The days passed, but the Prince of Wales did not come to Richmond with his courtiers, nor did Mal visit on business of his own, and Coby began to regret this whole plan. She was making little headway with Lady Derby, who frequently disappeared on business of her own, often to Syon House according to the other ladies-in-waiting. Of course they all assumed she was visiting one of her lovers, or perhaps just gossiping with Essex’s sister, but Coby became increasingly convinced that Lady Derby was in league with the alchemist, Matthew Shawe. Why else visit a house where neither Essex nor Raleigh had been seen in months?
She went to the window of her apartments, from which she could just see the corner of Syon House if she pressed her face against the glass. Cream stone battlements rose above the line of trees, like a child’s wooden castle.
“Your son is very beautiful.”
Coby looked around with a start. Bartolomeo stood in the doorway, his head cocked on one side. She followed his gaze to the bed, where Kit lay sprawled as carelessly as a puppy, one hand pressed to his plump cheek. Susanna, half-hidden by the long velvet curtains framing the other window, paused in her sewing. The arrival of a visitor was of no immediate concern to her, as long as Kit was not disturbed.
“Thank you,” Coby said to the young man. When he did not immediately respond she added, “You speak very good English.”
“I learnt it from songs. I like your English music: your William Byrd and John Dowland.”
His voice was husky, like a boy’s on the verge of breaking. Or like a girl pretending to be a boy. Coby wondered if that was what she had sounded like, when she was being Jacob. No wonder everyone had thought she was younger than she claimed to be.
Bartolomeo nodded towards Kit. “He looks like his father?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, he does.”
“A handsome man, then.”
“You can tell me, when you see him for yourself.”
“Oh?”
“He wrote to say he would visit soon.”
“To see his son. And you.”
“Yes.”
She gestured to the stool at her side, where Susanna had been sitting until she complained that the light was not good enough. Bartolomeo sat down, folding his long elegant hands in his lap. This close, Coby see that his cheeks were as hairless as a girl’s, and she couldn’t help wondering if the rest of his body was the same. A warm flush crept up from her collar. She cleared her throat.
“How are you finding England?”
“Cold.” Bartolomeo smiled, but Coby sensed a double meaning behind the word. Strange; the Princess had welcomed him, and the other ladies-in-waiting were already making wagers as to which of them he would fall in love with. Perhaps he was all too aware that he was no more than a pawn in their petty rivalries.
“We have had several bad winters in recent years,” she said, “but it is certainly colder here than Italy.”
“You have been to my country?”
“Only once. A journey to Venice, on the Queen’s business.”
“And how did you like it?”
“It was… different.”
Bartolomeo laughed. “Now you know how I feel. Everything is different here, not just the weather: the churches, the manners, the food–”
“You do not like English food?”
“It is very…” He broke off, frowning, as if searching his memory for the right word. “Heavy,” he said at last, patting his belly ruefully.
“Princess Juliana keeps a good table. The food here is richer than I have been used to, I must confess.”
“You have not always been a lady?”
This time his dual meaning was surely unintended, yet it still gave Coby pause.
“No. My parents were not of gentle birth.” Again, the Italian’s questions pressed into areas she did not wish to become common currency around the court. “Tell me about your own travels. Have you been to Venice yourself?”
“Alas, no. I grew up in the countryside near Rome, and travelled to the Eternal City as a boy.”
He fell silent, and Coby cursed herself for reminding him of his cruel treatment by the choirmasters.
“But more recently, you were in Portugal,” she said.
“Yes, at the court of Prince Joaquim.”
He proceeded to tell an amusing story about the prince’s pet monkey, which liked to ride in a cart pulled by a little dog and which had been trained to laugh at all the prince’s clever jests.
Kit stirred at their laughter, and Bartolomeo leapt to his feet.
“Please, forgive me, I did not mean to disturb your child–”
“There is nothing to forgive. He usually wakes from his nap around this time.”
“Then I will leave him to your care. Good day, Signora Catalin.”
He bowed and left before Coby could return the courtesy.
“Well, what do you make of that?” she said to no one in particular, staring at the closed door. “Surely he did not have to leave in such haste?”
She went over to the bed and held out her arms to Kit, but he scrambled down the far side and ran over to Susanna. The nursemaid put down her sewing and picked him up. Coby suppressed a pang of jealousy. After all, he was no more her son than he was Susanna’s.
“You cannot trust that one, mistress,” the girl said, setting Kit down on the window seat so he could look out into the garden.
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Because he lies. He says he has never been to Venice, and yet I would swear he is as Venetian as I am. I hear it in his voice.”
“Venetian? But why would he lie about something like that?”
“Because he is here to spy on you, perhaps?”
Coby turned away. Why would the Venetians want to spy on her? It had been years since her little adventure in the republic, and anyway if they were interested in anyone, it would be Mal. He was the one who had wrecked all their plans for an alliance with the skraylings. But perhaps they meant to get to him through her and Kit, just as the guisers had done. She sighed. The last thing they needed was more enemies. She would write to her husband immediately and warn him. No, perhaps it was better not to. Bartolomeo could be using his closeness to the princess to read the correspondence passing through her couriers. Better to wait, and watch, and listen. Mal knew how to be circumspect on his own account, and soon he would be here and she could warn him in person. God willing, she would not have to wait too long.
CHAPTER XII
“I could murder some ale,” Ned growled into his glass of mint tea.
Steam condensed on his face, mingling with the sweat that trickled down from his hairline. God’s teeth but he hated this place! He had thought Marseille hot enough, but al-Jaza’ir could have been the borderlands of Hell. Was, for all he knew. Perhaps one day the parched ground would open up to reveal firepits full of damned souls, and he would be taken down to the fate that he knew awaited all his kind.
“Who needs ale?” Gabriel murmured, opening the little wooden box in front of him. Inside nestled several cherry-sized balls of hashish, a local sweetmeat made from date paste, hemp leaves and spices.
Ned reached out with his good hand and closed the lid.
“You’ve had enough of that already.”
Gabriel squinted at him through gilt lashes. His high cheekbones were sun-scorched and flaking, and his fair hair bleached almost white, and yet he was as beautiful as ever, especially when he smiled. Nowadays though he only smiled after a morsel of hashish. The rest of the time he sank into melancholy, pining for his London friends – and the stage.
“All right.” Ned took his hand away. “But only one more. Youssef will thrash us from here to the New World and back if we come aboard anything less than sober.”
Gabriel paused with the sweetmeat halfway to his mouth.
“We’re going to the New World?”
“No, just back to Marseille. God’s teeth, Gabe, has that stuff stolen all your wits?”
The actor looked contrite and replaced the hashish in the box.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, love.”
“I’m sorry too. I wish I’d never dragged you into this mess.” He looked around the tavern, if you could call it that in the absence of strong drink. “What’s Youssef up to, anyway? I thought this was a quick in-and-out mission. Sell the goods, fill the hold and back to sea.”
Gabriel shrugged. “You know our captain.”
“Do we, though? He may be Mal’s friend, but he says little enough to the rest of us.”
“It’s not easy when he speaks no English.”
“True, but you speak a bit of French. Can’t you worm your way into his confidence?”
“To what end? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life scrubbing decks, Ned. We need to find proper work, something better suited to our talents.” He leaned closer. “Mal must know people in Paris. What if you write to him…?”
“And how is he to reply? He made us promise not to tell him where we are.”
Gabriel slumped back down in his seat, staring at the wooden box.
At that moment the curtain over the doorway lifted and Simon Danziger entered the tavern. Though only twenty years old, the Dutchman was already a seasoned member of the Hayreddin’s crew and its chief carpenter, having learned the craft from his father in Marseille. Danziger pulled off the scarf covering his straw-coloured hair and called for a pot of tea, and Ned beckoned him over to their table.
“What news?” Ned asked him as he pulled up a stool. “Do we sail soon?”
“Maybe,” the carpenter replied, his English accented with a mixture of southern France and his native Holland. “Capitain Youssef is still haggling over that consignment of fine leather.”
Gabriel pulled a face. Ned shot him a warning glance and poured Danziger a glass of tea.
“The better price he gets, the surer we are of another voyage, eh?”
“Maybe. Though perhaps I won’t be sailing with Youssef much longer.”
“Oh?” Gabriel leaned closer.
“I have a mind to start up here on my own account, if I can get the money together.” He blew on his tea, and gave them a conspiratorial wink. “Build some proper ships, not these old-fashioned galleys the Moors seem so wedded to. I’m sick of puttering around the Mediterranean; with a full-rigged pinnace or two we could venture out into the Atlantic and take on the whole world.”
“It’ll take you years to accumulate that much money, surely, even if we were to spend all our time preying on the Spanish.”
Danziger made a dismissive noise. “Youssef hasn’t the balls for the kind of venture I’m planning.”
“What sort of venture?” Ned asked.
“A little favour for the Pasha,” Danziger replied in low tones. “Guaranteed to make us rich men. Are you in?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
“No!” Ned added a heartbeat later.
“Yes or no, gentlemen?”
“Tell us what the favour is, then we’ll decide.”
“Very well. But not here. Too many ears twitching.”
They finished their tea and followed Danziger out into the blinding sunlight. The street was nearly empty but for a one-armed beggar crouched in the shade between two buildings. The man seemed to be asleep, but when Ned tossed a coin at his feet the beggar’s hand shot out and retrieved it, tucking it into the folds of his rags before resuming his patient pose.
Danziger led them across the street, along a narrow alley and into a shady courtyard. There he knocked on a door twice, and twice again. A few moments later the door was opened by a young Moor.
“This is Amin,” Danziger said, and introduced Ned and Gabriel in fluent Arabic.
Amin showed them into a small room with a cool tiled floor and cushioned benches set around a low table of hammered brass.
“I’m courting his cousin,” Danziger whispered when Amin had left. “Lovely creature, eyes like a doe and…” He mimed generous curves in the air. “I’ll have to convert to Islam, of course, but that seems a small price to pay.”
“You really mean to settle here?”
“Why not? I have better prospects here than back home.”
“You keep talking about this venture,” Ned said, pacing the small room. “What does it involve, exactly? Piracy?”
“In a manner of speaking. The Pasha’s favourite slave has been kidnapped by the Spanish, and I intend to steal him back.”
“And you think the Pasha will reward you for this?”
“I know he will. You see, the slave is also worth a great deal to the Spanish, and the Pasha would do anything to keep him from being shipped back to Spain.”
“Why? Is he of noble blood? A cousin of King Philip?”
“No, he is one of the painted devils. What you would call a ‘skrayling’.”
Gabriel stared at him. “Where in God’s name did the Pasha get his hands on a skrayling?”
“It seems that one of Murat Reis’s galleys captured a skrayling vessel in the Adriatic and took its crew prisoner–”
“In the Adriatic? When?”
“Three years ago, I think. Many of the captives died or took their own lives, but their captain survived and was sold to the Pasha.”
“Hennaq.” Gabriel spat out the name.
“You know him?” Danziger stared at the two of them.
“Oh, yes, I know him,” Gabriel said. “He promised to take some friends and I to France, but he turned on us as soon as we were out of sight of land. Very nearly shipped us off to the New World.”
“Perhaps I should not take you on this voyage,” Danziger said. “I hear vengeance in your voice.”
“We have no desire to kill the skrayling,” Ned put in quickly. “Do we, Gabe?”
“Certainly not.” Gabriel folded his arms, his expression deadly serious. “But if we help you, we want a share of the ransom.”
“That seems only fair. Shall we say one tenth?”
“A tenth? I was thinking more like a third. Between me and Ned, of course. A third for you, and a third for your other allies.”
“A third?” Danziger spat on the floor. “Who do you think you are?”
“We are the only men here with intimate knowledge of the painted devils, as you call them. Do you want our help or not?”
Ned suppressed a grin. This was the Gabriel he remembered, fierce and fearless as his namesake.
The Dutchman considered for a moment. “A sixth. I have to reward Amin’s family for their help, and Capitain Youssef and any crew we hire.”
“Very well, a sixth. In coin.”
They shook on the deal, and soon afterwards the Englishmen were shown out into the street. Danziger stayed behind, perhaps to pursue his courtship further.
“This is madness,” Ned muttered as they headed back to the quay. “You’re going to get us killed, you know that?”
“Would you rather slowly rot to death here?”
“No.”
“Well, then. If this all works, we’ll have enough money to quit this life and go to Paris without Mal’s help. There are theatres there–”
“All right, all right,” Ned said. The light in Gabriel’s eyes was irresistible. “But no more hashish, understand? We’re going to need all our wits about us if we want to come out of this with our skins intact.”
“Agreed.” Gabriel linked his arm through Ned’s. “From now on, we are sober and responsible brigands.”