by Ann Swinfen
She smiled at me. ‘We are grateful for what you have done for William, Doctor.’
‘Your visits have done him more good than I. And given him hope for the future. Tomorrow we will let him try out the crutches our carpenter has made.’
William Baker was one of the last of the soldiers to leave. The stump of his severed leg healed cleanly and there was no further sign of gangrene. I was sure that he healed the better for having laid aside his despair. It took him days to learn to manage the crutches, but he was determined, and eventually could hop across the ward unaided. When the time came for him to leave, Jake Winterly came along with his wife to take William home. He had borrowed a cart, for the distance across London was much too far for a one-legged man just learning to walk. Several of us from the hospital came to see them off from the hospital gatehouse, with young Will sitting proudly beside his father at the reins.
‘You will visit us, Doctor, won’t you?’ William leaned down to shake my hand.
‘Aye, I’ll come to see how you are faring.’ I decided that in a week or two I would order a leather belt from the shop, specifying that it must be made by William.
Andrew was also one of the last to leave. Although the wound in his head healed cleanly, and his ear was only slightly scarred, he still suffered persistent pains in the head and had moments of dizziness and disturbed vision. I was worried that there might have been some damage to his skull. I could find no fracture, but there might have been a crack beneath the skin, too fine to be found by probing. I consulted my father and Dr Stephens about it.
‘Aye, there could be some hurt done to the skull, though it clearly has not broken through enough to harm the brain,’ Dr Stephens said, after feeling all around the scar, where the new skin showed pink and fragile.
‘Sometimes a blow like that can lead to bruising of the brain,’ said my father, when he had asked Andrew to describe how his sight was affected – occasionally seeing objects doubled, and what looked like zigzags of lightning across his vision.
‘That can often be a precursor to a severe headache, what we call a migraine,’ my father explained. ‘Do they occur before the onset of your headaches? And do you feel any sickness?’
‘Aye,’ Andrew said slowly. ‘Now you ask, the flashes do come an hour or two before the headaches. And I do feel sick sometimes.’
‘You have vomited at least once,’ I reminded him. I looked at my father. ‘Feverfew?’
‘Aye. See whether Peter can find you some fresh in the stillroom or the herb garden.’
‘There should be some still growing at this time of year,’ I agreed. ‘It is better fresh than the dried.’
I turned back to Andrew. ‘You can eat it like a salad herb. Slightly bitter, but not unpleasant.’
He looked at my father. ‘Will they get better? The headaches, and the other troubles to my sight?’
‘Aye. It may take time, but they will get better, if you give yourself a chance to recover. No returning to army duties yet a while.’
So Andrew stayed on until we were satisfied that the headaches were no longer so severe and he had no further spells of dizziness. He left the same day as William.
‘Well, Kit,’ he said, as we stood under the gatehouse. ‘We part again. I’ll make my way back to Dover and report for duty.’ He patted the front of his army tunic, washed and mended by our sewing women. ‘I’m glad to have this letter from your father to give the commander, else I’d probably be in irons on bread and water for staying away so long.’
‘Don’t let him set you to anything too strenuous at first,’ I said, without much hope.
He laughed. ‘You don’t know our commander. And next summer we will all be on very active service, I fear, when the Spanish dogs come.’
‘Good luck to you,’ I said.
‘And to you, Kit.’ He clapped me on the shoulder, swung his pack on to his back, and went off toward Newgate, striding out energetically and not looking back.
Twice during the time we were caring for the wounded soldiers from Sluys I had received messages from Phelippes, brought by Thomas Cassie, that he needed my help, but both times I had written back saying firmly that I could not be spared at the hospital. I reminded him of his own words, that it was essential that we patch up all our soldiers as best we could, for they would be needed when the invasion came. In November, however, a more urgent message arrived, saying that Sir Francis himself wished to see me. I no longer had the excuse of the soldiers and indeed matters were quiet at the hospital, the usual bouts of winter illness not having started yet.
‘Very well,’ I said to Cassie. ‘I will come back with you.’ As often before, he had come to our house at midday, knowing that it was our practice to go home for dinner on days when the work at the hospital was not too demanding.
‘You will not need me this afternoon?’ I looked at my father.
He shook his head. ‘Best see what it is that Sir Francis wants.’
The weather had already turned colder, so I threw a cloak over my doublet, and put an apple in my pocket, hoping I might have a chance to call in to Walsingham’s stables and see Hector. I tucked a pair of gloves into my belt. If Phelippes or Sir Francis kept me late, it would be even colder walking home. I was wearing the new belt made by William Baker, which he had insisted on giving me. It was made of a fine, supple leather and he had tooled it all over with Tudor roses, intertwined with ivy. Jake Winterly had not made a bad bargain, taking in his brother-in-law. And it was work William could do sitting down. He had flatly refused payment.
‘I know I am alive now because you fetched a surgeon so quickly.’ He gave me a pallid smile. ‘I didn’t think so at the time. In fact I hated you for it, putting me through all that pain, when all I wanted to do was die. But you were right and I was wrong. So I’d like you to have the belt, by way of apology.’
As Cassie and I walked along Eastcheap now, we passed the sign of the Black Bull and Scissors, where young Will waved to me from the doorway. I told Cassie the story of William Baker.
He shook his head. ‘I wonder just how many more William Bakers there are, over there in the Low Countries. Those men from Sluys, they were lucky to be brought home. Most of our men fighting there have little care, only what an army surgeon can give, and I doubt that’s much.’
‘You are right,’ I said. ‘If Sir Philip Sidney had been brought home, we might have been able to save him, but perhaps he was too gravely injured to survive the journey.’
‘Have you heard that the commander at Sluys, Sir Roger Williams, was himself wounded in the arm? He came home destitute, not even able to buy a horse. And because the town was surrendered, he is deemed to have failed, though the failure was Leicester’s, who stayed offshore and did not come to his aid.’
‘So I suppose,’ I said, ‘there will be no pension for Sir Roger from the Queen, or any recognition that they held out for nearly two months, waiting for reinforcements to come, until they had nothing left to eat and no gunpowder to fight with.’
He shook his head, then gave a wry smile. ‘My lady Walsingham advised Sir Roger to marry a rich merchant’s widow instead, and he says he may take her advice.’
I laughed ruefully. ‘Well, I wish there were enough rich widows to go round all the lads we treated. Otherwise most of them have no future but to go back and fight again. Next time they may not survive.’
Going up the backstairs at Seething Lane, I met Nicholas Berden coming down. One of Walsingham’s most experienced agents, he was a man I had worked with in the final days of rounding up the Babington conspirators, more than a year ago now.
‘Good day to you, Kit,’ he said, pausing briefly in his rapid descent. ‘Busy times. Phelippes will be glad to see you.’
‘Busy?’ I said.
‘The pace is quickening. The Spanish shipwrights are working night and day, and the king’s emissaries are buying up most of Europe in provisions and weapons.’ He shook his head. ‘What it is, to have a bottomless purse!’
‘He is. I believe he has some project for you.’ With that he sketched a quick bow and hurried on down the stairs.
My heart sank. Some project? I did not care for the sound of that. If Phelippes needed me for code-breaking and translating, Berden would not have called it a project. The previous year Sir Francis had used me in a few spying missions, but I hoped he was not planning to do so again. I had heard nothing more of the Catholic Fitzgerald family, after he had placed me to spy on them. The mission with Phelippes to Sussex, however, where I had first met Andrew amongst our accompanying escort of troopers, had led to the discovery of two enemies of the Queen entering the country illegally. Afterwards, Walsingham had disguised me as a messenger from one of them to Sir Anthony Babington himself. To my sorrow, I had found I liked Babington, as I had liked most of the Fitzgeralds, so I dreaded being employed as a spy again. The word project was loaded with uncomfortable possibilities.
‘Enter!’ Sir Francis called when I knocked on his door.
‘Ah, Kit! Come in, come in.’ Sir Francis rose from the chair behind his desk and came round to where two chairs were drawn near the fire.
I did not like the signs. If it had been a brief instruction, he would have stayed behind his desk. Sitting in this friendly fashion beside the fire betokened something worse.
‘Hang your cloak on the peg over there,’ he said. ‘You’ll take a glass of wine?’
‘Thank you.’ It was rare for me to taste anything but small ale or occasionally beer. If this was going to be a difficult interview I would at least wash it down with a glass of Sir Francis’s excellent wine, which he probably obtained through the trading links of Dr Nuñez or Dunstan Añez. I took my seat and accepted the glass he handed to me. As I held it up to the firelight it glowed as rich red as one of the Queen’s rubies.
‘Your health, Kit!’
‘And yours, sir.’
We sipped our wine as he questioned me carefully about my work with the survivors of Sluys.
‘A dreadful episode,’ he said, ‘and not one to our credit.’
‘It was to the credit of the men who held out there,’ I said stiffly. ‘If you could have seen, as I did, what they suffered–’
‘That is not what I meant,’ he said quietly. ‘I do not blame them. I have had a detailed account of the siege from Sir Roger Williams. Indeed he stayed with us for a time. The disgrace lies with those who failed to go to their aid.’
I relaxed. It seemed he was not going to name Leicester, but the name hovered there in the air between us.
‘We are still embroiled in the Spanish Netherlands, of course,’ he said, ‘fighting alongside the Protestants of the United Provinces against the Spanish tyrants. The Queen has agreed to support them, as they are amongst our few allies in Europe, along with the Huguenot faction in France, and some of the German states, and Denmark.’
He took a sip of his wine, staring into the fire, then turned to me.
‘The Huguenots have remained weakened since the massacre fifteen years ago, although they have a capable leader in Henri of Navarre. The Germans are hesitant in engaging outside their own borders. Denmark used to be a strong ally, but with the death of her king, the crown has passed to his young son. Neither he nor his counsellors have any taste for resistance against the Spanish at present. Later, perhaps. But in the current crisis, we are on our own with the Hollanders. The Protestant Swiss cantons have flat refused to send us any of their very skilled troops.’
He took another sip of his wine. ‘And at the same time we are threatened from the west by the Irish and from the north by those Scots who supported Mary. The Scottish king’s Protestant forces may be able to hold them back, north of the border, but our own northern counties have ever been restless since the Queen’s grandfather became king.’
I listened attentively to this long speech, reflecting that I had missed my involvement in state affairs in recent months. I began to feel the stirrings of interest. Nevertheless I suppressed a smile at Walsingham’s tactful description of Henry VII’s seizure of power from Richard of York. The Tudors had only the right of victory in battle to claim the crown of England, and everyone knew it, though no one would speak of it openly. As for the northern counties – by which Walsingham meant Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northumberland, Durham and Cumberland, a vast portion of England – they had never truly accepted the Tudors as monarchs or indeed Henry VIII’s break with Rome. I was not sure where all of this was leading.
‘I did not know that Denmark was no longer an ally, Sir Francis.’
‘Oh, she is still nominally an ally. But we cannot count on her support in fighting the Spanish now, in the Low Countries, nor next year, when the Spanish invasion comes.’
I thought how confidently everyone talked of the invasion next year, as if it were as fixed as the cycle of the seasons. Yet the very thought of it filled me with dread. If the army landed, they would take the country, and once Spain controlled England, the Inquisition would come.
Walsingham pressed his finger tips against his lips.
‘You are wondering why I have sent for you, Kit.’
‘I thought Master Phelippes must need my assistance, sir, with more code-breaking.’ I thought nothing of the sort, especially after that speech of Walsingham’s, but I thought I would feign ignorance.
He laughed. ‘Ah, Kit, you do not fool me for a minute. You know that it is more than that.’
I reddened and bowed my head, ashamed at my foolish attempt at deception.
‘I am sorry, Sir Francis.’
‘No, I am sorry, Kit. I will not prevaricate. Her Majesty has received a despatch from the Earl of Leicester which troubles her, and she has passed it on to me. The Earl writes that he is worried about treason and treachery. Not simply the treason and treachery we have been confronting here for years, and which you have helped to combat. He is alarmed that there may be treason and treachery in the Low Countries, either amongst the troops he commands or amongst our Dutch allies. At the moment it is no more than a suspicion. He does not cite any clear evidence.’
I had to bite back my own urge to say that the Earl himself had been guilty of treachery at Sluys, but perhaps it was not so much treachery as pure blinding cowardice. Besides, it was not my place to express such a view to Sir Francis. I waited.
‘I am sending out a number of agents to different parts of our forces, to see what they can discover. Berden will go shortly, from Dover to Amsterdam. Gifford – do you remember Gilbert Gifford? – will travel to the Low Countries from Paris, but through Saxony and the Swiss cantons, to avoid notice. He will join the Earl, then move discreetly through the army. Other agents will come up from Italy and some of the German states. I need information from all parts of the army, both our own and our Dutch allies. I need to deploy as many agents as possible, and quickly.’
I continued to wait. I realised I was holding my breath. I had guessed what was coming.
He gave me a shrewd look, as if he could read what was passing through my mind. ‘I want you to go as well, Kit.’
‘But, sir, I have no experience!’ It was the argument I had used the previous year. It had been useless then as well.
‘You have some experience now. And what I want you to do is not difficult. You will go initially as a messenger from me to the Earl, carrying despatches. After all, you have played the messenger before.’
‘Not in those terrible clothes!’ I said. ‘I burned them.’
We both laughed, breaking the tension in the room a little. The grubby clothes I had worn as Barnes’s supposed messenger boy had been the subject of some mirth last year.
‘No, you need not fear. You will go as an official messenger from this office, and may wear your own clothes. You will travel with Berden.’
‘You said I would go initially to the Earl.’ I realised that the way I phrased this implied acceptance, but I would n
ot give way too readily.
‘Aye. In the despatches, I will ask him to give you and Berden any information he may have to confirm his suspicions, though there may be nothing.’
‘Perhaps there are no grounds for his suspicions,’ I suggested. ‘Perhaps he is imagining treason and treachery.’ Perhaps, I thought, it is Leicester’s way of excusing himself in advance for his next military failure.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘but we cannot be too careful. Afterwards you and Berden will separate and move amongst the troops, like Gifford and the others, keeping your eyes and ears open. When men are at leisure, drinking in ale houses or gaming with their friends, their tongues loosen. That is when secrets slip out. They’ll take no notice of a young lad sitting quietly in the shadows.’
A sudden cold terror seized me. As a girl not yet eighteen, I was to consort with these drunken and possibly treacherous soldiers, listening to their secrets and passing them back to Walsingham. I would be in terrible danger. Even if they did not discover that I was Walsingham’s agent, they might discover my sex. I found that my hands were shaking. I set down my empty wine glass, shook my head when Sir Francis lifted the flask toward me, then sat on my hands to steady them. At that moment I longed to throw away my disguise. What would Sir Francis say if I stood up now and declared: ‘I cannot do as you ask. I am not a young man in your service. I am nothing but a girl and I dare not do what you ask.’
He was watching me carefully. I knew Sir Francis for a very shrewd judge of people and I wondered whether my face had somehow given me away. I cleared my throat.
‘I…I would prefer not to go, Sir Francis. I am happy to work here for Master Phelippes. I know that my skills are useful to him. But I do not think I have the skill, the cunning, to do what you ask amongst the troops.’
‘I understand that you were on very good terms with the soldiers from Sluys.’