Bartholomew Fair (32 page)

‘I have a dog, Rikki, he’s called. He was a stray, but he saved my life in the Low Countries.’

Tom looked interested. ‘What sort of a dog would he be, doctor?’

I laughed. ‘Nothing in particular. Not like this fine Irish wolfhound. Over there they use them as working dogs, to pull little carts.’

‘That’s a strange thing for a dog, that is.’

I saw I had caught his interest. ‘I need somewhere safe to leave him while I am at work in the hospital,’ I said. ‘With someone who cares for dogs. Would you be willing, Goodman Read? There’d be a groat a week in it for you, and he would be company for your lad.’

To my relief, he agreed, so from the next day Rikki accompanied me to St Thomas’s every morning. He was eager to befriend the wolfhound, but the old dog merely sniffed him and went back to sleep. Tom, however, seemed pleased with the company. I suppose he must often feel bored and lonely on his own when there was no activity about the gate.

Tom was useful in another way. I remembered my promise to Adam, and asked Tom whether he knew of anyone needing a strong honest worker in any of the businesses which continued to flourish in the old monastic grounds. Principal among them were a printing works and a stained glass foundry.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘There’s a man from the glass works got in trouble with the law and the constables hauled him away. Your man could try there.’

And Tom was right. I sent word to Adam and visited the glass works myself, to recommend him. Before the end of September, Adam had started work as a labourer. It looked hot and exhausting work to me, but the windows they produced were almost miraculous in their beauty and colour. Although the monasteries had all been destroyed half a century ago, cathedrals and parish churches still had their stained glass windows which often needed repair, and sometimes a benefactor would donate a new one. There were hundreds of parish churches in London, Westminster and Southwark, so the glass-makers were never short of work.

Altogether I soon settled in to my new hospital and my new work. Then October brought two changes.

Normally I left the house before anyone else was astir, but one morning Sara was waiting for me, her face shining.

‘You were so late home last night, Kit, that I could not tell you our news, but I wanted to see you before you left this morning.’

‘I can see from your face that it is good news,’ I said with a smile.

‘Ruy has been partially forgiven by the Privy Council for his part in organising the Portuguese expedition and – so they say – losing them so much money. He has not received his import monopoly again. That has already been awarded to someone else. But instead he has been given two estates in the Midlands from which he can draw the income. He understands that there is extensive woodland of mature timber. That will be very profitable, now that so many new ships are being built to strengthen the navy.’

I took both of her hands in mine. ‘I am so glad, Sara. It will be an end to your financial worries, after Ruy lost the monopoly. And his rich patients have not deserted him, for he is an excellent doctor. And the Queen still sponsors Anthony at Winchester. Everything is now looking fine and prosperous for the future.’

After all her kindness to me, I was relieved that everything now seemed more hopeful for her. I saw there were tears in her eyes.

‘You are a dear friend, Kit. I wish I could see you settled, and in your proper self.’

I laughed. ‘I do very well, Sara. I am a hard working but contented physician at an excellent hospital, with occasional work for Sir Francis Walsingham. I lack nothing.’ Nothing, I thought, but a family.

And the other change? Simon came home from the Low Countries.

He was waiting for me one evening by the gatehouse as I came out of St Thomas’s on my way home to Wood Street. At the sight of him I felt almost giddy with pleasure, and tried hard not to grin like a fool.

‘I am sorry to hear all your sad news, Kit,’ he said, linking his arm with mine and giving it a friendly squeeze. ‘I have been talking to Sara Lopez. Your father gone and your home gone, and the Portuguese voyage a disaster.’

I shrugged.

‘It is all behind me now.’ So much had happened since my return in the spring, I could hardly remember the person I had been then, sitting in desolation beside the Rose theatre. I did not tell him how glad I was to see him, or how the firm grip of his arm gave me a stirring of pleasure deep in my belly.

‘And Walsingham himself finding you a position at St Thomas’s!’

‘It was kind of him. It is very different from St Bartholomew’s, but I am enjoying my work there, especially with the new mothers and the children.’

‘Have I not heard that they have a special ward for the Winchester geese to give birth?’

‘There is a ward for unmarried mothers,’ I said severely, ‘but they are not all prostitutes. Some are the victims of rape. Some have been betrayed by the men who had falsely promised to marry them.’ I did not want to fall out with Simon over this, when he was so soon back in England, but I had become very protective of my women patients.

‘What becomes of the babies?’

‘Some of the mothers keep their children, however difficult it may be for them. They are not all bad women, you know. A few babies are adopted, perhaps by women who have lost a child or have not been blessed with one. The rest go to Christ’s Hospital, where they are cared for and taught a trade.’

I remember suddenly – something I too often forgot – that Simon himself had been orphaned young. He had been fortunate to gain a place at St Paul’s school, where his talent for singing and acting had been fostered.

‘Tell me about your adventures in the Low Countries,’ I said. ‘Your time there will have been very different from mine, I am sure.’

He laughed. ‘Aye. I certainly did no breaking and entering, nor finding dead bodies. We travelled about, giving public performances at inns and private ones at the houses of noblemen, but the whole tale would take too long now. We will dine together one day this week and I will tell you all.’

‘We’ll dine together, will we?’

‘Aye. Now, listen, Kit. Why do you spend so long every day crossing the City and the river between Wood Street and St Thomas’s? You should be living here in Southwark.’

‘I live free in Wood Street,’ I said.

‘But the time you must waste! There is a room for rent at my lodgings – the tenant moved out while I was away. Take it, and save the walk twice a day.’

He was persuasive, and at last I agreed to see the room. I knew I could not stay for ever with Sara, and after paying off my debt to her I still had some of Drake’s money as well as my salary from the hospital. I was now in a position to rent a room of my own, if it should prove not too expensive.

‘Why are you living in Southwark, Simon? Is Burbage’s company not still appearing at the Theatre in Shoreditch?’

‘I took the room when I was on loan to Master Henslowe at the Rose, and I find it cheap and comfortable. The walk straight across the Bridge and up Fish Street and Gracechurch to Bishopsgate is not far, not nearly as far as you have to come from Wood Street. Besides, all the best rooms in Shoreditch around the Curtain and the Theatre are taken by players who earn more than I do and can pay a higher rent.’

We walked a short way from the hospital along Bankside to a house between Winchester Palace and the bear pits. It was a large house, three storeys high and fronting on the river. Simon introduced me to the landlord, who seemed respectable, unlike many in both the City and Southwark. And he did not mind Rikki, who was on his best behaviour. The landlord led us up a well swept staircase and unlocked the door of a room at the front of the house. It was surprisingly clean and pleasant, though fairly small and very simply furnished after the luxury of the Lopez house, but its very simplicity appealed to me. Ruy’s flamboyant taste rather overpowered me. After a little wrangling, I agreed terms with the landlord, and by the end of the week Rikki and I had moved in.

The room was high up under the roof, just below the garret, but the window looked out over the river and gave me a view across the water-borne traffic to St Paul’s on the rising ground beyond. The landlord had lime-washed the walls after the last tenant had left and the fresh scent of it still lingered. The small fireplace had a trivet and a hook for a cooking pot, so I would be able to make myself simple meals. The only furniture consisted of a low cot, a table, a carved chest for my clothes, and a couple of joint stools.

I decided that as soon as I could afford it, I would buy two chairs from the street market in Southwark, where secondhand goods were sold, and then I might invite a friend to dine with me at my own table. I laughed at myself for taking such pleasure in my small domestic arrangements. I laid my few clothes and my knapsack in the chest and knocked some pegs into the wall to hang my satchel of medicines, my cloak and my physician’s gown. My two precious books I laid side by side on the table, both somewhat tattered now after their rough journeys in my knapsack: the
Testament
given to me by our old rector, David Dee, at St Bartholomew-the-Great and the privately printed copy of Sidney’s poems that Simon had given me for my seventeenth birthday. Beside them I set the porcelain bowl I had come by rather illegitimately from Drake’s kitchen. Perhaps I would fill it with pot pourri, like any proud housewife.

One evening soon after I had moved into my new lodgings, Simon met me again at the hospital gatehouse.

‘We are all meeting for a celebration dinner tonight,’ he said, ‘and you are to come too. You can bring Rikki.’

‘We?’ I said.

‘All my fellows from Burbage’s company. Some of us have been away in the Low Countries, some of the others were touring the provinces of England – even as far as Cornwall. The rest have been working in London. Now we are all back together again, and we are meeting to dine at the Lion.’

The Lion Inn was close to our lodgings, so we made our way along Bankside and found most of the other players already gathered there.

‘Can this be Kit, this fine fellow in a silk gown?’ It was Guy Bingham, musician and comic. I punched him on the shoulder.

‘It is not silk, you ass! How could I afford silk? My old gown was torn up to make bandages on the Portuguese expedition.’

He flashed me a quick look of sympathy, then patted the bench beside him.

‘We have missed you, Kit. Where have you been hiding all summer?’

‘Oh,’ I said vaguely, ‘I had some work with Walsingham. And now I have started at a new post in St Thomas’s.’

‘I know.’ It was Christopher Haigh, who played most of the romantic young leads. ‘We went looking for you there, but we could not find you.’

Richard Burbage gave me an elaborate bow and pulled a stool up to the table. Already he was gaining a reputation for his performance in dramatic roles, though he was not much older than I. His brother Cuthbert helped their father with the business of the players’ company, but Richard lived only for the stage.

Amongst the others seated around the long table there was another young man, perhaps a little older than Richard, whom I did not know. He must be new to Lord Strange’s Men. He was introduced to me simply as Will. He said very little, but I noticed that he watched and listened intently.

Then there was a roar for the inn keeper as the door swung open, and the magnificent figure of James Burbage strode in. As always he seemed to take up the space of any two normal men, not because he was large, but because he crackled with energy.

‘Aha!’ he cried, slapping me on the shoulder, so that I nearly pitched forward into the tankard of beer someone had just set down before me. ‘Our missing companion, our
medicus magnificus
, our rival to Guy on the lute! You have returned to us, Christoval Alvarez!’

‘It seems that I have, Master Burbage,’ I said, raising my rescued beer to pledge him.

Rikki settled at my feet with a sigh. He was more at home under an inn table than in the elegant surroundings of the Lopez house.

‘What can you give us to eat, Master Innkeeper?’ Burbage roared, throwing himself down on my other side and nearly knocking me into my beer again. ‘Roast unicorn? Larks’ tongues in wine? Stags hunted by moonlight, by the goddess Diana herself?’

‘Roast beef and onions, sir,’ said the inn keeper, po-faced, who looked as though he knew Burbage of old.

Simon winked at me across the table.

I leaned back, avoiding Burbage’s elbow, and stretched out my legs, careful not to disturb Rikki.

This – after all – this was my family.

Historical Note

The disaffected soldiers from the Portuguese expedition did in fact march on Bartholomew Fair in the summer of 1589, threatening to attack the fair and pay themselves by seizing goods from the stalls unless the authorities agreed to recompense them fairly for their service against Spain. They were fobbed off with false promises, driven away from the city by the armed London Trained Bands (the local militia), and four of their leaders were treacherously hanged. However, the theft of gunpowder and its use is my own addition to the story.

That same summer, Sir Francis Walsingham grew progressively more ill, but – as always – continued his demanding work, making no concessions to his physical condition.

The sources are inconsistent on the subject of the children of Sara and Ruy Lopez. They agree that five out of the nine survived. Ambrose, Anne and Anthony are documented, but some sources state that there were two other boys, others that there were two other girls. I have opted for the latter.

Richard (Dick) Whittington (1354-1423), Lord Mayor of London, established a lying-in ward for unmarried mothers at St Thomas’s Hospital in Southwark some hundred and seventy years before the time of this story. It was only one of many public works he financed to improve the lives of Londoners, particularly the poor, which were carried out both during his lifetime and through bequests in his will. Even today, nearly six hundred years later, there is a Whittington Charity, providing help to the needy.