The other room was for sleeping, and contained only a narrow wooden bed, a wash-stand, a chest for clothes and a pallet on the floor, where I supposed Gifford stayed when he was in town. I had left my bags in the passageway; no one had yet made any mention of where I was expected to sleep.
‘What a small world it is,’ I said, smiling. Gifford’s face darkened.
‘I never trusted you. I was picked up the minute I set foot ashore in Rye. I suppose it was you sent warning ahead of me?’
I laughed. ‘Master Gifford – you confided your most secret plans to a woman in order to impress her. That is always a mistake.’
He nodded, understanding. ‘Of course. Mary Gifford. My so-called relative in Paris. I suppose she was spying for him too?’ He jerked his head towards Phelippes, who continued to sort his papers into piles on the desk.
‘In fact, the girl was not in our employ, though I wish she had been,’ he remarked, without looking up. ‘She delivered better intelligence than half the men we have in Paris.’
I glanced at him; I wanted to steer Phelippes away from the subject of Mary Gifford, the young woman who had worked as a governess in the English household where Gilbert had lodged in Paris, lest he take too much interest in her abilities, and her history.
‘You should be grateful to her, Gilbert,’ I said. ‘From what I hear, your cargo was not well concealed. If your arrival had not been expected you would have been caught anyway, and you would have joined your father in prison. As it is, you both enjoy your liberty, and now you have useful employment.’
‘So I should consider myself in your debt?’ He tilted his chin and fixed me with a challenging look.
‘You should not consider me the architect of your misfortune, at any rate,’ I said, stretching out the ache in my back. ‘What was your life in Paris? Moping about bemoaning the loss of your family’s estate and waiting for a scrap of attention from Paget, who cared more about the letters you carried than he ever did about your safety. Now you are writing yourself into history. Think on that.’
He squinted as he attempted to work out if I was serious. ‘Not the way I wanted,’ he said, more soberly. ‘All I do is ride back and forth to Staffordshire on filthy roads, for a deception I am ashamed to—’ He broke off, casting a glance at our host and evidently thinking better of his words.
‘If you must keep talking, you will have to go next door,’ Phelippes said. ‘I have work to do.’
‘It’s the middle of the night, man,’ I said. ‘Are you not half-mad with tiredness? I know I am.’ It seemed weeks since I had set out from Rye, though it was only first light the day before.
Phelippes raised his head, surprised. ‘No. If you want to sleep, take my bed.’
‘Where will you sleep?’
‘He never sleeps,’ Gifford said, with a touch of bitterness. I guessed that part of the reason for his accommodation here was so that Phelippes could report back on his movements. I wondered if I would be subject to the same scrutiny. I believed Walsingham had faith in me, but perhaps he never fully trusted anyone. I would not either, in his position.
Gifford and I moved through to the bedchamber, where he flopped on the pallet without undressing, hands folded across his stomach, staring at the ceiling.
‘I suppose you were in love with her too,’ he said, after a while, as I took off my doublet and laid it at the foot of Phelippes’s bed. ‘Mary Gifford, I mean. If that was even her real name.’
I sat down to pull off my boots. ‘No, I was not in love with her.’ This was a lie, but there was no need for him to know that. Her real name was Sophia Underhill, but that was not his concern either.
‘I thought I was,’ Gifford said, with unexpected candour. ‘Now I know it was not love – only a mere shadow of the real thing.’ A dreamy smile played at the corners of his mouth. I set my boots down and leaned forward to look at him.
‘You have found the real thing, then?’ I asked, keeping my voice casual.
His eyes darted sideways at me and his expression hardened. ‘If I had, I would not speak of it to you – you would run straight to tell Walsingham for the chink of a couple of groats in your purse.’
‘Why, is it something Walsingham should know of?’
A deep colour spread instantly over the boy’s face, displacing even the flush of drink. ‘No. I mean to say – I have nothing to hide from him. But some things I may keep private. He is not master of my affections, though he may have bought my service.’
‘Well, whoever has command of your heart now must be a rare beauty, if she has displaced the lovely Mary Gifford in your eyes.’ I leaned back on the bed, not looking at him, hoping an offhand manner would invite further confidences.
He met this with a pointed silence, continuing to stare at the ceiling. I turned my back to him and began to unlace my shirt, feigning a lack of interest.
‘Her beauty is not so cheap as shows only in a glass,’ he burst out, eventually. ‘It also shines in her nobility of birth and character. Though, I confess, she has been blessed by nature too.’
I smiled to myself; in my experience, a young man will always find a way to boast of his conquests, even when he knows better.
‘She is a lady, then?’
‘The granddaughter of an earl, and serves the Queen herself in her bedchamber. Mary Gifford is nothing but a governess. I am not convinced we are even related. My father never heard of any branch of the family from Somerset.’
‘How did you meet this noble beauty?’ I asked, to prevent any further speculation on Mary Gifford’s identity. ‘The Queen keeps her women close, I thought?’
He seemed on the point of answering, but somewhere behind the haze of drink and infatuation, a note of caution sounded; I saw his eyes sharpen. ‘I will think twice before I tell you anything, Giordano Bruno. Paget warned me about you. I know you for a heretic.’
‘Well, my soul is no business of yours, Gifford, but we serve the same earthly master now, so we will have to get along a little better. Give you good night.’ I leaned over and blew out the candle. If I were to agree to Walsingham’s absurd scheme – and I had not yet given any undertaking, though he seemed to have assumed my willingness – there would be time enough to win Gifford over. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and allowed the exhaustion of the past two days to fall on me. The creak of boards carried from the adjoining room as Phelippes moved around, about his secret work of symbols and ciphers, saving the realm. I was about to tumble over the edge of sleep when Gifford shifted on his pallet and yawned.
‘She came back to London, you know. Mary Gifford, I mean.’
I pushed myself upright instantly. ‘What? When?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘What is it to you? I thought you were not in love with her.’
I ignored this. ‘She spoke to me of returning to London, but in a year or so, she said. Do you know different?’
He stretched out his limbs, enjoying this small power. ‘Perhaps she grew impatient. Before I left at Christmas,
