by S. J. Parris
‘Do you come from Plymouth, Hetty?’
‘Stonehouse, sir. The next village, across the headland.’
‘Have you heard of a place called the House of Vesta?’
She looks at me with a superior smile. ‘Everyone’s heard of it, sir. But you don’t want to go there, not if you value your purse.’ She rubs her thumb and forefinger together.
‘Is that so? And what do they offer there that is so costly?’
‘Girls.’ She says this as if it should be obvious.
‘But those can be found all over Plymouth at a cheaper price, surely?’
She shrugs. ‘The House of Vesta’s for them with money to spare. The girls are young there. Clean, if you know what I mean. They say it’s the one place in Plymouth you can be sure your parts won’t drop off within the week. Sorry.’ She claps a hand to her mouth and giggles. ‘That’s why only the better sort of gentlemen go there. Those that are willing to pay the price for peace of mind. The rest have to make do with it up against a wall by the dock and take their chances.’ She sniffs.
‘That is useful to know. And where is it?’ I focus on the letter as I ask, turning it over to consider the seal as if it is the most interesting thing I have laid eyes on in many months, but my pretence at nonchalance quite rightly draws a derisory laugh from her.
‘Well, now, sir. I don’t know exactly. I believe it’s kept secret.’ The tilt of her head suggests it is a secret that might be available to interested buyers.
‘Wait there.’ I push the door ajar and grab my purse from the bed. Lady Arden sends me a complicit smile from the corner where she is lurking, out of sight. I motion to her to stay there.
‘Here.’ I draw out a groat for the serving girl and she looks at it, somewhat disappointed. ‘It is all I have.’
‘I heard the entrance is somewhere off Looe Street. Look for the apothecary’s sign.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, closing the door. ‘Good night.’
‘You can’t just walk in there off the street,’ Hetty continues, tucking the coin somewhere in the folds of her skirts. ‘You have to have an invitation. Know someone. Besides, it’s a long way to walk this time of night.’ She pauses for a beat. ‘Mistress Judith understands that. She doesn’t like to think of gentlemen being lonely of an evening.’
I pause at the half-closed door. ‘Mistress Judith is a true Christian.’
‘So, if you do want company, that is something she could arrange, if you’d like me to speak to her.’
‘Ah. So it is not the morality she objects to, merely the revenue?’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. Thank you again.’
I close the door gently in her face and wait until I hear her footsteps padding down the corridor. Lady Arden watches me over the top of her glass, eyes alight with mischief.
‘Everyone is concerned about you being lonely tonight, Bruno.’
‘Yes, I am touched.’
‘Is she the company, do you think?’ She jerks her head at the door. ‘She looks like she’d do it for a glass of porter. I wouldn’t vouch for her cleanliness though.’
I respond with a brief, distracted smile; my attention is on the letter. Fra Giordano Bruno, it says on the front. I have not been addressed as Frater since I left holy orders; I glance at the door with a prickle of goosebumps on my arms. It is no secret that I was once a monk, but who here in Plymouth would know that, or address me as such? Only the men I have met aboard the Elizabeth. I turn the letter and break the plain red seal. There is just one line of text, written in block capitals in a neat, square hand.
I read it twice, pass a hand across my chin, blink hard and read it again to be sure I have understood the meaning, then snatch up my own black wool doublet from the rack in front of the fire, brush the salt from it, and open the door.
‘Wait – where are you going?’ Lady Arden cries as I rush out, almost slipping on the bare boards in my haste. ‘Is it bad news?’
‘Sorry,’ I call over my shoulder on my way to the back staircase. ‘Something urgent. No need to wait.’
One floor below, I crash into the room without knocking. As I guessed, Sidney is in full flow: back arched, chest forward, one hand flung out for dramatic effect. Lady Drake sits demurely on a stool by the fire, hands folded in her lap, gazing up at him with an expression somewhere between admiration and boredom as he declaims. He stops abruptly, mid-sonnet, and gives me a look that says he means to kill me later.
‘Bruno! What are you thinking, man – do you not have the courtesy to knock?’
‘I need to speak to you. Now – come with me. Forgive the intrusion, my lady.’
Elizabeth Drake regards my flustered appearance with equanimity. An amused smile hovers on her lips.
‘Sir Philip was just reciting some of his poetry,’ she says, though the explanation is hardly needed. ‘I fear he had not quite finished.’
‘My Lady Drake was kind enough to request it,’ Sidney says, defensive.
‘There are a hundred and eight sonnets in this sequence, my lady,’ I say, turning to her. ‘I can save you the trouble of hearing them: Stella rejects him and stays with her husband, Astrophel is sad, The End.’
She laughs. ‘Is that it? No one dies?’
‘They may yet,’ Sidney mutters through clenched teeth, glaring at me. But he does not resist as I drag him to the door, where we collide with Lady Arden. I nod in passing as I push by her; Sidney pauses for a brief bow. She says nothing, only sends me a wounded look as she closes the chamber door behind her.
‘You had better have good reason for this, Bruno,’ Sidney says, as he thunders down the next flight of stairs to the entrance hall. ‘She was—’
‘What?’ I pause in the curve of the stairwell and turn to him. ‘About to fall into your arms? Was that your intention? Good work if so, Philip – write poems declaring your unrequited love for one man’s wife and use them to seduce another’s.’
‘Keep your voice down! God, Bruno, your moralising grows tiresome – anyone would think you were still a monk.’
‘If I were still a monk, I would have no moral scruple at all,’ I say, but he is not listening.
‘Seduce is an ugly word,’ he continues, eyes bright with anger. ‘You know nothing of courtly manners – why would you? It is not seduction to pay chaste court to a beautiful woman, it is an honourable tradition handed down from the time of King Arthur—’
‘—yes, yes. But this is 1585 and you are not Sir Galahad. We have more important matters to occupy us. Look – this was just delivered to me by the serving girl.’
I hold out the paper. He reads both sides and looks at me. Below us, people mill about in the entrance hall on their way to the tap-room. I scan the shifting mass for a glimpse of a man in a black cap, but there is no sign.
‘I don’t understand,’ Sidney says, turning the paper over twice more, as if this will help.
‘It’s Latin.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Yes, I can read the words, obviously. But not the meaning. Who would send you this? And why?’
‘Look at the seal.’
He fits the broken halves together and frowns. ‘The same image as that token we found in Dunne’s cabin. What is it?’
‘Do you recall what Savile said in the boat, when you asked him where to go in Plymouth? He made an allusion to the sacred flame – he meant the House of Vesta. I would wager anything this is its secret symbol. You said you’d heard Dunne was a regular.’
‘The sacred fire of the goddess.’ He nods, running his finger over the seal. ‘But that still doesn’t explain the message.’
I sigh, and continue on down the stairs. ‘Come on. I’ll explain on the way.’
‘You want to go there now?’ He stops again and lets out a short bark of laughter. ‘You are extraordinary, Bruno. You upbraid me for merely reading poems to a woman of quality in her chamber, then merrily drag me off to a whorehouse instead?’
‘Keep your voice down – do you wan
t the whole inn to know where we are going?’
He makes an irritable noise and follows me down, the silk of his breeches rustling as he walks like the sighing of poets. ‘Well, this is an odd turn of events. Who do you suppose sent the letter?’
‘I don’t know. But there is an obvious connection with Robert Dunne, which someone wants to bring to our attention. Do you still have that token with you?’
‘In my purse.’ He pats the bulge at his hip beneath his jacket. ‘You realise it is likely a trap?’
‘Most probably. But if so, there must be answers to be found. We will have to be on our guard, that’s all.’
He exhales with an exasperated noise as we push our way through the main door and into the night air. I turn, checking the street in both directions, but see only the usual straggle of men, arms slung around one another’s shoulders, singing sea shanties. But eyes are watching us from the shadows; I am sure of it.
The wind is still high; a thin mist of drizzle eddies about us, settling like a silver veil on our hair and clothes. Overhead the clouds chase each other across the sky and out to sea, brushstrokes of lead-grey against the darkening sky.
‘The letter, then,’ Sidney says, as we set off uphill between limewashed houses. ‘What’s the connection with Dunne?’
‘You recognise the quotation?’
‘“Vexilla regis prodeunt Inferni.”’ He mouths the single line of the anonymous letter, enunciating each syllable as if this might render the author’s meaning clearer. ‘“The banners of the King of Hell advance.”’ He considers for a moment, screwing up his face as he ransacks his well-stocked memory.
‘Come on, Philip, you are supposed to be versed in literature. One of the few Englishmen who claims to know the poetry of my country, at any rate.’
He turns to me, light dawning in his eyes. ‘Dante! Is it?’
‘Exactly. But do you remember where it comes from?’
He shakes his head, blank. ‘From the Inferno, though I can’t give you the Canto.’
‘It is the opening line of Canto Thirty-Four,’ I say, as we come to a fork in the roads. ‘We’re looking for Looe Street. Which way?’
‘No idea.’ He hails a brace of men, the worse for drink, weaving towards us, their lurching steps seemingly in perfect time with one another. ‘I say, gentlemen – which way to Looe Street?’
The question is met with a chorus of guffaws and brutal upward gestures with their fists. ‘Gentlemen!’ squawks one, and his companion does a brief mime of what I can only guess is supposed to be copulation. But the first gives us broadly comprehensible directions while the second squints to eye Sidney in his finery with an appraising look I do not care for; almost certainly his befuddled brain is reckoning how much a man dressed like that might carry in his purse. Sidney evidently senses it too, because his hand strays to the hilt of his sword and the man takes a rolling step back as we continue down the street to our left, glancing behind us from time to time as we go. ‘Good luck with it, mate,’ one of the men calls out, when we are almost out of sight. ‘You’ll need it.’
‘I can’t say I like this, Bruno,’ Sidney says in a low voice as the shadows between the houses grow denser. ‘What did the fellow mean by that?’
‘He meant nothing, except to set us on edge,’ I say, striding on, determined not to be dissuaded.
There are fewer people in this side street; as it curves around to the right it seems deserted, though the sound of voices and dogs barking carries through the damp air. We walk in the middle of the road, in case anyone is hovering in the shadows of doorways or the gaps between buildings. Sidney keeps his hand on his sword. Rivulets of filthy water trickle down the gutters at either side. The salt wind does not whip away the smell of refuse and rotting vegetables. ‘Explain, then.’
‘Canto Thirty-Four of Dante’s Inferno is where he reaches the very centre of Hell. The circle of the Traitors, reserved for the worst sinners in all of history. And who does he find there?’
‘Judas Iscariot,’ Sidney whispers, his eyes widening in recognition. ‘But why …?’
‘I don’t know. Whoever is sending these letters is taunting us – first Drake, now me – over the Judas book. It must be the same person.’
‘But who would bother to taunt you? Unless he is someone who knows you and suspects you may be involved with the book.’
‘Which brings us back to Rowland Jenkes. He sends me a quotation from an Italian poet, just to show he knows me. He is here, I am certain of it, watching us. Damn him!’
Sidney lays a warning hand on my arm; I have raised my voice without noticing. I look around, but there is no one to hear.
‘We are certain of nothing yet, except that you have dragged me from a warm room and good company.’ He straightens his hat and glances over his shoulder once more. ‘So what do you propose? We march in and demand to know who has been sending anonymous letters?’
‘I propose we do it a little more cleverly than that. The girls may know something. If Dunne was a regular he may have had a favourite. Men sometimes whisper their secrets into the pillow when their guard is down.’
Sidney regards me with a half-smile. ‘What would you know of that? I don’t believe you have ever let your guard down, Bruno, not even in the throes of it.’
He is wrong, but I say nothing.
‘You do realise we’ll have to pay, don’t you?’ he complains, a hand straying to his purse. ‘You can’t expect a whore to give up her time for nothing to answer questions, not even if you do your big melancholy eyes at her like a lost dog.’
‘A lost dog?’ I say, but he points ahead of us to a crooked timber-framed house of four storeys, each overhanging the one below as if it might topple forward under its own weight. Suspended over the front door from two creaking chains is a sign depicting the rod of Asclepius, the sign favoured by apothecaries. The shop on the ground floor is closed up for the night with thick shutters. I crane my neck to see the upper storeys. Splinters of light show through gaps in the curtained windows. Beside the apothecary’s door is an archway leading to a dark passageway. Sidney steps closer and examines the posts on either side of the entrance. ‘Look here! This must be it,’ he whispers, indicating a small image carved into the wood. It shows a torch topped with a tongue of flame, identical to the seal.
I follow him along the passage. Even I have to stoop; it is an old house, built in an age when men were smaller, or hunchbacked. Sidney is bent almost double, cursing each time he knocks his head on a low beam. We straighten up into a small courtyard at the back of the house, sunk in shadow from the high buildings on all sides. Laughter erupts from somewhere overhead, sudden and staccato.
At the top of three worn steps is a door with a shuttered grille at head height and an iron knocker set above the latch. Sidney reaches towards it.
‘Hold on.’ I stop and draw back out of sight of the window, unbuckling my belt.
‘Control yourself, Bruno – at least wait until we’re inside.’
I ignore him. I remove my knife in its sheath and slip it into my boot before buckling the belt again. I gesture to his dagger. ‘Conceal that if you can. They will have your sword from you at the door, but they are expecting us. We should be prepared.’
‘It was her idea to leave,’ he remarks, as he follows my example and tucks his short dagger inside his boot, leaving his sword buckled. ‘Nell Arden, I mean. It was she who suggested she wait for you in our chamber. None of my doing.’
‘And you didn’t think to point out to her how that would look? For all of us?’
‘I thought you might be grateful for the opportunity. It’s been a while.’ He lifts the iron ring on the door and bangs it three times, turning to smirk as he does so.
‘How would you know? Don’t imagine you are privy to every part of my life.’ I push a hand through my hair.
‘All right, don’t bite. But hasn’t it? You will not countenance another woman since she left, as far as I can see, and you say you don’t
visit whores, so I can’t imagine where—’
‘Perhaps you know nothing about it. Perhaps I consider some things to be private.’ I hear the petulance in my voice. I am spiky because he is right, but I will not acknowledge this. Although his grin suggests he realises it already.
He breaks off his reply as the shutter behind the grille is drawn back and a woman’s face appears in the opening.
‘May I help you, gentlemen?’ Her voice is unexpectedly refined. Sidney immediately sweeps off his hat and executes a professionally charming bow.
‘Good evening, mistress. We were hoping for a drink and good company.’
The woman appears unmoved. ‘Perhaps you have mistaken this house for some kind of inn, sir. I run a home for orphaned girls here.’
Sidney laughs. ‘Is that so? But I do not believe I am mistaken. Are you, perhaps, the Vestalium Maxima? The high priestess of the Vestals?’ He offers another gracious smile, and she concedes the reference by returning it, briefly.
‘Do I know you, sir?’
‘Not yet.’ He beams, and produces the silver token from his purse, holding it up to the light. She glances at it and nods.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘From a friend. He said we should—’
‘Which friend?’ Her sharp eyes flick from Sidney to me and back, sizing up our garments, our faces, the likely size of our purses.
‘Robert Dunne,’ I say, before Sidney can answer.
Her expression changes, though it is not clear whether my gamble has worked.
‘I see.’ She presses her red lips together. The bars of the grille divide her face into its constituent parts; it is hard to form an impression of the whole. ‘What did you say your names were?’
‘My name is Giordano Bruno,’ I say, enunciating carefully, watching for a flicker of recognition from her. She studies me, impassive, before the shutter slides closed with a sharp crack of wood on wood.
