The Enterprise of England Page 12

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course I know that. But why send you? Surely Sir Francis must have a regular courier service.’

  ‘He does. But the people who work for him are spread all over Europe at present. He needed someone in a hurry.’ I thought how unbelievable this sounded, but Sara was thinking of something else.

  ‘In my view, it sounds dangerous,’ she said. ‘What if you were to be discovered?’

  As one of the very few people who knew my true sex, I realised at once what she meant. Not discovered to be carrying secret documents, but discovered to be a girl.

  ‘There is no need to worry,’ I said, smiling at her over the rim of my beaker. ‘I am so accustomed to my role as a man that I sometimes forget it myself.’

  She shook her head angrily. ‘Do not pretend to me, Caterina. You know how dangerous it will be.’

  ‘I promise you I will be very careful. But do not speak that name aloud. Do not even think it.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Tell me, what is happening about the arrangements for Anne’s marriage?’

  After that we spoke of other matters, but before I left, she was struck with a sudden thought.

  ‘Will you be in Amsterdam, Kit?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ I was cautious, unsure how much I should reveal.

  ‘I have a cousin there, Ettore Añez, a merchant in precious gems. He lives on Reiger Straat – that’s Heron Street – at the sign of the Leaping Gazelle. He would be glad to see you and hear our news. And if you need a friend, he is there, well known in the merchant community.’

  ‘I will remember, and if I have the chance I will take him your greetings.’

  She kissed me on both cheeks and stood in the doorway as I walked away.

  I made my way to Cheapside, where there are shops and street stalls selling every imaginable type of goods. There was a stationer I often frequented, where I bought a supply of quills and a neat travelling ink well so that I could carry ink without the risk of it staining my other possessions. I asked the shopkeeper to fill it with ink and he demonstrated that it did not leak. Tomorrow I would get a packet of paper from Phelippes’s office. I needed all the accoutrements of a conscientious clerk to maintain the fiction of my role. I also bought two lemons. Lemon juice, like milk and urine, makes an excellent invisible ink which can hold a message fitted in between the lines of an innocent letter written in normal ink. Milk is not so easy to come by, certainly when travelling, and urine can be awkward to use in some situations.

  At a stall selling cheap but sturdy clothes for workmen I bought a thick scarf and a woollen waistcoat to wear under my doublet. All this talk of the freezing weather in the Low Countries had been causing me some concern. When we had first come to England from Portugal, I had found the winters very hard to bear. I was used to them now, but dreaded anything even colder. I had left Joan mending my thick stockings by the kitchen fire this morning, but I decided to buy an extra pair.

  Finally I walked down to Eastcheap, to Jake Winterly’s shop. Bess greeted me excitedly and called to the men to come through from the workroom behind the shop.

  ‘I’m here just as a customer.’ I was embarrassed by all this welcome. ‘I would like a smaller satchel or a wallet to fit inside this.’ I held out the large satchel in which I regularly carried my physician’s supplies. ‘Something that would fit in the bottom. I’m afraid I can’t wait for it to be made, as I’m going away from London tomorrow.’

  They looked amongst their stock and found a wallet about six inches wide and the same deep, but it was about two inches too long to fit across the bottom of my satchel.

  ‘It was made for an artist, to hold his brushes,’ Jake said, ‘but when it came time to pay, he had not the coin, having lost his patron to the smallpox. It has been sitting on a shelf ever since. I can soon cut it down for you.’ He examined the stitching, then turned to his wife. ‘Bess, fetch Dr Alvarez a beer and I’ll have it done while you wait.’

  He measured my satchel carefully, then carried the wallet into the workroom, while Bess ran off to the nearest ale house for a flagon of beer.

  As William turned away to follow Jake, I said, ‘You see that I am wearing your belt. Many have admired it and asked who made it. You are doing well, here with your sister and her husband?’

  His face lit up and I noticed that it had filled out and grown rosy with health. ‘Very well, Doctor. I was a fool ever to go for a soldier, but I have learned my lesson.’

  Bess was soon back with a flagon of beer and insisted on taking me upstairs to sit in the family’s quarters, which were cramped but ferociously clean and neat. There she pressed on me a meat pasty which I suspected was meant for their own supper, though I refused to eat more than half of it. By the time I had satisfied her that I could eat and drink no more, Jake arrived with the cut-down wallet. He had made careful work of it and fitted it into the bottom of my satchel where it effectively created a separate compartment. This time I insisted on paying for the wallet and the additional work, and went off satisfied that I now had exactly what I had pictured in my mind.

  At home I removed everything from my satchel, even turning it upside down and shaking it, so that dust and crumbs scattered on the floor, to Joan’s annoyance. I then packed into the wallet the most essential of my medical supplies: several small pots of wound salve, a tincture of febrifuge herbs, another to stimulate the heart in case of shock or palpitations, a phial of poppy syrup, a needle and thread for stitching wounds, a scalpel and forceps, tweezers, and a small roll of cloth for bandages. I stuffed some handfuls of uncarded wool around the breakable items, for who could tell how rough the treatment both I and my belongings might receive?

  Once the wallet was fitted into the bottom of my satchel, it looked like the base of the satchel itself. I did not intend to hide it from any customs searchers – though as Walsingham’s agents it was unlikely we would be searched. No, I simply did not want to draw attention to my real profession. At the same time, I would have felt uneasy to set out on a long journey without at least these few medicines.

  Into the rest of the satchel I packed my clerkly supplies, together with flint and tinder in a small tin box, a change of shirt and hose, and a night shift. I would take a knapsack with a few more clothes, but if necessary I could survive with what was contained in my satchel. The neatness and compactness of my arrangements gave me a curious satisfaction, almost as if I were a warrior equipping myself for battle, a notion that had me smiling at my own absurdity.

  The next morning I left at dawn to walk across the city to Seething Lane. Joan had made me up a packet of food, which I had fitted into the top of my satchel, together with my thick new scarf. As if to mock my preparations, the sun was bright behind thin clouds and the weather rather warmer than usual for November. I felt somewhat too hot in my heavy clothes, though I knew I would be glad of them on the ride to Dover.

  Berden followed me up the stairs to Phelippes’s office, where he was already installed behind his desk. Sometimes I wondered whether he ever slept. There was no sign of Walsingham.

  Seeing me glance around, Phelippes said, ‘Sir Francis is not well this morning and cannot leave his bed. He has sent a message to wish you both well.’

  When we had been here two days before, I had noticed that Sir Francis’s skin had that waxy tint it took on when he was ill. It was never spoken of in detail, but I knew that it was some trouble with his internal organs which had afflicted him for years. I suspected some form of kidney or urinary complaint, but was too discreet ever to mention it.

  Arthur Gregory came in from his small side office and handed Berden a stick of sealing wax.

  ‘Nicholas has his own seal for reports,’ he said, ‘as you know, Kit. And I have made one for you. We have had no chance to discuss a device, so I have given you a set of apothecary scales enclosed within the open arms of a set of mathematician’s compasses. I hope you approve.’

  He handed me an engraved seal stone of agate, set
in a simple silver ring. It had been threaded on to a slim silver chain, so that I could wear it round my neck instead of on my hand, if I so chose. Safer that way, I thought, and slipped the chain over my head, allowing the ring to drop down inside my shirt.

  ‘It is beautiful, Arthur. I never expected anything so fine!’ Indeed I had not expected a seal at all. This exquisite ring was beyond anything I could have hoped for. He must have stayed up all night making it.

  He smiled shyly. ‘Here is some sealing wax for you as well.’

  I tucked it under the flap of my satchel. It was understood without being spoken that some reports would be sent by official channels and properly sealed. Others, where greater secrecy was needed, would come anonymously, in code and unstamped by a seal. I added a sheaf of paper to my clerkly supplies and Berden picked up a small sketch based on the map we had studied before. I had no need of one, for I have a good visual memory for such things. Indeed, before I became too occupied between the hospital and Sir Francis’s service, Thomas Harriot and I had been studying together the Theatre of Memory devised by Giordano Bruno, wherein one may use the imagined image of a playhouse and place in it objects, names or stages in an argument. With this fixed in one’s mind, it is possible to stroll about this mental playhouse and pick up, as it were, the objects or ideas placed there. I was still a novice at the skill, but I was learning.

  ‘Here are your passports,’ Phelippes said. ‘And instructions for the ship’s captain at Dover. Letters of introduction to the Earl. The despatches are in two duplicate sets.’

  He handed us each a bundle of letters, tied with tape.

  ‘I’ll wish you God speed and hope to receive your first reports in a week or ten days.’

  We thanked him and I followed Berden down the stairs and round into the stable yard. Our horses were waiting for us, ready saddled. Hector greeted me with a whicker as I strapped my knapsack and satchel into my saddlebags, along with a horse blanket. Berden’s mount was a sleek chestnut, with powerful haunches, though I thought he looked a little too slim in the leg. Once mounted we rode quickly out of the stable yard and down towards the Customs House and the legal quays, where several ships were being unloaded. Soon the rough winter seas in the Channel would reduce trade to a trickle, only the most hardy of sea captains being willing to trust their ships to the mercy of the weather. It struck me that it might not be so easy in three or four weeks’ time to find a ship to bring us home.

  There were the usual crowds on London Bridge, which slowed us down. I do not know why it is, but the pedestrians on the bridge always seem to creep along, unlike the bustling crowds on the streets of the city. And at this hour of the morning most of the traffic was flowing into London, opposite to the way we were riding – farmers driving carts of produce to the markets, workmen who lived south of the river coming into the city for their day’s employment, women with baskets of eggs or a chicken or two, hoping for a quick sale on the street. It was too early yet for the jugglers and other mountebanks who would lay claim to a few feet of the bridge as their stage, performing for pennies thrown into a hopeful cap, until a constable chased them away.

  Once over the bridge, we threaded our way through the equally crowded streets of Southwark, where there were many businesses, like tanneries, too noisesome to be allowed within the Wall. There were traders and craftsmen, too, who found it convenient not to pay city taxes, as well as certain professions mainly confined to the south bank of the river, such as the Winchester geese, who would be tucked up warmly in their beds at this hour of the morning. Most of their trade was carried out in the evening, when men had left their work, or at night, after the shows at the bear gardens and cockpits had closed.

  Finally we came clear of the last of the houses and businesses of Southwark and turned on to the road which led southeast to Kent and Sussex, the route I had followed last year with Phelippes on our way to Rye. Berden was a very different companion.

  ‘At last!’ he said. ‘Now we can move faster than a slug on a lettuce. Is your nag able to gallop?’

  Stung, I said, ‘Shall we try him?’

  With that I gave Hector his head, kicked him once, and we flew away down the road, casting up a shower of mud clods in Berden’s path. Behind me I heard his laugh and the thud of his horse breaking into a gallop. The chestnut was not a bad animal, but he was no match for Hector. After several miles I slowed Hector to a steady canter, then a trot, then finally let him amble along while we waited for Berden to catch up with us. I was a little breathless myself, my nose and cheeks burning from the cold wind.

  Eventually Berden reached us, still laughing.

  ‘Pax!’ he said. ‘I concede the victory. I would never have thought the piebald had such speed in him.’

  Hector was plodding along placidly now, like a little girl’s quiet first pony.

  ‘He is full of surprises,’ I said. ‘It does him good to stretch his legs from time to time. I think he grows weary when he spends too long in the stable. Your horse is not so bad, nor are you. When I have ridden with Phelippes, it has been like an old ladies’ picnic, but do not tell him I said so.’

  ‘I am sworn to secrecy,’ he said. ‘Shall we carry on? But perhaps not quite so fast?’

  I nodded and set Hector to his beautiful smooth canter. I have never know a horse with such a lovely gait, not even my grandfather’s prize stallion. He never seemed to tire, but was happy to continue at this pace for mile after mile.

  Around midday we stopped to rest the horses and let them graze on the strip of sward beside the road, while we sat under a wide-spreading oak which still bore its leaves, unlike most other trees, and ate some of our food. Berden even dropped into a doze for a while. I suppose for him this was no more than another journey like a hundred others he had made. I could not relax, for my mind raced ahead to what might happen when we reached Amsterdam. And if we travelled near the Spanish army – what then? My heart jumped in panic. I hoped that part of our mission might change.

  After about an hour, Berden woke neatly from his sleep, as though his body held its own internal clock. We mounted again and carried on. The further we travelled from London, the colder it grew, and as the dull November darkness drew in scarce halfway through the afternoon, we reached Maidstone and found an inn for the night. Since we were travelling on government business, we could have demanded free lodging and dinner by showing our passes, but we did not want to draw attention to ourselves, so we paid our reckoning. I had not stopped to think, until the very moment we spoke to the innkeeper, that Berden would expect us to share a room. Scarcely on our way, and already I was in danger of discovery. I was filled with panic, wondering how I could avoid it, but I need not have worried. When we retired to a chamber up under the roof, straight after eating a plain but substantial meal, Berden simply pulled off his boots and lay down on one of the truckle beds, rolling himself in the blankets and turning away from the light of our candle. I did the same. I prised off my boots, which were still stiff from the cold, for we had not been able to find a place near the fire while we ate. I laid Simon’s cloak over the blankets for extra warmth and blew out the candle. The cloak, close to my face, carried a faint scent of Simon about it, which was somehow comforting, but before I could think any more about it, I was asleep.

  The second day started much the same as the first, but before we stopped for a midday rest, it had begun to snow. Only a few scattered flakes at first, but Berden suggested that we should stop before it grew worse.

  ‘We won’t want to be sitting still eating in a full blown snow storm,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘And the horses need to graze before the grass is covered.’

  Angry black clouds were building up in the northwest, heavy with threat. We turned the horses on to grass and ate quickly. Berden did not sleep this time, and I took the opportunity to unpack my thick scarf and wind it around my face and neck, over the hood of my cloak. By the time we were ready to mount, the snow was already coming down more h
eavily and the sky had darkened almost to night.

  The previous day I had found a fallen tree to use as a mounting block, for Hector was a big horse, but today I could see nothing. Berden’s horse was at least a hand and a half shorter, and he was taller than I, so he could mount easily, without a block.

  Seeing me looking around, he said, ‘I’ll give you a leg up.’

  I put my left foot in his cupped hands and he heaved me up till I could throw my right leg over Hector’s back.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘You should not ride a horse you cannot mount without help.’

  ‘A trooper I know told me they are trained to vault on to their horses from the rear, if need arises,’ I said, ‘but I am not sure Hector would like it. I could be kicked in the face for my pains.’

  ‘I can do it,’ he said. ‘Once we are across the sea, I’ll help you train him. You need to accustom him to being approached from behind. He seems a good-natured beast. It should not be too difficult. In this business you never know when you will need to mount in a hurry.’

  We set off again without further talk and increased our pace gradually to a gallop, trying – unsuccessfully – to outrun the storm. By the time we reached Dover it was midnight black, although it cannot have been later than four of the clock. For the last hour we had been fighting our way through ever denser snow as well as the growing darkness. Our clothes and our horses were encased in a armour of frozen snow. The only relief was the fact that the wind blew from behind us and not in our faces.

  Showing our passes at the city gate, we were waved through, then Berden led the way to the castle up through deserted streets already nearly a foot deep in snow. Once again our passes admitted us inside the castle wall, where flaring torches lit up a courtyard with more activity than we had seen in the whole town below.

  Berden hailed a passing trooper. ‘Messengers from Sir Francis Walsingham, carrying despatches for the Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries. Where can we stable our horses?’