusually sensitive to intrusive questions.
‘Only that it is all people are talking about since we arrived.’ I try to sound casual.
‘And what are they saying?’
‘That everyone finds his suicide unexpected.’
‘Yes. It was surprising.’ The bitter edge infects his voice again, or perhaps it is sarcasm.
‘Because he didn’t seem like a man who would take his own life?’
‘I would not have said so. But who knows what passes in another man’s thoughts. You should finish your drink,’ he says, pointing. ‘They say the wind will freshen tonight, there will be more of a swell. You will thank me then. Although the wind will do us no good if we cannot sail.’
Reluctantly, I take another sip under his watchful eye, and try again.
‘I heard Robert Dunne was very drunk the night he died. In drink, sometimes one is overtaken by melancholy. Perhaps he just . . .’ I mime a snapping motion.
He takes a step forward, eyes flashing, but he speaks quietly. ‘You know nothing of it. Don’t judge a man you never met because some people on this ship amuse themselves by gossiping like laundrywomen.’
‘I am sorry. I only meant—’
He exhales, and his temper subsides. It is hard to tell if he is angered by my questions because they are impertinent, or because he does not want to discuss the subject. ‘Yes, I saw him that night. Thomas Drake found me and asked me to make something for Robert. He said he had been drinking hard and seemed out of control. I took an infusion, a purgative, to his cabin but there was no reply.’
‘Was he . . .?’
‘No. Not at that point. The door was not locked so I went in. He was face down on his bed, passed out. I didn’t like to wake him so I took the cup away again. But I should not have left him.’ He presses his lips together and lowers his eyes to the floor.
The Spaniard is giving a plausible impression of someone distressed by the sudden death of a shipmate, but I can’t shake the feeling that he is keeping something to himself. Understandably; we have only just met, after all, and the fact that I can speak to him in his own language is not grounds enough to trust me yet. Even so, Jonas’s story does not tally with Gilbert’s; it would take only a moment to see that Dunne was unconscious on the bed and leave the cabin. But Gilbert said that the Spaniard stayed in there for some time. One of them is lying.
‘You could not have known,’ I say, trying to sound sympathetic. ‘He must have woken in the night and decided on an impulse.’
‘Well, it does no good to wonder now,’ he says, his voice brisk. ‘He is gone and we must bend our minds to the times ahead.’ A shadow passes across his face. ‘War is coming. Only a fool could ignore it. Whatever we do on this voyage will be regarded as an act of war by King Philip. So we had better make sure we succeed.’ His fists are clenched, his jaw tight. We, I think.
‘Will you fight with the English, when the war comes?’
He tilts his chin and gives me a long look. ‘You find it hard to believe? Let me ask you something – why are you not at home in your own country, Giordano Bruno?’
‘I am not welcome there at present.’
‘Well, then. You should understand that the business of loyalty is sometimes complicated. Do you consider yourself an Englishman now? Who would you choose, if you had to, between this English queen and your countrymen?’
‘England is not at war with Italy.’
‘She is at war with the Pope.’
‘I suppose I would say that my enemy’s enemy becomes my friend.’
He nods. ‘Exactly. A man may learn to love a country that is not his own, if his own rejects him.’
I want to ask why he feels Spain has rejected him, but fear if I intrude too far he will clam up. ‘Despite the weather,’ I say instead, looking at the banks of grey cloud through the window.
He smiles, an unexpected flash of white in his tanned face. Unlike most sailors, he still has most of his own teeth. ‘True. I will never learn to love the English rain. But soon, God willing, we will feel Spanish sun on our backs.’ He gestures towards the table. ‘So, what does it say?’
‘What?’
‘The manuscript, of course. That is the book that was taken from the Santa Maria when I sailed with her, no? The book that Padre Bartolomeo died to protect.’ His tone when he speaks of the dead priest is respectful, but curiosity burns in his eyes.
‘Did he tell you anything about it?’
Jonas shakes his head. ‘We did not even know he had brought it aboard until he was killed. But he was a strange one. A priest who acted as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.’
‘Captain Drake said that, when the ship was boarded, he was heard crying out to God for forgiveness,’ I say, careful to tread gently.
‘Does not everyone who fears he is about to die?’
‘In particular, Drake said, he begged forgiveness for bringing the wrath of God on the ship,’ I persist. ‘Did he mean the book?’
&
nbsp; Jonas does not reply, only looks at me as if trying to read my face, until his mouth curves into a sly smile. ‘You tell me. No one has been able to read it until now.’ When I do not respond, the smile fades. ‘It is valuable, no?’
‘I don’t know.’ I keep my voice flat. ‘Captain Drake told me Robert Dunne tried to persuade him to sell it. A friend of his, a book dealer, was keen to buy it.’
Something chases across the Spaniard’s face, but he quickly masters it and shrugs. ‘I don’t know what they spoke about in private. I did not even know Captain Drake had it with him on board.’ His eyes stray to the manuscript again with renewed interest. I feel an urge to cover it with my arms, to protect it, even though I know he can’t read it.
‘I should get back to work,’ I say. ‘Thank you for this.’ I hand back the tankard. He looks disappointed when he sees how little I have drunk.
‘You should thank Captain Drake,’ he says. ‘It was his idea. I just do as he asks.’
‘Where do you keep your herbs?’ I ask, as a thought occurs.
He frowns. ‘In my quarters. Why do you ask?’
‘Are they locked away?’
‘Why, are you planning to steal some?’ He laughs, but it peters out as he catches my face. ‘Yes, I keep them in a box with a lock, under my bunk. I think they are quite safe there. Bunches of dried herbs are no good unless you know what they are and how to use them. I ask you again – why do you want to know?’
And does somebody on this ship know how to identify herbs and use them? Robert Dunne had a drink with a companion in his cabin the night he died. He was later reported to be wildly drunk, to the point of hallucinating; did that person slip something into his drink before he left the ship – some substance that might have ensured he would be in no fit state to fight off his killer? I do not say any of this aloud, because the most obvious suspect is Jonas himself.
‘I only wondered – are there any that could be dangerous? If taken in the wrong quantities, I mean?’
‘Any medicine can be dangerous in the wrong quantity. That is why not everyone has the skill to use them. But if you are asking, could a man do himself harm by taking my herbs, I suppose the answer is yes. It is a strange question, Giordano Bruno. It makes me think you still believe I mean to poison somebody.’ He says this with a half-smile, but he watches me keenly with eyes of stone.
