Florio.’ He paused, raised his eyes towards the ceiling, adding with emphasis, ‘Master Florio.’
I attempted emollience. ‘Master John Florio. A most eminent Italian scholar, to whom you owe your own achievement in learning.’
‘A fine tutor, and in that respect I perhaps am willing to accept your description. But we should not forget one thing – that he writes regularly to his own master.’
‘His own master?’
‘My Lord Burghley, who appointed him.’
I halted, silenced in part by the strange complexity of my patron’s circumstances. ‘Perhaps he writes to apprise my Lord Burghley of your great advances in learning.’
He laughed at this, with a dismissive air. ‘No, no, my dear Master William. He writes of my predisposition to marriage, of my carousing in certain company. And so, Master Florio, instructed by his master, admonishes me for my behaviour. Amongst his lessons he coldly arranges certain threats against me. Why, the man’s an Italian, of passionate mind. Yet he passes on the current of my Lord Burghley’s coldness as though it were his own.’
I smiled at this, and said, ‘Machiavelli too was a Florentine,’ then added, ‘In Master Florio’s favour, he imposes upon himself the same discipline he would exert upon you.’
‘What discipline is that?’ he shot back at me.
‘He constructs a dictionary of Italian and English, a great and noble undertaking –’
‘In his own interest –’
‘And in my interests, too,’ I said, ‘for I find in his other translations of Italian works a rich source of stories and quaint dramas. It is, I admit, my own concern, but he is generous to me with his translations –’
‘And no doubt you are grateful to him, as you should be. And I am grateful to him, too. But why should a man play double if he is, as you say, of so single a mind? Why should he serve two masters if one master is enough?’
‘It sounds as though his other master – my Lord Burghley – is difficult to refuse.’
‘Don’t you see? He admires his master, just as Signor Machiavelli admired his prince…’ He paused, then burst out, ‘He is Lord Burghley’s flea!’
I allowed the first clean wave of his anger to pass me by, swiftly and uncomfortably. ‘How can you be certain that what he writes is anything more than praise of you? You yourself received your Master’s degree from Cambridge at the age of sixteen. He has good reason to be proud of his pupil.’
But he objected, ‘You are too generous. You take every other’s part. I believe you’ – he struggled for words – ‘complicate matters.’
‘My lord, it is in my nature to seek for wider motive.’
‘Then, speaking of wider motive, let us return to my mother. She would arrange some further slip of a girl to marry me, and because I hesitate –’
‘She would accept your direct refusal,’ I said. ‘If you proposed another match –’
He turned away in anger. ‘Another girl, another victim of the great imperative …’ His voice became fierce again, ironical. ‘Why, marry and produce an heir.’
I could not help but smile at his retort.
‘You laugh at me, Master William?’ he asked.
I replied, as gently as I could, ‘No, sir, I do not laugh. I merely play the devil’s advocate, as you have asked.’
He considered me for several moments. Who knows what he saw, or for what he searched. Perhaps he observed something genuine in my perplexity.
Calmer now, he appeared to ease a little. He said, ‘I am not like you, William – so silent, so determined upon your life. You resemble nothing so much as one of those steel springs inside a lock. Tonight I will go to bed and sleep, and dream. And you, to some further vigil at the board?’
It was true. I observed in my mind’s eye another appointment, until the early dawn, with a sheet of paper and the little flame. ‘That is how I choose to burn my hours.’
‘Yet it is I who have no other cause, more weighty than to be myself.’
I said, as gently as I could, ‘That is enough.’
‘Oh, it would be,’ he said, ‘if I knew the meaning of myself.’
‘You will learn it.’
‘How?’ he asked, with genuine puzzlement.
I smiled at his earnestness. ‘It will grow into you. You will grow into it.’
‘Will I?’
‘You will.’
‘You make a pun upon your name.’
‘You made it first. I merely follow you. Your will is your own.’
‘Damn these circumstances, though. In many respects you are kindness itself. Yet still you press me.’
‘I do not press you. I remind you.’
‘Of my duty.’
‘Of yourself.’
‘And you will teach me to be myself?’
‘I will attempt to remind you, from time to time, of what you may be.’
BUT OUR RELATIONS WERE SUCH that my patron was apt to remind me of what I should be, too. One day while out riding, he said, ‘I should like to show you at first hand how my Lord Burghley attempts to influence me. Two years ago, when I was merely seventeen years, my guardian engaged one of his secretaries, a Master John Clapham, to write a poem in Latin, dedicated to me, called Narcissus.’
‘A poem called Narcissus?’ I was incredulous, I must admit. Rumours had moved around him, suggesting vanity, but here was a source of its direct propagation by an interested party. Even then, I could not help but smile. I had a vision of some ambitious young secretary, at the behest of his master, scratching out a poem in orotund Latin, addressed to a youth who would not obey the dictums of his enraged protector.
From the depths of his clothes my patron withdrew a large, portentous document that seemed almost like a will or testament. He said, ‘I have brought it for you to consider. An entire poem which urges me, in formal Latin, to cease from my vain preoccupations with myself. Its clear implication is that I should marry the young woman who waits so patiently and unhappily for me.’
My consternation that such a poem had been written was due, in part at least, to my patron’s assertion that his guardian despised art. Perhaps I began to see a little more deeply into Lord Burghley’s soul. Art was permissible if it served a political purpose, and especially if it served his own. Setting these thoughts aside, I said, ‘The poem mentions you directly?’
‘No, not in so many words. It is dedicated to me, but it extemporises ad infinitum on a young man who might be thought to resemble me.’
‘Why did the poet – my Lord Burghley’s secretary – not have the courage of his convictions, and make you its direct subject?’
He laughed. ‘For good reason. The poem is happy enough to omit certain details of my circumstances – that the marriage contract was signed when I was a child, before I had even met my intended, or that she is the granddaughter of my guardian, so that the person who will benefit from the arrangement is my Lord Burghley.’
‘I shall look forward to studying it,’ I said, accepting the proffered document from his hand. A question struck me. ‘Are there others such as you for whom Lord Burghley