Treachery Read Free Page B

you can stop brooding. I have an answer to your problems.’ The glint in his eye does not inspire confidence. Sidney is well intentioned but impulsive and his schemes are rarely practical; for all that, I cannot suppress a flicker of hope. Perhaps he means to speak to his father-in-law Walsingham for me, or even the Queen. Only a position at court would allow me to support myself in exile. Though she cannot publicly acknowledge it, I know that Walsingham has told the Queen how I have risked my life in her service over the past two years. Surely she will understand that I can never again live or write safely in a Catholic country while I am wanted by the Inquisition on charges of heresy.
    ‘You will speak to the Queen?’
    ‘Wait and see,’ is all he says, with a cryptic wink that he knows infuriates me.
    Sidney was appointed Master of the Ordnance early in the spring – a political appointment, a bauble from the Queen, no reflection of his military or naval abilities, which so far exist largely in his head. Over the summer he has been occupied with overseeing the provision of munitions for this latest venture of Francis Drake’s. So when the Queen received word that Dom Antonio, the pretender to the Portuguese throne, was sailing for England to visit her and intended to land at Plymouth, Sidney volunteered immediately for the task of meeting and escorting him to London, so that he might see Drake’s fleet at first hand.
    The plan is that we sail with the Galleon Leicester as far as Plymouth, where the ships are assembling, spend a few days among the sailors and merchant adventurers while we wait for the Portuguese and his entourage, so that Sidney can strut about talking cannon-shot and navigation and generally making himself important, then return by road to London with our royal visitor by the end of the month, when the royal court will have made its way back to the city after a summer in the country. I am grateful for the diversion, but I cannot help dwelling on the reckoning that will come on our return. If Sidney can find a way for me to stay in London, I will be in his debt for a lifetime.
    The sun is almost fully above the horizon when Knollys calls us back to the deck, its light shrouded by a thin gauze of white cloud. I think of a Sicilian lemon in a muslin bag, with a brief pang of nostalgia.
    ‘We shall have clear weather today, God willing,’ he says, nodding to the sky. ‘Though it would not hurt to pray for a little more wind.’
    ‘You’re asking the wrong man,’ Sidney says, nudging me. ‘Bruno does not pray.’
    Knollys regards me, amused. ‘Wait until we’re out at sea. He will.’
    The ship casts off smoothly from her moorings; orders are shouted, ropes hauled in, and from above comes a great creak of timber and the billowing slap of canvas as the sails breathe in and out like bellows. For the first time since we boarded, I am truly aware of the deck shifting beneath my feet; a gentle motion, back and forth on the swell as the Leicester moves away from the dock and the children who earn pennies loading cargo and running errands cheer us on our way, scampering as far as they can run along the wharf to wave us out of sight. Knollys laughs and waves back, so Sidney and I follow suit as the sun breaks through in a sudden shaft that gilds the brass fittings and the warm grain of the wood and makes the water ahead sparkle with a hundred thousand points of light, and I think perhaps I will enjoy this after all. But each time I move I am reminded that the ground under my feet is no longer solid.
    ‘Occupy yourselves for the present,’ Knollys says, ‘as long as you don’t get in anyone’s way.’
    ‘I am fully ready to pull my weight, Cousin, just let me know what tasks I should take in hand. I have heard how Drake likes to run his crews and we are not here to sit about watching honest men toil while we drink French wine in the sun.’ Sidney beams, spreading his hands wide as if to say, Here I