The Play's the Thing (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 7)

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘You could always take up Master Phelippes’s offer of employment.’ He suggested it tentatively, knowing my reservations about Essex.

  I sighed again. ‘I would need to be desperate and starving. But perhaps that is just what I shall be, come the winter.’

  I looked at Rikki, who was now running ahead of us as we drew nearer home. He paused to lift his leg against a stout corner post of one of the Bridge houses.

  ‘I would not let Rikki starve,’ I said. ‘But I might be forced to sell Hector. He would fetch a fine price. I could probably live on it for nearly a year.’

  ‘You know that would break your heart.’

  We ducked through the gates at the south end of the Bridge and turned right along the river, past St Mary Overy and Bessie Travis’s whorehouse.

  ‘Perhaps you must simply swallow your pride, Kit. Forget Essex. I doubt you would have much to do with him. He will just be financing this new intelligence service, but it will be Anthony Bacon who is running it – is that not what Thomas Phelippes has said?’

  ‘Aye,’ I conceded reluctantly, ‘though it is not merely that I dislike Essex. He is, quite honestly, a pompous fool. Any scheme he touches ends in disaster. I shall never forget his posturing as we crawled away from Lisbon, starving and defeated, to make the march to Cascais and rejoin the ships. Essex threw a spear at the city gates and challenged them to send out a champion to fight him in single combat for the honour of the Queen. A stupid childish act of bravado.’

  ‘What did they do?’ Simon asked, curious.

  ‘Laughed at him and kept their gates closed.’

  As we climbed the stairs, shadowy in the twilight, to our rooms, I paused and laughed softly. We had reached the door of Simon’s room.

  ‘Do you remember what Sir Rowland said to us? As he was overseeing the removal of the arrested men from the Blue Boar, my lord of Essex rode up with a party of armed men, prepared to protect us all by putting down the riot. It reminded me of Lisbon. Empty bravado.’

  ‘And he was far too late to do any good, even if we had needed him.’

  ‘Exactly. I expect he hesitated over which plume to put in his hat, to make the best show, or whether he should wear the red velvet gloves embroidered with thread of silver, or the white satin trimmed with pearls.’

  Simon snorted with laughter. ‘He is not truly such a fool.’

  I turned away and began to climb the next flight of stairs to my room. ‘Oh he is,’ I said. ‘I fear he is.’

  Sometimes I wonder whether certain events in our lives are pure coincidence, or if somehow we shape them, all unconsciously, ourselves. The next morning I took Rikki for a long walk along the river bank all the way to Lambeth, to his great joy. The trees were already beginning to turn, the first splashes of gold and crimson amongst the green, like the dabs of paint on an artist’s palette. It was early for autumn colour, but I have noticed that if the summer is very hot and dry, the trees slip all the sooner into autumn, as if exhausted. We were no longer experiencing a drought, indeed the Thames was almost restored to its normal flow, but the trees had suffered a hard time of it during the dry weather. Even, in places, a few leaves had begun to fall.

  As I walked, I kept turning Simon’s words of the previous evening over in my mind. It would break my heart to sell Hector. I had inherited from my horse-breeding grandfather a passion for the creatures, having learned to ride almost before I could walk. A poor refugee physician in London, I had never hoped to own a horse of my own, so that Sir Francis’s gift to me of Hector had been a joy almost beyond words. But as matters stood at present, I should soon be penniless, and Hector would fetch a high price. Could I bear to part with him?

  Simon was right. Why not swallow my pride and take work with Phelippes? If Anthony Bacon was in charge of the service, why need I have anything to do with Essex? Unlike Sir Francis, my lord of Essex would not condescend to involve himself in the actual day-to-day work. Something about that thought niggled at the back of my brain, but before I could catch it, it had darted away, like a trout in a stream. In any case, I was back at my lodgings and must think what to do with the rest of my empty day until it was time to sup with the players. I was not inclined to go to the Theatre today, and hang about like an unwanted stray dog.

  I was no sooner through the front door than Goodwife Atkins came bustling out of the back premises where she had her larders and still room.

  ‘Ah, Dr Alvarez,’ she said, ‘there is a message just come for you. You have missed the boy by no more than a minute.’

  She reached into the capacious pocket of her apron and handed me a paper, folded and sealed. The wax of the seal was unmarked, but the writing on the front – To Doctor Alvarez at the house of Goodman Atkins, Southwark – was so minute that only one man could have written it. It was the unmistakable hand of Thomas Phelippes.

  I nodded my thanks to Goodwife Atkins and carried the letter up to my chamber to read in private.

  I had but to contemplate the possibility of working for Phelippes, and – behold! – here is a letter from him in my hand.

  As Rikki drank thirstily from his bowl of water, I prised up the wax carefully with my penknife. Habits die slowly. Working for Sir Francis had taught me always to lift a seal carefully, even if I no longer needed Arthur Gregory to forge it. I read the tiny script within:

  I bid you good day, Kit. While you have declined to join me and others in this new service for the good safety and security of Her Majesty and the realm of England, it would be as a great favour to me if you would call at the Customs House at your earliest convenience. We have intercepted a parcel of letters from Lisbon. The code is new and I believe them to be written in Portuguese. My Spanish is fluent, as you know, but not so my Portuguese. Moreover, the burden of work in hand is considerable at present. I do not ask you to take employment here, but your assistance in this matter would be seen as a great kindness to your friend,

  Thos. Phelippes

  You will find my office on the first floor, facing the river.

  Well, I thought, your letter comes very apt, Thos. Phelippes. I was not quite sure I could believe his deprecating tones about his knowledge of Portuguese. Phelippes was an excellent linguist, though of course his fluency in Spanish was not as great as my own, since for me it was virtually my second mother tongue. I was not certain we had ever handled any documents in Portuguese, since most of the enemy correspondence was in Spanish, French, or Italian, and occasionally Latin.

  Should I accept this charmingly worded invitation? Reading what lay hidden behind the surface of the words, I suspected Phelippes was overwhelmed with work. I remembered times when our office in Seething Lane groaned under the weight of paper. I had nothing better to do today. Aye, I would go and make it quite clear that I would not accept permanent employment, however remotely under Essex, but I would be prepared to undertake occasional work, to be paid as Walsingham had paid me in the past.

  I changed into my better doublet, but left my physician’s gown and cap behind. I would just have to endure the sharp pebbles under the worn soles of my boots, but perhaps now I would be able to have them mended. I whistled to Rikki, who had installed himself on my bed.

  ‘Come along,’ I said. ‘If Seething Lane had no objection to my dog, then neither shall the Customs House exclude him. You will soon see some old friends, my lad.’

  I had never before been inside the Customs House, but I found it as busy as a bee skep. Clerks young and old rushed about, clutching bundles of papers. Several sea captains sat around glumly in the main hall, unmistakable with their wind-weathered countenances and that piercing squint all seamen acquire from peering over distant seas. I imagined they were waiting for their cargo manifests to be checked by these clerical watch dogs before their ships, moored at the Legal Quays, would be permitted to unload. Every hour lost is money lost to a captain and his merchant owners or his clients. The year was drawing on. If the ships were to put to sea for one more trading voyage before winter, they
needed to unload one cargo and load the next without delay. I wished them luck with it. I have met men like those customs clerks, men whose delight in life is to enhance their own importance by causing as much difficulty and inconvenience to other people as possible.

  I had no trouble in finding my way to Phelippes’s office. He had been well provided. He occupied a roomy, airy office, off which two smaller rooms opened. There were large windows, facing in two directions, for this was a corner of the building. One looked over the river, with an excellent view of the quays and all the activity there; the other gave a view of the north end of the Bridge. Much of the traffic along the Bridge was, of course, hidden by the houses, but, should he wish, Phelippes could keep an eye on those entering or leaving the Bridge, information which might be useful at times.

  ‘Ah, Kit!’ Phelippes rose to greet me, holding out an ink stained hand. He had laid aside his spectacles, as he often did when engaged on close work, so that instinctively he leaned forward to see me the better. ‘I am relieved that you find yourself able to come to my assistance.’

  He waved his hand at a table piled high with tottering heaps of documents. I felt a sharp stab of recognition, despite the strange room. A room which even smelled different. At Seething Lane, although our quarters were official, devoted to government business, they formed part of the Walsinghams’ home, so that there always lingered in the air faint smells of good dinners and hot linen freshly ironed. The building here smelled of little but paper and ink – a great deal of paper and ink – but from the open south-facing window the scents of the river also drifted in – mud and sea water and a tinge of sewage. Also, I suppose from one of the ships unloading below, I detected something more exotic, pepper, cinnamon, and another spice I could not quite identify. It might have been mace.

  ‘Good day to you, Thomas,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘I was moved by your desperate plea.’

  He smiled at my ironic tone.

  ‘Indeed, matters are very nearly desperate, for my assistant decoder is taken ill of some unspecified malady, which may be the bloody flux, or may simply be bloody mindedness and a disinclination to work.’

  ‘Therefore he is quite alone in the business of deciphering, for as you know I am far too slow and of little use.’

  I turned and smiled. Arthur Gregory was standing at the door of one of the other rooms, which must have replaced his tiny cupboard at Seething Lane.

  ‘It is good to see you, Arthur,’ I said. ‘How are your wife and baby?’

  ‘Hardly a baby any longer, Kit. He is a fine upstanding lad of two years now, talking without pausing for breath, though the language he employs does not always resemble English very closely. Sometimes our house seems like the Towel of Babel.’

  ‘You look well on it.’

  ‘I thank you. Perhaps you are somewhat thinner. Did you find the months in Muscovy trying?’

  I smiled. I had no intention of revealing, even to Arthur, the fact that I was now living on little more than one meal a day.

  ‘Muscovy was quite an adventure,’ I said, ‘but I am recovered from any ill effects.’

  ‘And I am glad to see that Rikki is as fine a fellow as ever,’ Arthur said, squatting down to fondle my dog. Rikki responded by licking his chin. Arthur had always been a favourite with him, which might have had something to do with the fact that Rikki had often been given a share of Arthur’s pasties and buns, which his wife packed up for him every day, fearing perhaps that he might perish of hunger before he reached home in the evening.

  I turned to Phelippes. ‘Before you explain what you would like me to do, Thomas, I think we should understand each other on what terms I am here. I do not wish for a permanent position.’

  I did not voice the name ‘Essex’, though it hung in the air between us.

  ‘However, I am content to work here while you are hard pressed, and to be paid on the same terms as when I worked for Sir Francis, if that is agreeable to you.’

  Phelippes put on his spectacles, perhaps in order to judge my expression more carefully, then he nodded.

  ‘Very well, Kit, I am agreeable. I understand that you no longer work at St Thomas’s hospital?’

  It was not surprising that he should be aware of this. Although most of his attention was concentrated on agents from abroad and traitors at home, he could not stop himself storing up every fragment of information that came his way. It was an intrinsic part of the man’s nature. Sooner or later, Phelippes knew every thing that was going on in London.

  ‘I do not,’ I said, ‘although I have a considerable number of private patients now.’ Considerable was an exaggeration, but Phelippes was not likely to know that detail. ‘However, at the moment all my patients are in good health, God be praised, therefore I can spare you some time to tackle this.’

  I gestured at the heaped papers.

  ‘Excellent.’ Apparently regarding everything as settled, Phelippes began to clear a table, piling the documents on the floor, for want of any other horizontal surface. Arthur brought in a spare chair from his room, and they found me ink, uncut quills, and paper.

  ‘I recall that your collection of seals was stolen from Seething Lane at the same time as the files,’ I said to Arthur, as I arranged the table to my satisfaction. ‘Have you been able to make replacements?’

  ‘It has taken a long time,’ he said, ‘but fortunately I still had my sketches of the designs, so I was able to start again.’

  ‘Someone told me you had gone to work for a printer, as an engraver.’

  ‘Aye, so I did for a few months, until Thomas set up this new office. Then I joined him.’

  I began to sharpen a set of quills with my pen knife. ‘Does Anthony Bacon take much interest in the business?’ I asked, looking at Phelippes.

  They exchanged a glance.

  ‘He generally calls in once or twice a week,’ Phelippes said, ‘but he leaves the handling of despatches and the code-breaking to us.’

  ‘And you have some agents working for you?’

  ‘A few,’ he said cautiously.

  I realised I must be careful not to overstep the mark. Having said firmly that I did not wish to become a permanent member of this new secret service, I had best not probe too deeply. Nevertheless, it seemed to be poorly provided for, at any rate in terms of men. This large suite of rooms appeared to be occupied by just the two of them. A ‘few’ agents. What did that mean? Two? Three? Sir Francis had placed agents in every capital city of Europe and beyond, even in Constantinople. He must have had forty or more. I wondered how many agents Lord Burghley and Sir Robert employed, and where they were based. Did the merchants of our Marrano community still provide information obtained through their trading contacts, and pass coded messages from country to country? I decided I would not ask Phelippes, but Dr Nuñez might be willing to tell me.

  In the meantime, there was work to be done.

  ‘This is the bundle of despatches from Lisbon which we were able to intercept,’ Phelippes said, handing me a packet of perhaps a dozen letters, tied together with a bit of green ribbon. ‘As you know from your own experience, Portugal had been an ancient ally of England, ever since John of Gaunt’s daughter married the Portuguese king. After Spain invaded and seized control of Portugal, it has become an enemy, a servant state of Spain.’

  I compressed my lips. There was much I could say about this, but I would not.

  ‘Of course, Spain was particularly anxious to gain control of Portugal’s excellent ports on the Atlantic,’ he said, ‘very convenient for the exploitation of their colonies in the Americas.’

  I nodded as I untied the ribbon holding the packet together. I lifted one of the documents and sniffed it. Arthur grinned at me.

  ‘Taken at sea, were they?’ I asked innocently.

  The whiff of tar and sea water is unmistakable. Somewhere off those excellent Atlantic ports, then.

  ‘They were,’ Phelippes said shortly.

  So at least one sea captain was working for
the service. I doubted whether it would be anyone as distinguished as Drake or Ralegh, but there were plenty of lesser men, minor privateers, who would know that letters taken from an enemy ship might prove as valuable as other forms of cargo. I wondered how many came to Phelippes and how many, by contrast, went to the Cecils.

  Arthur had already lifted the seals on the letters. Presumably Phelippes had studied them sufficiently to decide that this was a new cipher. That they were written in Portuguese he must have deduced from the circumstances of their capture. However, I did not need to know the details of how they were obtained. I was here to crack the code and translate the deciphered contents. I flattened the paper on the desk, drew a sheet of clean paper toward me, and studied the writing. Letters and numbers in groups of five. Arranged in neat columns, which might mean that the message was to be read vertically, either up or down, instead of horizontally. Anything was possible. I smiled to myself, and felt the little thrill I always felt when faced with tackling a new cipher.

  Arthur had disappeared into his room, but he returned carrying an hour glass, which he placed on my table without a word.

  I laughed. ‘Very well,’ I said.

  Sometimes Phelippes and I would time ourselves against the hour glass, and race to see who could crack a code first. Sometimes we merely raced against our own best time. I was out of practice, but it would be good to see whether I retained any of my skill. I turned the hour glass over and began.

  In the event, I worked in Phelippes’s office for more than two weeks. The new code proved quite demanding to break. Partly, as I knew, because I was out of practice, but also because all the codes I had broken in the past were in Spanish, French, Italian, or English. Every language requires a slightly different approach. In addition, this was a double cipher. The message had first been encoded, then the coded message was rearranged by the rules of a second code. The second must needs be solved first, for in a sense the code breaker works backwards from the end to the beginning, the original message.