by Ann Swinfen
The groom opened the larger gate out of the stableyard as I mounted. There could be no turning back now. My stomach churned with a mixture of fear and excitement. Could I do this? I must. I raised my hand in farewell to Cassie and the groom and rode out into the street. Sir Francis’s office window faced out in this direction. I twisted to look over my shoulder, but there was no one at the window. Ahead lay the Bridge, and beyond the Bridge, Surrey and my destination.
It was a fine day for a ride into the country, free of the crowds of London and the stink of so many people pressed together, which always grew in potency as the warm weather arrived. First, however, I had to negotiate the shoving crowds of the Bridge on a strange horse. I wished I could have had more time to get to know him, but I had been ashamed to ask if I might take him for a turn before setting out. Pride, yes. And I might pay the price in worse humiliation if the horse shied at the raucous cries, the bad-tempered pushing, and the crowded carts that often jammed against each other in the narrower parts of the Bridge, where jutting extensions to the houses had illegally restricted the thoroughfare even more than usual in recent years. Then there were the fly-by-night traders who set up makeshift stalls when the constables’ backs were turned, ready to pack up in haste and run off if any were seen approaching. They sold crude toys and handkerchiefs and paste jewellery and cheap pots and pans that would burn through as soon as they were put on the fire. Their hope was to catch gullible visitors coming to the city for the first time. Londoners, wise to their ways, would never purchase from these cheapjacks.
Despite the noise and the crowds that filled the Bridge even this early in the morning, Hector plodded calmly across it, only showing by the swivelling of his ears that he took any notice of all this hurly-burly. We stepped down off the Bridge, under the gatehouse, where as usual I averted my eyes from its grisly ornaments of severed heads. Hector shook his mane, and I could feel the ripple under his skin as he seemed to say, ‘We are well rid of all that. Now let us get on our way.’
It was still close riding, however. The road south was well made up and gravelled, but it ran through the crowded district of Southwark. I had had no occasion to come here since my visit to the Marshalsea with Simon, but I did not turn in that direction now. Instead I headed south along the main road, past the close-packed houses and the many small businesses which were springing up here, away from the limits of the City with its Guilds and the restrictions on trade imposed by the City Council. I caught the stench of tanneries and dye works as we headed further away from the river. There were blacksmiths sweating over their forges and tinsmiths tapping away at vessels of every shape and size. Spinners, weavers, cordwainers, cheap tailors, saddlers, eel-smokers, ale-wives – every trade imaginable seemed to be flourishing here. As we emerged at last from the final straggle of buildings which marked the end of Southwark, I even saw a brickworks a short way from the road, with its kilns and its stacks of fired and unfired bricks.
Once again Hector shook his head, as though to clear it of all those city smells and sounds and gathered himself as if he expected me to urge him to a canter now. However, I needed to study my map first, so I stopped under the branches of a large chestnut, which was holding up its clusters of green buds, not quite ready to burst into bloom yet. The ground all around was scattered with the sticky husks these trees shed before they bloom. Even as I sat there, the breeze brought down more to lodge in my hair and the horse’s mane.
The map was clear enough. It marked several villages through which I must pass before branching off to the left along a crossroads. The road curved right first, so that left branch would lead to the southeast, I thought, before passing through two more villages and leading to Hartwell Hall. The same crossroads, if followed to the right, the west, would take me to Barn Elms, running parallel to the river, but some way south of it. On the map there was nothing but a small arrow to indicate Barn Elms. I unfolded the second map. This showed the buildings of Hartwell Hall in detail, with the main road leading to the front and a smaller track which started at the back premises, where I supposed the stables might be. Someone had written, in very small letters next to this track: ‘Take this way’.
I followed it with my finger. It led across the estate, skirting the fields, then entered what was clearly a wood, indicated by tiny sketches of trees, to emerge on the other side and run along the edge of a small lake. I shut my eyes and pictured the route in my mind: Out of the buildings at the back, turn right along the fields, through the woods. Then the lake would be on my left. I opened my eyes again. After the lake the track entered another wood, to emerge this time beside a river – which probably fed the lake – where a small drawing of a building was labelled ‘Mill’. After that the track crossed a road, perhaps the road I was following at the moment, ran clearly over unmarked ground, then past more fields, entering another estate, this time marked ‘Barn Elms’, where I needed to turn right, and again approach the house from the outbuildings. I shut my eyes again and rehearsed the whole route in my mind. Not too difficult. And well away from prying eyes. I folded up this map and tucked it inside my doublet. It would not do to leave it lying about, revealing my connection to Walsingham.
I returned to the first map. Once I had found the crossroads it was a straightforward road leading through those two other villages, the first called Bishops Hartwell, the second, Great Hartwell, then across a bridge and up to Hartwell Hall. I folded this map and returned it to my outside pocket. No need to hide this one.
More of the sticky husks had fallen while I was studying the maps. I picked them out of my hair, then out of the horse’s mane. They stuck like glue.
‘Very well, Hector,’ I said, for he was clearly becoming impatient with all this waiting about, ‘now you can have your head.’
As I urged him forward, he broke into a slow canter, as smooth and graceful as the noblest of the Queen’s stallions, quite at odds with his ugly appearance.
Once clear of the outlying fingers of London, the countryside was rich and lovely. Fine arable land was interspersed with grazing, mainly for cattle and horses. The farmland was too valuable hereabouts for it to be turned over to sheep, which were said to be eating up small farms and even whole villages in so many regions of England. The poor folk from many parts of the north, and even closer, in parts of the Cotswolds, were being driven from their homes to make way for the great landowners’ passionate greed for sheep. It was said that such men could treble their incomes (or even more) by replacing their tenant farmers with these four-legged inhabitants who produced wealth on their backs year after year. The wool trade was busy building England’s fortune. But the losers, the small farmers and labourers, were many of them flooding into London, hoping for work and not finding it, adding to the beggars and the destitute filling the city streets.
Surrey, however, was free of this blight. The sun was bright but not hot, the woods wore the first delicate pale green of early leaves, and the road was dry but not yet given over to the choking dust of midsummer. Hector seemed as glad as I to leave the city behind. As long as I could put the goal of my journey out of my mind, I could enjoy the ride.
After a couple of hours I dismounted by a small stand of willows that fringed a stream and let the horse drink, then hobbled him while I investigated the parcel of food I had been given at Seething Lane. There were two cold chicken legs, a luxury, for my father and I could never afford chicken. A pie had leaked a little, but I knew as soon as I licked the gravy off my fingers that it had been made with wine. Another luxury. There was an onion pasty, a piece of hard cheese, and a slab of cake, only slightly stained with gravy. There were even two apples.
I had not realised how hungry I was until I started to eat. I had taken very little before I left home, nervousness having stolen my appetite, but the fresh air had brought it back and I finished nearly everything, keeping back just the cheese and the cake. I scooped up water from the stream to drink, then gave Hector one of the apples.
It was such a
pleasant spot I would have liked to linger much longer, but I knew that the Fitzgeralds had been told to expect me by midday. I found a stump I could use for a mounting block, for Hector was a large horse, too large for me to mount easily. I also realised, once I was back in the saddle, that certain unused muscles in my legs and back were reminding me that it was a long time since I had last been on horseback. I would be stiff tomorrow.
Before stopping, I had already passed the third of the villages shown on the map, so I now kept my eyes open for the crossroads where I must turn left. Almost at once I reached it. A slightly drunken fingerpost pointed down the way I must go, the words in faded paint just discernible as Bishops Hartwell and Great Hartwell. The road to the right had no post and I wondered whether Walsingham made sure that attention was not drawn to his country house. I turned the horse’s head to the left, and the sense of panic clutched at my stomach again. The ride had been pleasant, but now the real trial was about to begin.
About half an hour later I had passed through Bishops Hartwell (a large church and a handful of cottages) and Great Hartwell (a smaller church but about twenty substantial cottages and a mill, though not the mill on the Barn Elms map). Over to the right, beyond the fields, lay a belt of woodland, which might well be the woods shown on the map. As the road turned left round the village church, over a bridge, and then began to rise, the manor house came into view.
It was a modern, brick-built house, glinting with many windows, which suggested wealth. A long rectangle, three storeys high, it had six bays protruding along the front – more wealth – and a veritable carnival of chimneys sprouting from the roof, every one of a different design: spiralled, zigzagged, crenellated, chequered, decorated with ornaments of every kind, including shields, hearts and even the Tudor rose. Sir Damian Fitzgerald seemed to wish to proclaim his loyalty to his monarch from his very rooftop.
As I rode up the carriageway, past an orchard in full bloom, to the front of the house, a sudden thought struck me. Was I family or servant? Front door or servants’ door? A tutor occupies an ambivalent position in a household, and the social position of a household has much to do with it, as does the attitude of the head of the household. In Coimbra, the tutors who instructed us children dined at our table, but if you were a tutor in a noble or royal household, you probably ate with the upper servants. As I halted Hector, I wondered how I would be received here.
There was no need for concern. I must have been watched for. The great front door opened and a dignified man descended the four steps to the gravelled carriageway. Definitely not Sir Damian. Too old and too soberly dressed. His household steward, I guessed. He was followed down the steps by a fair-haired boy who nearly tumbled head over heels in his eagerness to reach me. Behind him, conscious of her dignity but equally eager, came a lovely girl, her golden curls flowing down over her shoulders, her dress, of green velvet stitched over with tiny pearls, a little too ostentatious for a country morning, or so it seemed to me. My pupils. At first sight I suspected that the boy, Edward, would present no problem at all. He was already grinning up at me and hopping from one foot to the other. The girl, Cecilia, was another matter. She raised a pair of deep blue eyes to me in frank appraisal, then lowered them modestly and dropped a deep curtsey.
‘Master Alvarez,’ she said, ‘you are most welcome.’
She turned to her brother. ‘Edward,’ she said, and her voice sharpened a little, ‘stop hopping about like that and send one of the grooms to take Master Alvarez’s horse.’
Edward turned to do as he was told, but I slid down from the saddle, feeling a twinge in those same unaccustomed muscles.
‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘you are most kind, but I would like to see where my horse is to be lodged. My grandfather, who had a famous stud in Portugal, taught me when I was very young that a gentleman should always see to his horse’s comfort before his own.’
The girl gave me a slightly disparaging look, but the steward smiled his approval.
‘Quite right. If you will follow me, sir, I will show you the stables. Master Edward, you might run ahead and tell Tom Godwin that Master Alvarez has arrived.’
The three of us set off round the side of the house, leaving the girl standing there alone. I was afraid we had not made a good start, but I was determined to learn the layout of the stables and outbuildings at once, in case I needed to make my escape that way.
‘And you are . . .?’ I asked the man.
‘Edwin Alchester, Sir Damian’s steward,’ he said. ‘Sir Damian is away until this evening, but Lady Bridget asked that you might be brought to see her once you have been shown your chamber and have had time to rest from your journey.’
‘Thank you,’ I said again. ‘That is most kind.’
The stables, like the house, were newly built of brick. What was the source of the Fitzgerald wealth? I wondered. Many families had risen to new wealth under the Tudors, but if this was indeed a Catholic family, they did not show much sign of it. New money and the old faith. It suggested that Sir Damian might be a very clever man. I would need to be careful myself. Walsingham had said that priests had been seen to come and go to Hartwell Hall. Did that mean that someone was watching now? And where? In one of the villages I had ridden through? Or behind the orchard trees beside the house? Or even in the house itself? Surely Walsingham would have told me if he had a man inside the household. But perhaps not. Perhaps it was better that I should not know. No, that was a stupid thought. If he already had someone inside the house, he would have had no need to place me here.
The groom Tom Godwin came running up and between us we soon had Hector settled in a roomy stall with fresh straw on the floor and a manger full of hay. I took my saddlebags, eased my lute off my back, and left Tom rubbing Hector down, whistling softly between his teeth, while the horse munched contentedly.
The steward led me back to the front door of the house. That settled one point. It was not to be the servants’ entrance for me. Edward followed closely behind, chattering like a flock of sparrows: When had I left London? Did I really come from Portugal? Was that a lute in the case? Would we be starting lessons today? Did I like fishing?
I answered distractedly whenever he drew breath. The girl was nowhere to be seen as we climbed the front steps and entered the large entrance hall, from which a double staircase mounted in a lovely sweep, apparently floating on air. Master Alchester conducted me to the first floor, then along to a large bright room.
‘This is the schoolroom,’ he said, his gesture indicating comfortable chairs, three tables, books, a rack of recorders and a virginal. It had a slightly untidy, lived-in look.
‘It used to be the nursery,’ Edward said, ‘but of course I am too old for that now.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed.
Master Alchester crossed the room and threw open a further door.
‘This is the chamber used by the last tutor,’ he said. ‘I hope you will find it satisfactory.’
It was more than satisfactory. My relief that I would not be required to share a room made my heart give a leap in my chest.
‘Who teaches the other subjects?’ I asked. ‘Edward, you are surely studying more than music and mathematics?’
‘Oh, the rector from Great Hartwell comes over three times a week,’ he said. ‘The Reverend Conings. He teaches me Latin and Greek and history, but he says he has no head for mathematics. And although he can hold a tune in church, he cannot play an instrument to save his life.’
I could hear the rector’s own voice behind the words and suppressed a smile. But this was interesting, that the family employed a cleric of the English church to teach their children. That did not suggest Catholicism.
‘And does your sister also study with the rector?’ I asked.
‘No, she does not.’ I had not heard her come in, but she stood now in the doorway, eying me speculatively. ‘I have had enough of those dry subjects. I keep up my music, and I read.’ She gestured toward the generous piles of books. Another sig
n of wealth, I thought.
‘And mathematics, Cecilia?’ I said. ‘I understood you were also to be instructed in mathematics.’ I had used her first name deliberately, rather than Mistress Cecilia. I was determined to establish this barrier of age and position from the start.
She made a face. ‘My father feels I have not made sufficient progress in mathematics, but why he supposes I should ever need a knowledge of the subject, I cannot imagine.’
Edward laughed. ‘She is as stupid as a log of wood. I am far better at mathematics than she is, although she pretends to be so superior because she is older.’
The girl frowned and the steward said, ‘Master Edward, that is no way to speak of your sister.’
I saw that the steward had the authority that comes with being the master’s most valued servant. But I was anxious that hostility should not build up between the girl and myself.
‘I understand that you love music, Cecilia, and are a skilled musician. There are many links between music and mathematics. Perhaps we might look at the mathematics of harmony, something I find fascinating myself.’
A spark of interest showed in the girl’s eyes and she inclined her head. ‘I should like that. It would certainly be more enjoyable than our former tutor’s lessons on bills of trade and merchants’ accounts. What use would I have for them?’
She was scornful, and had a right to be. By all the evidence of her home and her clothes, she was destined for marriage to a great landowner. Someone else would keep her accounts for her.
They left me to ‘rest’ as the steward said, though I had no intention of keeping Lady Bridget waiting. I must be quiet, courteous, attentive, and unobtrusive if I was to do what I was here to do. Already I felt uncomfortable at the thought of spying on these people, even though I did not much like the girl. Telling me to come down to the great hall when I was ready, Master Alchester herded my pupils out of the schoolroom, closing the door behind him.
I went into my new chamber, to examine it more thoroughly. It was a corner room in one of the rear bays of the house, with two windows, one overlooking the stableyard, the other facing a formal garden. There was a comfortable bed, a coffer for my clothes and a chair upholstered in the modern fashion with padded cushions tacked on to the frame. On a table below one of the windows stood a basin and a ewer of – amazingly – warm water. Someone must have put it here while I was seeing to the horse. Clearly this was a very well run household. On a dish beside the basin lay a bar of fine Castilian soap, such as I had not seen since leaving Coimbra. This was a family which could afford expensive imports.