‘Jane ... came to see you?’
‘Indeed she did,’ said Cecil, delighted at the shock he had caused Gresham. ‘She must have set out almost as soon as you left for the meeting. Accompanied by that servant you favour, the one built like a mountain. She sat there, and threatened me.’
‘Threatened you?’’
‘Indeed. It was exquisite!’ Cecil chuckled, with a rare glass of wine in his hands. ‘Do take some wine, I am informed it is such that even a man of your taste might find it acceptable.’ It was exquisite. ‘I know little of wine. But the College see me as important to their future, and so serve me well. But you will want to know of the threat offered by your mistress?’
Gresham was beginning to regain control. And the wine was really very, very good, They had large cellars at Trinity.
‘Don’t tell me. She threatened to lecture you about books.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Cecil, still clearly highly amused. ‘She said that she knew the whereabouts of a piece of paper of the greatest possible value to me. Valuable to me if it never saw the light of day.’
‘And she threatened to reveal it?’
‘No,’ said Cecil, ‘that was what was most beguiling, and by the way convinced me she was telling the truth. She made it clear that it lay in your power to reveal it. All she could threaten me with was that, unless I used my best endeavours to preserve your Fellowship, she would use all her influence on you to persuade you to make public that ... piece of paper.’
‘And that was why you came, and did what you did?’
‘Partly. Partly because I was impressed by her.’
‘Her beauty?’ asked Gresham resignedly.
‘No,’ said Cecil. ‘The opposite. Men such as myself, who are unattractive to women, are notoriously vulnerable to beautiful women who offer to service them. She made no such offer. I would have believed her less had she done so.’ Power was the aphrodisiac at the Court, not only physical form.
‘So why did you save my Fellowship? For which, despite my hatred of you, I must offer my sincere thanks.’
‘Thank you, Henry Gresham. I think I have some idea of what those thanks must have cost you. Always the gentleman; a fatal thing, if I may offer a word of advice you will surely ignore. As for you, your ward sparked some thoughts in my mind. If that piece of paper exists – and thanks to your ward, I now believe it does – in whose possession would I rather it is? In the hands of a known enemy, who I at least know will bargain with me for it? Or out in the wider sea, over whose currents and tides I have no control? Better the devil I know.’
‘Sorry,’ Gresham said, ‘that simply doesn’t work. If I’m discarded by the College, I’m more likely to give you your piece of paper, so that the College suffers. My vengeance, if you like, on them for banishing me. You leave me with that paper, as a Fellow, and there’s every reason to claim back that money.’
‘Yet you did not use it as a bargaining counter.’
‘How do you know?’ said Gresham.
‘Because I listened outside the door,’ said Cecil. ‘The door in question is very old, and very cracked. And, for some reason, the Quadrangle was deserted, to preserve my dignity.’
‘And so?’
‘And so I find myself in a unique position. My bitterest enemy holds a piece of paper that could ... seriously discomfort me. A piece of paper that, if declared, might secure the Fellowship that means so much to him. For reasons best known to himself, he does not declare that paper. My avowed enemy has, for no obvious reason, done me a favour. I feel a warm glow in my heart.’
‘Take care, my Lord,’ said Gresham grumpily. He hated conversations he was not in charge of. ‘That organ of yours is so used to cold that some unexpected heat might melt it quite away.’
Cecil ignored him, as one might ignore a prattling child.
‘And a new thought came to me. For years I have battled to gain an edge over Henry Gresham, a threat I could hold over him either to silence or to stop him. As he has likewise battled to find a hold, a threat over me. Yet Henry Gresham is at heart a simpleton, the bastard by-blow of a cruel father. A boy who was brought up in the gutter, and learned to survive there. The gutter, where there were no friends, only enemies. So what if I do Henry Gresham a favour? What if I, his sworn enemy, single-handedly preserve one of the few things that really matter to him, as in his Fellowship of Granville College? What edge does it give me, knowing that I need not have done so, that I have preserved something most dear to Henry Gresham? What if my bitter enemy suddenly finds that he owes me a debt? I think it binds him to me in a way no threat would do.’
‘It does indeed, my Lord,’ said Gresham, ‘particularly as that which was granted me in a writ I understand has not actually been sent by the Privy Council yet could just as easily be withdrawn.’
‘The fact remains,’ said Cecil remorselessly, ‘that if I had not appeared when I did and said what I said, you would have lost your Fellowship at Granville College.’
And the annoying thing was that it was probably true.
‘I trust you will remember, Henry Gresham,’ said Cecil, ‘that you owe your Fellowship to me.’
‘As I hope, my Lord, you will remember what you owe to me, and my silence.’
Which was true, of course. But Gresham could not rid himself of the irrational feeling that he owed Cecil a debt. It was ludicrous. Gresham had withheld a disclosure that could have robbed Cecil of a significant part of his income. Cecil had given Gresham a Fellowship, a thing worth no money at all. So why did Gresham, for the first time in his life, feel indebted to Cecil?
For once, he had no thoughts about the conversation he clearly must have with Jane. She met him, her eyes levelled below his, dropped him a demure bow.
‘You saw Cecil,’ he said flatly. ‘You rode to see him, without my knowledge or consent. You shared with him the fact that I have a piece of paper as a hold over him, without my knowledge or consent.’ He felt betrayed.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I did.’
Gresham was at a loss. Men were the superior species. They were stronger physically than women, and stronger mentally. Women existed to share and grace a man’s bed, produce his children and create the home in which to bring those children up. And this woman had dared to cross the boundary, to invade his world, the world of men, talk to and actually bargain with his sworn enemy.
‘And you offer no apology?’ Gresham was whipping himself up into a self-justifying fury.
Jane thought about that, for a long time, her head bowed. Finally, she looked up at him.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I offer no apology. After all, I’m only woman, weak and feeble. How can I understand the ways of men? My job is to hear all the woes of my man, and then when he has unloaded his brain on me, spread my legs to allow him to unload his loins into me.’
Gresham was stunned. Jane was the most enthusiastic partner in the sexual act he had ever known, but never referred to it, and slapped Gresham down when he did.
‘And is this all our .. union has meant to you?’
There were tears in her eyes now.
‘No. Far from it. It has meant enough to make me risk your love, and do what you should have done but would never do.’
Gresham was lost. She sensed it, and spoke on.
‘It is clear to me, weak and feeble woman that I am, that your Fellowship meant more to you than almost anything else, and that for months now envy, bigotry and fear were working to take it away from you. Then the moment comes when the hostile Fellows decide to strike. As it happens, Cecil is in Cambridge. Your bitterest enemy, and the only man who at a word can let you keep your fellowship. You cannot see Cecil: you have to be at the Fellowship meeting. And even if you did see him, you could never bring yourself to ask for his help. So I did so, on your behalf.’
‘A
nd had I given my leave for you so to do?’
‘I thought I had your trust, which I deemed as good as your leave.’
Gresham shook his head, not so much in denial as in an attempt to clear it. He looked at Jane. She had dropped her gaze, was staring down into her lap where her hands lay folded. A single tear dropped down her left cheek.
He had kept his Fellowship. What if he had lost it? He would still have Mannion, and Jane and his fortune, he would still have London, the Court and the intrigue of his lifestyle. He could even have used his money to gain another Fellowship, at Cambridge or even at Oxford.
And Jane? She had only him. She must have known that in acting independently to barter with Gresham’s oldest enemy she was stepping way outside of her territory, putting her relationship with him at dire risk. If Gresham wished, he could put her out on the street at a moment’s notice; she was completely in his power. And what was in it for her? Nothing. She had done what she had done for him, not for herself.
For the first time in years, he felt totally and hopelessly at a loss. He had had no mother that he had ever known. He had used women, enjoyed women, and, in the form of the Queen, been terrified and intimidated by a woman. But no woman had made him familiar with women, easy with women, allowed him to understand women or even suggest that they need to be understood as distinct from simply used. And then there was Jane.
Something broke inside him then, something he did not even know existed within him. In the cascade of broken glass, he reverted to a childish simplicity, an honesty he did not know he had.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Jane, ‘I simply don’t know how to handle this. I’ve spent my whole life trying to gain control over my life. I should be grateful to someone whose actions saved an important part of that life. Yet instead I feel an unreasoning animosity. Because you’ve invaded my territory.’
He felt totally pathetic.
‘I don’t want to invade your life,’ said Jane suddenly, eyes downcast still. ‘I don’t want to take over your life, tread on your territory. Really, I don’t. I just wanted to help.’
‘Allow me time, if you please,’ he found himself saying. ‘Time to come to terms with something entirely new in my life. Dependency. My being dependant on another person, where I’ve based my life on being dependant on myself alone.’
‘You have all the time in my life,’ said Jane.
Something sealed in the mind of Henry Gresham. Something eternal, something indissoluble.
‘I think I’ve known that,’ said Henry Gresham. ‘And I think perhaps I’ve been in danger of taking it for granted. He looked down at her.
‘Damn you,’ he said.
She looked up, startled, worried.
He looked down at her, and then moved to where she sat and took both her arms, lifting her up to him. Very gently, acting on pure instinct, he swept away the strands of hair from her face and kissed her so softly full on her lips, for a very long time. His arms engulfed her, and coming from nowhere a new, overwhelming emotion overcame him. His mind froze, went into slow motion, as it did when his life was threatened. Yet this was different, different from anything he had ever known. He thought he knew what it was. His friends had bored him for years with descriptions of love. He had scorned them for their weakness. Now he understood. This is love, he thought. So ecstatic and so painful, all at the same time. He understood and knew how to deal with the likes of greed, distrust, hatred, jealousy, and he knew the ravenous power of lust. But this ... this he did not understand. He was a man who had persuaded himself that he did not care, that nothing mattered except survival, that he had always to be in control, after so many years as a child when he was in control of nothing. Now this wave that had swept over and drowned him had left him feeling weak, vulnerable and fearful. How could this warm, fragile creature he clutched in his arms mean so much to him that he knew he would give his life to protect her life?
Very gently, he pushed her head away from where it had been buried in his chest. She looked up at him, with large, misty eyes.
‘Damn you!’ he said again. ‘Damn you for making me more of a prisoner than Raleigh. And stop looking at me with those eyes! This isn’t the time for pleasure. We’ve a job to do. Together.’
Something more had changed between them. Jane sensed it, and her heart sang like a flock of song birds released from their cage. For the first time in her life she felt as if she was flying free.
Chapter Thirteen
January 1604
Whilst fighting in the Netherlands, Gresham’s troop had once spent a fortnight defending a river crossing against a detachment of Spanish troops that was both larger and better armed. It even had a few small artillery pieces. It had been some of the hardest fighting Gresham had ever done. There was another young man, little more than an adventurer, who had had a string of escapes from death, so much so that the others named him Lucky Jim. A bomb had landed beside him, and for no apparent reason its fuse had simply fizzled out. A house had collapsed under artillery fire, and two huge roof timbers came crashing down on either side of the man, inches away, leaving him dusty but unmarked. And then, in the most extraordinary event Gresham ever witnessed at war, a Spanish solider fired a musket at the man and precisely at that moment some large bird trying to make its escape clattered skywards and took full in its breast the musket ball that was surely headed for Lucky Jim’s heart. On virtually every day Lucky Jim seemed to avoid death by a hair’s breadth, so much so that he became a talisman, a major morale boost to the beleaguered men. Then the Spanish troops had gone away, leaving what was left of Gresham’s troop to lick their wounds. On the second peaceful evening Lucky Jim was collecting wood from the ruined houses. The troop had stayed on in the village. They had wounded who could not be moved, and wounded who needed two or three days to die, with their comrades around them. He swore as he cut his finger on a rusty nail, sucked at the small amount of blood released. Twenty four hours later he was dead of blood poisoning, Fate had an ironic sense of humour, and Gresham, who had survived more threats to his life in a few months than most men undergo in several lifetimes, nearly lost his life to an accident.
Raleigh’s execution had been stayed, as had that of Cobham and other plotters, at the last possible moment, as if deliberately for dramatic effect. Raleigh was stuck in the Tower. Gresham dragged himself back to that hateful place to see him. He rode with an escort of four men to London, leaving Mannion to guard Jane, and bring her to London in good time for Christmas. He changed, ate a brief meal and chose the easiest route to the Tower, by the river. The timings, for once, were just right. The tide would sweep them down on the last of the ebb, and if Gresham spent an hour with Raleigh he would catch the flow and be swept back up to the Strand.
The House had a fleet of its own boats, but perversely on occasion Gresham would ignore his own flotilla, walk the hundred yards or so to the public jetty and hail a boat. In some way it connected him more closely to London and to real life, breaking through the protective bubble that was life in The House. It was a cold day, and Gresham was heavily cloaked.
He hailed a boat. The boatman was a thin, weedy figure, with long hair. Gresham was surprised when he swept the boat out into Thames with powerful, long strokes. Appearances could be deceptive. Mercifully the man had no desire to talk.
The tide was swift, and London Bridge drew near. Only a fool shot the bridge. Its massive arches at either end were filled by waterwheels and a corn mill, and there could be up to a six foot height difference between the river on either side of the arches, so vast were its pillars and their block to the flow of water. All except crass idiots stepped out before the Bridge, and transferred to one of the boats plying its wares on the other side.
It came, as these things do, completely out of the blue. One moment they were lined up opposite the bank, heading to shore and to land upstream of the bridge. The next
moment the earth exploded and with a wrenching, tearing crash Gresham’s boat, half its side in splinters, was hurled to the right, heading straight for one of the massive pillars at frightening speed.
It was the simplest of things. Another, boat, bigger than Gresham’s but empty of passengers, had been similarly headed for the bank. There was a sharp crack, and one of the two men rowing it found himself gazing stupidly at the stump of an oar held in his hand, the broken-off part already invisible in the white water rushing through the arches.
Suddenly out of control, the boat slewed sideways, whipped round savagely and crashed into the stern of Gresham’s boat, not only reducing it to splinters but doing so to most of its port side. Gresham’s poor, thin boatman had a second to open his mouth wide before his right oar caught the full force of the other boat smashing into it. His grip must have tightened on the oar instinctively as first contact was made. He would have been far better advised to let go the oar completely. As it was, the oar catapulted him so he actually flew through the air, over the stern of his boat. A thin wail ended in a splash, and silence. Surprisingly few sailors or those who plied the river knew how to swim.
If Gresham had been seated, as most passengers were, in the stern of the boat, he would have died at first impact. As it was, he was saved simply because when to took public transport he always sat in the bow. It annoyed the boatmen, because they feared the passenger behind them who leapt out when the boat scraped against bottom or jetty, and did a runner. Gresham did not know why he always sat in the bow. Perhaps it was simply because the Thames was a dangerous place, and he liked to have a clear view of what lay ahead.
The two boats were now entangled, both heading at breakneck speed for the massive, unrelenting pier. The two man crew of the other boat took one look and jumped into the freezing river. Presumably they could swim. Gresham was a dead man if he went into the river wearing his heavy woollen cloak. He made to shrug it off.
The Coming of the King: Henry Gresham and James I (The Henry Gresham Series Book 3) Page 24
