They were nearly back at the house, in ample time before the servants rose to build the fires in the kitchen, skulking through alleyways, when they heard the sound of footsteps coming up the hill towards them. It was one of the servants of the Governor General, off-duty but still resplendent in his livery and clearly very drunk. He was weaving from side to side, singing gently to himself, a child's lullaby, a bottle clutched in his hand. He did not seem to realise that the bottle was empty, nor care very much, raising it every now and again to his lips and smiling happily at the night sky. Drink makes some men quarrelsome. Others it sends to sleep. It had made this man simply happy, an overwhelming sense of being at peace with the world radiating from him.
The four hooded figures froze into the side of a house, but it was too late. The man ground to a halt, his eyes rolling until they focussed. He giggled.
'Religious men bringing blessings to the taverns!' he chortled. 'Or is it to the ladies of the night?' he giggled, swaying gently. 'Or maybe such men using the taverns and the ladies of the night!' he said, chortling and hugely amused at his joke. 'Here!' he said, more loudly, 'bless me! Aren't I of the night? And one of God's children?' He meant to fling himself onto his knees, but instead cannoned into Anna. His outflung arm caught the hood of her cassock. She flung her own hand up just in time and held the hood in place. The man collided with the wall, slid down it with his back, ended squatting on the floor, gawping vacuously up at them. Then his whole body language changed, and he seemed to be trying to sink back into the stone. ‘I know who you are,' he said in a small, frightened voice. 'I know who you are.'
They were still hooded, still shadowed by the night, but it was entirely possible for the man to have caught enough of a sight of one or all of their faces. Mannion reached inside his sleeve for the dagger he carried there, but it was too late. Gresham had already folded his arms, and Mannion knew that meant he had a hand on his own dagger.
'I am Death,' said Gresham softly, in Latin, the language of the Mass, and for a moment the man seated drunkenly on the ground was as good as dead, the cold blue light of the killing frenzy settling behind Gresham's eyes, the hand tightening on the hilt of the dagger. The slightest of sobs came from the guard. He had to die. He had said the fatal words, ‘I know who you are.’ There was too much at stake for the life of one man to stand between Gresham and his mission. Then Gresham remembered the man a few minutes ago. A man singing gently to himself, a nursery song, a man happy within himself. Walking to his home, harming no man. He thought of the way death had come to the sailors in Cadiz harbour, the way death would come to the men whose cannons would explode in their faces. Was this to be just another casual death in a back alley, another death that showed how cheap life had become to Gresham?
The man looked up at them stupidly from the floor. 'The Four Horsemen,' he said pathetically. 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I knew it was you.'
Gresham's hand released the hilt of his dagger. He tried not to release his breath like an explosion.
'Do you repent of your sins?' he asked the man.
'I repent of my sins,' the man gabbled, pushing himself in fear now back against the wall.'
'Then go in peace. And tell no one.'
He raised himself up from the floor, still almost paralysed with fear, and made the sign of the Cross. The four figures gazed silently at him. Gulping, he turned and ran.
'I thought you were going to kill him,' said Anna, back in the safety of Gresham's room. They had slipped back through the kitchen, the servant dismissed back downstairs before Anna was allowed out of Gresham's room. This was not how she had imagined it to be. The excitement and sense of adventure had been soiled beyond recognition. Somehow she felt dirty, mired, revulsion replacing the excitement she had felt on setting out on her adventure.
'So did I,' said Gresham. Suddenly he wanted this girl more than he had wanted any woman in his life. Wanted to fling her on her back and take her, prove who was master. That was foul! He had never taken any woman against her will in his life! What was working within him, what in this girl was getting through his impregnable defences? Tomorrow we must see if your fiancй is in Lisbon. Any longer and we will cause questions to be asked.' He sensed the savagery in his mind and marvelled at the civility of his tone. Had she been hoping he would say more? She gave no sign.
'He will not be there. I know he will not be there.' Was she trying to persuade herself? She sounded flat, exhausted, as if drained of all emotion. 'I feel it inside me. It is not yet my time.'
'Where is Mannion?' asked Anna, as they gathered to visit the house of Jacques Henri.
'He's some business to do,' said Gresham. 'It's best you don't know.'
Gresham confided everything in Mannion. At the mention of Santa Cruz something had darkened in his eyes. 'Will you give me leave to work alone for a day or two, perhaps a week, in Lisbon? To settle an old score?' Mannion had asked. He had agreed, as he knew he had to. Yet he missed Mannion, desperately. One night, tossing and turning in his bed, he had allowed the unthinkable to enter his mind. What Mannion was doing would inevitably be extraordinarily dangerous, however he set about it. Could he face life without that hulk of a man by his side? He prayed he might never have to find out.
Anna had continued talking. 'Oh, I agree,' she said. 'Women cannot be trusted with secrets. They need simply to be told what to do. Or sold to men with the pox. Or just used generally, for the convenience of a man.'
It was so close to his actual thoughts that he nearly let the colour flood into his cheeks. 'We're not out of danger. We must hurry to leave, in case the Italian changes his mind, pockets what gold he has and takes more for revealing us. If we're taken in and you're, asked about Mannion, you really won't know. There's nothing better than sincerity.'
She pursed her lips, a gesture making it clear that belief was at least suspended if not totally dismissed. George intervened.
‘I’m sure he's acting in your best interest,' he said, feebly. She flashed a brief smile at him, as if saying thank you to a big brother, and then turned again to Gresham.
'So you can lie to save a friend. I as a mere woman can do no such thing. That is fine. Now I understand.' She was clearly seething underneath.
Privately, Gresham doubted Jacques Henri was in town. Their arrival had not raised the clamour he had expected in Lisbon, there being enough clamour in that city as it was, but neither had it gone unnoticed. Jacques Henri would surely have heard of their presence by now, and come rushing to them. Either he was absent, or regretting his engagement. Anna had made it clear the matter had been arranged without her consent. Yet how clear was she whether the famous Monsieur Henri was a willing partner, or simply coerced?
The address they had been given turned out to be a vast ware-house with a presentable stone house attached. Yet it was as quiet as a mausoleum. They were quite an entourage, Gresham, Anna, two maids and seven of Gresham's servants, all on hired horses, with the two resplendent guards provided by the Governor General, and an interpreter. Several street urchins had gathered at a safe distance, offering their comments in Portuguese on the whole array, and the usual waifs and strays of any city had gathered to watch — maids out on errands, apprentice boys making a short journey last a long time, the occasional boy risking a thrashing by missing his lessons to be out in the sun. The man who had seen the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse was not one of the guards. He was on sick leave, Gresham had been told as he had enquired solicitously.
The senior guard had tried to hide his horror at Anna riding with them. Clearly he thought it desperately improper for the girl to rush so to meet her intended. Surely the men should have met first of all, agreed what to do, and only then allowed the girl to enter into the scheme of things? 'Ah!' said Gresham, 'but she's importunate to meet her intended! I can hardly hold her back. I've no heart to stem the passion of her love for this man!' he declaimed, enjoying how annoyed this made Anna. Not that an outsider would have noticed her annoyance. Gresham was bec
oming adept at reading the tiny flickers on her face.
It soon became clear that the problem would not have to be resolved on that day at least. Furious hammering at the door of the house produced nothing but a wizened old man, his face darkened by the sun and cut through with tiny, deep lines, who eventually emerged through a postern gate carved out of the great door into the warehouse yard. No, the interpreter established, Monsieur Jacques Henri was not in residence, had not been so for some months now. It was not known when he was expected back. The warehouse was empty. The last consignment of goods from Goa had been sold before his departure, the last rolled Turkish carpets sold, the great bales of wool disposed of at less than full price. It was believed that the merchant was seeking new markets, new outlets, new products. He had gone north in June, to the Flat Countries, the interpreter said. Flat Countries? It could only be the Low Countries, the Netherlands.
'Why would the fat merchant go to a war zone?' asked Gresham. 'The whole area's been at war for years. Parts of it are like a desert, so I'm told. What profitable trade could there be there?'
'I hope he has gone there because he has realised that it would be sinful to take me as his wife,' said Anna, 'and because he is too much of a fat coward to shoot himself he hopes that one or both of the armies in the Netherlands will do it for him.'
'Do you say that about all your friends?' asked Gresham.
'He is not my friend,' she replied. 'Any more than you are. He is a fat pig.'
They saw nothing of Mannion for the remainder of that day, or that night, when Gresham, George and Anna attended a glittering reception held by the Governor General. Gresham had half hoped to see the legendary Marquis of Santa Cruz there, but no, he was told, the Marquis had too many pressing demands on him. Nor was Mannion there the next day, when they rode out to see Lisbon and its sights, or the day after when they were permitted to leave the city boundaries and ride out in the glorious countryside surrounding the city. It was on the fourth day that Mannion reappeared, quietly and without fuss, a strange grimness in his manner.
'And where have you been?' asked Anna, her insatiable curiosity finally getting the better of her.
'Presenting a visiting card,' was all that Mannion would say.
Chapter 8
October 1587 — May, 1588 Cambridge; London; Lisbon; the Netherlands
It was a tricky job, dragging the cannon out of a ship. Like taking out a tooth. Firstly the barrels had to be taken off the short wooden carriages and properly slung. Each weapon was massively heavy, but unevenly balanced, with more weight at the breech than at the tapered muzzle. The lifting tackle had to be exactly positioned to avoid the gun swaying and splintering the timbers of the vessel. Poorly tied knots, a frayed rope or a pole not seated firmly on the ground and you risked the whole thing crashing down onto the deck. Never mind the people, in one such incident only last year the gun had gone right through the hull and was resting on the sea bed. It was a miracle they had been able to save the ship.
The sailors looked on glumly as the last of the guns were swung overboard, and laid in their padded nest on the vast carts, then to rumble off to be stored in the great armoury at the Tower of London. The disgruntled manner of the seamen was not because they were being laid off with the ships. That had been part of a sailor's lot in the winter for as long as mankind had been daring to set sail. It was fear. A number of the men looked nervously down the reach of the Thames to the sea, as if they half-expected to see a Spanish galleon bearing down on them, its cannon ready to belch destruction into London. Now that the fleet was being stepped down for winter, what was there to stop the Spanish if they chose to come?
Holding one possible answer was Walsingham, sat in front of the remnants of a frugal meal, gazing out over the River Thames. He had taken a tenancy at Barn Elms ten years earlier, falling in love with the combination of its quiet solitude and the easy access to London from the tiny village of Barnes. He had complained fiercely at the decision to step down the fleet, to no avail. Money! Money! How dare they preach saving to him, the man who had spent out his own fortune to keep England's borders its own! Thank God in his wisdom that Santa Cruz was ill again. Had it been otherwise, he knew what he would have done in Santa Cruz's position when he heard, as he would surely hear, that the English fleet had been put to bed for winter. He would have ignored his King, taken a squadron of fifteen ships up the Channel risking wind and weather, sailed them into Plymouth or even up the Thames and landed five thousand troops. Let England stop Parma then with a hornet's sting already working its poison in its belly! Oh what tactics, daring, or fifty of the best ships could dash out from Lisbon, and do to the English fleet exactly what Drake had done to the Spaniards in Cadiz.
It could still happen. King Philip was sending ever more urgent messages to Santa Cruz, demanding that he sail now, even in the depth of winter. The moment the first agent in Lisbon reported back that yards were being stepped, supplies being loaded for just such a venture, then this half-manning nonsense would cease. Walsingham guessed Her Majesty would move with unseemly haste, her dignity in disarray at the prospect of her old knees bending to King Philip of Spain! Then let us see the sycophantic Burghley rush to support the immediate re-manning of the fleet, the noble Lords of Leicester and Essex suddenly feel the foundations of their vast castles tremble beneath their feet!
Yet it was history repeating itself. For most of Elizabeth's reign her soldiers and the idiot nobles sent to lead them had proved a false saviour, just as even a fully-manned English fleet might do now. It had been espionage that had saved England from the Spanish threat so far, and if England was to be saved now it would be by the same measure.
As he rose from his table, the pain stung at his belly. He doubled up, no one there to see his humiliation. You are already dead, his doctor had said. Only a quack will promise you hope. How soon before his actual death was reported as a certainty?
The Fellowship of Granville College were uncertain as to how they should respond to Henry Gresham on his return for the Michaelmas Term 1587. Guilty? He had taken a prolonged absence, and brought back a beautiful Spanish girl who he had met under impossible circumstances and who had to be his mistress, of course. Fellows were not permitted to marry, and were meant to control the sensual excesses of the students rather than set them an example of it. Innocent? He had fought most heroically for his country at Cadiz. It was now an open secret that the money for the extension to the Old Court had come from him, though God knew who had leaked that bit, of information. He had at least had the decency to return for the most important part of the year. The arguments for a positive response seemed, on balance, to outweigh those for a negative response, so acting true to form two thirds of the Fellowship decided to take a wholly negative approach.
'We could all of us,' said Will Smith, who ran a mile if someone mentioned the word sword, never mind threatened to use one against him, 'go gallivanting off to sea if we chose, enjoying ourselves at the expense of our students. If, of course, we needed such spurious glamour to bolster our reputation.' It was generally agreed that it was far braver and heroic to remain at home, manning the domestic fort, so to speak, than to rush off to obscure places like a common soldier or sailor. Fat Tom was having none of this.
'Do tell me, dear boy,' he mouthed excitedly, all of his chins wobbling in unison, 'all about it, preferably in the most gory detail. I imagine these sailors are very rough people indeed, and you must tell me all about them as well. And please, do dwell at unseemly length on the episodes with lashings of blood in them!' The most worrying thing was that he was entirely genuine in his interest, both in the details of the fighting and in the men.
Gresham had sent messengers to the Netherlands, seeking the whereabouts of the untraceable Jacques Henri. So far they had drawn a complete blank. He had at least found a chaperone for Anna. The daughter of his father's housekeeper, a rather stern, puritanical girl with thin lips and a thin face, she had a permanent air of censorious disapproval about
her. She held her once-expensive but now rather shabby skirt close about her nervously, as if everyone and everything including the ground upon which she stood might rise up and criticise her at any minute. Or, even worse, try to make love to her. She had presented herself at The House with the story of the death of her employers, and in a stroke of genius the housekeeper, an elderly and flustered woman, had recommended her to Gresham. It was an interesting relationship. The chaperone had no actual authority over her charge, merely the requirement to be there and ensure her virtue was preserved. The authority came from the certainty that the chaperone would try to put off any amorous young man, deny them opportunity and, in the final count, report their misdeeds to her master. 'Bit like when you pour cold water over a dog that's after your favourite bitch?' asked Mannion, who was intrigued by the idea of a chaperone. 'Not… quite,' Gresham had replied, giving up on an explanation.
The wild set in London with whom Gresham tended to mix when he was there, the poets, the musicians and those trying their hands at the new fashion of writing for the Playhouse, had taken Anna to their hearts. With a chaperone in place, Gresham was less concerned about whether they took her to their beds, not his. Why should he care? Yet he had felt obliged to find a better base in Cambridge than his two rooms in Granville College. The Merchant's House lay in Trumpington, just outside Cambridge, and had lain vacant for a year or more, the dust thick over its old floors and walls. It was ancient, built round the medieval core of its Great Hall, probably a nobleman's house before passing to the Merchant who had given it its name. And now Henry Gresham flickered briefly in its history, setting up a base where he could summon his ward once every six weeks, the state of the roads allowing, from the fleshpots of London to savour the rural delights of Cambridge and the questions of her master. Her nominal master, at least.
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