the line of houses facing the harbour wall, they shift and sway as if I had been drinking.
Once the sailors are away from the quay and out of earshot, Sidney plants his legs astride, hands on his hips, and allows himself to vent.
‘Do you believe the face of that man?’ His expression is almost comical; I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh. He takes off his hat, grabs a fistful of his own hair and pulls it into spikes. ‘I come here as Master of the Ordnance and he thinks I am fit only to amuse his womenfolk? If he had a child I dare say he would appoint me its nursemaid, all the while telling me he is not sure there is a place for me on the voyage I helped to finance!’
‘I have never known you to scorn the company of women.’
‘It is not fitting for a gentleman, do you not see that, Bruno? No, perhaps you don’t.’ Because I am not a gentleman, he means. He lets out a dramatic sigh. ‘Some old widowed cousin. And his wife – they say she is young, but she cannot be much to look at or he would not entrust another man with the care of her.’
‘Perhaps he trusts her to resist you.’
He looks at me with a face of mild surprise, as if this idea is a novelty. ‘Huh. Still, it is an insult. Even this’ – he waves a hand vaguely towards the narrow streets behind us – ‘he supposes I am so soft I cannot live without a feather bed, does he? We should be out there, Bruno, with the men. Well, we shall be soon enough – I will see to it.’
He crushes his hat between his hands as he makes an effort to master himself, but I see how much our exclusion from the ship has wounded him; he takes it as another humiliation. First the Queen, now the farmer’s son; does everyone think he is fit only for the company of women? And this wounded pride is dangerous; it makes him more reckless in his desire to prove himself.
‘It does seem that he is not keen to take on extra mouths to feed,’ I say. ‘And maybe he has reason – it is not as if we would be the greatest assets to any crew.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘I do. I have told you already, I would be no use at sea. They would rather conserve the rations, I’m sure.’
‘And yet.’ Sidney regards me with his head on one side, as if an idea has just struck him. ‘He is interested in you. He asked me to bring you. What is this book he wants to show you in particular, I wonder?’
‘Something to do with ancient languages.’
‘Odd – he doesn’t strike one as the type to pore over antique texts. He seemed to imply it was connected to the murder.’ His eyes grow briefly animated, until he remembers his grievance. ‘Well, either way, we must give him what he wants, Bruno. Let us find his killer, read his book, whatever we must to show him we have skills he can use.’
I say nothing, only pick up my bag and begin walking, with a strange lurching motion, in the direction of the houses. Sidney falls into step beside me with his long loping stride, pensive and silent. I see clear as day what he does not, or will not acknowledge: Drake does not want him on this voyage. Even if we found Robert Dunne’s killer tomorrow and presented him to the Captain-General bound and gagged by dinner, I do not think it one whit more likely that Drake would take us on board. There is no point in saying this to Sidney.
‘You know, tomorrow,’ he mutters, as we turn into a narrow cobbled street that curves steeply upward from the harbour wall, ‘I think I will make it my business to visit all the larger ships of the fleet and discuss the armaments with their captains. That way they will know I am here as Master of the Ordnance, not merely an escort to exiled princes and Drake’s womenfolk. I will not have these sailors laughing at me behind their hands.’
‘But you don’t know anything about ordnance. Not when it comes to using it. They may laugh directly in your face if you pretend to knowledge you don’t have.’
He glares at me, then breaks into a grin. ‘If you affect to know what you are doing, most people will take you at your own evaluation. I believe it was you taught me that, Bruno.’
I smile, to concede the point. ‘I am not sure that will work with men who have sailed around the world once already.’
We find the sign of the Star readily enough on Nutt Street, a broad thoroughfare lined with tall, well-appointed houses. Sidney explains his connection to Drake and pays for a room, demanding – as if in parody of himself – linen sheets and a feather mattress; while he is haggling with the landlady over the best chamber I glance around the entrance. It is a fine building, perhaps a century old or more, and grand in the plain style of the times: broad flagstones on the floor, strewn with rushes; limewashed walls; a high ceiling with wooden beams. The candles in the wall sconces are beeswax, not cheap tallow, and there is a warming smell of roasting meat and spices drifting from the tap-room. And yet I find I do not like the place. Some nameless instinct makes my skin prickle; my fingers stray to the small knife I carry at my belt and stroke its smooth bone handle for reassurance. I sense something here that makes me uncomfortable, though I cannot explain why. When I remark on this to Sidney as we climb the stairs to our room, he only laughs.
‘Relax, Bruno – Robert Dunne’s murderer is back on the Elizabeth Bonaventure. He’s not going to come creeping in here in the night looking for you. Besides, this is the only decent inn in Plymouth – I’m not moving because you have a feeling in your waters, like the village wise woman.’
I laugh with him; he is probably right. But I can’t shake the notion that someone’s eyes are on us, and they are not friendly. When we come down to the tap-room for a last drink before bed, I pause in the doorway while Sidney finds a seat, scanning the tables, the other men ranged on benches. The inn is busy; anyone within twenty miles who has produce to sell will have heard that Drake’s fleet is at anchor here, and know that where there are ships, there is an insatiable demand for provisions. Two thousand five hundred hungry men altogether in the fleet, according to Knollys, and for every day the voyage is delayed, those men have appetites of all kinds that must be fed.
I push through the crowd while Sidney goes to the serving hatch, my eyes still sweeping the room for a seat, when a knot of people suddenly parts and I see a figure at the end of a wooden bench, in the shadows of a corner, close to the outer door, staring at me. I don’t have a clear sight of his face; he wears a shapeless hat pulled low, and a black travelling cloak, though the room is stuffy. All I see is that he is looking directly at me, but there is something about the shape of him, the way he hunches into his chest, trying not to be noticed, the way his eyes burn from under the brim of his hat, that echoes in my memory; I feel certain I have seen him before. I turn to Sidney to point the man out, but someone blocks my view and when I look back he is gone and the door is banging hard. Without waiting, I shove past a group of merchants, ignoring their aggrieved cries, and fling myself out into the inn yard, wheeling around for a sight of the stranger in his cloth hat.
The yard too is busy; horses, carts, stable lads, travellers dismounting. Boys cross back and forth hefting bales of straw or gentlemen’s panniers, sidestepping to avoid one another, their timing as precise as a dance. There is no sign of the man in black. Dodging the bustling people and the piles of dung, I chase out of the high gates and into the street, looking left and right. He is gone, and the light is fading. Clouds have crept in and banked up over the town while we were indoors. Sidney arrives beside me, a tankard in each hand, following my gaze with a perplexed frown.
‘What are you doing out here?’ he says.
‘That man in black, skulking in the corner. You saw him?’
‘I
