Heresy Read Online Free Page B

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 bathhouse, and under that warm sun a fierce stink came off him, which at close quarters, mingled with the vapours from the brown Thames, 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 pacewith 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 toward 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 youand 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.

    I F ANYONE HAD predicted, during those days when I begged my way from city to city up