Beatrice and Benedick (28 page)

The blood rushed in my ears, and as though underwater I heard Hero say, in a curiously high voice: ‘Oh! The Trinacria! What does it mean?' Then, as she realised what she saw, she began to scream and scream.

My uncle was among us like a whirlwind. ‘Inside!' he shouted in our faces. ‘Get inside!' The courtyard emptied at his word. My aunt and Hero fled to the house, but in the darkness and confusion I found myself among the menfolk outside the gates, who were arming themselves with pikes and pitchforks. I was glad of my error. I could not be idle – I had to help, I had to know what had happened.

Now a terrible search ensued until the victims were found. I found myself walking the midnight gardens by the side of Friar Francis. He carried a switch and cut savagely at the plants as he passed. He seemed much less indulgent of my presence than he usually was, and was short with my questions. ‘You should go back home, Lady Beatrice,' he said shortly. ‘No one can sustain such a wound and survive. These are not cuts to be knit with cobwebs. We are looking for three dead men.'

His pronouncement chilled me and my footsteps stuttered on the dewy grass. But I trudged on, stubbornly. I nodded to the vintner's boys who had joined the search from the vinehouse; twins, with barely a whisker between them. ‘There is no reason why a woman may not endure such sights, if boys such as these can.'

The friar turned to me and took my arm, roughly. His eyes were black in the gloaming. ‘Lady Beatrice, take it from one who has been to war. Some sights, once seen, cannot be unseen.' I was rigid with shock – he had never spoken to me in this manner before. He jabbed his finger towards the search party. ‘These fellows are in your uncle's pay, and I must attend these poor souls as my duty to a higher paymaster.' He looked to heaven and crossed his fustian rapidly. ‘But a person who
invites
such images into their mind through senseless bravado, whether man
or
woman, is a fool.'

I stopped in my tracks then, and stood still to be left behind while he and the other menfolk walked on. I turned back to the house, and, for the first time since Benedick had left, felt tears
pricking the backs of my eyes. Then I heard an ear-splitting scream, not the girlish screams of Hero but the screams of boys who were not ready to be men.

The vintner's twins.

Running now from what they must have seen, I scrambled up the stone steps to Hero's room and hid under the coverlet, just as I had done as a child, as if the coverlet could defend me from the demons and devils that I had seen on the walls of our church.

Sleep did not come to me again that night. I saw again and again the three severed legs; but, almost more frightening, the man with the torch who had just looked at me and looked at me and would not look away. I could not shake the feeling that the brand-bearer had been Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza.

In the morning I had the news from Orsola; the three Spanish ostlers left behind by their prince had been found in the stables. Each one had been hog-tied to a beam and their left leg taken while they still lived. They'd bled out on to the hay like pigs, and one was still alive when they found him. He did not live long. Not a drop of
Sicilian
blood had been spilt, said Orsola, and the last of the Spanish had gone from the island. It was spoken with a certain emphasis that set me wondering. I watched my uncle Leonato as he went about the house like a spectre, grey and hollow. His hair had whitened overnight.

I sought out the friar in the little chapel where he was determinedly preparing for mass as if nothing had happened. I sat in the cool front pew. ‘What did it mean?'

He was at the tabernacle, with his back to me; he did not turn, nor did he trifle with me by asking me what
I
meant.

‘Your uncle would no longer fly the Trinacria. So the brigands brought it to him in his very house. It was a warning,' he said, ‘something the Sicilians do remarkably effectively.'

I considered this. ‘Because of Guglielma Crollalanza?'

‘Yes. Lord Leonato sentenced a Sicilian woman to death; he
went against his own. Not just any Sicilian, but an Archirafi. Signora Crollalanza's family is as old as time, nobles and brigands both. They are serious enemies to make.' He poured the wine into the chalice and I had to look away. To me it was the ostlers' blood. ‘Your uncle flew the Aragonese standard above the Sicilian flag. He threw in his lot with the Spanish, and now they are not here to protect him.' He put down the bread and the silver cup, and sat beside me on the pew. ‘Lady Beatrice.' He touched my arm again, with his rough fingers with the short square nails. Under the silk was the bruise he had made the previous night. He was my friend again, his eyes hazel again instead of black, the lines radiating from their edges, the wages of a lifetime of smiles. But he did not smile now. ‘You should go home,' he said.

It was the same exhortation as the night before, but today I thought I divined a different meaning. I frowned. ‘Back into the house?'

‘No.
All
the way home, to Verona.'

I was dumbstruck. I thought of Sicily as my home now. I said nothing, but shook my head. Foolishly, I identified the island with Benedick. In my heart, I was waiting for him to return.

The friar sighed, and the smile was back. ‘I did not expect you to easily acquiesce,' he said. ‘But perhaps there is
one
in this world who may command you.'

Within the day the friar had done his work. He spoke to my aunt, who wrote to my father. And within the week I was holding a letter in my hand from the one man I may not gainsay. ‘
Daughter
,' it began. Endearments were not my father's style.
‘I desire and command you to return home with all possible haste.'

Benedick:
The Spanish ruled the waves.

Kings, we sailed forth from Lisbon. Our mission was to take our armada to Gravelines on the Flemish coast, there to join with the Duke of Parma, and another myriad of ships to swell our force into invincibility. It was to be a simple undertaking, a walk in the piazza.

Especially in a ship such as this. The
Florencia
was a wondrous vessel, every ordnance the last word in modern maritime warfare. On the first day at sea the prince, Claudio and I were conducted over the whole ship by the boatswain. We admired the luxurious officers' quarters complete with darkwood box beds and feather mattresses, the spacious dormitories with neat swinging hammocks of canvas the colour of cream, the sparkling gun deck with the neat ranks of guns with shining brass muzzles. There were no oarsmen, for the boatswain explained that Lepanto was the last of the oared battles – now the innumerable sails and the latest steering systems could take us anywhere on the map.

The fellow named every sail for us, both square and triangle, and every rope too, but I did not remember a single term. The names were most poetical, musical, even. It was a different language, this language of the sea; I heard the new words, and looked at the tangle of ropes and sails with detached interest but no curiosity. I was happy to be ignorant – I would fight when called upon, but did not need to know how the ship worked.
That was the business of my betters and my inferiors. I was Benedick the Soldier; Benedick the Sailor could go by.

The deck crew had been seafaring for Claudio's uncle upon merchant routes before the ship was recommissioned for military service in Sicily. The captain was a Genoese named Lorenzo Bartoli, a bluff and capable man to whom I warmed immediately. He worked closely with a skilled Portuguese pilot named Gaspar da Sousa, and under them the crew were an efficient unit. Each man did his part with skill and dispatch; but on the King's Great Enterprise the chain of command would be somewhat different to the common way. Captain Bartoli was the maritime captain, but Don Pedro was the military captain and had ultimate command of the ship. Nothing could happen without the prince's sanction.

We officers were made most comfortable aboard ship. Our night cabins were well appointed and cosy, and our nightly dinners raucous and generous. We enjoyed mess of venison, chops of beef and mutton stew nightly, washed down with sack, port and Rhenish. We were drunk on the adventure as much as the wine. The sea was as flat as a mirror, there was not even enough swell to shift the silver candlesticks upon the table, and as I weaved back to my night cabin, it was the drink that took my feet from under me, not the motion of the ship.

Thanks to the investment of the Grand Duke, the
Florencia
boasted fifty-two brass guns, which shone bravely in the eternal sunshine that blessed our voyage. They seemed innocent and decorative, their beauty belying their purpose. The captain urged Don Pedro to perform gun exercises; he would have the prince do them every day. Don Pedro teased the captain charmingly as he delayed. Each day he promised to carry out such exercises, but each day the sun rose at starboard and set at larboard, and the guns had not once left their holes. On the one day the prince made good upon his promise I watched the gunners roll out the guns on their two-wheeled carriages – turn
them, load them, turn them back, roll them forth and fire – all without forethought. It was a ballet of brass, something to be enjoyed and admired. It seemed purely ceremonial, and even the ear-splitting practice blasts seemed more for the observance than the breach. Don Pedro pronounced himself satisfied, and between Lisbon and Calais he did not trouble the gunners to practise again.

Our voyage seemed a jaunt, an exploit. I did not think of the future, but enjoyed every sparkling day at sea. I would do my part, and I trusted Medina Sidonia, with whom I had had the pleasure to become better acquainted on the way to Lisbon. We were in his fleet, the Portugal fleet, and I felt comfortable to be under his ultimate command. After the first few days of a queasy cod – due, said the captain, to the motion of the ship – I became used to the sea, and walked about the great vessel with ease.

Above all, I trusted Don Pedro. The prince carried all before him. He was an irresistible force. He shone like the sun. He was a glorious leader but had the common touch; he had a word for everyone from his captain to the humblest powder-monkey. I knew this in him of old, for although he was my prince he was my friend – had he not gone out of his way to warn me of the Lady Beatrice? He had taken an interest in my personal affairs, even though I was merely a gentleman of Padua. Had he not, I might even now be married to a fallen woman.

At times Don Pedro would sit on the very prow of the ship, the bowsprit between his legs like a great phallus, as the
Florencia
forged through the waves. The other ships, some near enough to spit upon, some mere specks on the horizon, would wave at him and ring their ship's bells, salute him and sing him macaroons. He, more than the decrepit king, seemed to embody Spain. He was the future; he was what they were all fighting for. There was already a hero of this expedition, and it was he. In the friendly rivalry between fleets, the best was the Portugal, and in
the friendly rivalry between the vessels of the Portugal the
Florencia
won hands down. The best ship; the handsomest, most charismatic leader. We all adored the prince – his dazzling smile, his confidence. Claudio and I were happy to follow him. We knew he had been bred for this battle and would know, both instinctively, and strategically, what to do. We could not lose.

Don Pedro and I became even closer on the voyage. We talked the day away, and laughed all night. We spoke of what glories would meet him upon his return, of how the king might reward him. His lands in Aragon (administered in his absence by his faithful brother Don John) would be augmented, his fortunes swollen. He even spoke of returning to Sicily (here I fell silent) as viceroy.

Often he would rebuff a request for an audience from the captain himself, in order to carry on his discourse with me. At night he made me the star of dinners in his cabin; he encouraged me in my jokes and stories. The best laughs always came at the expense of the English queen; I had only to question her parentage, or suggest that Elizabeth spent her nights working in the notorious London stews of Southwark, to have the table roaring. At night in my bed I would sometimes squirm with guilt; sometimes think of the lady I maligned, who was, famously, a virgin. But the next night, I would tell the jokes again, craving the laughter of my royal friend.

Don Pedro did not stint us at dinner; when the captain attempted to curb his generosity, with some trifling concerns about rationing, Don Pedro waved him fondly away. ‘We will be dining on Kentish beef and drinking English March beer on the way home,' he maintained. ‘There is no need to make provision.' We loved him for his confidence.

One evening, at last, the lookout spied the havens of Calais, and in the shallows we dropped anchor for the night, knowing that tomorrow we would meet with our sister force, and, most
likely, engage with the English. Don Pedro stood on the forecastle in the warm evening, and gathered the crew with the ship's bell.

We all watched him. The sun was behind his head, a sorrowing red disc; the beautiful French coast was beyond his shoulder, but we all watched him. The sun turned his helm to gold, his teeth to pearls, his hair to jet. He was glorious. And then he spoke. ‘I have spent my life pitying my brother, Don John,' he began, softly. ‘He is a bastard, and a cripple, born of the Bar Sinister from an indiscretion of my father's. For my love of him I have dedicated my life to lessening his tribulation, and mitigating the stain of his birth. But I pity him tonight most of all. For while he is at home in Aragon, safe in his bed, tonight we will begin our assault upon England, and the infidel queen.' He jumped lightly down from the forecastle and walked among the men, chucking a cheek here, pulling upon an earlobe there. ‘Whether you were born in a palace or a whorehouse, whether in wedlock or without, today you are all trueborn princes. In the name of God, the king and Santiago!'