S. Parris - Treachery

‘I’ll do my best. Thank you for your sympathy.’ I touch a finger gingerly to the cut above my eye. It seems to have stopped bleeding for now. Hetty sniffs; it is clear she thinks I have only myself to blame. She is probably right. ‘Do you not need the light to get back to bed, though?’

‘Don’t worry, sir — I know my way around this place at night better than the mice,’ she says, and as if to prove it, disappears into the shadows, leaving me alone at the foot of the stairs. Somehow I find the thought of her scurrying silently around dark corridors disquieting.

I take two wrong turns before I identify the corridor that leads to our chamber, every creak of the boards seeming to echo through the whole building. I let myself in quietly. The window drapes are drawn, casting the room in hushed shadows. I ease off my boots and my stinking clothes, leaving them where they fall, and collapse on to the bed, and into oblivion.

I am jolted from a heavy dreamless sleep by the sound of someone entering the room. I try to sit up but my limbs feel inert and will not respond; it takes a few minutes before I can be certain of where I am. Memories of the night’s events tumble through my sleep-fogged brain, even as the stiffness and pain in my body grow more insistent. Someone is moving softly around the room. My heart hammers; I am defenceless here, naked, unable to move. The footsteps come closer; there is a pause before the bed curtains are pulled back and I cry out, as the intruder also yells in surprise.

‘Christ’s bones, Bruno — are you trying to scare me to death?’ Sidney yanks the curtain back fully and turns away just as fast. ‘And put a shirt on, can’t you — I don’t want to see your wares on display.’

I reach out with some effort and pull a sheet over the lower half of my body. My head sinks into the pillow with relief.

‘Thank God — I was worried about you,’ I croak.

‘Me? Bit late for that — I’ve been waiting for you half the bloody night. Eventually some girl turned up with your message to go on home without you — I must say, you could have let me know a little sooner.’ He tosses his jacket on to one of the chairs and strides to the window.

‘I never sent any message,’ I begin, as he throws the shutters wide and a faint dawn light picks out the shapes of furniture. Sidney turns and makes another noise of shock.

‘What happened to you ?’ He points to my torso. I look down and note the colourful map of cuts and bruises.

‘I had to jump out of a window. I thought it was the ground floor, but I was mistaken.’

He cups a hand across his mouth. ‘Sorry, I’m not laughing. Really.’ He stands, yawns, stretches out his long arms above his head and plants himself in front of me, peering at my injuries, clutching his chin in imitation of a physician. ‘At least you can still walk. So it was a trap. Did they rob you? Tell me what happened.’

I push myself up on to my elbows, wincing at the complex stabs and jolts of pain involved. He perches on the end of the bed while I recount the events of the previous night. He chuckles at the appearance of Toby, but when I mention the wine he slaps me on the leg — the nearest part he can reach — to show his irritation.

‘You never touch the wine in a whorehouse, Bruno, certainly not on a first visit in a strange town — are you really so green? It’s the oldest trick they know. You’re damned lucky they didn’t get your purse.’

‘I realise that now,’ I say, piqued. ‘And I don’t need you adding to my bruises. But the wine was spiced with nutmeg. And I’d wager that’s what Dunne was given the night he was killed — the effects sound just the same. Wild drunkenness, hallucinations, morbid fear.’

Sidney scratches his chin. ‘I didn’t even know nutmeg could do that. Is it common knowledge?’

‘To someone familiar with the properties of herbs, I’d say.’

We fall silent, both thinking of Jonas.

‘But listen,’ I say, ‘that is not the biggest news.’

His eyes grow wide as I tell him about the appearance of John Doughty.

‘Extraordinary. Drake said Doughty would not dare set foot anywhere near Plymouth. Just goes to show that Drake is not always right.’ He evidently takes some satisfaction in this thought. ‘But why was Doughty at the House of Vesta?’

‘He was a sailor. They must know him there. The madam was obviously helping him — she took me to the boy, sent up the spiced wine-’

‘Why the boy?’ Sidney says, frowning. ‘To test whether you were telling the truth about knowing Dunne?’

‘Perhaps. Or because she suspected I was only there to ask unwelcome questions, and she wanted to learn what they were.’

‘Either way, it seems beyond doubt that the place is somehow connected with Dunne’s death. In which case — why deliberately lure you towards it?’

‘He thought he was going to march me out of there at knife point, to wherever his mysterious friend was waiting.’

‘The one you are persuaded is Rowland Jenkes.’

‘You think I am mistaken?’

He rasps a hand across the stubble on his jaw and stands, stretching. ‘I only say you are putting two and two together and making five, ever since you saw this man in black and decided he was watching you.’

‘He was.’ I struggle to sit up further. ‘We know a book dealer with no ears has been interested in Drake’s Judas book for months, with Dunne’s agency. Who else could fit that description, who would also know me well enough to address me by name? Besides, I heard his voice.’

‘It’s two years since you last saw him, and you were under the influence of something that causes hallucinations.’ He catches sight of my look and sighs. ‘You are probably right. I just can’t imagine what he’s doing with John Doughty, though.’

‘No more can I.’

He crosses the room to the other window and opens those shutters. Light spills across the floor. ‘You’ve left this place in quite a state, too. I hope you’re going to clear up after yourself.’

I ease myself horizontal. ‘Sorry about the clothes. They’ll have to be laundered again.’

‘I’m not talking about the clothes. I mean your travel bag. Stuff everywhere.’

‘What?’ I jerk upright again, ignoring the spear of pain that shoots up my right side. He indicates the far end of the room, where my bag lies open, my few clean shirts tumbled out over the floor. I haul myself off the bed, wrapping the sheet around my waist, and kneel down.

‘I didn’t leave it like that. Someone has been through it.’

‘What did they take?’

I pick up the discarded clothes, and search through the bag. My books are still there, but a sheaf of notes I had brought to work on appears to be missing. There was nothing incriminating that I can recall, just a few calculations and jotted ideas for a possible book … An idea occurs to me, making goosebumps stand up on my bare skin. I cross to the bed and look under it for the leather satchel I had brought back from the Elizabeth last night. I take it out and find it empty.

‘My translation of the Judas book. It’s gone.’

Sidney throws his hands up and spits out a curse. ‘You left the room unlocked last night. I had the key. Damn it.’ He glances around to his own trunk, which remains securely padlocked. ‘Thank God they didn’t take anything more valuable.’

‘You don’t think a lost gospel is valuable?’ I shake my head. ‘Drake will be livid. I assured him I would keep it safe.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have gone haring off to that bloody brothel without locking the room,’ he exclaims.

‘I realise that now.’ We glare at one another until I punch my right fist into the palm of my left hand. ‘Damn it! The letter was clearly a ruse to get us out of the way so that someone could go through the room looking for those writings.’