by S. J. Parris
‘Why do you speak of doubts at all?’ I ask, in a lighter tone. ‘Did Robert Dunne not strike you as a man likely to take his own life?’
He purses his lips. ‘I did not know him well, you understand. We did not really mix in the same circles. But on reflection, I would say he did not.’
‘He had heavy gambling debts,’ Sidney remarks. ‘That could push a man to despair.’
‘Yes, that was common knowledge,’ Gilbert says, with a disapproving expression. ‘But he seemed so optimistic about the voyage, on the few occasions I spoke with him. This would be his last expedition, he said. He’d be away long enough to avoid his creditors and when he returned, he said his fortunes would be mended and he would finally be able to put his life right.’
‘Fortunes? He meant whatever treasure he brought back, I suppose?’ Sidney says.
Gilbert shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I assume so.’
‘Did he have friends on board the Elizabeth?’ I ask. ‘People he was close to?’
He blinks at me. ‘I often saw him talking with the Spaniard Jonas. They knew one another from the circumnavigation in ’77. Beyond that, I don’t know what he did when he went ashore. You would have to ask the men. I don’t really associate with them much.’ He casts his eyes down as he says this and I realise that he is lonely aboard the Elizabeth; he belongs neither with the hardened sailors nor with the gentlemen officers. It would be a long voyage for him to the New World, I thought, with only his astrolabe for company.
‘Though if anyone would know whether Dunne seemed of a mind to take his life, I suppose it would be the chaplain, Padre Pettifer,’ Gilbert adds. ‘Some of the men do seem to confide in him.’ The curl of his lip as he says this suggests he cannot fathom why.
‘But not you?’
‘No,’ he says, firmly. ‘I would rather confess my sins directly to God, when the need arises.’
I nod, turning away to hide a smile. The silence is broken by a crackle and a flare from behind me; I turn to see Sidney lighting the lantern. Already, I sense his impatience; he has decided this over-earnest young man is no more than a gossip, lurking to see what details he can scavenge. But I have a feeling that Gilbert has not told us everything. I rest my hand on the latch, as if to close the door, but he seems reluctant to leave.
‘I understand you have written books on cosmology, Doctor Bruno, and that you argue the universe is infinite?’ He shuffles as he says this, and blushes, as if he were asking a girl to dance. I acknowledge the truth of it with a tilt of my head. ‘They say your theories have caused a good deal of controversy.’
‘So did Mercator’s projection of the globe when he first published it,’ I say. ‘It is hard to persuade people that the world may look different from the way they have always perceived it.’
He nods vigorously, his face alight. ‘Yes, indeed. I would like so much to discuss these ideas with you in detail, Doctor Bruno. You can imagine, I’m sure, how starved one grows of intellectual discussion among men like this. I pray we will have the chance while you are in Plymouth.’
I respond with a non-committal murmur and hold the door open for him.
‘Well, I shall leave you to your sad task,’ he says, after a pause. He turns, casting a look back at the cabin. ‘Perhaps you may find something of interest in there.’ He smiles, still trying to peer over my shoulder. I return the smile, and politely close the door in his face.
‘What sins could a milksop like that have to confess – coveting his neighbour’s astrolabe?’ Sidney rolls his eyes. ‘God’s tears. Do you know what we used to do with fellows like him at Oxford?’
‘I wouldn’t like to guess.’
He grins. ‘Well, that’s you taken care of for the voyage, Bruno. You two can have a wild old time with your measurements and your instruments. Starved of intellectual discussion! He has a fine opinion of himself for a bloody clerk.’
‘Ah, leave him alone,’ I say. ‘Help me lift this chest on to the bunk.’
‘Oh, I see – just because he’s heard of your books.’ Sidney folds his arms and nods. ‘Suddenly he’s your best friend. Well, I think he’s odd.’
‘I don’t disagree. But let’s concentrate on this for now.’
Between us, we grip the ends of the wooden chest and heft it on to the rumpled bed. It weighs less than I had expected, and we almost lose our balance.
‘He was very eager to share his misgivings,’ I remark, watching as Sidney lifts layers of clothes out of Dunne’s chest.
‘Probably just glad to have someone listen to him,’ Sidney says, without looking up. ‘I can’t imagine the rest of the crew have much time for a whey-faced scribbler like that.’
‘He seemed sincere, though, do you not think?’ I lean against the wall, running through Gilbert’s uninvited confidences in my mind. ‘If he truly suspects that Dunne didn’t kill himself, it must be a relief to unburden his fears. I imagine Drake put an end to any such speculation the minute it was voiced.’
‘He wanted to be sure we knew about the Spaniard, though. Do you think there’s anything in that?’
‘You mentioned poison earlier as the simplest way to kill a man without suspicion. I wondered why we had not thought of that before. And now we have a resident herbalist who took him a philtre the night he died.’
‘But apparently they were friends,’ he points out.
‘Gilbert said he saw them talking. That is not necessarily the same thing.’ I suck in my cheeks. ‘I don’t know how we go about asking this Jonas questions without putting him on his guard. Especially if he does have something to hide.’
‘You have a knack for that sort of thing,’ Sidney says. ‘That’s why Walsingham values you so highly.’
‘I’m not the only one Walsingham values on this ship, apparently.’
‘Yes.’ He nods towards the door. ‘We’ll have to keep an eye on that clerk. He’s bound to be reporting back. He must not know of our plan to sail with the fleet until we are underway – I don’t want him tattling to Walsingham. Now then – what’s in here?’
He lifts the last of the clothes out of the chest and throws them down on the bunk with a disgruntled noise. ‘Nothing except shirts, and not very good ones at that.’
‘There must be something else.’ I turn slowly, taking in the bare cabin. The yellow light throws sickly shadows up the walls as it sways on its hook with the ship’s motion. Already I feel my own balance knocked off-centre now that we are back on board; that same sense that everything certain and solid has been pulled away from under me. I reach out a hand and lay my palm against the rough wooden wall of the cabin to steady myself. There are so few possessions here, so little to give us any sense of the man whose life had ended swinging from a ceiling beam like a side of beef. I shudder. ‘He was certainly travelling light for someone who expected to be away for a year.’
Sidney stuffs the clothes into the chest without bothering to fold them and lifts it off the bunk. The ship gives a sudden shift back and forth as if on an unexpected wave, and he staggers with the weight of the chest, dropping it to the floor, narrowly missing his foot. The movement causes the cone of light from the lantern to lurch wildly from side to side, briefly illuminating the shadowy recesses of the cabin.
‘Dio mio, what is that?’ I grab the lantern from its hook and fling myself across to the bunk, pulling back the rumpled sheets where a dark red stain blooms on the white linen.
‘What have you found?’ Sidney crowds in beside me, curious, his shadow falling across the bed.
‘Move back, I can’t see. Here, hold this.’ I hand him the lantern and lift the sheet closer to my face. The stain is dry, the fabric stiff. I lean in and sniff it.
‘Wine,’ I say, letting the sheet fall back to the bed. ‘For a moment I thought it was blood.’ I pull the top sheet away to reveal a bottle of dark-green glass, empty, and two stoneware mugs. Both have the dried dregs of wine inside. I stick my nose inside one and sniff.
Sidney grins. ‘You are bette
r value than a hunting dog, Bruno, just as I told Drake.’
‘This smells odd,’ I say, passing it to him. ‘Sweet. It’s familiar, but—’
He inhales, his face in the mug. ‘Christmas, that’s what it smells of. The wine must have been spiced. It fits, I suppose. Everyone said Dunne was drunk that night. He must have put this away in his cabin before he even left for shore.’
‘But there are two mugs here. It looks as if he was drinking with someone.’ I sniff the mug again. He is right; the lingering sweet smell calls to mind winter spices. ‘Might someone have slipped something into his drink? Something that would account for the wildness of his behaviour?’
‘So they could kill him while he was out of his right mind, you mean?’ Sidney scratches the back of his neck. ‘I suppose that’s possible. What do you think – the Spaniard and his herbs again?’
I frown. ‘Who knows? I would like to talk to this Jonas, before we make up our minds against him. But it seems he would have had the means. Wait – what’s under here?’
The space beneath the bunk, where it is built into the wall, has been converted into a cupboard for storage. I open one of the doors, but the cavity appears to be empty. ‘Give me the light, would you?’
Sidney crouches beside me, shining the lantern into the corners. I lay on my front and wriggle my head and shoulders into the hole, pressing my hands around the boards on the floor and sides.
‘What are you looking for?’ Sidney asks, passing the light in to me.
‘I don’t know. But where would you hide anything valuable, if not in the chest? There must be something in here.’ My voice is muffled by the enclosed space. ‘He was going to sea for a year or more, you’d think he would have brought some personal possessions with him. Some memento of home. This room is so spartan, it seems wrong.’
‘Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded of home,’ Sidney says. ‘Maybe he saw it as a chance to escape all that.’
I say nothing. I have a feeling he is not thinking about Dunne. Just as I am on the verge of conceding defeat, I notice some scratch marks on one of the wooden planks at the back of the storage cavity. I place the light beside me, stretch awkwardly to my belt for my knife, and slip the blade in under the board to prise it up. It lifts easily to reveal a small recess. I reach in and retrieve a fat leather-bound book with an ornate jewelled clasp.
‘What have you got?’ Sidney asks, impatient.
‘An English testament, by the look of it. Here, hold this.’
I wriggle out backwards, hand him the lantern and brush myself down. We sit together on the bunk, heads bent close over the book. He undoes the clasp and opens the stiff cover to the first page.
‘Well, I’ll be whipped,’ Sidney whispers.
A hole has been cut in the pages of the book, very precisely, identical on every page, all the way through to the back cover. Inside it is a velvet purse with a drawstring. I lift it out and test the weight.
‘Let’s have a look,’ Sidney says, holding out his hand. I tip the purse up and five bright coins jangle into his open palm. Sidney whistles.
‘Five gold angels. Christ’s bones! I thought Robert Dunne was supposed to have gambled away his last groat. Where would he get a sum like this?’
‘Perhaps he won it.’
‘Unlikely, from everything we’ve heard. We should take this to Drake. It’s an old trick, this, you know.’ He pokes the cavity cut out of the book. ‘This is how Catholics often smuggle vials of chrism and holy water through the ports. Revenue officers don’t think to look inside books. Let’s see if there’s anything else under there.’ Sidney rests one knee on the planks and leans in with the lantern to grope around in the space beneath the boards. ‘Ha! What have we here?’
He passes me a folded paper and reaches back inside, bringing out a tarnished metal coin.
‘Look at this.’ He holds it out on the flat of his palm. Peering closer, I see that it is about the size of a sovereign, but of cheap metal, imprinted not with the Queen’s image but with an insignia depicting a flame above a dish. ‘What do you make of that? It looks like no coin I’ve ever seen. Foreign, do you think?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think it’s a coin at all. More likely some sort of token – a private currency, perhaps? Though it is not a symbol I recognise.’
He examines it, shrugs. ‘Let’s take a look at the paper, then.’
The letter has been sealed with crimson wax, and the seal is neatly broken in two. I unfold it and hold it out so Sidney can read it with me.
Will Bryte
Edward Morgan
Abe Fletcher
Robert Dunne
Francis Knollys
Thomas Drake
Francis Drake
A line has been drawn through the first three names on the list. Sidney looks up at me, a glint of excitement in his eye.
‘What do you make of this?’
I scan the list. ‘I’d like to know if Bryte, Morgan or Fletcher were either of the two men Lady Drake mentioned – the jurymen from Thomas Doughty’s trial who died this year.’
‘I don’t recognise those names, but that was my first thought. I’ll wager you are right. Is this list in Dunne’s own writing, I wonder?’
I open the book again. On the top right-hand corner of the inside cover, the name R. Dunne is written in ink, and below it, Plymouth 1577. The curling loops on the R and D are quite different from the script on the list of names.
‘If Dunne wrote his own name in his book, then I would say no. Turn the paper over.’
Sidney holds out the back of the sheet, where the paper was folded and sealed. In the same hand is written ‘Master Robert Dunne’.
Sidney bends closer to examine the wax. ‘No imprint. Whoever sent it knew it would mean something to Dunne. But why send him a list of names that includes his own?’
‘A threat, perhaps. Letting him know that his time is coming. Though it seems odd to give a man warning that you plan to kill him.’
‘And implying that you intend to strike at Drake and his brother as well,’ Sidney says, rubbing his chin. ‘Why did Dunne say nothing to Drake?’
I look sideways at him. ‘Perhaps he had good reason not to.’
‘How so?’
I sit on the edge of the bunk, tracing the raised pattern the jewels make on the book’s cover with my fingertips. ‘What do we know of Robert Dunne? A gentleman, though deeply in debt. One of the jurymen who condemned Thomas Doughty to execution seven years ago. Which makes him one of John Doughty’s targets for revenge.’
‘If the John Doughty story is true,’ Sidney says, leaning against the door. ‘It might be nothing more than rumour and coincidence.’
‘True. But I am just trying to set out all the possibilities. We know that Robert Dunne was an obsessive gambler, and that he was using this voyage to escape his creditors.’
‘We also know that he expected to come into money in the not too distant future, if your twitchy friend the cartographer is to be believed.’
‘He’s not my friend. But yes. Dunne may have meant his spoils from the voyage, but what if he meant something else? And we’re told that he had been seen more than once in the company of a couple of strangers – meetings he clearly didn’t want his fellow sailors to know about.’
‘Then there’s the Judas book, and the dealer we presume to be Rowland Jenkes. Dunne was mixed up in that, don’t forget. And now this mysterious purse. Maybe he stole it from someone, who killed him in revenge?’
‘Or maybe it was some kind of payment.’
Sidney looks at me expectantly. When I make no reply, he shrugs. ‘It’s a tangle.’
I tuck the letter inside my doublet. ‘We should ask Drake about this list. If this is the jury that condemned Thomas Doughty, it may shed some light. Didn’t you say John Doughty went to prison because it was alleged that the Spanish had recruited him to assassinate Drake?’
Sidney narrows his eyes. ‘So it was said at court, but—’<
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‘And suppose that were true? If you were John Doughty, bent on revenge, how would you go about it? Drake travels with armed men wherever he goes, and he would recognise you a mile off, so how would you ever get near him? If you were clever, might you not recruit someone to do the job for you? Someone who could get close to Drake without him suspecting anything?’
He stares at me. ‘Someone like Robert Dunne, you mean?’
‘It is no small task to persuade a man to take another’s life. Especially when the man concerned is considered a hero. You would need to find someone who is vulnerable to coercion in some way. This might be an advance payment.’ I tap the purse with my forefinger.
‘Philip of Spain has offered twenty thousand ducats to the man who rids him of El Draco. That would be incentive enough for many. You think John Doughty aimed to use Dunne to assassinate Drake, for a share of the reward?’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s quite a convoluted theory, Bruno.’
‘I know.’ I place the purse back inside the book and tuck it under my arm with a sigh. ‘I would be glad to hear a simpler one, if you have it.’
He presses his lips together. ‘Not yet. We should show all this to Drake, see what he makes of it.’
‘He may not thank us for suggesting he is next on the murderer’s list.’
‘I doubt he will lose much sleep over the idea. If Drake feared the assassin’s knife he would never set foot outside his own door.’ Sidney affects indifference, but it is plain he is impressed by Drake’s bravery.
Holding up the lantern, I close the cupboard door and take a last look around the dead man’s cabin. A sudden melancholy sweeps over me at the bareness of it, the thought that a life can leave so few traces. Hard not to think of what I would leave behind me, if someone came for me in the dark watches of the night. No widow, no child, no land. Nothing but the books I have written. At least, I suppose, that is some sort of mark in the sand. I am about to leave when something flashes on the floor; a brief wink as I move the light.
‘Wait – what was that?’
I crouch and retrieve from between the floorboards a small pearl button in the shape of a flower. I hold it out on my palm for Sidney to examine.