Bartholomew Fair (24 page)

I found my way to the back of the house and the kitchen quarters, where Mistress Oldcastle was giving instructions to the cook about the evening’s dinner. He was a big man, head and shoulders taller than she and almost as broad as he was tall, but he listened submissively, with his head bent. I gave the housekeeper Sir Francis’s message somewhat nervously, but she merely nodded briskly.

‘I will bring you something in the family dining parlour. Do you remember where that is?’

I nodded, for I had eaten there before, with Sir Francis and Master Goodrich. Before I was out of the door I could hear Mistress Oldcastle giving orders to the cook for my meal. I was glad to escape.

The food, which arrived swiftly, was excellent – a thick pea soup, with bread fresh from the oven and still warm, followed by a beef and kidney pie in a rich wine gravy. To finish, one of the kitchen maids brought in a lemon syllabub, one of those I had heard being ordered for the family dinner. I ate alone, but just as I finished, Master Goodrich looked in on me.

‘Sir Francis would like to see you now, Dr Alvarez.’ His face was creased with concern. ‘He has been getting dressed.’

I jumped to my feet, horrified. ‘He is not planning to return to London!’

‘I fear so. Why else would he dress?’

‘Lady Ursula will have me in chains for this,’ I said. ‘Master Phelippes only asked me to bring the papers and make my report. He is anxious for Sir Francis to rest and regain his health.’

‘The master has been restive for the last two days,’ Goodrich said. ‘Do not blame yourself. If he has made up his mind to return to London, nothing anyone can say, not even Lady Ursula, will stop him.’

I returned to the small parlour full of apprehension. Whatever Goodrich said, if Sir Francis insisted on returning to London after my visit and then fell seriously ill again, everyone would blame me. I would blame myself.

When I knocked and entered the parlour, I found Sir Francis dressed in his usual black doublet and hose, with a tiny ruff, his clothes always making a discreet criticism of the flamboyant outfits worn by courtiers like the Earl of Essex. He was sitting at the large table in the window, writing swiftly. Phelippes’s packet had been tied up again. I knew that Sir Francis read at great speed, but it was astonishing that he could have been through all those reports in such a short time. He looked better, his face not quite so pale and sallow, and his whole demeanour without its former lethargy.

‘Ah, Kit.’ He took off his spectacles and smiled, motioning with them to another chair beside the table. He handed me a sheet of paper.

‘You will see that I have received an answer from the governors of St Thomas’s Hospital. They will be able to offer you a post.’

My heart leapt in sudden delight. I had thought the news he had spoken of might perhaps be this, but even so I hardly dared hope. It might merely have been another spying mission for the service.

‘One of their senior physicians is losing his eyesight and must retire.’ He smiled. ‘He is past eighty, so it is little wonder. He leaves in two weeks’ time, so you may start then. You are to visit before that, to discuss your duties. As you are not a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, they cannot, of course, pay you the same salary.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘I have told them they will be getting a bargain, paying you at an assistant’s rate!’

‘Oh, Sir Francis,’ I said, ‘I cannot thank you enough! I have missed practising my profession.’

‘Aye, I know you would always rather be mixing potions and salving old men’s sores than working in a quiet office at Seething Lane.’ He laughed. ‘But indulge us for the next two weeks. We must nip this conspiracy in the bud, before it can grow into a poisonous plant.’

‘Of course, sir, I will do everything I can.’

‘Now, I am coming back to London with you.’ I opened my mouth to protest, but he silenced me with a gesture. ‘I will rest again once I am at Seething Lane, but I want to be close at hand to see this business finished. I am in much better health today, well enough to ride that far. Nay, do not look so distressed. You are not to blame.’

I feared that I was, but it was not my place to contradict him.

After that, matters moved swiftly. I scanned the letter from St Thomas’s while Sir Francis finished his writing. It merely said what he had already told me. I was to call on Master Ailmer, the deputy superintendant, some time in the next few days, then report for duty in two weeks. I folded up the letter and tucked it inside my doublet, then followed Sir Francis out to the front of the house. Lady Ursula was there, and also his daughter Frances, the widowed Lady Sidney.

She smiled at me and walked over to where I stood, hesitating at the foot of the steps and hoping I could avoid Lady Ursula.

‘Good day to you, Kit.’

I bowed. ‘Good day, Lady Frances. I fear your mother will blame me for this.’

I saw that she no longer wore mourning, but dressed like the pretty young woman she was, despite her early bereavement.

‘Do not distress yourself. We knew that as soon as my father was out of bed he would be impatient to get back to work. We will follow you to London in the coach, so that my mother can keep him under some restraint.’

‘He has promised to rest, once he is there.’

She laughed. ‘I think we know what such promises are worth. Look, here is my poppet.’

The child Elizabeth was running toward us, escaping from the care of her nursemaid. At the same moment, one of the stable lads led Hector and another horse toward us. He had not seen little Elizabeth. I made a sudden dive and snatched the child up, away from the horses’ hooves.

‘Careful, my lady,’ I said. ‘You must always be careful and quiet when there are horses about.’

Lady Frances had gone quite white, but the child was not at all perturbed.

‘I know you,’ she said. ‘You’re called Kit. That’s a funny name.’

‘It is a name my friends call me, instead of my right name, my lady, which is Christoval. I know someone who is also called Elizabeth like you, but her friends call her Liza.’

‘Can I be your friend, and call you Kit?’

‘Of course you may, my lady, I should be honoured.’

‘And will you call me Liza, if you are my friend?’

‘I think you look more like an Elizabeth, my lady. It is a very fine name.’

‘It’s the Queen’s name. She is my godmother.’

‘She is indeed, so you should be very proud to share her name.’

Lady Frances lifted the child out of my arms.

‘Thank God you were so quick, Kit,’ she said. ‘I could not have reached her in time.’

‘The stable boy should be more careful.’ I was shocked myself at how close it had come to disaster.

‘He shall be whipped for it,’ she said fiercely.

‘Perhaps it would be better to make him understand that he should keep a lookout for children. Better than hurting him and making him resentful. He’s not much more than a child himself.’

She gave me a curious look. ‘You sound like Philip. He was ever kind-hearted.’

‘He was a very fine man,’ I said, ‘and much mourned.’

She nodded and I saw that her eyes were full of tears. I knew that it had been a marriage of love, for she had known Sir Philip Sidney from earliest childhood. They had even been together through the terrors of the Massacre at Paris when they were young. The Queen had disapproved of the match, since Sidney was the nephew of her beloved Earl of Leicester. She had not considered the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham good enough for him. I suspected the child had been named to appease her. Well, it was all in the past now.

‘I must go, my lady,’ I said. ‘I hope you have a safe journey to London. It is a fine day for it.’

‘Aye.’ She sighed. ‘I shall be sorry to exchange summer in the country for the stinks and sickness of London in the hot weather.’

The disgraced stable lad gave me a leg up on to Hector, and I slung my satchel into the saddlebag and buckled it. Sir Francis mounted with some difficulty from the mounting block, and I saw him wince with pain, but he did not cry out. I wonder what it cost him to strive so hard to conceal how much he suffered. He was giving orders to the men who were to ride with us, a couple of grooms and half a dozen armed men. Even in broad daylight on the open roads of Surrey, the person of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary was vulnerable to attack.

He reached down for a moment and laid his hand on Lady Ursula’s shoulder, but I did not hear what he said to her. Then he gave the signal and we all rode forward, down the lane through the manor, past the fields, and on to the road for London.

There would be no wild gallop on the return journey. We rode at walking pace to spare Sir Francis as much jarring as possible. If I had had the authority of Dr Nuñez, I would have ordered him to travel in the coach with the ladies. That way he could have been supported by cushions against the painful jolts of the journey, but I did not have the authority. Indeed, he would probably not have heeded even Dr Nuñez, for he would have felt shamed to arrive in London like a sad old man. He was one of the mightiest men in the kingdom and the least sign of weakness visible to the world would have cost him, and the kingdom of England, dear.

So slow was our journey that I began to feel chilled before we came in sight of the fringes of Southwark, and I was glad of my cloak. What had seemed nothing but a slightly cool breeze in the morning had whipped up into a cold wind by the time we were crossing the Bridge, sending icy fingers through the narrow gaps between the houses. It is nearly autumn, I thought, shivering. Then I remembered something which brought a smile to my face as we turned from the Bridge towards Seething Lane.

Simon would be returning from the Low Countries in the autumn!

Chapter Thirteen

I
t was nearly nightfall by the time we reached Sir Francis’s house. He dismounted painfully outside the front door, staggering a little before he was able to stand steadily on his feet. One of the grooms had taken his horse by the reins and reached out to support him, but Sir Francis’s brushed him aside, but politely and with a smile. Then he turned and made his way slowly up the steps to the door, followed by one of his retainers carrying two weighty satchels of papers. Before he reached the top, his secretary Francis Mylles opened the door and bowed him inside.

I rode round to the stable yard and slid down from Hector’s back. I was tired myself, more tired by the slow ride back to London than the wild gallop of the morning. I seemed to have been in the saddle for hours, as I suppose I had been, and my legs and back were stiff. Harry came to take Hector, followed by Rikki, who greeted me in his usual exuberant manner. Fortunately, Hector was well used to him by now and merely sidled away to one side, to avoid being jumped on. I thought, I really must train Rikki not to jump up, particularly around horses.

‘Can I leave Rikki with you a little longer, Harry?’ I said. ‘I need to see Master Phelippes before I go home, in case he has work for me.’

‘Certainly, Dr Alvarez. Me and Rikki, we’re just going to share a helping of pottage.’

I grinned. ‘You spoil him!’

I made my way slowly up the backstairs, more conscious than before of the ache in my calf muscles. I hoped Phelippes would not keep me too long, for I would be glad to be early abed today.

Mylles met me at the top of the stairs. ‘You are to go along to Sir Francis’s office, Kit. They are all in there.’

There was a fire burning cheerfully on the hearth in Sir Francis’s office. Realising how chilled I was, I went to stand near it. Phelippes and Sir Francis were seated on cushioned chairs. Nicholas Berden was standing, like me, near the fire. He looked exhausted.

‘Ah, Kit,’ said Phelippes, ‘so you could not prevent Sir Francis from returning to London.’

I did not know how to answer this, but Sir Francis laughed.

‘Do not tease the boy, Thomas. He would have had me stay at Barn Elms, like everyone else, but I can rest as well here as there.’

He turned to me. ‘Thomas has been bringing me up to date on what has happened today, but perhaps Nick can tell you.’

I turned to Berden, raising my eyebrows in query.

‘We found Borecroft,’ he said. ‘Or we nearly did. He has been back to his shop in Cheapside, and one of my lads came running to tell me, but he was gone out the back way by the time I got there.’

‘Unfortunate,’ I said.

‘Aye. Unfortunate.’ He smiled grimly. ‘It seems he has a reason to make himself scarce. Just minutes after I got there, court officers acting for his creditors arrived. It seems he is considerably in debt.’

‘Oh?’ I was surprised. ‘He seemed very prosperous, for a toy seller. He had a massive stock in his stall at the Fair.’

‘That’s
why
he’s in debt. Overstretched himself. I had a word with another neighbour I hadn’t spoken to before, who knows him quite well. Says he’s a cheery fellow, always believes everything will turn out all right. A fine musician. A grand fellow with the children. Bit of a child himself. Can’t manage money. That shop of his, the rent is much too high for the amount of business he does. Toys, you see, they’re cheap. Even if you sell a lot, you’re not going to make a fortune.’

‘I suppose not,’ I said, beginning to see where this was leading.

‘So this Borecroft, he has grand ideas. He’s going to be the greatest toy man in London. He’s going to be the
king
of toy men! His father was a toy man before him, went about the streets with a tray round his neck, like a pie seller, and that’s how this Borecroft started, but it wasn’t good enough for him. So he rents this big shop, buys in a huge stock, runs up all these debts. He does plenty of business, mind. The children all love him. Just not enough business to meet his expenses. Too much money going out, not enough coming in.’

‘I see.’ I was beginning to feel sorry for Borecroft. After all, apart from flirting outrageously with Anne and Sara, I did not honestly know any real harm of him. Perhaps indeed he had agreed to play for the puppeteers simply because he needed the money.

‘There’s more,’ Phelippes said.

I turned to him. ‘You think he may be involved after all?’

‘While he has been making these enquiries, Nick has spoken to the men who came to try to collect the debts. There is a fellow called Ingram Frizer.’

He exchanged a glance with Sir Francis.

‘He’s sometimes been useful to us,’ Phelippes went on. ‘He is not a regular intelligencer, but he moves in certain circles . . . He has occasionally passed us bits of information, for a consideration.’

I knew what that meant. Beyond the regular group of the service’s trusted agents, there was a mass of rogues and vagabonds who could prove valuable in certain circumstances.

‘How does Frizer come into it?’ I said.

‘His main business is getting foolish young men to borrow money on what seem to be good terms, but there is always a trick to it, and they end up owing ten times, a hundred times, what they borrowed.’

‘And Borecroft borrowed from him?’

‘He did. Borrowed heavily.’ Phelippes paused before delivering the clinching blow. ‘Frizer is a friend, and perhaps a business associate, of Robert Poley.’

Realisation broke through. ‘You mean, you think Poley might have been putting some kind of pressure on Borecroft?’ I said. ‘Forcing him to pay back his debt to this Ingram Frizer, by making threats?’

‘Possibly.’ Phelippes glanced at Sir Francis again. ‘We all know that Robert Poley often goes his own way, and his behaviour is not always–’ he searched for the right word, ‘not always, shall we say, desirable? But he can get results, and he has often been of great use in the past.’

‘But this time he is certainly not working for Sir Francis, or you would know of it.’ I was growing tired of the way we were tiptoeing around the subject. ‘If Poley is not working for us, he is either working for himself or for someone else. What sort of threat could he have made against Borecroft? A threat of violence? Or do you think it was something different – not a threat of violence but a promise that his debt would be cancelled if he did something? Something which links him to the puppeteers and the soldiers with the gunpowder?’

‘The whole thing baffles me,’ Berden said. ‘What use would a toy man be to a group of papist troublemakers or to soldiers planning to blow up a building? It makes no sense.’

‘We can do no more tonight,’ Phelippes said. He stole another glance at Sir Francis who had begun to look very tired. ‘I have men watching both the Herbar and Drake’s warehouse. I doubt anyone can interfere with either building without our being able to stop them. You, Kit, and Nick, go your ways for now and come back here first thing tomorrow.’ He turned again to Sir Francis. ‘You, sir, you must be tired after that long ride, when you are only just got up from your bed. Lady Ursula will not take it kindly if I keep you up late.’

Sir Francis levered himself out of his chair with a groan.

‘You are right, Thomas. The rest of the family will be here soon. I had better look as though I am on my way to bed.’

‘I think I can hear them coming now,’ I said, for there was a clattering of hooves and the sound of wheels heading towards the stable yard, which could be heard even from here.

Nick Berden and I went down the stairs together, meeting servants on the way up, carrying bundles and chests. The stable yard was brightly lit with lanterns hung on all the walls, while Harry and the other stable lads hurried about, unharnessing the horses from the coach and the luggage cart, and leading them into the stables. I collected Rikki from the tack room where he had been shut to be out of the way.

As Berden and I headed west across the city, I said, ‘What do you think is really afoot, Nick?’ He was a shrewd and experienced man. He was as likely as anyone to guess what was being planned, but he still looked baffled.

‘It’s like some terrible conundrum, Kit.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘A pack of Italian papist puppet masters with a scurrilous play. An English toy man who seems harmless but may be in debt to one of the greatest rogues in London. Oh, aye. I know all about Ingram Frizer and his little schemes. A troop of disaffected armed soldiers in possession of a pack of gunpowder – we don’t know how much. And a tricky spy who is probably as two-faced as that Roman god – what is he called?’

‘Janus,’ I said.

‘Aye, Janus. A tricky bastard of a double agent I’ve never liked and wouldn’t trust if I had him chained to the wall and gagged.’

‘So you don’t like Poley either.’ It was a relief to find that my opinion was so widely shared.

‘I do not. But what is the meaning of it all?’

I stood stock still as we came to the Cheapside Great Conduit.

‘My mathematics tutor, Master Harriot, had some training in the law. I remember him saying to me that in trying to solve a crime at law, you should always ask “cui bono”. He was talking about something else at the time, but I think it applies here.’

Three drunken young gallants pushed past us, singing some rude ditty. Once they were gone, Berden said, ‘What does that mean, “cui bono”?’

‘Well, “to whose good”, in other words, “who benefits”. If these people, or some of them, plan to blow up a building, how do they benefit? We don’t know for sure that it is the Herbar, but suppose it is.’

He rubbed his chin with a rasping sound. He had three or four days’ growth of stubble. ‘The soldiers will benefit if they can steal some valuable goods. And they will get revenge on Drake for treating them shabbily.’

‘Aye. And the Italians will cause terror and death in the heart of London, perhaps as a first step in a Catholic attack.’

‘But then we come back to Poley and Borecroft,’ he said. ‘What does Poley gain?’

‘I think he will do anything for a large enough payment. And he may be a true papist sympathiser, not just a fake one. There have been suspicions about that in the past.’

‘So he could be in league with the Italians?’

‘Aye, or paid by them.’

‘That still leaves Borecroft,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘What could they want with him?’

‘If Poley has some hold over him, through Frizer,’ I said, ‘he might be forced to do something for them, but I cannot imagine what.’

‘It makes my head ache,’ he said. ‘We’ll get no further tonight, Kit. I go down toward the river here. I will see you tomorrow.’

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Perhaps if we sleep on it, we will wake with an answer. Goodnight, Nick.’

I gave a tug on Rikki’s lead, for he had fallen asleep on the Conduit steps, and we set off on the last part of our way to Wood Street. I had grown cold while we stood talking. It was not yet September, but that east wind carried the threat of autumn. Remembering the wheat standing tall in Sir Francis’s fields, I hoped the farmers would be able to gather the harvest safely in, for famine was never distant in the crowded streets of London, which must depend on the work of men in fields far away. How many of the thousands lost in the folly of the Portuguese expedition should have been working at the harvest in the coming weeks? How many villages would have to depend on the labour of women and old men to bring in the crops before winter fell upon us all? I shivered.

When I reached the Lopez house I ran up the stairs to my room and quickly changed my breeches and hose, for I knew there would be a strong smell of horse about them after my long ride. Coming downstairs again I met Camster.

‘Good evening, Dr Alvarez,’ he said. ‘The master has ridden out to Eton to see Dom Antonio, and the mistress is about to dine in the small family dining parlour with the children. Will you join them?’

‘Aye,’ I said with a smile. ‘I am home in time to dine for once.’

I much preferred the smaller room for intimate family meals. The grand dining hall, with its vast table of imported wood from the Indies, had always intimidated me when I had come to dine here with my father. Ruy liked to impress guests with his dinner parties, but he was having to tread carefully these days.

In the smaller room I found Sara and Anne with the younger children just sitting down to eat.

‘Ah good, Kit,’ Sara said. ‘I fear you have had little time for proper meals these last few days.’

‘I had a meal midday at Barn Elms,’ I said, and watched with amusement as Anthony’s mouth fell open.

‘You have been all the way to Surrey and back today?’ Anne asked.

‘Aye, and all my muscles are aching.’ I pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Ambrose has gone back to his grandfather, then?’

‘They are very busy with a large shipment of long pepper,’ Sara said, ‘which must be sent out to customers in Oxford and York and Bristol, as well as London.’

‘We all of us had but a short holiday, then,’ I said, ‘to visit the Fair.’

‘You seem to have had much business at Seething Lane ever since,’ Anne said. ‘I think you did not like those puppeteers.’ She gave me a shrewd look. She had a quick understanding, Anne Lopez.

‘I did not,’ I said, as one of the maid servants carried in a steaming tureen of soup and began to serve us. ‘But I am afraid I may not speak of it.’