Текст книги "The Enterprise of England"

Автор книги: Ann Swinfen

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Finally I walked down to Eastcheap, to Jake Winterly’s shop. Bess greeted me excitedly and called to the men to come through from the workroom behind the shop.

‘I’m here just as a customer.’ I was embarrassed by all this welcome. ‘I would like a smaller satchel or a wallet to fit inside this.’ I held out the large satchel in which I regularly carried my physician’s supplies. ‘Something that would fit in the bottom. I’m afraid I can’t wait for it to be made, as I’m going away from London tomorrow.’

They looked amongst their stock and found a wallet about six inches wide and the same deep, but it was about two inches too long to fit across the bottom of my satchel.

‘It was made for an artist, to hold his brushes,’ Jake said, ‘but when it came time to pay, he had not the coin, having lost his patron to the smallpox. It has been sitting on a shelf ever since. I can soon cut it down for you.’ He examined the stitching, then turned to his wife. ‘Bess, fetch Dr Alvarez a beer and I’ll have it done while you wait.’

He measured my satchel carefully, then carried the wallet into the workroom, while Bess ran off to the nearest ale house for a flagon of beer.

As William turned away to follow Jake, I said, ‘You see that I am wearing your belt. Many have admired it and asked who made it. You are doing well, here with your sister and her husband?’

His face lit up and I noticed that it had filled out and grown rosy with health. ‘Very well, Doctor. I was a fool ever to go for a soldier, but I have learned my lesson.’

Bess was soon back with a flagon of beer and insisted on taking me upstairs to sit in the family’s quarters, which were cramped but ferociously clean and neat. There she pressed on me a meat pasty which I suspected was meant for their own supper, though I refused to eat more than half of it. By the time I had satisfied her that I could eat and drink no more, Jake arrived with the cut-down wallet. He had made careful work of it and fitted it into the bottom of my satchel where it effectively created a separate compartment. This time I insisted on paying for the wallet and the additional work, and went off satisfied that I now had exactly what I had pictured in my mind.

At home I removed everything from my satchel, even turning it upside down and shaking it, so that dust and crumbs scattered on the floor, to Joan’s annoyance. I then packed into the wallet the most essential of my medical supplies: several small pots of wound salve, a tincture of febrifuge herbs, another to stimulate the heart in case of shock or palpitations, a phial of poppy syrup, a needle and thread for stitching wounds, a scalpel and forceps, tweezers, and a small roll of cloth for bandages. I stuffed some handfuls of uncarded wool around the breakable items, for who could tell how rough the treatment both I and my belongings might receive?

Once the wallet was fitted into the bottom of my satchel, it looked like the base of the satchel itself. I did not intend to hide it from any customs searchers – though as Walsingham’s agents it was unlikely we would be searched. No, I simply did not want to draw attention to my real profession. At the same time, I would have felt uneasy to set out on a long journey without at least these few medicines.

Into the rest of the satchel I packed my clerkly supplies, together with flint and tinder in a small tin box, a change of shirt and hose, and a night shift. I would take a knapsack with a few more clothes, but if necessary I could survive with what was contained in my satchel. The neatness and compactness of my arrangements gave me a curious satisfaction, almost as if I were a warrior equipping myself for battle, a notion that had me smiling at my own absurdity.

The next morning I left at dawn to walk across the city to Seething Lane. Joan had made me up a packet of food, which I had fitted into the top of my satchel, together with my thick new scarf. As if to mock my preparations, the sun was bright behind thin clouds and the weather rather warmer than usual for November. I felt somewhat too hot in my heavy clothes, though I knew I would be glad of them on the ride to Dover.

Berden followed me up the stairs to Phelippes’s office, where he was already installed behind his desk. Sometimes I wondered whether he ever slept. There was no sign of Walsingham.

Seeing me glance around, Phelippes said, ‘Sir Francis is not well this morning and cannot leave his bed. He has sent a message to wish you both well.’

When we had been here two days before, I had noticed that Sir Francis’s skin had that waxy tint it took on when he was ill. It was never spoken of in detail, but I knew that it was some trouble with his internal organs which had afflicted him for years. I suspected some form of kidney or urinary complaint, but was too discreet ever to mention it.

Arthur Gregory came in from his small side office and handed Berden a stick of sealing wax.

‘Nicholas has his own seal for reports,’ he said, ‘as you know, Kit. And I have made one for you. We have had no chance to discuss a device, so I have given you a set of apothecary scales enclosed within the open arms of a set of mathematician’s compasses. I hope you approve.’

He handed me an engraved seal stone of agate, set in a simple silver ring. It had been threaded on to a slim silver chain, so that I could wear it round my neck instead of on my hand, if I so chose. Safer that way, I thought, and slipped the chain over my head, allowing the ring to drop down inside my shirt.

‘It is beautiful, Arthur. I never expected anything so fine!’ Indeed I had not expected a seal at all. This exquisite ring was beyond anything I could have hoped for. He must have stayed up all night making it.

He smiled shyly. ‘Here is some sealing wax for you as well.’

I tucked it under the flap of my satchel. It was understood without being spoken that some reports would be sent by official channels and properly sealed. Others, where greater secrecy was needed, would come anonymously, in code and unstamped by a seal. I added a sheaf of paper to my clerkly supplies and Berden picked up a small sketch based on the map we had studied before. I had no need of one, for I have a good visual memory for such things. Indeed, before I became too occupied between the hospital and Sir Francis’s service, Thomas Harriot and I had been studying together the Theatre of Memory devised by Giordano Bruno, wherein one may use the imagined image of a playhouse and place in it objects, names or stages in an argument. With this fixed in one’s mind, it is possible to stroll about this mental playhouse and pick up, as it were, the objects or ideas placed there. I was still a novice at the skill, but I was learning.

‘Here are your passports,’ Phelippes said. ‘And instructions for the ship’s captain at Dover. Letters of introduction to the Earl. The despatches are in two duplicate sets.’

He handed us each a bundle of letters, tied with tape.

‘I’ll wish you God speed and hope to receive your first reports in a week or ten days.’

We thanked him and I followed Berden down the stairs and round into the stable yard. Our horses were waiting for us, ready saddled. Hector greeted me with a whicker as I strapped my knapsack and satchel into my saddlebags, along with a horse blanket. Berden’s mount was a sleek chestnut, with powerful haunches, though I thought he looked a little too slim in the leg. Once mounted we rode quickly out of the stable yard and down towards the Customs House and the legal quays, where several ships were being unloaded. Soon the rough winter seas in the Channel would reduce trade to a trickle, only the most hardy of sea captains being willing to trust their ships to the mercy of the weather. It struck me that it might not be so easy in three or four weeks’ time to find a ship to bring us home.

There were the usual crowds on London Bridge, which slowed us down. I do not know why it is, but the pedestrians on the bridge always seem to creep along, unlike the bustling crowds on the streets of the city. And at this hour of the morning most of the traffic was flowing into London, opposite to the way we were riding – farmers driving carts of produce to the markets, workmen who lived south of the river coming into the city for their day’s employment, women with baskets of eggs or a chicken or two, hoping for a quick sale on the street. It was too early yet for the jugglers and other mountebanks who would lay claim to a few feet of the bridge as their stage, performing for pennies thrown into a hopeful cap, until a constable chased them away.

Once over the bridge, we threaded our way through the equally crowded streets of Southwark, where there were many businesses, like tanneries, too noisesome to be allowed within the Wall. There were traders and craftsmen, too, who found it convenient not to pay city taxes, as well as certain professions mainly confined to the south bank of the river, such as the Winchester geese, who would be tucked up warmly in their beds at this hour of the morning. Most of their trade was carried out in the evening, when men had left their work, or at night, after the shows at the bear gardens and cockpits had closed.

Finally we came clear of the last of the houses and businesses of Southwark and turned on to the road which led southeast to Kent and Sussex, the route I had followed last year with Phelippes on our way to Rye. Berden was a very different companion.

‘At last!’ he said. ‘Now we can move faster than a slug on a lettuce. Is your nag able to gallop?’

Stung, I said, ‘Shall we try him?’

With that I gave Hector his head, kicked him once, and we flew away down the road, casting up a shower of mud clods in Berden’s path. Behind me I heard his laugh and the thud of his horse breaking into a gallop. The chestnut was not a bad animal, but he was no match for Hector. After several miles I slowed Hector to a steady canter, then a trot, then finally let him amble along while we waited for Berden to catch up with us. I was a little breathless myself, my nose and cheeks burning from the cold wind.

Eventually Berden reached us, still laughing.

‘Pax!’ he said. ‘I concede the victory. I would never have thought the piebald had such speed in him.’

Hector was plodding along placidly now, like a little girl’s quiet first pony.

‘He is full of surprises,’ I said. ‘It does him good to stretch his legs from time to time. I think he grows weary when he spends too long in the stable. Your horse is not so bad, nor are you. When I have ridden with Phelippes, it has been like an old ladies’ picnic, but do not tell him I said so.’

‘I am sworn to secrecy,’ he said. ‘Shall we carry on? But perhaps not quite so fast?’

I nodded and set Hector to his beautiful smooth canter. I have never know a horse with such a lovely gait, not even my grandfather’s prize stallion. He never seemed to tire, but was happy to continue at this pace for mile after mile.

Around midday we stopped to rest the horses and let them graze on the strip of sward beside the road, while we sat under a wide-spreading oak which still bore its leaves, unlike most other trees, and ate some of our food. Berden even dropped into a doze for a while. I suppose for him this was no more than another journey like a hundred others he had made. I could not relax, for my mind raced ahead to what might happen when we reached Amsterdam. And if we travelled near the Spanish army – what then? My heart jumped in panic. I hoped that part of our mission might change.

After about an hour, Berden woke neatly from his sleep, as though his body held its own internal clock. We mounted again and carried on. The further we travelled from London, the colder it grew, and as the dull November darkness drew in scarce halfway through the afternoon, we reached Maidstone and found an inn for the night. Since we were travelling on government business, we could have demanded free lodging and dinner by showing our passes, but we did not want to draw attention to ourselves, so we paid our reckoning. I had not stopped to think, until the very moment we spoke to the innkeeper, that Berden would expect us to share a room. Scarcely on our way, and already I was in danger of discovery. I was filled with panic, wondering how I could avoid it, but I need not have worried. When we retired to a chamber up under the roof, straight after eating a plain but substantial meal, Berden simply pulled off his boots and lay down on one of the truckle beds, rolling himself in the blankets and turning away from the light of our candle. I did the same. I prised off my boots, which were still stiff from the cold, for we had not been able to find a place near the fire while we ate. I laid Simon’s cloak over the blankets for extra warmth and blew out the candle. The cloak, close to my face, carried a faint scent of Simon about it, which was somehow comforting, but before I could think any more about it, I was asleep.

The second day started much the same as the first, but before we stopped for a midday rest, it had begun to snow. Only a few scattered flakes at first, but Berden suggested that we should stop before it grew worse.

‘We won’t want to be sitting still eating in a full blown snow storm,’ he said.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘And the horses need to graze before the grass is covered.’

Angry black clouds were building up in the northwest, heavy with threat. We turned the horses on to grass and ate quickly. Berden did not sleep this time, and I took the opportunity to unpack my thick scarf and wind it around my face and neck, over the hood of my cloak. By the time we were ready to mount, the snow was already coming down more heavily and the sky had darkened almost to night.

The previous day I had found a fallen tree to use as a mounting block, for Hector was a big horse, but today I could see nothing. Berden’s horse was at least a hand and a half shorter, and he was taller than I, so he could mount easily, without a block.

Seeing me looking around, he said, ‘I’ll give you a leg up.’

I put my left foot in his cupped hands and he heaved me up till I could throw my right leg over Hector’s back.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘You should not ride a horse you cannot mount without help.’

‘A trooper I know told me they are trained to vault on to their horses from the rear, if need arises,’ I said, ‘but I am not sure Hector would like it. I could be kicked in the face for my pains.’

‘I can do it,’ he said. ‘Once we are across the sea, I’ll help you train him. You need to accustom him to being approached from behind. He seems a good-natured beast. It should not be too difficult. In this business you never know when you will need to mount in a hurry.’

We set off again without further talk and increased our pace gradually to a gallop, trying – unsuccessfully – to outrun the storm. By the time we reached Dover it was midnight black, although it cannot have been later than four of the clock. For the last hour we had been fighting our way through ever denser snow as well as the growing darkness. Our clothes and our horses were encased in a armour of frozen snow. The only relief was the fact that the wind blew from behind us and not in our faces.

Showing our passes at the city gate, we were waved through, then Berden led the way to the castle up through deserted streets already nearly a foot deep in snow. Once again our passes admitted us inside the castle wall, where flaring torches lit up a courtyard with more activity than we had seen in the whole town below.

Berden hailed a passing trooper. ‘Messengers from Sir Francis Walsingham, carrying despatches for the Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries. Where can we stable our horses?’

He looked up at us, sheltering his eyes with his hand from the blowing snow.

‘Follow me. It’s this way.’

I slid down from the saddle. My feet were so numb I could not feel the ground and my knees gave way a little as I landed. Steadying myself against Hector’s side, I flipped the reins forward over his head and followed Berden and the trooper across a slippery cobbled yard towards a run of outbuildings. Stables, storage barns, a smithy whose fire gave a welcome glow, though we could not stop to warm ourselves. The trooper struggled to draw back the bolt across the stable door and another man came to help him.

‘Already icing up,’ he said, through gritted teeth. His hands were blue with the cold. ‘I’ve never known snow in November as bad as this b’yer lady storm. Not even with us stuck here on this rock with everything the sea can throw at us.’

Between them the men managed to open the door and we led the horses inside. There was an enclosed candle lantern hanging just inside the door, and another at the far end of the stables. A narrow passageway led towards it, with stalls on either side. There would be no open candles or sconces in a stable, where the slightest spark could set all that straw and hay alight in a moment.

‘There’s two empty stalls along here,’ the trooper said. The second man had disappeared. He pulled open the half doors to two adjacent stalls. ‘There’s hay in the mangers. I’ll fetch you a couple of buckets of water.’

‘Thank you,’ Berden said.

‘Have you any bran mash?’ I asked. ‘We have ridden hard, all the way from Maidstone. Our horses need something more than hay.’

‘I’ll ask the head groom,’ he said, and went back the way we had come.

I unbuckled my saddlebags and laid them in the passageway outside the stall, then lifted off Hector’s saddle and set it on a rack beside the door. When I removed his bridle he shook his head and blew out a gusty breath of relief. It had been a hard day for him. Some life was coming back into my frozen fingers as I rubbed him down with a fistful of straw, while he inspected the hay, which was fresh and plentiful, though I hoped the trooper would find him something more sustaining. By the time I had rubbed Hector’s coat dry of melting snow and checked his hooves for lumps of ice as best I could in the dim light, the trooper was back with the water. Hector had had long enough now since his wild run and had eaten something, so I let him drink, though I moved the bucket away before he had too much.

‘The groom is making up some bran mash,’ the trooper said. ‘He’ll bring it over. I need to get back to my duties.’

‘We’re grateful to you,’ I said.

Berden looked over the partition between the stalls.

‘We need to report to your commander,’ he said, ‘once we’ve seen to the horses. And we’d be glad of a meal. It was a bitterly cold ride.’

‘Aye, come over to the keep when you’re done. Anyone can show you to the commander’s room. We eat in about an hour. You’ll hear the bell. Just follow everyone else.’

With that he was gone, but I could see the groom approaching with two more buckets. He handed them to us, gave us a smile and a nod, but said nothing before he vanished into the shadows again. Hector plunged his muzzle gratefully into the bucket while I opened one of the saddlebags and pulled out the horse blanket folded on top of my knapsack. By the time I had it buckled in place, Hector had finished the mash and was nosing about hopefully in the empty bucket, until it fell over with a clatter. There was still some hay left in the manger and I put the water bucket where he could reach it. With the blanket on, he should be warm enough, for nearly every stall was occupied and the horses generated their own warmth.

‘Ready?’ said Berden, looking in the door of my stall.

‘Aye, I’m ready.’ I picked up the empty bucket that had contained the mash in one hand and closed and latched the door to the stall with the other. I gathered up the saddlebags by their central strap and followed Berden back to the door of the stables.

‘Might as well leave the empty buckets here,’ he said.

‘Aye.’ I put mine down and together we heaved the door open. It was a struggle to bolt it, but we succeeded at last. The wind had grown even fiercer, so we lowered our heads and staggered through it to the keep. Now that I was no longer occupied with Hector, I was conscious that my cloak was sodden and the wet had soaked through the shoulders of my doublet and shirt to my very skin. My feet, no longer numb, throbbed with pain. All I wanted was dry clothes and warmth, but first we must report to the commander of the garrison here at Dover Castle.

We found the commander’s quarters without difficulty and a shouted ‘Enter’ summoned us to his presence. We went in, leaving our baggage just inside the door. The room was luxuriously furnished with thick rugs on the floor and what looked like expensive tapestries on the walls, more suited to a gentleman’s country house than a military barracks. A great fire of logs blazed in the fireplace and almost at once Berden and I began to steam like a pair of cookpots coming to the boil. I tried to edge sideways nearer to the fire, but a fierce look from the man behind the desk stopped me where I stood. We were not invited to sit.

Sir Anthony Torrington was probably in his early sixties, a man sleek with good living, an assumption borne out by the choleric shade of his countenance. His beard and hair were quite white, so he might have been older. Their pure snowy colour contrasted strikingly with the red of his skin and the fine purple veins that were beginning to break through on his nose. With no other evidence to support the idea, I was convinced that this was not a man experienced in the rigours of the battlefield.

‘Well?’ he said, looking at us as if we were some disagreeable object he had neither time nor inclination to deal with.

I left it to Berden to reply, glad to retire behind my position as the junior here.

‘Sir Anthony,’ said Berden, bowing politely and summoning, despite his evident exhaustion, a small smile. ‘My companion and I are travelling from Sir Francis Walsingham, carrying despatches to my lord Leicester in the Low Countries.’

He leaned over the desk and laid our passes in front of the commander.

‘As you will see, we are granted quarter in all English military posts. We are also required to commandeer a ship to take us across the Channel at the earliest opportunity.’

The captain cast a cursory glance at the papers and pushed them back towards Berden.

‘I daresay we can accommodate you for a brief period, but we are on high alert here and the garrison is at full strength. I will not have any of my men put to inconvenience.’

‘It is my hope,’ said Berden, ‘that we need trouble you for one night only. We would like to take ship tomorrow.’

A grunt from the commander. ‘You will need to speak to the naval commander about that, though I doubt whether any of his ships’ captains will be willing to make the crossing in the present storm.’

‘Thank you, sir. Let us hope it will have blown itself out by then.’

‘Very well.’ He waved his hand as though he were brushing away a troublesome fly, and we were dismissed, collecting our baggage and closing the door quietly behind us. I raised my eyebrows at Berden and he threw up his eyes expressively to the ceiling, but neither of us said anything.

We walked back the way we had come, to the central hall, leaving a double trail of wet footprints and drips along the stone floor. There was a fireplace here and I made for it like a bee to nectar. Berden joined me. We were both hoping that the bell to summon us to eat would ring soon.

As we stood toasting ourselves, two troopers crossed the hall and I recognised one of them.

‘Andrew!’ I called.

He stopped in his tracks, spun on his heel and came over to us, his companion following.

‘Kit? What are you doing here? And looking like something fished out of the sea?’

He took my outstretched hand and shook it warmly.

‘I wondered whether we might see you here,’ I said. ‘This is Nicholas Berden.’

The two men bowed and Andrew introduced the other trooper as Paul Standish.

‘We are on our way to the Low Countries,’ I explained, ‘carrying despatches.’

He shook his head. ‘You turn up everywhere, Kit. I never know where I will meet you, like the sprite in the fairy story. But why are you so wet? Have you been out in this storm? Why have you not been found quarters?

Berden shrugged. ‘We saw to our horses, then reported to your commander. We were just wondering where to go.’

‘Ah, the horses.’ Andrew grinned at me. ‘Hector, is it? I think you would care for that horse first if you were dying on your feet.’

‘We are not quite dying,’ I said. ‘But we are very wet. And Hector is warmly housed in your stables.’

‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘I will see you at dinner, Paul.’

We followed him up stairs and along a passage, until he threw open the door to a small corner room.

‘There is just one man in here, and he’s on duty tonight. There are two more beds.’

‘How is your head, now, Andrew?’ I asked. ‘I see your hair has grown back.’

He lifted the hair at the side of his head, revealing a small bare patch of skin. ‘Only a trace left,’ he said.

‘And the headaches?’

‘Almost gone.’

Berden looked from one to the other of us in puzzlement.

‘I was at Sluys,’ Andrew explained. ‘Kit tended me for a bad head injury at St Bartholomew’s’

‘He was shot,’ I said. ‘The bullet carved a groove along the side of his head your could put your finger in.’

‘Bad luck,’ said Berden.

‘No, good luck,’ Andrew replied. ‘The bullet passed me by and killed the man behind me.’

‘You must have been a cat in another life,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Then I have another eight close escapes yet to go.’

‘Where is the jakes?’ Berden asked. ‘I’m bursting.’

‘Follow me. What about you, Kit?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, turning aside. Another problem.

‘When you are ready, come down to the main hall and I’ll show you where we eat.’

The two of them went off and with frantic speed I changed into dry clothes, draping my wet ones over the single chair in the room. By the time Berden came back I was at the door.

‘The jakes is further along on the left, if you want it.’

I nodded. ‘I’ll see you in the hall.’

I found the jakes and to my relief it was deserted, so I seized the chance to relieve myself before hurrying back down the stairs. Although I would be glad of the protection of Berden’s company once we were abroad, travelling always in company with him would present constant difficulties.

Andrew was waiting, with a group of other troopers, standing close to the fire. He introduced them, but fatigue was beginning to catch up with me and I forgot their names as soon as I heard them. Just as Berden joined us, also wearing dry clothes, a servant walked across the hall, clanging a large hand bell. He went to the door of the keep and pulled it open, to howls of protest from the troopers. He leaned out and rang the bell, whose sound must have been muffled by the wind for anyone more than a few feet away. One man came in, blown through the door on a blast of snow which whirled across the hall like a dancing ghost before sinking to the floor and slowly melting. The servant put his shoulder to the door, helped by the newcomer, then walked away down a corridor, still ringing his bell. The soldiers turned as one and followed him, Berden and I amongst them.

The food was such as you would expect in a military garrison. Large earthenware bowls filled with a thick mutton stew. Not elegant, but filling, and welcome after our freezing journey. Plenty of coarse bread, as much as we could eat. Good beer. To finish, an apple pie nearly two feet across for every ten soldiers. The pastry was thick enough to break teeth unless it was allowed to soak a while in the juice of the apples, but once the pastry was softened it made a satisfying end to the meal. In fact I even loosened William’s leather belt a notch, to ease this unaccustomed quantity of food.

By this time I could feel sleepiness weighing me down and knew I could not stay on my feet much longer. The soldiers were getting up games of dice and cards, but they had spent their day quietly on guard duty in the castle, or drilling in the yard. They had not ridden near forty miles, most of it through a blizzard. Not that it seemed to worry Berden, who went off to join a game of cards. I understood why. Berden was known to have some skill in that quarter. Before he retired he would almost certainly have increased the weight of his purse.

I dragged myself up from the bench, where I had been sitting, almost comatose, and turned to Andrew.

‘It’s no good. If I do not go to my bed I will fall asleep on the table.’ I looked around as the soldiers made for the double doors at the end of the room. At the other end the officers had been eating at a table on a dais raised about a foot above the floor.

‘Is the officer in charge of the naval squadron up there?’ I inclined my head towards the officers, who were also preparing to leave.

‘Second from the right,’ Andrew said. ‘Sir Edward Walgrave. A different man altogether from our esteemed commander. Do you want me to introduce you?’

I shook my head. ‘Not tonight. But tomorrow we will have to ask him for a ship.’

‘He’s a reasonable man and a fine commander, but if the storm continues, he may not want to let one of his ships set sail.’

I shuddered. ‘I don’t want to go to sea in this, but we may have to.’

‘We will pray it has abated by tomorrow.’

‘Thank you, Andrew,’ I said. ‘I really must go to bed.’

‘Good night, Kit.’

I found my way back to the hall easily enough, for most of the soldiers were heading that way and gathering in groups, laughing and pulling out packs of cards and boxes of dice. A servant was walking about, filling tankards with ale. It looked as though Berden would be occupied for a long time yet.

The stairs were not far way. I plodded up them as if I were asleep already and walking in a dream. As I passed a window, firmly closed with shutters, I could hear the howling of the wind, which sounded louder than ever. I put my eye to the crack between the shutters, where a little light shone through from the flaring torches down below in the open courtyard. I could see very little except a dense cloud of whirling snow that spun in the air as if reluctant to settle. Yet it certainly would settle and the lying snow would probably be knee deep by tomorrow. What would we do if a ship could not be found to take us to the Low Countries? We could not linger here. Once in our room I pulled off my spare boots, collapsed on to the cot in the furthest corner and rolled myself up in the blankets. Before I had even straightened the pillow under my head I feel into a sleep of pure exhaustion.