He shrugged. ‘Where else would we go? Our fellow players are our family. Few of us have anyone outside, being a collection of waifs and strays. And your decent citizen regards us as vagabonds.’

He did not say it, but I could read it in his eyes. Like your father.

‘We live in cramped lodgings, we have no other home to go to but here. So the playhouse provides us with home and family. In the cold of winter when we cannot stage a play, we are bereft. Homeless orphans. You will see, when winter comes.’ His mouth twisted in an ironic smile. ‘And sometimes that is not metaphorical. Actors have starved to death before now in wintertime.’

I remembered that when I had first met him it had been a cold January. Was he without employment then? I had never thought to ask. He had said that his landlady had been kind, that was why he was running errands for her brother, the keeper at the Marshalsea. Perhaps she had let him stay on, rent free, until the playhouses opened again. The next time I had seen him, he had moved here, north of the river, and the weather was warm enough for audiences to sit through a play in the open air, for even the seats in the covered galleries were as exposed to the cold as the seats in a bear pit. I realised that there were aspects of his life that were as unknown to me as my life was to him. Yet it was impossible to cross that bridge between us. The thought twisted in my stomach, so that I was glad when James Burbage pounced on us and led us away to hear a new song that Guy had composed to words by Kyd.

‘Kit, I have an errand for you.’

My heart sank at Phelippes’s words. Not another mission like the one to the Fitzgerald’s house, I prayed. The more I thought about my multiple deceits and play-acting, the more uncomfortable I felt.

‘Now that our two smuggled men are in London, I have had them watched by my servant Cassie, who knows Ballard. He was able to identify the other man as Thomas Barnes.’

Barnes. I should know that name. ‘Barnes? Was he Gifford’s cousin, who acted as courier for a time?’

‘Aye. And then disappeared. It seems he managed to slip over to France, where I suspect he has had a meeting with Thomas Morgan in the Bastille. That’s a fine prison they keep in Paris, where a man wanted here for conspiracy to kill the Queen can hold court freely.’

I could not see where this was going. ‘What is this errand for me that you have in mind?’

‘I have composed a letter to the Scottish queen in Barnes’s hand, or rather to her secretary, Curll, vowing Barnes’s allegiance to her cause and making the sort of vague promises these fellows deal in. A few hints about Morgan, and some information about Babington’s plans that could be known only to his inner circle.’

‘And to us.’

‘Aye. And to us. It is written in one of their usual ciphers and I have used their code names: “Roland” for Barnes himself, “Thomas Germin” for Morgan, and “Nicholas Cornelys” for Gifford. All these details should convince Curll that it is genuine.’

‘Stirring the pot?’

He gave a sour smile. ‘Aye, stirring the pot. Our problem is that Babington is now flitting about like a demented woman. One minute he’s in his own house near the Barbican, next he’s in lodgings at Hernes Rents in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A few days later he has taken himself off to lodge with a tailor just outside Temple Bar, on Fleet Street. Why does he keep changing his lodgings, when he has a fine house of his own in London? I do not like it. Now he has not been seen for two days. He may have left London for his estate in Derbyshire, or he may have gone to Lichfield. He was there earlier this year when he wanted to spy out the land for rescuing the Scottish woman.’

‘What has this to do with the letter supposed to come from Barnes?’

‘I want them to realise they must stop shilly-shallying and make a move. I’ve had Barnes suggest to Curll that Mary should contact Babington as the best hope for her rescue. All the correspondence has been too vague and general up to now. We need a positive commitment.’

He took off his glasses and looked at me. ‘This is where you come in. Sir Francis told you that there would come a time when your youth and honest face would be useful to us. Now is the time. I want you to go to Chartley as our messenger boy and deliver this letter. You are just a simple boy, you understand, working for Barnes. All you have to do is to deliver the letter. They may want you to take an answer. You can do that, can’t you?’

It was rare of him even to ask, though I realised he was not really asking.

‘I suppose I might,’ I said, with no great enthusiasm. ‘I suppose Sir Francis will make arrangements with the hospital, as usual.’

If Phelippes heard a note of sarcasm in my voice, he did not react.

‘It will be attended to. You leave first thing in the morning. I will draw you a map. I suppose you will want that same horse again – Horace, was it called?’

‘Hector,’ I said. ‘His name is Hector. I go alone?’

‘Of course. You are just a messenger boy. I will see that you have appropriate clothes.’

‘Perhaps I could collect them now,’ I said, ‘to save time in the morning.’ I did not want to find myself obliged to dress here in Phelippes’s office.

I went home with the bundle of somewhat unsavoury clothes under my arm, to find that my father had not yet returned from the hospital. It was fortunate that, while I was away in Sussex, Dr Stevens had finally employed a new assistant and had also been able to discard his cane. Unless there was a sudden outbreak of one of the summer illnesses, my father should be able to manage without me for the few days I would be absent in Staffordshire. I had begun to worry that, if Walsingham continued to demand my services, I should lose my position at St Bartholomew’s. During the last few months almost half my time had been taken up by Sir Francis’s intelligence work. Both he and Phelippes continued to say that they believed this summer would bring their projection to fruition, but I could see no real sign of it. I could understand Phelippes’s frustration and his need to prod the conspirators into action.

I scrawled a hasty note to Simon, for I had promised to come to a rehearsal of a new play tomorrow, something I had been looking forward to, for I had never seen how Burbage worked the magic which converted a sheaf of inky pages into the world of a play in which the audience could lose itself. Having met most of the actors by now, I knew that managing them, persuading them to work together and not parade their own talents at the expense of others’, must be like herding mountain goats in a thunderstorm – all rushing off in different directions.

One of our neighbours had a son who would run errands for a ha’penny. I gave him a ha’penny to take my note to the Theatre and promised him a slice of cake when he came back. While he was gone, I tried on the clothes I was to wear into Staffordshire. They were of a fairly uniform mud colour: breeches, jerkin, thick woollen hose and an ugly knitted cap. Appropriately anonymous. However, the hose itched dreadfully in this hot weather, especially where they rubbed on the partly healed gash in my leg, so I was determined to wear a thinner pair of my own. There was a light cloak in case of rain. I studied myself in the spotted mirror I kept in my chamber. With the cap pulled well down and perhaps a dirty face, I could pass for a messenger boy. Trustworthy and discreet, but too young to be a danger to anyone. It was odd how the simple clothes made me look younger. The doublet and small ruff I normally wore added several years to my age.

I turned sideways to the mirror. It was a blessing that I was almost as flat-chested as a boy. Even at sixteen and a half I had still not developed a womanly figure. All my growing had gone into height, but the day might come when it would be difficult to pass myself off as a boy. A well-padded doublet, however, can hide much. Indeed, some of our young gallants look as round-breasted as pouter pigeons. Without a doublet I felt more vulnerable, but I could always wear the cloak, unless the weather was so hot that it would arose suspicions.