by Ann Swinfen
Finally Phelippes laid down his pen, sanded his ink, and shook the excess into the bin beside his table. He laid the sheet down on his finished pile of documents.
I took the opportunity to pose a question which had arisen from my own work.
‘Who is David?’
He ran his hands through his hair again.
‘We don’t know. It could simply be another identity for a known spy, but I don’t think so.’
‘No,’ I said, holding up the document I had been deciphering. ‘I don’t recognise the hand. It’s a skilled hand. A swift one. He doesn’t labour over the coding as some do. He writes it as easily as the alphabet.’
‘Aye.’ Phelippes allowed himself a tight smile. ‘Like yourself, do you think?’
He had often teased me about my pride in writing quickly in code.
‘Perhaps. Even when it is deciphered, the meaning of all this is very obscure. He seems to be referring to a trip – to England, perhaps? And a “project”. I do not like the sound of that. A “project” usually means trouble. Another attempt on Her Majesty’s life, do you suppose?’
He gave me a sombre look. ‘That could well be the meaning. Can you make anything of it?’
‘Not really. I think there must have been other letters before this, which would have made the meaning clearer. There are no others?’
‘None from this source.’
‘Although it is written in French,’ I said slowly, ‘I think the writer is Spanish. Just by a few turns in the language, and one spelling mistake.’
‘Well, it came from someone in Mendoza’s service, that much we know, so the writer may be Spanish. But if it is addressed to the French embassy, that is no doubt why it is written in French.’
‘Aye.’
The relationship between France and Spain in recent years was constantly volatile. Both were Catholic countries, both hated Protestant England. However, France was riven by internal conflict, where those Huguenots who had survived the Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 formed a strong opposition to the Catholic court. The French were also more than a little uneasy at King Philip’s ambition to rule the entire world. Non sufficit orbis. Moreover, his armies’ exploits in the Low Countries came dangerously near to France’s borders. The two nations would join forces when it suited them, but could turn on each other at times. The third player in the forces ranged against us was the Pope. According to Papal decree, our Queen was a bastard, a heretic, and an excommunicant. The Pope had granted a blessing and pardon in advance on any man who assassinated her.
It was little wonder that rumours of a world of tension and suspicion at the English Court were widespread throughout London, or that Sir Francis looked so grey and drawn with worry. On his shoulders rested the safety of the Queen in the face of all this danger. Even Phelippes, Gregory and I played our part in it.
For the moment, we could do nothing but keep watch for more messages from this new agent ‘David’. Something about the confidence of his writing worried me, that and the hint that there had been earlier despatches, concerned with a project and a planned visit to England.
As I was donning my doublet before leaving that afternoon, I turned to Phelippes.
‘That despatch from the new agent, David – it refers to a visit to England.’
‘Aye.’
‘I wondered . . . Everyone is saying that this year Bartholomew Fair is to be larger than for some time. Many foreign merchants are expected to come. Do you not think it might prove easy for an agent from France or Spain to slip into the country, under cover of the Fair? The customs officers at all the ports cannot be sure to scrutinise everyone who comes.’
‘A good point, Kit. I’ll give orders for extra vigilance at the ports. And I will make sure the constables and officers patrolling the Fair keep their eyes open. Do you still plan to attend?’
‘Aye. I think I will go with a party of friends. I will also keep my eyes open. Though I suspect any secret business will be carried on well out of sight.’
‘No harm in being watchful.’
‘I will do my best.’
However, I doubted my ability to recognise a foreign agent amongst all the hurly-burly of the Fair. Agents are chosen for their skill at disguise, at blending in with ordinary folk. Despite the lurid descriptions in the penny chapbooks hawked in the streets for the entertainment of the common people, dangerous foreign spies did not dress in flamboyant clothes, wear masks, or grow extravagant facial hair. They were more likely to resemble the humble shopman who sold you new laces for your shirt, or the street vendor carrying a tray of pasties or ribbons.
‘Before you go, Kit,’ Phelippes said.
‘Aye?’
‘Where can I reach you, if need be?’
Reluctantly, I gave him the address of the Lopez house in Wood Street.
The marriage of William Baker and Liza Cordiner took place at their parish church, St Clement’s in Clement’s Lane, just round the corner from Eastcheap, and was attended by a sizeable crowd. The marriage itself was held, as the custom is, at the church door, then everyone followed bride, groom and priest inside for the service of blessing on the marriage. I went to the wedding in company with Peter Lambert. When I asked William if Peter might attend he grinned with pleasure.
‘Indeed! I shall not forget how he gripped my hand while the sawbones cut through my leg. I near broke his fingers. Bring him, by all means.’
All William’s family were there, and Liza’s father, come back from Essex for the occasion, with a large family I took to be her aunt and cousins. It seemed nearly every shopkeeper from Eastcheap was there, leaving their premises – trustfully! – to their apprentices. Amongst the throng I noticed a sprinkling of soldiers, friends from William’s army days, some of whom I had cared for after the disaster of Sluys, including the very young boy who had been carried off by his scolding, diminutive grand-dam. There were a few of the better sort as well. One man I knew as the landlord of many of the premises rented by the Eastcheap traders, though I believed Jake Winterly owned his shop. Also, to my surprise, I saw Dr Stephens from St Bartholomew’s. I poked Peter in the ribs with my elbow while the priest was delivering his sermon, and nodded toward Dr Stephens. He put his mouth close to my ear.
‘I told him I was coming,’ he whispered, ‘and he said he would come too. I think he takes some credit for William’s recovery, though we know that it was you who saw that he must have an amputation, and who cared for him day and night till he recovered. And found his family.’
I made a face and shrugged. It will always be thus. The greater men will always take the credit for a success but shed the blame for any failure on those of lower rank. It was the Portuguese expedition all over again. Essex would claim imaginary credit, while the common soldiers perished or were turned away empty handed. As for my own success in bringing William through both his physical injury and his state of despair? Well, I was gone from Bartholomew Hospital now, so I was of no account.
The service was mercifully short. Some of these parishes in the heart of the City have a Puritan tendency, and their sermons are known to be interminable. It seemed this parish priest was a firm adherent to the Queen’s own moderate stance on religion. The service, like the church, displayed none of the flamboyance of those secretly inclined to the old faith, nor had it stripped away all beauty and grace in favour of the aridity of Geneva.
Less than an hour made the young couple man and wife, properly blessed and preached over, and saw our cheerful company making its way a few hundred yards along Eastcheap to the Fighting Cockerel inn. This was an old building, sagging a little on its timber frame and beginning to sink into the Thames clay, so that you must step down through the front door into the main parlour. The room was somewhat dark, for the tiny ancient windows admitted little light, and the ceiling, once white-washed, had taken on the colour of caramel from the smoke of many pipes. It is surprising how men even of the small shop-keeping class can find the chinks to buy the new smoking w
eed from the New World, but they say that once you have taken up the habit, you cannot leave off. Two old men sat here now, with mugs of beer before them and pipes in their mouths, so that their heads emerged from a smoky cloud like a species of humanoid dragon. Surely it must spoil the flavour of the beer?
However, the marriage feast was not to be held here. The inn had somehow managed to retain its garden at the rear, despite all the greed for building land in London. It was a fine, sunny summer day, and we were to take our refreshment out of doors. Trestle tables were set out in the shade of some apple trees which looked as crooked and loaded with years as was the building. Fresh white tablecloths covered what were probably rough boards, and the inn servants were now laying out platters and bowls of good, substantial fare, not the delicate and exotic titbits served at Sir Walter Raleigh’s evening meetings at Durham House, but slices of beef and pork, chunks of pease pudding, purple and white carrots seethed in butter, vast two pound loaves fresh and warm from the baker’s oven, pats of butter yellow as primroses, two great cheeses nearly as big as wagon wheels. There were more refined dishes to follow, probably made by Bess Winterly and her gossips – bowls of flummery, plum tarts, dried apple pies, candied orange slices, and round-bellied jugs of cream. For a moment I felt queasy, and the ground shifted under me, remembering how we had starved on board ship, not many weeks before, but Peter dragged me forward and we joined the rest of that happy, jostling crowd, filling our wooden platters to overflowing, and finding a couple of stools beneath a pear tree where we could turn serious attention to the meal.
The crowd milled around the tables, then resolved itself into small groups. Glancing up, I saw Dr Stephens approaching us. We both stood and bowed. Peter offered his stool to the elderly physician, while I fetched another from beside the inn door. Once we were all seated, Dr Stephens turned to me.
‘I was sorry to hear that you had lost your father, Christoval. He was a good man, though we did not always see eye-to-eye.’
I thanked him, recalling with a rueful smile, how often they had bickered over the treatment of a patient, though I knew that they had always respected one another.
‘And I have now lost my place at Bartholomew’s,’ I said. This was stating something he knew as well as I did, but I was curious to see how he would respond.
‘Aye, well,’ he said, looking a trifle uncomfortable. ‘You have no degree in medicine, you are not a Fellow of the Royal College. Your position was as your father’s assistant. Indeed, it was not even certain whether you would return from Portugal. It was necessary for the governors to make other appointments quickly. I could not carry on alone, with none but my own assistant. In fact, I had already reduced my hours at the hospital.’
I longed to ask how things had been managed while my father was in his last illness, but this was not the time.
‘And how do you find the new physician?’ I asked. ‘Dr –’ I glanced at Peter.
‘Dr Temperley,’ he supplied.
‘A sound man,’ Dr Stephens said, with a certain air of complacency. ‘A sound man. Oxford, you know. A university man, and a Fellow, as I am, of the Royal College.’ He stroked his beard, with the air of a man well content with himself. ‘Dr Temperley has been practising in a provincial hospital – Norwich, I believe – but has now made the move to London.’
I felt the stirrings of anger beginning to bubble up in me. My father had been the senior professor at the university of Coimbra, with a reputation that drew students from all over Europe to study under him, until the Inquisition drove us from our home. His skill in both conventional and Arabic medicine far surpassed that of Stephens, and no doubt of this Temperley fellow as well, still mired as they were in the out-dated theories of centuries past. Perhaps it was as well that I could not do as Walsingham had suggested, and study for a degree. I should probably find myself thrown out of the university on my ear for my unconventional views. I do not always find it easy to keep my tongue behind my teeth.
As if he suspected what was going through my mind, Peter touched me lightly on the elbow and began to talk about the wedding and the fine crop of apples and pears growing here in this little orchard behind the inn. I swallowed hard and managed to join in, as if there were no more important matter in the world.
When he had eaten his fill, Dr Stephens got to his feet somewhat stiffly and said he must be going.
‘And what will you do now, Christoval?’ he said, as though it had only just occurred to him that I might still have my living to earn, even though I was cast out from St Bartholomew’s. ‘Do you still find work in the office of Sir Francis Walsingham?’
Everyone at the hospital had known that I worked there as a code-breaker, for whenever there was a glut of work in Phelippes’s office, Sir Francis would arrange for me to be released from my duties at the hospital. This, perhaps, had annoyed Dr Stephens in the past, and he was hinting at it now. What neither he nor anyone else at St Bartholomew’s knew was that I had undertaken work of a very different, and often dangerous, nature for Walsingham.
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I have been doing some work for Sir Francis since I returned. However, I do not intend to abandon my work as a physician. Sir Francis is hoping to help me find a position, either back at St Bartholomew’s or else at St Thomas’s. I hope to hear something before the end of summer.’
Dr Stephens looked somewhat disconcerted at this. Having happily seen his hospital slip back into its old traditional ways, he would probably not welcome me again with my advanced foreign notions.
‘Ah, indeed,’ he said. ‘Well, I wish you every success.’
He bowed to us and walked away.
‘Do you really think you might come back to Barts?’ Peter asked. ‘It would be like old times.’
Not quite, I thought, without my father’s guidance.
‘Nay.’ I laughed. ‘I said that only to ruffle his comfortable feathers a little. The governors have filled all the places, I believe. Sir Francis thinks there might be a place at St Thomas’s. I am waiting to hear.’
The crowd of guests was beginning to thin and the heat had turned sultry, as though there might be a storm in the offing.
‘Come,’ I said. ‘We haven’t given William and Liza our gift yet.’
Peter and I had shared the cost of two fine glass goblets as a marriage gift, and I had been carrying them all day, carefully wrapped in cloth, in my satchel. I would be glad to be rid of them before they broke. And their cost was yet another debt I owed to Sara. We made our way over to where the couple were sitting on a bench under an arch of roses, looking shy and very self conscious. I unwrapped the pair of glasses which, to my relief, were still intact.
William struggled to stand, leaning on his crutch, but I laid my hand on his shoulder to keep him seated.
‘No need to rise for friends,’ I said. ‘Peter and I thought these might come in useful when you broach a bottle of French wine.’
We all laughed. Such a likelihood was small.
‘Or,’ I added, judiciously, ‘for the excellent ale I am sure Liza makes.’
‘Nay,’ she said, blushing, ‘I am a poor ale wife. Even Bess rarely makes ale nowadays. We City wives are too occupied with business.’ As she said the word ‘wives’, she blushed even deeper, and William smiled at her like one besotted.
Others were coming with congratulations and gifts, so we both kissed the bride and made our way out of the inn. Before we parted, we stood a moment in Eastcheap, where the heat seemed to rise up from the ground as if it were a bake stone.
‘A storm before morning, I reckon,’ Peter said.
‘Aye. It will clear the air. But let us hope it does not spoil the Fair. Only four days to go.’
‘These summer storms don’t last long, as a rule. Are you still planning a party to visit the Fair?’
‘Aye. You. Me. Anne Lopez and her brother Ambrose. He is walking out with the daughter of one of his grandfather’s colleagues, so she may come as well.’
‘Five of u
s, then.’
‘Would you like to bring someone else?’
He avoided my eye and shuffled his feet.
‘Peter!’ I said with a laugh. ‘Who is she?’
‘Well,’ he said, hesitating, ‘there is a daughter of one of the senior apothecaries. Master Winger, do you remember? Mistress Helen Winger. I have spoken to her a few times, but I’ve never asked her to walk out. She might think it too forward of me. Or her father might.’
‘But he could have no objection to this,’ I said. ‘A large party. Ambrose is older than we are and the grandson of the Queen’s Purveyor of Groceries and Spices. Very respectable. Mention that.’
He laughed. ‘Very well, I will. Aye, I will. There can be no harm in a large party strolling about the Fair together. It will do excellently.’
‘It will do perfectly,’ I said. ‘I will send you a note when everything is arranged – where and when we should meet. You still have a room at the hospital?’
‘Aye. My little attic up under the roof.’
It was hard to credit it now, seeing Peter as a competent young apothecary, but he had come originally to St Bartholomew’s as an orphan, to work as a servant. One of the older apothecaries had realised how clever and promising the boy was and taken him under his wing. Peter had worked hard to reach his present position. He would soon be fully qualified. I hoped the girl he had set his eye on was good enough for him. He was an old friend and it would be a fine thing to see him properly established at last.
We walked together through the City to Cheapside, until I turned north to Wood Street and Peter continued west toward Newgate and Smithfield. As we parted, I heard the first far off rumble of thunder.
It rained for two days and three nights, a cold downpour, the rain sheeting down the windows solid as a river, the streets awash with all the refuse afloat from gutters and kennels. Sara loaned me a hooded cloak of her own, which reminded me that I should need one myself before winter came, as well as a physician’s cap and gown if Sir Francis managed to find me a place at St Thomas’s. I had carried both cloak and gown with me on the expedition, but they were long gone, torn into strips to make bandages for the wounded.