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

by Ann Swinfen

  I succeeded at last, though I am not sure it was worth all my efforts, since the despatches were fairly factual reports of our own ships’ movements along the Atlantic coast, which we knew anyway. Phelippes believed the despatches were on their way to the Spanish army in the Low Countries. So their value lay in the fact that we had prevented them reaching their destination, rather than in information they revealed about our perpetual enemy, Spain.

  Once I had finished with the Portuguese bundle, Phelippes persuaded me to stay and help him with the backlog of other paperwork, mostly in Spanish, though there were some documents in Italian, concerning activities in the Papal court. I discovered that Phelippes was attempting to run a projection with a very dubious agent, William Sterrell, at the express request of the Earl of Essex. So far it had yielded little of any value. It was not that Sterrell was of dubious loyalty, like Poley. He was merely incompetent.

  ‘His lordship is particularly anxious for a quick result,’ Phelippes told me one day when he was in a confidential mood. ‘He desires a coup de foudre to eclipse the Cecils.’

  ‘You mix your metaphors,’ I chided. ‘Can a coup de foudre engender an eclipse?’

  He shrugged. ‘Do not play schoolmen’s games of logic with me, Kit. And in any case, it will not be a coup de foudre. It will be about as lively as a barrel of sodden gunpowder left out in the rain. He has not the patience to understand that these things take time, months, sometimes years.’

  ‘That squares with what I know of the man,’ I said.

  He took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose, which bore a red mark where they rested.

  ‘Like the affair at the Blue Boar,’ he said.

  I pricked up my ears at that and looked at him sharply. ‘You mean the rogue players’ company, set on by Sir Thomas Oxley to stir up treachery against the Queen?’

  He gave a dry laugh. ‘Oh, Oxley was merely the cat’s paw, poor booby, and now must kick his heels in Amsterdam, while his lands are forfeit to the Crown and his wife and children made homeless.’

  ‘How do you mean, a cat’s paw?’

  ‘Oh, there was never any serious intention to incite a real rebellion. There was to be a great deal of noise. Alarm! Panic in the streets of London! Then my lord of Essex would ride in on his destrier and quell the rebellion. To his great glory. Saviour of London! Of England! The Queen would be delighted, the other nobles prostrate with admiration.’

  ‘I see,’ I said slowly. ‘Another coup de foudre!’

  ‘Precisely.’

  It explained a great deal. Glory for Essex. Never mind those who died or were injured. Or lost their family estates.

  ‘And he failed. As always,’ I said. ‘By the time he arrived, a minor fight in the inn yard had been contained. It never even reached the street.’

  Phelippes nodded and looked grim. ‘Indeed. He failed. As always.’

  Phelippes gave further evidence of his ability to ferret out information from every corner of London on the last day I was due to work at the Customs Office. I had made a diversion on my way to his office that morning, for Nick Berden had sent me a message to say that Richard Upton had finally been found hiding in a miserable tavern in Billingsgate and had been handed over to Sir Rowland.

  ‘So honour is satisfied,’ I said.

  ‘Aye,’ Nick said. ‘I may have lost him at the Blue Boar, but I caught him at the Three Cocks. Is there some kind of metaphor in that? Anyway, he has proved eager to talk, if it will save him worse punishment. It was Sir Thomas Oxley he had dealings with, but on more than one occasion Oxley let slip that it was the Earl of Essex was behind it all.’

  I told Nick what Phelippes had said about Essex’s plan to play the hero, at which Nick doubled up with laughter.

  ‘Then it was not by chance that he came riding up when the men were being carried off under armed guard. I wish I might have seen his face! What a disappointment for the poor fellow, after all that planning, and all that money spent.’

  I thought it was as well that there was no one nearby to hear a peer of the realm referred to as a ‘poor fellow’, but I laughed and agreed.

  On arriving at the Customs House, I told Phelippes that Upton had been taken, but he had already heard.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘no doubt he will blab all that he knows, which my lord will not like, but I doubt he can stop him. However, it will probably not be broadcast to the world. The Queen would not care for her favourite to be both blackened and humiliated.’

  ‘Ultimately,’ I said, ‘Essex is responsible for those deaths. Oliver Wandesford, John Stoker, and the men who died in the fight at the Blue Boar. He ought to be made to answer for it.’

  ‘But he will not. He will say that it was all Sir Thomas Oxley’s doing. It will be his word against a disreputable player who has been in trouble with the law before. And Sir Thomas is not here to defend himself. It will be hushed up.’

  ‘It is not justice,’ I said.

  ‘Justice is not always even handed. Moreover,’ Phelippes took off his spectacles and used them to point at me, ‘you need to watch your own back.’

  ‘Me?’ I was surprised. ‘Why so?’

  ‘It appears that my lord of Essex has learned that it was you who persuaded Sir Rowland Heyward that the theft of the plays was intended for a political purpose. Without your interference and Sir Rowland’s presence at the play with his sergeants, together with his alerting of the Watch and the constables, the planned riot would have gone ahead unhindered. My lord would have had his moment of glory. Instead, you deprived him of it. He is not a man who readily forgives any who thwart his little schemes. You would do well to remember that, Kit. And watch your back.’

  I shivered.

  ‘I will watch my back,’ I said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Some time after finishing my work for Thomas Phelippes, I learned the fate of the rogue players who had accepted employment under Sir Thomas Oxley so that Essex’s foolhardy plan might be implemented. After their arrest, they had been sent for trial to the assizes, and although I had not heard the outcome, I was sure that Nick Berden would have done. I had taken to visiting Nick from time to time, where we would reminisce about our previous adventures, like two old cronies sitting over a tavern fire of a winter’s evening. I felt myself over young to be thus hankering for a past life, while Nick cannot have been more than in his middle thirties at the time. Still, we had some enjoyable times. Danger is always more pleasant in retrospect.

  It was almost the end of August, though it seemed like autumn already, with a chill in the air which we felt even in the shelter of his back garden.

  ‘This is the last time we shall be able to sit out here, I fear,’ Nick said. ‘I think those who warned of a cold winter had the right of it.’

  I nodded. One of his hens was scratching pointlessly at the dried earth by my feet. I could not see what she hoped to gain by it, but I suppose chickens have very small brains. She suddenly noticed Rikki, who was sleeping peacefully beside me, and ran off squawking, as if a fox were after her. Rikki opened one eye, then closed it again.

  ‘Are you still doing any work for Master Burbage?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Not for some time now. I still usually sup with the company of an evening, but even so I have seen little of them these last weeks. I have been busy, working for Thomas Phelippes and also having taken on more of Dr Nuñez’s patients. He has not been well. I fear that he is fading.’

  I looked away. This was something I did not want to think about.

  ‘Fortunately for the weight of my purse, some of these new patients have needed physicking. I would not wish them ill, but it is best for me if they have a few minor illnesses.’

  He grinned. ‘Aye, the wise physician keeps his patients always a little ill, but not so ill that they die, for what profit is there in that?’

  ‘You are a cynic, Nicholas Berden, and I will not listen to you.’

  ‘Indeed? Then you will not wish to know what became
of those players from the Blue Boar.’

  ‘You have heard something?’ Nick might not possess as wide a network of informants as Phelippes, but he came a close second.

  ‘I have seen nothing further of Sir Rowland,’ I said, ‘and none from Master Burbage’s company has mentioned anything.’

  ‘But you do not wish to listen to me.’

  ‘Do not tease, Nick. What have you heard?’

  ‘Well, it seems that between them Sir Rowland and the Master of the Revels persuaded the men to reveal all the details of the plot, including the involvement of the Earl of Essex. Because they had cooperated very readily, at the assizes they were spared the worst punishments. However, they were fined so heavily that I doubt whether they were left with two pennies to rub together out of the money they were paid by Oxley.’

  ‘Ill gotten gains,’ I muttered, seeing again Oliver Wandesford sprawled on the table at the Green Dragon, dying.

  ‘Their leader, Richard Upton, was sentenced to the pillory for two days. As a kind of poetic justice, the pillory chosen was in Queene Hythe, very near to the Blue Boar. Those who had been injured in the fight at the inn, and those who had lost members of their families, pelted him all the daylight hours, and not just with rotten fruit. They threw stones as well, and I believe he was quite badly knocked about.’

  ‘It’s a pity that such a man should have followed an evil path,’ I said. ‘He had some talent. Given other circumstances, he might have done well in a London playhouse.’

  ‘He has not my sympathy,’ Nick said. ‘He must have known there were likely to be deaths.’

  ‘What of the other men?’

  ‘Once the sentence of the pillory was over, the whole company was whipped at the cart’s tail and driven out of London. I believe they were set on the road for Essex. That should be the last we see of them.’

  ‘It hardly seems just that they should suffer so much, when the man responsible for it all rides like a royal prince through the streets of London. Though I suppose if they had been found guilty of treason, they would have been hanged.’

  Nick merely shrugged. Like Phelippes, I think he took a poor view of justice which operated differently for rich and poor. As for the Earl of Essex, he clearly believed himself to be above the law.

  Now that I had a few more chinks in my purse from my private patients, Simon urged me to rent a better lodging, but I was saving my money carefully. Thrice in my short life already I had been left a beggar. I would not let it happen a fourth time. For some reason I could not fathom, he had taken against living in Southwark. The Atkins house was no palace, but it was as clean as any lodging in London could be expected to be, and a good deal cheaper than anywhere north of the river, unless you found lodgings in the eastern ‘suburbs’, as they were called, rough areas grown up outside the City wall, beyond Aldgate, places like Poplar and Ratcliffe, which were a good deal worse than Southwark. Goodwife Atkins and her husband were decent folk, not drunkards, as some who rent out rooms can be. Indeed Goodman Atkins had something of an inclination towards the Puritan view of the world.

  For a short while Simon moved out of the house where we both roomed, and shared lodgings with Kyd and Marlowe. It was during the time I worked for Phelippes and just afterwards. I missed him sorely, much more than I wanted to admit to myself. I think at that time he dreamed of becoming a poet and maker of plays, as Kyd and Marlowe were, and hoped that somehow in their company he might absorb some of their talent. Yet his own true talent was rather to stride upon the stage and live the parts they created. I always watched him fondly in the playhouse, loving the way he came alive before an audience, creating for us the reality of the people who had existed before merely as the poets’ inky scribbles upon the page.

  After three weeks or so, he was back in Southwark, his room fortunately not having been rented by anyone else in the meantime. He was not prepared openly to admit why he had returned, but I gathered something from hints he dropped. Although he had always admired Marlowe’s talent, I suspect that sharing lodgings with him was a less than pleasant experience. Marlowe had a violent temper and was a bully. Rubbing shoulders with him every day may have opened Simon’s eyes a little.

  ‘Kyd is a good fellow,’ he said, leaving me to deduce that Marlowe, perhaps, was not. ‘Most of the time he ends up paying, for food and suchlike, though I do not believe he has much money.’

  ‘You are far better here,’ I said. ‘With your own room. You can come and go as you please, spend what you will. Independence has much to be said for it.’

  I would not admit openly how pleased I was that he was back, though I think he sensed it. We spent more time together, taking Rikki for long walks before the weather turned too cold. Even once, like naughty urchins, climbing the wall into a Lambeth orchard and scrumping enough apples to fill our pockets and my satchel. In the evenings we often sat in his room or mine, playing chess or cards or reading, or simply talking. I was very happy. He had given no further hint that he had guessed who I really was, so that most of the time I was at ease. Though – sometimes – I wondered.

  Early in September, one of Dr Nuñez’s servants arrived on my doorstep as I returned very weary from visiting my patients amongst the City merchants. There had been an outbreak of measles affecting the children in the neighbourhood, and the parents were very worried. It is a dangerous disease. If the child does not die, it may be left blind or deaf or simple-minded. When the servant appeared, I had just passed through the Great Stone Gate at the south end of the Bridge before it was closed and I was more than ready for my bed.

  ‘I have a two-man wherry waiting, Dr Alvarez,’ the servant said. ‘The mistress does not think Dr Nuñez will live till morning, and he is asking for you most urgently.’

  I could not refuse. I shut Rikki in my room and went with the servant at once to the landing place by St Olave’s, whence we were swiftly rowed across the river to St Botolph’s Wharf near the Customs House, which was a short walk from the Nuñez home in Mark Lane. Once inside I was hurried upstairs to Dr Nuñez’s bed chamber. I could see at once how it was with him. His skin had the ashen tint of a dying man, and his face was sheened with fine sweat, though he shivered under the covers. I sat on a chair at his bedside and took his hand in both of mine. It was cold and clammy.

  His heavy eyelids lifted, and he smiled gently. ‘Ah, Kit, thank you for coming.’

  For a long while he said no more, then he roused himself.

  ‘I have told my wife that you are to have as much of my medical equipment and my medicines as you can use. Over there on the chest,’ he made a feeble movement of his head, ‘is my small collection of Arabic medical texts. I have never owned as many as your father, but I want you to take them all. You must work at your Arabic and study them carefully. Take any other of my medical books. Those you used when you were studying for your licence.’

  I thanked him and could not keep the tears from running down my cheeks. He freed his hand from mine and brushed them away.

  ‘Now, Kit, you must not weep. I am past seventy and have had more than my share of life.’

  He laid his hand on my bowed head.

  ‘Bless you, dear girl. May the Lord keep you safe.’

  I lifted my head and stared at him in astonishment. His face and the whole world around me seemed to shift and take on a new shape.

  ‘You knew!’

  ‘My dear child, I could not share that journey on the Victory with you, for all those weeks and all we lived through on the Portuguese expedition, without discovering your secret, which I had suspected for some time. But take care who else learns it.’

  Several things that had puzzled me for many months were becoming clear.

  ‘Did you tell Sir Francis?’ At last I was beginning to understand.

  ‘Aye. We thought you needed someone to care for you, living so dangerously near the edge. After your father died, I took him into my confidence. You were alone, with no one to protect you. We wanted to see you safe.’r />
  He smiled.

  ‘I have always regarded you as a daughter, and for Sir Francis, with only one surviving child, you became, as it were, a secret sister for his Frances. So he told you that he knew, did he?’

  ‘Not long before he died. When he gave me his horse.’

  ‘Ah, that horse! Horace, is it?’

  So he could even tease me when he was dying.

  ‘Hector,’ I said gently.

  ‘Aye, that’s it. Hector. A Trojan hero.’

  ‘He is indeed heroic. Like others who share his name.’

  ‘Sir Francis always had a great regard for you, you know, Kit.’

  He lay quiet for a time.

  ‘Sir Francis told me Phelippes did not know,’ I said, ‘nor anyone else in the service.’

  ‘No one else. It was safer for you that way. Except, of course, Pyotr Aubery.’

  ‘Pyotr knew!’ I stared at him, amazed, yet perhaps, not quite. ‘I always thought there was something . . . But why did you tell Pyotr?’

  ‘We were sending you into a dangerous country. You needed someone to keep a watch over you.’

  ‘And I thought he was up to no good in some way.’

  His eyes crinkled in a smile.

  ‘Did a little private trading with Muscovy, did our Peter, through his family there. Nothing major. We turned a blind eye.’

  ‘He was a brave man, in the end,’ I said. ‘He saved my life. At the time, everything was confused, but I realised afterwards that he had deliberately put himself between me and the crossbow. Poor man.’

  ‘Redeemed.’

  He began to cough, so I slipped my arm beneath his shoulders and helped him to sit up. There was half a cup of brandy caudle beside the bed, and he was able to sip a little.

  Dame Beatriz came in, but was so distressed that one of her sons put his arm around her and led her away. He motioned to me to stay.

  Dr Nuñez said little more, although he slipped into speaking Portuguese and rambled a little about his childhood and a dog he had once owned.