Because in your heart, my friend, he is the man you would secretly like to be, I think, though I smile to myself and say nothing. Not long ago, at court, Sidney had failed to show sufficient deference to some senior peer, who in response had called him the Queen’s puppy before a roomful of noblemen. Now, whenever Sidney walks through the galleries or the gardens at the royal palaces, he swears he can hear the sound of sarcastic yapping and whistles trailing after him. How he would love to be famed as an adventurer rather than a lapdog to Elizabeth; I could almost pity him for it. Since the beginning of the summer, when the Queen finally decided to commit English troops to support the Protestants fighting the Spanish in the Low Countries, he has barely been able to contain his excitement at the thought of going to war. His uncle, the Earl of Leicester, is to lead the army and Sidney had been given to believe he would have command of the forces garrisoned at Flushing. Then, at the last minute, the Queen havered, fearful of losing two of her favourites at once. Early in August, she withdrew the offer of Flushing and appointed another commander, insisting Sidney stay at court, in her sight. He has begged her to consider his honour, but she laughs off his entreaties as if she finds them amusing, as if he is a child who wants to play at soldiers with the bigger boys. His pride is humiliated. At thirty, he feels his best years are ebbing away while he is confined at the Queen’s whim to a woman’s world of tapestries and velvet cushions. Now she sends him as an envoy to Plymouth; it is a long way from commanding a garrison, but even this brief escape from the court aboard a galleon has made him giddy with the prospect of freedom.
I am less enthusiastic, though I am making an effort to hide this, for Sidney’s sake. Hopping from the wherry to the steps is close enough to the water for my liking, I reflect, as I falter and flail towards the rope to keep my balance. My boots slip on each step and I try not to look down to the slick brown river below. I swim well enough, but I have been in the Thames by accident once before and the smell of it could knock a man out before he strikes for shore; as to what floats beneath the surface, it is best not to stop and consider.
At the top of the steps, I stand for a moment as our boatman ties up his craft and begins to labour up the steps with our bags. Mostly Sidney’s bags, to be accurate; I have brought only one, with a few changes of linen and some writing materials. He has assured me we will not be gone longer than a fortnight, three weeks at most, as we accompany the galleon along the southern coast of England to Plymouth harbour where it – or she – will join the rest of Sir Francis Drake’s fleet. Yet Sidney himself seems to have packed for a voyage to the other side of the world; his servants follow us in another wherry with the remainder of his luggage. I have not remarked on this; instead I watch my friend through narrowed eyes as he hails one of the crew with a cheery hallo and engages the man in conversation. The sailor points up at the ship. Sidney is nodding earnestly, arms folded. Is he up to something, I ask myself? He has been behaving very strangely for the past few weeks, ever since his falling out with the Queen, and I know well that he does not take a blow to his pride with good grace. For the time being, though, I have no choice but to follow him.
‘Come, Bruno,’ he calls, imperious as ever, waving a lace-edged sleeve in the direction of the ship’s gangplank. I bite down a smile. Sidney thinks he has dressed down for the voyage; gone are the usual puffed sleeves and breeches, the peascod doublet that makes all Englishmen of fashion look as if they are expecting a child, but the jacket he has chosen is not much more suitable, made of ivory silk embroidered with delicate gold tracery and tiny seed pearls. His ruff, though not so extravagantly wide as usual, is starched and pristine, and on his head he wears a black velvet cap with a jewelled brooch and a peacock’s feather that dances at the back of his neck and frequently catches in his gold earring. I make bets with myself as to how long the feather will last in a sea breeze.
A gentleman descends the gangplank, his clothes marking him apart from the men loading on the dockside. He raises one hand in greeting. He appears about Sidney’s own age, with reddish hair swept back from a high forehead and an impressive beard that looks as if it has been newly curled by a barber. As he steps down on to the wharf he bows briefly to Sidney; when he lifts his head and smiles, creases appear at the corners of his eyes, giving him a genial air.
‘Welcome to the Galleon Leicester.’ He holds his arms wide.
‘Well met, Cousin.’ Sidney embraces him with a great deal of gusto and back-slapping. ‘Are we all set?’
‘They are bringing the last of the munitions aboard now.’ He gestures behind him to a group of sailors loading wooden crates on to the ship with a system of ropes and pulleys and much shouting. He turns to me with a brief, appraising look. ‘And you must be the Italian. Your reputation precedes you.’
He does not curl his lip in the way most Englishmen do when they encounter a foreigner, particularly one from Catholic Europe, and I like him the better for it. Perhaps a man who has sailed half the globe has a more accommodating view of other nations. I wonder which of my reputations has reached his ears. I have several.
‘Giordano Bruno of Nola, at your service, sir.’ I bow low, to show reverence for our difference in status.
Sidney lays a hand on the man’s shoulder and turns to me.
‘May I present Sir Francis Knollys, brother-in-law to my uncle the Earl of Leicester and captain of this vessel for our voyage.’
‘I am honoured, sir. It is good of you to have us aboard.’
Knollys grins. ‘I know it. I have told Philip he is not to get in the way. The last thing I need on my ship is a couple of poets, getting under our feet and puking like children at the merest swell.’ He squints up at the sky. ‘I had hoped to be away by first light. Still, the wind is fair – we can make up time once we are into the English Sea. Have you sea legs, Master Bruno, or will you have your head in a bucket all the way to Plymouth?’
‘I have a stomach of iron.’ I smile as I say it, so that he knows it may not be strictly true. I did not miss the disdain in the word ‘poets’, and nor did Sidney; I mind less, but I would rather not disgrace myself too far in front of this aristocratic sailor. Puking in a bucket is clearly, in his eyes, the surest way to cast doubt on one’s manhood.
‘Glad to hear it.’ He nods his approval. ‘I’ll have your bags brought up. Come and see your quarters. No great luxury, I’m afraid – nothing befitting the Master of the Ordnance, but it will have to suffice.’ He makes a mock bow to Sidney.
‘You may sneer, Cousin, but when we’re out in the Spanish Main facing the might of King Philip’s garrisons, you will be glad someone competent troubled themselves with organising munitions,’ Sidney says, affecting a lofty air.
‘Someone competent? Who was he?’ Knollys laughs at his own joke. ‘In any case, what is this “we”?’
‘What?’
‘You said, “when we’re out in the Spanish Main”. But you and your friend are only coming as far as Plymouth, I thought?’
Sidney sucks in his cheeks. ‘We the English, I meant. An expression of solidarity, Cousin.’
I notice he does not quite meet the other man’s eye. I watch my friend’s face and a suspicion begins to harden in the back of my mind.
Knollys leads us up the gangplank and aboard the Leicester. The crew turn to stare as we pass, though their hands do not falter in their tasks. I wonder what they make of us. Sidney – tall, rangy, expensively dressed, his face as bright as a boy’s, despite the recently cultivated beard, as he drinks in his new surroundings – looks no more or less than what he is, an aristocrat with a taste for adventure. In my suit of black, perhaps they take me for a chaplain.
We follow Knollys through a door beneath the aftercastle, where we are ushered into a narrow cabin, barely wide enough for the three