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affairs than they did.
     
    The following day I reported the gist of this conversation to Phelippes, for I well understood Ruy’s complacent rashness. It would be characteristic of him to ignore Dr Nuñez’s warning and embark on some scheme of feeding false information to Mendoza on his own, without consulting Walsingham. The result could well be the destruction of some other careful plan which Sir Francis and Phelippes were themselves carrying out.
    ‘I see,’ said Phelippes. ‘Come with me. I think we need to speak to Sir Francis.
    I followed him to Walsingham’s own office, where he greeted me courteously.
    ‘I am glad you are working with us again, Kit. You know that we value you.’
    I mumbled something in reply. I thought he was looking a little less frail than he had done at the funeral, but he was still pale and his face was drawn with fatigue.
    ‘Kit has been hearing something useful to us,’ said Phelippes.
    I repeated Ruy’s talk at dinner.
    ‘So da Vega is a traitor,’ said Sir Francis, stroking his beard. ‘That does not surprise me. Dom Antonio is very short of money, and what little he has he spends on himself instead of on his followers. That is not the action of a wise leader. It is to be expected that some of them will desert to a higher paymaster, like Medoza. I will speak to Dr Lopez. His scheme has some merits. And he is correct that we are considering an attack by Drake on Cadiz.’
    ‘Why Cadiz?’ I asked. ‘I thought the main Spanish fleet was gathering in Lisbon, despite what Dr Nuñez said last night.’
    ‘The port of Lisbon is very heavily defended with a battery of cannon,’ Walsingham said. ‘Also, it is some distance up a narrow part of the river Tejo from the coast, as I am sure you know, Kit. Therefore it is impossible to make a surprise attack. As soon as Drake started to sail up the Tejo toward the city, a galloper would be sent by land with a warning. It would soon outstrip the ships. An English fleet caught in the river would be vulnerable to ambush.’
    ‘Oh, I see.’ I had little understanding of military tactics, but I was learning. Even to my ignorant mind, this made sense. ‘And Cadiz?’
    ‘ Cadiz is the centre for provisions,’ said Phelippes. ‘It has warehouses full of supplies to feed the men as well as weaponry and gunpowder and shot. The supply vessels are being mustered in the harbour there. And it is much more open to attack by sea. Strike at Philip’s supplies and he cannot move.’
    ‘Clever.’ I said.
    Walsingham gave a tight smile. ‘Wars are won as much by clever tactics as by brute force, Kit, as you will learn. For although we may delay Philip’s planned invasion, it will come in the end.’
    His words left a chill in the air.
     
    Walsingham took up Ruy’s idea, but kept the control of it in his own hands. A very deluge of plans and schemes rained down upon Mendoza in Paris, channelled through da Vega, who believed he was passing on genuine secrets garnered from his position close to Dom Antonio. At the same time, Walsingham sent secret dispatches to the Queen’s ambassador in Paris, Sir Edward Stafford, intimating that Sir Francis Drake was to make a pre-emptive strike on Spain’s possessions in the New World, to cut off her supplies of money, goods and men.
    I did not understand this, until Phelippes explained.
    ‘Stafford is a rogue,’ he said. ‘Constantly in debt. He is an inverate gambler and falls more and more into debt with every passing week. He needs money and will sell his soul to the highest bidder. Look at this.’
    He tossed a report on to my desk. It was in one of our own ciphers, one so familiar I could read it without recourse to the key.
    ‘It is from Gilbert Gifford.’
    ‘Aye.’
    I had worked with Gifford the previous year, when we had been unravelling the plot by Babington and his fellow conspirators. Gifford had posed as a Catholic sympathiser, though he worked for Walsingham. When the conspirators were