how I managed to keep to it all those years, the most vigorous years of my youth. He can only picture how he himself would have been, and so he likes to joke that, since leaving holy orders, I go about rutting everything in sight like a puppy on a chair leg. It amuses him all the more for being untrue.
Knollys precedes us up the ladder; Sidney follows and I am left to bring up the rear. This ship is higher even than the Leicester; my arms begin to ache and the ladder shows no sign of ending. I dare not look anywhere except directly in front of me, at the snaking ropes and the wooden wall that grazes my knuckles each time the swell knocks me against it. As my head draws level with the rail, I reach out to grasp it and my hand slips; for a dizzying moment I fear I may lose my footing, but a strong hand grips my wrist and hauls me inelegantly over the side.
‘Steady there.’
I regain my balance, take a breath, and look up to face my rescuer.
‘And who is this, that we nearly lost to the fishes?’ he asks, not unkindly. As he smiles down a gold tooth flashes in the corner of his mouth.
‘Doctor Giordano Bruno of Nola, at your service.’ My heart is pounding with relief, or shock, or both, at the thought that I might have fallen the full height of the ship. ‘Sir,’ I add, realising whom I am addressing.
No introduction is needed on his part; the quiet authority of the man, his natural self-assurance, the way the others stand in a deferential half-circle around him, leave me in no doubt that I am speaking to the one the Spanish call El Draco, the dragon. England’s most famous pirate smiles, and claps me on the shoulder.
‘You are welcome, then, to the Elizabeth Bonaventure. Are you a doctor of physick?’ His expression is hopeful.
‘Theology, I’m afraid. Less useful.’ I offer an apologetic smile.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He looks at me, appraising. ‘We may yet find a use for you. Come, gentlemen – are you hungry? We will take supper in my quarters.’
Knollys bows his head. ‘Thank you. There is much to discuss.’
‘Ah, Captain Knollys.’ Francis Drake rubs his beard and his smile disappears. ‘More than you know.’
There is a heaviness in his voice, just for an instant, that catches my attention, but he turns away and calls orders to one of the men standing nearby. It is an opportunity to study the Captain-General unobserved. He is broad-shouldered and robust, taller than me though not as tall as Sidney, with an open face, his skin tanned and weathered by his years at sea. There are white creases at the corners of his eyes, as if he laughs so often that the sun has not been able to reach them. His brown hair is receding and flecked with grey at his temples and most visibly in his neat beard; I guess him to be in his mid-forties. I see now why Sidney, despite his bluster about rank, is so keen to impress this man; Drake radiates an air of quiet strength earned through experience, and in this he reminds me a little of my own father, a professional soldier, though Drake cannot be more than ten years my senior. I find I want him to like me.
Drake turns back to us and claps his hands together. ‘Come, then. You should at least quench your thirst while we wait for the food.’
As we follow him to the other end of the deck, the crew pause in their duties and watch us pass. I notice there is an odd atmosphere aboard this ship; a sullen suspicion in the way they watch us from the tail of their eye, and something more, a muted disquiet. There is no music or singing here. The men are almost silent; I hear none of the foul-mouthed, good-natured banter I have grown used to among the crew of the Leicester on our way down. Do they resent our presence? Or perhaps they are silent out of respect. I catch the eye of one man who stares back from beneath brows so thick they meet in the middle; his expression is guarded, but hostile. Something is wrong here.
Drake leads us to a door below the quarterdeck, where two thick-set men stand guard with halberds at their sides, staring straight ahead, grim-faced. Light catches the naked edges of their blades. I find their presence unsettling. I guess that Drake and the other officers keep items of value in their quarters and must have them defended, though such a display of force seems to show a marked lack of faith in his crew. He leans in to exchange a few words with one of the guards in a low murmur, then opens the door and leads us through into a handsomely appointed cabin, proportioned like Knollys’s room aboard the Leicester, but more austerely furnished. Trimmings are limited to one woven carpet on the floor and the dark-red drapes gathered at the edges of the wide window that reaches around three sides of the cabin. Under it stands a large oak table, spread with a vast map, surrounded by nautical charts and papers with scribbled calculations and sketches of coastline. Behind the table, bent over these charts with a quill in hand, is a skinny young man with a thatch of straw-coloured hair and small round eye-glasses perched on his nose. He jolts his head up as we enter, stares at us briefly, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, then begins sweeping up the papers with as much haste as if we had caught him looking at erotic prints.
‘Thank you, Gilbert – get those cleared away and leave us, would you?’ Drake says.
The young man nods, and takes off his eye-glasses. Without them, he is obliged to squint at us. He rolls up the charts with a practised movement and gathers the papers together, stealing curious glances at me and Sidney as he does so.
‘That is the Mercator projection, is it not?’ I say, leaning forward and pointing to the large map as he begins to furl it. He peers at me and darts a quick glance at Drake, as if to check whether he is permitted to answer.
‘You know something of cartography, Doctor Bruno?’ Drake says, looking at me with new interest.
‘Only a little,’ I say hastily, as the world disappears into a blank cylinder under the young man’s ink-stained fingers. ‘But anyone with an interest in cosmography is familiar with Mercator’s map. The first true attempt to spread on a plane the surface of a sphere, measuring latitude with some mathematical accuracy.’
‘Exactly,’ the young man says, his face suddenly animated. ‘It is the first projection of the globe designed specifically for navigation at sea. Mercator’s great achievement is to alter the lines of latitude to account for the curvature of the Earth. It means we can now plot a ship’s course on a constant bearing—’ He catches sight of Drake’s face and swallows the rest of his explanation. ‘Forgive me, I am running on.’
‘My clerk, Gilbert Crosse.’ Drake gestures to the young man with an indulgent smile as he eases out from behind the table. ‘Gilbert, these are our visitors newly arrived on the Leicester – Captain Knollys, Sir Philip Sidney and Doctor Giordano Bruno.’ The clerk smiles nervously and nods to each of us in turn, though his red-rimmed eyes linger on me as he locks the papers away in a cupboard and backs out of the room.
‘Very gifted young man there,’ Drake says, nodding towards the door after Gilbert has closed it behind him. ‘Came to me via Walsingham, you know. Take a seat, gentlemen.’
Behind the table, wooden benches are set into the wall panelling. We squeeze in as Drake pours wine into delicate Venetian glasses from a crystal decanter. The young clerk has left a brass cross-staff on the table, an instrument used to determine latitude; my friend John Dee, the Queen’s former astrologer, kept one in his library. I pick it up and, as no one seems to object, I hold one end against my cheek and level the other at the opposite wall, imagining I am aligning it with the horizon.
‘Careful, Bruno, you’ll have someone’s eye out,’ Sidney says, sprawling on the bench, his arm stretched out along the back behind me.
I lower
