The inns were rife with rebel talk. Essex could do no wrong. Hundreds of men from Ireland had returned to London, were swaggering and fighting in its streets and taverns, all the time professing their loyalty for the Earl, whipping up the already frothing sense of resentment and fear. Gresham had known nothing like it before, this unreasoning sense of anger centred on Essex and the perceived wrong done to him.
No call from Cecil. No call from the Queen. No ghosts from his past rising up to haunt him. Nothing to do, except try to stop Granville College, Cambridge, from self-destructing, manage his finances and do the minimum to keep in at Court. The Christmas festivities were dire, the light gone from them, the Queen surly and flat. Gresham was haunted by the image of the gilded Earl, once the life and soul of these celebrations, banished with a handful of servants to a cold house on the Strand. So near and yet so very far away. What must it be like for the life and soul of the party suddenly to find himself banned from it, reduced to imagining the pleasures of others more privileged, left with only the anger and resentment of his servants and so-called friends?
Gresham felt the black waves of depression starting to advance again on the shifting sands of his brain.
'You're too used to being at the centre of things, my Lord,' said Jane at supper. 'You only know how to run at full speed, and you falter if you're asked to walk.'
He had invited Jane to their first supper together in The House on his return from Ireland. She had asked for the story of the Ride from Ireland, and for some reason he had not finished it until long after the food was cold. It had only been courteous to ask her to attend the next evening, to finish his story. She had asked him to elaborate on some of the opinions he had voiced, and so she had been asked back a third time. So it had gone on, and now she was a regular attender at supper, voicing an opinion occasionally, but for the most part just listening. He was becoming accustomed to her and he was alone in failing to notice how, in the face of his goodwill, more and more power over the running of The House passed to her. And she was very beautiful.
'She's at her worst with Essex,' said Gresham, talking about the Queen. 'You stick the knife in, or you take it out. You don't leave it half in and half out unless you want to enrage the victim.'
'What's she done, my Lord?' asked Jane.
'Dismissed all his servants from Essex House — including those who served him and his father all their lives — and let him go back there with a handful of new servants. He's a prisoner in his old house, reminded every time he opens his eyes of past glories. And she won't try him, just keeps holding these inconclusive hearings.'
'They was 'avin' fun down the road this morning,' said Mannion, helping himself to a third plate of meat and fish.
There had been a near-riot in Cheapside, when an Irish adventurer had sought to stir up the apprentice boys on Essex's behalf. The man had been whipped soundly enough to make him regret his rashness, but the populace took note.
Essex still refused to receive Gresham although he wrote once a week.
Gresham was deeply in need of a visit from George. Letters to him had received an altogether warmer response than their equivalent to Essex, but the answer was the same. Lord Willoughby, for whatever reason, was keeping to his country estates.
Cecil, on the other hand, was charming to him. It worried Gresham more than anything else. A charming Cecil was a Cecil who thought Gresham no longer mattered. And had Cecil been behind the attempt to kill him in Ireland?
Though Gresham would have fiercely denied it, campaigning in Ireland had wakened instincts in him that he was finding it hard to douse down. He had left parts of both his soul and his body in the
Low Countries, had grown up there, received his real education in life there despite everything St Paul's and Cambridge could offer. The bleak risks of soldiering, the stark simplicity and the simple pleasures of a fighting man and above all the comradeship, the sense of a clear and shared danger, were a heady mix that once inserted into a man's brain never left him. It was a restless, almost hunted figure that attended the minimum of Court functions, and joined high table at Cambridge. He was made even more restless by the news of success in Ireland. Forced to be parsimonious in their use of men, the English commanders had reinforced their strongholds, made Tyrone come to them. There had been no more defeats and growing signs of fatigue among those who supplied Tyrone with troops.
And then the world changed disastrously for the Earl of Essex, and also for Henry Gresham.
In June there was a hearing by the Privy Council, of which Essex had once been so proud a member, confirming that he had offended the Queen and failed in Ireland despite every possible advantage. In August Essex was banished from Court. The highest nobleman in the land was now little more than a country squire, permanently separated from the gold mine that was the Court, savagely separated from all patronage.
In October the Queen dealt the most crushing blow of all, deciding not to renew the ten-year lease the Earl of Essex held on the import of sweet wines, but rather to reserve the income to herself. It was one of the richest monopolies in her power. It had funded all Essex's ambition, most of his excesses and the lifestyle of an aristocrat whose parents had left him so little. Its withdrawal did not mean only that he was now yesterday's man. It meant he was bankrupt. The creditors for the thousands of pounds he owed who had held off for fear of offending someone in the Queen's favour or because the grand Earl had a guarantee to fund his debts, all those would now descend on him like vultures determined to be the first to pick the flesh off his bones.
'Is she trying to force him to rebellion?' whispered Gresham, almost to himself. 'Is this her final challenge to him?'
He wrote again to Essex. The rejection came by return.
So Gresham did what he should probably have done in the first place, and went with Mannion and knocked at the door of Essex House. The surly servant seemed willing enough to let him or anyone else in, and after that it took only a very little money indeed to be admitted into Essex's presence.
Gresham's alarm bells sounded from the moment he stood at the door. The yard was full of carousing men, the worst type of soldier, and there was no shortage of beer, though precious little bread and cheese. The story was repeated as Gresham mounted to Essex's private rooms: drunken men, filthy corridors, Essex House stinking of piss, vomit and worse.
'Stay out here and guard me,' said Gresham to Mannion, as a man with a raddled whore in tow ran past them in the narrow corridor, the woman shrieking in mock terror.
'From the whores or from the dirt?' asked Mannion.
Essex was still gloriously good-looking, thin, but not disastrously so. He did not seem at all surprised to see Gresham, and ignored all formal greetings, his face strangely vacant and empty.
'You represent my past,' said Essex, rudely, in high aristocratic mood. It clashed awkwardly with the bare floor and lack of furnishings. The sombre, unadorned black of his dress. 'It is a past I truly repent of. All of it.' He did not mention the child. Perhaps he was regretting his confession.
There was a Bible on the small desk, and a crucifix on the wall. This was a darker person now, one whom Gresham had only ever half known.
'Yet in my prayers I heard a voice telling me that if you came, despite my refusals, it would be a sign. A sign that God has chosen even a weak vessel such as you. To know the truth and to prove it.'
Gresham was deeply regretting coming. Was Essex about to tell him some great religious truth? The man who had sold his soul to Satan?
'If the truth concerns God, I doubt I'm the right person to tell about it,' said Gresham.
There was no hint of humour in Essex's eyes.
'The truth concerns Robert Cecil. And the clear proof I have of his plot to place the Spanish Infanta on the throne of England.'
Gresham's brain reeled for a moment. Was he going to believe the Earl, fascinating drinking companion that he had been, but also a man blessed with the worst judgement of anyone Gresham had known?<
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'Are you sure confinement and recent disappointments haven't turned your head?' asked Gresham.
'Quite possibly,' said Essex. 'Or possibly God's taken the time to talk to me at last. You concede that the Infanta has a blood link with the Tudors that goes back to John of Gaunt? I have it on direct evidence that Cecil was heard saying to William Knollys that the Infanta of Spain had the best claim to the throne of England.'
'Evidence?' asked Gresham. There was a stark certainty in Essex's voice.
'Categorical evidence,' said Essex. 'The conversation was overheard. And you know, as does any member of the Court, how persistent the rumours have been that Cecil was taking Spanish money.'
Well, that was true. As were the rumours about half the Court taking Spanish money.
'I have done many things,' said the Earl, 'many evil and selfish things. But I have never sold my country to a foreign power.'
'Apart from one overheard conversation, what other evidence do you have?'
'The evidence that stares you and everyone eke in the face. I am ruined because I allowed Cecil the ear of the Queen. And now he is so firmly in command, Elizabeth asks for leniency towards Jesuits and Catholics.'
'That in itself proves nothing. She's never liked burning people.' 'No? But how is it that Raleigh is appointed Governor of Jersey? I detest Raleigh as much as you admire him. How convenient to rid the Court of a hothead and put a professed member of the Spanish faction in charge of England's western defences? One of Cecil's cronies is appointed Warden of the Cinque ports. Nottingham and Buckhurst control the Treasury and the navy between them — two more of Cecil's sycophants. Cecil has made sure his men control the access to England, and its gold. Lord Burghley, Cecil's brother, is now Lord President of the North, suitably poised to cut off any intervention from Scotland. My friend Mountjoy is to be called back from Ireland, and Carew put there in charge of the largest group of armed men in the country's control.' The Earl paused for breath. Despite an outwardly healthy appearance, Gresham saw the weakness and weariness underneath it.
'And the only man with the standing among the people to resist Cecil is ruined and locked up in his own house!'
'My Lord, I'm deeply sorry to see you reduced to your present state.'
You have no money, no prospects, and the Queen who was your sun has put impenetrable clouds between you and her, he thought. What an appalling end for such a man, like locking him in a deep, dark hole but allowing him just enough dried bread and stale water to survive.
'But all that you list can be denied. Witnesses can change their stories, depending on what the listener wishes to hear. Raleigh is a hothead indeed, but many see his new post as banishment from a Queen who tires of him. The other appointments are all in the way of patronage, not abnormal. When men are in the ascendant at Court, it is their friends who gain promotion.'
What Gresham could not say was that Mountjoy had made the success of taming the rebels in Ireland that Essex should have achieved, and being replaced was widely seen as reward for a job well done.
But what if Essex was right? Who would be easier for Cecil to control? The Infanta? Or an older, male King of Scotland who had already proved himself a consummate survivor? And what power and wealth would come to Cecil from Spain if it was he who set up its heir as Queen of England?
Cecil's smell had hung over London for months. What if Cecil had set up Essex for his fall, for no other reason than to divert attention away from his plan to get the Spanish Infanta on the throne of England? Not only had he rid himself of Essex for the summer Essex was in Ireland, and allowed his poison to seep into the heart of the Queen, but he had also rid himself of Gresham, the one man who might have seen through his plottings. Had Gresham allowed himself to be out-manoeuvred again? He made a sudden resolution.
'I'll research your fears,' said Gresham. 'I'll do it as loyally and as committedly as I would if tasked by the Queen — or by Cecil. If there's truth in what you allege, I'll find it out. It's all I can promise.'
'God tells me to give you something in exchange. A measure of my trust in you. You see this, round my neck?'
Gresham was getting rather tired of God telling them what to do. A. small, black bag lay almost invisible against the black velvet of Essex's doublet.
'I have been in communication with King James of Scotland,' said Essex. Is there anyone in this forsaken country who has not been in touch with the King of Scotland, thought Gresham? 'He has written to me. He believes that Cecil is intriguing against him. He will send an embassy to the Queen to ask her intentions regarding her heir, but the real reason for that embassy will be to meet me and hear the truth of who England has allowed to rule it in reality. The letter is here. Around my neck.'
'Precisely where the axe will fall if you let anyone else know what's in that purse!' said Gresham. 'You never did believe in prudence as a virtue, did you?' He sighed. He not only hated it when people claimed that God was speaking to them. He hated when he felt incomparably older and wiser than one of his friends. Gresham much preferred being the young and foolish one.
A number of suspicious glances were directed at them by the men carousing in Essex House as they left, the wild groups in stark contrast to the saintly manner being adopted by Essex.
'They're forcing him to rebellion,' Gresham said to Mannion. 'I'm told that he's been incited more and more by his closest friends. I believe him when he says he's communicating with James. James and Elizabeth are a real match for each other — they juggle people like balls in the air.' They were walking in the bitter winter air away from Essex House, their boots crunching through frozen puddles. Two more pamphlets had been pinned on the wall since they had come, Gresham saw. 'They tried it once before in Ireland, and they failed. Now they're doing it again. But who are they?'
' 'E could be right,' muttered Mannion, eyeing two figures who slunk away to the other side of the road under his gaze. 'Typical o' Cecil to put all the attention on someone like Essex, while 'e's doin' the dirty work all the time in the background.'
'I must know what Essex is doing,' said Gresham. 'I need to know if he's actually got the strength to mount a rebellion and make it succeed.'
No one living in London could be ignorant of the popular discontent running through the streets like storm water.
'But I need to know what others are doing as well. I want letters to Spain, to France and to Rome, and the best men to take them. Every contact we have. We must ferret out if Cecil is doing as Essex says. But there's so little time!'
It was winter now, slowing travel down appallingly. It could take many weeks for letters to return from Spain and Rome, even France. It would be January or February before Gresham could be certain of having contacted all his sources. 'Perhaps he's left enough trace of himself here in England, if the worst is true. Let's hope England can give us an answer.'
Gresham could not know in how terrible a manner his prayer would be answered.
Gresham could burn with impatience, but when he had decided on a course of action Mannion noted that he acquired an almost frightening patience. Half the rogues in London were activated to dig and dig and dig until they hit bedrock, but the results of their enquiries, and a staggering expenditure of cash, crept in with agonising slowness. Now that he was doing something, Gresham's inertia left him, and he flung himself into festivities at Court with all his old enthusiasm, moving easily between the world of Court and the even wilder world of London's writers and artists.
He and Mannion were holding weekly reviews of the information they had gathered. It was late in January that Mannion made his most surprising suggestion.
'You ever thought about bringing that girl in on these chats we 'as?'
'The girl?' Gresham was more startled than offended. 'Why? She's seemed a lot happier recently, she's out of my hair at least. Why should I want to bring her back into it? We're bound to argue again if we talk business. And why her? She just a country girl with an untrained brain and looks to die for — and a
personality that can kill.'
'She's got brains, all right,' said Mannion, 'and it's the untrained bit that's good. Means she don't think in channels. And she's a woman. Women see these thing different from men. Witches, they are. Got this intuition about people. And we knows we can trust 'er. She's bin to Scotland, ain't she? And she made her own way over to Ireland — could've been that she saved your life.'
Gresham eyed Mannion with malice.
'Has she put you up to this? I know you're thick as thieves.' *No, she ain't,' said Mannion firmly. 'If she'd been pressin' me for it, that'd be best reason for not lettin' 'er in on any secrets. She ain't pressin'. I am.'
'Will you talk to her first? Tell her she might hear stuff that could get her hung? Tell her she could get all of us hung if she tells anyone else?'
'I'll do more than that,' said Mannion. Til tell 'er not to be impertinent.'
Gresham was far more nervous when he held his first Council of War with Jane present than was usual, until he realised that Jane was even more nervous than he was. He caught sight of her hand trembling an instant before she drew it into her sleeve. In some way it made things easier for Gresham. The girl was strangely withdrawn, tense, holding back.
'Right,' he said firmly, 'let's go through what we've got.'
'Well,' said Mannion, 'the bad news is that the Earl might 'ave got a real little army, if he wants to use it. Word is that 'e's fallen out with Mountjoy, who won't bring the Irish army back to fight for tm.
'So who has he got on his side?' asked Gresham.
'Well, five Earls and three Lords for starters — Southampton, Rutland, Sussex and Bedford, wi' Mounteagle, Cromwell and Sandys just behind.'
'Rutland, Southampton and Bedford… weren't they all wards of old Lord Burghley, like Essex?' asked Gresham.
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