‘Perhaps I will,’ I said, and stormed off.

I did not go back to the playhouse for two days, but then it was Twelfth Night and James Burbage had pressed me to join the players. I did not want to insult him, so I went with them for a meal at their favourite inn. Simon seemed to have forgotten our quarrel and Marlowe had not returned, but I kept my distance, until Burbage reminded everyone that it was my birthday, and they all drank a toast to me. A new year for me and a new year for the country, with the threatened invasion looming ever nearer. 1588.

My resentment of Marlowe (and I confess it was touched with considerable jealousy) did not prevent my occasional visits with Harriot to Raleigh’s circle during these months. Sometimes Marlowe was there, sometimes not. Although our discussions were mostly concerned with scientific matters, affairs of the nation could not be shut outside the turret door. Ever since Drake’s daring assault on the Spanish navy at Cadiz, we had known that Spain would rebuild and retaliate. The only question was: When? In the spring – as I had feared – I was summoned to Walsingham again, to my desk in the little back room, and my work with Phelippes. Once again I spent the mornings at St Bartholomew’s and the afternoons at Seething Lane. Berden was away somewhere on another mission. From hints dropped, I suspected he had gone to meet Gilbert Gifford in Paris and perhaps provide money or other support for Henri of Navarre’s Huguenot rebels.

Rikki’s wound had healed well and once I had given him a bath and combed the tangles out of his fur, he was revealed as a light sandy brown instead of the much darker shade he had first appeared. I was able to buy scraps for him from the local butchers, using some of Walsingham’s money, which my father insisted I take.

‘If the dog saved your life,’ he said, ‘the very least we can do is feed him well.’

Rikki filled out and became the large, sturdy animal he was meant to be, and his loyalty to me was absolute and unquestioning. When I was working at the hospital, he stayed with the doorkeeper, who grew fond of the dog and often shared his own meals with him. When I worked at Seething Lane, he went with me and soon insinuated himself into Phelippes’s office. At night he slept in my chamber and – I must admit it – on the end of my bed. Joan learned to tolerate him, though not to like him, so that the dog likewise learned to keep his distance from her.

As spring drew on, and passed, the burden of deciphering and copying grew ever heavier. We knew that Spain was rebuilding her fleet, and she would not be taken by surprise again. When summer came, she would invade.

One day, Walsingham called me into his office.

‘Ah, Kit.’ He beamed at me. ‘I have received a letter from the Earl of Leicester.’

He laid his hand upon a packet lying on his desk. It looked too thick to be a letter.

‘Sir?’ I said, unable to think of anything else to say.

‘It refers to the service you did him in Amsterdam.’

I had a sharp memory of Leicester’s scornful laughter and his dismissal of me which was hardly better than a kicking.

‘Hurst persuaded him, I assume, that what I said was true.’

‘Indeed. Hurst found the bottle of poison amongst van Leyden’s possessions and took it to the Earl. They sent for an apothecary, who confirmed that it was belladonna. When van Leyden was summoned and questioned, he made some blustering reply, and offered to fetch papers to show that the belladonna was intended for medical use. They waited for him to return. By the time they realised he was not going to return, he had vanished.’

I nodded. I had guessed that something like this must have happened. The Earl had trusted van Leyden and would have given him every chance to vindicate himself. I did not think the Earl was a good judge of men.

‘As you know,’ Sir Francis continued, ‘the Earl returned to England in December.’

‘Aye, sir, I had heard. And Baron Willoughby appointed in command of the English army there, in his stead.’ I paused. ‘Not Sir John Norreys.’

I knew, as Walsingham knew, that Sir John Norreys was England’s best and most experienced soldier. In his youth he was notorious for the slaughter of Irish women and children, carried out under the orders of the Earl of Essex, father of the present Earl. Nowadays he was most famous for his military strategy. If anyone could match Parma, it was Norreys.

‘Why was Norreys not given command?’ I asked.

Walsingham shook his head. ‘Do not play the innocent with me, Kit. Norreys is but a commoner, knighted for his services.’

He let that hang in the air. He too was a commoner, knighted for his services.

‘Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby, outranks him.’

‘I had heard,’ I said cautiously, ‘that Lord Willoughby said that if he himself was sufficient for the task, then Norreys was superfluous.’

Walsingham laughed aloud, something he did not often do. ‘Best keep that to yourself. Now, the reason I called you here is this.’

He patted the packet again and I assumed a look of polite enquiry. I could not imagine what this was about.

‘The Earl arranged for a medal to be struck, when he left the Low Countries, to commemorate his service there, and his departure. His reluctant departure.’

I recalled all I had heard about the Hollanders’ increasing distrust and contempt for Leicester, but said nothing.

‘He has sent one of these medals to me, to be presented to you in recognition of your service to him.’ Walsingham unfolded a stiff sheet of paper and held out to me something wrapped in a piece of red silk. I got up from my chair and he handed it to me.

Inside the silk was a heavy medal of solid silver, about the size of a crown piece. On one side was a bust portrait of the Earl, like a Roman emperor, but adorned with a beard and a fashionable modern hat. On the other, somewhat puzzlingly, a flock of sheep to the left and one solitary sheep to the right. Sheep?

Around the Earl’s head were the words: robe. co. leic. et in belg. gvber. 1587. In other words: ‘Robert Earl of Leicester and Governor of the Low Countries 1587’. I turned it over again. The sheep on the right wasn’t a sheep. It was meant to be a dog, presumably a shepherd’s dog, looking over its shoulder at the indifferent sheep. This side bore the legend: non gregem sed ingratos invitus desero.

I looked up at Walsingham and gave him a wry look. ‘Unwillingly I leave not the flock but the ungrateful ones.’

‘Aye.’

‘The dog is meant to be the Earl?’

‘Aye.’

Neither of us made any further comment on the medal. We both knew that Leicester had been appealing to the Queen for months to be allowed to leave the Low Countries. I wrapped the medal again in its piece of silk and stowed it carefully in my doublet.

‘I am most grateful to His Lordship,’ I said gravely, ‘and will write at once to thank him for his gift.’

‘Good,’ Walsingham said. ‘I have heard that the United Provinces have struck a counter medal.’ He allowed himself a small smile.

‘That would be interesting,’ I said.

He nodded and I returned to Phelippes’s office. It would also be an interesting letter to write, if challenging.

Chapter Twelve

For months most people in England had clung stubbornly to the belief that Drake’s raid on Cadiz had crippled Spain’s navy permanently. This was the gossip on the streets, in the ale houses, among our patients. Anything else was too terrifying to confront. But at last this collective wilful blindness was swept away as rumours spread and were accepted as the truth. The tangible reality of the ships being built in Spain became common knowledge and forced the whole country – not just those at the centre of power and those of us who worked for them – to understand that the prospect of a Spanish invasion was not simply some nightmare. It was real, and it was going to happen. England was a tiny country, ruled by a woman, however much we revered her. The Queen’s navy was pitifully small, the ships themselves small, though our great captains were amongst the finest in the world. Spain possessed the largest empire on the face of the earth. Her ships were huge, their fire-power vaster than anything we could muster. The man-power she could draw upon, to sail her ships and form her army, was many times what we could assemble. In the Low Countries, Parma’s army waited – a large, disciplined and experienced force.