‘One more thing,’ I said, as I turned to go. ‘This English family. What is their name?’
He pushed back his hat and looked down with the smile of one better versed in the ways of the world. ‘Ah, Bruno. I dare say if she wants you to find her, she will let herself be found. Softly, softly with a woman like that, you know.’
So you have tried, I thought, and fought down an urge to pull him out of the saddle and punch his smirking face. Surely Sophia would have the wit to resist a man like Paget. Wouldn’t she?
‘I have a suggestion for you, Bruno, before you go. Talk to the women.’
He was still looking down at me with his knowing smile. The horse stamped on the spot, its nostrils steaming.
‘Which women?’
‘The Flying Squadron, of course. You want to find out what’s going on at court, they know everything. That’s their raison d’être. And you’re a handsome man, when your face isn’t looking like a plate of tenderised beef, even if you are on the short side. I’m sure you could cajole a few confidences out of them. That’s where I’d start digging, if I were you.’
‘And why aren’t you following your own good advice?’
‘Oh, they know me too well by now. They’re wary. You, on the other hand – you’ve been away. They won’t know where your loyalties lie. They’ll consider it a challenge to find out. You might learn something. In more ways than one.’ He flashed a grotesque wink. ‘You could make a start at the Queen Mother’s ball next week.’
‘What makes you think I’d be invited?’
‘Bruno.’ He shook his head, disappointed. ‘You don’t need an invitation. If you can’t find a way to insinuate yourself into a masked ball, of all places, I shall have a very low opinion of your abilities. Le tout Paris will be there.’ He jerked his heels and wheeled the horse around, gobbets of mud spraying from its hooves. ‘I’ll be seeing you soon.’
I did not doubt it.
The Flying Squadron. Dio porco. As if I weren’t in enough trouble already.
PART TWO
TEN
‘Giordano Bruno, you old scoundrel! I haven’t seen you in – what is it, three, four years? Where have you been? Come here, let me look at your face. Madonna, what have you been doing with yourself, my friend – fighting in the streets? Well, I would expect no less of a Nolan.’
Without pausing for breath or answers, Francesco Andreini threw himself on me and wrapped me in an embrace that crushed the breath from my ribs, kissing me loudly on both cheeks. Though he was right, it had been some years since we last met and I could hardly claim him as a close friend, I felt a rush of affection for the young actor from Milan and grasped him as if he were a lost brother. Not so young now, I reflected; he was born the same year as me, though his close-shaved face, with its thick brow and supple features, appeared endlessly mutable, unfixed by age. He could play a pinched miser of eighty winters or a dazed inamorato in the first flush of young love and convince you utterly, without recourse to wig or beard. He and his troupe, I Gelosi, were so loud and colourful, so gloriously Italian in the way they all talked over one another with defiant gestures, as if every exchange were a matter of life or death, that if I closed my eyes I could imagine I was back in the grand Roman palazzo where I had first watched them perform their distinctive variety of the Commedia years ago, instead of here in Jacopo Corbinelli’s house in the rue des Tournelles.
Jacopo’s large front parlour had been transformed into the dressing room of a theatre. On all sides open trunks disgorged a landslide of frothing fabric: gowns in delicate taffeta, rippling swathes of velvet that shimmered in the light, rustling silks, thick furs and exquisite floating lace; painted leather masks lay on every surface, leering or simpering with their hooked noses and hollow eyes. Quick hands arranged elaborate hairpieces on stands or whisked them away from candles. Between these trunks and their apparently infinite contents, the ten members of the company darted and feinted around one another in their shifts and undershirts, men and women alike, candlelight gilding naked shoulders and arms as they plucked robes, belts, stockings or necklaces from the mouths of boxes as required, avoiding collision as skilfully as if they had rehearsed each move many times over. The air smelled of beeswax, powder, perfume and the faint mustiness of old cloth.
‘So – Jacopo says you have come to join us?’ Francesco released me, stepped back and grinned. He was half-dressed in the costume of his usual role, the Captain.
‘Just to get inside the gates. I promise you will not be obliged to suffer my lack of skill on stage.’
‘Too modest, Bruno! You are renowned throughout Europe as an orator. Granted, that might be because you end up in prison every time you open your mouth—’ he broke off into guffaws as I cuffed him on the arm. ‘Give me a week, I could train you as a player. I would put money on it, if I had some to spare.’
‘How is business?’ I asked, when he had stopped laughing. The spark in his eyes dulled.
‘Huh.’ He gestured around the room as if that answered the question. ‘We keep working as long as we keep moving. You know how it is.’
‘You don’t go home?’
‘Home.’ He pronounced the word as if it offended him. ‘No. We have the same problem you have now, my friend.’
‘Which one?’
He snorted. ‘What do you think? There is only one,
