‘I had hoped to be away by first light. Still, the wind is fair – we can make up time once we are into the English Sea. Have you sea legs, Master Bruno, or will you have your head in a bucket all the way to Plymouth?’
‘I have a stomach of iron.’ I smile as I say it, so that he knows it may not be strictly true. I did not miss the disdain in the word ‘poets’, and nor did Sidney; I mind less, but I would rather not disgrace myself too far in front of this aristocratic sailor. Puking in a bucket is clearly, in his eyes, the surest way to cast doubt on one’s manhood.
‘Glad to hear it.’ He nods his approval. ‘I’ll have your bags brought up. Come and see your quarters. No great luxury, I’m afraid – nothing befitting the Master of the Ordnance, but it will have to suffice.’ He makes a mock bow to Sidney.
‘You may sneer, Cousin, but when we’re out in the Spanish Main facing the might of King Philip’s garrisons, you will be glad someone competent troubled themselves with organising munitions,’ Sidney says, affecting a lofty air.
‘Someone competent? Who was he?’ Knollys laughs at his own joke. ‘In any case, what is this “we”?’
‘What?’
‘You said, “when we’re out in the Spanish Main”. But you and your friend are only coming as far as Plymouth, I thought?’
Sidney sucks in his cheeks. ‘We the English, I meant. An expression of solidarity, Cousin.’
I notice he does not quite meet the other man’s eye. I watch my friend’s face and a suspicion begins to harden in the back of my mind.
Knollys leads us up the gangplank and aboard the Leicester. The crew turn to stare as we pass, though their hands do not falter in their tasks. I wonder what they make of us. Sidney – tall, rangy, expensively dressed, his face as bright as a boy’s, despite the recently cultivated beard, as he drinks in his new surroundings – looks no more or less than what he is, an aristocrat with a taste for adventure. In my suit of black, perhaps they take me for a chaplain.
We follow Knollys through a door beneath the aftercastle, where we are ushered into a narrow cabin, barely wide enough for the three of us to stand comfortably, with two bunks built against the dividing wall. It smells, unsurprisingly, of damp, salt, fish, seaweed. If Sidney is deterred by the rough living arrangements, he does not allow it to show as he exclaims with delight over the cramped beds, so I determine to be equally stoical. Behind my back, though, my fists clench and unclench and I force myself to breathe slowly; since I was a child I have had a terror of enclosed spaces and to be confined here seems a punishment. I promise myself I will spend as much time as possible on the deck during the voyage, eyes fixed on the sky and the wide water.
‘Make yourselves at home,’ Knollys says, cheerfully waving a hand, enjoying the advantage his experience gives him over his more refined relative. ‘I hope you have both brought thick cloaks – the wind will be fierce out at sea, for all it is supposed to be summer. I shall leave you here to get settled – I have much to do before we cast off. Come up on deck when you are ready and say your farewells to London.’
‘I’ll take the bottom bunk, I think,’ Sidney announces, when Knollys has gone, tossing his hat on to the pillow. ‘Not so far to fall if the sea is rough.’
I lean against the doorpost. ‘Thank you. And you had better tell him we will need another cabin just for your clothes.’
Sidney eases himself into his bunk and attempts to stretch out his long legs. They will not fit and he is forced to lie with his knees pointing up like a woman in childbirth. ‘You know, one of these days, Bruno, you will learn to show me the respect due from a man of your birth to one of mine. Of course, I have only myself to blame,’ he continues, shifting position and knocking his hat on the floor. ‘I have bred this insolence by treating you as an equal. It will have to stop. How in God’s name am I supposed to sleep in this? I can’t even lie flat. Was it built for a dwarf? I suppose you will have no problem. God’s wounds, they have better accommodation at the Fleet Prison!’
I pick up his hat and put it on at a jaunty angle.
‘What were you expecting, feather beds and silk sheets? It was you who wanted to play at being an adventurer.’
He sits up, suddenly serious. ‘We are not playing, Bruno. I am the Queen’s Master of the Ordnance – this is a royal appointment. No, I am not in jest now. And you will thank me for it, wait and see. What else would you have done with the summer but brood on your situation? At least this way you will be occupied.’
‘My situation, as you put it, will be no different when I return. Unless I can find some way to stay in England independent of the French embassy, I will be forced to return to Paris with the Ambassador in September. It is difficult not to brood.’
I try to keep the pique from my voice, but his casual tone is galling, when he is talking of my whole future, and perhaps my life.
He waves a hand. ‘You worry too much. The new Ambassador – what’s his name, Châteauneuf? – can’t really throw you out on the streets, can he? Not while the French King supports you living at the embassy. He’s just trying to intimidate you.’
‘Well, he has succeeded.’ I wrap my arms around my chest. ‘King Henri has not paid my stipend for months – he has more to worry about at his own court than one exiled philosopher. The previous Ambassador was paying it himself from the embassy coffers – I have been surviving on that and what I earn from—’ I break off; we exchange a significant look. ‘And that is another problem,’ I say, lowering my voice. ‘Châteauneuf as good as accused me of spying for the Privy Council.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘He had no evidence. But they suspect the embassy’s secret correspondence is being intercepted. And since I am the only known enemy of the Catholic Church in residence, he has drawn his own conclusions.’
‘Huh.’ He draws his knees up. ‘They are not as stupid as they appear, then. But you will have to be careful in future.’
‘I fear it will be almost impossible for me to go on working for Walsingham as I have been. The previous Ambassador trusted me. Châteauneuf is determined not to – he will be watching my every move. He is the most dogmatic kind of Catholic – the sort that thinks tolerance is a burning offence. He will not keep someone like me under his roof. Those were his words.’
Sidney smiles. ‘A defrocked monk, excommunicated for heresy. Yes, I can see that he might see you as dangerous. But I thought you were keen to return to Paris?’
I do not miss the insinuation.
‘I wrote to King Henri last autumn to ask if I might return briefly. He said he could not have me back at court at present, it would only antagonise the Catholic League. Besides,’ I lean against the wall and cross my arms, ‘she will be long gone by now. If she was ever there.’
He nods slowly. Sidney understands what it is to love a woman you cannot have. There is no more to be said.
‘Well, you can stop brooding. I have an answer to your problems.’ The glint in his eye does not inspire confidence. Sidney is well intentioned but impulsive and his schemes are rarely practical; for all that, I cannot suppress a flicker of hope. Perhaps he means to speak to his father-in-law Walsingham for me, or even the Queen. Only a position at court would allow me to support myself in exile. Though she cannot publicly acknowledge it, I know that
