‘And you are worried that they will guess who, or what, you are?’

‘Yes.’ I nodded, rolling breadcrumbs into pellets as I talked. ‘I mean, I’ve never been a private tutor to a family. I don’t even know how to begin.’

He thought for a moment.

‘When you lived in Portugal and your father was a professor at the university, did you have tutors?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Were any of them young, perhaps a little inexperienced?’

I thought back. Those days were so far in the past, blocked out by what had happened since.

‘There was one. Alfonso he was called. He seemed very grown up to me, but I suppose he cannot have been more than twenty. He was a student at the university, very clever, but his family was not wealthy. I think my father employed him because he needed the money.’

‘What did he teach you?’

‘Italian and geometry.’

‘Can you remember much about him? His mannerisms, the way he spoke, his demeanour?’

‘Yes, I suppose I can. A little.’

‘Then use him as your model. That is what we do when we take on a new part. Find someone, if you can, to base your character on.’

‘I see.’ I thought about this for a few minutes. ‘Perhaps I could do that.’

He slapped me lightly on the shoulder. ‘Of course you can. Just think of it as a part in a play. It doesn’t have to touch you inside.’ He pointed to his heart. ‘Not in here. You are just acting that young, inexperienced but clever tutor.’

I grinned at him. The ale may have loosened my tongue, but at least it had brought me a way through the dilemma.

‘Thank you, Simon. I think that will help. But . . .’ I was suddenly anxious, ‘you must not tell anyone about this. About my work for Walsingham. About this . . . this task I must undertake.’

‘I promise you,’ he said, ‘I shall say no word to anyone.’

Chapter Six

On Monday morning I kissed my father good-bye, picked up my lute-case, and shouldered the pack containing a few spare clothes, some music and an elementary mathematical book. Of necessity I had told my father something of what Walsingham had asked me to do and I had spent the weekend discussing with him how I should set about teaching my new pupils. In the panic of my conversation with Sir Francis I had forgotten that my father would be able to give me some guidance on how to be a teacher. Although his had always been university students, he assured me that the principles were the same.

‘Enthusiasm and praise, those are the two most important ingredients for success,’ he said. ‘If you are enthusiastic about what you teach, you will inspire enthusiasm in your pupils. And for anyone, child or adult, the carrot is always more effective than the whip. Praise every little success and you will make the child try harder, eager for your praise.’

‘But what if they don’t want to learn? If they dislike me, or dislike mathematics?’

I could not imagine that they would dislike music, but there are many who dislike mathematics, or simply cannot comprehend it.

‘You must make a game of it. The boy is only nine, you say? Do you remember how I used to teach you when you were nine?’

I searched my memory. ‘I think there were some number puzzles we did. I can’t really recall them.’

With that he wrote down a list of puzzles I could use with the younger child, and as he wrote them I found myself remembering the high airy rooms of our home in Coimbra, the inlaid table where we used to work, and the cool sherbet drink, a speciality invented by the Arabs, that was my reward when I did well. I turned aside so that he might not see the tears that filled my eyes.

‘I think it is the girl who worries me most,’ I said, as I folded the paper and slipped it between the pages of the mathematics book. ‘She is only a year younger than I am and may be scornful about being taught by someone so young.’

‘You do not need to say how young you are, do you? Keep your distance, a little reserved and withdrawn. It will make you seem older.’

I was uncertain how to be both enthusiastic and full of praise, but at the same time distant and withdrawn, but I did not say so. My father was doing his best to help. He even drew up an outline of the lessons I should give in mathematics and suggested suitable pieces of music to take with me. As a result, I was less nervous on Monday morning than I might have been.

Less nervous about the teaching, at any rate, but the thought of the spying, the search for letters and even the attempt to copy them – that terrified me. If Sir Damian Fitzgerald was indeed involved in passing secret letters, I did not suppose that he would be so foolish as to leave them lying about in full view. And if, by some remote turn of Fortune’s wheel, I managed to see and copy any letters . . . and was caught in the act . . . my stomach turned sick at the thought. He could have me arrested. Or worse. If he was engaged in treasonous activities, he might not invoke the law. I could well be dealt with privately. A quiet strangling. A knife in the ribs. My body tipped into a river. I shuddered.

These thoughts occupied my mind as I walked across London just as dawn broke, with the low sun half-blinding my eyes as I headed east toward Seething Lane. Then as I turned a corner, the bulk of the Tower loomed up between me and the sun. If Sir Damian was an innocent man and caught me going through his papers, I could find myself in there. Or if he was guilty of treason, and I exposed it, he might be the one to be enclosed within its grim walls. I had, of course, never been inside the Tower, but the vivid imaginations of Londoners painted an unforgettable picture of the horrors hidden there.

By the time I reached Walsingham’s house I had worked myself into a sweat of fear. However, Cassie was calmly waiting for me in the courtyard, near the bottom of the back stairs. He was a taciturn man, drab and unremarkable, the ideal servant for a man like Phelippes. He could go about the secret affairs of his master and Walsingham and no one would notice him. He blended so effortlessly into the background as to be nearly invisible.

‘Here is a further purse of coin for you, Master Alvarez,’ he said. ‘And if you will follow me round to the stable, I have had a horse saddled for you. We can put your baggage in a saddlebag, but how will you carry your lute?’

‘There is a longer strap attached to the case,’ I said. ‘I can sling it over my back. That will be the safest way.’

He nodded. As we crossed the courtyard and went through the archway to the stables, he handed me two small packets.

‘These are the letters of recommendation which you are to give to Sir Damian,’ he said, ‘and in here you will find a map of the way to Hartwell Hall, as well as another showing the shortest route from there to Barn Elms, should you need to leave in a hurry.’

I thanked him. I would make sure I committed that second map to memory, so that I would not have to depend on reading it should I need – as he put it – to leave in a hurry. My mouth felt dry and I swallowed painfully.

The stables, like everything else under Sir Francis’s direction, were immaculate. The sun shone in through the open windows, a light breeze kept the place cool and fresh. The stalls had already been mucked out and the horses’ coats gleamed with grooming.

‘This is the horse Sir Francis has selected for you,’ Cassie said, leading me up to an unprepossessing piebald. ‘He thought it best you should not have a mount which suggested wealth, as that might arouse suspicion.’