Treachery (2 page)

Because in your heart, my friend, he is the man you would secretly like to be, I think, though I smile to myself and say nothing. Not long ago, at court, Sidney had failed to show sufficient deference to some senior peer, who in response had called him the Queen’s puppy before a roomful of noblemen. Now, whenever Sidney walks through the galleries or the gardens at the royal palaces, he swears he can hear the sound of sarcastic yapping and whistles trailing after him. How he would love to be famed as an adventurer rather than a lapdog to Elizabeth; I could almost pity him for it. Since the beginning of the summer, when the Queen finally decided to commit English troops to support the Protestants fighting the Spanish in the Low Countries, he has barely been able to contain his excitement at the thought of going to war. His uncle, the Earl of Leicester, is to lead the army and Sidney had been given to believe he would have command of the forces garrisoned at Flushing. Then, at the last minute, the Queen havered, fearful of losing two of her favourites at once. Early in August, she withdrew the offer of Flushing and appointed another commander, insisting Sidney stay at court, in her sight. He has begged her to consider his honour, but she laughs off his entreaties as if she finds them amusing, as if he is a child who wants to play at soldiers with the bigger boys. His pride is humiliated. At thirty, he feels his best years are ebbing away while he is confined at the Queen’s whim to a woman’s world of tapestries and velvet cushions. Now she sends him as an envoy to Plymouth; it is a long way from commanding a garrison, but even this brief escape from the court aboard a galleon has made him giddy with the prospect of freedom.

I am less enthusiastic, though I am making an effort to hide this, for Sidney’s sake. Hopping from the wherry to the steps is close enough to the water for my liking, I reflect, as I falter and flail towards the rope to keep my balance. My boots slip on each step and I try not to look down to the slick brown river below. I swim well enough, but I have been in the Thames by accident once before and the smell of it could knock a man out before he strikes for shore; as to what floats beneath the surface, it is best not to stop and consider.

At the top of the steps, I stand for a moment as our boatman ties up his craft and begins to labour up the steps with our bags. Mostly Sidney’s bags, to be accurate; I have brought only one, with a few changes of linen and some writing materials. He has assured me we will not be gone longer than a fortnight, three weeks at most, as we accompany the galleon along the southern coast of England to Plymouth harbour where it – or
she
– will join the rest of Sir Francis Drake’s fleet. Yet Sidney himself seems to have packed for a voyage to the other side of the world; his servants follow us in another wherry with the remainder of his luggage. I have not remarked on this; instead I watch my friend through narrowed eyes as he hails one of the crew with a cheery hallo and engages the man in conversation. The sailor points up at the ship. Sidney is nodding earnestly, arms folded. Is he up to something, I ask myself? He has been behaving very strangely for the past few weeks, ever since his falling out with the Queen, and I know well that he does not take a blow to his pride with good grace. For the time being, though, I have no choice but to follow him.

‘Come, Bruno,’ he calls, imperious as ever, waving a lace-edged sleeve in the direction of the ship’s gangplank. I bite down a smile. Sidney thinks he has dressed down for the voyage; gone are the usual puffed sleeves and breeches, the peascod doublet that makes all Englishmen of fashion look as if they are expecting a child, but the jacket he has chosen is not much more suitable, made of ivory silk embroidered with delicate gold tracery and tiny seed pearls. His ruff, though not so extravagantly wide as usual, is starched and pristine, and on his head he wears a black velvet cap with a jewelled brooch and a peacock’s feather that dances at the back of his neck and frequently catches in his gold earring. I make bets with myself as to how long the feather will last in a sea breeze.

A gentleman descends the gangplank, his clothes marking him apart from the men loading on the dockside. He raises one hand in greeting. He appears about Sidney’s own age, with reddish hair swept back from a high forehead and an impressive beard that looks as if it has been newly curled by a barber. As he steps down on to the wharf he bows briefly to Sidney; when he lifts his head and smiles, creases appear at the corners of his eyes, giving him a genial air.

‘Welcome to the
Galleon Leicester
.’ He holds his arms wide.

‘Well met, Cousin.’ Sidney embraces him with a great deal of gusto and back-slapping. ‘Are we all set?’

‘They are bringing the last of the munitions aboard now.’ He gestures behind him to a group of sailors loading wooden crates on to the ship with a system of ropes and pulleys and much shouting. He turns to me with a brief, appraising look. ‘And you must be the Italian. Your reputation precedes you.’

He does not curl his lip in the way most Englishmen do when they encounter a foreigner, particularly one from Catholic Europe, and I like him the better for it. Perhaps a man who has sailed half the globe has a more accommodating view of other nations. I wonder which of my reputations has reached his ears. I have several.

‘Giordano Bruno of Nola, at your service, sir.’ I bow low, to show reverence for our difference in status.

Sidney lays a hand on the man’s shoulder and turns to me.

‘May I present Sir Francis Knollys, brother-in-law to my uncle the Earl of Leicester and captain of this vessel for our voyage.’

‘I am honoured, sir. It is good of you to have us aboard.’

Knollys grins. ‘I know it. I have told Philip he is not to get in the way. The last thing I need on my ship is a couple of poets, getting under our feet and puking like children at the merest swell.’ He squints up at the sky. ‘I had hoped to be away by first light. Still, the wind is fair – we can make up time once we are into the English Sea. Have you sea legs, Master Bruno, or will you have your head in a bucket all the way to Plymouth?’

‘I have a stomach of iron.’ I smile as I say it, so that he knows it may not be strictly true. I did not miss the disdain in the word ‘poets’, and nor did Sidney; I mind less, but I would rather not disgrace myself too far in front of this aristocratic sailor. Puking in a bucket is clearly, in his eyes, the surest way to cast doubt on one’s manhood.

‘Glad to hear it.’ He nods his approval. ‘I’ll have your bags brought up. Come and see your quarters. No great luxury, I’m afraid – nothing befitting the Master of the Ordnance, but it will have to suffice.’ He makes a mock bow to Sidney.

‘You may sneer, Cousin, but when we’re out in the Spanish Main facing the might of King Philip’s garrisons, you will be glad someone competent troubled themselves with organising munitions,’ Sidney says, affecting a lofty air.

‘Someone competent? Who was he?’ Knollys laughs at his own joke. ‘In any case, what is this “
we
”?’

‘What?’

‘You said, “when
we’re
out in the Spanish Main”. But you and your friend are only coming as far as Plymouth, I thought?’

Sidney sucks in his cheeks. ‘We the English, I meant. An expression of solidarity, Cousin.’

I notice he does not quite meet the other man’s eye. I watch my friend’s face and a suspicion begins to harden in the back of my mind.

Knollys leads us up the gangplank and aboard the
Leicester
. The crew turn to stare as we pass, though their hands do not falter in their tasks. I wonder what they make of us. Sidney – tall, rangy, expensively dressed, his face as bright as a boy’s, despite the recently cultivated beard, as he drinks in his new surroundings – looks no more or less than what he is, an aristocrat with a taste for adventure. In my suit of black, perhaps they take me for a chaplain.

We follow Knollys through a door beneath the aftercastle, where we are ushered into a narrow cabin, barely wide enough for the three of us to stand comfortably, with two bunks built against the dividing wall. It smells, unsurprisingly, of damp, salt, fish, seaweed. If Sidney is deterred by the rough living arrangements, he does not allow it to show as he exclaims with delight over the cramped beds, so I determine to be equally stoical. Behind my back, though, my fists clench and unclench and I force myself to breathe slowly; since I was a child I have had a terror of enclosed spaces and to be confined here seems a punishment. I promise myself I will spend as much time as possible on the deck during the voyage, eyes fixed on the sky and the wide water.

‘Make yourselves at home,’ Knollys says, cheerfully waving a hand, enjoying the advantage his experience gives him over his more refined relative. ‘I hope you have both brought thick cloaks – the wind will be fierce out at sea, for all it is supposed to be summer. I shall leave you here to get settled – I have much to do before we cast off. Come up on deck when you are ready and say your farewells to London.’

‘I’ll take the bottom bunk, I think,’ Sidney announces, when Knollys has gone, tossing his hat on to the pillow. ‘Not so far to fall if the sea is rough.’

I lean against the doorpost. ‘Thank you. And you had better tell him we will need another cabin just for your clothes.’

Sidney eases himself into his bunk and attempts to stretch out his long legs. They will not fit and he is forced to lie with his knees pointing up like a woman in childbirth. ‘You know, one of these days, Bruno, you will learn to show me the respect due from a man of your birth to one of mine. Of course, I have only myself to blame,’ he continues, shifting position and knocking his hat on the floor. ‘I have bred this insolence by treating you as an equal. It will have to stop. How in God’s name am I supposed to sleep in this? I can’t even lie flat. Was it built for a dwarf? I suppose you will have no problem. God’s wounds, they have better accommodation at the Fleet Prison!’

I pick up his hat and put it on at a jaunty angle.

‘What were you expecting, feather beds and silk sheets? It was you who wanted to play at being an adventurer.’

He sits up, suddenly serious. ‘We are not playing, Bruno. I am the Queen’s Master of the Ordnance – this is a royal appointment. No, I am not in jest now. And you will thank me for it, wait and see. What else would you have done with the summer but brood on your situation? At least this way you will be occupied.’

‘My
situation
, as you put it, will be no different when I return. Unless I can find some way to stay in England independent of the French embassy, I will be forced to return to Paris with the Ambassador in September. It is difficult not to brood.’

I try to keep the pique from my voice, but his casual tone is galling, when he is talking of my whole future, and perhaps my life.

He waves a hand. ‘You worry too much. The new Ambassador – what’s his name, Châteauneuf? – can’t really throw you out on the streets, can he? Not while the French King supports you living at the embassy. He’s just trying to intimidate you.’

‘Well, he has succeeded.’ I wrap my arms around my chest. ‘King Henri has not paid my stipend for months – he has more to worry about at his own court than one exiled philosopher. The previous Ambassador was paying it himself from the embassy coffers – I have been surviving on that and what I earn from—’ I break off; we exchange a significant look. ‘And that is another problem,’ I say, lowering my voice. ‘Châteauneuf as good as accused me of spying for the Privy Council.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘He had no evidence. But they suspect the embassy’s secret correspondence is being intercepted. And since I am the only known enemy of the Catholic Church in residence, he has drawn his own conclusions.’

‘Huh.’ He draws his knees up. ‘They are not as stupid as they appear, then. But you will have to be careful in future.’

‘I fear it will be almost impossible for me to go on working for Walsingham as I have been. The previous Ambassador trusted me. Châteauneuf is determined not to – he will be watching my every move. He is the most dogmatic kind of Catholic – the sort that thinks tolerance is a burning offence. He will not keep someone like me under his roof. Those were his words.’

Sidney smiles. ‘A defrocked monk, excommunicated for heresy. Yes, I can see that he might see you as dangerous. But I thought you were keen to return to Paris?’

I do not miss the insinuation.

‘I wrote to King Henri last autumn to ask if I might return briefly. He said he could not have me back at court at present, it would only antagonise the Catholic League. Besides,’ I lean against the wall and cross my arms, ‘she will be long gone by now. If she was ever there.’

He nods slowly. Sidney understands what it is to love a woman you cannot have. There is no more to be said.

‘Well, you can stop brooding. I have an answer to your problems.’ The glint in his eye does not inspire confidence. Sidney is well intentioned but impulsive and his schemes are rarely practical; for all that, I cannot suppress a flicker of hope. Perhaps he means to speak to his father-in-law Walsingham for me, or even the Queen. Only a position at court would allow me to support myself in exile. Though she cannot publicly acknowledge it, I know that Walsingham has told the Queen how I have risked my life in her service over the past two years. Surely she will understand that I can never again live or write safely in a Catholic country while I am wanted by the Inquisition on charges of heresy.

‘You will speak to the Queen?’

‘Wait and see,’ is all he says, with a cryptic wink that he knows infuriates me.

Sidney was appointed Master of the Ordnance early in the spring – a political appointment, a bauble from the Queen, no reflection of his military or naval abilities, which so far exist largely in his head. Over the summer he has been occupied with overseeing the provision of munitions for this latest venture of Francis Drake’s. So when the Queen received word that Dom Antonio, the pretender to the Portuguese throne, was sailing for England to visit her and intended to land at Plymouth, Sidney volunteered immediately for the task of meeting and escorting him to London, so that he might see Drake’s fleet at first hand.