‘But if that is not sufficient for you, let us prove ourselves further. I was not in jest when I said that Bruno has a nose for unearthing murderers keener than a pig after truffles.’
‘A gracious comparison,’ I murmur. Drake smiles.
‘The Queen herself would vouch for him, if she were here.’ Sidney is relentless. ‘If we can find this killer for you, no one will be out of pocket, the fleet can sail, and we will have earned our place in it.’
‘And the Queen? She expects you back at court with Dom Antonio, does she not? She will not look kindly on you or me when he arrives alone and informs her that you are halfway to the New World.’
Sidney shrugs. ‘But she will have forgotten her anger by the time we return, when she learns we have captured the Spanish ports.’
Drake closes his eyes briefly, as if willing himself to be patient.
‘Nothing is guaranteed on a voyage like this. Her Majesty likes the idea of Spanish gold, to be sure. But she is cautious of any act of aggression that may provoke King Philip to war.’
‘As if he is not committing acts of aggression every day of the week!’ Sidney cries, outraged. ‘He has been impounding English merchant ships in Spanish ports and confiscating their cargos, ships going about their legal trade. We have no choice but to respond.’
Drake lays a hand on his arm. ‘I have in my quarters a royal commission of reprisal, signed by the Queen’s own hand, permitting me to enter Spanish ports, free the impounded English vessels, and recompense our merchants for their losses.’ He pauses. ‘She is not to blame if I choose to interpret recompense in my own robust way. That is precisely why she leaves the wording ambiguous. But if we are to take the ports of the Spanish Main, we must proceed with caution.’
‘I always prefer cautious piracy, given a choice,’ I say. ‘The aggressive kind puts everyone in a foul temper.’
Drake turns to me, unsure whether I am mocking him; after a moment he laughs and claps me on the back.
‘What about you, my friend?’ he asks. ‘Our scholar. Do you also dream of looting Spanish ships, weighting down your purse with emeralds fat as grapes? Would you risk scurvy, cabin fever, heatstroke, drowning, shipwreck, for the chance to stick a cutlass in a Spaniard?’
I look up and meet his eye. Sidney skewers me with a warning glare; here is where I am supposed to second his enthusiasm.
‘I have never dreamed of sticking a cutlass in anyone, Sir Francis. But I confess I have a yearning for new horizons, and here is as good a place for me as any.’ I tap the planks of the decking with my boot to make the point. ‘I wouldn’t say no to the fat emeralds either.’
He gives us a tired smile. ‘Well, they are there for the plucking. Big as this.’ He makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger. Then his hand falls to his side and his face grows serious. ‘Is it true, then, that you have a gift for finding out a killer? Discreetly?’
‘I would not call it a gift, sir. More a series of coincidences.’
‘I have disputed with my brother just now,’ Drake says, eventually. ‘He thinks I should not confide my suspicions of the Dunne business with those outside the command of this voyage. I hardly need say that I must swear you both to secrecy on this matter. But I would ask your advice, since you have offered your services. Because you are educated men, and God knows I am not. The only pages I read are nautical charts.’ There is something pointed in the smile he gives Sidney as he says this, as if he is well aware how Sidney views his status. To my friend’s credit, he lowers his eyes, embarrassed.
‘Connected with the death of Robert Dunne?’ I ask.
Drake glances over his shoulder and leans forward on the ship’s rail so that we are obliged to huddle in to hear him.
‘I do not know exactly whose hand moved against Dunne that night, but I suspect I know who was behind it. And if I am right, there will be more deaths. Ending with my own, if he is not stopped.’
A cold gust of wind cuts across the deck; I shiver, and feel it is the effect of his words, though he speaks matter-of-factly.
‘Hence the guards,’ I say.
‘Those I keep anyway. But now I keep more of them. I cannot help but suspect Dunne’s death was a warning to me.’
‘How do you conclude that?’ Sidney says. ‘If he had bad debts, could it not be—’
Drake’s look silences him.
‘I know it, Sir Philip, because I have made many enemies in my life, and they have vowed vengeance. All our past deeds, gentlemen, one way or another, will be washed up on the shore of the present.’ He stares out across the water, where the fading sun has brushed a trail of light in its wake.
I exchange a glance with Sidney.
‘Can you be any more specific?’ I say.
Drake half turns his head. ‘Oh yes. There is a particular story here, but I will not keep you longer tonight, gentlemen. Tomorrow we will speak further. I would like you to look at a book for me, Doctor Bruno,’ he says, then glances again over his shoulder. Though no one else is on the quarterdeck, still his face grows guarded. ‘Not here. We will dine tomorrow at your inn. Oh – one more thing. Tomorrow my wife arrives from Buckland with her widowed cousin. They think they are coming to see us off – I did not have the chance to warn her. This death has given me much business to attend to in Plymouth – I may prevail upon your gallantry, gentlemen, to keep the ladies company while I am occupied.’
I make a little bow of acquiescence; there seems nothing else to do. Sidney remains silent, but his affront is almost palpable. I put a hand on his arm as if to restrain whatever outburst I sense brewing, and he shakes it off as if it were a wasp.
‘Give you good night, gentlemen,’ Drake says, his smile and handshake businesslike once more. ‘Until tomorrow, then.’
We follow him to the head of the stairs and I see the armed men waiting at the bottom, staring straight ahead like a pair of statues at the door of a church.
Sidney is obliged to tamp down his anger while we take our leave of Knollys and the others, which he does with faultless manners, though I sense him bristling beneath the courtesy. As two of the crewmen row us to shore in a small craft, he presses his lips together and says almost nothing; it is left to me to respond to the sailors’ cheerful advice about where to find the best whores in Plymouth and which taverns water their beer. From the broad bay of Plymouth Sound they take us between the great ships and through a harbour wall into a smaller inlet they tell us is called Sutton Pool. Here fishing boats jostle one another at their moorings, their hulls gently cracking together; the sailors ease us deftly between them to a floating jetty, where we stumble out and make our way to the quayside. Standing on solid ground for the first time in days, my legs feel oddly unreliable; when I look at the line of houses facing the harbour wall, they shift and sway as if I had been drinking.
Once the sailors are away from the quay and out of earshot, Sidney plants his legs astride, hands on his hips, and allows himself to vent.
‘Do you believe the face of that man?’ His expression is almost comical; I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh. He takes off his hat, grabs a fistful of his own hair and pulls it into spikes. ‘I come here as Master of the Ordnance and he thinks I am fit only to amuse his womenfolk? If he had a child I dare say he would appoint me its nursemaid, all the while telling me he is not sure there is a place for me on the voyage I helped to finance!’
‘I have never known you to scorn the company of women.’
‘It is not fitting for a gentleman, do you not see that,