‘Aye,’ said Peter, recounting what had happened. ‘You were right, perhaps, Kit. It was not honourably done.’

‘Was Robert Poley amongst those executed?’ I asked, keeping my voice neutral, but with a sudden flicker of hope.

‘Nay. They say that there is some doubt about his part in the Catholic conspiracy,’ Peter said. ‘He’s imprisoned in the Tower, but there’s been no word of his trial.’

Was this merely to conceal Walsingham’s use of Poley in the affair? Or had he found evidence of Poley’s treachery? Now I was no longer working at Seething Lane, I did not know what was really happening. As long as Poley was in the Tower, I felt I was safe from him. Simon, who heard the prison gossip from his old acquaintances at the Marshalsea, told me that Poley was living in the Tower in some luxury. Perhaps, I thought, he has been placed there in order to take up again his practice of spying upon Catholic prisoners. I longed to know whether, instead, he would himself be found guilty and executed. With Poley gone, my secret life would once again be safe. I could not longer be forced into work within Walsingham’s secret service by threats to reveal my identity.

The mystery of Gifford’s disappearance was solved about the time the conspirators were arrested. As he saw the jaws of the trap closing around Ballard, with whom he had been such a close companion, Gilbert Gifford had taken fright and fled to France, using Ballard’s own escape route from the Sussex fishing village. He was afraid, perhaps with good reason, that a court might judge him one of the conspirators. He was a known Catholic and had been sent to England by Thomas Morgan in Paris, with orders to aid Ballard and the others. The fact that he had been turned by Sir Francis and had worked valiantly for the State, and at great risk to himself, was known only to a handful of people. The Scottish queen and the conspirators all believed to the very end that he was loyal to them. In these circumstances there was every chance he would be caught in the trap he had helped to prepare. He was also terrified of appearing as a witness at their trials, fearing a knife in the back some dark night from one of their supporters.

Now he had written to Walsingham and Phelippes from Paris, explaining why he had fled England and saying that he was ready to work for them again as a spy in France. In many ways, Gifford suffered unfairly in all this. Both Walsingham and Phelippes needed to keep up the pretence that he was a traitor, to maintain his cover in France. Even his own father denounced him, writing to Phelippes that he wished his son had never been born. All this I learned from Mylles, when I encountered him one day near his home on my way back from the Nuñez house, where I had gone with a message from my father.

‘Well, Kit,’ Mylles said, ending the news about Gifford, ‘and when shall we see you again at Seething Lane?’

‘I am content with my hospital work.’

I smiled, for I did not want to appear discourteous. ‘There are always sick and needy to be found amongst the poor of London. Besides, now this great matter is concluded, I am sure Master Phelippes has no more need of my services.’

Mylles shook his head. ‘I would not be too sure of that. But we shall see. Times are quiet at present, certainly.’

I bade him farewell and headed towards Bishopsgate and the Theatre. My time was my own after my visit to the Nuñez house and I had a new ballad I wanted to show to Guy. I thought perhaps he might make use of it for an interlude in one of the plays. And of course it was possible Simon might be there.

In November, the Catholic Bishop of Armagh, who had been held in the Tower for twenty years, died suddenly of poison, after receiving a gift of cheese from Poley, though nothing could ever be proved against him. The news revolted me, and strengthened my fear and loathing of the man. That evening long ago at the Marshalsea again haunted my dreams. Had Poley’s own food poisoning given him the idea of administering poison in a gift of food? The man was despicable.

After the young men’s confessions had been wrung from them by torture, it was the Scottish queen’s trial. She was already judged and condemned before she was tried, and, though I know that she was guilty of conspiring in the invasion of England and the murder of our Queen, I could not forget the things I had seen by candlelight: the deciphered letters, my own forged postscript, the crude drawing of the gallows.  Once sentenced to be executed, Mary would have to wait, counting out on her rosary her days to the block, until Elizabeth could bring herself to write her name on the warrant, thereby signing away the life of another queen, and her own cousin by blood. A dangerous precedent – for where one queen may be the subject of judicial procedure, may not another?

Winter came, with the matter of the Scottish queen still unresolved, but more and more my mind turned away to other matters. The bitter weather closed in around the middle of December and the annual influx of chest infections began. Every morning beggars were found dead in the doorways of shops where they had taken shelter during the night. Old folk shook their heads, saying there were far more beggars infesting the streets now than in the days when the monasteries cared for the destitute. The cold crept through the cracks into our little house in Duck Lane. Joan complained of chilblains and I took to wearing in bed the cap I had bought in Lichfield.

A brighter note came with Christmas. Marrano or not, no one could live in London and avoid being caught up in the seasonal festivities. The saving of the country from treason and invasion engendered a mood of particular thankfulness and gaiety this Christmas. Yule logs were dragged through the streets. The air was filled with the sweet, spicy scent of Great Cakes being baked for Twelfth Night. Everywhere there were swags of greenery and mistletoe draped across the lintels of shops and houses. These could be bought from stalls in Cheapside or from street pedlars, but some folk got up parties to go out into the countryside and bring back their own.

‘You will join us, will you not, Kit?’ Simon asked me, when I had managed to slip away from the coughs and wheezes for a few hours. ‘We are setting out early tomorrow morning with a handcart. We’ll go out past the tenters' fields at Finsbury into the country beyond, where there are woods. Guy has scouted out a good spot already – plenty of evergreens and ivy, and he has found a holly tree with berries. We must go soon or someone else will find it and strip it bare.’

‘You plan to decorate your lodgings?’ I said.

‘Perhaps, if there is anything left over. But mainly we want it for the playhouse. Usually we cannot play in this cold weather, but Master Burbage is going to put on a comical piece on Twelfth Night and we will serve hot Hippocras for an extra penny, to keep people warm. So we must make the playhouse festive.’

‘I will come if I can,’ I said. ‘Could we gather enough for the hospital too? I would like to make it cheerful for the children who must spend Christmas there.’

James Burbage overheard our conversation.

‘Excellent idea!’ he cried. ‘We will decorate St Bartholomew’s as well, and put on a little merriment for the patients.’

I was not sure the governors would approve of the kind of boisterous merriment Master Burbage probably had in mind, and indeed it might be a little overwhelming for the more seriously ill patients, but I promised to enquire.

The governors proved to be more in favour of the idea than I had expected, though they laid down that the entertainment was to be restrained. A little music and perhaps a seasonal tableau or two.

‘It might cause one or two of the wealthier citizens to take note of the hospital’s needs,’ Sir Jonathan said. ‘If poor players can be generous to the hospital, why then perhaps they might dip their own hands in their pockets.’