‘I had not expected to see you again so soon,’ I said.

She seemed surprised that I remembered her and gave me a wan smile. Her cheeks were sunken and I noticed that several teeth had fallen out since I had seen her last.

‘My man was lost at sea,’ she said. ‘Times have been hard since, with the little I can earn.’

‘What work do you do?’ I asked. I was holding the baby while one of our nurses washed the mother. We take care to keep our patients clean. My father is strict about this, for he believes that dirt and lice spread the ill humours that breed infection.

‘I am a seamstress, but work is difficult to come by these days, if you have a baby and cannot leave him behind while you work for one of the tailors.’

‘I am sorry to hear about your man.’

So many are lost at sea, but who cares for their families? None that I had ever heard of. I remembered that she had no other family. Perhaps there was no good neighbour with whom she could leave the child while she found work.

Once she was dressed in a clean hospital shift and one of the women servants had brought her soup, bread and ale, I laid the baby beside her on the bed.

‘Dickon is doing well, I see.’

Her eyes lit up. ‘You remember his name!’

‘But I do not know yours.’

‘It is Margaret, doctor. Margaret Jenkins. My man was Welsh, a Welsh archer serving on one of Sir Francis Drake’s ships.’ She said it with pride.

Drake the famous captain, hero of Englishmen. Drake the pirate.

‘Well, Margaret, there is much plain sewing done here at the hospital. I will see if we can find work for you in the sewing room. I am sure you could bring Dickon with you.’

Later that day I spoke to the mistress of the sewing women, who agreed to employ Margaret, if her skills with the needle passed muster. She was doubtful at first about the baby, but when I insisted that the child was well behaved and his mother near starvation, she agreed.

After a week of long days and little sleep at night, I was glad to sit quietly in St Bartholomew’s church on Sunday. Because of all the work at the hospital, we had been unable to attend synagogue at the Nuñez house on the previous day, which had given me a guilty sense of relief. I was never sure in my own mind whether I was Jew or Christian, but being obliged to worship amongst the men on the Sabbath troubled me ever more as I grew older. Here in church, men and women sat together and I felt I could worship without deceit. And surely the One God is the same for both? There was, however, the question of the man Jesus. As far as I could understand, being no theologian, to the Jews he was an imposter, to the Arabs he was a prophet but not the Messiah, to the Christians he was the Son of God.

As I knelt in prayer, I caught sight of the old man who came every week, supported by his granddaughter, and I remembered my conversation with Sir Francis. He had said that matters of faith had been difficult for people of his own generation and those even older. Yet his experiences during the fearful massacre of Protestants in Paris must have shaped his decisions. I wished I could lay my own dilemma before him, for I believed him to be a wise man. Once I had tried to explain my own confusion to my father, but he could not understand my doubts. He was a Jew by birth, descent and conviction. Baptism as a New Christian was no more than a disguise, a means of survival, as was this attendance at a Christian church, compulsory under Elizabethan law. Yet I yearned toward the kindness of the man called Jesus. A kindness I felt had been there in his lifetime, but had been perverted in the centuries since, by violent religious wars and the horrors of the Inquisition. Sir Francis had said every man should judge for himself by reading, without the intervention of a priest. Perhaps that was where I would find the answers to my questions.

All this went through my head while I was meant to be praying, leaving me no less confused when we rose to our feet for the final blessing and left the church. As usual we gathered to gossip with our neighbours afterwards in the spring sunshine outside.

‘So, you are returned, Kit. We missed you last week at service.’ It was Mistress Long, wife of one of the master bakers in Pie Lane and the greatest gossip in the parish.

‘Oh, I was sent down into Surrey for a week,’ I said, as casually as possible, ‘I attended church there. I have been back in London since Monday evening.’

Her eyes gleamed, sensing a story to be prodded out of me. ‘And what were you doing in Surrey? Surely you were needed at the hospital here?’

‘Nothing of importance,’ I said, trying to think quickly. ‘Acting briefly as a mathematics tutor to two children of a gentleman’s family. Just for a week. You know that I study mathematics with Master Harriot? With the older child I was discussing the mathematics of musical harmony. It is a fascinating subject.’ I took her by the arm. ‘Let me tell you about it.’

To my satisfaction, I saw her eyes cloud over.

‘No, no. Thank you, Kit. I see my husband is wanting to make our way home. My daughter and her husband are visiting this afternoon . . .’ She eased her arm from mine and hurried away.

‘A neat strategy,’ my father murmured in my ear as we turned our own steps toward Duck Lane and dinner.

‘Foolproof,’ I said. ‘Now, if I had spoken about medical matters I would never have been able to shake her off.’

On Monday morning we had nearly completed our examination of the new patients who had arrived at the hospital since Saturday, when the gatekeeper came breathlessly into the ward.

‘Dr Alvarez,’ he said, ‘there is a messenger at the gate asking for you. From Lord Burghley. He has been seized with another severe attack of the gout.’

‘Dr Nuñez is his usual physician,’ my father said. This was true, but my father had attended Lord Burghley before.

‘Will you speak to the man, sir? He is waiting.’

‘Of course. Kit, you had better come until we see what this is about.’

I followed the two men to the gate, where a servant in Burghley’s livery stood holding two horses. He quickly explained that his lordship was in great pain and needed a physician at once.

‘And Dr Nuñez?’ my father asked.

‘Dr Nuñez is in attendance on the Earl of Leicester at Greenwich, sir. Can you come?’

The man was sweating with nerves.

‘Certainly. I will need to collect the appropriate medicines. Peter?’ he called.

Peter Lambert was just crossing the courtyard and was sent running to fetch what was needed. As my father mounted the spare horse, I laid a hand on his stirrup.

‘Will you be long away, do you think? I shall be the only physician here.’ I felt a sense of panic at being left in charge of all medical treatment.

‘A few hours. I should return before the day is out. There are no serious cases to worry you. And Peter will act as your assistant.’

The messenger was anxious to be off. As they rode away I looked at Peter.

He shrugged and smiled. ‘Nothing to worry us?’

‘God willing,’ I said.

The day passed easily enough. I did not go home as usual at midday, but took a bowl of soup with the apothecaries and the mistress of the nursing sisters, as we call the women who carry out the daily care of the patients. In the old days, when there was a monastery here, the nursing work was done by nuns and the term ‘sister’ has lingered on. As I spooned up my soup hastily, eager to be back on the wards, I saw one or two of the more senior apothecaries eyeing me with pursed lips which told all too clearly what they thought of a young assistant physician being left in sole charge of medical care. As for myself, I was relieved to find that no one had died while I was eating my soup. Perhaps Father was right, and I had nothing to worry about.

Except that it was the day the governors made their monthly inspection of the hospital and they would arrive before my father returned. We had all worked hard. The servants had scoured the wards, the nursing sisters had made all the patients clean and tidy, and I had been twice round the wards, with Peter at my heels, checking every aspect of their medical condition. When the six governors arrived I could tell that they were not pleased that I was the only physician present, but Dr Stevens’s accident and Lord Burghley’s summons were explained to them, and they could find no fault in the running of the hospital and the treatment of the patients. They were about to withdraw for wine and refreshments in their meeting room, when I noticed that one of them, Sir Jonathan Langley, was looking very pale. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow, and he had taken hold of the bedpost of the end cot, as if he needed support.