by S. J. Parris
I throw on my clothes, tame my hair as best I can, and follow Sidney down to the entrance hall a few moments later. Over the banister I can see him talking to a man who wears the green and white Tudor livery, though he is spattered head to foot with mud. His coat is sewn with a gold badge which I recognise, as I draw closer, as the crest of Queen Elizabeth. Sidney, when he turns to me, is as pale as if he were seasick.
‘This messenger has come from the court. Ridden almost without stopping, he says. To give me this.’ He holds up a letter on creamy paper, sealed in thick crimson wax. The messenger stands patiently, eyes lowered and hands folded, while Sidney rips it open. I watch his gaze travel over the lines inside, his face growing taut with fury as he comprehends its meaning. He turns to me, his eyes burning.
‘Duplicitous bastard!’ he spits, turning on the unfortunate messenger, who takes a step back.
‘What is it, Philip?’ I ask, though I think I can guess.
‘See for yourself,’ he snaps, thrusting the letter into my hand and storming out of the door, leaving it banging in his wake.
I know where I will find him. I limp after him along Nutt Street but his anger has driven him faster than I can walk with my present injuries; he is already far ahead of me by the time I have skimmed the letter, tipped the poor messenger and asked Mistress Judith to give him something to eat and drink. I understand my friend’s fury, but not his surprise. Did he really believe the Captain-General would take him to the other side of the world, knowing he did not have the Queen’s permission to leave England? Drake must have dispatched a messenger the day we arrived; he realised immediately that no amount of Spanish gold would compensate Queen Elizabeth for such flagrant disobedience. From the minute Sidney announced his intention to travel with the fleet, he was a liability to Drake. I have to admire the smoothness of the Captain-General’s deception; the promises he has held out to us over these past days – promises that ensured our ongoing help with his situation – all the while knowing his messenger was tearing up the road towards the court, ready to unleash the Queen’s fury.
I glance down at the letter in my hand as I approach the Mayor’s front door. It is curious to think of Elizabeth Tudor writing this in her own hand, barely able to contain her indignation as she dips her quill. The writing is bold and swooping, with long tails and loops, the signature underscored with curlicues. It is a confident hand, but the quill has been pressed so hard to the page that the ink has spattered and blotched in places. This is a letter that expresses its depth of feeling in its imperfections, a letter written in the heat of sovereign anger. She absolutely forbids Sidney to sail with Drake, on pain of withdrawing patronage from both of them. If he leaves court now, she tells him, he had better not bother to return. He is to be on the road the day he receives this letter, without delay, and bring Dom Antonio directly to court as promised. She is calling her puppy to heel, snapping her fingers to watch him come running. And he has no choice. No wonder he is boiling. I only hope I have arrived in time to stop him throwing a punch at Drake; I have a feeling Sidney would come off worse.
I might be entitled to feel deceived too, I think, as I wait for my knock to be answered. I have put my life in danger to help Drake this past week, for a promised reward that he knew all along he had no intention of giving. True, I did it for Sidney’s sake, and for Lady Arden’s, but it is hard to escape the feeling that Drake has made use of us.
I can hear raised voices as I am shown along a passage to the parlour we visited yesterday. But before the maid reaches the door, we are intercepted by Lady Drake, who puts a finger to her lips, slips her arm through mine and leads me through the house to the garden door, despite my protests.
‘Better you leave them to sort out their differences,’ she whispers, nodding back to the parlour, where Sidney’s aggrieved tone competes with Drake’s lower, mollifying cadences. I cannot make out their words, but I hardly need to. ‘Sir Philip is very angry, isn’t he?’ she adds. ‘Poor thing. I know how much he wanted this adventure. But on the whole, my husband does better to upset him than the Queen, don’t you think? Besides, he may not be so furious when he hears what my husband proposes instead.’ She leans closer, as if to impart a great secret, and giggles, a hand pressed to her lips. There is a girlish quality about Lady Drake, I think, as I bend my head to play along, which some men would find alluring, though I have always preferred the sort of woman who is unafraid to look a man in the eye as one adult to another. ‘He thinks you and Sir Philip and Dom Antonio should be our guests for a few days at Buckland Abbey, before you leave for London.’
‘Sir Francis is not staying in Plymouth?’
She shakes her head, impatient. ‘Of course he is. Once he has seen Jonas buried, he is anxious to set sail as soon as possible, but first he wants me and my cousin away from Plymouth. We are to return home tomorrow, in your company, if Sir Philip is agreeable. I think we could make your stay a pleasant one.’ She pauses for a knowing smile. ‘But for now, Bruno, I think it would do you good to take the air,’ she adds, propelling me out into the courtyard.
I see Nell sitting on a bench in the shade of an apple tree, affecting to read a book. She does not raise her eyes until the last moment, when she feigns surprise and shyness at my arrival. Her hair is bound up and dressed in a narrow French hood to disguise the damage done by the fire, and she wears a silk scarf around her throat to cover the bruises left by the rope. Though she is pale, the cuts on her face are less prominent and her eyes have regained something of their sparkle. There is a new awkwardness between us as she places her book carefully beside her and offers me a tentative smile, though her eyes grow wide at the sight of my new injuries.
I make a small bow. ‘My lady. You are looking rested. How are you feeling?’
‘I look hideous, Bruno, there is no need to lie about it,’ she says, gingerly touching the cut on her cheek. ‘And you have looked better yourself, if we are being truthful. But bruises will mend, and we are alive, thank God.’ She laughs, though I can see it still pains her to swallow. ‘Sir Francis says you were extremely brave and caught the killer.’
I offer a modest shrug. ‘He gave himself away, really. Poor boy.’
She arches an eyebrow. ‘How can you pity him? He will be executed as a traitor, Sir Francis says.’ She gives a delicate shudder. I have the impression she rather relishes the prospect. I can only assume she has never witnessed a traitor’s execution.
‘He will probably die of fright before they get him near the Tower.’ I take a seat on the bench beside her. Gilbert knew that what he did was treason, even before he committed murder for it, and he would have understood the penalty: the slow journey to Tyburn on the hurdle, the sight of the gallows and, beside it, the scaffold with the butcher’s block and the brazier, where you would be laid after choking a few minutes at the end of the rope, to have your genitals cut off, your torso slit open from throat to navel, your entrails unwound on a stick before your eyes and your heart cut out and thrown into the fire. Anyone who has watched such an execution can never scrub those images from his memory; with that end in mind, you would need a compelling reason to betray your country.
I still do not understand what drove Gilbert. He had none of the traits of a religious fanatic, that I could see. Quite the opposite: he considered himself a man of science, so I thought, but some of these young converts learn to hide it well. Perhaps we would never know, unless he spoke up in the Tower. I wince at the thought.
Nell reaches over and eases her hand across mine. I find myself twining my fingers with hers, though it is hard to drag my mind away from images of what awaits Gilbert once he is taken to London.
‘But you are not too distraught at being forbidden to sail with Sir Francis?’ She says this with a knowing look.
‘I can stomach the disappointment. But Sidney is livid. He is young – he longs for adventure.’
‘And you?’
‘Not so young any more. As for adventure – I do not seek it out, but
it seems to follow me regardless. I don’t need to cross an ocean to find it.’
‘So I have learned,’ she says, touching the scarf at her throat. She traces small patterns on the back of my hand with her fingertips. Goosebumps rise on my skin. ‘Bruno …’ she begins, hesitant. ‘There in the crypt, when we thought … I spoke a little recklessly, I fear. I pushed you to say something you did not mean.’
‘My lady, Nell …’ I say, though I am not sure how to continue.
‘Come, Bruno, let us at least be frank with one another. You do not love me – you barely know me, nor I you. I like your company, better than I have any man’s for a long while. That night, I imagined that if we survived I might be bold enough to defy every convention, but—’ She breaks off and squeezes my arm, her expression full of regret. ‘I am not so green that I can forget the distance between us.’
I nod. An unexpected sadness swells in my throat; not at the loss of her so much as at the reminder that this is how it will always turn out for me. I have learned, to my cost, that to love someone means lowering my defences, and in a life like mine I cannot afford to do that.
She leans her head against my shoulder. ‘I wish it could be otherwise, Bruno. I curse the obligations of rank sometimes, but there it is. In another life, you would have been the sort of man I looked for. But since I am not free to choose, I think for the present I am happier with no husband. Perhaps neither one of us is made for marriage, eh?’ She smiles. ‘Though I must confess I would have loved to see my family’s faces if I introduced you as my betrothed. Especially Cousin Edgar the boar. They would be lost for words.’
‘I think,’ I say carefully, ‘that if I were ever to marry, I would want it to be for a more substantial reason than to scandalise someone’s relatives.’
‘True,’ she says, with a sigh. ‘Although it would have been fun.’ She runs a hand along my thigh. I glance up at the house, conscious that the Mayor’s household may well be watching from the windows. Taking her hand, I raise it softly to my lips and replace it in her lap, though more in a spirit of regret than desire.
‘I had better see if Sidney has settled his differences with Sir Francis,’ I say, as I stand. ‘And then we must pack our bags.’
‘But Elizabeth has told you of our plan to go to Buckland?’ she says, rising and tucking a loose curl of hair into her hood. ‘Those few days, before we each go back to our own lives – perhaps there we might briefly forget the differences that separate us?’ She offers me a sly smile, a look from under her lashes that tells me exactly what she means.
‘I hope we might,’ I say, relieved. I have a sudden urge to take her in my arms and crush her mouth to mine right there, but instead I bend and place another chaste kiss on her hand. Sidney may scorn the company of women, but I have not known enough of it in my life to tire of it. A few days of softness before I must return to face my future would not hurt. As long as I remember to guard my heart.
‘I am truly sorry to see you leave, Bruno.’ Drake shields his eyes and scans the view from the Hoe. The evening sun is beginning its slow slide towards the horizon, leaving a wash of coral and gold in the sky. Over the surface of the water, bands of shadow shift with the movement of the clouds, changing its colour in a restless patchwork. Small waves crest in white flecks around the great ships. Music drifts across the open water from their decks, the lilt of flutes and viols. On St Nicholas Island, all is still and quiet. Drake breathes deeply and rolls his shoulders back. I steal a glance at him while his attention is fixed on the horizon. The strained expression that had haunted him since we arrived has melted away; he carries himself with a new lightness, as if he has taken off a lead cloak. When he smiles, you see the genial man under the ruthless commander. I begin to feel that it would have been a worthwhile experience to sail with him.
‘As am I. When do you plan to leave?’
‘As soon as possible. I will see poor Jonas buried and Gilbert and his courier put on the road to London under armed guard. I have already sent a fast rider to Walsingham with the coded letter – he will have plenty of warning.’ He turns to me, suddenly sombre. ‘I do this with a heavy heart. People think me unfeeling, because I value discipline. A captain who does not is no captain at all, and the same goes for a ruler. But I know what awaits Gilbert, and I don’t send him to it lightly.’
‘Unsentimental is not the same as unfeeling,’ I murmur.
‘Quite. You express it better than I could.’ He sighs, and returns his gaze to the water. ‘Sir William Savile has decided not to sail with us, you know,’ he says, after a long silence.
‘He has not withdrawn his money?’
‘No, God be thanked. But now that Robert Dunne is to be buried like a Christian and his wife will be a respectable widow, he reasons it is easier to let us do the work while he stays here and bides his time until he can marry her without scandal and I bring home a healthy return on his investment. The child will be christened as Dunne’s and Savile will legally adopt it as his heir once he marries Martha. Very neat.’ He folds his arms and smiles into his chest. ‘God knows I have no great admiration for William Savile, but it may be he makes the woman a better husband than her first. Poor Robert. God rest him.’
‘And Pettifer?’ I do not quite meet his eye as I ask this.
‘Pettifer travels with me as our ship’s chaplain.’ He glances sideways at me. ‘Does that surprise you?’
‘I was mistaken in accusing him of the murders, and I am sorry for it, but everything else I told you, Sir Francis – I am convinced it is the truth. If you had seen that poor boy’s face, you would not doubt it.’
Drake holds up a hand to stop me. ‘I can believe it, Bruno – all of it. Pettifer may rail against your accusations until he is hoarse, but it is plain to see that the shock of near-discovery has frightened him. He is very contrite, and I like to think he will change his ways.’ He clasps his hands behind his back. ‘Besides, he will do less harm out to sea, away from temptation, than left here to collude with that woman. As for the House of Vesta …’ He curls his lip. ‘I have spoken at length to the Mayor about cleaning up that nest of vermin. They cannot go on believing they are above the law. I have also written to the Sheriff.’
‘What if the Mayor and the Sheriff are among her clientele? Nothing will be done. That is what she stakes her whole business on.’
‘If they are, Bruno’ – and he lays heavy emphasis on caution – ‘they will have to think carefully about which side of the law they wish to be found on. I hinted at the possibility of a Royal Commissioner coming from London to investigate if that place carries on unchecked. That ought to frighten them sufficiently. I have every confidence that by the time I return from this voyage, the House of Vesta will be no more than an old wives’ tale in Plymouth.’ He flashes me a quick smile, his gold tooth winking in the light.
I nod. No one could argue with his course of action, but I cannot help wondering what will become of those young girls if the House of Vesta closes down. Will they just find themselves selling their wares down at the docks, without even the security of food and shelter, ending their days like that poor pox-blighted girl Sara? I bite my lip; there is nothing I can do about it either way, and at least Mistress Grace would no longer profit from them.
‘So you have a few empty berths aboard the Elizabeth,’ I remark, after a while.
‘I’m afraid so. Which makes it all the greater pity that you cannot come with us. I would have liked a man of your abilities with me on the voyage.’ Drake pauses, still squinting out to sea. ‘You must feel that I have deceived you.’
‘I knew from the start that you had no intention of taking us. I tried to disabuse Sidney of the idea several times, but he would not listen. He had his mind made up.’
‘Yes, he is still not speaking to me,’ Drake says, pulling at his beard. ‘But he knows better than I how dangerous it would be to defy the Queen. He will thank me for it one day.’
‘His wife will thank you for it now. As will
Walsingham.’ I hesitate, unsure how he will respond to my next question. ‘Have you spoken to Gilbert since he was arrested?’
‘No.’ His face tenses again and his voice grows hard. ‘I considered it, but I cannot bring myself to look him in the eye. Loyalty, Bruno.’ He turns to me with a grave expression. ‘For a man in my position, it’s the prince of all virtues. All those ships, all those lives, are in my care,’ he says, pointing to the fleet peacefully dominating the Sound, the vast ships bright against the glinting water. ‘That’s why treachery like his is the hardest thing for a captain to forgive. Harder even than the murders. To think he sat at my table, eating my food, sketching our plans as I talked with my captains, and then sent every word off to the Spanish – it curdles my blood.’ He bunches his fists, then slowly releases his hands to hang at his sides. ‘It was disloyalty that brought me all the problems with the Doughty brothers, and look where that has ended.’
‘Is there any news of John Doughty and Jenkes?’
‘None yet.’ He presses his lips together. ‘I have put messengers on every vessel leaving for the French ports along this stretch of coast, warning the customs men to look out for them. Jenkes at least is conspicuous, you would hope. But if they have made it to France they will disappear like rats into the sewers, to pop up again somewhere else. John Doughty will pursue me until one of us is in our grave, I have no doubt of it.’
‘And yet, if Gilbert had not murdered Robert Dunne, then Dunne might have carried out his plan to kill you before you were even across the Bay of Biscay.’
He nods, reflective. ‘There is truth in that, I suppose. But do not ask me to be grateful to Gilbert yet.’
‘I thought I might speak to him before I leave,’ I say, quietly.
‘What for?’ His eyes narrow.
‘I want to understand why.’ And – because I know what they will do to him before he dies – to make sure he knows better than to try and hold on to his secrets.
