Treachery (41 page)

‘Not at all, Francis,’ Lady Drake says. ‘Dom Antonio is quite the storyteller, is he not? So very many tales of escape and subterfuge, one could listen to him all night. And indeed, I feel I have.’

‘I feel I have lived through every minute of his adventures with him,’ Lady Arden says, with a wicked grin.

‘Now, now, ladies – be kind. Dom Antonio is a good man who has suffered a great deal at the hands of Spain. Besides, he is our ally.’

‘Not in any useful sense,’ Lady Arden says, with a snort. ‘He lacks the support for a successful uprising in his own country. Queen Elizabeth may offer Dom Antonio hospitality because she pities him, but she is too prudent to throw good money after a hopeless cause.’

Drake looks at her as if he has just witnessed a talking dog.

‘You are very well informed, my lady,’ I say, impressed.

‘Did I not tell you I had plenty of opinions to share?’ she says, with an impish smile.

‘Here.’ Drake pushes the bag into my hands, but does not let go of it. ‘You are sure you can keep it safe?’ He looks as if he is wavering; perhaps he is picturing his brother’s response if Thomas were to discover that I had taken the book unsupervised.

‘I will guard it with my life, Sir Francis.’ It may yet come to that, I think. If he knew I had allowed the copy to be stolen, he would not let me within a mile of it. I notice Lady Arden’s eyes rest on the bag with interest.

Drake nods and slowly releases it into my hands.

‘Return it to me here first thing tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Keep your room locked tonight. And perhaps when this inquest is over we will have more leisure to discuss what to do with it, once we know its contents.’

I nod, and turn to leave.

‘Lady Arden,’ Drake says, ‘let me call for a servant to take your bag up for you.’

‘Oh, please do not trouble yourself, Sir Francis,’ she says quickly, ‘I thought perhaps Doctor Bruno might carry it for me.’

I look at her; she meets my gaze with innocent eyes.

‘Doctor Bruno is not a porter,’ Drake says, a little embarrassed.

‘But it is on his way – I’m sure it would be no trouble,’ she persists. ‘My maidservant is waiting for me in the room.’

‘I am happy to help,’ I say, not wishing to appear over-eager.

‘Well, if you don’t mind …’ Drake looks doubtful, but he opens the door for me. I pick up Lady Arden’s bag and gesture to her to lead the way, with a bow to Lady Drake as I take my leave.

‘I have been banished to a room of my own while Sir Francis is ashore, you see,’ Lady Arden explains, when the door has closed behind us.

‘You are not afraid to stay on your own?’ I follow her to the stairs.

She laughs. ‘What should I be afraid of?’

‘This present business. The letter left under Lady Drake’s door earlier. Your cousin was anxious, Sir Francis said.’

‘
He
was anxious, you mean. But I am not sure it is mysterious correspondents that concern him so much. I think rather he means to deter any visitors.’

‘Ah. No sonnets for Lady Drake tonight, then.’

‘Alas, no. And do you and Sir Philip intend to sample the diversions of Plymouth again tonight?’ she asks sweetly, as we reach the second-floor landing.

‘My lady – I was not – my aim last night was to find out some information that might help Sir Francis.’

She turns to me and raises an eyebrow.

‘That is to say – in the matter of this death. Nothing more.’ I sound unusually incoherent.

She gives a light laugh. ‘You do not have to justify yourself to me, Doctor Bruno. You are free to visit all the whores you want. Here, this is my chamber for tonight.’ She stops in front of a door and I realise it is the chamber next to Mistress Dunne’s, where I hid earlier. I put down her bag at my feet and pause, listening for any sound from the neighbouring room. There is only the low murmur of women’s voices.

‘Even so. I would like you to know I do not make a habit of visiting whorehouses.’

She looks up at me. A faint smile plays about her lips; I suspect it is at my expense.

‘Unlike my cousin, I find I am at liberty to hear sonnets this evening. Sir Philip mentioned that you are something of a poet.’ Her gaze is direct now; it would be hard to misinterpret her meaning. The leather bag containing the Judas book hangs across my shoulder; it seems I have a stark choice.

‘My poems are all in Italian,’ I say softly.

‘So much the better.’ She smiles. ‘I shall be spared the awkwardness of judging whether they are any good or not.’

She lays a hand on my sleeve as she pushes open the door, but even now I hang back, feeling the weight of the book around my neck. She senses my hesitation. ‘Besides,’ she says, ‘I know something that may be of interest to you in
this present business
, as you call it. And I’ll wager no one else has noted it.’

‘Really? And what is that?’

She adopts a coquettish smile. ‘I will tell you in return for a poem.’

Everyone here is bartering information, it seems. I glance up the corridor towards the stairs. For a moment I think I see a stirring in the shadows, the outline of a figure, but when I look again there is nothing.

‘Your maidservant,’ I whisper, indicating the door.

‘I have given her the evening off. I dare say she is amusing herself somewhere, gossiping, or flirting with sailors. You might carry my bag in for me, at least.’

What would Sidney say if he could see me, I wonder as I follow her over the threshold and hear the door close behind me. He would tell me I needed to live a little; to forego the rigours of books occasionally for the solace of a warm, willing body. He would tell me bluntly that it is fruitless to stay true to the memory of a woman who is long gone, over the sea; he would say that I am a fool to deny myself pleasure, or even the chance of love, for the sake of someone who, in any case, left me without compunction. But perhaps he would not understand the melancholy that steals over me every time I consider the possibility of transferring my affection to another woman. Of course, he would counter that you don’t need affection for a woman to lie down with her, though as I grow older, I find that an empty kind of solace without it.

‘There is no fire here,’ she says. ‘I can have one lit, if you prefer.’

‘I am warm enough, thank you.’

‘Yes, you look a little flushed.’ She smiles. ‘Do I frighten you, Doctor Bruno?’ I shake my head. She seems disappointed. ‘I thought perhaps you might find me too bold.’

I do not tell her that I encountered plenty of bold women at the court of King Henri in Paris; young wives bored by their ageing, impotent husbands, all too willing to throw themselves into the path of any young man at court for the fleeting excitement of a little intrigue, especially if he was exotic-looking and trailed a dangerous reputation. I was an object of fascination to them because I seemed immune to their charms. In truth, their heads were so empty of any thoughts beyond court gossip and their own appearance, I grew weary of their company before they had even finished saying
Bonjour.
Besides, a man of low birth promoted beyond his station must be careful where he makes enemies. But there are no such considerations to stop me here. I look at Lady Arden. Her room faces west; evening light falls on her face, gilding the soft skin of her cheek and the curls of dark hair across it. Holding my gaze, she reaches up and unpins her hood.

‘I find you refreshingly free of false coyness,’ I say, after a long pause.

She laughs again, shaking her head so that a glossy fall of hair tumbles down her back. ‘That is a diplomatic answer, if ever I heard one. Well, then – let me hear a sonnet and in return I shall tell you a secret that is not mine to tell.’

So I recite from memory a sonnet I wrote years ago. I close my eyes as I speak and the words jolt me back to a different time, to snowy peaks against high blue mountain skies; to narrow passes, freezing nights, hunger and exhaustion; the fear of going forward vying with the impossibility of going back. When I have finished she exhales slowly, as if she has been holding her breath.

‘That sounded beautiful. What is it about?’

‘It …’ I falter, unsure how to explain words that flow so naturally in my own tongue, fearing the poem will seem lumpen and unnatural in English. ‘It is addressed to a lonely sparrow. It tells the bird to fly away and be reborn, to find a nobler destiny. It’s an allegory,’ I add, feeling wrong-footed. She is still looking at me intently, a small furrow between her brows.

‘Of what?’

I shrug. ‘Of the soul. And of letting go of what you love.’

‘Say the last line again.’

‘“
E non tornar a me, se non sei mio
.”’

‘What does it mean?’

‘And don’t come back to me, unless you’re mine.’

She nods, slowly. ‘Did you write it for a woman?’

‘No. I wrote it eight years ago, when I was crossing the Alps from Geneva into France, and I understood clearly that I would never see my home or my family again.’ But poems change their meaning, even those you write yourself; they fit themselves to your understanding of your own life over time. When I say that final line now, I think of a woman, and it is as if I wrote it for her, long before the fact.

Lady Arden crosses the room and stands in front of me.

‘Are you lonely?’

‘Sometimes,’ I say. My voice catches in my throat. ‘Often.’

‘As am I.’ She reaches out and places her hands gently on my shoulders. My hands move instinctively to her waist. We stand like this for what seems a long time, listening to the stillness and the soft rhythm of our breath.

‘You promised me a secret,’ I whisper, my lips against her brow.

‘Later,’ she says. Her hand strays across my chest to the opening at the neck of my shirt and slips inside, her fingers cool on my skin. She moves closer, and her lips part slightly as she presses her hip against me and feels my arousal. Her mouth hovers over mine, so near I can taste her breath, as she continues to unlace my shirt. Her fingers reach my belly and she tugs at the leather strap of the satchel I still carry slung across my shoulder. ‘You may have to put this down,’ she murmurs.

‘Lock the door,’ I say, lifting the bag over my head, and she obeys, then takes me by the hand and leads me to the narrow bed as she loosens her bodice. She undresses herself with a sense of urgency, her bright eyes fixed on me all the while, gauging my response; there is an efficiency in the way she goes about it that eliminates any need for the usual dance of seduction, the importuning on my part and feigned resistance on hers. Lady Arden, I conclude as she pushes me on to my back and takes me in her hand with a practised movement, is used to getting what she wants, once she has decided on it. I recall what Sidney said about widows: they are dangerous because they don’t need you. But they still need you for this, I think, closing my eyes.

She kisses me hard, taking her pleasure hungrily as she slips out of her skirts and sits astride me, forcing me to move to her rhythm, and if the thought crosses my mind that perhaps she would have chosen anyone so long as his face and manner pleased her, and that I just happened to be convenient, it hardly matters. This is no more than a fleeting pleasure, and there is no reason on either side to pretend otherwise; no one is being deceived here, and there is something simple and liberating about this fact. We are two strangers attracted to each other, and will likely not meet again after this brief interlude; we expect nothing of one another. Sidney is right: simple pleasure is one thing I allow myself too little of. And so I abandon myself to it: I slide my hands around her small waist and arch my hips further into her, and when she cries out softly amid snatched breaths, her eyes gleaming, lips parted, I roll her carefully on to her back and she lifts her legs to wrap her thighs around my sides, crushing my bruised ribs so hard that I cry out, and she giggles, pressing her hand to my mouth as I move slowly towards my own crescendo. But when I close my eyes and gasp my release, it is not her I am thinking of.

Afterwards, she lies with her head on my shoulder, her hair fanning out over the pillow, her left hand stroking my chest in abstract patterns. She props herself up on one elbow, a provocative smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

‘How did that compare with last night?’

I smile.

‘Well – considering that last night I was drugged, attacked and jumped out of a first-floor window, I would say quite favourably.’

She gives me a light slap on the arm. ‘I meant, the girl you had last night.’

‘I did not have a girl last night, I told you. I have not had a girl for a long time.’ I turn my face away as I say this. ‘Tell me this secret you promised, then.’

I feel her tense against me and her hand falls still. I realise I should have waited; I have implied that what we have just done was mere prologue to the real object of my interest.

‘Mistress Martha Dunne is with child,’ she says idly, looking at the ceiling.

‘What?’ I sit up, staring down at her. She sprawls on her back, coiling a twist of hair around one finger, and gives me a lazy smile. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘I told you, my sister has four. It’s early still, but once you know the signs, they are easy to spot. Small wonder she is so keen to contest a verdict of suicide – she won’t want to lose her husband’s property if she has a child to raise.’ She stretches her arms above her head and traces a finger down my spine, though I am too busy fitting this new revelation into the picture to pay much attention.

‘She did not tell you this directly, though?’

‘Oh, no. She was hardly likely to confide anything in us – I think she resented having to speak to my cousin and me at all, but Sir Francis seemed determined she should have the company of women. I thought you might be interested precisely because she seems to be at pains to conceal the fact.’

‘You cannot account for people’s behaviour when they are grieving.’ I pull the sheet around my knees and hug them to my chest, my thoughts still racing, tripping over one another. She gives a little snort.

‘I have never seen any widow look less grief-stricken,’ she says. ‘Unless perhaps myself.’