The Play's the Thing (The Chronicles of Christoval Alvarez Book 7) Page 4

  Simon nodded. ‘I remember. You were not happy about passing the work to an inexperienced student just down from Oxford, but an older doctor was to keep an eye on him till you returned to take up your duties.’

  ‘Dr Colet. He died a few months ago, it seems, and Wattis has been on his own since then. The Archbishop no longer wants him.’

  ‘No doubt he will find some other position,’ Guy said comfortably, tipping his stool back and leaning against the side of the arbour.

  ‘Indeed he has. The governors of the hospital have appointed him in my place. I am cast out.’

  I tried very hard to keep my tone light, and not to sound too self-pitying, but I am not sure I succeeded.

  Guy let his stool fall forward with a crash. Suddenly they all seemed to be talking at once.

  ‘Cast out? But you were promised your position would be held for you! What are they thinking of? You are the best physician in the hospital!’

  The voices blurred together and I felt my eyes prick at this warm tide of friendship and support.

  ‘We must make them change their minds!’ This was Dick, who looked ready to seize one of his player’s mock swords and storm the hospital.

  ‘Surely the governors will listen to reason.’ Master Burbage’s more measured tones.

  ‘We could kidnap this Wattis, and carry him off!’ Davy had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and seemed to want to set about it at once.

  ‘Nay,’ I said, shaking my head and smiling ruefully. ‘There is nothing to be done. The governors have made an official appointment. To cancel it would humiliate them. They will not change their minds. I ask only that you keep your ears open for any position I might seek. Dr Nuñez is passing a few of his patients to me, but I fear it will not do more than keep Rikki and me in bread and small ale.’

  Hearing his name, Rikki sat up under the table and laid his chin on my knee.

  ‘And now that Sir Francis is gone, I no longer have my code-breaking work.’

  With the players I maintained the fiction that all I had ever done in Sir Francis’s service was code breaking, but they were not fools. Whatever they had suspected before, after sharing part of my journey to Muscovy with me, and hearing the full account tonight, they now knew otherwise. The man Stoker had said nothing, but I saw that he watched me out of the corner of those narrow eyes.

  ‘You could join us as a musician,’ Guy said, as I had known he would.

  I smiled and patted his hand where it lay on the table between us.

  ‘Nay, Guy,’ I said. ‘You know I have not the stomach to appear upon the public stage.’

  ‘After what you have endured in Muscovy,’ he said, ‘the stage should hold few terrors for you.’

  ‘But it does.’

  I could not explain that, exposed on the bare boards of the playhouse, the cynosure of two thousand pairs of eyes, I was convinced my true identity would be revealed at last.

  ‘Besides,’ I added, ‘I think these rich patients Dr Nuñez is bequeathing me would not care to see me in the playhouse. I shall have to maintain the dignity of a different profession from yours.’

  ‘Aye, I know,’ he said with a grimace, ‘these grand folks believe us all to be rogues and vagabonds, though they are happy enough to sit in the Theatre and watch our performances.’

  ‘That was not what I meant,’ I said uncomfortably. ‘I do not think you are rogues and vagabonds.’

  ‘I know you do not.’

  I looked around at them. ‘I think you are doing something very worthy. Who would have thought, fifty years ago, that such fire and poetry would be spoken upon the public stage, which every poor man or woman in London can share for a penny? The world is changing. Who knows where it will take us, or where it will end?’

  ‘Who indeed?’ Will murmured softly. ‘I thank you for that belief in what we do, Kit. All men are but players on the stage of life, and on the stage of the playhouse we try to put into words the lives of all men. Kings and emperors, true, but also the common man, Everyman, as the old play had it. I want to–’ He broke off, and swigged the last of his ale.

  I saw that his eyes glinted in the light from the lantern, and his hands were fiercely clenched about his tankard, however softly he spoke.

  The following morning I decided I would visit St Bartholomew’s hospital, to the west of the City, beside Smithfield. I had worked there as assistant to my father for five years and I knew they had thought well of me. If there were any places to fill, I thought my chances were good, though I would cost them more, now that I was a physician licensed by the Royal College. In my present need, I would have agreed to a lower salary, but I knew the College would not approve, for it would undermine the standing of other physicians.

  I accepted Tom Read’s offer to look after Rikki while I went to St Bartholomew’s. There would have been changes and the old gatekeeper might no longer be there. He used to keep Rikki for me while I was working, as Tom had done at St Thomas’s, although the Bart’s doorkeeper had no dog of his own. I decided I must not pay for a wherry to take me up river, but it is a long walk from Southwark to Smithfield, though nothing to what I was used to in the past. However, in Muscovy I seemed always to have been on horseback or riding in a sleigh or a boat, so now before I had walked as far as Newgate my legs were aching with the unaccustomed exercise. Even though I had set out early, the sullen heat had begun to build up, so that I was sweating in my physician’s gown by the time I reached Cheapside. I stopped at the Great Conduit. In weather like this I did not trust the water to drink, but I took off my physician’s cap and plunged my head under the spout. I knew my hair, cut short again as soon as I had returned to London, would be dry before I arrived at the hospital.

  The chestnut seller was not in his usual place near Newgate. Little wonder. No one would want hot food in the street today, and it would have been unbearable for him to stand over his brazier, even in the shadow of the grim prison. The whole building was silent. The poorest prisoners had not even scrambled to the grating to hold out their hands, pleading for food. The heat in the confined cells within must be a taste of Hell itself.

  When I reached the great gatehouse of St Bartholomew’s I stood for a moment to brace myself for the probable rejection I should encounter. Smithfield market had already been underway for some hours and the ground was littered with straw and dung. The lowing of cattle, the squawk of poultry, and the near human cries of sheep battered my ears, while my nose was assailed with the ammoniac stench of urine. When I had lived in Duck Lane, I must have grown so used to the noise and the smells that I hardly noticed them, but now I found them almost overpowering.

  The gatehouse, built by old King Henry, was a substantial building and offered a few moments’ shady respite. I paused, my hand on the cool, rough surface of the familiar brickwork. There was no sign of the gatekeeper. Probably he was dozing somewhere within his room, overcome by the heat. As I stepped out into the courtyard, I was relieved that the first person I saw crossing from the apothecaries’ quarters to the main ward was Peter Lambert, the young apothecary who had been a close friend when I worked here.

  ‘Peter!’ As I hailed him, he stopped, turned on his heel, and hurried toward me, carefully carrying a flask of some medicament he must just have prepared.

  ‘Why, Kit,’ he said, managing a quick bow while still holding the flask cautiously in both hands. ‘I heard that you were away in some foreign land.’

  He looked truly pleased to see me.

  I smiled gratefully. ‘I was, in Muscovy, but I am back in London these three – nay, four – days now.’

  ‘Muscovy? Isn’t that where it snows all the time, and the rivers are frozen, and white bears eat men in their very homes?’

  ‘Not quite,’ I said. ‘It snows a good deal in the winter, and the rivers freeze, but it is not so very unpleasant in summer. Unfortunately I never saw a white bear.’

  ‘Fortunately, I should say!’

  ‘Mayhap! How do you fare, Peter?
I have not seen you these many months, not since before I went abroad. You must be married now.’

  He smiled broadly and looked not a little pleased with himself. ‘And I have a son, Kit. A great strapping lad, three months old.’

  I had a strange sensation as Peter chattered on about the merits of this exceptional child. All the world seemed to have moved on and somehow left me behind. I remembered Peter as a scrawny boy when we had both come to Bart’s. He was a servant then, until one of the apothecaries noticed his quick mind and took him in hand. Now here he was, a married man and a father at one and twenty, while I was back where I had begun. Or not even there.

  ‘Enough of my affairs,’ Peter said. ‘I must take this to the ward. There are several women with serious sunburn after working in the fields at the haysel. Are you come to visit us?’

  I might as well discover what I could from Peter, before I ventured inside to confront the superintendent. Quickly I explained how I was now without a position, and had come to enquire whether one might be available at Bart’s. Peter heard me out, exclaimed over the injustice of the governors of St Thomas’s, but shook his head.

  ‘Nay, Kit, there is nothing here. I would not waste your time. Dr Stevens – you remember old Dr Stevens? – well, he has left to live with his daughter in Middlesex. They have hired two new physicians to take over his work. That was but two weeks ago. And Dr Temperley, who took your father’s place, he’s still here, and his younger brother as his assistant. They’ll not be taking on any more physicians, I’m thinking.’

  ‘You are right,’ I said, with a sinking heart. I had not truly expected anything else, but thought: Had I but reached London two weeks earlier, I might have been one of the new physicians at St Bartholomew’s.

  ‘If your salve is needed, Peter, I must not delay you.’

  ‘Aye, I’d best go. Come and see us soon, come for dinner, Helen will be so glad, and you can meet my son.’

  ‘Aye, that would be good,’ I said, managing a smile and a bow as he turned away to the ward. But I would not go, I knew, not unless I had found work. I did not want to appear like some beggar, hoping for a free meal to fill my belly.

  I stood a few moments longer in this place which had once been as much a home to me as the cottage in Duck Lane. As people crossed the courtyard I noticed a few familiar faces. Some of them bowed to me, and did not linger, for they were busy. I saw one man in a physician’s gown, but he was a stranger.

  I turned my back on St Bartholomew’s and walked out into the noise and smells of Smithfield.

  I could not accustom myself to being in London with no occupation, no work summoning me. It would be several days before Dr Nuñez could make the arrangements with some of his patients, to transfer their care to me. Then we would go together, to visit them, so that he might introduce me. I was still carrying the copy of Gregory’s report in my satchel of medicines, where I had stored it weeks ago at the inn where we stayed just south of Moscow. I could not make up my mind what to do with it. Originally it had seemed quite simple. I would find Thomas Phelippes and either hand it over to him, or ask him where I should deliver it. I was uncertain what the Governor of the Muscovy Company intended to do with his copy.

  But it seemed Phelippes now held some sort of clerical post at the Customs House, so perhaps he no longer dealt with the security of the state. I had also considered taking it instead to Lord Burghley. Two points argued against this. First, that might be where Governor Heyward intended to take his copy. In which case, I should look merely foolish, turning up with a second one, as if I expected a reward. And second, now I knew that Poley was working for the Cecils, I intended to stay well away from them.

  In this state of indecision, I trudged back to my lodgings which, being high in the house, just below the garrets, had accumulated the heat of the rest of the house. I stripped off my gown and my heavy doublet and threw myself down on the bed, but I was restless, and soon sprang up again. I had a lightweight doublet which I donned over my shirt. I would fetch Rikki, then saddle up Hector and take him out for some exercise.

  When I was raised up on horseback, the day did not feel so oppressive as it did down amongst those on foot, where tempers flared quickly. With Rikki keeping close beside us, I headed Hector out along Bishopsgate Street and through Bishopsgate itself. Like all the City’s gates, it was beginning to crumble with age and neglect. How long since the City’s walls and gates had been put in readiness for defence? Had the Spanish succeeded in landing their army on the south coast three years ago and marched to the capital as they had intended, it would have been impossible to hold even the heart of London against them. And now that the whole of London extended outside the walls, beyond this heart in the City itself, the invading army would have had no trouble in putting it to fire and sword.

  Southwark was undefended. Westminster was undefended. And all along the north bank of the Thames, wherever the ground was not marshy or apt to flood, buildings had sprouted like mushrooms in a forest. I would swear London had grown even during the year I had been away. To the West, between the City and Westminster, the rich had been building their mansions for several generations. To the east, despite repeated regulations forbidding building, the shacks and hovels of the poor crowded together, housing the labourers in the shipyards and other industries which could not find space in the older parts of London.

  Where I was headed, however, there were still open spaces. Past the great Dolphin Inn on the right and the Bedlam madhouse on the left, I continued north along Norton Folgate. Rikki paused at Hog Lane, expecting me to turn left for the Theatre, but I pressed on. After St Mary Spital the last houses dwindled away, except for the village of Shoreditch, with its handsome church of St Leonard. Here we were in true country at last, so I gave Hector his head and we galloped up the rising ground of Hackney Downs, his hooves thundering hollow on the dry earth. The breeze in my face was as refreshing as a splash of cold water.

  On a little knoll there was a stand of trees, venerable oaks and chestnuts, interspersed with alder and rowan. I reined Hector in to a canter and then to a walk. As soon as we reached the trees, Rikki flopped down in the shade, panting.

  ‘You are out of condition, my lad,’ I said as I slid from Hector’s back. ‘You have been living the life of a lady’s lapdog with Tom, your meals brought to you, only a yard or two to walk when you need to raise a leg.’

  He looked at me enquiringly, so I tousled the rough hair on his head. I must take the scissors to him. Little wonder he was hot, with that thick coat. I removed Hector’s bridle so he could graze and hung it on a branch. He was soon tearing at the juicier grass which lay out of the direct line of the sun, for much of the open turf was burnt yellow. He must be glad of the fresh fodder, for however well he was fed in the stable, it could not compare with grass growing on a country hillside.

  I stretched out on the grass myself, just within the shade from the trees, but where I could look down on London below me. From here it appeared so tightly packed, the houses jostling each other cheek by jowl, it seemed there could be no room for the streets, no room for people to move about. Everywhere the spires of parish churches stabbed upwards, so that the city looked like a monstrous hedgehog crouched beside the Thames. Up here the air was clear, but a summer haze hung over the city, making it seem as insubstantial as a mirage.

  Below this higher ground, between the Downs and the city, farmland stretched out to east and west. I could pick out the hay meadows, reduced to stubble now, where sheep and cattle had been turned out to graze. The sweet perfume of cut hay still filled the air, rising up to my perch like incense in a church. Surely the scent of hay is one of Nature’s most blessed. It seems to hold the essence of summer. The fields of corn – wheat and barley and some oats – were already golden. They would be harvested soon, a month early at the least. This would be one year without famine. Weather was so unpredictable. Two or three years of bad harvests and the poor starved. Wasn’t there some story in the Bible? About s
toring food for the lean years? Yet even in the good years there never seemed to be crops abundant enough to store in case of future need. London grew and grew, inexorably, with more and more mouths to feed, many incomers turned out of their country livings by landowners who saw more profit in sheep. Surely this must mean that the supply of food would be shrinking, even as the number of hungry townsmen was growing?

  I pulled my satchel on to my lap and unbuckled it. On my way to fetch Hector I had bought a penny loaf, a lump of very hard cheese, and a handful of raisins. I had also begged a bone for Rikki from the butcher near St Thomas’s, whose son I had once treated for eczema. Rikki fell upon the bone as if he was starving, although I knew very well that Tom would have fed him with kitchen scraps.

  Remembering the butcher’s son reminded me of Xenia, Godunov’s daughter. The butcher had shown more sense, bringing his son to the hospital, than the grand folk who had Xenia in their care. I hoped she was still able to treat her own skin as I had taught her.

  I shook myself. Muscovy belonged to the past. I must forget it, for there was nothing more I could do for those left behind there. I must confront the future. Hanging from my belt was the small knife I used for eating. I drew it out and scraped the mould from the piece of cheese. It was like scraping sandstone. The cheese would need to be chopped into small pieces or my teeth would make no impression on it. However, with my limited means now, I should need to become accustomed to poor fare. At least the bread was soft and fresh, and raisins are raisins, when all is said and done.

  When I had finished my frugal meal, I lay back on the grass and looked up at the sky through the twigs which reached out over me. The leaves seemed limp from the heat and the lack of rain. Would that mean that the colours of autumn would come sooner? It has always puzzled me, that when you lie like this, staring up at the sky, the world seems to turn beneath you. Learned men had been arguing for years about the shape of the world and the nature of the universe. Men like Drake had proved for ever that the world was a round ball – you could sail east and return from the west. But the dispute was still fierce between laymen who swore that the sun was the centre of the universe, with our world moving around it, while churchmen fought a retreating action, maintaining that God had made this earth the centre of everything when he created the universe.