It was fitting that a man with Imperial ambitions lived in a palace. Gresham barged his way through to the ante-chamber. With the King returned from Oxford, and happily killing as many wild animals as he could find in Royston, Gresham knew Cecil would be sitting at the centre of his web. A crowd of hopefuls were waiting kicking their heels, desperate for an audience.
Gresham approached the Clerk sitting like a little God at his desk.
'The King's Chief Secretary is far too busy to see those who come without prior arrangement,' announced the Clerk, sniffing through an elongated nose whilst looking down it at Gresham. 'If you insist I will take details of your petition,' he added in a tone that made it clear the petition was doomed never to meet his Lordship's eyes. A host of other eyes focused on Gresham, from the threadbare old man with a tattered bundle of papers clutched in his hand to the gallant in fine silk and satin but with a haunted look in his restless eyes. The place stank of fear, of despair and of lost hopes.
Gresham leant over and whispered something in the Clerk's ear. His eyebrows rose until they were entangled in his hair. The Chief Clerk to the King's Chief Secretary scuttled off to knock hesitantly on the guarded door. He emerged a short while later, looking even more flustered, and bowed to Gresham, ushering him in. Mannion remained outside, impassive.
Cecil was alone. It was possible that he might have had a hurriedly dismissed floozy with him, more likely one of the wild Irish harpers whose music he had so taken to. The expensive hangings could have concealed any numbers of doors. How could a man with so much ugliness in his soul have so much love of fine art and music? thought Gresham. Yet somehow Gresham doubted Cecil had been with anyone. Cecil simply liked to keep people waiting, and he fed on the anxiety and desperation of those parked outside his door, almost as if the power to deny them his presence confirmed the very power that he held.
The setting was different from the room where Cecil met his spies. It was opulent, with the hangings alone worth a small fortune. It was vast, the mullioned windows letting in bars of strong sunlight that glowed on the richly polished table in the centre of the room. Cecil sat in a huge, ornately carved chair at the head of the table. The usual mass of papers was spread before him. Why so many papers, thought Gresham, for a man with the most ruthless memory he had ever known? Ten perfectly carved matching oak chairs were ranged each side of the table, with a single, simpler chair at the end of the table. Ordered around the room were twenty or so other chairs, each worth a yeoman's ransom. The message was clear. This was a room that dwarfed the individual. It spoke of meetings of powerful men, of decisions taken by rulers.
It was also a room where clearly the petitioner was meant to sit at the end of the table with a vast lump of gleaming wood between him and the Chief Secretary. Gresham, who was never good at obeying orders spoken or unspoken, simply stepped round and marched up the side of the table.
Was there a flicker of fear in Cecil's gimlet eyes? It was difficult to say, the damned table was so long and Cecil so far away from the door.
Gresham walked the length of the table, remembering to drag his feet a little. He stopped by the side of Cecil, pulled out an adjacent chair and casually seated himself, as if drawing up a chair to his oldest friend. As he did so he pulled his sword scabbard aside with just a touch more force than was strictly necessary.
'Do sit down,' Cecil said softly, making a vague motion with his hand, long after Gresham had done so. There was no sign of anger that the man he had tried to kill was here, alive, seated in front of him.
'Thank you, my Lord,' said Gresham, gracefully.
There was a silence. It stretched into an uncomfortably long time. Gresham sat calmly, a quizzical smile on his face, his eyes never leaving Cecil's impenetrable black gaze.
Cecil broke first. 'You did ask to see me, I believe?'
'Did I?' said Gresham, in a surprised tone. 'My apologies, my Lord. A number of your servants have attempted to make contact with me, and so I assumed the invitation was yours. I wondered perhaps if you wished news of Sir Walter Raleigh, your Lordship's old friend?'
'My servants?' said Cecil, apparently equally surprised, and ignoring the gibe about Raleigh. He knew Gresham's relationship with the most distinguished prisoner in the Tower. 'You surprise me, Sir Henry. I was not aware of sending any servants to speak with you.'
No, thought Gresham, you just sent a group of ruffians to murder me. I suppose you could call them your servants.
'That is certainly true, my Lord,' replied Gresham, 'as the servants in question did not have the holding of speech with me as their first priority.'
'I am surprised, therefore, that these speechless creatures were able to identify themselves as my servants. Are you sure in your surmise? I would be angered indeed if there were those seeking to impersonate servants of His Majesty the King's Chief Secretary.'
Mistake, Gresham thought. Your first mistake. You should not need to use your rank to boost your credibility.
'I would not worry overmuch, my Lord.'
'And why should that be, sir?' enquired Cecil, raising one thin eyebrow and feigning boredom despite the patronising impertinence of Gresham's tone.
'The scoundrels in question were an unhealthy lot. Indeed, I believe all but two of them died of a sudden, one is near to death and another broke a limb.'
Let Cecil think one of the murderers lived on. All the bodies could not have been washed up yet, and even Cecil could not keep a count of every body in the Thames…
'How very unfortunate,' mused Cecil.
‘Not at all, my Lord,' replied Gresham. 'Rather I view it now as God's justice on any soul impertinent enough to pretend to be in your Lordship's employ. Thanks be to God.'
'Well, well,' said Cecil, flatly. 'This has been most interesting. Most interesting.' His tone suggested it had been as interesting as an examination of his master's scrotum. 'But do tell me, as you are here, how things go with the investigation of… Sir Francis Bacon.'
Gresham leant forward, suddenly, conspiratorially. Even the icy control of Cecil could not stop him from a sudden, sharp movement back in his seat.
'I have it on the firmest evidence,' said Gresham with total sincerity, 'that he is the Fiend incarnate.'
'How so?' said Cecil, revealing more interest than he intended.
'It is said that he possesses the Philosopher's Stone, the alchemist's secret, the magic stone that turns all it touches to gold. There is one problem, and one problem alone.'
Cecil's avarice overcame his intelligence. 'Problem?' he said, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. 'What problem?'
'In its present refinement Sir Francis's stone will turn to gold only the turds of members of the true aristocracy. He has tried it on all manner of substances, and on all manner of turds, but it will only work with those produced from men of the highest breeding.'
Gresham stared hard at Cecil. Cecil's family was of low birth, brought to ascendancy by the mind and not the breeding of Cecil's father, old Lord Burghley.
'This is a problem indeed, my Lord, because as my Lord knows better than I, there are many cheap and imitation Lords about the place nowadays, my Lord, Lords who claim, my Lord, high birth and breeding but who are only lately come into their Lordships, my Lord, and have no more breeding than a turd. My Lord.'
If ever hate could bum a hole in a man's eye sockets there is smoke in your eyes now, thought Gresham.
'Clearly,' Gresham continued, relaxing against the hard back of the chair, 'this matter is of equal importance to the enquiry into Sir Francis Bacon's sodomite tendencies, a matter which I know carries the highest importance to the welfare of the nation. Indeed, one part of the anatomy seems to turn up wherever one looks in the case of Sir Francis. I shall enlarge the scope of my enquiries to cover both areas, so to speak.'
Cecil was stockstill, as if frozen. Gresham could see the tick, tick of the pulse in his neck. It was double Gresham's pulse.
I think you do not have a very great sen
se of humour, Chief Secretary to the King, particularly where the butt of die humour is yourself.
'On less serious matters, I must report, my Lord, that I have been experiencing minor difficulties in the conduct of my investigation.'
Cecil's eyes had gone on a brief journey to Hell, noted the suffering that could be inflicted on a human body, and returned to the land of the living with renewed enthusiasm, particularly as they looked at Gresham.
'Do tell me,' he said, in a voice of coach wheels on gravel.
'I suspect the wicked Sir Francis has detected my enquiries.'
Let's play you at your own game, thought Gresham, bluff and double bluff. Let Sir Francis be my code for Robert Cecil. Let's see your mind race to break that code.
'Sir Francis has set men to spy upon me and scoundrels to murder me. I believe he has also forged letters in my hand, purporting to show me as a Papist.'
'Good heavens!' said Cecil softly. 'Such wickedness!'
'I know, my Lord,' said Gresham, shaking his head in sadness, 'such wickedness is almost beyond the imagining of men of good conscience such as you and me. However, I am reassured in my heart. You see, I have weapons against such villainy.'
'You do?' enquired Cecil, his voice caressing Gresham.
'I do, my Lord. You see,' he leant forward to whisper the information near to Cecil's ear, 'I have letters from Sir Francis to the Infanta of Spain offering his support to her claim to succeed Her Majesty the Queen upon Her Majesty's most untimely death — whilst at the same time he was expressing his total loyal service to His Majesty King James when His Majesty was King of Scotland! Can you imagine such infamous double-dealing from a servant of the Crown! And what is more, these letters have Sir Francis's very own personal seal on them, the seal he never lets off his hand. They are potent proof, beyond the wit of even the best forger.'
'And how,' said Cecil in a voice that was almost also a whisper, 'did you acquire these letters?'
'I murdered the messenger that was taking them to Spain, as he sought to board a ship in Dover,' said Gresham flatly. 'You will understand, I am sure, my Lord. We servants of the King have sometimes to take drastic action to preserve the peace. They are good letters, remember. The hand and the style are unmistakable, and, as I said, they are sealed with… Sir Francis's seal. His special signet. I believe he uses it still.'
Gresham did not glance at the signet ring on Cecil's finger, the ring containing his personal seal. Nor did Cecil.
'Yet Sir Francis could still do you great harm, Sir Henry. The Papist threat is ever with us. You would do well not to be implicated.'
It had taken very little time for Cecil to pick up the code.
'That is true, my Lord. But were you ever familiar with the work of that great rogue, Kit Marlowe? The lines are from his Doctor Faustus. I believe it is Mephistopheles who speaks them.
"It is great consolation to the damned to have companions in distress."
If Sir Francis succeeds in implicating me, I know of course I would have your Lordship's support in any charges brought against me. Your Lordship has always supported his friends.'
Take that in Raleigh's name, and for his sake!
‘Not to mention the support of several Bishops in the House of Lords who know my fervent Anglicanism. Even were that mighty support to fail, I would at least have the comfort of knowing that I would drag my accuser down to Hell alongside of me.'
'So many secrets, Sir Henry. So many secrets,' mused Cecil. His eyes swivelled back from the window where they had rested their gaze, and fixed on Gresham. There was no change in the tone of his voice, or the posture of his body.
'Tell me, does Sir Francis know that you once sodomised a young man in the Low Countries, and that the young man in question was executed in a most gruesome manner when you refused to acknowledge your crime? I am sure that your… niece knows what happened. I understand you are very close to her. And that servant of yours… and the students in the fine College you have endowed in Cambridge, and its Fellows. It is in the nature of academics to be forgiving, of course, and they and students never gossip or laugh at a man… how could they, when their studies bring them so close to God? No, I am sure those who have cause to love you will find forgiveness in their hearts, should this thing become known…'
The sinking feeling, as if given a sudden blow to the stomach. He had known it would come. This was what had been in the papers Cecil had stolen from Walsingham, in the paper that Cecil had produced in order to blackmail him into going on that stupid mission overseas so long ago. He had steeled himself for it, knew that Cecil would not be able to resist playing his final card. It was a victory over Cecil, after all. It was Cecil declaring his hand, when he, Gresham, had cards in hiding still. Victory; yet it hurt still like the pains of Hell.
No-one looking at Gresham's neck would have seen the tick of his pulse increase. There was no film of sweat on his brow. Knowing that the human eye could sense the tiniest tightening of muscle — it was the sense that had kept him alive on several occasions — he forced his muscles to relax, kept himself draped nonchalantly over his chair.
'You are kind in your concern for my past, my Lord, and for my future. As it is, I told Sir Francis Bacon of the incident to which you refer.'
The tiniest, tiniest flicker of a muscle in Cecil's eye… Always start a lie with a truth…
'And my niece and servant know everything I know and everything I have been…'
Which if I have knocked you off your guard you will not realise does not include everything I have done… Now. Now was the time. Now he signed his death warrant, or arranged a little longer life for himself, for Jane and for Mannion…
'Yet you are correct, my Lord. I know my secrets are safe with such as your Lordship, yet it would cause me grief if some were to know of what you speak. There is a further matter.'
It was vital that Gresham injected the right blend of bitterness, near-shame and worry into his voice if he was to be believed.
'I am… ill, my Lord.'
'You are?' said Cecil, coming to life, and with a gleam of hope in his voice. 'I am saddened to hear it.'
For only the briefest moment Gresham was tempted to confess to the plague, if only to see how fast Cecil could run.
'It is… a growth, my Lord, here in my side.' It was actually a penny loaf, strapped to his side whilst still warm from the kitchens, but producing a suitable lump just under his ribcage, bulging under his satin doublet. Thank God Cecil did not keep hounds in his hall. They would have sniffed at the doublet and in all probability tried to drag the bread from under his shirt.
'I am told it is serious. It would have been most interesting to pursue Sir Francis, to enact revenge for his assaults on my person, but unless I obtain total rest I am assured that I will do to myself what Sir Francis's men tried to do to me. I am leaving London, my Lord, with those closest to me. It will be difficult for Sir Francis to find me out. I am practised in hiding. Should I be pursued or harried any more I have made arrangements for the letters I mentioned to be delivered to someone who hates him, and who will guarantee sight of them to the King.'
That would set Cecil dunking. The list of men with good cause to hate him would stretch three times round Whitehall and still reach all the way to the Tower. And they did say the King liked younger men, men with straight bodies and golden hair…
'I wish you a full and speedy recovery, Sir Henry. You are master of your own affairs. But if indeed you propose to "vanish", as you put it, I am sure Sir Francis would not over-exert himself in finding you. He will feel, I am sure, that his point has been made. Men such as he hate meddlers, do they not?'
'It would appear that men such as Sir Francis Bacon do not just hate meddlers, my Lord. It would appear they try to murder them.' Gresham drew a deep breath. 'Which leads on to my final question, my Lord.
'Why was Will Shadwell killed?'
Gresham put the ragged edge on his voice, forced the sweat to coat his forehead. A man required to co
ntrol too much, a man for whom serious illness and the ordeal of a growth being hacked from his side was pushing him over the edge, a man desperate to clear his affairs in the knowledge that he might not be of this earth for too much longer — all these Gresham tried to cram into his question.
‘Shadwell?' said Cecil. 'Shadwell? I do not think I…'
'My Lord!' Gresham interrupted him, made his breathing heavy, short, let his hand creep to his side as to contain pain. 'Enough of this play-acting! It was a game I played once. I am not the person I hope to be at this time. I lack patience. Time is not my friend. Will Shadwell was murdered, on your orders. The murderer has sworn this is so. Will Shadwell was my man. Foul thing he may have been, but he was bound to me as my servant. He who kills my servant stains my honour. I have redeemed that honour by killing the man who killed Shadwell. Can we for this once speak plain? Why did my man have to die?'
There was a long, long silence. Would the fencing cease? Would he ever get a straight statement from Cecil? Cecil moved his gaze away from Gresham, the eyes seeming almost sightless, resting somewhere beyond even this room. What is passing through his mind? thought Gresham. What certainties, what agonies of decision? What happens inside the mind of such a man as Robert Cecil?
'Imagine a land,' said Cecil, getting to his feet, 'a troubled land. A very troubled land.' His voice was soft, whispering almost, a tone Gresham had never heard. Cecil walked slowly, almost limping, to a portrait hanging on the wall opposite the window. He is in pain, thought Gresham. He finds it hard to walk. He hides this pain, but now for a moment he has forgotten to hide. The portrait was of a young woman. The old Queen, Queen Elizabeth, Gresham saw.
'Imagine a land,' said Cecil, looking up at the portrait, 'that deludes itself into a sense of its greatness. A poor land with powerful neighbours, threatened always from without and from within. A land with no obvious ruler to take over. Let us imagine that a ruler is found, at last. An experienced ruler, a ruler who has survived in a colder and even bleaker land, a ruler who offers some hope of peace and stability. Such a ruler is a treasure, to be guarded and preserved. Yet all things come at a price. In this imaginary land this imaginary ruler is… troubled by women. His upbringing has not left him at peace with women. He prefers the company of men. And it is rumoured, in the vile way that such rumours will grow, the company of boys.'
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