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the walled nursery garden. There was no one there. He rose to his feet and brushed the earth from his hands and then he went to the potting shed where he had left his winter cloak. He carried it over his arm, as if he were headed for the hall for a bite to eat, but turned instead toward the river.
    There was a wherry boat waiting at the lord’s private jetty but it was otherwise deserted.
    “For London?” the man asked without much interest, “In a hurry?”
    “Yes,” John said shortly.
    He stepped into the little boat and he thought the lurch it made at his weight was what caused the sudden pounding of his heart. He sat in the prow of the boat so the man might not have the chance to look in his face, and he wrapped himself warm in his cape and pulled down his hat over his face. He was sure that the sunlight along the river was pointing a rippling finger toward him so that every fisherman and riverside walker, peddler, and beggar took particular note of him as the boat went swiftly downstream.
    The river flowed fast down to London, and the tide was on the ebb. They did the journey quicker than John had hoped and when the boat nudged against the Whitehall steps and John leaped ashore it was only dusk. He blamed his sense of sickness on the movement of the boat. He did not want to recognize his fear.
    No one paid any attention to the workingman with his hat pulled down over his eyes and his cape up to his ears. There were hundreds, thousands of men like him, making their way across London for their suppers. John knew the way to Lord Monteagle’s house and slipped from shadow to shadow, making little sound on the dirt and mud of the streets.
    Lord Monteagle’s house was lit by double burning torches in the sconces outside. The front door stood wide open and his men, hangers-on, friends and beggars passed in and out without challenge. His lordship was dining at the top table at the head of the hall; there was a continual press of people all around him, friends of his household, servants, retainers and, toward the back of the hall, supplicants and common people who had come in for the amusement of watching the lord at his dinner. John hung back and surveyed the scene.
    As he waited and watched, a man touched his shoulder and went to hurry past him. John recognized one of Lord Monteagle’s servants, a man called Thomas, hurrying to dinner.
    The note was in John’s hand, the direction clear. “A moment,” he said, and pressed it into the man’s hand. “For your master. For the love of Mary.”
    He knew what a potent spell that name would weave. The man took it and glanced at him, but John was already turning away and diving into an alley out of sight. He took a moment and then peered cautiously out.
    Thomas Ward had entered the big double doors and was making his way to the head of the table. John saw him lean to whisper in his master’s ear and hand him the note. The job was done. John stepped out into the street again and strolled onward, careful not to hurry, resisting the temptation to run. He strolled as if he were a workingman on his way to an inn, hungry for his supper. As he turned the corner and there was no shout of alarm, and no running footsteps behind him, he allowed his pace to quicken — as fast as a man who knows that he should be home by a certain time. One more corner and John allowed himself to run, a gentle jogging run, as a man might do when he was late for an appointment and hoping to make up for the delay. He kept a sharp watch out among the dirt and cobblestones so that he did not slip and fall, and he kept a brisk pace until he was ten, fifteen minutes away from Lord Monteagle’s, out of breath, but safe.
    He took his dinner at an inn by the river and then found he was too weary to face the journey back to Theobalds. He headed instead for his lord’s house near Whitehall, where Tradescant might always command a bed. He shared an attic room with two other men, saying that he had been sent to