'Yes, mistress, what is it, mistress?' the girl said, with fear in her eyes.
'See this man?' said Moll, gesturing to Gresham. 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Well, forget you ever saw him. Before you do, tell him the story of last night. Go on, girl. Do it.'
'It were… I was… I was downstairs when this man cum in. I know'd him from before, two, mebbe three times. He were quiet, but a swaggerer at the same time, if ye takes my meanin'. We went upstairs, and we did it, and after, as he was coming out of the room and before I was proper dressed or anything, this other man comes out of the other room and knocks into my man, sort of… it were an accident, I know for sure, there's no light up there hardly at all and…'
'Get on with it, you stupid slut!' growled Moll.
'Well, before you can say a word my man, the one I been with, he has his sword out and he's fightin' this other man.'This other man, he run back into my room and I start screamin' an' my man he turns an' clouts me one on the side of the head with the handy bit of his sword an' I goes down screamin' an' he kicks at me to shut me up an' then this other man he trips on his sword…' The girl started to blubber and to wail again, dabbing at her eyes.'… an' the point of his bloody sword goes in the side o' my arse, it does, real hard and deep, an' it hurts and hurts an' there's a mark there now for life, it be, for life…'
'It'll be a short life, that's for sure, girl, if you carry on like that,' said Moll. 'Tell the gentleman here what your man said while he was riding you.'
'Well, sir,' said the tearful Nell, 'he were rough with me, very rough indeed, an' I says, "Now, sir, can you not get as much pleasure by being a little more gentle with a poor girl?" and he says, goin' at it even 'arder, "If I bain't be gentle with that damn'd King and his rotten crew I bain't be gentle with you, girl!'"
Gresham tossed a coin to the girl, which she caught with practised ease, even though he knew it would be taken from her as soon as she left the room. She gave a faint smile to Gresham, and a pleading look towards Moll. She ignored it, motioning the girl to leave.
'That's all?' said Gresham.
'No, not all,' said Moll. 'The man's name is Tom Wintour.'
The name triggered the memory of the miserable-looking man in the tavern. Robert Wintour, Tom Wintour's brother.
'He nearly killed the other man and lost me a good girl for a while, so I was less than well pleased. I had him cornered by three of the lads and taken out round the back, to teach him a lesson, as you do. He caught one of the lads with a dagger he'd hidden on him, and it got serious. He was screaming at my lads something about this not happening to him, he'd God's business to do. It was so bad I came running myself. Before I could get there this Wintour catches one of my men in the neck, dives between the other two and gets clean away. It's bad for business, all round. One of my men might die. There should be no man who beats my ruffians. It's not good for my honour, you understand. The other man he went for on the night has a bad wound and won't walk straight again. And that's bad for custom. Keep it clean, keep it quiet.'
Robert Wintour. Tom Wintour. Wintour of Huddington Court. Gresham remembered now, as it all fell into place. The western Marches were a terrible area for the old religion, defying London to take its Catholicism away from it. He had been sent to enquire into one particularly crusty old Catholic, a Sir John Talbot, heir to the Earldom of Shrewsbury. It was feared he was plotting a rebellion. He was harmless, as it had happened, a fact which had not stopped the Government from locking him up on and off for over twenty years. Gresham had become fascinated by the network of blood relations, marriages and alliances which criss-crossed the great Catholic families of the area, binding them tight together like the finest cloth. Talbot's daughter had married Robert Wintour, Gresham now remembered. Tom Wintour was the younger brother, but the brains of the family. Their house of Huddington Court was rumoured to be riddled with more priest-holes than the Vatican.
'So a swaggerer beats a whore and wounds some men, and damns the King and talks about God's business… it's not much, Moll.'
'Not much for you, Henry Gresham, who has his inheritance, and no need to earn a daily crust by the sweat of his brow. Moll here has to work for his living.'
Gresham noted Moll's use of the word 'his' to describe herself. It was a trick she only fell into when she was at her most serious, or her most dangerous.
'Yet there is more,' she carried on. 'Does the name Catesby mean anything to you? Jack Wright? Kit Wright?'
The names echoed somewhere in the channels of Gresham's brain. Catesby… a handsome young man on the ill-fated march through London of Essex's supporters, fighting with useless courage as the supporters of the Crown closed in on him…
'Minnows that once swam in the great pond of the Earl of Essex?'
'Fools enough to march through the streets of London trying to rouse support for the Prince of Fools, when every girl in town could've told them it would fail!' replied Moll.
'What have these small fry to do with Tom Wintour?'
'A lot to do with Tom Wintour, judging by the number of times "they all of them hire a private room a stone's throw away from you in the Strand.'
'And what is to stop a group of friends meeting for a good supper to reminisce over old times and how they nearly overthrew good Queen Bess?' said Gresham, playing Devil's advocate.
'With a priest in the next room to say Mass, and locked doors, and much swearing of oaths? And with young Thomas Percy as thick as a thief with the whole sorry crew?'
The Earl of Northumberland, leader of a significant portion of English Catholics, had recommended himself to Gresham by setting himself up as a firm opponent of Cecil and vilifying the stunted creature, decorously, at every opportunity. As ever, Northumberland's action revealed the capacity of the English Catholics to always back a loser. Thomas Percy Gresham remembered as a runt of a man who claimed more blood links with Northumberland than most thought he was heir to, and who for some inconsiderable reason Northumberland had apparently made steward of Alnwick Castle, the dripping pile of masonry hung on the bleak Northumbrian coast.
'Does Cecil know of this?'
Moll turned to her tankard, discomfited. 'I doubt it. And certainly not from me, if he does. Cecil and I are… not dealing with each other, as things stand.'
'Why, Moll,' said Gresham, the half-smile lighting his face, 'what did we do to his Lordship?'
Moll scowled, and then let a half-grin cross her face. 'Why, it was a good song. They loved it at The Swan. Here, it was so good I bought this in the street three hours after I had first sung it.'
Gresham looked at the crudely printed ballad sheet Moll thrust into his hands. He read the words with increasing astonishment and good humour.
‘I would believe almost anything of Cecil,' he said, struggling to keep even half a straight face, 'but surely not with a three-legg'd goat and a candlestick?'
'Aye, well, we poets must give free rein to our imagination, mustn't we? Careful — that cost all of a penny!' she exclaimed as Gresham pocketed the paper.
'Include it in the bill,' he said lightly.
'There's more,' she said. 'Will Shadwell was a man of yours, wasn't he?'
'He's no man's man now, except the Devil's, I suspect,' said Gresham, interested again. 'What of him?'
'I heard today of his death. He dined here a week before, in the Norfolk room.' Private rooms in the inn were named after the English counties, or so Moll said. Gresham believed they were named after noble lords who had bedded their whores there. 'He dined with Thomas Percy.'
'Did he now.' Gresham's face was stony, impenetrable. Did Thomas Percy have a string of rosary beads around his neck? wondered Gresham.
'Had you considered he might have been on his way with news for you?'
'I'd considered it,' said Gresham.
'Percy got drunk that night. Very drunk. Will was playing drunk, but I swear he was plain cold sober. He was on to something, I'll swear to that too. Will never refused a drink unless he was on
to something. Did you know Will was a sentimental old fool?'
'It wasn't my most obvious conclusion, as far as character judgements go.'
'Well, he had a ring, a gold ring, he used to wear round his neck. No-one would know, unless you saw him with his clothes off. He bought it for the first girl he lost his cherry to. She died young — some story or other, I don't recollect the details and who cares? — but he kept the ring about him, always. It was his charm. Never took it off, even in bed.'
'Does this romantic story of young love actually have a point?' said Gresham, rudely.
Moll gazed at him levelly. 'It's always a wonder to me how you've managed to live so long. Yes, it's got a point. The point of a great ruffian in here a couple of nights ago, wearing Will Shadwell’s ring on his great hairy finger!'
Gresham was very still for a few moments. 'And this ruffian? His name?'
'Sam Fogarty, or so he said. Great lump of a man with red hair.' 'And a Northumbrian accent as thick as cake?' Moll looked startled. 'You know him?'
'I think we've met,' said Gresham. It was clear he was going to say no more.
'Well, you great ox,' said Moll, in one of the sudden mood swings that affected her, and turning on Mannion, 'does your master know what bills you run up in my houses?'
Mannion stood up with the lazy ease of a man half his age and delivered a mock bow to Moll. 'I go where my master sends me, Mistress Moll. If I'm to go undetected I can't stand out now, can I, and must blend into the background. Don't the learned say that when in Rome a man must do as the Romans do?'
'By that argument I wonder what you'd do if you found yourself in Sodom,' Moll replied tartly. 'I wonder a man such as you stands for such insolence,' she said, turning to Gresham.
'He has a very small brain,' said Gresham airily, 'which means he thinks with his rod, which is unfortunately much larger. I'll reprimand him, and no doubt he'll weep for his insolence.'
He pulled a purse out from under his cloak and tossed it on the table, where it landed heavily.
'Generous as ever, Sir Henry. Why do you who have so much play these dangerous games? You've no need, surely? Why play Lord Cecil's games?'
'Who's to say it's not Cecil playing my game? I play because I have to,' said Gresham, which was at least true. 'And because of all the things I might die from, I fear boredom more than any other. You above all others know that feeling, old Moll. We're two of a kind.'
She looked at him for a moment. 'That we are — and both likely to die on the gallows or on the rack.'
There was a brief, companionable silence.
‘WHAT'S THIS DAMNED POISON THESE OAFS KEEP SERVING ME?'
Without warning she hurled the tankard at the head of the man nearest the door. It smashed against his forehead, leaving a deep cut. A second later a knife flashed out and caught the sleeve of his jerkin as he raised it towards his wounded head, pinning his arm by the cloth to the door.
That's how to fight,' she said with satisfaction, as blood dripped on to the boards from the man's head. 'Quick. Unexpected. Sharp. That's how a man should fight.'
There was no debate about travelling to the Palace of Whitehall for the King's masque. The finery worn by both Gresham and Jane would have died on the streets and suffered a seizure on horseback. Jane's gown was not as diaphanous as the fashion now worn by many of the Court ladies, but was of the deepest emerald green, trimmed with pearls. The necklace she wore had belonged to Lady Gresham, and had at its centre a diamond as perfect as any the King owned. Gresham wore a doublet of black, as was his custom, but of such fine satin that it seemed to breathe with a life of its own, flowing with his body as he moved and accentuating rather than hiding the muscularity of his body. On his-finger was the one ring, at its centre the Gresham emerald, another stone to make King James, who was obsessed with jewels, turn as green as the gem with envy.
Four men manned the barge, the edge of each oar tipped in gold. A small house hung on the stern of the barge, with the richest of hangings that could be drawn back to allow a view of the passing river, or closed to give privacy to the occupants of the two gilded seats, almost like thrones in the finery of their embellishment. The larger vessel required eight crew, but Gresham hated the ostentation that would have shown in his use of it for so public an arrival.
A string of vessels was making its way upriver to Whitehall, having to beat against tide and current. The feasting and merry' making had been going on all day, but most guests who were not actually resident at Court would come simply for the climax of the revels, the grand dinner and the masque written by Ben Jonson.
Gresham gazed out over the river, oblivious to the excitement of Jane by his side. A heavy, ornate boat with an inexperienced crew had lurched out of line as an oarsman missed his stroke, and slewed round into a plain wherry, splintering part of its bow. The two boats lay dead in the water, being swept downstream, the boat-man's grapple firmly embedded in the hull of the rich barge. A shouting match was underway between the boatman and the leading servant in the fine barge, the fat alderman in the barge trying to retain his dignity and pretend he was above the demeaning spectacle.
Limitless wine had been available all day at court — Spanish wine, French wine, the sweet white wine so beloved of the King, Alicante, Rhenish, Muscatel, sack, Madeira, fine sherries and even ale and beer — and would continue to flow all night. Every creature that walked, flew or swam God's earth would be skinned, plucked or scraped, roasted, boiled, tossed in oils, pickled or jellied and served up to the throng. Every matter that grew in or on the ground would be harvested, peeled and diced or sliced, placed into pastries or set into jellies, covered in creams and decked with spices, to go alongside the honeyed sweetmeats and the cakes. On the last such event Gresham had attended, a groaning trestle table had given way under the mountain of food, and collapsed with such weight as to break both the legs of the serving-man who had placed the last huge side of beef upon it. As darkness came on, torches, lamps and candles would seek to turn the night into day, and the light would glitter on the vast jewels that the men and the women wore to show their wealth and their status. The plate on the King's table would be all gold, and nothing less than silver would grace even the furthest table. Meanwhile in the sweated, smoking kitchens greasy cooks slipped, slithered and yelled for the attention of their underlings and aimed swipes at the kitchen boys with their ladles and heavy spoons. Even by the time they made their landing, Gresham knew that men and women would be spewing in the corners of the court' yards, and sometimes even in the rooms. Increasingly drunken men would piss where they stood, and even some of the women would hardly wait to walk into a shadow before pulling up their skirts and doing likewise, the more brazen shrieking with hilarity at their party as they did so.
Meanwhile, as the torches lit the sweating faces and threw shadows into the corners of the beautiful building, as the light glanced off" the jewels and the silver and the gold, just beyond the reach of the light, there lay the ordinary men and women of England. Most would be lying on a pallet if they were lucky, on an earth floor with a leaking roof and walls little more than mud. Their meal would have been some portion of a rough baked loaf, with more sand than flour in it if the miller was up to his trade, some scraps of filthy meat, a fresh-caught fish if Fortune had smiled on them. Their children would be bare-footed, and if the family had a poor animal it would be there in the room with them, its stink just another stench to go with that of the bodies for which soap was a ludicrous luxury.
Contrasts, clashes; the peace of the Church and the violence it caused among men; the beauty of the music echoed by the retching of the drunk and pampered guests; the wildest perfumes alongside the stink of piss. It was all summed up by the person of the King, thought Gresham. The jewels bedecking his body would be worth hundreds of thousand of pounds, never mind those on his wife's flesh, his clothes worth an Emperor's ransom, yet the man himself was unkempt, unwashed and stank to high heaven. What matter the show, if the inside was rotten?
As the four men pulled strongly towards Whitehall and the King's Landing, Gresham asked, not for the first time, how a just God could let such a world exist. The answer was obvious. There was no justice. There was no logic in creation. There was no God.
There was simply survival. The measure of a man was not how he seemed before his maker, but how he seemed before himself. To live long was to succeed; to die young was normal; to die was to cease to exist, and so life was to be lived to the fullest and to the utmost while it was there to be savoured. It was a joke, a joke so vast that no one human could ever properly understand the cosmic scale of its laughter.
He gazed fondly at Jane, her girlish excitement palpable. She had spent the last stages of the voyage excitedly demolishing the dress sense of the other guests as they hove into sight. Immediately they came in earshot she became a haughty and silent presence, stepping daintily from the boat and causing all eyes to turn in her direction.
It did not take him long to find out that he had missed Bacon's speech of welcome — only one of many, Gresham heard, and rather too intellectual and rambling for the taste of most of the early revellers and the Court. Gresham felt a momentary pang of annoyance.
Already casting around and looking for Sir Francis Bacon, his eyes lit on Cecil. He was huddled in a corner with a small entourage of cronies. Or perhaps he was standing straight, but just looked huddled. The air seemed to darken around Cecil and his cronies wherever they stood, as they moved through the quadrangle, and become more chill. Cecil's eye caught Gresham's. He raised an eyebrow by the tiniest height, and gave the slightest possible nod of his head, before returning his gaze to his own company.
'Bastard!' muttered Gresham, cheerfully, and sought about him for someone important to torment. Then he remembered Jane, feeling a conscience pang that he must see to her amusement, and was rescued by the sight of Inigo Jones and John Donne with his wife. Jones was a bag of nerves on this night, as his design for the 'machinery' of the masques which Queen Anne loved so much was to receive its first test after the banquet. As for poor Donne, banished from Court for marrying his patron's wife and sent for a time to the Fleet prison, he was allowed back occasionally so the King could pester him into accepting high office in the Church. He could not give up the wife he loved, which stopped him from one area of preferment, and he was at heart a Catholic, which barred him from accepting the preferment offered by the King. Donne was threadbare, but surprisingly cheerful, and the love he showed for his wife was pathetic.
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