The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez Read online

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ I asked, all eager boy. Perhaps I was looking for employment.

  ‘Gladly.’ He was a fat man and puffed over his work. With a comfortable sigh he settled himself on the mounting block and took an apple out of his pocket. He watched me work as he bit into it.

  ‘My master sent me to find out,’ I said, ‘whether there is a gentleman called Babington staying here. He needs to meet him. Quietly.’

  It was a gamble, but I suspected that the servants of the inn would know not only the names of the guests but whether there was anything furtive about them.

  ‘Oh, aye, he was here. That’s his horse’s muck you’re shifting. He left about an hour ago. Said he was going back to London.’

  To hide my delight at this news, I turned my back as I heaved the last of the straw on to the midden.

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said, shrugging by shoulders indifferently. ‘Can’t be helped. I’ll tell Master.’

  I propped the pitchfork up against the trough.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. ‘Here’s a ha’penny for you.’

  I thanked him and slipped away. Perhaps I should take up the profession of messenger boy. A shilling and a ha’penny!

  It was too late to start back to London that day, but I asked to be called at dawn the next morning, and was on my way before the sun was fully up. We made good time and I decided to go further than Warwick. In the evening I found a wayside inn a few miles short of Banbury. By the following evening I was in Reading, and I reached Seething Lane on the third day while Phelippes was still at work.

  When I gave him a brief account of my mission and produced the letter, his eyes gleamed and he nearly snatched it from me.

  ‘Arthur!’ he called, ‘we need you here.’

  Arthur Gregory came through, pulling on his cap, clearly on his way home.

  ‘Kit has brought us gold,’ Phelippes said. ‘Lift this seal, will you, and wait while we transcribe the letter, then reseal it for us.’

  Gregory took the letter from him and glanced at it briefly. ‘Curll’s seal. That is no problem.’ He carried it off to his cubbyhole.

  ‘Now,’ said Phelippes, rubbing his hands together. ‘Curll to Babington. We may take it that it is in fact Mary to Babington. We’ll simply copy it down in cipher then let Arthur seal it. We can decipher it tonight, so we will know the contents before you deliver it to him tomorrow. It will seem that you have come straight from Lichfield.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ I said.

  ‘But we do. Back in Hernes Rents, one of his many boltholes.’

  Gregory returned with the letter neatly opened and handed it to Phelippes.

  ‘Now, Kit, two heads to tackle the cipher, though I think it will be one of Curll’s usual ones. Babington will only know a few. I have not heard that he has a head for codes.’ He pulled a second chair up to his desk.

  ‘Master Phelippes,’ Gregory said hesitantly.

  ‘Yes, yes?’ He did not look up, busy laying out keys to Curll’s ciphers.

  ‘Master Alvarez has just ridden near a hundred and fifty miles from Chartley to bring you that letter and it is growing late. Do you not think he should be sent home to his bed?’

  Phelippes looked up, surprised, and screwed up his eyes.

  ‘Perhaps you are right, Arthur. You are looking somewhat pale, Kit. Yes, go home to your bed, but be back here tomorrow morning in your messenger attire, so you can deliver this to Babington.’

  I thanked him and left hastily, before he could change his mind and draw me in. I was indeed nearly fainting with weariness. In the last week, from London to Lichfield to Chartley and back, I had ridden almost three hundred miles. Tomorrow I must remember to tell Sir Francis’s head groom that Hector would need to see the farrier.

  The following morning it was clear that Phelippes had neither slept nor been home, but he made up for it in his delight at the contents of the letter.

  ‘As you saw, it is quite short, but it comes from Mary herself to Babington. She assures him that he is her trusted friend, and clearly now he will send her details of how he means to effect her rescue. You must take the original letter to Babington at Hernes Rents this morning. Let it be known that you missed him in Lichfield, followed him to London, and then had to search him out.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Now, if we are very lucky, Babington will write back to the Scottish woman and ask you to carry the message to her.’

  Lucky!

  ‘Do you mean I would have to make that journey again? So soon?’ I was aghast.

  ‘I don’t suppose it will be immediately,’ he said. ‘It will take Babington some time to decipher the letter, compose his reply, then transcribe it into cipher. Several days at least, I expect. Let me see.’

  He glanced down at the transcribed letter on his desk. ‘This was written on the twenty-eighth of June. Today is the first of July, is it not?’

  ‘The second.’

  ‘Aye, so it is. The second. I lost a day. I think we may assume it will take him two or three days. Well, if he does not employ you, he may send the letter through the French embassy in the usual way, or hire another messenger. If so, we will need to be sure it is one of our own men. If we had to intercept different messenger, it would alert them, but we must see Babington’s letter.’ He frowned. ‘Why can they not use the excellent courier service we have set up for them?’

  I did not point out that it was he who had first by-passed the regular route, by sending me directly to Chartley.

  Before I made my way to Hernes Rents, I sought out the head groom and explained that Hector’s shoes would be worn down from our long journey.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’ve noticed already. The farrier is coming this afternoon. How far did you say you’d ridden?’

  ‘Near three hundred miles.’

  He whistled. ‘You’re a hearty lad to do that in a week.’

  I went on my way, smiling to myself. If Phelippes did not appreciate what I had done, at least the groom did.

  I found the house in Hernes Rents easily enough, but like Phelippes I was puzzled that Sir Anthony should choose to live here when he owned a fine London house. If I was asked how I knew where he was, I could say that Barnes had told me. I just hoped I would not find Barnes here, or my masquerade would be discovered at once.

  As it was, I need not have worried. I was admitted to the house by a servant in the Babington livery and taken straight to his master. I felt a curious mixture of excitement and guilt as I was shown into the room. I was part of the trap set to ensnare this man, who was young and idealistic – even Phelippes admitted that. He truly believed in his cause. Although, I remembered, he had also taken fright at the implications of what he was doing, and asked for permission to travel abroad.

  The man who looked up from his desk and gave me a charming smile was certainly the same young man I had seen all those months ago with Poley’s arm around his neck, but the intervening time had worn lines of worry about his eyes and mouth. He looked tired. Yet he was very courteous, rising to greet me with a bow. There was a kind of glow about him. I could see how other men would follow him with delight and devotion. Walsingham had told me that he was learned and witty. He was certainly very good-looking. I could understand why Sir Francis had hoped to win him over.

  I explained that I had a letter for him from Curll, that I had missed him by just an hour in Litchfield and had followed him to London.

  ‘That’s a good lad,’ he said, patting me on the shoulder. ‘It’s a long ride.’

  He broke open Gregory’s carefully forged seal, barely glancing at it, and opened the letter. He frowned and sighed. I could see that he was not pleased that it was in cipher. He looked up at me.

  ‘I shall need to prepare an answer to this. Can you be here in two days to carry a letter back to Chartley?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ My throat tightened on the words. This was what Phelippes wanted, but for me it would mean another long journey.


  ‘Good lad,’ he said again. ‘Here’s something for your pains.’ He slipped a coin into my hand, but I did not look at it, feeling it would be ill-mannered.

  As the servant ushered me out, I saw Babington sit down again at his desk and run his hand through his hair, clearly not relishing the task of decipherment.

  Once out in the street, I opened my hand and looked at the coin. It was a gold sovereign. Stupidly I felt tears come to my eyes. I tried not to think of it, but I knew that Sir Anthony Babington was on the road to his certain death.

  I felt like Judas.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I returned to Seething Lane, I took a roundabout route. It was not only Phelippes who could have people followed. Anthony Babington was so open and trusting that he made himself an easy prey for more cunning men, and I did not suppose he would have arranged to have me followed, but one of his companions might. Although I had seen no one but Babington and his serving man at the house in Hernes Rents, I had heard other voices from upstairs. For one sickening moment I realised that Poley might have been there and seen me from a window. He would have recognised me even in these clothes and might have alerted Babington to my identity. One of my identities. All would depend on which faction Poley was serving at the moment. So I headed for Cheapside, took a meandering route through dirty alleyways down to the river, followed the river bank to the Customs House, then spun on my heel and headed for Walsingham’s house. No one seemed to be following me.

  Walsingham was in Phelippes’s office when I returned, hearing an account of my journey and the letter Mary had written to Babington.

  ‘It is delivered, then, the letter?’ Sir Francis asked.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ I said, pulling off the woollen cap. My hair was damp with sweat from my roundabout trip through the hot dusty streets.

  ‘And?’ said Phelippes.

  ‘And he scratched his head over it. I think he does not enjoy secret ciphers. I would say he is a man who would prefer above all to be open and honest.’

  I had spent but a few minutes in Babington’s company, but I was moved to compare him favourably with what went on here.

  Phelippes gave me a hard stare, as if he did not quite like my remark. ‘Does he wish you to carry the answer to Chartley?’

  ‘Aye. He asked me to come back in two days’ time.’

  ‘Good, good.’ They smiled at each other.

  I sat down on the chair beside my desk, unasked. I was suddenly very tired.

  ‘Perhaps someone else could carry the message. Maybe Gifford?’

  ‘Why?’ Phelippes looked alarmed. ‘Do you think he suspects you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, with a wry smile. ‘No, I believe Sir Anthony is as trusting as a babe. It is just that I think . . . I am not trained for this work. I might do or say something to make him, or the people at Chartley, suspicious. Also, it is a very long journey, three whole days on horseback to Lichfield, then another half day to Chartley. And the same to come back.’

  I realised that my voice sounded pathetic. I tried to assume a firmer tone. ‘Besides, there is my work at the hospital. It has been seriously neglected these last weeks. I may lose my position. When all this is over . . .’ I gestured vaguely at the neat stacks of paper on the desks and shelves, ‘when all this is over, I still have my living to earn.’

  ‘You need not worry about that,’ Sir Francis said. ‘I have explained to the governors of St Bartholomew’s that you are engaged on important work for the state. You will not lose your position at the hospital.’

  As I slumped defeatedly, I saw them exchange a glance.

  ‘Come, Kit,’ Sir Francis said, ‘I would like to speak to you in my chamber. We will leave Thomas to his work.’

  I got up to follow him, dreading what this might mean. As I picked up my woollen cap, he waved his hand and smiled. ‘Leave that dreadful cap here. I cannot think where Thomas found it.’

  When we reached his room, he seated me in a comfortable cushioned chair, poured me a glass of wine, and sent one of his maidservants for food.

  ‘Have you eaten anything today, Kit?’ he asked when the girl returned with a tray of cold meats and bread.

  ‘Um,’ I said vaguely. ‘No, I do not think I have. I was too apprehensive this morning.’

  ‘And now it is well into the afternoon. As a doctor, you know that is folly. Now put down that glass and eat something, or the wine will go to your head.’

  Obediently I helped myself to some cold beef and a chunk of fresh white bread. This was the Walsingham I remembered from Barn Elms, not the London Walsingham. He said nothing more until he was satisfied that I had eaten well.

  ‘Now,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and briefly stroking his beard.

  Now, I thought, I am to have a dressing down for speaking well of Anthony Babington.

  ‘We have been asking a great deal of you lately, Kit. I think Thomas forgets that you are only sixteen. You have worked side by side with him for months now, with your extraordinary aptitude for analysing and breaking codes. He has come to think of you as a grown man, not a boy.’

  I looked down at my hands. I did not want to give myself away by meeting his eyes. Also, I felt stupidly close to tears. Probably, I reasoned, it was merely fatigue, but if I began to weep I feared it might somehow give away the secret of my sex. I was a sturdy youth of sixteen, I reminded myself, not some weeping maiden.

  ‘I have to confess that it was my idea to place you in the Fitzgerald household,’ he said. ‘Everything seemed to fall into place. Had they not needed a tutor in mathematics and music, I might not have thought of you. As it was, you did admirably well and enabled us to intercept another courier route. Because you succeeded so well at the Fitzgeralds’, Thomas decided that he wanted to train you up in more of our work. As a code-breaker you are admirable, but if you could take on more varied work, you would be even more valuable to us.’

  He smiled. ‘Your adventure down amongst the ports in Sussex showed that you were intelligent and observant. It was thanks to you – despite your little accident in the fishing village – that we discovered that Ballard and Barnes were back in the country and were able to follow them. We have had them under observation ever since. Ballard’s activities in particular are of interest.’

  ‘I was careless. I nearly ruined everything.’

  He ignored this. ‘As for your mad race with the young trooper . . . Well, as you will have noticed, Thomas is no horseman. He was so impressed, that was one of the reasons we chose you to take the letter to Curll. That and your eminent suitability to play the part of a young messenger boy.’

  I had to break in on this. ‘But, Sir Francis, I am a doctor. It has been my ambition all my life to follow in my father’s footsteps. He is the man I admire most in the world.’ I did not care whether that might sound arrogant, seated as I was in the room of one of the most powerful men in England. In Europe even. ‘All I want to do with my life is to heal the sick, or when they cannot be healed, to ease their suffering if I can.’

  My voice was shaking with the passion I rarely revealed for my calling, but I had to make him understand that I was not willing to be shaped into their tool when my own ambitions lay elsewhere.

  ‘Yet,’ he said quietly, ‘when you were offered the chance to become a scholar at Oxford and study at the medical school there, you turned it down.’

  I was stunned into silence. Of course he would have known about that. Sir Francis Walsingham had eyes and ears everywhere, but he did not even need the facilities of his intelligence service in this case. He had close links with the governors of St Bartholomew’s. No doubt he and Sir Jonathan Langley dined in each others’ homes. The offer and my refusal of it had no doubt been a minor item over the second glass of wine.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘There were reasons I could not accept,’ I said. ‘Of course I would have been glad to go, but I have been well trained by my father. And there are . . . family reasons why I could not accept
.’ I lowered my eyes again and clenched my hands together, for they were shaking. Was he on the brink of discovering my secret?

  He sighed. ‘I will not press you for your reasons, Kit, and I respect your desire to follow a very worthwhile profession, but at the moment we are caught up, all of us, in great matters of state. The letter you have been asked to take to Chartley, and the letter I hope will be sent in answer to it, may well bring this whole affair to an end. So you see that it is vital that you play your part a little longer.’

  I have had too much of playing parts! The words roared so loudly inside my head, I feared I had spoken them aloud, but Sir Francis seemed not to have heard them.

  ‘I want you to cast your mind back,’ he said, ‘to a conversation we had in this room some weeks past. I told you then about what I had witnessed in Paris fourteen years ago. I did not tell you all the details, but perhaps I should, to make you realise the danger this country will be in if we drop our guard against invasion from France or Spain.’

  He passed his hand over his face and I saw that there were beads of sweat on his forehead. I do not believe it was the heat of the day, for he was seated in front of an open window and with the coming of evening a cool breeze was blowing up from the river. Either he was ill with fever or the memories he was evoking had brought this on.

  ‘There were women eviscerated while still alive. And pregnant women who had their unborn children ripped from their wombs and smashed on the cobbles. Boys and men castrated, their private parts stuffed into their mouths before they were strangled or beaten to death. Ancient men and women forced to kneel at the feet of those ruffians and lick their filthy boots, then whipped along the street while the crowd howled in delight.’

  Memory burst open in my head then, like a boil swollen with pus. I could smell burning flesh. I felt the slash of the scourge on my back. And another crowd howling in delight.

  ‘Stop!’ I cried and clamped my hands over my ears.