Kitabı oku: «Treachery», sayfa 5
THREE
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, Bruno? No, perhaps you don’t.’ Because I am not a gentleman, he means. He lets out a dramatic sigh. ‘Some old widowed cousin. And his wife – they say she is young, but she cannot be much to look at or he would not entrust another man with the care of her.’
‘Perhaps he trusts her to resist you.’
He looks at me with a face of mild surprise, as if this idea is a novelty. ‘Huh. Still, it is an insult. Even this’ – he waves a hand vaguely towards the narrow streets behind us – ‘he supposes I am so soft I cannot live without a feather bed, does he? We should be out there, Bruno, with the men. Well, we shall be soon enough – I will see to it.’
He crushes his hat between his hands as he makes an effort to master himself, but I see how much our exclusion from the ship has wounded him; he takes it as another humiliation. First the Queen, now the farmer’s son; does everyone think he is fit only for the company of women? And this wounded pride is dangerous; it makes him more reckless in his desire to prove himself.
‘It does seem that he is not keen to take on extra mouths to feed,’ I say. ‘And maybe he has reason – it is not as if we would be the greatest assets to any crew.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘I do. I have told you already, I would be no use at sea. They would rather conserve the rations, I’m sure.’
‘And yet.’ Sidney regards me with his head on one side, as if an idea has just struck him. ‘He is interested in you. He asked me to bring you. What is this book he wants to show you in particular, I wonder?’
‘Something to do with ancient languages.’
‘Odd – he doesn’t strike one as the type to pore over antique texts. He seemed to imply it was connected to the murder.’ His eyes grow briefly animated, until he remembers his grievance. ‘Well, either way, we must give him what he wants, Bruno. Let us find his killer, read his book, whatever we must to show him we have skills he can use.’
I say nothing, only pick up my bag and begin walking, with a strange lurching motion, in the direction of the houses. Sidney falls into step beside me with his long loping stride, pensive and silent. I see clear as day what he does not, or will not acknowledge: Drake does not want him on this voyage. Even if we found Robert Dunne’s killer tomorrow and presented him to the Captain-General bound and gagged by dinner, I do not think it one whit more likely that Drake would take us on board. There is no point in saying this to Sidney.
‘You know, tomorrow,’ he mutters, as we turn into a narrow cobbled street that curves steeply upward from the harbour wall, ‘I think I will make it my business to visit all the larger ships of the fleet and discuss the armaments with their captains. That way they will know I am here as Master of the Ordnance, not merely an escort to exiled princes and Drake’s womenfolk. I will not have these sailors laughing at me behind their hands.’
‘But you don’t know anything about ordnance. Not when it comes to using it. They may laugh directly in your face if you pretend to knowledge you don’t have.’
He glares at me, then breaks into a grin. ‘If you affect to know what you are doing, most people will take you at your own evaluation. I believe it was you taught me that, Bruno.’
I smile, to concede the point. ‘I am not sure that will work with men who have sailed around the world once already.’
We find the sign of the Star readily enough on Nutt Street, a broad thoroughfare lined with tall, well-appointed houses. Sidney explains his connection to Drake and pays for a room, demanding – as if in parody of himself – linen sheets and a feather mattress; while he is haggling with the landlady over the best chamber I glance around the entrance. It is a fine building, perhaps a century old or more, and grand in the plain style of the times: broad flagstones on the floor, strewn with rushes; limewashed walls; a high ceiling with wooden beams. The candles in the wall sconces are beeswax, not cheap tallow, and there is a warming smell of roasting meat and spices drifting from the tap-room. And yet I find I do not like the place. Some nameless instinct makes my skin prickle; my fingers stray to the small knife I carry at my belt and stroke its smooth bone handle for reassurance. I sense something here that makes me uncomfortable, though I cannot explain why. When I remark on this to Sidney as we climb the stairs to our room, he only laughs.
‘Relax, Bruno – Robert Dunne’s murderer is back on the Elizabeth Bonaventure. He’s not going to come creeping in here in the night looking for you. Besides, this is the only decent inn in Plymouth – I’m not moving because you have a feeling in your waters, like the village wise woman.’
I laugh with him; he is probably right. But I can’t shake the notion that someone’s eyes are on us, and they are not friendly. When we come down to the tap-room for a last drink before bed, I pause in the doorway while Sidney finds a seat, scanning the tables, the other men ranged on benches. The inn is busy; anyone within twenty miles who has produce to sell will have heard that Drake’s fleet is at anchor here, and know that where there are ships, there is an insatiable demand for provisions. Two thousand five hundred hungry men altogether in the fleet, according to Knollys, and for every day the voyage is delayed, those men have appetites of all kinds that must be fed.
I push through the crowd while Sidney goes to the serving hatch, my eyes still sweeping the room for a seat, when a knot of people suddenly parts and I see a figure at the end of a wooden bench, in the shadows of a corner, close to the outer door, staring at me. I don’t have a clear sight of his face; he wears a shapeless hat pulled low, and a black travelling cloak, though the room is stuffy. All I see is that he is looking directly at me, but there is something about the shape of him, the way he hunches into his chest, trying not to be noticed, the way his eyes burn from under the brim of his hat, that echoes in my memory; I feel certain I have seen him before. I turn to Sidney to point the man out, but someone blocks my view and when I look back he is gone and the door is banging hard. Without waiting, I shove past a group of merchants, ignoring their aggrieved cries, and fling myself out into the inn yard, wheeling around for a sight of the stranger in his cloth hat.
The yard too is busy; horses, carts, stable lads, travellers dismounting. Boys cross back and forth hefting bales of straw or gentlemen’s panniers, sidestepping to avoid one another, their timing as precise as a dance. There is no sign of the man in black. Dodging the bustling people and the piles of dung, I chase out of the high gates and into the street, looking left and right. He is gone, and the light is fading. Clouds have crept in and banked up over the town while we were indoors. Sidney arrives beside me, a tankard in each hand, following my gaze with a perplexed frown.
‘What are you doing out here?’ he says.
‘That man in black, skulking in the corner. You saw him?’
‘I saw a good forty men in that room, at least half of them wearing black. What about him?’
I shake my head. ‘He was watching us. I am certain of it. When he realised that I had seen him, he ran.’ I hold my arms out to indicate the empty street. ‘But where to?’
‘Who would be watching us?’ Sidney follows my gaze up the street, sceptical. ‘No one knows we are here.’
‘I don’t know. Though I have seen him before, I am sure of it.’ But as I look around, watching the last few passers-by making their way home as night falls, I begin to doubt my conviction. I have made enemies during my time in England, but none of them could have known I would be here. The years I spent on the run in Italy, when I first fled my monastery, taught me what it meant to live always looking over your shoulder, watching every crowd for a hostile face, for the man with his hand tucked inside his cloak. I had thought in England I would be free of that, but the work I have done for Walsingham has meant that, even here, there are those who hate me enough to want to kill me. I take a deep breath; last year, when I thought I was being followed around London, I vowed I would not become one of those men who jumps at shadows and draws his knife each time a dog barks. But the man in black was real enough. I only wish I could place him.
‘Well, you’re supposed to be the memory expert,’ Sidney says, cheerfully. ‘If you can’t remember a face, what hope for the rest of us?’
‘I didn’t see his face. It was more – his demeanour.’
He gestures towards the inn with his ale. ‘For God’s sake, come in and have a drink. You can sleep with your dagger drawn if it makes you rest easier.’
He thinks, though he would not say so, that I have imagined the man in black, or at least imagined his interest in us. Perhaps he is right. We make our way back in silence. There is no sign of the man when we pass through the tap-room, though the same sense of unease lingers. Any doubts I had about the voyage have only been redoubled by the day’s events and the prospect of entangling ourselves in another murder, and one that is no business of ours. Sidney stays below in the tap-room, drinking with strangers; I lie on my bed, staring at the map of cracks in the ceiling plaster. Everywhere I turn, it seems, my life is in jeopardy, whether out to sea, back to France or even here in Plymouth. I do not sleep with my knife drawn, but I keep it beside my bed, and when Sidney rolls in later, he finds me sitting bolt upright the instant the latch creaks, one hand already reaching for it, and the sight makes him laugh.
FOUR
I break my fast alone the next day; Sidney is ill-tempered after his late night, and lies moaning and tangling himself in sheets while I wash. He says he is not hungry. I take some bread and cheese and small beer at a long table with other travellers in the tap-room. My fellow guests regard me briefly with bleary eyes, before returning their attention to their food; I am by no means the only person with a foreign aspect here and I reflect that this is one advantage of a port town. The sky outside is dull, the grey-yellow of oyster flesh, and in the flat light my fears of last night shrink and lose their substance, until I can almost laugh at myself. I glance occasionally to the seat by the door where the man in black had been sitting, and wonder if I did imagine his malevolent stare after all.
The morning passes slowly. Sidney frets and chafes like a child kept from playing outside, waiting for some word from Drake. He suggests walking down to the harbour and finding someone who will row us out to the ships for a fee, but I talk him out of it, reminding him that Drake said he would dine with us at the Star at midday. Until then, there is nothing to do but wait. I try to read but his pacing up and down the room muttering makes that impossible; eventually I suggest a walk and he agrees. Overhead the clouds threaten rain; I glance up, pull my cloak closer around me and think with longing of the skies over the Bay of Naples.
The quayside is a bustle of activity. Small fishing boats negotiate their way around one another in an elaborate dance as they move toward the harbour entrance; men call out from the jetties as ropes are thrown to and from vessels and barrels of fish hauled ashore. Broad, red-faced fishwives are gathered with their trestles and knives at the dockside where the goods are unloaded, their hands silvered and bloody. Ever optimistic, the gulls circle boldly a few feet above their heads, screeching like a Greek chorus. The smell of fish guts carries on the wind.
We walk along the harbour wall as far as the old castle with its four squat towers, built on the headland to defend the harbour. Ivy and creepers hang like cobwebs from its stonework, giving it a neglected air. The sight of the ships out at sea only serves to darken Sidney’s mood.
‘I had far rather be out there, Bruno, whatever work they put me to.’ He waves a hand towards the Sound, where the Elizabeth Bonaventure bobs like a child’s painted toy.
‘I know. You have said so.’
Then his face brightens. ‘I had some interesting conversation in the tap-room last night after you retired. Concerning our friend Robert Dunne. Do you want to hear?’
‘Ah, Philip. Is that wise? Drake wants the man’s death regarded as a suicide – he will not thank you for fuelling speculation among the townspeople with too many questions.’
‘Before you start chiding like a governess, I asked no questions – as soon as the traders in the bar learned I was connected to the fleet, there was no holding them back. And if Drake thinks he has silenced all speculation with the report of suicide, he is sorely mistaken.’ He rubs his head and winces. ‘By God, that ale is strong. We should turn back, you know. Drake may be there already, waiting for us.’
The sun lurks dimly behind veils of cloud, almost directly overhead. We turn and follow the path back towards the town.
‘The townspeople talk of murder, then?’
‘Murder, witchcraft, curses – you name it. The sailors are not popular in Plymouth, for all the people here depend on them for a living.’ He glances around for dramatic effect, though there is no one else out walking. A sharp wind cuts across the headland; up here it feels more like November than August.
‘So it seems,’ he continues, ‘that our friend Dunne—’
‘Stop calling him that.’
‘Why?’ He frowns. ‘Why are you so irritable today? I’m the one who’s been poisoned by that ale.’
‘He wasn’t our friend, and we have no reason to be poking about in the business of his death. It sounds as if you are making light of it.’
Sidney takes me by the shoulder. ‘His death, as I have already explained to you at least three times, is our ticket on board that ship there.’ He points. ‘A ship that in a year’s time will come back to this harbour so weighed down with gold you’ll barely see the bowsprit above the waves.’
I do not bother to argue. ‘Go on, then. Dunne.’
He clicks his tongue impatiently and pulls his hat down tighter against the wind. ‘Robert Dunne was well known in Plymouth, they said. He had been living here for the past few months, though his home was in Dartington, a day’s ride away.’
‘Not on good terms with his wife, then?’
‘That’s part of it.’
The path begins to slope down towards the street that runs alongside the inner harbour, where the little fishing boats are moored. Below us, men sit on upturned barrels on the quay, mending nets or examining sailcloth. A group of small boys are scuffling on the harbour wall, fistfighting or trying to hit gulls with their slingshots. Occasionally a pebble goes astray, and one of the fishermen raises a fist and shouts a bloodthirsty curse as the boys dart away in a gale of raucous laughter. I wait for Sidney to elaborate.
When he is certain I am paying attention, he leans in closer and lowers his voice.
‘Apparently Dunne was a regular at the town’s most notorious brothel. A place they call the House of Vesta.’
‘Really? After the Vestal Virgins of Rome, I suppose. Very subtle. So his wife found out, climbed aboard the ship in disguise, and strung him up?’
‘Try to take this seriously, Bruno. Dunne had been seen more than once in the company of the same two men.’
‘In the brothel?’
‘No – in the taverns. No one knows who they were. And these Plymouth merchants and traders, believe me, they make it their business to know everyone. They knew who I was before I’d opened my mouth. But Dunne’s companions remained a mystery.’
‘Was one of them a man in a black cloak?’
Sidney rolls his eyes. ‘Actually,’ he says, tapping a finger against his teeth, ‘they did say one of the men always wore a hat. Even indoors. Did your phantom last night have a hat?’
‘Yes – a black one, pulled low over his ears. And both he and his hat were quite real, I assure you.’
Sidney considers this. ‘Every one of those foul-breathed fishmongers last night claimed to have seen Dunne with his companions around and about, yet not one of them got a close look at their faces.’
‘Well, at least we know one of them had a hat. That narrows it down.’
He grins. ‘Not much of a start, is it?’
‘Drake said Dunne got into a tavern fight the night he died. Do your reliable sources know anything about that?’
He leans in. ‘The favourite theory is that these strangers were using Dunne to get at Drake’s treasure.’
‘What treasure?’
‘Drake is famous in Plymouth, as you’d expect, and well liked with it, he has done a great deal for the town, but of course elaborate theories multiply around him – that when he came back from his trip around the world he gave up only a fraction of his booty to the Queen and has hidden the rest somewhere nearby.’
‘And these honest souls would like to recover it and hand it over to Her Majesty?’
Sidney laughs. ‘I’m sure that’s exactly what they plan to do with it. But you should hear the stories they tell about what else Drake brought back with him.’
‘Such as?’
‘Books written by the hand of the Devil, birds with feathers of real gold, young women with two heads who give birth to children that are half-dragon, half-man. The sort of things everyone knows they have on the other side of the world.’
‘Oh, those. Where is Drake supposedly keeping this diabolical menagerie?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose they think that’s what Dunne was being paid to find out.’
We follow the street along the quayside by the row of limewashed houses and taverns facing the water. Suddenly Sidney elbows me in the ribs and nods to the path ahead, where two well-dressed young women are walking towards us arm-in-arm, followed at a discreet distance by a manservant. One is tall, with red-gold curls pinned back under a French hood, the other darker, with pale skin and strong brows. From their glances and shared whispers it is clear that they have also noticed us. Sidney is about to embark on an elaborate bow, when one of the ladies cries out, her hand flying to her mouth; she is not looking at us but beyond, to the harbour wall. Wheeling around, I see one of the boys who was fighting; he is calling urgently and pointing down. The smallest of his companions has fallen from the quay into the water, where he flails and splutters, attempting to cry out.
‘It’s my brother, he can’t swim. I never meant to push him in,’ squeals the boy on the quay, hopping up and down and flapping his hands.
The blond head in the water sinks below the surface, bobs up again in a brief frenzy of foam, then disappears. Without thinking, I tear off my doublet and plunge in, fighting to open my eyes in the murky water, my ribs jarring at the shock of the cold. At first I can see no sign of the child, then I look down and see his little body sinking in a silver chain of bubbles, his smock shirt billowing around him. I surge forward and grab at his waist, dragged back by the weight of my wool breeches in the water; he is surprisingly heavy, but once I break through the surface, gasping at the air, it is not far to the wall. Hands reach out to lift the boy; he is laid on the cobbles, while one of the fishermen bends his ear over the boy’s face. I haul myself on to the quay and kneel on the stone to recover my breath, water coursing from my clothes and hair. The boy lies there, unmoving; the man beside him tries shaking him to provoke a response.
‘Is he dead?’ wails the child who pushed him, clawing at his shirt in anguish. ‘Mother will kill me.’
‘Here.’ I kneel beside the boy and press hard several times on his chest. ‘I have seen this done in Venice, when a boy fell in a canal.’ The child promptly raises his head and vomits over the shoes of the man beside him, who lets out a surprised curse and cuffs the older boy round the head.
‘Do that again, you little bugger, and I’ll throw you in after him,’ he says, as the boy howls even louder. ‘Give us all a fright like that. If this gentleman hadn’t been so quick you’d have lost your brother, and I wouldn’t have liked to be the one to tell your mother her darling was gone.’
It strikes me that this distinction may have prompted the boy’s desire to push his brother in the first place, but I keep silent. The fisherman turns to me. ‘Thank you, sir. My nephews – always scrapping where they shouldn’t be. Their mother’s a widow. If you hadn’t been here – I can’t swim myself, see.’ He glances back at the murky water with a grimace. ‘Amos Prisk, sir. That’s my boat there.’ He points, then wipes a hand on his smock and holds it out to me. He has a firm grip, though somewhat slippery. I try not to think about fish guts. ‘I would stand you a drink, only my sister’s not back from the market with the day’s takings.’ He lets go of my hand and turns his palms out, empty.
‘No need,’ I say, embarrassed. Quite a crowd has gathered to watch the drama; at its edge, I see the two attractive women looking at me and whispering to one another. I wipe my hand surreptitiously on my wet breeches, push my dripping hair out of my face and give them an awkward smile. The taller one leans over to whisper something to her friend and they both laugh. I glance away and, over their heads, some distance off, I glimpse a figure in black, standing between two houses at the mouth of one of the alleys that curves down from the town towards the harbour. He remains completely still, observing the scene, his face cast into shadow by the brim of his hat. I take a step forward, but Sidney cuts across my line of sight.
‘Heroic of you, Bruno. You’ve got seaweed on your face. Here.’ He picks off the offending plant, folds his arms and nods, as if impressed, though he can’t quite disguise the irritation in his voice. I motion him out of the way, impatient, but the man in black has disappeared. Sidney has my doublet draped over one arm.
‘I’m sure you’d have done the same if your clothes were less valuable,’ I say, reaching down to wring out my breeches. He gives me a pointed smile.
‘We had better get you away from the ladies – the way that shirt is clinging to you verges on indecent.’ He takes my arm and steers me towards the houses. As we pass, he bows to the two women, but I notice the darker one is watching me with an intent expression.
‘That was very brave,’ she calls, as if on impulse, as we are almost past them.
Sidney turns his most gracious smile on her, placing his hand carefully on my shoulder. ‘My friend is celebrated from here to the Indies for his bravery. Please do not think of falling in the water, ladies, unless he is at hand.’
I catch the woman’s amused glance, and shake my head in apology.
‘But, sir,’ she says, with mock concern, ‘how shall we know where to find you, if we should happen to think of falling in?’
Sidney raises an eyebrow at me. ‘You may find us at the sign of the Star, madam.’
‘Well, that is a coincidence,’ says the auburn-haired woman. ‘We too will be staying there tonight. Good day, gentlemen.’ She takes her companion’s arm and turns elegantly, flashing a smile back at Sidney over her shoulder.
He watches her walk away, then turns to me with a low whistle.
‘They were a couple of bold ones, weren’t they? Pretty, though. And expensively turned out. Courtesans, do you think?’
‘Here?’
‘Where there are sailors … But maybe you’re right. Women of that quality would cost more than a sailor makes in a year, unless his name’s Francis Drake. Staying in our inn, too. That dark one was eyeing you, Bruno, though you have the look of a drowned dog. Damn you!’ He raises a fist, grinning. ‘I should have moved faster. Nothing like saving children or animals to make women fall at your feet.’
‘Next time we see them, I will drop a kitten down a well so you can prove yourself,’ I say, rubbing my arms and shivering as my wet clothes chill against my skin. He drapes my doublet over my shoulders and cuffs me gently on the back of the head, the way the fisherman did with his young nephew. I decide not to tell him about the man in black, for now.
At noon we descend to the tap-room of the Star to look for Drake, and the serving girl points us towards a private dining room across the entrance hall. I am dressed in a russet doublet and breeches of Sidney’s while I wait for my clothes to dry, and feel like one of those pet monkeys the ladies at court keep on a leash, trussed up in little silk jackets and jewelled collars. The breeches are too big, and the rustle of silk as I walk is unfamiliar and disconcerting; at every step I find myself turning, thinking I am being followed, until I realise again the strange susurration is coming from my own legs.
Sidney pushes open the door and is not quite quick enough to disguise the drop of his jaw when he sees the guests gathered around the table. Francis Drake sits at the head of the table. Thomas Drake is present too, with a fair, round-cheeked man in clerical dress, and an expensively dressed man of around forty. But Sidney’s eye is caught by the two young women from the quayside, who sit demurely at the table, mischievous smiles hovering at their lips. For a moment I am confused; Sidney’s earlier speculation has lodged in my mind and my first thought is that Drake has hired the women. Then I see him lay his hand over the delicate white fingers of the auburn-haired woman and the truth slowly dawns. She wears a wedding band on her left hand.
‘I hear you are quite the knight errant, Doctor Bruno.’ Drake raises his glass to me as we edge around the table.
‘The mothers of Plymouth need not fear for their children while you are in town,’ says Thomas Drake. He is seated to the right of the dark-haired woman, who is still watching me with that secretive half-smile. I sense that Thomas Drake would prefer it if we were not there.
‘I fully expect Bruno to be offered the freedom of the city by the time we leave,’ Sidney says, flashing the beam of his smile around the company.
I shrug, embarrassed by the attention. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’
‘I would, of course, if I’d noticed in time,’ Sidney agrees, sweeping off his hat. ‘You were just that bit quicker, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, but it would have been a pity to ruin such a fine feather for the sake of a fisherman’s child, Sir Philip,’ the dark-haired woman says, with a perfectly sincere expression. Her friend bites down a smile, then raises her eyes to meet Sidney’s. Drake looks from one to the other with amusement.
‘I believe you are already acquainted,’ he says, gesturing to the two women.
‘We were not formally introduced, dear,’ the auburn-haired one says, patting his hand.
‘My wife Elizabeth, Lady Drake,’ he says, with pride, and the woman inclines her head modestly, before glancing up at Sidney from under her lashes. He looks like a man who has bet the wrong way in a dog fight.
‘And her cousin Nell, Lady Arden.’
The dark-haired woman nods to Sidney, then looks directly at me. ‘Widow of the late Sir Richard Arden,’ she adds. I cannot help feeling this is for my benefit. So much for the notion of Drake’s plain wife and her ageing widowed cousin. I suspect that Sidney’s enthusiasm for the task of chaperoning the women around Plymouth has increased significantly. In fact, it is likely that I will have to chaperone them from Sidney.
Drake waves Sidney to an empty chair at his left hand, opposite his wife. I take the remaining seat, between the clergyman and the one who looks like a courtier, placed diagonally opposite Lady Arden, who smiles again, as if she is enjoying some private joke. I guess her to be in her mid-twenties, of an age with Drake’s wife; her pale skin is smooth and flawless and beneath those dark brows her green eyes glint with a suggestion of mischief, and miss nothing. In an instant, Plymouth has grown considerably more interesting.
‘So you are the renowned Doctor Bruno?’ The man in clerical robes sets down his cup and regards me with a placid expression. Reluctantly, I turn my attention from Lady Arden to look at him. He has that high colour in his cheeks, peculiar to some Englishmen, that makes it seem he is permanently blushing or flustered. His fair hair is thinning severely on top, but the smoothness of his face suggests he is no more than his early thirties. There is no obvious edge to his words, but I cannot help interpreting them as provocative, though that probably says more about my character than his.
