The Coming of the King: Henry Gresham and James I (The Henry Gresham Series Book 3)

by Martin Stephen

  ‘How strange none of us saw twelve witches – I suppose it was twelve? With the Master making up the thirteen? – on their regular visits here,’ mused Gresham, his wine forgotten in his hand.

  ‘Strange indeed,’ Alan replied. ‘As strange as the fact that the other members of the coven named by the hag all appear to be dead. Apparently a relationship with Satan guarantees only an extended life in Hell, but not here on this earth. Not much of a deal, in my opinion, but there you are.’

  ‘There you are indeed,’ said Gresham. ‘And when is the hearing?’

  ‘A week from now. Some hastily-convened Church Court, apparently sanctified by a history and tradition which had completely passed me by. The Fellowship will not oppose your being the College advocate at the hearing. Those who aren’t packing their bags are taking an extended holiday.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  ‘Worse,’ said Alan. ‘Students have been or are packing their bags in droves. The wealthy ones, at least. Their parents worry silly about their heir getting the clap, or acquiring the habits that will lead him to drink or gamble away his legacy. Witchcraft is a legacy too far. The town is up in arms, anyway.’

  There was no love lost between town and gown, which was why the Colleges were built like fortresses with the Porter’s Lodge as main gate. It was to keep students in, but more importantly, the town out. There were regular pitched battles between apprentice lads and students, in which the students had the advantage of being able to hurl bricks and slates down on the heads of their assailants from the commanding heights of the College walls.

  ‘We’ve had a crowd of ne-er-do-wells and troublemakers outside the main gate ever since it happened. You only missed them because that shower of sleet sent them off to the tavern to dry off. There’s quite a storm being stirred up. Several sermons, including one at St Mary’s.’

  ‘A week is a long time to wait for the hearing, isn’t it? Gresham queried.

  ‘A very long time.’

  Long enough for more mass panic to be whipped up from the pulpits, for more and more students to leave rather than face the barrage of insults, and worse, hurled at them as they came to and from the College. Long enough, in fact, to do lasting and perhaps irreparable damage.

  ‘Declare a feast,’ said Gresham.

  ‘A feast?’

  ‘Not just a feast. A Great Feast. The greatest Cambridge has ever seen. Invite every local dignitary. The night before the hearing. And hold a lottery for twelve places for the common people, tickets offered first to that mob demonstrating outside. And, if by magic, make sure at least half of them win. I’ll pay, of course.’

  ‘And why do we announce we’re holding such an event?’

  ‘We tell the truth. We announce we’re completely innocent, that we’re able to prove it, and that this Feast is a celebration of our innocence. Organise a huge Mass before the Feast. Sanctify us.’

  ‘But we’re not able to prove our innocence,’ Alan had said with furrowed brow. His face had lightened at the initial suggestion.

  ‘But we will be.’

  ‘How can you be so certain?’

  Because I feel a power within me, Gresham wanted to say. Because the whole of life is a gamble, and the bigger the stakes the more exciting the gamble. Because I do not believe in immortality for man, but I do believe a College can come as near as anything mortal can come to that state. And because I’m not going to give up my only link with immortality without a fight. And because this is what I do: gamble; intrigue; ploy and counter-ploy; feint, weave, duck, strike. And kill. And I do it well.

  ‘I’m certain,’ Gresham said.

  *

  Someone had paid the jailer more than Gresham, or someone had frightened the jailer more than Gresham could do. Possibly someone had done both. Either way, it was a first for Gresham.

  ‘Sir … my Lord … it’s not me, honest. I just can’t, I’ve been told.’

  Every blandishment and threat he could offer to try and get to see the woman was rejected, albeit not without much excretion of sweat, hand-wringing looking over the shoulder from the greasy little man who ran the jail. Interesting. Gresham could understand the jailer’s fear. Gresham had a dark reputation in the very small town of Cambridge. One dead and one severely wounded man left behind after the attack on him, and wild rumours about a pitched battle in the countryside – he had, it appeared, ridden out of the woods on a huge black horse, accompanied by three other riders dressed in black who brought with them the stink of sulphur, and were widely assumed to be devils associated with the Apocalypse – had assisted the image, though possibly not the quest to interview a suspected witch. So who had both more money than Gresham, and more power to frighten?

  Gresham felt a hollow pain in his gut at his inability to get to the woman. She was clearly the key, as far as he knew the only witness for the prosecution. What was also worrying was that a special warrant had come from London, announcing that the trial would be chaired by Lord Clapton. Trial, the declaration had said. Not the mumflummery of the Church-led hearing that had initially been announced. Nor had there been any invitation to the College to send anyone to defend it. It all bore the stamp of a takeover from London. It appeared the old hag, and hence the College, were guilty already. Friday’s escapade was a show trial, just as the various ‘trials’ of traitors or plotters against the Crown had been throughout Gresham’s life.

  ‘The implications are … severe,’ Alan said, ‘including confiscation of all the College’s assets.’

  ‘What law allows that?’ asked Gresham.

  ‘What law permitted the father of our present Queen to confiscate every field, brick and barrel belonging to the monasteries? If you’re ruthless enough, you simply write a new law to answer your current need, if there isn’t one already.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gresham, ‘a week is a long time. Long enough to talk to everyone in Cambridge.’

  ‘Now why on earth would anyone wish to do that?’ asked Alan, nose lifted distastefully. Alan was quite content for the normal inhabitant of Cambridge to stay the other side of the Porter’s Lodge.

  ‘Because there are two weak links on the prosecution case,’ said Gresham.

  ‘I’m damned if I can see them,’ said Alan.

  ‘Well,’ said Gresham, ‘you’ll just have to concede I’m the better man.’

  ‘Willingly,’ said Alan drily. ‘Though only after we’ve won the case, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Gresham.

  *

  Overconfidence. That was the key. The forces ranged against Gresham and the College – he did not distinguish between the two – were totally confident. Overconfidence had killed more soldiers and doomed more politicians than Gresham cared to count. His enemies thought their case a massive castle. Gresham had to chip away at its foundations, bring the whole massive edifice tumbling down. And he only had a week in which to do it. His army was two people – Mannion and Jane. Cambridge was a very small town, and Gresham too grand and well-known a figure to make any enquiries. Yet in the two crucial areas his servant and his mistress could achieve a lot. It was to their advantage that Cambridge was such a small place. The servant class in Cambridge was tiny in comparison to London. Even the paltry household at The Merchant’s House were related to half of Cambridge, including the servants at Granville College. The loyalty of the College servants was matched only by the appalling way they were treated by some of the Fellows. Gresham also employed College servants for jobs he needed doing at The Merchant’s House, which meant many of them knew Jane. The servants liked Jane. She demanded the highest standards of them, but treated them like human beings and not dirt. She never threatened them with her Master. So Jane sat down and chatted with the servants at The Merchant’s House, and jobs were invented for College servants that allowed her to do the same thing
to them. Those conversations produced the name of a London wine merchant, someone Gresham was able to interview. He sped off to London in a mad ride, driven by frustration at his inactivity as much as his desire to dig out dirt.

  It was a week of frantic activity. Mannion knew every low-life in Cambridge, but also had made it his duty to know Cambridge’s ‘honest tradesmen’. The cliché was that the servants saw and knew everything. True. But their lives were frequently invested in their masters, a frighteningly close relationship that frequently caused them to say less than they knew. The honest tradesmen … those with wealth depended on those who supplied them with meat, drink and the essentials of life. And those who supplied those needs knew much about those who demanded them. Mannion too had a very busy week.

  *

  The morning of the hearing was typical late winter, wet, cold and dreary. The hall was packed. Lord Clapton arrived late, with an entourage that would have better suited royalty. There was much bowing and scraping, and the stench of too many unwashed bodies crammed into one place. Most of Cambridge wanted to hear this, and there were several hundred disappointed people braving the weather outside.

  There was a token clergyman seated on one side of Clapton on the raised dais, a lawyer of some sort on the other, but Clapton clearly intended himself to be the centre of attention. Sonorously, he announced the convening of this special Court, called under some ancient legislation to do with witchcraft that probably did exist – Gresham’s enemy was not that stupid – but was clearly news even to Clapton’s tame advocate. Gresham noted one thing from the introduction. The authority for the trial was cited as that of Whitgift, the Archbishop, and that his authority had been delegated to Clapton. An official parchment was waved, and Gresham toyed with asking to see it. He discarded the idea. Petty annoyance was not his aim. Yet if Whitgift was being cited, what was happening here was official, sanctified not just by the Church but by Government.

  Cecil. Robert Cecil. The Queen was too far gone to care, and anyway would not have reason to attack Gresham. With most people seeing the Queen’s imminent death as inevitable the list of those who stood to gain or lose was as long as the list of guests at a Court dinner – Catesby, Bancroft, Buckingham, Sackville, Home, Herbert, Fortescue, Bacon, Norfolk, Northumberland and, of course, Whitgift himself – were just among the starters, but only Cecil had the unchallenged power to order this farce of a hearing.

  Clapton read out a list of charges, amounting to the simple accusation that the College had become a centre of Devil-worship, black magic and human sacrifice. There was indrawing of breath, much signing of the Cross and fearful muttering from the crowd. Clapton’s tone was triumphant. Like many weak men, faced with a captive audience, Clapton did not know when to stop. Face flushed, he was ranting about the consequences to those who signed up with the Devil.

  ‘My Lord,’ Gresham said, standing up. Eyes turned to him. He was a commanding figure. Another hissing of breath from the crowd. Many were willing to think this man was, if not the Devil, then at least his representative on earth. ‘I take it we are to proceed to verdict and sentence without the irritating need for any defence to be offered?’

  There was a titter from the crowd. Good sign.

  ‘You may speak,’ said Clapton, showing extreme discourtesy in leaving out Gresham’s title. He could not resist adding, ‘Speak, that is, if you think it will serve any useful purpose.’

  ‘My Lord,’ said Gresham silkily, the soul of courteousness, ‘a crucial element in these charges is Goodwife Moll, the impeccably truthful lady who has sworn to these charges.’

  There was another titter, louder this time. The crowd had come to enjoy a sacrifice. Now they were starting to wonder if they might not be in for a fight, which would be even more entertaining. Whatever else Moll was, she was neither truthful, nor a lady.

  ‘The College has been denied access to her. Might I ask the privilege of examining the woman whose testimony threatens to destroy our College? I presume she is here …?’

  Irritatedly, Clapton turned to one of the Court servants, motioning him to bring in the woman. There was a pause. A long pause.

  ‘Sir …’ the servant stuttered as he eventually returned, ‘the prisoner … the prisoner is not here.’

  ‘WHAT?’ roared Clapton, a man of limited control. ‘What d’you mean, not here?’

  ‘Not … here my Lord,’ the hapless servant replied, eyes downcast.

  ‘WELL FETCH HER THEN!’ stormed Clapton. Everyone had assumed that the jailer would bring her down in time for the hearing. It was normal, established practice.

  There was a flurry outside, and sound of departing men. The crowd began to mutter among themselves. Clapton went redder and redder in the face. The minion from the Clergy found something very interesting in the raftered roof. There was much clattering as men returned. One of them, a different man this time, burst in red, breathless.

  ‘My Lord …’ All eyes turned to him. ‘I regret to report … the prisoner is gone.’

  ‘The Jail is locked and secure. The cart used for transport has gone, as has Perkins the jailer. There is no sign of the prisoner.’

  Clapton looked as if he had a lot to say, but did not know how to say it.

  Gresham waited for the hubbub to die down a little.

  ‘My Lord …’ his voice cut through the noise. There was sudden silence. ‘The truth is that this false case against our College rests on two foundations alone – the testimony of Goodwife Moll and the supposed chapel found in the cellar of the Master’s Lodge. It would appear that the former has decided to withdraw her testimony.’

  ‘Sir Henry!’ spluttered Clapton. ‘We have a sworn and witnessed statement …’

  ‘I have here a sworn and witnessed statement from this same woman, duly dated and sealed from an advocate well-known in this place’ – the seediest, poorest lawyer in Cambridge, willing to pawn his soul for a crown, as it happened, but Gresham, did not feel obliged to add those facts.. Moll’s career as an abortionist had meant that at times she had had access to surprising amounts of money – ‘which states that you, My Lord, had fathered one of her bastards.’

  There was a roar of laughter from the crowd. It was well-known that Moll used to try and blackmail respectable men of business with such claims, but no-one expected her to aim as high as Clapton. The crowd did not believe it for a moment. It was the discomfiture of Clapton they enjoyed. Gresham made the obvious point.

  ‘If we are to believe one sworn and witnessed statement, should we not believe another? Furthermore, as I understand it, there are no signs of violence, suggesting that this woman, who we know to have been possessed of wealth, bribed her jailer and fled under cover of night, knowing her bitter falsehoods would be exposed.’ There was a babble of talk from the crowd, even some nodding heads. A number of them would be pleased Moll had gone, as they feared any further investigation would reveal how many of them had used her various services.

  Gresham had managed to get a copy of the account of Moll’s arrest lodged with the Sheriff. It had commented on a horde of angels and crowns, gold coins, some twenty in number, buried under her floor.

  ‘The Court stands by the statement,’ said Clapton.

  No risk of impartiality there, then, thought Gresham. He had not expected to win solely on the basis of Moll’s absence. He had bigger guns to fire. He doubted Clapton knew what was coming to him.

  ‘Might I therefore challenge the other evidence, the evidence concerning the area for Devil-worship supposedly found in The Master’s cellar?’

  Clapton sensed this was running away from him, not going to plan. Yet if this man wished to move on from Moll, surely that was a bad judgement on his part, just as the crowd seemed to be swinging in his favour? It was all fine and well for the grand men living in London. Clapton had to live among the people who filled this hall
. His standing with them mattered to him.

  ‘The undeniable evidence found in the Master’s cellar.’ Clapton turned to the usher. His voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘I take it the leader of the guard who unmasked this abomination is present?’ The usher, a little man, nodded, waved a hand. A burly, heavily-bearded man, sweating despite the cold, came blinking from the back room where he had been stored. He was wiping his lips. Gresham assumed it was not the Bible he had been taking consolation from.

  The man spoke well enough. Yes, he had been leader of the men who had entered the said cellar, to find what appeared to be a fully-fitted chapel for devil worship. Did he recognise these items? The stump of black candles? An inverted cross, painted black? Some bones, declared to be those of a baby? Yes, he recognised them. All had been found by his men, the bones on open show on the makeshift altar.

  ‘There you have it, Sir Henry. Here, in the very heart of Cambridge, a temple to Satan.’ Clapton was triumphant again.

  Several of the crowd crossed themselves.

  Gresham raised a hand.

  ‘Do you wish to question this man?’ asked Clapton grandly.

  ‘No,’ replied Gresham. ‘I wish to call my own witness.’

  ‘And who might this be?’ enquired Clapton, warily.

  ‘Giles Drummond, wine merchant, of London. And supplier of a small quantity of Spanish wines to Granville College.’

  There was a hiss from the crowd. Spanish wines? It was only fifteen years since the first Armada. Was Gresham mad, bringing to speak for him a man who made profit for Spain?

  ‘I had wished to bring here the wine merchant from whom the College purchases most of its barrels, those being of French wine of course. Yet on enquiry I found that gentleman had left suddenly for France, to the evident confusion of his wife. There seems to be a sudden fashion for leaving familiar places on the part of those who had access to the Master’s cellar. I had hoped to bring here the two porters from the College who store the wine in the College cellar, including the private store under the Master’s Lodge. Both have apparently left for home, following news of the imminent death of their father. What a remarkable coincidence that two unrelated men, twenty years different in age, one from Norfolk and one from Cornwall, should both receive news of a dying father on the same day.’