S. Parris - Treachery

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.