Treachery (65 page)

‘True,’ she says, with a sigh. ‘Although it would have been fun.’ She runs a hand along my thigh. I glance up at the house, conscious that the Mayor’s household may well be watching from the windows. Taking her hand, I raise it softly to my lips and replace it in her lap, though more in a spirit of regret than desire.

‘I had better see if Sidney has settled his differences with Sir Francis,’ I say, as I stand. ‘And then we must pack our bags.’

‘But Elizabeth has told you of our plan to go to Buckland?’ she says, rising and tucking a loose curl of hair into her hood. ‘Those few days, before we each go back to our own lives – perhaps there we might briefly forget the differences that separate us?’ She offers me a sly smile, a look from under her lashes that tells me exactly what she means.

‘I hope we might,’ I say, relieved. I have a sudden urge to take her in my arms and crush her mouth to mine right there, but instead I bend and place another chaste kiss on her hand. Sidney may scorn the company of women, but I have not known enough of it in my life to tire of it. A few days of softness before I must return to face my future would not hurt. As long as I remember to guard my heart.

‘I am truly sorry to see you leave, Bruno.’ Drake shields his eyes and scans the view from the Hoe. The evening sun is beginning its slow slide towards the horizon, leaving a wash of coral and gold in the sky. Over the surface of the water, bands of shadow shift with the movement of the clouds, changing its colour in a restless patchwork. Small waves crest in white flecks around the great ships. Music drifts across the open water from their decks, the lilt of flutes and viols. On St Nicholas Island, all is still and quiet. Drake breathes deeply and rolls his shoulders back. I steal a glance at him while his attention is fixed on the horizon. The strained expression that had haunted him since we arrived has melted away; he carries himself with a new lightness, as if he has taken off a lead cloak. When he smiles, you see the genial man under the ruthless commander. I begin to feel that it would have been a worthwhile experience to sail with him.

‘As am I. When do you plan to leave?’

‘As soon as possible. I will see poor Jonas buried and Gilbert and his courier put on the road to London under armed guard. I have already sent a fast rider to Walsingham with the coded letter – he will have plenty of warning.’ He turns to me, suddenly sombre. ‘I do this with a heavy heart. People think me unfeeling, because I value discipline. A captain who does not is no captain at all, and the same goes for a ruler. But I know what awaits Gilbert, and I don’t send him to it lightly.’

‘Unsentimental is not the same as unfeeling,’ I murmur.

‘Quite. You express it better than I could.’ He sighs, and returns his gaze to the water. ‘Sir William Savile has decided not to sail with us, you know,’ he says, after a long silence.

‘He has not withdrawn his money?’

‘No, God be thanked. But now that Robert Dunne is to be buried like a Christian and his wife will be a respectable widow, he reasons it is easier to let us do the work while he stays here and bides his time until he can marry her without scandal and I bring home a healthy return on his investment. The child will be christened as Dunne’s and Savile will legally adopt it as his heir once he marries Martha. Very neat.’ He folds his arms and smiles into his chest. ‘God knows I have no great admiration for William Savile, but it may be he makes the woman a better husband than her first. Poor Robert. God rest him.’

‘And Pettifer?’ I do not quite meet his eye as I ask this.

‘Pettifer travels with me as our ship’s chaplain.’ He glances sideways at me. ‘Does that surprise you?’

‘I was mistaken in accusing him of the murders, and I am sorry for it, but everything else I told you, Sir Francis – I am convinced it is the truth. If you had seen that poor boy’s face, you would not doubt it.’

Drake holds up a hand to stop me. ‘I can believe it, Bruno – all of it. Pettifer may rail against your accusations until he is hoarse, but it is plain to see that the shock of near-discovery has frightened him. He is very contrite, and I like to think he will change his ways.’ He clasps his hands behind his back. ‘Besides, he will do less harm out to sea, away from temptation, than left here to collude with that woman. As for the House of Vesta …’ He curls his lip. ‘I have spoken at length to the Mayor about cleaning up that nest of vermin. They cannot go on believing they are above the law. I have also written to the Sheriff.’

‘What if the Mayor and the Sheriff are among her clientele? Nothing will be done. That is what she stakes her whole business on.’

‘
If
they are, Bruno’ – and he lays heavy emphasis on caution – ‘they will have to think carefully about which side of the law they wish to be found on. I hinted at the possibility of a Royal Commissioner coming from London to investigate if that place carries on unchecked. That ought to frighten them sufficiently. I have every confidence that by the time I return from this voyage, the House of Vesta will be no more than an old wives’ tale in Plymouth.’ He flashes me a quick smile, his gold tooth winking in the light.

I nod. No one could argue with his course of action, but I cannot help wondering what will become of those young girls if the House of Vesta closes down. Will they just find themselves selling their wares down at the docks, without even the security of food and shelter, ending their days like that poor pox-blighted girl Sara? I bite my lip; there is nothing I can do about it either way, and at least Mistress Grace would no longer profit from them.

‘So you have a few empty berths aboard the
Elizabeth
,’ I remark, after a while.

‘I’m afraid so. Which makes it all the greater pity that you cannot come with us. I would have liked a man of your abilities with me on the voyage.’ Drake pauses, still squinting out to sea. ‘You must feel that I have deceived you.’

‘I knew from the start that you had no intention of taking us. I tried to disabuse Sidney of the idea several times, but he would not listen. He had his mind made up.’

‘Yes, he is still not speaking to me,’ Drake says, pulling at his beard. ‘But he knows better than I how dangerous it would be to defy the Queen. He will thank me for it one day.’

‘His wife will thank you for it now. As will Walsingham.’ I hesitate, unsure how he will respond to my next question. ‘Have you spoken to Gilbert since he was arrested?’

‘No.’ His face tenses again and his voice grows hard. ‘I considered it, but I cannot bring myself to look him in the eye. Loyalty, Bruno.’ He turns to me with a grave expression. ‘For a man in my position, it’s the prince of all virtues. All those ships, all those lives, are in my care,’ he says, pointing to the fleet peacefully dominating the Sound, the vast ships bright against the glinting water. ‘That’s why treachery like his is the hardest thing for a captain to forgive. Harder even than the murders. To think he sat at my table, eating my food, sketching our plans as I talked with my captains, and then sent every word off to the Spanish – it curdles my blood.’ He bunches his fists, then slowly releases his hands to hang at his sides. ‘It was disloyalty that brought me all the problems with the Doughty brothers, and look where that has ended.’

‘Is there any news of John Doughty and Jenkes?’

‘None yet.’ He presses his lips together. ‘I have put messengers on every vessel leaving for the French ports along this stretch of coast, warning the customs men to look out for them. Jenkes at least is conspicuous, you would hope. But if they have made it to France they will disappear like rats into the sewers, to pop up again somewhere else. John Doughty will pursue me until one of us is in our grave, I have no doubt of it.’

‘And yet, if Gilbert had not murdered Robert Dunne, then Dunne might have carried out his plan to kill you before you were even across the Bay of Biscay.’

He nods, reflective. ‘There is truth in that, I suppose. But do not ask me to be grateful to Gilbert yet.’

‘I thought I might speak to him before I leave,’ I say, quietly.

‘What for?’ His eyes narrow.

‘I want to understand why.’ And – because I know what they will do to him before he dies – to make sure he knows better than to try and hold on to his secrets.

Drake makes a non-committal noise and returns his gaze to the sea. ‘I have always loved this view,’ he says, after a while. ‘But that is nothing to how much I love to see it from the other direction, sailing back into Plymouth after months at sea.’ He raises his head and the salt breeze lifts his hair. ‘Of all the sights I have seen in the world, there is none I love so much as the sight of home.’

I do not speak, because at his words my throat constricts and tears prickle at the back of my eyes. I blink them away. Nothing so painful to an exile as the dream of homecoming. I allow myself to imagine I am gazing out across the peacock-blue waters of the Bay of Naples, and I wonder if I will ever see that view again.

Drake points to the horizon, where a scalloped band of cloud glides up towards the land, edged with lilac and gold. ‘If the Spanish ever do raise a fleet to invade this island, I believe this is where we will sight them first. Sometimes I fancy I see them – ranks of galleons appearing along the skyline. Then I blink and they are just clouds. But the image of it chills me to the bone.’

‘Pray God that day never comes,’ I say. ‘But if it did, I cannot think of anyone I would rather have commanding England’s defences.’

He smiles then, and the creases appear at the corners of his eyes. He rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘God go with you, Bruno. It may be that this voyage owes its success to you. If you had not discovered Gilbert, we would have been sailing straight towards a Spanish ambush. I will see you well rewarded, do not fear. And Sir Philip too, for his part.’

I incline my head in a gesture of deference. ‘God speed you, Sir Francis, and bring you safe home.’

‘I pray we meet again.’ He steps forward and embraces me, his strong hands crushing my bruised shoulders. When he releases me, I bow low and leave him standing there on the clifftop, lit by the evening sun, arms folded across his chest as he surveys his ships, his sea, his horizon. Every age produces only a handful of truly great men, and I have a feeling that I have been fortunate enough to earn the admiration of one of them.

The town gaol stands behind the Guildhall, an ugly building of dirty white stone with rows of mean barred windows squinting at the alley in front like narrowed eyes. I brace myself before entering and press a handkerchief over my nose and mouth, trying to push away the memories of my own experience in an English prison as the foul smells bring them rushing back. I hand over the fee to the turnkey, who unlocks a door and leads me along a filthy passage. A thin, high-pitched wailing seeps out from behind a side door, while someone pounds on another as we pass.

‘In there,’ the turnkey says, unlocking a door at the end of the passage. He rummages in one ear with a forefinger and regards his findings. ‘You got ten minutes. He can’t touch you, he’s chained up, but shout for me if you want to come out sooner.’

I blink, accustoming my eyes to the gloom as I hear the door locked behind me. The animal stink of excrement and urine is fierce here, but the straw beneath my feet looks relatively fresh. Gilbert is huddled in a corner. His face is bruised from his fall into the sea, and his hair hangs in matted rats’ tails, thick with salt. He screws up his eyes to peer at me, looking like some nocturnal creature without his eye-glasses. As I take a step closer he realises who I am and turns to the wall.

‘Are they feeding you?’ I say, to break the silence.

‘If you can call it that,’ he mutters.

‘Then Drake must be paying for it. Otherwise you would have nothing.’

‘Please convey my humble gratitude to him,’ he says, lifting his head and spitting the words at me. ‘They wouldn’t dare let me starve anyway – I’m expected at the Tower any day, didn’t you know?’

There is nothing I can say to that. I wrap my arms around my chest and keep my eyes to the floor. Perhaps it was a mistake to come here.

‘What have they done with the letter?’ he asks, after a while. He sounds as if he does not care.

‘Sent it to London.’ I crouch down so that I can look him in the eye without quite sitting on the floor. ‘You would save yourself a lot of trouble by just telling them the cipher. They will have it out of you one way or another.’

He shrugs. ‘Let them decipher it in London. Then they will see.’

‘What will they see?’

‘That I am not a traitor.’

I breathe in and out carefully through my cloth, and still the air makes me retch a little. ‘You will have a hard time persuading Captain Drake of that.’

‘He would understand if he read the letter.’

‘He can’t, it’s written in code. You are speaking in riddles, Gilbert. What would he understand?’ I try to keep my patience, reminding myself that I am at liberty to leave at any time.

‘That I did not betray him. Those letters I sent to the Spanish envoys – I never told them Drake’s true plans. I changed the details, the coordinates, each time so it was plausible enough to fool them, but not enough to jeopardise the voyage.’ He shifts his weight on to one side and stretches his legs out before him, wincing as he does so. ‘There was never any danger to the fleet, I made sure of that. But Robert Dunne took against me from the beginning – I once criticised his judgement in front of Drake. He was looking for ways to discredit me. One evening he followed me to church and saw me hand over a letter. He thought he could turn it to his own profit. If he had kept out of it, none of this would have happened.’ His voice quivers with anger as he speaks, and he draws a fist across his mouth to wipe away spittle.

‘But you must have known five gold angels would not keep Dunne quiet for long,’ I say. ‘So, what happened – you decided to silence him?’

‘I didn’t
decide
it, the way you make it sound,’ he says. He slumps back against the wall. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’ I catch a tremor of desperation in his voice. He looks very young. ‘Then I was out on deck that night the chaplain brought Dunne back drunk out of his wits.’