Текст книги "The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez"

Автор книги: Ann Swinfen

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‘I recognised the handwriting at once, though the letters were all sealed anonymously. It was Thomas Morgan’s hand.’

‘And they were addressed to?’

‘One to the French ambassador. The other two to a man called Sir Anthony Babington.’

He let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘Babington! Excellent, Kit, excellent!’

‘Then I saddled my horse and came here,’ I said, dismissing in a few words that terrifying ride through the dark. ‘I could not take the letters, or they would have suspected something, and I could not unseal them, not having Arthur Gregory to reseal them for me.’

‘No, no, you did quite right.’

‘But the letters may be on their way again already.’

‘I’ll have them followed. It’s still early. But they will soon miss you.’

‘I left a note, saying my father was ill, as you suggested. Though they will wonder how I received word.’

‘Let them wonder. If they have no other suspicions of you.’

‘There was something else, Sir Francis.’ I found myself turning red again.

‘Yes?’

‘While we were playing music together, the girl Cecilia . . . she tried to seduce me.’

‘What?’ He burst out laughing. ‘A well brought up Catholic girl of fifteen!’

‘I think it may not have been the first time. She seemed . . . well, experienced.’

‘I apologise, Kit. I did not know your good name would be at risk!’

Little do you know, I thought.

‘At the time I believed it was her own . . . inclination. But I have wondered since whether she was put up to it.’

‘Ah. Perhaps.’ He sprang to his feet like a much younger man. ‘I will see to sending someone to watch and follow whoever carries those letters.’

At the door he paused. ‘Mistress Oldcastle has been scolding me for employing children in my nefarious work. You have done as well as any grown man, Kit.’ He went out, closing the door behind him. Relieved of having unburdened myself of everything, I sank back in my chair. In a few minutes I was asleep again.

I am not sure how long I slept the second time, but when I woke my neck was stiff, although, as for the rest, I felt better. There were voices in the rest of the house, and sounds of movement. Unsure what to do, I walked to the door and looked out. Fortunately Mistress Oldcastle was passing.

‘Good, Master Alvarez. I was coming to wake you. You are to take some refreshment with the Master before you set out.’

‘I must return your slippers,’ I said, looking at my feet.

‘Your shoes are better, though I think they will never be quite right. I will see that they are brought to you. This way.’

I followed her along a screen passage, wondering where and when I was to be setting out. She showed me into another room, about the same size as the parlour, clearly a small family dining chamber. Sir Francis and another man were already sitting at table and a manservant was laying out plates of cold meats and cheeses and bread.

‘Come, sit down, Kit.’ Sir Francis waved me to a chair opposite him. ‘Help yourself. We must be on our way shortly, now that both you and your horse are rested.’

I sat down as bidden and loaded a plate, finding I was already hungry again.

‘This is our young code-breaker, Christoval Alvarez,’ he said to the other, a grizzled man of late middle age, whose countenance had the weather-beaten look of someone whose work is out of doors. ‘Kit, this is my steward at Barn Elms, Master Goodrich. We have been settling a few estate matters before I return to London.’

I rose from my chair and bowed to the steward, who returned the bow and smiled at me. It crossed my mind that Sir Francis’s staff here in the country were very different from those who worked in his secret intelligence service in London. As different as Mistress Oldcastle’s felt slippers from a pair of tight-fitting boots.

‘We are to go to London then, sir?’ I asked.

‘Aye. I have sent one of my men off to follow the trail from Hartwell Hall, but I need to be back in London before night to arrange the interception of further letters travelling by this route. We will leave as soon as we have eaten.’

After our hasty meal, my shoes were returned to me. Although someone had worked hard on them, Mistress Oldcastle was right, they would never be respectable again. However, they were all I had with me. Our horses were brought round to the front of the house, Hector looking as fresh as if he had not galloped through the night. I loaded up my saddlebags again, and again slung my lute over my back. I was beginning to find it an irritating burden. One of the grooms gave me a leg up. Sir Francis also needed some assistance to mount. I had noticed that he seemed to be favouring his right leg and wondered whether I should proffer any medical advice, but decided it was not my place.

The steward came out to see us off.

‘What do you think of old piebald Hector, then, Master Alvarez?’ He patted the horse affectionately on the neck.

‘He’s a fine fellow,’ I said, ‘and not so old either.’

‘Oh, he knows I mean no harm. I’ve known him since he was a foal. He was bred right here at Barn Elms.’

Once we were mounted, half a dozen men trotted round the side of the house from the stableyard. They wore helmets and breastplates and carried swords. My face must have given away my surprise, for the steward lowered his voice and said, ‘Sir Francis cannot take any risks, not even between here and London. Sad times, sad times.’

‘Are we ready?’ Walsingham glanced round our company and everyone nodded. We set off.

‘We will not be returning the way you came down to Surrey,’ he said, taking his place beside me as we rode out down the lane which led from the house. ‘Best to avoid going too near Hartwell Hall. We’ll circle round to the north a short way. It won’t add a great deal to the journey.’

I had enjoyed my leisurely ride out from London a week ago. This journey felt very different, riding in the midst of a group of armed retainers. What a wonder it was that I had come to this! It was exciting, but in many ways I wished I could slip back into my old anonymous life, lived between the house in Duck Lane and the hospital. Then, the only danger was that my sex might be discovered. Now, my very life might be at risk, at any moment. It gave a different cast to the day, a different quality to the light and to the countryside through which we passed.

It was early evening by the time we reached London Bridge. The crowds had thinned and most of the shops were putting up their shutters. When we arrived at Seething Lane and rode into the stableyard, I realised I would have to part company with Hector now. After all we had endured together, I was saddened. Sir Francis did not even allow me to settle him, but urged me inside as soon as I had removed my pack from the saddlebag. I gave the horse a final rub between the ears, promising myself that I would bring him an apple next time I came to Seething Lane, and followed Sir Francis indoors.

‘I want you to repeat your story to Phelippes,’ he said as we climbed the stairs, ‘then you may go home to your father. I daresay you will be glad to go.’

I nodded. Already, back in London, dressed in a sober black doublet and stiffly starched ruff, he was once again the Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary to Her Majesty, that I had first met all those months ago.

Phelippes was still at his desk, poring over his papers with his face almost touching them.

‘Candles!’ Sir Francis called and a boy appeared with two, lighting more around the room before he left.

‘Thomas, you will ruin what little sight you have left, working in the dark like this.’

Phelippes smiled vaguely and rubbed his eyes. ‘I had not noticed it had grown so dark.’ He turned to me. ‘Well, Kit, I understand you have been having adventures down in Surrey.’ He looked at Walsingham. ‘Your man got here about an hour ago. He followed the courier all the way. The letters have gone to their destinations.’

‘Good.’ Sir Francis sat down. ‘Now, Kit, repeat everything you told me. Including,’ he gave one of those smiles so rare in London, ‘including how you were seduced by a young temptress of fifteen.’

It was so unusual for Sir Francis to tease anyone that I took it in good part and repeated my account of the week at Hartwell Hall, especially the ending of it. When it was over and Phelippes had asked one or two questions, I was sent home. I went gladly, for I was tired after what seemed an endless day. Even so, I was not too tired to notice that Phelippes, like Sir Francis, looked startled when I explained how I had seen Poley riding up to the Fitzgeralds’ house in the company of a man who might be a Catholic priest. They exchanged looks. Clearly Poley at Hartwell Hall was not part of their own plans.

The walk back to Duck Lane across London in the fading light seemed longer than ever. My wretched lute banged against my back and I had to keep shifting my pack from one hand to the other, for my arms were so tired from all the riding I had done in the last day and a half. A light shone from the kitchen window as I came up the lane. I was almost too weary to open the door, but the way my father’s face lit up as I came in made the long walk worthwhile.

‘Kit!’ He flung his arms around me. ‘I thought I would not see you for another week at least. Welcome home.’

‘Oh, I am glad to be home, Father. And glad I did not need to stay longer than a week.’

‘There is someone here to see you,’ he said, his manner suddenly a little reserved.

As I laid my lute and pack on the table, I looked where he had gestured.

‘Simon!’

Simon rose from his stool and came across the room.

‘It’s good you are back,’ he said. ‘Dark goings-on, I expect, down there in the country.’

I laughed. He made it sound like a journey to the strange new worlds where Harriot had gone on the Chesapeake adventure, instead of rich and cultivated Surrey.

‘This young man came to ask whether I had any news of you,’ Father said stiffly. ‘He arrived just a few minutes before you.’

‘This is Simon Hetherington, Father,’ I said, realising that they had never met before. ‘You remember, I told you how he fetched me to a patient in the Marshalsea, when you were not here. The man Poley.’

My father continued to look grave.

‘Simon is an actor with James Burbage’s company,’ I explained, a little dismayed by his expression, ‘appearing at the Theatre, at Bishopsgate Without.’

‘He is young for an actor.’ My father addressed me as though Simon was not in the room. I was becoming embarrassed by what seemed almost to be open hostility to Simon.

‘I am young for a doctor,’ I said. ‘He is the same age as I am.’

‘I play the women’s parts, sir.’ Simon addressed my father directly and if he was hurt by my father’s demeanour, he concealed it. But then, he was well trained. ‘It is a very respectable company and Master Burbage has the same care of the boys in the company as any good master for his apprentices.’

My father inclined his head as though he accepted this statement, but reserved judgement about actors in general. I had not thought he was prejudiced against those who earned their living in the playhouse, but it is true that many people regard actors as little more than vagabonds, even those belonging to decent licensed companies in London. Burbage’s company was under the patronage of the Earl of Leicester, and was second in rank to none but the Queen’s Men.

‘I came only to learn whether there was word of you,’ Simon said, turning towards the door. ‘Now that you are home, I won’t trouble you further.’

I could see that my father would be glad to see him go and, truth to tell, I was so tired that I ached in every bone, but I did not want to see him go like this, dismissed, as it were, by my father’s discourtesy.

‘I have a holiday from Walsingham’s work tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and the hospital will not expect me back until next week at least.’

My father made a sudden movement at that, but said nothing.

‘Have you a play tomorrow?’ I said. ‘I could come to see you.’

Simon smiled at me, his whole face full of delight. ‘I have no part tomorrow, but if you came early I could introduce you to the rest of the company and show you something of my world. If you would like that?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I should like that.’

‘Good!’ He thumped me on the shoulder. ‘Come about midday. And take care you do not let Master Burbage recruit you this time!’

He made a deep actor’s bow to us both, then he was gone.

The door had barely closed when my father said, ‘That is not a suitable friend for you, Kit. An actor! They are mountebanks, not to be trusted. And do I understand that you have already met this Burbage fellow?’

I felt a surge of resentment towards my father, something I had never experienced before.

‘Simon Hetherington is a decent young man,’ I said stiffly. ‘He was educated at St Paul’s School and could have gone to Oxford, but did not choose the academic life. He has appeared before the Queen herself. And I merely ran into Master Burbage by chance.’

‘Nevertheless, I do not think he is a suitable friend for you. You must remember how dangerous your situation is.’

Of course I knew what he meant. I must always be on my guard against forming close friendships, lest my secret be discovered. Yet now, for the first time in my life, I found my heart rising in rebellion against my father. Why should I not make friends of my own age, if I was careful? I worked hard. Indeed, since my recruitment into Sir Francis’s service, I worked doubly hard, as both physician and code-breaker. Rarely did I have any moment to myself. That evening making music with Harriot was the first time I had known any leisure for months. And now I had just returned from a frightening mission for Sir Francis, masquerading in a Catholic household which might be engaged in dangerous treason. I had braved Sir Damian’s study to search for traitors’ letters, escaped from the house and ridden through the night, all on my own. I did not think my father understood the risks I had taken.

To my shame, tears began to fill my eyes.

‘I just enjoy his company, Father. He is, truly, a decent, well brought-up young man. Not a mountebank at all. You should come to the play one day. The theatre is changing. It’s no longer crude entertainment for the rougher element of London streets. There are men like Thomas Kyd who are writing wonderful plays, plays written in beautiful poetry, serious plays.’

He looked unconvinced, but he must have seen my tears, for his voice softened.

‘Very well, Kit. You may occasionally meet this Simon Hetherington, but you must be careful. If he should ever suspect . . . you do understand just how serious it would be? You would be in his power. If he reported you to the authorities, you could be burned for heresy.’

‘I understand,’ I said. I did not say that one man, a treacherous and possibly treasonous man, already knew that I was a girl and would betray me whenever it suited him. And in my heart I knew that for the first time in my life I would disobey my father. I would see Simon whenever I chose.

I slept late the next morning, exhausted from lack of sleep and the fears of the previous day, so that when I woke at last my father had gone to the hospital and Joan to the market. The weather had turned warm and spring-like again after the storm. Bright sunlight flooded in through my window when I threw back the shutters. A sparrow flew past, its beak loaded with nesting materials, while from the direction of the river there was a sudden clamour of gulls which heralded the dumping of waste overboard from one of the ships in the docks.

My heart lifted in sudden happiness. Here I was with a whole day to myself! I could use it how I chose, a luxury that was almost unknown to me. I dressed slowly in clean clothes and a pair of respectable shoes, and took time to comb my hair which curled tightly now that I wore it cut short like a boy’s. It was tangled and it took me time to tug the comb through the knots. The sounds of London going about its daily business floated up from the street – the lowing of a herd of cattle being driven to Smithfield, the clatter of carts bumping over the ruts in the lane, hawkers shouting their wares. When I heard the milkmaid calling, I ran downstairs for the jug and out into the street.

‘Morning, Master Kit,’ she said, filling my jug from the barrel carried on the back of her donkey.’

‘Morning, Jess. Isn’t it a lovely day?’ I sounded as obsessed with weather as the English.

‘It is that. Not working at the hospital today?’

‘I have a holiday.’ I smiled, feeling that same quivering lift to my heart as I gave her the farthing for the milk.

She grinned back. ‘You’re lucky, then. No holiday for me.’

‘Well, it’s rare for me. I shall make the most of it.’

‘You do that.’ She chirruped to the donkey and went on her way, singing out her cry of ‘Milk! Sweet milk! Come and buy your sweet milk!’

I went back inside and decided I would cook myself porridge and serve it with milk while it was still fresh. Even on the stone shelf in the pantry it would soon go sour in the heat of the day. It was fresh now, that was why we always bought from Jess, whose father’s farm was just north of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She rose to milk just after dawn and brought the milk into the city straight afterwards, And she carried it in a covered barrel, unlike some of the sluttish milkmaids who used open pails that were always crawling with flies.

The porridge was good, almost as good as the Barn Elms porridge. It was one of the few things I knew how to cook. The milk was sweet and creamy. I filled up with bread and hard cheese. It was yesterday’s bread, a little stale, but Joan had clearly not been to the baker yet today. She did not bake her own bread, for we had no bread oven. When the fireplace had been added to the house many years ago, replacing the central hearth and smoke hole, it seemed the hospital authorities had not thought it worthwhile going to the expenses of building a bread oven, when just round the corner there was a row of pie shops, which also baked bread for the parish.

My meal was part breakfast, part midday dinner. I would not wait for my father to come home to eat, in case he tried to dissuade me from going to the theatre. That hostility of his the night before had taken me by surprise. We had occasionally attended the theatre in Coimbra, but then life had been much easier in those days, we had mixed with other people. There had been not only plays but concerts and some parties – rather polite, sober parties amongst the families of my father’s university colleagues. When I thought about it, I realised that he had never been to a play or a concert or a party here in London. It was as though he had withdrawn into his shell, like snail touching salt. Our home, the hospital, the meetings for worship at the Nuñez house, these made up his world. A few times we had been invited to dinner with the Lopez or Nuñez family, but he was often reluctant to go, since we could hardly entertain them in Duck Lane.

I had been to the play perhaps three times in our four years in London, before Simon invited me to The Famous Victories of Henry V. But never with my father. Sara Lopez, taking pity on me, I suppose, had sometimes invited me to join their family party at the theatre. I preferred it when her husband Ruy did not join us, for he had a way of commented loudly during the play, comparing it unfavourably to the plays he had attended in Portugal. He so often made these disparaging comparisons that I had once asked my father why Ruy Lopez had moved to England. He had smiled grimly.

‘Like us, he had no choice.’

Today, however, I was on my own, free to visit the theatre and even go behind the stage into those mysterious dim caverns I had glimpsed briefly before. And I would meet the members of the company who worked such magic upon the stage. I wondered whether Thomas Kyd would be there. And surely the great actor and manager James Burbage. And there were the others Simon had mentioned when he pointed out their lodgings – the Burbage sons, Richard and Cuthbert. The great comic actor Tarleton I knew had joined the Queen’s Men.

I threw a light cloak round my shoulders and stepped out into the street. The very houses, the crumbling, low-built houses of Duck Lane, appeared to be smiling at me. All the way across the city, the citizens seemed to share in my own holiday mood. Perhaps the reason the English talk so much about the weather is because it is so changeable, and with the changes, their mood changes too. In Portugal we knew that once summer came we could be assured of almost continual sunshine until autumn closed in. There would be sudden storms of rain, and they were always welcome, for without rain the crops would wither and perish, but the rain would soon pass and the exhausting heat would return.

Here in England I had grown to love the shifting pattern of the days, sunshine to showers, showers to sparkle of raindrops glistening on every surface under a shy sun, and a rainbow in the sky. Oh, the skies! I could have watched the cloud patterns endlessly. Sometimes the skies were as dappled as the back of a trout swimming in a clear stream. Sometimes the clouds piled up like the ramparts of some ancient castellated city. Sometimes the colour of the sky was the soft blue of a newborn baby’s eyes, but within hours – or minutes – would mutate into pigeon grey, then darken almost to night black. And the sunsets. I have never seen such sunsets. Looking up river, especially in autumn, I would see gold and crimson and fiery orange draped across the sky like a monarch’s robes, but more splendid than any earthly king’s.

And as the seasons and the sky, the frost and snow, the sun and rain played out a kind of dance, so our very minds took on the cast of the weather, mine as much as anyone’s. When the long winter nights closed in and the sky was pregnant with rain or snow, I could feel it pressing down on my head like a tangible weight. But now, with the spring sunshine lighting up a city washed clean by the storm, not only the world but everyone I passed seemed infected with gaiety. Apprentices whistled as they went about their masters’ business. The street hawkers cried their wares in cheerful voices. Strangers smiled at each other in the street. I smiled myself.

I was still smiling when I reached the Theatre. The doorman recognised me this time, and even he smiled, though for the most part he had a forbidding expression, etched on his face by years of trying to stop young rascals from slipping into the playhouse without paying.

‘Master Alvarez, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Simon said you was to go through. You know the way.’

I climbed up the steps and crossed the stage to the left hand entrance again. When I lifted the curtain to pass through, I looked around carefully for the throne I had nearly fallen over before, but it was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the stack of spears. Instead there was a sort of oriental litter, propped up on its end. Where the rich drapes fell away I could see the rough wood underneath. Looking more closely I realised that what I had taken to be the embroidered cloth of the drapes was cheap cloth painted to look like embroidery. Here and there coloured glass gems had been glued on. The light flowing in from my raised curtain made them gleam and I could see that from the audience the whole litter would look fit for some eastern Sultan.

Beyond the litter there was something that looked suspiciously like an executioner’s block, with the axe casually leaning against it. The sides of the block appeared to be smeared with blood. Red paint, no doubt.

‘Kit, there you are!’ Simon emerged from the shadows, carrying a bundle of costumes. ‘Come with me. Can you pick up that turban I’ve dropped?’

I did as he asked. I thought a turban was a long piece of cloth wound by the wearer directly on to his head. When I was a child in Coimbra, there were still a few Moors living there who wore the turban. However, I found that the turban I picked up was already wound into shape and firmly stitched in place. I asked Simon about it as I followed him deeper into the area behind the stage and through another curtain.

‘Do you know how long it takes to put on a turban?’ he said. ‘In the company we often have to play many parts. In the first act I might be the sweet daughter of the wicked Sultan of Araby, but in the second I am a soldier in his bodyguard – no lines, just standing there holding a pennant and looking menacing. I have to discard my girl’s wig and my skirts, wipe the make-up off my face, don a soldier’s uniform and sword, and put on a turban. A turban ready to wear, because in another minute I have to be on stage.’

‘I see.’ It sounded very complicated.

‘And then, of course, I may need to be the sweet maiden in the following act, falling on her knees before her wicked father, begging him to spare the life of the hero, who is her secret lover, so they can escape from the Sultan’s palace and sail away to a new life.’

‘Oh. I thought you would fly off on a magic carpet. Through the air.’

He stopped and looked at me seriously. ‘I don’t think that has ever been done. A faraway look glazed his eyes. ‘But you could do it, with wires.’ He pointed overhead, where I could see men moving about on timbers which formed a canopy over the rear part of the stage area. Then he gave me a sharp look. ‘You were joking.’

‘Only a little,’ I said.

‘Still, it could be done. Shall I suggest it to Master Burbage?’

‘Better not. I don’t want to be held responsible when they have to pick the pieces of you off the stage.’

‘I won’t, then. Oh, it’s good to have you back, Kit!’ He began laying the costumes carefully in a large wicker clothes hamper, making sure they were not creased. When I commented on this, he said, ‘I’d have my ears boxed by the mistress of the wardrobe if they had to be ironed again.’

‘Surely you are too old and too grand for that.’ I handed him the turban, which he fixed into its own box.

‘You haven’t seen the mistress of the wardrobe. Twice the size of Master Burbage, with a fist like a bare-knuckle boxer.’

‘Yet she made these?’ I gestured toward the costumes, which – for all their fakery – were exquisite.

‘She did. You cannot judge anyone in the theatre by their outward appearance, though outward appearance can be a help, if you want to play heroes, or comics.’

‘Or dainty maidens?’

‘Or dainty maidens indeed.’

I laughed.

‘And how well did your own play-acting succeed?’ He closed the hamper and leaned back against it with his arms crossed. ‘I feared you would be absent for three weeks. Had I known you would be back in a week, I should not have troubled your father.’

It was there, unspoken between us.

‘My play-acting went well, I thank you. I was a very point-devise tutor. I was even pursued by the extremely beautiful daughter of the house.’ I could joke about it, now that it was behind me.

‘Were you? Lucky fellow! Extremely beautiful, did you say? And of an amorous turn of mind. Do you think she would like a personable young actor?’

‘Oh, a young actor, however personable, would be far beneath her notice. Nothing less than a belted Earl for Mistress Cecilia Fitzgerald.’

‘New money,’ he said shrewdly.

‘Certainly. And still climbing. So I fear that she is also not for the likes of a young doctor, however distinguished.’ I gestured toward the box which held the turban. ‘This play about the Sultan, is it truly as dreadful as you make out?’

‘Quite as dreadful. It’s an ancient thing, but the groundlings like it and we could all play it half asleep and with our eyes shut. It brings in the pennies, until people accept what we are trying to do with the new plays.’

‘I hope you do not play the Sultan piece too often. I have been telling my father that the playhouses are changing, that the new plays are far finer.’

It was an apology and he understood that, but before he could answer, a small man appeared out of the shadows, carrying a lute.

‘So the new plays are finer, are they?’ he said. ‘But will there still be room for comedy? That’s what I want to know.’

‘This is Guy, Kit. Comic actor and the finest lute player outside the court.’

‘I am honoured,’ I said, with a bow, ‘to meet the finest lute player outside the court.’

‘And you must be the sawbones Simon is always taking about.’

‘Oh no, I am not a surgeon, I am a physician. We leave the butchery to other men.’ So Simon was always talking about me. I felt a small thrill of pleasure.

‘Kit also plays the lute,’ Simon said with a grin. ‘He has just been tutoring the very beautiful daughter of a very rich man in a very grand house in Surrey.’

I think he did not like Guy mentioning that he often spoke of me. For myself, I would have preferred him not to have mentioned what I had been doing in Surrey. I frowned slightly and shook my head, but the other actor ignored what he said.

‘Let me hear you play, then, Kit,’ he said, holding out his lute to me.

I held up my hands in protest. ‘I am not a professional player like you. I play only for my own pleasure.’

‘Come, give us a melody,’ Simon said.

I saw that they would not leave off until I obliged, so I took the lute and perched on the edge of the costume basket. Running my fingers over the strings, I found that only one needed tuning and adjusted it, wondering whether Guy had loosened it to test me. What should I play for them? Then I remembered the haunting tune Harriot had brought us the other evening. Settling the belly of the lute on my knees, I began to play.

First I played the simple melody, but as it came to an end I wove it into an extemporised variation and then another, forgetting where I was and losing myself in the music until I brought the richly plaited melodies together and down into the original simple, heart-breaking fall.

When I looked up, I saw that quite a crowd had gathered silently around us. As I handed the lute back to Guy, they broke into spontaneous applause.

‘You may not be a professional musician, Christoval Alvarez,’ he said, ‘but you play like one. Where did you find that melody?’

‘Master Harriot brought it to me, but he had heard it at Raleigh’s house. It is by John Dowland.’