The Play's the Thing (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 7) Page 2

  The narrow roadway between the houses lining the Bridge seemed more crowded than ever with bad-tempered people pushing each other aside. The air was stifling, thick with the stench of unwashed bodies and river sewage. Even the cheapjacks and entertainers who plied their trade here barely had the energy to shout their attractions. Little wonder, when none of the passersby paid them any heed. The passageway under Nonesuch House provided a brief moment of shade, though the air was even thicker within its close confines. Several people had simply taken refuge here from the sun, sitting on the cobbles with their legs stretched out, to the annoyance of everyone who passed through. I saw one man give an old woman’s ankles a sharp kick, at which she swore like one of the Queen’s troopers.

  At last we were across the river. I barely had the energy to walk the short distance to the Nuñez house in Mark Lane, but I had nowhere else to go, so I plodded on. Sweat was trickling down my back and my shoes had begun to pinch my feet, swollen with the heat. I fear I presented a sorry spectacle when I knocked at last on the door of the Nuñez house. It was answered by one of their black servants, a young girl called Milly (a stumbling English attempt to pronounce her difficult and alien name). Her parents had been African slaves from a captured Spanish ship, turned loose in London to survive if they might. Some had found work as servants or labourers, some had simply vanished. Milly, born and reared in London, could have been taken for any local girl, but for the colour of her skin and her tightly curled hair.

  She showed me into Dr Nuñez’s study, where he had coached me fiercely for my examinations at the Royal College. It was cooler here than outside, being a corner room, with windows facing in two directions. There was scarcely any movement in the air outside, but what there was passed through from window to window and brought a little welcome relief from the heat.

  ‘Kit! How good it is to see you!’

  Dr Nuñez had risen from his usual cushioned chair and came towards me, both hands outstretched to take mine. Like Tom, he had aged noticeably in the year since I had last seen him. Indeed, I thought he looked fine drawn and quite frail. Nevertheless, when we embraced like father and son, his arms around me felt firm. Despite myself, I was aware of tears threatening. Since the death of my own father, Dr Nuñez had become near enough his replacement, but I could see that he would not be with us much longer. He had never fully recovered his strength after the horrors and near starvation of our ill-fated Portuguese expedition.

  ‘Milly,’ he said, ‘tell Mistress Beatriz that Dr Alvarez is here. I am sure he has not yet dined. He will join us.’

  As the girl left, he turned to me, looking uncharacteristically anxious.

  ‘I presume too much, Kit. Perhaps you have business elsewhere and have no time to dine with two aged folk like us?’

  I smiled. ‘I have not dined. And nothing would please me better than to dine with you both. You do not mind Rikki?’

  ‘Of course we do not.’

  He stooped stiffly to stroke Rikki’s head.

  ‘And besides,’ I said, ‘I have no business elsewhere. No business anywhere. I am come to ask your advice. I am turned out of St Thomas’s.’

  ‘What is this?’ He motioned me to a chair. ‘What do you mean, “turned out”. They must be relieved that you have returned.’

  ‘My place has been given to Howard Wattis. The governors have appointed him and I am without employment.’

  He was clearly shocked at the news, which I had thought he might have heard already. Together with Walsingham he had found me my position at St Thomas’s, then urged the Royal College to allow me to take the examination for a licence, even though I had not attended a university. He had invested much time and care into my future, so, I reflected now, the action of the hospital governors was an insult to him as well as to me, for although he was old he was still a physician of high standing, a Fellow of the College, a former Censor there, and personal physician to Lord Burghley.

  I recounted briefly the substance of my conversation with Superintendent Ailmer.

  ‘There is no hope that the governors will reverse their decision,’ I said, ‘even should they wish to, which I do not suppose they would. It would mean a loss of face. Nay, it seems Howard Wattis has fairly wormed his way into their favour. Although,’ I added with some bitterness, ‘it appears he is unpopular with both the nurses and the patients.’

  ‘It is unforgivable,’ Dr Nuñez said. His hands were clasped in his lap and I saw that they trembled slightly. ‘The hospital governors have betrayed their promise. And so has Governor Heyward. He arranged for his deputy’s nephew to assume your duties merely until you returned. Then you were to take up your post again. It was all agreed before you left. I shall see whether I can–’

  ‘Nay,’ I said. ‘I did not come to ask you to intervene. It will cause nothing but grief and trouble. I wanted your advice on where I might look for work. Now that Sir Francis’s service is disbanded, and I am thrust out from St Thomas’s, I have no work, neither code-breaking nor medicine.’

  I gave a somewhat shaky laugh.

  ‘I am afraid I must eat. And so must Rikki. Do you know of anywhere in need of a physician? I suppose there is Bridewell, or even Bedlam . . . or perhaps somewhere beyond London. Other towns must need physicians.’

  My spirits sank even as I spoke. I did not want to leave London, newly returned as I was. I had known no other home since I was twelve. Like all those who have lost their first home, I clung all the more passionately to what I knew.

  ‘I am afraid I know nothing of other towns, Kit,’ he said, ‘although I can make enquiries. Such a move might prove costly in many ways. You might find it much more difficult, living at a distance, to seize any chances when they arise here in London. I can offer you some help, however. My health has not been good this last twelvemonth and I should be glad of assistance with my own patients. What do you say to relieving me of part of my burden of work?’

  ‘I think you are making the offer out of kindness,’ I said. ‘I cannot deprive you of your living.’

  He laughed at that. ‘My dear Kit, I make my living, by far the greater part of it, from my dealings as a merchant. I can sit here in my office and earn more with a few strokes of my pen than I can ever do toiling about the City in this terrible heat, listening to the imagined ailments of rich merchants’ wives in Goldsmiths’ Row. You are young and healthy, and more patient than I have become in my crabbed old age. You would be doing me a great kindness.’

  We argued it back and forth, I thinking at first that he was acting merely out of pity, but gradually he persuaded me that he wished truly to unburden himself of some of his day-to-day work. He would retain his noble patients, amongst whom by far the greatest were Lord Burghley and his younger son, Robert Cecil – now newly made Sir Robert by the Queen. What Dr Nuñez had in mind was that I should assume the care of a number of the great merchant families of London – the merchants themselves, and above all their wives and children.

  ‘For,’ he said, ‘though the husbands are much occupied with business, their womenfolk often find the long hours of the day are tedious when they are not visiting the shops in the Royal Exchange or dining with friends. They have no real occupation. They must find something to fill their time, so every small detail of their health, and the health of their children, assumes great importance.’

  ‘I think such patients will be very different from my Southwark workmen and whores and paupers,’ I said, somewhat ruefully, not altogether happy at the prospect of these wealthy ladies.

  ‘Indeed they will. On the whole you will find them in better health, though even the rich are not spared when disease walks the city. However, although they are not great in number, you will find the remuneration will go some way to compensate for the many pointless summons and wasted hours you must endure.’

  When he mentioned the fees I should charge, I was speechless. After one look at my face, he laughed.

  ‘Fear not. There is no likelihood that you will become r
ich. I have taken on fewer and fewer patients in recent years. You will earn something from our arrangement, but it will not compare with your salary at St Thomas’s. It will amount to barely half that. It will help you a little, but you will need to find other work. I shall keep my eyes and ears alert for anything likely to suit you.’

  He rose and beckoned to me to follow him to the dining parlour.

  ‘Is there no code-breaking work for you to do? I cannot believe that our enemies have ceased to plot against us, even though Sir Francis has been taken from us.’

  ‘Everything had fallen into a shambles before I left London last year,’ I said. ‘There seemed to be no clear successor to Sir Francis, though it appeared at the time that the contest would likely be between my lord Essex and the Cecils.’

  ‘Everything is still much the same,’ he said, opening the door to the dining parlour and ushering me inside. ‘My lord Burghley has assumed Sir Francis’s position of Chief Secretary as a temporary measure, as well as continuing as Lord Treasurer, though he has told me he hopes that Her Majesty will appoint his son as Secretary before long. I heard a rumour that Essex is attempting to build a rival service of informants, with the assistance of Anthony and Francis Bacon. Though I doubt he has the patience for it. He will want some quick and spectacular victory to impress Her Majesty.’

  ‘Nothing in that surprises me,’ I said, ‘except for the involvement of the Bacon brothers. Surely . . . are they not Lord Burghley’s nephews?’

  ‘Indeed they are. But perhaps they have no part in his plans, where his son Sir Robert takes precedence.’

  ‘I would not hook myself to Essex’s star,’ I said. ‘He will be off on some new madcap scheme before long. I have been trying to trace Thomas Phelippes. I do not suppose you have any word of him?’

  He shook his head. ‘Certainly I have not heard that he is working for Lord Burghley.’

  ‘He seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘I know that one of Sir Francis’s men has joined Burghley, and has already been employed on missions to the Low Countries. The man Poley.’

  I shuddered. ‘Then my lord had best watch him. Sir Francis and Phelippes were ever suspicious that he served two masters. Francis Mylles was certain that he was paid by the Queen’s enemies.’

  ‘Poley has a slippery reputation.’ He turned as the door opened again. ‘Ah, Beatriz, my dear, look who has come to see us, fresh from those strange foreign lands in the frozen north. Kit, you must have much to tell us.’

  Throughout our meal, neither code-breaking nor medicine was mentioned again. Instead I entertained them with a graphic account of my time in Muscovy.

  When I left the Nuñez house, it was mid afternoon. I had promised Simon I would meet him at the Theatre in Shoreditch after the players’ performance and my own day’s work at St Thomas’s, which I had expected to finish about the same time. Apart from Simon, I had last seen the players when we parted at the island of Wardhouse off the North Cape last summer. After a season of performances for the garrison and town there, they had returned home with the fleet which had taken us north. They were all eager, Simon said, to learn what had befallen me after I left them. We would take supper together at one of the nearby inns, and as the payment for entertaining them, they would stand me my meal. It seemed that today at least I would save the cost of my food, and Rikki would probably pick up sufficient scraps to supplement the meal Tom had given him in the morning.

  Despite lingering over my meal with Dr Nuñez and Mistress Beatriz, it was as yet too early for my meeting with the players. They would still be strutting forth upon the stage. The good weather meant that they had been able to perform every day for weeks, Simon told me. And the heat had meant good audiences, as apprentices and even respectable craftsmen had downed their tools in preference for a lazy seat in the playhouse, adorned with a straw hat against the sun and equipped with an orange to suck against thirst.

  In the past, I had often wondered how the players could endure such a chancy life, when bad weather meant few performances or an outbreak of disease meant the closure of the playhouses altogether. If they did not play, they did not eat. Now, it seemed, I myself had joined the ranks of those who must count themselves lucky if they had the chinks for a meal.

  Since it was too early to go to the playhouse, and I was close by Seething Lane, I decided to visit my horse in the stable there. I had gone there the first morning after arriving back in London, and found him pleased to see me. His condition was as good as one might expect in such trying weather, for he was a favourite with the stable lads. I could spend time today grooming him while sounding out Harry and the other lads about the gossip concerning Essex, his wife Frances Walsingham, and any of my former friends in Sir Francis’s service. The stable lads usually managed to know much of what was afoot in London. I hoped that they might be able to tell me where to find Phelippes. I still had the copy of Gregory Rocksley’s report which I had intended to give to him, though I now wondered whether I should hand it to Lord Burghley instead.

  Hector gave me a whicker of greeting, and I ran my hand down his nose to the soft velvet of his upper lip. I think there is nothing softer on any animal. Mankind is a coarse creature by comparison.

  Harry came into Hector’s stall with a bucket of water.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the water they get through, this weather, Dr Alvarez,’ he said. ‘We have to watch ’em and dole it out small, or they’d blow theyselves up something monstrous.’

  I picked up a curry comb and began to work over Hector’s coat while he drank. The hairs had clumped into sweaty ridges.

  ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘it’s a worry. It’s good that the house has its own well.’

  He nodded his agreement and sat down on an upturned bucket, happy to see me doing his work for him. ‘I’d not like to give them river water this summer,’ he said. ‘’Tis no better’n a sewer at the moment.’

  ‘I’d no chance to speak to you the other day,’ I said, ‘when you were getting Dame Ursula’s coach ready. So what has been afoot while I have been away?’

  He clasped his hands around his knees and considered.

  ‘Well, Lady Frances was brought abed in January. A fine strong boy, she had. They’ve called him Robert Devereux, like his father.’

  So Essex had an heir. I wondered whether fatherhood would steady him, or whether he would continue to behave like a spoiled child.

  ‘That would be in Essex House?’ The grand mansion on the Strand.

  ‘Nay, the babe was born here. Lady Frances is more often here with her mother than in her husband’s house. Reckon he’s hardly there either, always dancing about the Queen with his winning ways.’

  His tone dripped scorn. Unlike most Londoners, the servants here knew something of the real Earl, and did not idolise him. They had not been pleased when the daughter of the house, widow of the much loved Sir Philip Sidney, had been married off to Essex, whose reputation for the treatment of any women other than Her Majesty was dreadful.

  ‘From what I hear,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘he uses our Lady Frances badly. ’Tis no wonder she wants to be here with Dame Ursula. He has the morals of any stray tom cat. Why Sir Francis ever thought–’

  He broke off and shook his head.

  ‘I think he wanted to provide for her,’ I said, ‘for his own service to the Queen had consumed most of his estate. There was little enough to leave to his wife and daughter.’ I had learned as much from Francis Mylles, Walsingham’s chief secretary, but the poor nature of the great man’s funeral much have made the situation clear to anyone.

  Despite my words, I remembered all too well that hasty marriage to Essex, where I had been an unwilling witness. Frances Walsingham had wept as she stood at the altar. I thought we should move to safer subjects.

  ‘Have you any news of the others who worked here with me?’ I asked. ‘Nick Berden? Francis Mylles? Arthur Gregory? Thomas Phelippes?’

  ‘Nick Berden has set himself up in a poultr
y business,’ he said, ticking my fellow agents off on his fingers. ‘He father was a poulterer, times past, it seems. He says it’s a quieter life than working for Sir Francis.’ He laughed. ‘And he is no common poulterer, but supplies the Court.’

  He considered. ‘Master Mylles is living on that estate he bought from Sir Francis. Somewhere up near Oxford, I think it is.’

  He scratched his head. ‘Who else? Arthur Gregory. I heard tell he is working for a printer in Paul’s churchyard.’

  ‘I think he started out as a printer’s engraver,’ I said. I began to comb Hector’s tail, though he kept swishing it from side to side, as though he thought I was one of the troublesome flies which had come with the hot weather.

  ‘Then there’s that scoundrel Poley,’ Harry said, although I had not asked about Poley. Perhaps it was as well to learn what he had heard. Know your enemies better than your friends, Sir Francis used to say.

  ‘Poley?’

  ‘Aye, nasty fellow. He’s working for Lord Burghley now and giving hisself airs. You’d think he was new made a courtier. Out of the country, last I heard. Somewhere in the Low Countries.’

  That was what Dr Nuñez had said. It was something to be thankful for.

  ‘And Thomas Phelippes?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, Master Phelippes,’ he said, ‘I did hear that he had some sort of position in the Customs House, though I dunno what he would do there. Clerking, mebbe. Seems a strange place for him.’

  It did. What a waste of one of the sharpest brains in England. I wondered why he was not working for Lord Burghley. But if our suspicions of last year were right, and it was Poley who had broken into the Walsingham house while we were all at the funeral, then it was Poley who had stolen all Sir Francis’s secret files and all our precious ciphers. If he then presented them to the Cecils, it would have earned him a privileged position in their service. I had understood that the Cecils were (on the whole) honourable men, but possession of those documents and ciphers would have represented a victory over Essex, and spiery is at best an amoral business. The end of preserving England’s and the Queen’s safety justified almost any action.