The Fine Point of His Soul

Dedication

To my sister, without whom…

Epigraph

This almost certainly never happened.

Table of Contents

‘Her immortal part with angels lives…’

Seven Souls Heavy – October 1820

My Captain’s Request – November 1820

The First Day

Giddiness and Bitterness

Between One Pot of Tea and Another

Truths of Varying Reliability

The Way Forward

Arrivals – December 1820

Pandora and All the Evils of Mankind

Under the Pyramid of Caius Cestius

Byron and Mephistopheles

Winter Sets In

A Comedy of Errors

Loves of Varying Types

Christmas Day

Bleakness

Relief

Eve and the Serpent – January 1821

Eros and Thanatos

‘Why, this is Hell…’

Keats and Dionysius

Despair

‘I am not what I am…’

Disease

Friends – February 1821

‘Death’s the end of all…’

Hope

The Hundredth Day

Seven Souls Strong

Darkling We Mourn

To Miss Frances Brawne

Acknowledgements

Historical Notes

About Julie Bozza

‘Her immortal part with angels lives…’

She was laid out in her wedding clothes, a modest ensemble first worn seven years before. My eyes dwelt long on the worn bible in her hands and the scattered silk lilies, for I dreaded my last sight of her beautiful face. When I finally lifted my gaze I was near undone.

There are times when death brings serenity to a person; I had seen this often enough even in the midst of war, and I always gave thanks for such grace. It was not so now. Her face, which I remembered in shared laughter, which had radiated a profound kind of contentment – her face was now troubled and drawn. She had died but the day before, and the undertaker’s best arts had been applied, and yet she did not seem tranquil.

She was gone. Peace was destroyed.

Seven Souls Heavy – October 1820

His Majesty’s Ship Boadicea dropped anchor amidst a mass of ships in the Bay of Naples. We’d been far too long from home and were desperate for news, so we were delighted to hear from one of the local merchants that the brig Maria Crowther was lately arrived from England, and was anchored about half a nautical mile from us. The querying look I cast my captain was hardly needed. Lieutenant Sullivan, he called in response, take a boat over, and offer my compliments.

I picked the six nearest men to accompany me, and others were already readying a boat to be lowered. The swarm of merchants and other hopefuls plying their trades from various watercraft made way for us, and cheerfully took the opportunity to importune us as we passed.

The men rowed with vigour, as I steered us through the crowd of ships. I had no direct sight of the brig for most of the journey, but had plotted our course while still on board the Boadicea with a view of the intervening anchorages. The Bay was so full that I thought there must be as many people on the sea as on land.

Soon we were alongside the Maria Crowther. A gathering of dismayed faces peered down at us from the deck, but I gave this no thought, even when one of my men queried uncertainly, Sir…?

A Jacob’s ladder hung down the side of the brig, so I leapt onto it and ran up, crying, What news from Mother England?

Amidst the dismayed faces, one young man was bubbling irresistibly into laughter. Everyone else was shocked immobile yet the young man was full of ironic merriment. Oh, the worst, the worst, he replied, though the tears he wiped from his eyes were not springing from grief.

A babble from the others soon had me completely taken aback. Quarantine, sir, said an older man, who I took from his authoritative bearing to be the captain. "We are in quarantine." It seemed there had been an outbreak of typhus in England, and the authorities in Naples were being overly cautious.

Welcome to Purgatory, the young man intoned. He’d had his hand on his heart, but when he saw me staring at him, he offered a salute half polite and half merry.

And it was too late. I turned, and could already see the harbourmaster’s boat approaching to order us confined, and a crowded ship became seven unwelcome souls heavier.

My six men helped the brig’s crew cheerfully enough, or kept to themselves as much as they could on an eighty-foot boat carrying eighteen people. They were good men and never said a word about my poor judgement, though they could hardly be happy about this confinement. Meanwhile I tried to make myself as pleasant a companion as circumstances permitted.

The young man who had so enjoyed the irony of my precipitate arrival was named John Keats, one of four passengers on the brig which had sailed from London over a month before. Keats had a well-proportioned compact form, strong handsome features, and thick reddish-brown curls. Despite his energy and good-humoured engagement with all around him, it was soon obvious that he was severely ill.

I am to winter in Rome, he explained, where the dry classical air is to heal me. Catching his friend’s fretful glance, Keats added, Alternatively, I may join the ancients resting in that eternal city – but I do not intend to do so until I am quite hoary myself.

I introduced myself: "Sullivan. Lieutenant Andrew Sullivan of the frigate Boadicea."

Joseph Severn, Keats’ friend said in turn, shaking my hand. Severn had little of Keats’ confident manner. He was slim and seemed forever uncertain, with a narrow face hidden amidst overly long brown curls.

Severn is an artist, Keats provided when his friend did not. The Royal Academy awarded him a Gold Medal for his last work – a prize they have not seen fit to award for twelve years. He seeks subject matter for future glories in Rome!

Indeed, I do paint, Severn supplied with a blush, but that is nothing. Keats here is a poet, and his words will be stirring hearts for decades after my works have turned to dust and are forgotten.

"Ah! I will outdo you in modesty, as I swear your Cave of Despair will hang with the most revered works for centuries."

Now, do not be foolish, his friend chided Keats sincerely. You know full well I will be forgotten, while through the ages you will rank second only to Shakespeare.

Shakespeare! I cried in surprise. They both looked at me with silent enquiry. What know you of Shakespeare?

A little, said Keats.

He is being modest again, Severn supplied.

"And his plays? Othello, the Moor of Venice, for instance? Or… I racked my memory. Or Hamlet, Prince of Denmark?"

Yes. And he waited with a raised brow, obviously wondering what my sudden interest could mean.

But these seemingly small innocuous matters may have led me into deep and turbulent waters. I judged it better to retreat for now. Then perhaps we will speak of them by and by.

Keats nodded. "I have a copy of Shakespeare’s Works with me, he said, before tactfully redirecting the conversation. What do you read, Lieutenant? You are required to be expert in mathematics, I suppose."

I try to study geometry as thoroughly as I may, which is essential for navigation, and I have some interest in natural philosophy.

Of course! And we spoke for a while of that, and of the beautiful Bay of Naples, and of Mount Vesuvius which loomed over us with its ever-present columns of smoke turning amber and then gold in the sunlight. We spoke of anything, in fact, but Shakespeare and Othello. Yet I could think of little else.

The other two passengers were women, one of whom – a Miss Cotterell – was evidently even more poorly than Keats. It was soon clear she was consumptive; tragic in a pretty creature not yet twenty. She would be so racked with coughs that she fainted, and Keats and Severn would take care of her as best they might. I discovered that Keats had some medical training himself, and had qualified as an apothecary.

One afternoon, once Miss Cotterell was settled quietly in the cabin again, Keats came back out on deck with a bitter set to his mouth. It can’t have been pleasant to be so intimately reminded of his mortality. He coughed a little in the brisk air, and I thought I spied drops of blood on his handkerchief before he pushed it back into his trouser pocket. He took something small and white from his other pocket and toyed with it for a few moments before returning it home.

I wandered over to him as he sat down and picked up the volume he’d been browsing. It was his Shakespeare, of course. I wondered if he’d been reading Othello. He smiled politely when he saw I’d noticed the book, and left a pause, but when I didn’t introduce the topic he spoke of something else. I had no idea the Bay was so vast, Keats said, nor that it could contain so very many ships. How many do you think there are?

Perhaps fifty boats in the local fishing fleet, I hazarded. Maybe twenty times that number in ships of all kinds.

Keats shook his head, and looked about him once more. A bristling thicket of masts. Cobwebs of rigging. And here we are, trapped in the midst of it all. But if we’re the prey, who’s the spider?

I laughed at his fancies. Then I asked, Did you know that it’s only the spiral threads of a cobweb that are sticky? The radiating threads are not – and they’re what the spider must use, else trap itself.

Is that so? he asked with an interested gleam in his eye. But my fund of natural philosophy didn’t hold his interest for long. Soon enough he was gazing at the sandy-coloured stone of the old fort, then the jumbled rooftops and spires rising up the foothills, and beyond them the vineyards climbing steeper still. Keats sighed. One wishes for an end to it all, an end to the struggles – whether one succeeds by breaking free or by attracting the attention of the spider.

At least we were well-provisioned in our web, for the harbourmaster did not seem to care who drew their boats up alongside the Maria Crowther, just so long as none of us left the ship and no one else boarded her. The crew had devised a system of ropes and pulleys to raise the goods up the side and lower any payments required, any mail to be dispatched.

My captain sent supplies, more than enough for all eighteen. Miss Cotterell’s brother Charles, a banker in Naples, had all manner of treats brought out. And then night and day the local merchants rowed from ship to ship, selling fresh food and trinkets, exchanging banter and gossip. The two women bought colourful woven shawls and my men endeavoured to outdo them with brightly patterned neckerchiefs.

We all tried to make the wait bearable. And yet we seasoned men were as giddy with relief as Miss Cotterell was when the quarantine was finally lifted on the last day of October.

I accompanied Keats and Severn ashore, and saw them settled into lodgings in the Guanti Nuovi district. And then my six men and I returned to the Boadicea. The whole party had split apart within an hour or two of the end of our confinement. I’m sure most of us had no desire to ever set eyes on the others again. And yet it was my fate to become intimately acquainted with John Keats during the next few months.

My Captain’s Request – November 1820

I took two visitors with me to see Keats the next morning. "May I introduce Captain Sir William Mitchell of the Boadicea, and our ship’s surgeon, Mr Geraint Bannon."

A great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Keats said, shaking their hands in turn. He seemed to be caught a little off-guard, though he hid it well, and he was soon genuinely engaging in conversation. Severn, on the other hand, barely spoke; I knew already that he would retreat into shyness when flummoxed. We must thank you again, Captain, for your generosity in supplying our ship during the unfortunate quarantine.

The least we could do after Sullivan here blundered aboard. We must apologise again for the inconvenience he and the men caused.

Not at all! Keats cried. The Lieutenant was the most amiable of companions, and I do believe the men worked so hard on the ship they were soon considered more a convenience than otherwise.

Excellent, excellent, Mitchell responded. Then he glanced at me and at Bannon, and said, But our time here must be short.

Bannon cleared his throat, and with a tilt of his head invited Keats to step aside. Forgive the impertinence, Mr Keats, he said in a low voice that I could nevertheless hear. I understand from Lieutenant Sullivan that you have come to Italy for your health.

Keats confirmed this, and soon the two were conferring quietly with heads together, with utter dispassion as if they were discussing a third party. I heard enough to gather there was some doubt as to whether Keats’ heart, stomach or lungs were the most likely cause of his illness. I did not think it could be his heart.

The Captain and I tried to converse with Severn on art and on Italy, but we hadn’t made much headway before Mitchell spied Keats’ stacked volumes of Shakespeare; he soon had his nose buried amidst the pages. Severn and I managed to occupy ourselves with talk of visas and passports and the best road to Rome.

I greatly appreciate your advice, Keats said as he and Bannon finally rejoined us. It is contrary to some, but it accords with my own instincts.

Then I wish you better health in the days to come. They shook hands.

Keats looked around, about to address us all, but then he paused as he felt our expectant silence. A moment passed.

This Iago fellow, Captain Mitchell precipitately began, indicating the book he held. What can you tell me of him?

A villain, Keats promptly responded. Perhaps the most sinister in all of Shakespeare’s plays, for he deceives everyone into thinking him honest and wholly reliable.

But he destroys them all, doesn’t he? Othello’s wife, his own wife, and Othello himself…

Yes, and Desdemona was innocent, while Othello was guilty of little more than jealousy.

"Why does he do it?"

Keats took a breath. There is much discussion on that very question. No one agrees. But he saw that such an answer would not do. "Iago declares that he resents being passed over for promotion; that is supposedly his main motive. Though as you’d know, Othello is a Moor, and Iago refers to him with disgust as a black ram; that might add to his reasons. He also says he suspects that Othello might have betrayed Iago with his wife Emilia. Keats gestured expansively. It could be all these things or none of them."

Mitchell sighed, and did not respond. His eyes drifted back to the book, and he turned a page or two as if looking for answers there.

May I ask, Keats said carefully, why you are interested? It might help me find something of use to you.

I didn’t think Mitchell would tell him anything of the matter. But he glanced at me, as if asking again whether Keats was to be trusted; I nodded once firmly. And then my captain said in a rough voice, My wife… My wife’s brother has stolen something from me. And now I understand he is in Rome. I… I hear he is calling himself Iago.

Keats frowned. Severn could not hide his astonishment.

And so I seek to fathom his reasons… If indeed he has any, Mitchell added bitterly.

I see, said Keats slowly. Well, if you would let me read the play again this evening, and mull it over…

We have little time. Even as Mitchell spoke, his gaze darted down towards the street, and we all heard a carriage approaching at speed. Sullivan goes to Rome on my behalf, Mitchell said with