He circumnavigated the globe with Drake in 1577, according to Sidney, on the voyage that made them famous and wealthy men; surely in the course of such a journey the calculations they made must have added up to confirmation that the Earth turns about the Sun and not the reverse? Drake and the men who sailed with him are forbidden by the Queen from publishing accounts or maps of their route, for fear they would fall into the hands of the Spanish, but perhaps Knollys might be persuaded at least to discuss the scientific discoveries of his travels with me in confidence, as one man of learning to another.
Ahead the Thames gleams like beaten metal as clouds scud across the face of the sun and their shadows follow over the water; in this light, you could almost forget it is a soup of human filth. I rest my forearms on the wooden guardrail and look down. I must check myself; with my state so precarious, it behoves me to be wary of what I say in public, until I know how it may be received. Knollys is, by all accounts, a good Protestant, like his brother-in-law Leicester and Sidney, but I would be a fool to imagine that these ideas of the Pole Copernicus have been accepted by more than a very few. Only two years ago I was openly ridiculed at the University of Oxford for expressing such a view in a public debate. Just because the Inquisition cannot reach me in Elizabeth’s territories, it does not follow that all Englishmen are enlightened.
We make steady progress along the river as it widens towards the estuary, here and there passing clusters of dwellings little more than shacks, where fishing boats bob alongside makeshift jetties. To either side the land is flat and marshy, pocked with pools reflecting the pale expanse of the sky. London gives you a sense of being hemmed in, pressed on all sides; there the sky is a dirty ribbon glimpsed if you crane your neck between the eaves of tall houses that lean in towards one another across narrow alleys, blocking the light. As we move further from the city, I feel my shoulders relax; the air freshens and begins to carry a tang of salt, and I inhale deeply, relishing this new sense of space. The sounds grow familiar: the snap of sailcloth, the creaks and groans of moving timber, the rhythmic breaking of waves against the hull as we rise and fall, the endless skwah-skwah of the gulls.
After supper, while Sidney settles to cards with Knollys and his gentlemen officers, I excuse myself and return to the deck. The wind is keener now and I have to wrap my cloak close around me against the cold, but I had rather be here in the salt air than confined in the captain’s cabin, with its fug of tobacco smoke and sweet wine. Directly ahead, the sun has almost sunk into the water, leaving the sky streaked orange and pink in its wake. To our right, or what Sidney insists I call starboard, the English coast is a dark smudge. To the left, on the other side of the endlessly shifting water, lies France, and I narrow my eyes towards the distant clouds as if I could see it.
The boards creak behind me and Sidney appears at my side, a clay pipe clamped between his teeth. He takes out a tinder-box from the pouch at his belt and battles for some moments to light it in the wind.
‘Thinking again, Bruno?’
‘It is a living, of sorts.’
He grunts, takes the pipe from his mouth, puffs out a cloud of smoke and stretches his arms wide, lifting his chest to the rising moon.
‘Nothing like fresh sea air.’
‘It was before you arrived.’
He leans with his back to the rail and grins. ‘Leave off, you sound like my wife. She always complains about the smell of a pipe. Especially now.’ He sighs and turns to face the sea again. ‘By God, it is a relief to be out of that house. Women are even more contrary than usual when they are with child. Why is one not warned of that in advance, I wonder?’
‘This time last year you were fretting you might not manage an heir at all. I’d have thought you’d be glad.’
‘It is all to please other people, Bruno. A man born to my station in life – certain things are expected of you. They are not necessarily your own choices.’
‘You don’t want to be a father?’
‘I would have liked to become a father once I was in a position to support sons and daughters myself, rather than still living in my father-in-law’s house. But … well.’ He laces his fingers together and cracks his knuckles. ‘They will not let me go to war until I have got an heir, in case I don’t come back. So I suppose I should be pleased.’
The sails billow and snap above us; the ship moves implacably forward, stately, unhurried. After a long silence, Sidney taps his pipe out on the rail in front of him.
‘I put a group of armed men and servants on the road to Plymouth two days ago. They will meet us there and escort Dom Antonio back to London.’
My earlier suspicions prickle again.
‘Along with us,’ I prompt.
Sidney turns to me with a triumphant smile, his eyes gleaming in the fading light. He grips my sleeve. ‘We are not going back to London, my friend. By the time Dom Antonio is warming his boots at Whitehall, you and I shall be halfway across the Atlantic.’
I stare at him for a long while, waiting – hoping – for some sign that this is another of his jokes. The wild light in his eyes suggests otherwise.
‘What, are we going to stow away? Hide among the baggage?’
‘I told you I had a plan for you, did I not?’ He leans back again, delighted with himself.
‘I thought it might be something realistic.’
‘Christ’s bones – don’t be such a naysayer, Bruno. Listen to me. What is the great problem that you and I share?’
‘The urge to write poetry, and a liking for difficult women.’
‘Other than those.’ He looks at me; I wait. ‘We lack independence, because we lack money.’
‘Ah. That.’
‘Exactly! And how do we solve it? We must be given money, or we must make it ourselves. And since I see no one inclined to give us any at present, what better way than to take it from the Spanish? To come home covered in glory, with a treasure of thousands in the hold – the look on her face then would be something to see, would it not?’
For a moment I think he means his wife, until I realise.
‘This is all to defy the Queen, then? For not sending you to the Low Countries? You plan to sail to the other side of the world without her permission?’
He does not answer immediately. Instead he looks out over the water, inhaling deeply.
‘Do you know how much Francis Drake brought home from his voyage around the world? No? Well, I shall tell you. Over half a million pounds of Spanish treasure. Ten thousand of that the Queen gave him for himself, more to be shared among his men. And that is only what he declared.’ He breaks off, shaking his head. ‘He has bought himself a manor house in Devon, a former abbey with all its land, and a coat of arms. The son of a yeoman farmer! And I cannot buy so much as a cottage for my family. My son will grow up knowing every mouthful he eats was provided by his grandfather, while his father sat by, dependent as a woman. How do you think that makes me feel?’
‘I understand you are frustrated, and angry with the Queen—’
‘The fellow she means to give the command of Flushing is my inferior in every degree. It is a public humiliation. I cannot walk through the galleries of Whitehall knowing the whole court is laughing
