Heresy. S. J. Parris
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me on the back in that matter-of-fact way the English have, ‘but still – the women of King Henri’s court must have provided you with plenty of distractions, eh?’
I regarded him for a moment, wondering if the English nobility really did have as little fine feeling as they pretended, or if they had developed this manner as a way of avoiding painful emotion.
‘Oh yes, the women there were beautiful, certainly, and happy enough to offer their attentions at first, but I found them sadly lacking in worthwhile conversation,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘And they found me sadly lacking in fortune and titles for any serious liaison.’
‘Well, there you are, Bruno – you are destined for disappointment if you seek out women for their conversation.’ Sidney shook his head briefly, as if the idea were absurd. ‘Take my advice – sharpen your wits in the company of men, and look to women only for life’s softer comforts.’
He winked broadly and grinned.
‘Now I must oversee the arrangements or we shall never be on our way, and we are to dine at the palace of Windsor this evening so we need to make good progress. They say there will be a storm tonight. The queen will not be present, naturally,’ he said, noting my raised eyebrows. ‘I’m afraid the responsibility of entertaining the palatine is ours alone, Bruno, until we reach Oxford. Steel yourself and pray to that universal soul of yours for fortitude.’
‘I would not be the one to boast, but my friends do consider me to be something of a poet, Sir Philip,’ the Palatine Laski was saying in his high-pitched voice, which always sounded as if he was voicing a grievance, as our boat approached Hampton Court. ‘I had in mind that if we tire of the disputations at the university’ – here he cast a pointed glance at me – ‘you and I might devote some of our stay in Oxford to reading one another’s poetry and advising on it, as one sonneteer to another, what say you?’
‘Then we must include Bruno in our parley,’ Sidney said, flashing me a conspiratorial grin, ‘for in addition to his learned books, he has written a comic drama in verse for the stage, have you not, Bruno? What was it called?’
‘The Torch-bearers,’ I muttered, and turned back to contemplate the view. I had dedicated the play to Morgana and it was always associated with memories of her.
‘I have not heard of it,’ said the palatine dismissively.
Before our party had even reached Richmond I found myself in complete agreement with my patron, King Henri III of France: the Palatine Laski was unbearable. Fat and red-faced, he had a wholly misplaced regard for his own importance and a great love of the sound of his own voice. For all his fine clothes and airs, he was clearly not well acquainted with the bath-house, and under that warm sun a fierce stink came off him which, mingled with the vapours from the brown Thames at close quarters, was distracting me from what should have been an entertaining journey.
We had launched from the wharf at Winchester House with a great fanfare of trumpets; a boat filled with musicians had been charged to keep pace with us, so that the palatine’s endless monologue was accompanied by the twitterings and chirpings of the flute players to our right. To add to my discomfort, the flowers with which the barge had been so generously bedecked were making me sneeze. I sank back into the silk cushions, trying to concentrate on the rhythmic splashing of the oars as we glided at a stately pace through the city, smaller boats making way on either side while their occupants, recognising the royal barge, respectfully doffed their caps and stared as we passed. For my part, I had almost succeeded in reducing the palatine’s babble to a background drone as I concentrated on the sights, and would have been content to enjoy the gentle green and wooded landscape on the banks as we left the city behind, but Sidney was determined to amuse himself by baiting the Pole and wanted my collaboration.
‘Behold, the great palace of Hampton Court, which once belonged to our queen’s father’s favourite, Cardinal Wolsey,’ he said, gesturing grandly towards the bank as we drew close to the imposing red-brick walls. ‘Not that he enjoyed it for long – such is the caprice of princes. But it seems the queen holds you in great esteem, Laski, to judge by the care she has taken over your visit.’
The palatine simpered unattractively.
‘Well, that is not for me to say, of course, but I think it is well-known by now at the English court that the Palatine Laski is granted the very best of Her Majesty’s hospitality.’
‘And now that she will not have the Duke of Anjou, I wonder whether we her subjects may begin to speculate about an alliance with Poland?’ Sidney went on mischievously.
The palatine pressed the tips of his stubby fingers together as if in prayer and pursed his moist lips, his little piggy eyes shining with self-congratulating pleasure.
‘Such things are not for me to say, but I have noticed in the course of my stay at court that the queen did pay me certain special attentions, shall we say? Naturally she is modest, but I think men of the world such as you and I, Sir Philip, who have not been shut up in a cloister, can always tell when a woman looks at us with a woman’s wants, can we not?’
I snorted with incredulity then, and had to disguise it as a sneezing fit. The minstrels finished yet another insufferably jaunty folk song and turned to a more melancholic tune, allowing me to lapse into reflective silence as the fields and woods slid by and the river became narrower and less noisome. Clouds bunched overhead, mirrored in the stretch of water before us, and the heat began to feel thick in my nostrils; it seemed Sidney had been right about the coming storm.
‘In any case, Sir Philip, I have taken the liberty of composing a sonnet in praise of the queen’s beauty,’ announced the palatine, after a while, ‘and I wonder if I might recite it for you before I deliver it to her delicate ears? I would welcome the advice of a fellow poet.’
‘You had much better ask Bruno,’ Sidney said carelessly, trailing his hand in the water, ‘his countrymen invented the form. Is that not so, Bruno?’
I sent him a murderous look and allowed my thoughts to drift to the horizon as the palatine began his droning recital.
If anyone had predicted, during those days when I begged my way from city to city up the length of the Italian peninsula, snatching teaching jobs when I could find them and living in the roadside inns and cheap lodgings of travellers, players and pedlars when I could not, that I would end up the confidant of kings and courtiers, the world would have thought them insane. But not me – I always believed in my own ability not only to survive but to rise through my own efforts. I valued wit more than the privileges of birth, an enquiring mind and hunger for learning above status or office, and I carried an implacable belief that others would eventually come to see that I was right; this lent me the will to climb obstacles that would have daunted more deferential men. So it was that from itinerant teacher and fugitive heretic, by the age of thirty-five I had risen almost as high as a philosopher might dream: I was a favourite at the court of King Henri III in Paris, his private tutor in the art of memory and a Reader in Philosophy at the great university of the Sorbonne. But France too was riven with religious wars then, like every other place I had passed through during my seven-year exile from Naples, and the Catholic faction in Paris under the Guise family were steadily gaining strength against the Huguenots, so much so that it was rumoured the Inquisition were on their way to France. At the same time, my friendship with the king and the popularity of my lectures had earned me enemies among the learned doctors at the Sorbonne, and sly rumours began to slip through the back streets and into the ears of the courtiers: that my unique memory system was a form of black magic and that I used it to communicate with demons. This I took as my cue to move on, as I had done in Venice, Padua, Genoa, Lyon, Toulouse and Geneva whenever the past threatened to catch up; like many religious fugitives before me, I sought refuge under the more tolerant skies of Elizabeth’s London, where the Holy Office had no jurisdiction, and where I hoped also to find the lost book of the Egyptian high priest Hermes Trismegistus.
The royal barge moored at Windsor late in the afternoon, where we were met by liveried servants and taken to our lodgings at the royal castle to dine and rest for the night before progressing to Oxford early the next day. Our supper was