‘After our hens, they was,’ he went on. ‘As soon as they sees me, they come whining round, begging for bread, four o’ them, all together.’
‘And why did you think they were the wanted men?’ Phelippes asked.
‘Most beggars go about solitary, not in a group.’ Gardiner cast a contemptuous look at him. ‘And these fellows talked like gentlemen. Besides, they was dressed like gentlemen, though their fine clothes had had rough treatment, torn and dirty. They was starving, I could see that. Near despair, I’d say.’
‘Did you give them bread?’ I asked, curious.
He looked at me scornfully, up and down.
‘Not I! Do you take me for a fool? Give one beggar bread and they mark your doorpost. You’re never rid of them, after.’
I had a sudden sharp remembrance of Anthony Babington’s kindness and generosity to a poor messenger boy, and had to bite my lips to stop myself answering him back.
‘If they are starving,’ Berden said, ‘they’ll not be far off. They need to stay near a supply of food. They stole eggs and a chicken from a farm in St John’s Wood.’
‘That’s what I said.’ Gardiner smiled complacently.
‘Not that they know how to look after themselves,’ Berden added, ‘being gentlemen. The chicken was found barely plucked. It’s sure they didn’t know what to do with it. We think they ate the eggs raw, for there was no sign of a fire. They can have had barely bite or sup for ten days.’
The men were clearly long gone from Gardiner’s yard and Phelippes was considering what to do next when a boy ran up, red in the face and gasping for breath.
‘Master Lakely sent me, sir,’ he said. ‘He has the men cornered in a back alley. There’s no way out the far end.’
Mounting quickly, we followed the boy across the town to a huddle of poor streets, where John Lakely had posted two local constables at the mouth of a narrow, stinking alley.
‘They are down there,’ Lakely said. ‘Four of them. The alley turns to the left and they must have thought there was a way through, but it ends in a blank wall. Shall I send the men in?’
One of the constables held a savage-looking dog on a chain, like one of those beasts bred for bear-baiting. I began to feel sick.
‘Surely the dog isn’t necessary,’ I said to Phelippes, ‘if the men are as weak as it seems.’
He gave me an odd look.
‘We can take no chances.’
The armed pursuivants who had accompanied us dismounted and joined the two local constables. They formed a solid body, blocking the entire width of the alley, and began to move forward. Apart from distant sounds of the town going about its daily business, there was nothing to be heard where we stood, until a burst of vicious barking and a cry of pain, suddenly cut off.
The minutes dragged out, but at last we heard the returning footsteps and a few sharp commands, then the whole group came into view.
They were a terrible sight, their faces haggard, hair and beards wild and untrimmed, their once fine clothes torn and filthy, as though they had been sleeping in a midden.
Berden quickly identified them so that my own evidence was not needed. I drew away to the edge of the group, wishing myself anywhere but here, when Anthony Babington suddenly looked in my direction. I saw a flash of recognition cross his face as his sunken and reddened eyes caught mine, recognition changing swiftly to a kind of resigned sorrow. I avoided his eyes, feeling deeply ashamed, and saw that blood was dripping from a deep gash in his arm. The dog had been used, it seemed.
‘Master Phelippes,’ I said, ‘Sir Anthony is hurt. Will you permit me to bind up his arm?’
He turned aside from his discussion with Lakely and glanced at Babington.
‘Very well, Kit. We wouldn’t want to cheat the hangman.’
I held back my response to this cruel remark with difficulty, but walked over to Babington.
‘Sir Anthony, I am a trained physician. I always carry a few salves with me. I am going to treat that wound as best I can here in the street.’
He looked at me curiously, but said nothing and held out his arm. I took a small pot of salve from the scrip at my belt, and smeared it over the wound as gently as I could.
‘You must have this stitched as soon as possible,’ I said. ‘Keep the rest of the salve. I’ll use this torn part of your shirt to bind it.’
He took the pot and watched as I ripped off the trailing strip of his shirt and wound it round his arm.
‘You are a strangely accomplished messenger boy, young Simon,’ he said softly.
I felt the colour rising in my cheeks.
‘My name is Kit,’ I murmured, ‘and I am a physician at Barts. I am sorry to have deceived you. But the safety of the Queen and England must come before all else.’
‘Aye,’ he said, with the ghost of a sigh. ‘We meddle with the affairs of kings and queens to our peril.’
Soon after, the bedraggled conspirators were led away to return to London, and within the next few weeks the remainder were rounded up.
Imprisonment, torture, trial and death were all that awaited them now.
The mood in London swung to the other extreme. Panic turned to fevered relief. Amid the sound of joyous church bells, bonfires were lit in the streets and the citizens gathered about them to sing psalms and give thanks for deliverance from terrible catastrophe.
Phelippes had kept me on at his office to help with the paperwork, but after the arrests I begged to be allowed to go home. He sent me to Sir Francis, who was again at Greenwich.
There I sought out Sir Francis in that same small office near the Queen’s quarters and asked whether I might now be free to go home.
‘Thomas tells me you have worked well during this difficult time,’ he said. ‘Here’s gold for you.’ He drew a sovereign out of his purse and gave it to me. ‘We may have need of you in the future. Or you may be of service to Dr Nuñez or Dr Lopez. I will send for you when you are wanted, but for now you may regard yourself as on holiday.’
I was angry and resentful at his words, as if he supposed their dark and dirty work were everything to me.
‘I have my patients at the hospital, Sir Francis. My father has lacked my help in recent weeks.’ I glared at him, forgetting for a moment his high office and my need for caution. ‘That is my true calling, not this. . .’ I could find no word that was not insulting. ‘This. . .work I do for you.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He patted my shoulder, which surprised me, for he usually kept himself physically distant from those who worked for him. ‘Go back to your patients. I am sorry it has been necessary to keep you from them.’
For a moment I glimpsed again the kindly man behind the stern façade, the man I had known at Barn Elms and once or twice in private conversation. I gave him a hesitant smile.
With a sense of light-headed relief, like a condemned man at the last moment set free, I ran down the stairs, across the palace courtyard, and along the bank, where the glitter of the summer sun, cast in abundance across the river, shone more precious to me than all the ranked jewels of the courtiers whispering in palace corners. I was glad to go, taking a wherry back up-river to Blackfriars Stairs, then walking through to Duck Lane. Despite the stench of the animal pens and the slaughterhouse, it felt like a true home-coming. I wondered what Sir Francis had meant by being of service to Dr Nuñez or Dr Lopez, though I recalled what Phelippes had once told me about the usefulness of their trade in spices. I hoped that none of them – Walsingham, Phelippes, Lopez, Nuñez – would find me useful in their dark business again.
The door to our house in Duck Lane stood open to let in a little cooling breeze and ease the heat within doors. Joan was sweeping the step and raised her eyebrows when she saw me come bounding along the lane.