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

  The Play’s

  the

  Thing

  Ann Swinfen

  Shakenoak Press

  Copyright © Ann Swinfen 2016

  Shakenoak Press

  ISBN 978-0-9932372-4-9

  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

  that in which it is published and without a similar condition

  being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover images

  The Grafton Portrait (Possibly the young Shakespeare)

  Swan Theatre Interior 1596

  Cover design by JD Smith www.jdsmith-design.co.uk

  More by This Author

  The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez

  The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez

  The Enterprise of England

  The Portuguese Affair

  Bartholomew Fair

  Suffer the Little Children

  The Fenland Series

  Flood

  Betrayal

  The Testament of Mariam

  This Rough Ocean

  Contemporary Novels

  The Anniversary

  The Travellers

  A Running Tide

  To the Memory of

  William Shakespeare

  King of Playwrights

  1564-1616

  Chapter One

  London, 1591

  I shivered. Outside the window, which faced east, the sun shone with an intensity of fire almost unknown in England. The brief summer shower that had fallen on the day of my return to London was the first rain the city had known for weeks, but it was a brief respite. As I had walked this morning from my lodgings along the south bank of the river toward St Thomas’s hospital – just minutes ago, it seemed – I had noticed that the river was exceptionally low. Great plains of glistening mud stretched out from either bank, the Thames a sluggish stream meandering between them. The impish mudlarks of Southwark were splashing about in the slurry, searching for any treasure which might be revealed by the shrinking of the river. Only yesterday a lad had found a Roman coin and run with it to some lordling, who paid him well. The sun, hot as molten copper, burned through my physician’s cap, springing forth beads of sweat in my hair. The occasional birdsong was desultory, as though the very birds were exhausted by the heat.

  But now I shivered.

  It was not the biting cold of a Muscovy winter that froze me, an assault, a siege from without, which could be battled with furs and spiced mead and heated stones. The cold came from within. I could see no means to resist it. Barely aware that I did so, I rubbed my arms and stared across the desk at Superintendant Ailmer. I could find no words to answer him.

  Ailmer was clearly unhappy. He would not look me in the eye, but stared down at the papers on his desk, running a quill between his fingers until the feathers, shredded away, fell down like snow.

  ‘I regret having to tell you this, Dr Alvarez,’ he said finally, when the silence had stretched out too long, ‘but the matter was taken quite out of my hands. Of course, if Sir Francis had still been with us . . .’

  His voice trailed away. Sir Francis Walsingham, my employer and patron since I was sixteen, had been dead more than a year now. Sir Francis had found me a place here at the hospital, even before I had qualified as a licensed physician. No one would have dared to countermand his wishes. But Sir Francis was gone.

  ‘I do not understand,’ I said. I understood well enough. I was merely stalling for time.

  ‘When Dr Wattis came to us in May of last year,’ he said . . . He cleared his throat. ‘When he came, I know that it was agreed that he would undertake your duties until your return from Muscovy, when he would take up his appointment in the household of the Archbishop of York. That was to be at Easter this year.’

  ‘You will remember,’ I interrupted, ‘that I was unhappy about the appointment at the time. Howard Wattis had just finished his theoretical studies in medicine at Oxford. He had no practical experience whatsoever. To put him in charge of both the lying-in and children’s wards, where lives can so easily be lost–’

  ‘Had Dr Colet not agreed to return from retirement to supervise his work, I am sure the governors would not have agreed to the arrangement,’ he said.

  ‘But you tell me Dr Colet is dead.’

  ‘Alas, that is so. He was a good man and a conscientious physician. I fear he over tasked his strength.’

  Over tasked it, no doubt, in making up for the mistakes and ineptitudes of that boy, I thought, gritting my teeth. I had not met Howard Wattis, yet I could only think of him as a boy. He had taken up his duties the week after I left for Muscovy. He was but a year older than I, without my seven years of practical experience in hospital medicine, starting as a fourteen-year-old apprentice and assistant to my physician father, a distinguished man in his profession, once a professor of medicine at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. This fellow Wattis had possessed nothing but university book-learning when my patients had been entrusted to his dubious care.

  ‘You say the Archbishop no longer wants him?’ I said.

  Little blame to him, I thought, but why should that affect me?

  Ailmer shifted uncomfortably in his chair, gave me one swift glance, then resumed shredding his quill.

  ‘It appears that Dr Wattis was appointed to the Archbishop’s household through the good offices of an uncle,’ he said.

  Wattis was fortunate in his army of uncles, I thought. It was another uncle, a deputy governor of the Muscovy Company, who had put him forward as a substitute in my place at St Thomas’s last year. That way he could gain some practical experience by molesting my patients before taking up his lucrative private post in York. Unfortunately, I am seriously lacking in uncles, with or without influence.

  ‘Does this preferment no longer hold?’ I asked. I was still stalling.

  ‘After Easter had come and gone, without your return from Muscovy, the Archbishop sent word that he had been obliged to make another appointment. By then Dr Colet was seriously ill. Dr Wattis was working alone.’

  ‘But it was always the case that I was unlikely to return to London before this year’s Company fleet sails back from the north. That will be in September!’ My anger was beginning to warm me. ‘I did not travel to Muscovy willingly, as you know, but at the behest of certain great men. And I have made my way home to London myself, three months earlier than the fleet, having fulfilled my mission. Rescued Gregory Rocksley and brought back the report of certain affairs in that country.’

  I drew a deep breath.

  ‘And now I am to be turned out of my post here at St Thomas’s?’

  I was beginning to shake uncontrollably. I had arrived that morning assuming I would take up once more my care of the expectant mothers in Whittington’s ward, and the sick pauper children in the adjacent ward. The two wards of which I had formerly been in charge. I had come with a joyful step, relieved to be back doing the work I loved, away from that terrible country which had consumed a year of my life. Now I was cast out, that fellow Wattis having been given my place. It made all too clear to me just vulnerable I now was, with Walsingham gone.

  ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ I said at last, dully. />
  Ailmer looked at me, pity in his eyes.

  ‘I am afraid there is not, Dr Alvarez. There are no physician posts vacant at the moment. And as you know, money is always tight here in the hospital. We cannot afford to appoint extra physicians. I am sure you noticed the scaffolding on the west side of the building. We have barely enough to pay for essential repairs, merely to keep out the wind and rain.’

  Indeed, I knew very well that money was always lacking here at St Thomas’s, just as I knew that – despite his admitted respect for my skills – Ailmer would not put his budget at risk by taking me back as a supernumerary.

  ‘Do you know whether there is anything available at St Bartholomew’s?’ I asked. It was at Bart’s that I had trained with my father. The governors there had once valued me, but men in power have short memories.

  He shook his head. ‘I have not heard so, but indeed you might ask.’

  I gave a slight nod. I would ask. I had little hope. Twice, now, this had befallen me. Two years before, when I had been out of the country on the Portuguese expedition, my father had died and our positions at St Bartholomew’s had been filled by others. Now it had happened again, despite the promises of Sir Rowland Heyward, governor of the Muscovy Company, that my post at Thomas’s would be held safe for me till my return. Alone, without any great man as my patron, I would have no redress against him or against the governors of St Thomas’s.

  Ailmer offered me a glass of wine, as though that might somehow compensate for the loss of my livelihood, but I refused. Instead of making my way cheerfully to the wards, greeting the mistress of the nurses, Alice Maynard, and Goodwife Appledean, in charge of the midwives, I found myself once more in the yard, where the cobbles were as hot as bakestones under my feet. Dust from the stonemasons’ workshop drifted through the heavy air, blending with the summer stench from the river, which was worse than usual with the heat and the exposed refuse on the mud banks.

  It was so hot that the gatekeeper, Tom Read, had retreated inside the cool of the gatehouse instead of taking up his usual post on a stool in front of his door. I blinked in the darkness of the single room on the ground floor, where he lived and cooked.

  ‘Dr Alvarez!’

  His voice came out of the gloom. I could make out his figure, as my eyes adjusted. He was seated at the table and was busy draping a wet cloth over his head to cool it. My heavy physician’s robe seemed a mockery now, and I began to peel it off in irritation. His old wolfhound, Swifty, and my dog, Rikki, raised their heads, but were clearly too overcome by the heat to rise to their feet and welcome me.

  Tom’s greeting had feigned surprise, but I knew him too well to be taken in. There was little that happened at St Thomas’s that did not reach Tom’s ears within minutes, or at most half a day. I dropped on to a stool opposite him, rolling up my robe and laying it on the table.

  ‘You knew,’ I said. It was not an accusation, merely an acknowledgement. ‘You knew, when I left Rikki with you this morning.’

  He nodded. ‘It weren’t my place to say nothing.’

  He got up and poured us both ale into a couple of his rough wooden cups. I was about to refuse this, like Ailmer’s wine, even though Tom could not be blamed, then I realised how thirsty I was. My throat felt as dry as if I had been talking for hours, though I had hardly spoken in Ailmer’s office. I drained the cup in a single draught. When I set it down on the table, Tom filled it again.

  ‘They didn’t ought to have done that,’ he said. ‘That fellow Wattis, he’s trouble.’

  I knew I should not discuss my fellow physician with Tom, but he was an old and loyal friend, who had cared for Rikki all the time I had been away. Besides, what loyalty did I owe St Thomas’s now?

  ‘Trouble?’ I said.

  He frowned. ‘Upsets the sisters. There’s allus one or more of ’em crying. The children are scared of him. I won’t say he beats them–’

  ‘What!’ I was shocked. My little Southwark waifs!

  ‘Nay, nothing like that. But he’s one of them Puritans, the ones think they’re better’n the rest of us, specially chosen by God. So he’s allus talking hellfire to the little uns, till they’re so frightened I swear it makes ’em more ill than when they come in. Then there’s the babes.’

  ‘What of the babes?’

  My hand was clenched around the ale cup and I realised I had drained it a second time. I shook my head when Tom offered to fill it again.

  ‘Well, now.’ He was avoiding my eyes, as Ailmer had done. ‘There’s been a lot of babes died this last year in the ward, more’n three times the usual number, so Goodwife Appledean says.’

  I realised I was not the only one speaking out of turn. If the senior midwife, who was generally discretion itself, had let this information slip to Tom, things must be serious indeed.

  ‘That’s bad,’ I said quietly. ‘And with this heat . . . there will be the bloody flux and all manner of summer diseases, worse than ever, even if we are spared the plague.’

  ‘Aye. And that Wattis, he don’t let the poor mites stay while we feed ’em up, like you do. Sends ’em off as soon as maybe. Happen they’m back again in a week or two.’

  St Thomas’s was not merely a hospital for the injured and sick, but a place of succour for the destitute. It was part of its duty to care for the paupers of Southwark, many of whom lived much of their lives on the very borderland of starvation. I felt my anger rising, and my frustration with it.

  ‘A’nt there nothing you can do?’ he said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘I have no influence here now, Tom. As you see, I am turned away.’

  ‘One of your great friends?’

  I gave a bitter laugh. ‘Which friends would those be? With Sir Francis gone, I have no great friends any more. I am nothing but a poor jobbing physician, without employment.’

  ‘Nay, don’t put yourself down. There’s no one here as likes Wattis. They want you back.’

  I shrugged. ‘The governors have made their appointment. There is nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it.’

  I got to my feet and tucked the bundle of my gown under my arm.

  ‘I’d best be off and not keep you from your work. I can hear a wagon stopping at the gate.’

  ‘Aye, that’ll be the new roof slates the builders are wanting.’

  He got to his feet and I noticed that he moved stiffly. He had grown older while I was away. We left the gatehouse together, Tom to direct the delivery of slates, and I, with Rikki at my heels . . . to go where? I had never felt so desolate since my unhappy return from Portugal two years ago. My hospital post was gone. My work as code-breaker and agent had ceased with the death of Walsingham. How was I to live?

  I wandered down to the river, just short of the Bridge, and stood watching the Southwark lads scrambling about in the mud. One of them had found something and the others had gathered around him. They were filthy, covered with stinking Thames mud from head to toe, but they seemed happy. Rikki leaned against my leg, sensing that all was not right with me.

  When Gregory Rocksley, Thomas Edgewick, and I had reported to the Muscovy Company the day after our return to London, Sir Rowland Heyward had welcomed us warmly, relieved that Gregory had survived and had brought a report detailing all that he had discovered about the treacherous dealings of Boris Godunov, the de facto ruler of Muscovy, with our Spanish enemies. Gregory and Thomas would remain in the Company’s employ, while I was thanked effusively for my mission to that country. Heyward made no mention of the loss of my hospital position then. He gave us each a heavy purse of coin. Afterwards the three of us had dined together, but I had not seen Gregory or Thomas since, as we each took up the threads of our former lives.

  The money provided to me was welcome, but hardly a generous recompense for a year of my life, considerably less than I would have earned at St Thomas’s during the lost year. And cruelly inadequate now that I understood how that mission had also robbed me of my professional post. Before I realised what
had happened at the hospital, I had paid my landlady, Goodwife Atkins, three months rent in advance, thinking it best to ensure the roof over my head before I was tempted to spend the coin. Will Shakespeare, who had occupied my room while I was away, had found other lodgings, but Simon still rented the room below mine. If I was careful, I could probably feed myself and Rikki for another two or three months, but when winter came I would need fuel for my fire as well as victuals.

  So Wattis was a canting Puritan. I wondered whether that was the real reason for the Archbishop’s withdrawing the position of household physician from him. I knew nothing of the Archbishop’s theology, but I strongly doubted that he favoured the Puritans. Perhaps word had reached him of Wattis’s leanings toward Geneva, so my absence from St Thomas’s had provided a convenient excuse for his dismissal. Whatever lay behind it, the facts remained unaltered. I had no employment and little money.

  The only person I could think of who might be able to advise me was Dr Nuñez. It was time I visited him in any case, for I had been back in London for three days. My whole entanglement with the Muscovy Company had begun with a casual conversation over Ruy Lopez’s dinner table, where Dr Nuñez and I had been present. That had been very soon after Walsingham’s death, a little over a year ago, but it felt like a lifetime gone past.

  With Rikki following somewhat reluctantly behind, I headed toward the Bridge. Encumbered by his thick coat, he must be exhausted with the heat, but I felt I could not leave him with Tom, although he had offered.

  ‘Anytime, Dr Alvarez,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to have Rikki. He’s good company for me and Swifty.’

  I might need his help later, should I manage to find employment where I could not take a dog with me. Moreover, it was one less burden, thanks to Sir Francis’s generous gift, that my horse Hector had free livery at the Walsingham house in Seething Lane. With a twist to my heart I realised I might need to sell Hector in order to survive.