'All I did was look in your belongings! As I was told to do!' he gabbled. His nervousness was not surprising. Mannion was holding a dagger none-too-gently to his throat. 'And make what I found public! I was told if I agreed they could get me passage with Drake — a real chance to make my name.'
'And so have me killed?' asked Gresham, a total lack of emotion in his voice. Something froze in the heated cauldron of Robert Leng's mind at the tone of that voice.
'Well, perhaps not so… in reality not so!' Leng's spirit picked up a little as he realised what he was saying. 'EvidentlyDrake didn't kill you, even when I did what I did. In fact he damned nearly killed me…' That wasn't a helpful path to go down, Leng saw immediately.
'The only reason I stayed alive was that no one had instructed Drake to hang me. If they'd squared that with him, he'd have done it to a Spanish spy without a thought. That and the fact the girl touched something in Drake, and he'd given his word. And he spotted you as a mercenary, of course. Someone whose only loyalty is to his own self-interest. You lied to him, you see, which is more than I ever did. You didn't tell him why you were on board, not the real reason. So he left us both to God. So before I send you to Satan,' said Gresham, his voice like a pistol shot, 'tell me! Who gave you your instructions1.'
'A clerk! A stupid clerk! At Whitehall!' gibbered Leng. 'He gave me a letter guaranteeing a passage on Drake's ship, then a letter giving me… instructions. Said it was on the orders of higher authority, for God's sake!'
This was not helpful. He was probably telling the truth. For all Gresham knew, the order to set him up could have come straight from the Queen. Or Burghley. Or Walsingham. Or Cecil. Leicester. Essex. His mind started to reel. He did not know who. He did not know why.
'What are you going to do with me?' asked Leng, panic in his eyes.
'This,' said Gresham, and rammed a stinking piece of cloth in the man's mouth. No point in waking the ship. There was a sudden movement from Mannion, a sharp crack! and Leng's eyes opened wide in fear as he tried to scream.
'It's a clean break,' said Mannion, letting Leng drop to the deck. 'Between the knee and the hip, so it'll hurt more and cost you more to get round on. But if you're sensible and you don't mind waiting, you'll walk just like normal. Quite a long time from now, mind. Time for you to think about what happens when you betray people. Leastways, when you betray people like us.'
Tears were streaming out of Leng's eyes, the enormity of what had been done to him hitting home as the torrents of agonising pain screamed into his brain. His every urge was to wriggle and move, yet each time he did so more unbelievable pain shot through his body.
Gresham looked down at him. There was no emotion in his voice. 'I'm a bad one to betray,' he said quietly. 'Never do it again or it'll be your neck, not your leg.'
Shortly after sunset, Gresham stood on the shore thinking back to the moment over three months ago when he had stood on the Plymouth quayside. Then he had several changes of clothing, chests containing essentials for a sea voyage and barrels with his own private food store, a load that had cost him a small fortune to get taken on board the Elizabeth Bonaventure. Now all he had was what he stood in. And Mannion. And, of course, the girl, who was shivering in excitement, disguised in a loose shirt, heavy leather jerkin that was two sizes too big for her and trousers gathered under her knees. Worsted stockings did nothing to hide the shape of her calves, though boys could look good there too. Her luxurious hair was crammed under a working man's cap, and from far enough away she looked for all the world like a lad out for his first night in the big city. It was a cold night for July, the wind driving lances of rain intermittently, shutters banging on the poor houses and warehouses lining the waterfront. He and Mannion looked round, waving the boat off to muffled good wishes from the four crew. They were at an obscure jetty. Stepping back against the wall of the nearest ramshackle, crazily-leaning house and out of the half moonlight, they listened for a full five minutes. All seemed quiet. Carefully, quietly, hugging the side of the streets, they made their way to a hovel a quarter of a mile away in Deptford, used more commonly by smugglers and pickpockets than by gentlemen. In this part of town people averted their eyes from passers-by. Anna did not ask why Gresham and Mannion knew of the inn. At least his knowledge of its normal clientele meant that the landlord let them in. To his surprise, the room was reasonably clean, and there seemed to be no tiny creatures scuttling over the bedding.
Though neither of them said it, the girl was a burden. It should have been Gresham and Mannion who went to beard Cecil, but they dare not leave the girl on her own. Take care, now,' said Mannion, gruffly, grumpy about having to stay behind. The girl said nothing. At least for all her pride she seemed to recognise that Mannion posed no threat to her virtue. If she still had it, of course.
Gresham used more of the money sewn into his doublet to hail a boat, a lantern swinging from its bow and stern. Up through the dangerous arches of London Bridge, the tide helping them, the river surprisingly full of bobbing lights. There was more shipping moored below the bridge than Gresham had ever seen. England was gathering its forces for the final battle, as Spain had been gathering hers. Yet London's efforts seemed puny by the side of the power they had seen assembled in Lisbon and Cadiz. There were no galleys moored in the Thames, no trained fighting vessels. There were ships aplenty, fine ships, but they were merchant vessels with merchant crews, not warships.
Gresham shivered. Drake may have 'singed the King of Spain's beard,' but beards grew again, and even without his beard his face and body were of immense strength. They would talk about Cadiz as if it was a great victory, yet it might be that all they had done was waken the sleeping giant. And Cadiz had been a raid. Just a raid. For all the noise that would be made, the English had made a quick dash into a weakly defended harbour, with no warships of any significance there to protect it except some galleys, and dashed out again. How would those raiding ships fare when faced with the massed lines of Spanish and Portuguese men o' war?
The city was dangerous at night, men rich enough being led by torch and lantern light, men placed fore and aft. Individuals about their private business slunk in the dark under the leaning houses, burying their heads in their cloaks, seeking the anonymity of the night. Cecil's house was silent, dark. The pounding on the door would have woken the dead, but took longer to wake the servant.
He was an old man with a ludicrous sleeping cap covering his bald head. He peered through the small, square viewing panel set in the door, squinting to outline the figure outside.
‘I come with news from Cadiz, straight off a ship of Drake's squadron!'
Was the Merchant Royal the first back? Almost certainly not. But there was no chance Drake's main squadron would have returned yet, its speed dictated by the lumbering hulk of the San Felipe.
'I have vital news for Robert Cecil! I must report to him on my mission!'
Would it work? Yes! The door was opening. The man had recognised him! It would take some years yet for Henry Gresham to realise just how many people did remember him once they first set eyes on him. He followed the old man along gloomy corridors, the only light that of the lantern. 'Wait here,' the old man grunted. They were in what was little more than a slightly widened corridor, with a poor bench along one wall, inset in a window. The old man vanished, the dancing light of the lantern following him as he stumped along yet another hallway, finally turning a corner. Gresham found himself in a darkness broken only by the feeble glimmer of a single candle in a wall sconce. Heavier footsteps came down the hall, two sets of them. The men were clearly servants, thick-set and expensively dressed in the Cecil livery.
'Come with us,' said the taller of the two men, and turned away. Gresham made no move.
'In the house I own, The House, as it happens, on the Strand here in London,' Gresham stressed, 'I am accustomed to the servants addressing visitors with courtesy.'
The man coloured, seemed uncertain. He was clearly unwilling to recant his rudeness at all
— after all, Gresham's dress and his body had been three months at sea — but also unwilling to detain the guest from his master.
'Perhaps the easiest thing would be to send someone with good manners,' said Gresham helpfully.
The man finally muttered something which could have been, 'If you'd care to follow me… sir', and Gresham decided to take the olive branch. Judging by the look on the man's face Gresham was likely to find the same branch sticking out of his own back later that evening.
'Do by all means sit down,' said Cecil. The room was lavishly panelled, and to gild the lily expensive French tapestries hung on two walls. They showed mythical beasts pursuing men. One of them had human flesh hanging from its bloodied fangs. Perhaps it was an emblem for the Cecil family.
Cecil's chair was high-backed, with ornately carved arms, one of the few luxuries Gresham had seen in the house. He was in full day dress, the single, fur-lined vestment of an older man rather than the fashionable doublet and hose of the gallant. The remains of a meal, simple by the look of it, lay in front of him on an oaken table, polished so that the light of the many candles reflected back from its surface. Cecil gestured, and the two ungainly men made haste to clear the table.
'Will you take some wine?' asked Cecil civilly. If he had felt any shock at Gresham's being alive he had not shown it.
The jug and goblets were of gold. Was Cecil one of those who needed to see his family wealth in order to believe in it? Or was this supposedly solitary dining simply a show to impress?
'What a pleasant surprise to see you so soon on your return. Do tell me about your mission,' said Cecil smoothly, as if asking after the progress of someone's summer vegetables in their kitchen garden. 'I have heard some news, of course. But a first-hand account always has some value.'
Gresham gazed levelly back into Cecil's eyes. There was no response there, no emotion. Just a blankness.
'A major victory was achieved.' Gresham's tone was intense, full of importance. He even leaned forward to make his next statement. 'The Battle of the Barrel Staves was well and truly won by England,' said Gresham. 'We proved ourselves the world's masters in destroying unassembled pieces of barrels. Positively ignoring the many dangers. Splinters, for example, or tripping up over the bits of wood. I'm sure you would have been proud of your sailors. And their commanders.' There was the tiniest tightening round Cecil's eyes. Anger. Not amusement. Gresham leaned back, spoke in his normal tone. 'Oh, and several hundred Spanish fishing families will die this winter as we wiped out their boats, their livelihoods. And the contents of Cadiz harbour were emptied out of Spain's pocket and into those of Sir Francis Drake. And Her Majesty, of course.'
There was silence, for what seemed a very long time.
'That is all you have to report?' said Cecil finally.
'Well,' said Gresham, examining his fingernails, much torn by rope and canvas, 'that's all the important stuff. Oh, and Drake's so-called fleet is like a pack of mad hounds with no training, and he has as much control over them as a bear over the dogs that bait him. Not much else happened, actually. He refused to let me land ashore. It's surprisingly boring being at sea for three months. Oh, and someone planted false letters in my belongings making me out to be a spy for. Spain, and arranged to have them discovered,' he said casually, as if the thought had just struck him. 'Or, to put it bluntly, someone tried to kill me. By proxy, of course.'
'Kill you?' There was no tone in Cecil's question.
'Yes. Gives a new meaning to the pen being mightier than the sword, doesn't it? But we… spies don't bother much about that sort of thing. All in a day's work, you know. In fact we get quite upset if someone doesn't try to kill us.' Gresham beamed a broad smile at Cecil. 'Can I have some of that wine now?'
'Will you still be flippant in the grave?' asked Cecil. His tone was still measured, easy, conversational.
'Well, I doubt I'll be flippant after it,' Gresham answered. 'But I'm quite keen to know who it is who's trying to send me there.'
The silence stretched to an eternity. Cecil did not move. Even with support from the high back it must hurt him to sit so still, thought Gresham. If that was so, he was hiding his pain as well as he was hiding his feelings.
'I know nothing of these matters,' he said finally.
'Quite so,' said Gresham easily. 'Though I'm forced to point out that whoever is responsible went to extraordinary lengths to cover their tracks, and so is hardly likely to admit to the fact in open conversation.'
'You show your lack of breeding by coming to a gentleman's house and accusing him, without evidence, of murder,' said Cecil carefully.
‘You show your lack of judgement by insulting a man in a manner that gives him the right to challenge you to a duel. A duel you would lose,' said Gresham flatly. 'So your comments have handed me either your life, or your honour.' Cecil realised the mistake he had made. No member of the Court would challenge Gresham's right to challenge Cecil after the comment he had made. He would lose his life if he fought Gresham, and lose his honour if he refused to fight. 'Luckily for you,' said Gresham, 'this would probably be a bad time for me to kill the son of the Queen's Chief Secretary. Or dishonour him.' If Cecil was relieved, he did not show it.
Damn! Gresham had to play this so carefully. Cecil was as attractive to him as rotten meat, but he was a prime contender for the new power in the land, could well become the leader of the pack after the death of Walsingham and his father. In the world of politics, it should be almost irrelevant to Gresham if Cecil had indeed tried to kill him. What mattered was that Gresham found out why, and that he was stopped from doing it again. With those two key facts in place, an alliance between the two men was perfectly possible. Half of the Court had tried to harm the other half at one time or another. It was part of the game they played. But still Gresham was no closer to knowing the true identity of his enemy. And if the truth be known he had come to Cecil, of all the suspects, not because he was foremost in Gresham's suspicions but simply because of all the suspects Cecil was the only one he could approach. Burghley, the Queen, Essex and Leicester's servants would provide a far greater barrier than the Cecil's relatively modest household.
The pain finally scored a small victory over Cecil. He shifted, and his lips tightened over his thin mouth.
It was time to get serious. Even if Cecil was his would-be murderer Gresham would not find out tonight. Ail he could do was plant snares, blocks, so that if he was the culprit he would pause before trying again. Like the poacher, Gresham had to set his traps over a wide ground, wherever the animals might tread. Yet he was now the hunted, not the hunter. 'We live in complex times, Master Cecil,' said Gresham.
'How so?' There was the tiniest hint of a sneer in Cecil's voice.
'You are a man in the midst of making, or breaking, your career. Your main rival for the Queen's favours is the Earl of Essex. Beauty and the Beast, in fact.' Cecil stiffened at that, but said nothing. 'Or more accurately, ancient breeding versus self-made man. You see, for all your father's power and wealth, you have no noble ancestry.'
Why did Cecil bridle at that? Gresham stored away the weakness for possible future use.
'I make no insinuations,' said Gresham, 'against the son of the Queen's Chief Minister. Perish the traitorous thought! Why men have been killed for less.. not that that was an insinuation, of course. Merely a slip of the tongue. But I do have one more thing to mention, in passing, as it were.'
'And what is that?'
'Your illustrious father is out of favour because he is seen as having expedited the signing and the sending of the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots. The Queen is claiming her ministers acted without her authority.'
'Gossip,' said Cecil easily. 'Idle Court gossip. If you had-attended Court more, you would learn how to treat such tittle-tattle.'
'I'm so glad it's just that,' said Gresham, sounding relieved. 'You're obviously secure in your power and influence. Me? I have someone trying to kill me, someone who doesn't want me to know who they are
. So I need a little insurance on my life. And from a number of people, until I identify my real enemies. We're two very different people. I've have no dependants, no family as such, no one to cry for my death.'
'How sad,' said Cecil, with earth-shattering insincerity. I suspect that even this early in my career there are many who would cheer up dramatically if I were to die,' said Cecil, with a dry humour that was the nearest he ever got to laughing. *You miss the point,' said Gresham. 'I'm not interested in who would cry if you died. I am interested in who you would cry for if they died. I'm in love with only myself. That's my strength. They tell me you are in love with someone else. That's your weakness. If I determine that you attempted to kill the person I most love — me — I will activate my insurance, and the person you most love will die.'
'You have a window into my soul, do you, Henry Gresham?' asked Cecil mockingly.
'No, but perhaps the beautiful Elizabeth Brooke has one.'
Cecil shot to his feet, and the candles all round the room flickered as if in anger.
'How dare you?' Cecil roared, There was a scurrying at the door, and the two servants appeared, bursting in and halting only when Cecil raised his hand.
Cecil could have tried to kill me then and there, thought Gresham. Outnumbered three to one, disadvantaged by being seated, a quick thrust of a dagger and a lifeless bundle in a weighted sack thrown to join the other bodies in the Thames that night. He could see the thought passing through Cecil's brain. 'You don't know what arrangements I have in place should I not return from this house. It'd be gratifying to kill me. It wouldn't be intelligent,' he warned Cecil.
Cecil motioned the men away with his hand.
He was terrified of women, fearing their scorn of his body. Elizabeth Brooke was the daughter of Lord Cobham and would bring him social respectability as well as a dowry of two thousand pounds. It was also said, extraordinarily, that Elizabeth was both a lovely girl and one who felt some love at least for Cecil. There was no accounting for women.
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