‘That is all?’
‘That is all.’
Apart from that long, long ride, it did not sound so terrible now, particularly if Phelippes and Gregory would be there with me.
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘Good. Now go home, take off those dreadful clothes and rest for two days. Then we will see.’
At the door of his chamber I paused and turned back.
‘It is not that I do not understand the terrible danger to England, Sir Francis. It is that I do not think I am the right person for this work.’
‘You underrate yourself, Kit,’ he said.
Two days later I donned the clothes of ‘Simon’ the messenger boy and collected Hector from the Seething Lane stable. I was to present myself at Hernes Rents as ready to ride north at once, but would in fact return to Walsingham’s house where the letter would be opened, copied and resealed before I set out. Once again I was apprehensive, in case someone followed me, but I hoped I could weave a way through the back streets of the city and lose any pursuer.
When I reached Babington’s lodgings, however, all this careful scheming was thrown into disarray. The door was opened by a different servant, not in Babington’s livery, who shook his head when I asked for Sir Anthony.
‘He’s not here any more. He’s moved to lodgings in Fleet Street. Some tailor’s house.’ And he shut the door in my face.
My heart sank. I had not wanted this task, but having taken it on I did not want to fail in it. Babington had told me to come here. Why had he moved and left no word for me? I remembered that Phelippes had told me he was constantly moving from house to house. He had once mentioned a tailor’s house on Fleet Street, just outside Temple Bar. I could go back to Seething Lane to ask for directions, or I could try to find it myself. I decided on the latter course, thinking I could always return to Walsingham’s if I could not find it.
It proved easier than I expected, as there was only one tailor’s premises near Temple Bar, an ancient rambling house with the business premises on the ground floor, opening on to the street, and several other doors and staircases leading to wings that had been added to the original building. I enquired in the shop and one of the doors was pointed out to me. When I knocked, the serving man I had seen before opened it to me.
‘Good. You found us.’ He beckoned me inside. ‘You were given Sir Anthony’s message to come here?’
I shook my head. ‘A man just said Sir Anthony was lodging with a tailor in Fleet Street. He did not give me any message.’
The man clicked his tongue in annoyance.
‘Is the letter ready?’ I asked. ‘I should be off. It’s a long ride.’
‘Sir Anthony has changed his mind,’ he said. ‘He left for Lichfield yesterday.’
Dismay must have showed on my face, for he smiled. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll still earn your fee. He wants you to ride after him and meet him at the White Hart Inn. He will finish his letter there, and be on hand for the reply. He left this to pay for your inn at Lichfield. Better you stay at a different inn, he says, but call on him as soon as you arrive.’
He handed me a purse. Quite a heavy purse. Sir Anthony was generous with his money. He was known to be wealthy, but many wealthy men are misers. I stowed the purse in my pocket.
‘I’ll be off then.’
He showed me to the door. It was a strange, disreputable lodging for a man of Sir Anthony’s standing.
‘God go with you on your journey,’ he said.
‘Thank you. God be with you.’
As I unhitched Hector and mounted, I thought again of how courteously a poor messenger boy was treated by Sir Anthony and his servant. However, I now had a problem. I could not take the letter back to Phelippes, for I had no letter. I would, however, need to return to Seething Lane to explain the change in plans.
When I told him of Babington’s departure, Phelippes frowned at first, and then shrugged.
‘It cannot be helped. Arthur and I intend to follow you tomorrow anyway. There is a small inn in the village, Stowe-by-Chartley. We’ll take rooms there. Once you have collected the letter in Lichfield come to us in Stowe.’
He rubbed his eyes, as he often did when thinking.
‘That horse you ride is very conspicuous. Someone from the manor might notice it. You’d better conceal him somewhere outside the village and come to the inn on foot. Then when we have the letter resealed for you, you can ride up to the manor house as though you have just arrived.’
I nodded. It was a wise precaution. Hector was unmistakable.
My second journey to Lichfield was much like the first, save that I now knew the way, so that it seemed to pass more quickly. The weather was, if anything, even hotter. In the fields that we passed the cut hay lay drying and the wheat and barley stood tall and golden, but there had been little rain in recent weeks to plump the grain. After several wet summers, the farmers might be glad of the heat to dry the hay, but I found it worrying. This was the kind of weather that bred the plague. I should be in the hospital, not careering about the country.
A long ride along a known route leaves much time for thinking and I gave a good deal of thought to how I might extricate myself from Walsingham’s service. His further description of what had happened in Paris had frightened me badly, awakening memories of Portugal that I had managed to bury for the last four years. I knew I must complete this mission, which he deemed so crucial for the safety and security of both Queen and country, but when it was ended – and surely it would soon be ended? – I would tell him that I no longer wished to work for him.
Poley! How could I forget Poley? I understood by now that he had brought me into Walsingham’s service as part of his efforts to show himself an agent faithful to England’s cause. Phelippes had needed another code-breaker and Poley had found him one, young and biddable, easy to manipulate. Congratulations to Master Poley. But if I tried to break away, would Poley betray me? If it suited his purposes, he would not hesitate. But where did Poley stand in the present projection? Sir Francis had placed Poley in Babington’s household as a spy, but what if Poley was already a part of that group of conspirators, and was passing information about Sir Francis’s network to them? I had seen him in Babington’s company long before it was said he had been placed there. And if all the conspirators were rounded up and sent to trial, as Walsingham hoped? Did that include Poley?
These thoughts went round and round in my head as I rode north. And when I could shake myself free of them, thoughts of Simon rushed in. I had not seen him since before my first trip to Lichfield and I found I was longing for him. And with the longing, certain forbidden ideas came into my head. What if I were to reveal my true identity to him? He might reject me in horror, as a monster, a man-woman, the repulsive thing against which the church thundered and the law shook its horrified finger. A woman who did not keep to her inferior position but dared to ape the finer species, her superior in every way.
Man.
No. I did not think Simon would be horrified, but certainly he could no longer be the easy companion he had been. He might not even like me. A man does not look for the same qualities in a woman as he values in a man. I would lose his friendship and it might not be replaced in him with the feeling that now knotted itself in my stomach and turned my legs to water. I had never known anything like this before. I was beginning to accept with my mind that I was in love with Simon, but I was unprepared for these physical signs of weakness over which I seemed to have no control. Even in his absence I could not suppress them.
How I wished I had not lost my mother and sister. I wanted another woman to talk to, but in my male world there was only Sara Lopez, and I did not feel I could talk to her of this, although I was not quite sure why. Certainly I could not talk to my father. Much as I loved him, I did not think he would understand my feelings. Besides, he would fear the danger I would place myself in if I should reveal myself as a woman. And he did not like Simon, merely because he was an actor. He would not regard an English mountebank as even worth considering as the suitor of a Portuguese professor’s daughter. My father’s pride had been humbled since we had come as refugees to England, but certain moral standards he would not relax, and that was one of them.