Phelippes had drawn me a second map, showing the route from Lichfield to Chartley, so that I would have no need to draw attention to myself by asking the way. It looked simple enough. A road northwest out of Lichfield, through the village of Rugeley. Onwards about as far again and I would meet a crossroads. The road to the right led to Uttoxeter and Chartley Manor was a short way along this road. I would also see the ruins of Chartley Castle in the same estate.

Hector was well rested after our much shorter journey yesterday, only about forty miles. We ambled along at first and I noticed that the hedges here were thick with blackberries, though they would not be plump and ripe for some weeks yet. Hector tossed his head and turned his ears to catch my voice, as if he expected me to urge him on. Even Hector knew we could not put this off any longer. A gentle canter took us through the village of Rugeley and on to the crossroads, where I slowed Hector to a walk. The last mile or so to the house seemed to pass too quickly, and now I was there.

‘I have a message for Master Curll,’ I said to the manservant who opened the door. It might have been any gentleman’s house, if it were not for two armed retainers watching the same door, and no doubt more round the back of the house. I had tied Hector to a hitching ring in the gatepost, where he stood irritably swishing his tail at the flies that rose from the bushes.

‘Give it here then.’ His manner, to this slightly grubby messenger boy, was extremely curt.

‘I’m sorry sir.’ I gave him an urchin’s winning smile. ‘I was to give it into the gentleman’s hand myself.’

‘You’d better come in then.’

He led me briskly along a corridor toward the back of the house. I had time to note that the rooms, though perfectly comfortable, were in no way royal. The man threw open a door.

‘Master Curll, message for you.’

A harassed looking man turned from his desk and half stood, then seeing me sank back into his chair and held out his hand for the letter. I took it from the leather pouch at my belt and handed it to him. For the brief moment that our hands were joined by Phelippes’s forgery, I had a sense of some terrible destiny. There were our hands together. His hand had inscribed dozens of letters that I had deciphered and transcribed with my hand. I could now write his hand as easily as my own. And the letter passing between us, written in one of his own ciphers, was a link in a fatal chain. So sharp was my sense of horror that I nearly snatched it back again.

He ran a knife under the seal and unfolded the paper, then glanced up at me.

‘Take the boy to the kitchen, Jackson, and see that he has something to eat.’ He gave me a thin, absent-minded smile. ‘There may be an answer.’

I nodded and followed the servant out of the room.

It must have been an hour and a half before I was summoned back to Curll’s room.

‘Now, lad – what is your name?’

I was startled. I hadn’t thought to give myself a name. ‘It’s Simon, sir.’

‘Well, Simon, I want you to carry another message. Not back to your master, at least not yet, but to someone in Lichfield. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He held out a sealed letter to me. ‘This is to be taken to Sir Anthony Babington. He is staying at the White Hart in Lichfield. Can you do that?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

Did he think me an idiot? However, I put on an obliging smile and tucked the letter into my pouch.

‘Here’s a shilling for you.’ He put the coins into my hand, but I resisted the temptation to bite them to test their worth. Simon, the real Simon, would have chided me for overplaying my part.

I touched my woollen cap in a kind of salute, bowed, and allowed the same manservant to see me out. Before we reached the front door, I heard a cascade of pretty laughter from upstairs. Was that the Scottish queen? I had not seen so much as the whisk of her skirt.

Hector and I took our time returning to Lichfield. I was at a loss what to do. The letter I was carrying might be vital to Walsingham, but it must be delivered – sometime – to Babington. Without Anthony Gregory’s skills, I could not open it, copy it and reseal it. If I took it straight to London now, it would be nearly a week before it reached Babington back in Lichfield. Would that arouse their suspicions? Yet I knew I could not simply hand it over unexamined.

I decided to make discreet enquiries about Babington at the White Hart before I came to a decision about what to do with the letter. I stabled Hector at my own inn, the Swan, then took myself round to the stableyard of the White Hart, where I found an ostler forking dirty straw out of a recently emptied stall. The manure was still steaming.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ I asked, all eager boy. Perhaps I was looking for employment.

‘Gladly.’ He was a fat man and puffed over his work. With a comfortable sigh he settled himself on the mounting block and took an apple out of his pocket. He watched me work as he bit into it.

‘My master sent me to find out,’ I said, ‘whether there is a gentleman called Babington staying here. He needs to meet him. Quietly.’

It was a gamble, but I suspected that the servants of the inn would know not only the names of the guests but whether there was anything furtive about them.

‘Oh, aye, he was here. That’s his horse’s muck you’re shifting. He left about an hour ago. Said he was going back to London.’

To hide my delight at this news, I turned my back as I heaved the last of the straw on to the midden.

‘Oh, well,’ I said, shrugging by shoulders indifferently. ‘Can’t be helped. I’ll tell Master.’

I propped the pitchfork up against the trough.

‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. ‘Here’s a ha’penny for you.’

I thanked him and slipped away. Perhaps I should take up the profession of messenger boy. A shilling and a ha’penny!

It was too late to start back to London that day, but I asked to be called at dawn the next morning, and was on my way before the sun was fully up. We made good time and I decided to go further than Warwick. In the evening I found a wayside inn a few miles short of Banbury. By the following evening I was in Reading, and I reached Seething Lane on the third day while Phelippes was still at work.

When I gave him a brief account of my mission and produced the letter, his eyes gleamed and he nearly snatched it from me.

‘Arthur!’ he called, ‘we need you here.’

Arthur Gregory came through, pulling on his cap, clearly on his way home.

‘Kit has brought us gold,’ Phelippes said. ‘Lift this seal, will you, and wait while we transcribe the letter, then reseal it for us.’

Gregory took the letter from him and glanced at it briefly. ‘Curll’s seal. That is no problem.’ He carried it off to his cubbyhole.

‘Now,’ said Phelippes, rubbing his hands together. ‘Curll to Babington. We may take it that it is in fact Mary to Babington. We’ll simply copy it down in cipher then let Arthur seal it. We can decipher it tonight, so we will know the contents before you deliver it to him tomorrow. It will seem that you have come straight from Lichfield.’

‘I don’t know where he is,’ I said.

‘But we do. Back in Hernes Rents, one of his many boltholes.’

Gregory returned with the letter neatly opened and handed it to Phelippes.

‘Now, Kit, two heads to tackle the cipher, though I think it will be one of Curll’s usual ones. Babington will only know a few. I have not heard that he has a head for codes.’ He pulled a second chair up to his desk.

‘Master Phelippes,’ Gregory said hesitantly.

‘Yes, yes?’ He did not look up, busy laying out keys to Curll’s ciphers.

‘Master Alvarez has just ridden near a hundred and fifty miles from Chartley to bring you that letter and it is growing late. Do you not think he should be sent home to his bed?’