by Ann Swinfen
Voyage
to
Muscovy
Ann Swinfen
Shakenoak Press
Copyright © Ann Swinfen 2015
Shakenoak Press
ISBN 978-0-9932372-3-2
Ann Swinfen has asserted her moral right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified
as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than
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Cover images
St Basil’s Cathedral founded 1561
Contemporary drawing of Sami sleigh
Cover design by JD Smith www.jdsmith-design.co.uk
To the Memory of an Inspiring Teacher
Charles E Danner Jr
1921-1997
Chapter One
London, 1590
I had not been attending much to the conversation round the dinner table. To tell the truth, I had not wanted to come to the Lopez house that evening, despite knowing that I would be given an excellent meal. For two nights running I had hardly slept, for we had had three difficult births in the lying-in ward and the midwives had needed my assistance. In the dark watches of that morning we had nearly lost one mother and babe. Even now, I was uncertain whether they would survive, so I had left word that one of the errand boys at St Thomas’s hospital must fetch me, should I be needed. He would have to take a wherry across the river from Southwark to the City, for the gates to the Bridge would be closed by now.
And besides, I did not much relish any company at the moment. It was barely two weeks since Sir Francis Walsingham’s funeral, and the memory of that sad, miserly service by night in St Paul’s still cast a pall over my spirits. The shock of discovering, next morning, that the offices in his house had been raided while we laid him to rest, had shaken me profoundly. All our precious and most secret files had been stolen, together with our code books, the locked cupboards ripped open, even Arthur Gregory’s painstakingly wrought seals were gone. Fortunately, my own seal hung on a fine chain round my neck. Arthur had made it for me two years ago, when I was sent into the Low Countries. Everything else which had connected me to Walsingham’s service was gone – my favourite ink pot, the pen knife I kept on my desk, my own collection of codes, many of which I had deciphered myself.
Since that terrible morning I had seen nothing of Thomas Phelippes or Arthur Gregory, who must now find themselves fresh employment. I had visited my horse Hector, given to me by Sir Francis before his death and kept at livery in the stables of his Seething Lane house. And I had spoken to Francis Mylles, his chief secretary, to confirm that Dame Ursula was content with the arrangement Sir Francis had made for Hector to remain there, because even though I now received the salary of a licensed physician, I could not afford the livery of a horse like Hector.
‘All is in place, Kit,’ Mylles had assured me. ‘Dame Ursula will continue to live here in Seething Lane and she is happy with the arrangement for your horse.’
‘Lady Sidney?’ I said. ‘Or rather, the Countess of Essex, as she is now – will she and her husband move to Essex House?’
Sir Francis’s only child, his daughter Frances, had remained in the Seething Lane house even after her new marriage, for she and her father were very close and she had not wanted to lose any of his last hours.
Mylles shook his head, and I gathered from his expression that he did not approve. ‘They remain here at present.’ He pressed his lips together as though he would have liked to say more, but did not trust himself to speak.
‘What will you do yourself?’ I asked. ‘Now that you have purchased a manor from Sir Francis, will you leave London for the country?’
‘Not yet. Dame Ursula has need of my services. Creditors are gathering like vultures. She needs someone familiar with Sir Francis’s business affairs to help her through the maze. Most of the claims are spurious, but some are genuine. When everything is in order, then I shall leave. There is a competent manager in charge at the manor. I can leave matters to him for the moment.’
He had paid me some monies owing to me, and that was the last I had seen of the inside of Walsingham’s house, although I visited the stables every few days.
With all these affairs on my mind, and the demands of my work at St Thomas’s, I was reluctant to accept Sara Lopez’s invitation to dinner, but Sara was a close friend, the only person who knew my true identity, and I did not want to disappoint her. I was less fond of her husband, who was ambitious and (I suspected) sometimes unscrupulous in his attempts to achievement advancement. He was speaking now, and a name caught my wandering attention.
‘That was why Sir Francis sent his man to Muscovy last year,’ Ruy said. ‘Because of the suspicions about what might be afoot there.’
I knew that Walsingham had been a shareholder in the Muscovy Company. So also were Ruy Lopez and my fellow dinner guest, Dr Nuñez. Although both had trained as physicians at Coimbra in Portugal, like my father, they had also become merchants after settling in London. Ruy Lopez merely bought and sold goods, though in some quantity, for he had a warehouse in the neighbourhood of St Katherine’s Creechurch. Dr Nuñez, however, was an important member of the merchant community of London, as well as being a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians like Ruy. He owned a number of ships. Indeed it was on one of his ships that I had escaped from Portugal eight years before. Like most of the important merchants in London, both of them held shares in the Muscovy Company, which sent a fleet north round the top of Norway every year to trade with that remote and barbarous country ruled by a Tsar, a country called sometimes Muscovy and sometimes Russe.
‘Sir Francis sent an agent to Muscovy?’ I said, shaking myself and trying to make an intelligent contribution to the discussion. ‘I did not know that.’
‘It would have been while you were away on the Portuguese expedition last spring,’ Dr Nuñez said. ‘It was done very quietly. The man was employed by the Company as a stipendiary, and was to look into certain matters that were causing concern.’
‘Stipendiary?’ I said. ‘I’m not familiar with the term.’
‘They are one rank below the agents. It is the agents who are in charge at each of the Company’s households in that country. The stipendiaries act as clerks or secretaries or assistants. The most senior stipendiary in each household can take charge if the agent is ill or absent. Then there are apprentices, learning the business, together with various craftsmen and servants, both English and Russian.’
‘I had not realised so many people were employed.’
‘Oh, indeed. Some hundreds of Englishmen. And that is not to count the Russians. Then there are their dependent families. Even some Englishmen take their wives and children with them. However, as with all large enterprises, and certainly one extending over so vast an area, so far from home, the trade of the Muscovy Company is open to abuse.’
‘Who was the man who was sent by Sir Francis?’
‘One Gregory Rocksley. Do you know him?’
‘Not well. I have met him once or twice, I suppose. But what is the problem now?’
He laughed. ‘I suspected you were asleep, Kit. You have not been listening.’
I saw Ruy Lopez frown. He opened his mouth, no doubt to say something cutting, but Dr Nuñ
ez forestalled him.
‘I happen to know that Kit has worked through the last two nights without sleep. Don’t be hard on him, Ruy.’
He nodded to the servant, who refilled his glass, but I placed my hand over mine and shook my head. My wits were dull enough already, without additional wine, particularly the strong (though excellent) red wine that Ruy Lopez imported from France.
‘From the start of the Company, near forty years ago now, there has been the problem of employees engaging in private trade,’ Dr Nuñez went on. ‘They are forbidden to do so by Company regulations. All buying and selling of goods with the Muscovites must be done through the Company and entered in the ledgers. Employees are paid a salary. Shareholders bear the losses, as when a ship is sunk or captured by pirates, or goods are spoiled or sold at a loss. Over the years there have been many losses. When there is a profit, it is shared amongst those same shareholders.’
‘I understand,’ I said, ‘although I can see that it may be very difficult to prevent men trading on their own, when they are so far from home.’
‘Indeed it is, but we are happy to wink the eye over petty trading. Only if it reaches serious proportions do we take the offender to court.’
Ruy shifted irritably in his chair, as though he wanted to interrupt. Sara gave him a quelling look.
‘And it was to investigate this illegal trading that Gregory was sent to Muscovy?’ I said.
‘Nay.’ Dr Nuñez shook his head. ‘That was used as the excuse, the pretended reason to the shareholders for Rocksley joining the Company as a senior stipendiary. He has some accounting experience, it seems, so the story was a convincing one.’
Ruy shifted again, causing the legs of his chair to scrape on the floor. Sara murmured something to the servant, who withdrew. Opposite me, Anne Lopez stifled a yawn. It seemed the affairs of the merchants in this distant country had little interest for her. Her elder brother Ambrose, however, leaned his chin on his hand and watched Dr Nuñez closely.
‘You fear there is something more serious afoot,’ he said. ‘Or at least that was what I gathered before Kit woke up.’
I pulled a face at him and he grinned back. I struggled to sit up straighter and pay attention.
‘I am not sure whether you know, for it was before you first came to England, Kit,’ Dr Nuñez went on, ‘but for some years the Tsar had seized possession of the port of Narva on the Baltic. He lost it again to Sweden in ’81. So for a time, as well as the route round the North Cape to St Nicholas, we also had a much shorter route – and one free of all the ice-bound dangers of the northern passage. Narva is on the east shore of the Baltic. The only danger there was getting through the Straits without being either captured or fined by the King of Denmark.’
I could not quite see where this was leading, but I nodded.
‘Narva was valuable because it also provided a much more direct route to Persia and the spice trade. Now everything has to go the long way round once again. When we pulled out of Narva, some of the Company’s men left their employment with us and elected to stay, setting up as independent merchants. Narva is an important trading centre for many countries, not just those around the Baltic. Ships come in from the Low Countries, from France.’ He paused. ‘From Spain.’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘Aye.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘We suspect that vital information about England’s navy, ports, state of readiness for war, is leaking out from some of the Company households in Muscovy to former agents or stipendiaries in Narva, and thence to Spain.’
‘I see.’ I was fully awake now. ‘And Sir Francis would have been deeply concerned about that. Yet I do not remember him mentioning it. Or Thomas Phelippes either.’
‘As I said, it would have been while you were away in Portugal. Our company governor, Rowland Heyward, consulted Sir Francis and they decided to send Rocksley with last year’s fleet to Muscovy. Any communications with that country must perforce take months. Even so, Rocksley should have sent back coded despatches by now, by the land route through Poland, so that we could take any necessary action when this year’s fleet leaves next month. Those were his instructions.’
‘And you have received no despatches?’
He shook his head and I thought of the files missing from the office in Seething Lane. Had there been something there from Rocksley, overlooked in the last days of Walsingham’s final illness?
‘However,’ Ruy said, unable to hold his tongue any longer, ‘we have now received a despatch through Poland from our chief Muscovy agent, Austin Foulkes, who is based in Moscow. A despatch that is causing us the gravest concern. Rocksley left Moscow in November last, and it was believed he was heading for Narva. In the meantime, war has broken out again between Sweden and Muscovy, so all that western part of Russe is in turmoil. The last news our people have is that Rocksley changed his plans and headed instead for Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea, that is, for the longer route that trade with Persia must now follow. He has not been seen since January.’
It sounded serious. For an Englishman, even one of Walsingham’s experienced agents, to go missing in such a dangerous country did not bode well.
‘He was alone, Rocksley?’
‘There was a Russian interpreter with him,’ Dr Nuñez said. ‘Rocksley spoke a little of the language, having travelled there once before. That was why Sir Francis chose him for the mission. But he was not fluent. He would have needed an interpreter. The interpreter has also vanished.’
He looked grave. ‘Anything might have happened. The true nature of his mission might have been discovered. He might have perished of disease or the fearful winter climate in those parts. And that route is notoriously dangerous. Company men on peaceful missions have been murdered there before.’
‘So what do you propose doing?’ Ambrose asked.
‘There is to be a meeting of the Court of Assistants in a few days’ time,’ Ruy said. ‘Dr Nuñez is currently one of the Assistants.’
‘This year’s fleet will leave some time in the middle of May,’ Dr Nuñez said. ‘A new chief agent will be travelling with it, Christopher Holme, to replace Austin Foulkes, who has served there for three years now. Long enough for any man, I should think, in such a barbarous land! The Company must decide before then what action should be taken. We might simply decide to wait and hope that Rocksley will reappear.’
I frowned. ‘A weak course to follow, if a man you sent into that land is in trouble and in need of help.’ I thought of the times I had found myself in danger abroad in foreign lands, and my sympathies were with Rocksley.
‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘we may send out another man to search for him.’
‘You should go, Kit,’ Ambrose said. I thought he was probably teasing. ‘You have a talent for making your way in foreign lands. And I have heard that the Tsar is anxious for English physicians to come to his country. Is that not so, Father?’
Ruy nodded. ‘Physicians, apothecaries, architects, skilled craftsmen. The Muscovites have been urging us to send such men ever since the time of the present Tsar’s father.’
‘Ivan the Terrible,’ Ambrose said, with a certain grim relish.
I shivered. ‘Few can have wanted to go,’ I said. I certainly would not.
‘The present Tsar is of a very different character to his father,’ Dr Nuñez said. ‘A weak, foolish creature. His brother-in-law is Tsar in all but name.’
‘Aye,’ said Ruy. ‘Boris Godunov. An able administrator, we understand. Not so overtly cruel as the last Tsar, but not a man to be trifled with. He governs by stealth.’
After that the conversation wandered on to different things, in particular the struggle for power that was developing between the Earl of Essex and the Cecils, but I was growing very tired. There was still a long walk ahead of me, first from Wood Street to the river, then the crossing by wherry before I could walk to my lodgings in Southwark. I excused myself soon afterwards and Dr Nuñez rose too, saying he would accompany me.
At firs
t we walked in silence. Of late Dr Nuñez had begun to move more slowly and I noticed that he was hunched forward slightly.
‘Does your back trouble you?’ I asked.
‘Nothing serious. Nothing but old age. And sitting too long on those fancy chairs of Ruy’s. Beautifully carved, of course, but scarcely comfortable.’
I laughed. ‘They were very uncomfortable, weren’t they? It had its advantages, though. It was the only thing that stopped me falling asleep altogether. They must be new, for I’ve never seen them before.’
‘Despite his losses in the Portuguese affair, Ruy still seems to have money to spend.’
‘He does. Take care, there’s a patch of slippery mud here.’ I took his arm and beckoned one of his servants nearer. Dr Nuñez had brought two lads carrying pitch torches with him, to light the way home.
‘How is Dame Beatriz?’ I asked. ‘I was surprised not to see her tonight.’
Dr Nuñez’s wife was an old friend of Sara’s, but I suspected that, like me, she did not care over much for Ruy.
‘She has a heavy head cold and decided to go early abed.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘Nay, nothing a little care will not mend.’
We had reached the corner of Fish Street and Little Eastcheap where our ways parted, he to walk the short distance to Mark Lane, I to find a wherry at Old Swan Stairs to row me across the river. He laid his hand on my arm.
‘Ambrose was right to say that you would be an excellent person for the Company to send, Kit, but it is likely to be dangerous. I should not like to see you coerced into such a venture.’
I looked at him in alarm.
‘It surely was not meant seriously!’
He grunted. ‘I would judge, by the look in Ruy’s eye, that he was considering it very seriously. Take care, Kit.’