Essex's favour? Cameron had been working on them for weeks, and it damn nearly worked.'
'But what about the soldiers you told me about? The ones who fired on you at the Pass of Plumes?'
'Cecil's men,' said Gresham. 'We spent a lot of money and a lot of time tracking them down. We found them eventually. Or Mannion did.'
A shudder passed through Jane's body. She did not want to know whether those two men were still alive.
'So Cecil was trying to kill you as well!'
'No,' said Gresham. 'That's the other funny bit. He was trying to kill Essex. That was what he'd paid the men to do. He'd bribed two men from my company. Why waste a chance to throw muck on my reputation? But someone had told the men it was Essex leading the charge, trying to regain his reputation. Then there's this great clatter, and amid the smoke and dust they see someone vaguely of Essex's build leading the charge on Essex's horse.'
'Essex's horse?' said a bewildered Jane.
'An accident,' said Gresham. 'His war horse and mine could be identical twins. So the soldier only had a split second. He assumed it was Essex and shot, thinking fate had given them a one-off chance to earn their pay.'
'So Cecil didn't try to kill you?' she asked incredulously.
'No,' said Gresham, almost sadly. 'For once he appears to be innocent. He gave me a package for Scotland, in good faith. He really thought I was the best person to take it. The rest of it was Spain trying to get me out of the way.'
They pondered this extraordinary fact in silence for a few minutes. Then Jane left, sensing his need to gather his thoughts alone before leaving on the fell journey to the Tower.
There were only a handful of them there to see Essex die. The Queen had sent two executioners, in case one refused. Essex was calm, dignified, perhaps almost heroic. How often had the Tower seen men who were sworn enemies to the man on the scaffold wipe away surreptitious tears as their enemy spoke his last word? Essex's last words were whipped away on the wind, inaudible to all except the executioner and the priest on the scaffold. Essex had not caught Gresham's eye, preferring to raise his eyes to heaven, if it existed. Where God, if he existed, might forgive him the sacrifice of a child. Or where Lucifer, if he existed, might claim him as his own.
Epilogue
Sir Gelli Meyrick was hung, drawn and quartered, his knighthood being deemed inadequate to protect him from the fate of a common man. Some others were similarly treated or beheaded, but the Earl of Southampton was simply imprisoned in the Tower, on the grounds of his youth and inexperience. Accusations of sodomy and Devil-worship were never proven against the conspirators, though Southampton was widely believed to take men and boys to bed. He flourished under the reign of King James. As part of the rewards lavished on the Earl, James granted him the farm of sweet wines. A number of the hotheads who were allowed to survive went on to be leading lights of the Gunpowder Plot.
The rumour was born at this time that several years earlier the Queen had gifted Essex a ring, stating it as a testimony of her love to him, and that if ever he needed true forgiveness, when he had been true to her, he should send her that ring and be forgiven. Various people were deemed to have been given that ring by Essex for safe keeping. It was a ruby, set round by small but perfect diamonds.
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