S. Parris - Treachery

‘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 want 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.’