by Ann Swinfen
‘What is this?’ Ruy had come to stroll about his garden, of which he was particularly proud, having plans to emulate some of the great gardens of London. There was insufficient room for a sizeable garden here in Wood Street, and before the voyage he had been talking of moving to a larger house.
Now he frowned at the dog. ‘I did not know you had brought this cur with you, Christoval.’
‘I left him with my father while we were away,’ I said stiffly. ‘When I returned to discover my father dead and my home and all our possessions seized, I found Rikki turned out into the streets. As I was.’
At this, a faint look of embarrassment passed over his face, but did not linger.
‘What does Mistress Lopez say to this?’
‘Sara says that she is happy for him to stay as long as I do. He is well trained. He will be no trouble. And I trust I shall not trouble you for long.’
I could not keep the bitterness out of my voice, for I owed my present predicament largely to Ruy. It was he who had persuaded my father to invest in the expedition and to send me – as Ruy claimed – to ‘keep an eye’ on that investment. As if anything I could have done would have hindered the disaster. Had I remained at home, I could have cared for my father, perhaps even have prevented his death. I could have dealt with our creditors, for the thousand pounds my father had invested would have paid them off with ample to spare. Even had my father died, it was likely I could have kept my place as assistant physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, for the governors had good reason to think well of me. Instead, all was lost because of this man.
He ignored my words now, turning on his heel and strolling away down the garden. I dried Rikki on an old towel the cook had given me. I wished I could walk out of the house there and then, but I could not.
Since I could not leave the house at present to look for work, it seemed the most useful thing I could do would be to write up a full account of the entire Portuguese affair as I had witnessed it, from the time the raw recruits had run amok in Plymouth to the wasted siege of Coruña, and the disastrous decision to divide the army from the fleet at Peniche. I would recount in detail the horrors of the overland march from Peniche to Lisbon, with the men sickening and dying with every yard we covered. The soi-disant siege of Lisbon had been nothing but a despairing encampment before the walls, where more men had died. And then the final betrayal. Drake had loaded up all our food and sailed off to the Azores, while the remaining army had been left to starve and die on the return journey. On our return to Plymouth we had discovered that Drake had lied and sailed straight home.
The report was intended for Walsingham, for I had promised him to present all the facts when I returned, but writing out the entire account and sparing none of the leaders – Drake, Norreys, Dom Antonio, Ruy Lopez and the errant Earl of Essex – I was able to work off some of my anger, although I kept the tone as factual and distanced as I was able.
Since I thought he might wish to share this report with the Privy Council, I also wrote a second separate report intended for him alone, setting out how I had fared on the two missions he had set me to carry out. The first – the rescue of the agent Titus Allanby from Coruña – had been successful, as he would know already, since Allanby had returned to England directly from Coruña. The other, to ensure that his agent Hunter was freed from prison in Lisbon, had proved impossible, since we had never set foot in the City.
Writing these reports occupied several days, during the time when my new clothes were being ordered and made. Sara herself sewed me undergarments, a night shift and some new silk shirts, with some assistance from Anne. Even back in Coimbra I had not been very skilled with a needle, and since taking on my masculine disguise I had never had one in my hand, except to stitch wounds. Several pairs of hose were ordered from the stocking-knitter who supplied the whole Lopez family, and a Marrano tailor came to the house to measure me for breeches and doublets. Sara was more nervous than I that he might detect my sex, but I was accustomed to deceiving tailors and the session passed off without trouble.
The day came at last when I could don an entire suit of clothes at last, and I was outfitted in all but shoes.
‘I know a family of leather-workers in Eastcheap,’ I told Sara. ‘If you will permit me to wear your shoes long enough to go there to be measured and fitted, I should like to give them the business.’
‘Of course. Is this the lad who had the leg amputated, after the fall of Sluys?’
‘Aye. William Baker. He works with his brother-in-law, Jake Winterly. He was more fortunate than most injured soldiers, that he had a home and occupation to go to.’
I frowned, thinking of all the soldiers and sailors turned ashore at Plymouth after the recent expedition, with nothing in return for all their suffering but a paltry five shillings and a licence to beg their way home to their villages.
‘Before I left in the spring,’ I said, ‘William was learning the craft of cobbling with the shoe-maker in the shop next door. He’s sweet on the man’s daughter, I suspect.’ Thinking of William, my heart lifted, for he was one man close to death whom I had managed to save.
It felt strange to walk out of the front door of the Lopez house into Wood Street, free at last to make my way across London. My confinement had been comfortable and as pleasant as Sara and Anne could make it, but it had felt like a prison nevertheless. Anthony was now home from school and asked to come with me, but I persuaded him to stay at home. I wanted to be on my own for a while. The Lopezes had been more than kind, but I could not live on their charity for ever. Once I was decently shod, I would take my reports to Sir Francis Walsingham at his house in Seething Lane and discover whether there might be work for me again as a code-breaker with Thomas Phelippes.
August heat had ripened the stench of the London streets, which struck like a blow after a long period surrounded by the sweet herbs and well scrubbed rooms of the Lopez home. It brought to my mind the stark contrast between the confined quarters on shipboard and the fresh scents of the forest of Buçaco when I had ridden to find my sister Isabel. Was it really no more than three months earlier? I pushed thoughts of Isabel from my mind. I must have the courage to face a future alone in this great stinking City, for I knew nowhere else that I might find work and a livelihood.
When I stepped inside the leatherwork shop, William’s sister, Bess Winterly, greeted me at the door with exclamations of pleasure.
‘Dr Alvarez! You are returned alive and well from that terrible voyage! Come in, come in.’
She bustled about, pulling forward a stool for me and holding aside the curtain which divided the shop from the working premises.
‘Jake! Will! See who is here!’
Young Will, son of Bess and Jake, came through from the workshop with a half-finished belt in his hand.
‘Will,’ I said, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘I swear you have grown six inches since I saw you last.’
He blushed with pleasure. ‘Not six inches, surely, master, but I do b’leeve as I’m taller by an inch or two.’
Jake arrived, wiping neat’s-foot oil from his fingers with a rag before he shook my hand, grinning.
‘But where is William?’ I asked, with a momentary stab of fear. Had the gangrene returned?
Bess and Jake exchanged a glance, smiling.
‘Our William?’ Bess said, pouring me the mug of ale they always insisted on giving me. ‘Our William is quite taken with the shoe-making trade.’
Young Will snorted. ‘My uncle is quite taken with Liza Cordiner, you mean, Mother.’
Jake sat down beside me and poured himself a mug of ale. ‘Matters have gone well for us, Dr Alvarez, since we saw you in the spring. Ned Cordiner, who owns the shop next door, has decided to retire from business and join his sister on her farm in Essex. Her husband died of the sweating sickness four months ago and she finds it hard to run the farm alone while her children are so small. He has sold us the business and we will join the two premises together.’
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�And,’ Bess interposed, ‘what is best of all, our William is to marry Liza, and they will manage the shoe-making business. She has assisted her father for years, and William has taken to the craft as if he had been born to it.’
‘That is good news indeed,’ I said.
Good news in many ways, I thought. The Winterlys had taken William in when he was invalided out of the army, but I had seen their cramped home above the leather shop. When William married, he and his wife would have the living quarters next door, and the increase in business would help them all.
‘Indeed, it is shoes I have come in search of,’ I said. ‘Will they able to fit me out? My own were ruined and I am wearing borrowed gear.’
Their eyes all went to my feet. It was clear they recognised women’s shoes, but were too discreet to comment.
Young Will insisted on accompanying me to the shop next door, which proclaimed its trade with an enormous cavalryman’s boot painted gold and hung outside for a sign. Jake had explained that Ned Cordiner had already left for Essex, but that Liza was fully skilled enough to make me any shoes or boots I might require. William was still learning the trade, but could manage the easier tasks.
I had not encountered a woman shoe-maker who undertook the entire work herself instead of merely assisting, but Liza Cordiner soon showed herself confident and skilled. She was perhaps a year or two older than William, not beautiful but with a sweet face and neat person. When she turned her eyes to William, they glowed. Here was one woman, it seemed, who cared not a fig that he had lost a leg and would only walk with a crutch for the rest of his life.
‘I need both a pair of house shoes and some light summer boots,’ I explained, as I removed Sara’s borrowed shoes. I had already explained my losses and answered William’s questions about the expedition. Young Will had been shooed back to his work in his parents’ shop.
Liza began to measure my feet with callipers and a tailor’s tape, while William made notes in a leather-bound record book. As she worked, Liza gave me one or two puzzled glances. I realised that a cobbler must be able to judge a great deal from this close examination of feet and I knew mine were too slender and fine-boned to pass easily for a man’s. A padded doublet and breeches did much to disguise my sex, but there was nothing I could do about the shape of my feet. However, she said nothing, though I wondered whether she might share her suspicions with William when I was gone. I had no fear that William was a tattle-mouth, but the fewer people who knew my secret, the safer it would be for me.
‘Will you have the house shoes made first, master?’ Liza said when she had finished measuring. ‘Or the boots?’
‘The boots,’ I said. I knew that I could continue to wear Sara’s shoes for the moment about the house, but I needed the boots for my visit to Walsingham.
‘If you will come over here,’ Dr Alvarez,’ William said, ‘I can show you the skins we have in stock. Or if you would prefer something else, we can get it for you.’
They had an abundant supply of suitable leather, and I was more interested in speed than in some special skin, so I chose a tough but supple cow-hide the colour of ripe horse-chestnuts.
‘They will be ready for fitting in three days’ time,’ Liza said, making a note in the record book.
I offered to pay something in advance, for Sara had given me money, but they would not take it.
‘No, no,’ William said. ‘Not until you are satisfied with them.’
We discussed their plans for the future before I left. The banns for their marriage had already been called once in their parish church, and it would take place in three weeks’ time.
‘We would be honoured if you would attend, Dr Alvarez,’ William said. ‘And we will have cakes and ale in the Fighting Cockerel afterwards.’
I accepted heartily. It would be a pleasant change from the strained atmosphere in the Lopez household. ‘Just before Bartholomew Fair?’ I said.
‘Aye. We’ll be busy then. Jake always takes a booth. We’re building up stock for the Fair now.’
‘It’s important for all craftsmen, I know. I haven’t visited the Fair these two-three years.’
I had been busy about others affairs, I thought. But perhaps I would take the chance this year, having so much idle time on my hands. Perhaps Anne Lopez and I could get up a party.
When I left the shoe-maker’s shop, I strolled slowly back in the direction of Wood Street. There was nothing to make me hurry, so I took my time, glancing at the goods displayed on the shopmen’s drop-down counters, firmly ignoring the street vendors who plied me with trinkets and, for some reason, with spectacles. The spectacles made me think again of Phelippes. Surely he would be glad of my services again? Three days or a little more before I could go seeking work. This enforced idleness did not suit me.
As I turned along Cheapside, I thought I saw a familiar figure coming toward me. Still some way off, a man was pushing his way impatiently through the pedestrians dawdling along the streets, slow to get out of the way of horsemen or carts. My heart gave a nervous jerk. At this distance I could not be sure, but it looked like Robert Poley. The last I had heard of him, some months ago now, he was carrying despatches for Walsingham to the Low Countries and spent most of his time out of England. It would be my misfortune if he was back in London again now and busy about the Seething Lane office.
I didn’t wait to meet him face to face. Instead I dodged into a narrow alleyway until I was certain he must have passed. When I gained the street again, the man was well past the mouth of the alley. The shape of the back, the style of the walk – it could be Robert Poley, but I wasn’t sure. I made my way back to Wood Street in a sober frame of mind. I knew that Poley held a winning hand as far as I was concerned. By threatening to reveal my disguise, he could force me to fall in with whatever scheme he had in hand. So far he had only coerced me, against my will, into Walsingham’s service. I smiled wryly. There was some irony in the fact that, despite my initial reluctance, I had taken to the work of code-breaking and – although I was reluctant to admit it – I had even enjoyed some of my more dangerous tasks. In retrospect, at any rate, if not at the time. And now I would be going to see Walsingham and Phelippes as my only hope for employment.
However, that did not mean Poley could not use his knowledge to blackmail me in other ways. I hoped I was mistaken. That the man in the crowd had not been Poley. That I had let my imagination deceive me.
After three days I returned to the cobblers at the sign of the golden cavalry boot. Liza fitted my new boots, carefully examining them from every angle and making me walk up and down in them until she was satisfied. They were the most comfortable footwear I had possessed for a long time.
‘They are excellent, Mistress Cordiner,’ I said. ‘You made them entirely yourself?’
She blushed a little. ‘William cut all the pieces. I stitched them and William hammered in the studs on the soles.’
‘You work well together, then.’ I grinned at William, who smiled back. I had never seen him look so happy. It was difficult to remember him as he had once been, in such a state of despair that he had wanted only to die.
‘The boots are ready to take now?’ I said.
‘They need a further polish,’ Liza said. ‘We can do it now, while you wait, or you can come back tomorrow. The shoes will be ready by the end of the week.’
‘I’ll wait,’ I said. I was impatient to feel myself fully clothed and shod.
Within half an hour the boots were ready and Sara’s shoes wrapped in a sheet of brown paper for me to carry away. I stepped out of the shop into a bright day, determined to think nothing of Poley or the possibility that my services might not be needed at Seething Lane. Tomorrow I would take my reports to Walsingham.
Chapter Three
The following morning I rose early. It had been a restless night. What if Walsingham did not need me? My only other hope for employment was as an assistant physician in one of London’s two hospitals. I only knew St Bartholomew’s and the woman livi
ng in our house in Duck Lane had said there were no positions there now. She might have been lying, though I thought not. Despite my anger at her indifference to what had happened to my father and to me, she had seemed an honest woman. Because of my services in the past, I knew that the governors of the hospital respected me, but money was always short and they could not authorise employing an extra physician if one was not needed.
The other hospital, St Thomas’s, lay south of the river, outside the City of London itself, in the borough of Southwark. I had been there just once. When the sailors and soldiers from our fleet which defeated the Armada were struck down by typhoid and the bloody flux, my father and I had cared for several ships’ crews docked at Deptford. When the worst of the epidemic was over, we had transferred the last few convalescent patients to St Thomas’s, the nearer hospital, before we returned to our own work at St Bartholomew’s. I had seen very little of the southern hospital, though I knew they often took on desperate cases. There might be a vacancy there. However, the summer this year had been remarkably free of the plague and other diseases of the warmer weather, so it was likely they too had no need of extra physicians. No doubt, like St Bartholomew’s, they never had money enough.
If I was not needed in Walsingham’s service, I would approach St Thomas’s. Even if Sir Francis could offer me some code-breaking work I might do so, for I did not want my medical proficiency to grow rusty. Since childhood I had always admired and loved my father’s medical skills, honed by his studies of Arab medicine. As a girl in Portugal, I could never have hoped to become a physician. The great advantage of my boy’s disguise had meant that from the age of fourteen I had become my father’s assistant, learning his profession both in practice at his side and through the studies his set me at home. I would not, could not, sacrifice all that and what it meant to me.
I decided to take Rikki with me to Seething Lane, but not into Sir Francis’s office. After I had rescued the dog in the Low Countries – or more truthfully, after he had rescued me – I had brought him home and in time taken him with me on my days in Phelippes’s office. He was used to lying quietly in a corner while we worked, and I certainly felt safer on the nights when I walked home in the dark, having his large protective presence by my side. More than once he had bared his teeth and seen off a potential cutpurse or attacker.