Bartholomew Fair by Ann Swinfen

to see me. He was not a demonstrative man, but he smiled warmly and welcomed me in to the familiar office where I had spent so many hours pouring over obscure coded letters in the last three years. I looked around. There were my own table and chair. On the wall behind, the shelf where I kept my keys to the various codes, my spare quills and ink, and the seal Arthur Gregory had made for me last year.
    ‘Have you come back to work for us?’ Phelippes said. ‘You cannot have enjoyed your little adventure away from us.’
    I felt that ‘little adventure’ would not be my own description of the horrors we had endured, but perhaps the whole disaster had little reality for Phelippes, cooped up here with his documents.
    ‘Sir Francis said I should speak to you about whether you had work for me. I am no longer employed at St Bartholomew’s.’
    Once again I explained what had happened to my father. And as with Sir Francis, I did not mention where I was living at present. I had no tangible reason for this. Merely I felt that the less mention there was of Ruy Lopez at the moment, the better for all concerned, particularly me.
    ‘Well,’ Phelippes said, ‘as you see, matters are under control at the moment.’
    He tapped a neat stack of papers with the end of his quill. Indeed, the room was not sinking under its usual load of documents waiting for decipherment.
    ‘However, I am expecting another consignment  shortly,’ he went on. ‘There are one or two new stirrings amongst the Spaniards, some new despatches . . . ah . . . diverted . . . as they came through France. I expect I could use some assistance in the next week or two. How can I reach you?’
    Still reluctant to mention my address, I said, ‘Suppose I call here in a week’s time? Then perhaps you will know better what you may need.’
    ‘That will do very well. Take a holiday.’
    I grimaced. ‘I have had too much holiday since I’ve been back in London. However, I’ve a wedding to attend this month, and perhaps I’ll look in at Bartholomew Fair.’
    ‘Bartholomew Fair?’ He gave a reminiscent smile. ‘I haven’t been there since I was a young lad. My mother used to take me with my little sister. There was a woman who sold the most wonderful gilded gingerbread. I was a greedy rascal and ate mine up at once, but my sister used to treasure hers – a castle, a knight in armour, a mermaid. She could not bear to eat them, but kept them until they turned soft or the mice found them.’
    I was astonished. Thomas Phelippes had never mentioned his family to me before. It was hard to imagine him as a small boy, gobbling up his gingerbread while walking through the Fair.
    ‘Does your sister still hoard her gingerbread?’ I was emboldened to ask.
    He shook his head sadly. ‘Nay, she died of a raging fever when she was just twelve years old. We never went to Bartholomew Fair again.’
    ‘I’m so sorry, Thomas,’ I said. I seemed to hear of nothing but the death of children today.
    ‘It was many years ago.’ He sighed. ‘I never valued her as I should until it was too late. But the Fair – only a few weeks away. A happy time for cutpurses and confidence tricksters.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘but a good time, as well, for the common people to enjoy themselves before the end of summer. And important for all the cloth merchants. Their booths are so numerous they block the way into the hospital. And now that the Spanish have been chased out of the Channel, at least for a time, there will be merchants there from the Continent. It should prove profitable for the guilds of London.’
    ‘You are right. The legitimate business of the Fair was always the trade in cloth, and after the losses in the Portuguese expedition, there will be many hoping to make a good profit. And the other trades too, metalwork, jewellery.’
    ‘Leatherwork,’ I said. ‘I know a family of leatherworkers who have taken a stall for the first time. Last year, with the invasion, no one