‘You did good work in Surrey, Kit,’ Phelippes said, when we were working together on one of these evenings. ‘We have allowed that courier route to stay open, from the Fitzgerald house to the embassy. Then Gifford collects those letters along with the others and takes them on to Chartley.’

So the Fitzgeralds had been left undisturbed for the time being. I found I was glad. It did not seem that they were themselves part of a treasonous plot, but merely allowed their house to be used as a staging post. In the end, though, they might be rounded up.

‘What of the letters from Hartwell Hall that were going directly to Sir Anthony Babington and not to the embassy? Are you not intercepting those?’

‘Indeed, we are doing so,’ Phelippes said. ‘We have recently placed an informant in Babington’s circle who is copying those letters for us. And he is also urging Babington to send his own letters through the embassy, by the secure route. He takes the letters to the embassy and they are then passed to Gifford.’

I remembered a previous conversation we had had about an informant infiltrated into Babington’s circle.

‘Is it Poley?’ I asked cautiously. ‘The man on such friendly terms with Babington?’

‘Yes.’ He gave me a shrewd look. ‘I know you do not like Poley. Yet it was he who introduced you here.’

‘That was not my doing,’ I said. ‘I believe Thomas Harriot recommended me for the work. You are right. I do not like Poley and I do not trust him. What was he doing at Hartwell Hall? That was no plan of Sir Francis’s, I suspect.’

‘No, it was not. It came as a surprise to us both that you had seen him there.’

Phelippes leaned back in his chair. ‘You have to understand, Kit, that the informants we use are a strange group of men. A few – a very few – are honest and loyal and would give their lives for the Queen. Others do the work out of hatred for Catholics or for the French or for the Spanish. Some are double agents, playing one side against the other and must be constantly watched, never trusted too much. Many are masterless men, men with no calling and no income, who take up the work merely for money. They too may become double agents, if the profits are large enough. He who pays most can buy their services. But few if none will play by the rules. They take risks all the time and sometimes will go off pursuing a hare of their own instead of their legitimate quarry.’

He cleared his throat and shuffled the papers on his desk.

‘That may have been why Poley was down in Surrey, up to some game of his own. Or it might have been part of the disguise he assumes as a Catholic sympathiser. That is what gained him entrance into the Babington crowd. Or then again, he may have been acting as an agent for the conspirators, not merely in pretence but in reality. Betraying us. I too do not like or trust Poley, but he is useful to us because of the way he is able to pass himself off as one of the conspirators, and play the amiable companion to these misguided and foolish young men.’

‘I have not found him amiable,’ I muttered.

‘No. I do not suppose you have. He is amiable only to those he hopes to use or who will do him favours. Otherwise he can be ruthless. Vicious, even. I do not need to tell you to watch your step with him.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You do not.’

We resumed our work then and continued until late, when I made my way through the dark streets to the far side of London. Every night I was afraid. Sometimes there seemed to be footsteps following me. And the sort of people who slipped through the streets after curfew were always disreputable, and often dangerous. Phelippes had issued me with a pass to show to any constable of the Watch, if I should be stopped for being abroad after curfew, but it was no protection against cutthroats and rufflers. I often thought, as I trod those streets with my heart in my mouth, how shocked both Phelippes and Sir Francis would be if they knew it was a girl they were sending out into the streets late at night, to walk from Seething Lane all the way to Smithfield.

As I was walking, something in our conversation about Poley struck me. Phelippes said that Poley had been newly infiltrated into Babington’s household. Phelippes had once quietly pointed Babington out to me in the street near Lincoln’s Inn, a bright-eyed young man whom I recognised. A young man who was no stranger to Poley, for I had seen him on that Sabbath day, not a few weeks but many months before, talking about a bet over a horse, with Poley’s loving arm around his neck.

A few days after this conversation with Phelippes, I was doing my morning rounds in the hospital. It was a quiet day and I had taken time to visit the room where the sewing women worked. There I found Margaret Jenkins chatting eagerly to another of the women as she stitched diligently at one of the simple shifts we provide for our poor patients. Many of them arrive in rags and most are infested with lice, so their clothes must be removed and washed by the laundry maids while they are clad in these shifts. When they leave the hospital to return home, their clothes are returned, if they are fit to wear. If they are too ragged even for the poorest of the poor, we have a supply of simple clothes donated by charitable citizens, usually cast-offs from their servants, but generally better than what the patients arrive wearing.

I could see that Margaret’s needle flashed in and out as fast as any woman’s as she hemmed the shift and she seemed quite at ease amongst the other seamstresses. Dickon lay asleep in a large wicker basket, his thumb in his mouth. I had heard that he had become a pet amongst the sewing women. On my way back to the wards, I spoke to the mistress of the sewing women.

‘Yes, she does very well, Margaret Jenkins. She should really be doing better work than we can offer her here. She has shown me some of her embroidery and it is very fine.’

‘I am sure she is glad of any work you can give her, even simple stitchery. All she needs is a safe income to keep her and the child. He is no trouble, is he, the child?’

‘None at all. As yet,’ she said cautiously. ‘Once he begins to crawl, it may be another matter. Our working space is full of hazards, pins, scissors . . .’

‘I’m sure you will think of something.’ I smiled to myself, for her stern face had softened when she spoke of Dickon.

Back in the ward I changed the dressing on a sawyer’s gashed arm and decided that a woman who had been brought in with heavy bleeding after childbirth was well enough for her husband to take her home. I was just discussing with Peter what salves we needed made up for the next day when the superintendant’s assistant came into the ward.

Although St Bartholomew’s had a board of six governors and a superintendant of the hospital, these were primarily honorary offices. The governors made their regular inspections, for Barts had a reputation for its high standards. The superintendant was Sir Miles Wakefield, a man far too distinguished to take part in the day-to-day running of the hospital. The post no doubt provided him with a private income but did not demand his presence. His assistant, Master Temperley, a harassed man of fifty or so, handled the paperwork of the hospital, ordering supplies, supervising repairs to the building and overseeing the payment of staff, including my father and myself. We rarely saw him in the wards, for he lived in his office, a remote room I had never entered.

‘Ah, Master Alvarez,’ he said, rubbing his hands together as he approached. Unlike most in the hospital, he did not award me the honorary title of Doctor.

‘Yes, Master Temperley? You wanted to see me?’ I was apprehensive. Why should he seek me out like this?

‘You must come to the governors’ room at once,’ he said, turning his back on me and walking away. Clearly he expected me to follow.

My heart sank. My only direct contact with the governors had been their last visit, when Sir Jonathan had been taken ill. Was there to be some complaint about me? I followed Temperley nervously to the door of the governors’ room, where he knocked and showed me in, then withdrew.