S. Parris - Treachery

‘It is all lies,’ Gilbert says, through his teeth. ‘But you will not listen. You will have me arrested with your lies. You know nothing about it.’

‘Let Dom Antonio go, and I am willing to discuss anything you wish,’ Drake says.

Gilbert shakes his head. He sits upright, the knife still held in place. ‘You are lying.’ He turns to me, desperation in his face. ‘This is all your doing. If you had not come here, interfering in matters that were not your business-’ He breaks off. ‘I thought we had some affinity, you and I, as fellow scholars?’

I look at him, at his strangely earnest, self-righteous expression. We have more affinity than he knows; I have done the same undercover work, betrayed the trust of others and coded my betrayal into secret messages, delivered by fast riders in the dead of night. I have done it for the money, but also because I believe in the freedom of this realm of England, however imperfect, and I want to defend it, even though it is not in my blood. I wonder what lured Gilbert into his spying. Sidney is right; I do not believe it was merely the money. Gilbert is too complex for that.

‘Put the knife down, and we will talk,’ Drake says, in that same, steady tone. ‘If you are innocent of all these charges, I want to hear you answer them, believe me — I would like nothing more than to hear your defence. But you cannot help yourself by harming anyone else.’ He holds a hand out for the knife, nodding encouragement.

Gilbert darts a quick glance over his shoulder, at the casement I left open when I entered. ‘Let me leave the ship,’ he says. ‘Give me your word that I can leave the ship unhindered.’

‘Where would you go?’ Drake says. He is beginning to sound weary.

‘To your Spanish friends?’ I ask, moving a step closer. Gilbert flinches as if he has been struck. I can read the fear in his eyes; he is like a cornered animal, unsure whether to fight or run. But the hand holding the knife is trembling violently; he is not a born killer. I would wager he has never stuck a blade in anyone, nor has any desire to, but panic is making him desperate. Drake puts out a hand to stop me. Without taking his eyes off us, or the point of the knife from Dom Antonio’s neck, Gilbert eases himself up on to his haunches on the bench. At the last moment, he pulls the casement towards him and swings his torso through the gap, shoving Dom Antonio aside as he disappears through the window to the gallery. I throw myself across the table after him, as Drake rushes for the main door that opens on to the quarter deck. If he tries to climb to an upper deck, we will have him trapped.

By the time I have hauled myself through the open window, Gilbert has already pulled himself up on the wooden rail and is leaning out to grab at the lower part of the rigging. I reach for his leg and almost catch him, but he is young and nimble, and not injured as I am, and he jerks his foot out of my grasp, pulling himself further along the hull of the ship by means of the outer rigging, though he is encumbered by the knife that he clutches in his right hand. The wind tugs at my hair; the ship’s timbers creak as it rolls gently, though here, suspended above the water, every slight movement feels as if it might throw me off balance. I swing myself up to the ropes after him, when I see him hesitate. He has reached the end of the rigging; he must climb up to the deck of the ship or try to reach across to the rigging of the mainmast some feet away. He looks up, to see Drake and Fenner, with several more of the crew and the armed guards, staring down at him from the rail of the quarterdeck above. He glances down, at the dark green water below. I watch him coil himself; he means to jump across to the next web of rigging, but that brief pause has allowed me a couple of feet closer. Just as he gathers his forces to spring, I let go with my left hand, swing my body out from the ship and lunge at him. He flails with the knife, grazing my hand before I grasp the sleeve of his doublet around his right wrist. I tighten my grip; he can’t move his hand to wield the blade and his balance is thrown; he teeters backwards and his spectacles fall but he regains control. I am gratified to find that, though he is nimble, I am the stronger; I pull his hand back and smash the inside of his wrist hard against the hull. Something cracks as his bones make contact; he yelps in pain, but still he holds tight to the knife. He tries to wrestle his arm out of my grip but I draw his hand back and crunch it against the side a second time; this time he cries out and drops the knife. I do not bother to watch it fall and disappear with barely a splash into the water below.

But I cannot draw my own knife without letting go of the rigging with my right hand. Instead I release Gilbert’s wrist with my left and grab him instead by the hair, pulling his head back and ignoring his cries as I manoeuvre myself around behind him, hooking my left leg around his knee and pressing him against the ropes from behind. He tries to lash out, but I slip my right arm under one of the ropes and catch his wrist again, holding myself to the rigging by keeping the rope in the crook of my arm.

‘Are you going to give me that letter, Gilbert, or must we fight over it?’ I hiss in his ear, my breath coming in jagged gasps. He struggles against me, but I am pinning him to the ropes with my bodyweight now, and I feel him weakening.

‘There is nowhere left for you to run, Gilbert.’ I spit the words at him through the bite of the wind. The swell seems greater up here, the gusts fiercer. ‘Surrender now, give me the letter, and he may yet treat you with clemency.’

He makes a noise that might be a hollow laugh. Then he makes a sudden stab backwards with his elbow. I grit my teeth.

‘I don’t want to do this, you know,’ I say, as I grab him by the hair again, drag his head back and smash it forwards again between the ropes into the wooden side of the ship. The blow was not as hard as I could have made it, but there is a nasty crunch and he lets out a howl. His head drops forward, limp, and I feel the resistance subside in his body. I reach around under his left arm, pull at the front of his doublet until I hear a button rip, and fumble around inside until my fingertips make contact with paper and I draw out a folded letter. ‘Thank you,’ I mutter. ‘You could have made that easier on yourself. You might as well climb up to Drake now,’ I add, prodding him in the back. His head still droops forward and I wonder if the blow could have knocked him out. If so, Drake will need to lower a rope and haul him up. I glance up, about to call up to Drake, when Gilbert suddenly jerks his head backwards, as hard as he can, slamming the back of his skull into the bridge of my nose. I cry out in pain and shock; caught off balance, I let go of the rope with my left hand, though I keep hold of the letter. Blood drips down my lip and over my chin. Gilbert gives me a strange, fleeting smile, clasps a hand around my wrist and flings himself out into the air, tumbling backwards like a jongleur, dragging me with him.

I feel the pull of his weight; my right arm is wrenched out from behind the rope and I catch one dizzying glimpse of the sheer wall of wood at my back and the distance down to the sea. But my leg is still hooked inside one of the ropes; I jolt to a sudden stop and an excruciating pain shoots up my arm as my shoulder jars with all the force of Gilbert’s trajectory halted as he dangles there, gripping my left sleeve. My leg is bent back; something tears in my knee as I swing back against the ship, hanging upside down as Gilbert swings wildly with his free hand, trying to get a better purchase on me. I close my eyes; only two things matter now — holding on to the rope with my leg, and not letting go of the letter. I can feel my leg slipping; above us, Drake is barking orders, but there is no chance of him reaching us in time. Just as I fear my arm can no longer take the strain, I hear a tearing sound; I glance down and see the cuff of my shirt rip away from the sleeve. Gilbert sees what is happening; he claws the air with his free hand but the last stitches give way and I watch him plummet, almost gracefully, to the sea. He hits the water in a plume of white spray. Almost immediately, a longboat is lowered over the side from the main deck, men shouting to one another as it descends. I fix my eyes on the frothing water below; is Gilbert trying to make his escape, or knowingly taking his secrets to the bottom of the Sound? As I go on squinting at the shifting patterns of light on the surface, a dark shape bobs up and strikes out through the waves, away from the ship. So Gilbert can swim: there is my answer. The longboat has almost reached the water. He will not get far.