I had not been wrong. A man lay there, huddled into the corner, where he must have been flung some days before. I crouched down and lifted his flaccid arm, although I already had my answer. He wore a simple signet ring on his hand, which his killers had not troubled to remove. I recognised the design, like the ring I wore on a chain round my neck. I slid it off the unresisting finger and dropped it down the neck of my shirt. Then panic seized me and I scuttled toward the window and escape. As I climbed on to the barrel and threw myself on my stomach over the window ledge, I could hear a key scraping in the lock on the other side of the room.
Andrew grabbed me by the back of my doublet and dragged me down on the other side. I fell into the yard, scraping the palms of my hands and jabbing my side with the hilt of my sword. As I scrambled to my feet, I could just make him out in the gloom, pushing the shutters back into place.
Without speaking, we each caught hold of an end of the bundle of muskets and were stepping over the threshold into Hans’s cottage when I remembered.
‘My cloak!’ I whispered.
I darted across to get it, and as I did so a line of light appeared between the shutters. The men had a lantern. Any minute now they might notice that I had moved the barrel.
I was back at the cottage in a moment and picked up my end of the bundle, tucking my cloak under my arm.
‘I have the lantern,’ Andrew said, barely above a breath. ‘Don’t want to leave anything to draw attention.’
Then we were out of the cottage and stumbling as fast as we could up the alleyway.
When we reached the church, Andrew stopped suddenly, so that the muskets hit me smartly in the belly.
‘Careful!’ I said. ‘That hurt.’
‘I’m sorry. But look, we can’t go through the streets of Amsterdam carrying this. I don’t want to have to stop and explain to the Watch.’
I sat down suddenly on the church steps. My legs had begun to shake and I realised I was drenched with sweat.
‘I found Mark Weber,’ I said. ‘He’s dead.’
Andrew gasped. ‘He was in there?’
‘Aye. Thrown into a corner like a pile of old rags. Dead at least a week, I’d say. Probably longer.’
He shook his head. ‘They must have found him out,’ he said soberly. ‘So you have done what you came for.’
‘Not as I had hoped. What shall we do? Go to Willoughby?’
‘From what you’ve said, he isn’t likely to receive us or take any action in the middle of the night, or even tomorrow. Those men are probably planning to ship another load out by barge during the night. Time must be running out for them. No, I think the only thing to do is for me to ride back to the camp and inform my commanding officer. He will listen, I’m sure. We can send out a squadron to round up these men before they get very far, and even if we miss them, we have these as evidence.’
He poked the canvas with his toe.
‘But what shall we do with these,’ I said, ‘if we aren’t to carry them through the streets?’
I was happy for him to make the decisions now. I felt weak and my heart was still racing.
‘We could push them in behind those pillars.’ He indicated the shallow portico between the steps and the door of the church. ‘But I think you should stay here and guard them. You have your sword, haven’t you?’
I had indeed. All it had done was to hamper me climbing in and out of the window. The thought of standing guard over illegal guns in the dark, in a foreign town, was terrifying, but what could I do? I could hardly reveal my identity to Andrew. I gulped and nodded.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘But I’m a poor swordsman, if it should come to a fight.’
‘Lie hidden and it isn’t likely to.’
We thrust the bundle of muskets into the narrow space between the pillars of the portico and the front wall of the church, then Andrew was off, running lightly down the street in the direction of the inn.
I shook out my cloak and wrapped it around me, for, in the stillness after the stealth and fear, I was suddenly cold. There was just room for me behind the pillars next to the guns, if I sat with my back braced against the wall and my knees drawn up. I was cramped and cold, still shivering from the aftermath of our break-in. Mark Weber, a decent man, so I had been told, left to rot in a corner like a dead rat – my fingers still felt the touch of that limp hand, and my nostrils were full of the stench.
If I had not managed to climb on to the barrel, if I had taken a few more moments to throw myself through the window . . . I felt bile rising in my throat and tried to swallow, but suddenly found myself vomiting. I had eaten little all day and I managed to avoid staining the precious evidence, but my throat burned with the acid of my stomach and I longed for water.
I am not sure how long I crouched there, cold and miserable, before I heard the footsteps. One person, a heavy man, was coming up the alleyway toward the church. I curled up like a hunted animal, burying my face in my knees and praying that no part of me or my dangerous charge could be seen in this dark corner. The footsteps stopped. I swear I could hear him breathing, just yards from where I was concealed, holding my own breath. The moment seemed to stretch out for ever.
‘Nee.’ The man’s voice was as clear as if he stood within arm’s reach. ‘Nee.’ Then a string of Dutch I could not understand. But I knew that ‘nee’ meant ‘no’. They must have realised someone had been in their locked building, either because the barrel was moved or one of the bundles of muskets missing. Or because the hook which secured the shutters was broken. If they had investigated further, they would have found the smashed door at the back of Hans’s cottage.
My lungs were bursting. I would have to breath soon. Another voice, further away, impatient. The man beside the church called something, then I heard him turn and make his way back down the alleyway. I let my breath out as carefully as if he were still there. Minutes passed. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of oars from the direction of the canal.
I had no idea how far away the English army camp lay, or how long it would take for Andrew to ride there, rouse an officer, rouse a squadron of soldiers, and return, but there was comfort in the fact that it was a windless night. The men on the barge would not be able to sail, they could travel no faster than they could row. Nor could they turn aside. Sooner or later, the mounted soldiers would overtake them.
They caught the men in the early hours less than ten miles from Amsterdam. When the men and barges had been secured, an armed guard posted around their storehouse, the town authorities roused from their beds and Cornelius Parker’s house raided, someone remembered me. By then I was so stiff and cramped I could barely stand, but a cheerful young trooper loaned me his horse and walked beside me back to the Prins Willem, where an exultant gathering of English and Dutch soldiers was just sitting down to a huge breakfast prepared by Marta.
‘This is Dr Christoval Alvarez,’ Andrew said, presenting me to a saturnine man with a long, clever face, ‘who discovered the treachery of this group of traitors. Kit, this is Sir John Norreys.’
I bowed deeply, to conceal my surprise. I had not expected Norreys himself to take part in the operation. He bowed in return.
‘We are in your debt, Dr Alvarez,’ he said. ‘Through your actions you have prevented a substantial shipment of arms from reaching the enemy.’
By neither Andrew nor Norreys was Sir Francis’s name mentioned, but it hung in the air between us. I was certain that Norreys knew, or had guessed, why I was in Amsterdam and on whose orders.
When Andrew and I had drawn aside, I asked, ‘What will happen to Mark’s body?’
‘They will send it back to England, to his family. A ship is leaving today and will take him, but the Dutch authorities will not give us leave to go until Parker and van Leyden have been questioned and we have given our evidence.’