Treachery - S. J. Parris Giordano Bruno

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was being followed around London, I vowed I would not become one of those men who jumps at shadows and draws his knife each time a dog barks. But the man in black was real enough. I only wish I could place him.

      ‘Well, you’re supposed to be the memory expert,’ Sidney says, cheerfully. ‘If you can’t remember a face, what hope for the rest of us?’

      ‘I didn’t see his face. It was more – his demeanour.’

      He gestures towards the inn with his ale. ‘For God’s sake, come in and have a drink. You can sleep with your dagger drawn if it makes you rest easier.’

      He thinks, though he would not say so, that I have imagined the man in black, or at least imagined his interest in us. Perhaps he is right. We make our way back in silence. There is no sign of the man when we pass through the tap-room, though the same sense of unease lingers. Any doubts I had about the voyage have only been redoubled by the day’s events and the prospect of entangling ourselves in another murder, and one that is no business of ours. Sidney stays below in the tap-room, drinking with strangers; I lie on my bed, staring at the map of cracks in the ceiling plaster. Everywhere I turn, it seems, my life is in jeopardy, whether out to sea, back to France or even here in Plymouth. I do not sleep with my knife drawn, but I keep it beside my bed, and when Sidney rolls in later, he finds me sitting bolt upright the instant the latch creaks, one hand already reaching for it, and the sight makes him laugh.

       FOUR

      I break my fast alone the next day; Sidney is ill-tempered after his late night, and lies moaning and tangling himself in sheets while I wash. He says he is not hungry. I take some bread and cheese and small beer at a long table with other travellers in the tap-room. My fellow guests regard me briefly with bleary eyes, before returning their attention to their food; I am by no means the only person with a foreign aspect here and I reflect that this is one advantage of a port town. The sky outside is dull, the grey-yellow of oyster flesh, and in the flat light my fears of last night shrink and lose their substance, until I can almost laugh at myself. I glance occasionally to the seat by the door where the man in black had been sitting, and wonder if I did imagine his malevolent stare after all.

      The morning passes slowly. Sidney frets and chafes like a child kept from playing outside, waiting for some word from Drake. He suggests walking down to the harbour and finding someone who will row us out to the ships for a fee, but I talk him out of it, reminding him that Drake said he would dine with us at the Star at midday. Until then, there is nothing to do but wait. I try to read but his pacing up and down the room muttering makes that impossible; eventually I suggest a walk and he agrees. Overhead the clouds threaten rain; I glance up, pull my cloak closer around me and think with longing of the skies over the Bay of Naples.

      The quayside is a bustle of activity. Small fishing boats negotiate their way around one another in an elaborate dance as they move toward the harbour entrance; men call out from the jetties as ropes are thrown to and from vessels and barrels of fish hauled ashore. Broad, red-faced fishwives are gathered with their trestles and knives at the dockside where the goods are unloaded, their hands silvered and bloody. Ever optimistic, the gulls circle boldly a few feet above their heads, screeching like a Greek chorus. The smell of fish guts carries on the wind.

      We walk along the harbour wall as far as the old castle with its four squat towers, built on the headland to defend the harbour. Ivy and creepers hang like cobwebs from its stonework, giving it a neglected air. The sight of the ships out at sea only serves to darken Sidney’s mood.

      ‘I had far rather be out there, Bruno, whatever work they put me to.’ He waves a hand towards the Sound, where the Elizabeth Bonaventure bobs like a child’s painted toy.

      ‘I know. You have said so.’

      Then his face brightens. ‘I had some interesting conversation in the tap-room last night after you retired. Concerning our friend Robert Dunne. Do you want to hear?’

      ‘Ah, Philip. Is that wise? Drake wants the man’s death regarded as a suicide – he will not thank you for fuelling speculation among the townspeople with too many questions.’

      ‘Before you start chiding like a governess, I asked no questions – as soon as the traders in the bar learned I was connected to the fleet, there was no holding them back. And if Drake thinks he has silenced all speculation with the report of suicide, he is sorely mistaken.’ He rubs his head and winces. ‘By God, that ale is strong. We should turn back, you know. Drake may be there already, waiting for us.’

      The sun lurks dimly behind veils of cloud, almost directly overhead. We turn and follow the path back towards the town.

      ‘The townspeople talk of murder, then?’

      ‘Murder, witchcraft, curses – you name it. The sailors are not popular in Plymouth, for all the people here depend on them for a living.’ He glances around for dramatic effect, though there is no one else out walking. A sharp wind cuts across the headland; up here it feels more like November than August.

      ‘So it seems,’ he continues, ‘that our friend Dunne—’

      ‘Stop calling him that.’

      ‘Why?’ He frowns. ‘Why are you so irritable today? I’m the one who’s been poisoned by that ale.’

      ‘He wasn’t our friend, and we have no reason to be poking about in the business of his death. It sounds as if you are making light of it.’

      Sidney takes me by the shoulder. ‘His death, as I have already explained to you at least three times, is our ticket on board that ship there.’ He points. ‘A ship that in a year’s time will come back to this harbour so weighed down with gold you’ll barely see the bowsprit above the waves.’

      I do not bother to argue. ‘Go on, then. Dunne.’

      He clicks his tongue impatiently and pulls his hat down tighter against the wind. ‘Robert Dunne was well known in Plymouth, they said. He had been living here for the past few months, though his home was in Dartington, a day’s ride away.’

      ‘Not on good terms with his wife, then?’

      ‘That’s part of it.’

      The path begins to slope down towards the street that runs alongside the inner harbour, where the little fishing boats are moored. Below us, men sit on upturned barrels on the quay, mending nets or examining sailcloth. A group of small boys are scuffling on the harbour wall, fistfighting or trying to hit gulls with their slingshots. Occasionally a pebble goes astray, and one of the fishermen raises a fist and shouts a bloodthirsty curse as the boys dart away in a gale of raucous laughter. I wait for Sidney to elaborate.

      When he is certain I am paying attention, he leans in closer and lowers his voice.

      ‘Apparently Dunne was a regular at the town’s most notorious brothel. A place they call the House of Vesta.’

      ‘Really? After the Vestal Virgins of Rome, I suppose. Very subtle. So his wife found out, climbed aboard the ship in disguise, and strung him up?’

      ‘Try to take this seriously, Bruno. Dunne had been seen more than once in the company of the same two men.’

      ‘In the brothel?’

      ‘No – in the taverns. No one knows who they were. And these Plymouth merchants and traders, believe me, they make it their business to know everyone. They knew who I was before I’d opened my mouth. But Dunne’s companions remained a mystery.’

      ‘Was one of them a man in a black cloak?’

      Sidney rolls his eyes. ‘Actually,’ he says, tapping a finger against his teeth, ‘they did say one of the men always wore a hat. Even indoors. Did your phantom last night have a hat?’

      ‘Yes – a black one, pulled low over his ears. And both he and his hat were quite real, I assure you.’

      Sidney

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