The other man stood. Christopher made no attempt to introduce him. ‘I must go,’ the man said. ‘The king’s speeches, then.’ He had an accent I couldn’t place.
Christopher laid his hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Good luck with that. And I’ll look at the other bits.’ He watched the man leave, which he did with a nod of acknowledgement to me, then gestured that we should sit.
‘You are required,’ I told him. ‘Mr Secretary holds a council of war tomorrow at Barn Elms. I shall take a boat from Whitehall Palace. You can share it.’
‘Why? What for?’
‘We are closing the net on them. This end as well as at Chartley.’
‘Who else will be there?’
I told him, adding, ‘I don’t think you’ll find your old friend Frizer a problem. He will do as he’s told.’
‘Who is Skeres? A coney-catcher like the others?’
‘I’ve not met him but Mr Secretary calls on him now and again for small jobs.’
‘Like me?’
‘I doubt he’s like you. And nor would I call Poley a coney-catcher. He’s a cut or two above. He wouldn’t bother with petty frauds on naive men innocent of London, though he may have started like that. He plays for higher stakes, political matters, Court affairs. But you don’t know him either, do you?’
‘I met Master Poley in Paris.’
‘You never told me.’
‘You never asked. He was in high humour, having got himself taken on by Thomas Morgan, as you must know.’
‘He told you that?’ We tried to avoid our spies knowing each other as spies, unless it was necessary for them to work together. The more they knew the more they could tell if caught and racked. But I had long suspected – and Mr Secretary, I believe, simply assumed – that they discovered and gossiped with each other more than we knew. ‘What did you think of Poley?’
Christopher lifted his gaze to the outsized hunting scenery. When in thought his features softened into a vacancy, an abstraction. ‘Had he been better born he would have been a courtier, a good one, proud, bold, ready, resolute, who would on occasion stab.’
‘You dislike him?’
‘Not him, exactly. More myself. I don’t much like that of myself I see in him.’
‘You see yourself as a courtier, then? One who would stab?’
‘Half and half, no more. But that’s enough, don’t you think? It will serve, it will suffice? I think he sees something of himself in me, too, and is not sure whether to like it. He doesn’t trust me.’
‘Nor should you him. What is it you think he dislikes in you?’
‘Cynicism, Machiavellism, unbelief. I articulate what he embodies, though he knows it not. But he senses it and it makes him uneasy.’
‘And you would stab?’
‘Of course. Wouldn’t you? Isn’t that your business? Our business?’
I am somewhat literal-minded and it was not always easy for me to know whether Christopher meant what he said or was teasing for a response. I think I answered that I would not stab unless in fear of my life, always preferring that others did that sort of work for me. If it had to be done.
‘Which is as bad as doing it yourself. But such honesty does you credit. I shall speak up for you on Judgement Day. Assuming I am permitted a voice.’
The journey upriver to Barn Elms the following morning took longer than expected because the tide was against us, but our boatman was strong and, what was more, quiet. Christopher and I spoke nothing of our business, of course, but listened to the slap of oars and watched the sun glinting on ripples. We talked a little about plays. He predicted there would be more theatres and more work for play-makers and I recall that he and Watson burned candles in their lodgings at a great rate. Their landlady willingly supplied them, but at a cost.
‘I spoke to her,’ I said. ‘A pleasant woman, a pleasing manner.’
‘Mary Turner, a good woman. A widow of two years now.’
‘And children?’
‘No. Her husband was a printer. He left her comfortable. Comely, too, don’t you think?’
I felt awkward about discussing her. Not because I didn’t want to – I wanted to talk about her all the time, would happily have accosted strangers with descriptions of her, her very name filled my head with images quite unlike the churchly or saintly reflections it should have engendered. No, my awkwardness was because I recalled the softness of her tone when she mentioned Christopher and I could not believe that he was not at least as attracted to her as I was. And, of course, he could see her daily, or nightly.
Christopher had an aggressive sensitivity which missed little and withheld from little. He saw my awkwardness. ‘Stricken by Eros’s arrow, are you, Thomas?’
I protested that I had merely remarked her pleasantness and thought she must make a good landlady.
He laughed at that. ‘Snared by a wench’s glance, eh? A liquid eye and a soft word does it for you? You are a slave to love now. Eros’s arrow is barbed, I warn you. There’s no plucking it out without pain.’
My protests did not avail. In fact, they provoked further teasing which, to his credit, he ended when he saw I was baffled as to how to respond. ‘No, but it is time you took a wife,’ he added, sounding more serious. ‘You’ve said it yourself before. Marriage would suit you. You are of the uxorious tribe.’
‘And you are not?’ I had asked him before, of course, but got no clear answer.
He looked across the rippling water. ‘Too much to do. Francis Bacon often says that a man who hath wife and children taken hath hostages to fortune given.’
It was a great relief to me that he had no designs on Mary Turner. If his mind were set
