The
Portuguese
Affair
Ann Swinfen
Shakenoak Press
Copyright © Ann Swinfen 2014
Shakenoak Press
Kindle Edition
Ann Swinfen has asserted her moral right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified
as the author of this work.
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Cover images
Coat-of-arms of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz
Contemporary drawing of the English army on the march
Cover design by JD Smith www.jdsmith-design.co.uk
For
David
Chapter One
London , December, 1588
For two years I had believed myself safe from Robert Poley, that scheming viper of a double agent. As long as he remained a prisoner in the Tower, the secret of my identity was safe, a secret which could cost me my life. He had played an ambivalent part in bringing the Babington plotters to justice and I was still unsure where his loyalty lay, if indeed he had any. Had he been a sympathiser as the conspirators had believed, almost to the end? Or had he been truly working as an agent for my sometime employer, Sir Francis Walsingham? Perhaps even Sir Francis himself was unsure. Whatever he believed, he had ensured that Poley was securely locked away in the Tower when the plot was uncovered, but unlike the other conspirators, Poley was not executed by that most brutal of methods – hung, drawn and quartered. Instead he had remained for more than two years a prisoner, yet a prisoner (so it was said) who lived like a lord. And had murdered a fellow prisoner, the Bishop of Armagh, with a gift of poisoned cheese.
The source of his riches was one of the many mysteries which surrounded Poley. A man of obscure birth, dubious employment and cautious patrons, he yet commanded considerable wealth. When I had first encountered him he was a prisoner in the Marshalsea, yet there, too, he lavished his money on rich food, receiving his mistress at fine dinners in his room, while refusing to see his wife and daughter.
We were sitting, Simon Hetherington and I, beside a generous fire in a tavern on Bankside, south of the river and not far from the Rose, where Simon had just given his first performance in a man’s part, having at last been able to turn his back on the women’s roles he had played with such success as a boy. It was a double celebration, being also Simon’s nineteenth birthday, and several of his fellow players had joined us – Guy Bingham (musician and comic), Christopher Haigh (young romantic) and Richard Burbage (heroic), second son of James Burbage, head of Simon’s company. It was not Burbage’s company which had been playing at the Rose. Simon had been on loan to Philip Henslowe, who was short of players, three having died in the late summer of the sweating sickness.
‘It was no great part,’ Simon said, modestly but truthfully, ‘but at last I have shed my petticoats and wigs.’
Christopher raised his glass. ‘I never saw a halberd carried with such a flourish. We shall have you back with us and speaking at least six lines before we know it.’
Simon flushed, but took the teasing in good part. He turned to Richard.
‘And is there any word yet from your father?’
‘He hopes to join us here,’ Richard said. ‘He had a meeting with Lord Strange this afternoon.’
Burbage’s company had been, for many years, Leicester’s Men, but the Earl of Leicester had died in September. It was now nearly Christmas. They had been allowed to carry on performing until the end of their planned season, but could no longer continue without a patron. Despite the growing importance and popularity of the playhouses, in the eyes of the law of England a company of players without a noble patron would be classed as vagabonds and could be imprisoned. They could even lose an ear or a nose, a fate no player dared contemplate. Burbage’s men would have ceased performing anyway as winter closed in, for audiences would not come to the open-air playhouses in bitter weather, but if the company were not to drift apart Burbage must secure a new patron soon. He had received an encouraging reply from Lord Strange to his request for a meeting, and the present company, who had come to cheer Simon in his small part, could ill conceal their anxiety beneath all the banter.
‘Simon Hetherington!’ A big man, built like an ox, had approached our table. His dark hair sprang from his head like coils of wire, surrounding a bald circle, a secular tonsure, while more dark bristles sprouted from his ears and nostrils. There was something familiar about him, but I could not place him.
‘Arthur!’ I was not sure Simon was quite pleased to see the man. He was not hostile, but rather embarrassed. He turned to us.
‘Arthur is the gatekeeper at the Marshalsea. I used to lodge with his sister. How is Goodwife Lucy?’
‘Hearty as ever,’ said the man, hooking a stool with his foot and drawing it up to our table. He sat down and drank deeply from his jar of beer, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. I remembered now where I had seen him.
The other players looked faintly amused that the man should join us, but they were a motley, tolerant lot. The gatekeeper looked round at us all, then pointed at me with a finger like a well-filled sausage.
‘And I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re the physician’s boy Simon fetched that time to the prisoner Robert Poley, who thought himself poisoned.’
‘Aye,’ I said drily. ‘Poisoned himself with eating bad oysters. I remember.’
The man shook his head. ‘Never had a prisoner like him. Entertaining his mistress, that slut Joan Yeomans, like any lord. Playing at cards or dice with the other sad papists and cheating them of the little they had before they went into exile or to the fire.’ He glanced round the table and nodded sagely. ‘Mark my words. Never have dealings with Poley. He will beguile you either of your wife or your life.’
Having delivered himself of this pronouncement, he buried his nose again in his beer and drained it.
‘No danger of that,’ Simon said, smiling lazily and tilting his stool back. He was still glowing in the aftermath of his performance, a state of mind I recognised. ‘He’s locked away from all decent men in the Tower.’
The doorkeeper waved his empty mug at the potboy and grinned. ‘That he is not. I see you are behind with the news. Robert Poley was released from the Tower yesterday evening. He’ll be about his devious business in London by now.’
I felt bile rise in my throat as Simon shot a glance at me. He knew I feared Poley, though he did not know the reason. My jaws were locked together and beneath the table I felt my leg jerk convulsively.
‘So,’ said Guy, ‘the men in authority, they’ve decided Poley bore no guilt in the plotting two years ago.’ He sipped his beer thoughtfully, and looked at me. ‘I wonder.’