LITMIR.BIZ

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      I sense that I am expected to sample his gift, so I rub the dirt off one and put it in my mouth. They are bullet-hard and not yet sweet, but I make a show of relishing it.

      ‘Sam, I think these are the best strawberries I have tasted in England.’

      The child looks delighted. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and coughs, then scampers away over the cobbles to his friends, who crowd around him, chattering and pointing.

      ‘You have made a friend for life there,’ Lady Arden says.

      ‘Strawberry?’ I hold out my hands. She regards them with a delicate curl of the lip.

      ‘Not if he picked them with the same hand he uses to wipe his nose.’

      I smile. ‘You can barely taste it. You don’t like children?’

      She glances back at the huddle of boys.

      ‘I have no strong feelings about them either way. My sister has four and I am quite happy to indulge them, for a short time. But it was regarded as a great failing on my part not to have produced any myself before my husband was so careless as to die. Whenever I see children – especially healthy males like those – I feel implicitly reproached.’

      I am not sure how to answer this, so I remain silent. When I am sure the children are out of sight, I drop the strawberries at the side of the road and Lady Arden takes my arm again. We walk on for a while, Sidney and Lady Drake walking ahead of us along the path that leads towards the castle. She does not take his arm; instead they walk at a respectful distance from one another, leaning their heads in to hear the other’s conversation. They are, of course, both married. I am conscious that between Lady Arden and me there are no such restrictions. Is it proper for her to walk with me in this way? She appears not to care; it is I who feel awkward, as if we are breaching some rule of decorum.

      ‘My late husband has a cousin, who is at present the only heir to his estate and title. He has been gallant enough to offer me marriage.’ She sucks in her cheeks and gazes out to sea as she says this.

      ‘You are not elated by the prospect, I think.’

      She makes a face.

      ‘My husband only died last year. He was a decent man, in his way, but it was not a match of love. He was nearly thirty years older than me. Such arrangements are rarely successful.’ She glances at Lady Drake and looks a little guilty. ‘I was a wife for seven years, and gave him no cause for complaint. But as a widow, his estate belongs to me while I live and I am my own mistress. I should like a while longer to enjoy that position, before I sign my freedom over to another man. Besides’ – she screws up her mouth – ‘my husband’s cousin looks like a boar. You think I mean this figuratively, but you are wrong. He actually looks like a boar. Bristles and all. Every time he opens his mouth to speak, I want to stuff an apple in it.’

      I laugh abruptly, and she joins in, leaning her weight into me. Lady Drake and Sidney stop and turn, amused, though I notice Lady Drake seems piqued.

      ‘What is the joke, Nell?’ she calls. ‘Share it with us, won’t you?’

      ‘I was just telling Doctor Bruno about Cousin Edgar the boar,’ Lady Arden shouts back, and follows this with a magnificent impersonation of a grunting pig. Sidney stares at her. Quite possibly he has never seen a well-born lady pretending to be a boar.

      Elizabeth Drake laughs and shakes her head. ‘Oh God, him,’ she says. ‘No, we all think you could do better.’ Her gaze flits to me for an instant, and to the way Lady Arden leans on my arm. Do I qualify as ‘better’ than a titled cousin who looks like a boar, or not? Her expression gives no clue.

      ‘Lady Drake has been telling me a little about Robert Dunne,’ Sidney says, with a meaningful look at me as we fall into step alongside them.

      ‘Did you know him well?’ I ask her.

      ‘Not so very well,’ she says. ‘But all the Devonshire families know one another to a degree. Robert Dunne was the younger son. Feckless with money, went to sea to make his fortune. He was a hero for a while after he came back from the voyage with Sir Francis, even married himself an heiress. But then he gambled away everything he brought home. Terribly sad that he should take his own life, though.’ She says this in the same tone that she might say it was terribly sad the village fair had been rained off. ‘It would be awful if the whole voyage fell through because of it. Sir Francis would be devastated.’

      And you? I wonder, watching her. Are you anticipating a year or so of relative freedom in your husband’s absence? I look from her to Lady Arden. Perhaps this is all women really want: the freedom to be their own masters, the way they imagine men are. But none of us is truly his own master in this world of dependency and patronage. Just look at Sidney.

      I catch his eye; clearly Drake has not wanted to alarm his wife with the truth about Dunne’s death.

      ‘I suppose my husband claims his death is the curse of John Doughty at work again?’ Lady Drake says, as if she has read my thoughts.

      ‘John Doughty? I understood his name was Thomas?’ I say, confused.

      ‘Thomas was the one Sir Francis killed for mutiny,’ says Lady Arden.

      ‘Executed,’ Lady Drake corrects, automatically. ‘John is his brother. He came back alive from the voyage, and as soon as he reached London he tried to bring a legal case against my husband for unlawful killing. It was a great scandal at the time.’

      ‘I remember that,’ Sidney says, nodding. ‘John Doughty and his supporters claimed Sir Francis had never been able to prove that he had the Queen’s commission to pass the death sentence while at sea. It was a dangerous precedent, some said, because the Doughtys were gentlemen and Sir Francis – saving your presence, my lady – at the time was not. Though of course we all regard him as such now,’ he adds hastily. I give him a sideways look.

      ‘John Doughty brought the matter to court,’ says Lady Drake, ignoring this, ‘but the case was thrown out on a technicality. Doughty believed the Queen herself had intervened to quash his suit so that the glory of my husband’s achievement would not be sullied by his accusations.’

      ‘And did she?’ I ask.

      ‘Few doubt it,’ Sidney says. ‘She was publicly defending Drake against accusations of piracy and murder from the Spanish – she could hardly countenance the same from one of his countrymen.’ He shakes his head. ‘One could almost pity John Doughty – not only did his case fail, but shortly after that he was accused of taking money from Philip of Spain’s agents to kidnap or kill Sir Francis. He was thrown in the Marshalsea Prison. He may still be there, for all I know.’

      ‘He is not,’ Lady Drake says. ‘He was released early this spring. Someone must have bought his freedom for him.’

      ‘Was it true that he took Spanish money?’ I ask.

      ‘Who knows?’ she says. ‘Spain has a high price on my husband’s head, that much is certain. There are plenty would put a knife in him for that sort of money, and with less cause than John Doughty. All we know is that, when Doughty came out of prison, he vowed revenge on Sir Francis and all those men of the jury that condemned his brother to death. He sent a message to my husband, signed in blood, saying that he had called down a curse on him and every ship he sailed in, and would not rest until he had my husband’s blood in payment for his brother’s. Sir Francis feared his time in prison had turned his wits.’

      ‘He has a flair for drama, this John Doughty,’ I say. ‘You could play this story on a stage, the crowd would roar for more.’

      ‘So I tell my husband,’ Lady Drake says, seeming pleased. ‘But John Doughty claimed to practise witchcraft. Some that testified against him said he had uttered spells to call down the Devil during the voyage. Sir Francis affects to scorn such things, but underneath he is as superstitious as any sailor. Especially since the others died.’

      ‘Which others?’

      ‘Two

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