S. Parris - Treachery

He shrugs, as if this were a minor detail. ‘I hinted at it numerous times as I was assisting him with the preparations this summer. I am not sure he took me seriously. But I can’t think he would object.’

‘He will, if he knows you travel without the Queen’s consent and against her wishes. He will not want to lose her favour.’ But I am not thinking of Drake’s advantage, only my own. The Queen will be livid with Sidney for flouting her command and if I am party to his enterprise, I will share her displeasure. Sidney will bounce back, because he is who he is, but my standing with her, such as it is, may never recover. And that is the best outcome; that is assuming we return at all.

‘Francis Drake would not be in a position to undertake this venture if it were not for me,’ Sidney says, his voice low and urgent. ‘Half the ships in his fleet and a good deal of the funds raised come from private investors I brought to him, gentlemen I persuaded to help finance the voyage.’ He jabs himself in the chest with his thumb to make the point. ‘He can hardly turn me away at the quayside.’

I shake my head and look away, over the waves. He is overstating his part in the venture, I am sure, but there is no reasoning with him when he is set on a course. If he will not brook objection from the Queen of England, he will certainly hear none from me.

‘I have no military experience, Philip, I am not a fighter. This is not for me.’

He snorts. ‘How can you even say so? I have seen you fight, Bruno, and take on men twice your size. For a philosopher, you can be very daunting.’ He flashes a sudden grin and I am relieved; I fear we are on the verge of a rift.

‘I can acquit myself in a tavern brawl, if I have to. That is not quite the same as boarding a ship or capturing a port. What use would I be at sea?’

‘What use are you in London now that the new Ambassador means to watch your every step, or kick you out altogether? You are no use to anyone at present, Bruno, not without patronage.’

I turn sharply away, keeping silent until I can trust myself to speak without betraying my anger. I can feel him simmering beside me, tapping the stem of the clay pipe hard against the wooden guardrail until it snaps and he throws it with a curse into the sea.

‘Thank you for reminding me of my place, Sir Philip,’ I say at length, in a voice that comes out tight and strangled.

‘Oh, for the love of Christ, Bruno! I meant only that you are of more use on this voyage than anywhere else, for now. Besides, he asked for you.’

‘Who did?’

‘Francis Drake. That’s why I invited you.’

I frown, suspicious.

‘Drake doesn’t know me. Why would he ask for me?’

‘Well, not by name. But this summer, in London, he asked me if I could find him a scholar to help him with something. He was very particular about it, though he would not explain why.’

‘But you are a scholar. Surely he knows that?’

‘I won’t do, apparently. He is looking for someone with a knowledge of ancient languages, ancient texts. A man of learning and discretion, he said, for a sensitive task. I told him I knew just the fellow.’ He beams, slinging an arm around my shoulder, all geniality again. ‘He told me to bring you to Plymouth when I came. Think, Bruno — I don’t know what he wants, but if you could do him some sort of service, it might smooth our way to a berth aboard his ship.’

I say nothing. When he invited me on this journey to Plymouth, he showered me with flattery: he could not dream of going without me, he said; he would miss my conversation; there was no one among his circle at court he would rather travel with, no one whose company he prized more highly. Now it transpires that he wants me as a sort of currency; something he can use to barter with Drake. Like a foolish girl, I have allowed myself to be sweet-talked into believing he wanted me for my own qualities. I also know that I am absurd to feel slighted, and this makes me all the more angry, with him and with myself. I shrug his arm off me.

‘Oh, come on, Bruno. I cannot think of going without you — what, left to the company of grizzled old sea dogs for months on end, with no conversation that isn’t of weevils and cordage and drinking their own piss? You would not abandon me to such a fate.’ He drops to one knee, his hands pressed together in supplication.

Reluctantly, I crack a smile. ‘Weevils and drinking our own piss? Well then, you have sold it to me.’

‘See? I knew you would not be able to resist.’ He bounces back to his feet and brushes himself down.

Our friendship has always been marked by good-natured teasing, but his earlier words have stung; perhaps this is truly how he views me. Nothing without patronage.

‘Seriously, Philip,’ I turn to look him in the eye. ‘To risk the Queen’s displeasure so brazenly — are you really willing? I am not sure that I am.’

‘I swear to you, Bruno, by the time we come home, the sight of the riches we bring to her treasury will make her forget on the instant.’ When I do not reply, he leans in, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘You do realise the money Walsingham pays you is not charity? He pays you for information. And if the Baron de Châteauneuf has as good as banished you, how can you continue to provide it?’

‘I will find a way. I always have before. Walsingham knows I will not let him down.’

‘Come, Bruno!’ He gives me a little shake, to jolly me along. ‘Do you not yearn to see the New World? What good is it to dream of worlds beyond the fixed stars if you dare not travel our own globe?’ He pushes a hand through his hair so that the front sticks up in tufts, a gesture he makes without knowing whenever he is agitated. ‘You’re thirty-seven years old. If you want nothing more from life than to sit in a room with a book, I can’t think why you ever left the cloister.’

‘Because I would have been sentenced to death by the Inquisition,’ I say, quietly. As he well knows. But how do you explain to a man like Sidney the reality of a life in exile? ‘And what of your wife and child?’ I add, as he stretches again and turns as if to leave.

He looks at me as if he does not understand the question. ‘What of them?’

‘Your first child is due in, what, three months? And you mean to be halfway across an ocean.’ With no good odds on returning, I do not say aloud. Even I know that Francis Drake’s famous circumnavigation returned to England with only one ship of six and a third of the men. But Sidney is as irrepressible as a boy when he sets his heart on something; he clearly believes there is no question but that we will return triumphant with armfuls of Spanish gold.

He frowns. ‘But I have done my part. She will have the child whether I am there or not, and there will be nursemaids to take care of it. God’s blood, Bruno, I have done what they asked of me, I have got an heir, that is why they have had me cooped up at Barn Elms for the past two years. Am I not permitted a little freedom now?’

I am tempted to observe that he has possibly misunderstood the nature of marriage, but I refrain; I am hardly qualified to advise him about women. Besides, there is no profit in making him more irritable. His anger, I see now, is not at me, but at everyone who would voice the same objections: his wife, his father-in-law, Francis Drake, the Queen. He is rehearsing his self-justification. I have great affection for Sidney, and he has many qualities I admire, but he can be spoilt and does not respond well to being thwarted.

‘It might be a girl,’ I reply.

He makes a noise of exasperation. ‘I am going back down for a drink. Are you coming?’

‘I think I will stay here for a while.’

‘As you wish.’ At the head of the stairs to the main deck he turns back, one hand on the guardrail. ‘You know, I am trying to find a way to help you, Bruno. I thought I might have a little more thanks than this.’ He sounds wounded. In my amazement at his mad scheme, it had not occurred to me that I might have hurt his feelings.