January to March, 1599 London and Ireland
Jane had bought books in her brief foray into Edinburgh. She seemed to have an instinct better than any homing pigeon for them. The journey back to England had been as idyllic as any such journey could be. The sun had shone, the wind had blown just enough to give them good speed but no scares and Gresham had found Cameron to be knowledgeable in both Italian and French poetry, as well as the works of Machiavelli. Gresham and he were careful to keep off issues relating to their mutual existence as spies, talking poetry and politics instead. Jane was buried in a book, and Mannion listened to the exchanges between Gresham and Cameron pretending not to understand. Every now and again, he would stagger the remaining crew of the Anna with his nautical knowledge.
The journey proved to be the calm in the middle of the storm.
They came back to an England in uproar. The Earl of Essex had been banished to the country after the Queen had boxed his ears and he, in high dudgeon, had drawn his sword on her! The fiendish rebel Tyrone was sweeping through Ireland and English bodies littered every river and every ford in Ireland! Essex was ill! Essex was dead! Essex was not dead, but seriously ill — really ill this time, not the pretend illnesses he usually contracted when the Queen was piqued with him. Essex was better! Essex had been murdered on the orders of Cecil! Essex had been called to raise and command a new army in Ireland, the army that would sweep the rebels into the sea!
'You are in total neglect of your duty!' said Jane to Gresham, standing defiantly in front of him. Things had rapidly got back to normal. 'You will not replace your steward, who is in his dotage, and you will not order repairs to The House! The result is that the roof of the west wing will collapse unless something is done soon.'
'It is my house, and I will do with it — or not do with it — as I wish!' said Gresham stingingly.
'It is something you hold in trust, as does any man who owns a great house, and you are betraying that trust!' said Jane equally vehemently.
He had been too nice to her when she was young. It never did. Treat them rough and they grew up respecting you, Gresham thought, denying the fact that every shred of his actual experience proved the contrary.
'And how about the people who will die when the roof collapses? Do you own them and their souls, as you own this House?'
'You are impertinent!' said Gresham. 'Leave my presence immediately.'
Jane gave the most skimpy of little bows, turned on her heels and left.
Gresham realised he had quite enjoyed the row. Jane's cheeks coloured and her eyes flashed when she was angry, and he liked the way her chest rose up and down.
'Me, I never went to college,' said Mannion.
'That's because they only let intelligent people in!' retorted Gresham.
'Good thing, probably,' said Mannion, undisturbed, 'cos uneducated men like me are dead stupid with words.'
'Stupid with words?' said Gresham caught off guard for the moment. 'What words?'
'Words like "impertinent", for starters,' said Mannion. 'I alius thought it meant cheeky, impudent. Never realised it meant bein' right.'
'It doesn't,' said Gresham.
'Must do,' said Mannion. 'You told 'er she were impertinent.' 'So?'
'Well, she told you as 'ow the west wing's about to fall down, and it surely is. So if she tells you, and you tells her she's being impertinent, it must mean she's right.'
Gresham felt himself deflating.
'Oh, Christ. Is the sodding building about to fall down?'
'Building ain't,' said Mannion. 'Roof is. Much the same thing when you comes to it.'
'Why do you always side with her?' asked Gresham. 'Have the pair of you got a thing going?'
'No, we haven't, as it happens,' said Mannion calmly, 'as you knows full well. She's family, ain't she, in a sort of way. I don't bed family.'
'It's about all you don't bed,' muttered Gresham. 'Jealousy'll get you nowhere,' said Mannion. 'And me, I just goes with those who're impertinent.' 'What?' said Gresham.
'Those who're impertinent.' He looked at Gresham pityingly. 'Those who're impertinent. Like what you've told me the word means. Those who're right. I mean ter say, you're a Fellow of a grand college and all that. Me, I'm just a working man. If you tells me as 'ow the meaning of impertinent is being right, who am I to argue?'
'Can we end this conversation?' asked Gresham.
'Course,' said Mannion easily. 'You're the master. You can end any conversation when you likes. In fact, you can do that a lot easier than rebuild the west wing. Which is what you'll have to do before long if you don't recognise that 'er who annoys you so much is actually very impertinent when it comes to the state of that roof.'
'For God's sake! All right! Go and get someone to mend the bloody roof! And hire a new steward while you're at it! The old one's been loyal, hasn't he, even if he is ga-ga. Give him a room in the bloody attic — the west wing of course — and a pension and free food. Let's have all London feeding off me.'
'Better if she does all that,' said Mannion. 'You know, 'er that's impertinent.'
'Can't I even keep my dignity?' said Gresham.
'No,' said Mannion, 'you can't. Leastways, you can't order a new roof when you're buggering off to Ireland. And taking me with you. She can. And she'll look out to make sure they does a good job.'
Life went into hibernation over winter, the celebrations for the twelve days of Christmas a brief glittering interlude. Despite that, the Court had been a frenzy of activity following Gresham's return in September. The incredible row between Elizabeth and Essex had been patched up; Essex was widely seen as the man who would lead an early spring offensive in Ireland. Recruitment had started by October, and showed no signs of lessening off. The army for Ireland was shaping up to be the biggest land force Elizabeth had ever sent out in her name. She was not prepared to be the monarch who lost Ireland for England. For once, she even seemed willing to put her money where her thin mouth was.
Gresham had gone immediately on his return to deliver his packages to the Queen and to Robert Cecil. The Queen had been cursory, verging on dismissive, her thanks perfunctory and her whole manner that of someone whose mind was elsewhere. Cecil had been cold.
'Thank you,' he had said, fingering King James's letter but managing to hide what must have been an. intense urge to open and read it. 'The Earl of Essex will in all probability lead the expedition to Ireland. You will accompany him.'
'And tell you if the man commanding the largest army Elizabeth has ever mustered is likely to turn it round and bring it back over the sea to conquer England and not Ireland?' asked Gresham. The incident with Elizabeth had not lessened Essex's popularity with the masses, if anything had increased it. Many at Court felt there was a very real risk in letting Essex take command of one of the largest land armies England had ever seen. In Gresham's opinion they were right.
'Precisely so,' said Cecil.
'And I do this for love, my Lord?' asked Gresham. 'Love of my greatest friends, I mean, rather than for love of the Earl of Essex?' Cecil sniffed.
'There are consequences for you and for your closest friends if you fail me, yes,' he said. 'Those consequences have not changed. As I have said, I believe your friendship with Essex to be born out of a flagon, not out of any true meeting of minds.'
'I think the consequences have changed, my Lord,' said Gresham trying not to sound too smug, 'not least of all because there are now consequences for you as well.' Gresham had been looking forward to this for some while. He liked to be in the driving seat, and anyone not in that position with Cecil was likely to find that the alternative was to find himself under the wheels.
'How so?' said Cecil, trying not to appear interested.
'You were kind enough to give me a letter, with your own personal seal on it, to give to King James of Scotland.'
Cecil said nothing.
'As you know, it's extraordinarily difficult to make an exact forgery of a seal, particularly one produced by an expert. They can be made to look similar, but the finer lines are almost impossible to replicate exactly because they're cut by hand and each hand is slightly different. An expert will spot the difference in minutes.'
Cecil remained silent, his eyes boring into Gresham's. 'Here,' said Gresham, tossing a sealed paper in the direction of Cecil. 'I've tried to forge your seal on a number of occasions. I've used the best people, the very best people. This is the finest example I've managed.'
To all intents and purposes the seal on Gresham's letter matched that used by Cecil. Cecil strove to appear disinterested, but the colour had left his face.
'You can relax, my Lord,' said Gresham. 'It's good, I grant you, as good as money can buy, but it wouldn't fool an expert", not for long. But there's a technique for lifting an original seal off one letter and fixing it to another.'
And a devilish complex business it was, as Gresham could confirm, having witnessed its use on Cecil's letter to James.
'It works,' said Gresham confidently, 'most of the time at least. And it worked, thank God, with the letter you gave me for James. After rather a lot of effort, I was left with your seal complete and unbroken, and an opened letter.'
Cecil stayed silent.
'Congratulations, by the way. Your letter to James was excellent. Respectful, dignified, precise. An excellent refutation of two most serious accusations. But back to business. While duplicating a seal is very difficult, forging handwriting is far less so. You wrote to James in your own hand, of course. You couldn't trust it to any secretary. Your hand is a fine one, but it's College-taught, a standard script. Please open that letter. The one I passed you with the false seal on it.'
Reluctantly, slowly, Cecil reached for the letter, glanced briefly at the seal and cracked it open. The letter thus revealed was a letter in the hand of Robert Cecil. Every detail, every swirl was exact and precise. It was his own handwriting. Except that at the bottom of the page was a vast ink blot It happened. The pot was tipped over. The quill took on board too much ink, and decided to drop it randomly on the page. How the person forging that letter must have cursed his own carelessness!
The letter, blot and all, was an effusive paean of praise for King James of Scotland, regretting bitterly the time it would take for him to inherit his rightful throne, pledging undying loyalty to him and making some terse and deeply wounding criticisms of the 'old lady' running England from a red wig.
Cecil had the grace to go really white this time.
'Did you-' he started to ask.
'Did I place your proper seal, after taking it off your actual letter, put it on a clean version of this forgery and hand it to James? No. That would have been too easy.'
'So what did you do?' asked Cecil, his voice that of the snake.
'I took your original letter, the one I'd lifted your seal off, and re-sealed it with the best forgery I had of your seal. King James of Scotland got your original letter, right enough, albeit with a false seal. As I said, the forged seal isn't perfect. But it was probably good enough to fool the King of Scotland. After all, the letter you wrote does a good job of exonerating you from blame, actually makes a strong case for your not being either a sodomite or a Devil-worshipper. Why would anyone bother to forge a letter that in all probability puts you back in King James's good books? You can relax about that at least. The King of Scotland received the letter you wrote him, as you had written it to him. The only difference was that the seal was a forgery. A forgery he is unlikely to notice.'
'And my original seal? The one you tell me you lifted off my letter? To what use did you put that?'
'Well, I had to find a good use for it, didn't I? It's not every day I get the chance to make a letter look as if it came from you. That went onto a fair copy of this splodged letter. Same text, more or less. Except no blot this time. The one that protests undying love for King James, deep resentment at Queen Elizabeth and sufficient treasonous comments to have you hung. If not drawn and quartered.'
'And its whereabouts?' asked Cecil.
'In safe keeping. A treasonous letter with an apparently unbroken seal. A seal that matches in every line and whorl your seal, because it is actually your seal. A treasonous letter, written in your hand. A letter which the loyal Henry Gresham was tasked to deliver, but through loyalty to the Crown refused to do so.'
Gresham paused for a moment.
'The scene is positively tear-jerking. I really don't know why someone hasn't put it in a play. This loyal servant of the Crown, the humble Sir Henry Gresham, is blackmailed by the evil Robert Cecil, into taking a message to the King of Scotland. Knowing that the letter will inevitably be traitorous and disloyal, he is far too terrified to open it. Instead he uses his vast wealth to substitute it for a letter that merely protests my Lord Cecil's innocence of accusations of sodomy and Devil-worship, sealed with a hastily forged copy of my Lord's seal that only the King of Scotland would be fool or drunk enough to accept. He achieves his mission. My Lord Cecil seems happy with the delivery of the letter, and his threat to Gresham is placed at the least on hold. King James seems happy enough with what he has read. Everyone is happy. Including Henry Gresham, who of course has retained the original letter in the certainty that it is treasonous, who can produce it unopened, who now knows that the altered content is quite explosive. So Henry Gresham can now blow Robert Cecil out of the water on demand, at least while the Queen lives.'
The silence was long enough for a competent spider to have built a significant web.
'And where does this leave us?' asked Cecil. His composure never left him for long.
'Equal, I think,' said Gresham. 'You hold the mortgages on my friend's land and forged letters that will send me to the block. I now hold the equivalent on you. Touche.'
'And the Earl of Essex?'
Cecil was nothing if not consistent.
‘I’ve been asked by him to go on his Irish expedition. As a captain, with my own troop. At my own expense, of course. I said yes.'. Did Cecil's expression change?
'It's quite ironic, really. You see, the dashing Earl knows I work for you, and it would flatter his ego hugely if he could seduce me into his service. You have very few secure sources of information on Essex — for all his faults, those who serve him do tend to be very loyal — and you're equally desperate for me to go with him as your spy. Well, I am going, but not in answer to your threats or to his entreaties. I'm going because I have chosen to go.' 'Why did you do so?' asked Cecil.
'Ever since I met Essex I've had this sense about him. A sense that he is a mover and shaker, a sense that he is someone who will make and change history. There are two types of people in the world: those who simply live, and those who make a difference. Essex has the power to make a difference — for better or worse. And my sense is that his time is now. And because I'm beginning to realise that what's driven me to dirty my hands in the filthy game of power is the desire to make a difference, I'm drawn to him. Have you ever watched a good swordsman at work?'
The question threw Cecil.
'Violence is the last resort of the intellectually incompetent,' he rasped as if his saliva was acid. 'I despise it as a waste of resources. Why on earth should I watch a swordsman?'
'Because if you had,' said Gresham, 'you'd see that a huge part of his skill is to go with the flow, let the weight and mass and momentum of the blade do most of his work for him. So it is with me. I'm fascinated by Essex. I'm also frightened by his power to influence people — frightened because he himself does not realise how much he can use that power for good or evil. If you wanted me to spy on Essex, all you had to do was to use my natural inclination, my fear of Essex, and for once I'd have been a willing partner, matching your very different fear. As it is, and because you chose to enlist me by a crude threat, you've lost me as an ally. I go to Ireland as a free agent who might choose to report back to you, but who is under no compunction to do so.'
'I think you lie to yourself,' said Cecil. 'I think the Earl of Essex has cast his spell over you as he has cast it over so many others. I think you are his creature.'
'Your lack of imagination catches you out. One can observe a spell without falling under it. I go to Ireland, knowingly, because Essex intrigues me. He's Icarus. He'll fly too near the sun, and it'll destroy him. And I go because I care for peace in England, and his raving ambition's a threat to England. And because as I quite like him I might be able to stop him doing the stupid thing. But most of all I will go to Ireland because I can sense things happening, great, momentous things. Things that might change history. Oh, I know you see yourself as the spider, sitting at the centre of the web, controlling everything and everyone. But I tell you, there's more afoot than even you can imagine. The Earl of Essex is somehow at the heart of it all so if I am to find out what's going on, I need to be with Essex.'
Gresham left Cecil's presence a great deal happier than he had left it the last time. He had not destroyed the threat posed by Cecil, but he had offered a counter balance, and the two were now in the state of an immovable object up against an irresistible force. It was good enough. It would have to do.
'This,' said Mannion, 'is a right bugger's mix.'
One end of the Library faced out onto the Thames. The other overlooked the courtyard, where what appeared to be a minor battle was raging.
Gresham had put word about that he wished to recruit a company of men. As a result the house had been besieged since dawn. There were 'captains' in their hundreds out there, big, swaggering burly men with huge moustaches and extravagant hats whose brims nearly bridged the Thames, some of them with weather-lined faces marked by smallpox, others with battle scars, one with a huge black eye patch that seemed to make his other eye glare even more. There was a man with a wooden leg, seeming to move faster than his two-legged companions, and one with a hook instead of a left hand. Rather than the sharp end pointing back to the user, it pointed upwards in a grotesque U-shape, the better to rest the shaft of a musket on.
It was late January, and bitterly cold. Braziers had been set up in the yard and, on Gresham's orders, on the street as well, the red-hot coals roasting the fronts of those who huddled near them while the raw wind froze their backs.
Many of the men knew each other, veterans of endless campaigning in the Low Countries. They accosted each other with hollow fellowship or rich insults, their wary eyes glancing round all the time. The cold of winter held no threat for them; they were the survivors. They had overcome bad food, sweating fevers that had swept through the camps in winter, dysentery, heat and cold. They were the ones who the musket balls and the cannon balls had missed, the ones who had scrambled ashore when their transport sank off the Scheldt, the ones who had brought their mounts under control when they bolted and looked set to run straight at the enemy. It was luck, of course, more so than skill or judgement. Warfare took no account of morality, cared nothing for character, for wife or for family. The good died, the bad lived on, or the other way round. Attendance at communion before the battle was a primitive, primeval act, designed to placate an angry God just in case he did exist, to grab the luck to oneself even if it meant taking it away from someone else.
Among their number were the young ones, some dressed in the height of fashion, some in rags, second, third or fourth sons whose only inheritance would be a small annuity. Men who had been conceived as insurance in case the eldest born died young. Shuddering at the thought of a career in the Church or life as a hanger-on, they placed their faith in becoming a hanger-on to the gods of war. War offered excitement and the prospect of reward. And because they were young, they thought they were immortal, and it would be someone else who would die or be maimed. Ignoring the evidence of the older men around them, men for whom war had run its iron fingernails across the soft matter of their brains as well as their bodies, men whom war had corrupted and robbed of half their sensitivities, these young men hung around the edges of the group, the veterans deigning to notice them only if their clothing or equipment suggested they might be good for a free drink.
Gresham and Mannion chose their men finally, fifteen officers and 150 foot soldiers; it took them most of the day. A major factor was the men's kit: a rusty sword, a pistol not gleaming with oil, a leather sword belt that was torn and likely to fall off in battle, and the man was dismissed instantly. So too was anyone with a clearly new, gleaming and unused pistol which had probably been hired for the day. What Gresham and Mannion were looking for were pistols showing signs of usage, carefully oiled and cleaned. The braggadocios wore their pistols openly. The soldiers would even cover the wheel, flint or matchlock mechanism with a carefully cut piece of oiled canvas, to protect it from the weather. If in doubt, Gresham asked to look at the ammunition bag carried by each man. A number had no pistol balls or powder. An equal number had a few balk of different calibre, none of which fitted the gun they were carrying. The real soldiers had at least ten or twenty balls, all as perfectly round as the foundry allowed, and the true veterans would have cast the balls themselves. A misshapen ball could stick in the barrel, blowing up the gun, or simply roll out of it. The less round the ball, the less accurate its flight. As for the sword, it must show signs of use, be oiled and sharpened on one side only, and show no signs of a sudden application of the sharpening stone that morning. A blade that was lovingly tended every day revealed itself to an expert as quickly as some men can sense a virgin. Another key was the length of the blade and weight of the sword. The worst of the soldiers carried swords far too long and heavy for their size and build; carried it for show rather than for use. The true veterans matched their sword to their body mass, height and reach.
So much for the trappings. Then there was the man himself. There would be illness enough on the campaign — Ireland was riddled with a particularly virulent form of dysentry which seemed to eat up men's insides — so to take someone already ill or brewing a sickness was madness. Was the face pale from drink or a wasting sickness? How about the cough? Was the limp an honourable wound or a suppurating sore? Then there was the final and simplest check of all: did the man look you in the eye?
Gresham and Mannion made their way the short route down the Strand to Essex House where there was a level of apparent chaos that made The House look positively calm. Yet it was ordered chaos, Gresham noticed. For someone so mercurial, Essex could be a surprisingly good organiser. While he was a strange mixture, he had some good officers round him, and while his command decisions had been suspect in his few real experiences of warfare, his administration had always been surprisingly good.
They heard the Earl long before they saw him. Most of London must have heard him. He was sitting by a map-covered table and he was screaming. Not just shouting, but screaming, so carried away that spit was flying across the room from his mouth. 'God's blood!' he yelled, 'Am I to endure this? Can a man not breathe? Must I be thwarted at every move?'
None of his entourage were willing to deny him. That had always been part of Essex's problem. The loyalty he inspired was that of the Messiah to his disciples, and only Judas had disagreed with Jesus. Gelli Meyrick, over-dressed in a turquoise doublet and a hat that could have shaded most of Cheapside, was standing by the table, looking vaguely menacing with a dark scowl on his face. The Earl of Southampton was standing by Essex's side — a sensible place to be in the face of the flying spittle — and he and Gresham exchanged guarded nods. Southampton was a fey creature, with a rather languorous manner and an ivory complexion that always looked pale and damp. Gresham thought him a vicious little pimp and, on the few occasions they had met, Southampton had shown every sign of returning the feeling. It was noticeable that on his drinking and wenching bouts with Essex, Southampton had not been present. Also in the room was Sir Christopher Blount, Essex's stepfather. He was more of a mystery than Southampton. Anyone who could survive Essex's mother had to be saintly, and Blount had always struck Gresham as more straightforward than his reputation for deviousness merited.
'Good day, my Lord,' said Gresham.
Essex swung sideways to face Gresham standing in the door. 'I am tried beyond my patience!' he shouted, but this time it was a shout, not a scream.
'Why so?' said Gresham.
'The Queen has denied me, not once, but twice over! The Earl of Southampton here, who I wish to be my Master of Horse…' Good choice, thought Gresham ironically. Southampton, the devious little prick, was about on the same level of intelligence as a horse, though not nearly so beautiful.'… I am told cannot have that position, and nor will My Royal Pestilence allow Sir Christopher here a place on the Council for Ireland.'
The problem, thought Gresham, is that there is no reason whatsoever why Blount should have a place on the Council for Ireland, save that he was Essex's stepfather and his duties might keep him for a little longer out of the company of Essex's mother. Anyone in their right mind would want that. Essex's mother was the most dreadful person Gresham had ever met.
Essex stood up suddenly, and his stool flew back, skittering, across the room, to land with a bang against the wall.
'I am tied to my own reputation!' he shrieked again.
No one jumped up from their seats. No one had any. Essex had adopted the royal prerogative of having no one sit in his presence. It was a dangerous sign. This is not a man in control of himself, thought Gresham. This is a man driven by a demon, or perhaps by the pox. But why no other symptoms? The Earl's face was as unmarked and handsome as ever, the hair flowing without need of a wig and there was no sign of the high, prancing step forced on pox victims, who lost all sensitivity in their extremities and so could not sense where their feet were landing.
'They call on me,' the Earl ranted, 'because there is no other, yet when I go, it is to leave my enemies behind me to triumph.'
A tremendous sense of loneliness, that was something else Gresham had noticed about Essex. That and the melancholia drew them together.
'My Lord,' said Gresham, taking a deep breath, 'isn't it about time you stopped shouting? It fails to impress the men. It is not what a top commander does.' A top commander, thought Gresham, strikes poses and makes calculated speeches to win over the hearts and minds of simple men, before leading them to their death.
A look of stunned disbelief swept across the faces of those in the room, not to mention that of Essex himself. People did not talk to Essex in this way, particularly when his river was in full flood. His face suddenly fell, his body slumped as if it was a corpse full of corrupt air, bloated in the sun, which had suddenly collapsed at the prick of a spear. He still had energy- enough to scowl at Gresham.
'Come!' he said, imperiously. The others glared at Gresham as he went with the Earl into an inner sanctum. This fool of a man was the Earl's drinking companion! They were his officers! Gresham felt their hatred almost as a physical force beating at his body.
The back room had a bed in it. A retreat for seduction? Gresham thought not. It was a hastily erected thing, on three trestles. Interesting. Gresham wondered if it went wherever the Earl went. Why did the Earl of Essex need a bed? Was it the pox? Or was it some other illness?
Something Gresham did not wish to remember crept into his mind. There had been a Fellow at Granville College. A loud, overbearing and frequently drunk man, he let it be known that he dabbled in the black arts. Few believed him. Gresham had been forced to undertake servant duties for lack of money. It was either that or starve. He had gone into the man's room one morning thinking him gone, and only five minutes into his rudimentary cleaning had realised that the bundle of rags in the far corner was a man. It had stirred, groaned. Thinking him ill, Gresham had helped him to the bed, sat him on it.
'It takes its toll,' the Fellow had muttered, acting as if drunk but in some way that Gresham sensed not drunk at all. Confused would have been a better word, but this was a man of outstanding intelligence, one of the most fluent debaters in the College.
'What takes its toll, sir?' Gresham had asked innocently.
The Fellow had looked at him, and Gresham remembered the livid, red rings round the man's eyes. Eyes of fire. Then the man had said, 'When the cycle… has finished and the… the blood is… used — gone — then the… tiredness comes.' The man could hardly speak. He was looking not at Gresham but through him to something so endlessly dark that Gresham could not see or even conceive of it.
'What blood?' asked Gresham.
It was as if the man had suddenly woken up. He blinked once, twice, three times, even shook his head.
'Why,' he said, 'the Blood of the Lamb. The Devil has no sheep in his field. Only the young ones. Only the lambs. Now leave me.'
He had rolled over on the bed, seemed to drop into an instant sleep. The Blood of the Lamb? It was the reference to the blood of Christ in the communion service. The Devil has no sheep in his field? Troubled, for no reason he could understand, Gresham had gone to one of his few friends in College. The friend had blinked.
'Sacrifice,' he had said. 'The Devil-worshippers make live sacrifice and drink the blood after they have performed a ritual over it, a reversion of the Mass, in Greek, not in Latin.'
'They sacrifice a lamb and drink its blood?' asked Gresham. 'What wonders! I do little more when I eat rare meat. If I'm ever lucky enough to taste a lamb at all.'
'No,' said his friend, looking very discomfited. 'Not a lamb. A child.' He had refused to say more, pleading a lecture to attend despite Gresham knowing there were none scheduled for that afternoon.
Was there a circle of red round Essex's eyes? Why was there a worrying reminder of the same extraordinary tiredness the Fellow had shown all those years earlier?
The Earl's voice was on the edge of slurred. Seemingly oblivious to Gresham, he flung himself on the bed, laid full out and put his hand to his brow.
'I need you to advise me,' the Earl said suddenly, just as Gresham had persuaded himself that Essex had fallen asleep.
'As I explained, my Lord,' said Gresham, 'I've agreed to equip a company at my own expense. Should you wish to consult me, I'll come, as I've come today.'
'Why does she thwart me at every turn?' asked Essex, his voice almost a whisper.*Why? Does the past mean so little?'
Gresham shuddered to think what the past held between Essex and Elizabeth.
'My Lord,' said Gresham, 'there's reason enough, if you but calm down.' 'Reason?'
'Of course,' said Gresham. 'The Earl of Southampton made one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting pregnant. You know better than I Her Majesty's whims. She hates her ladies having affairs with younger men, God knows why. She hates them even more when they have babies. Perhaps it's too cruel a reminder for her of her own past, her own failure to complete a woman's duty. Yet she can no more stop the flow of sex in the Court and its inevitable result, than stem the Thames. To add insult to her injury, your friend then went and married the girl, again without her consent. He's lucky enough not to be still in the Tower. The Queen's certainly not going to give permission for him to mount anything else for a while, never mind give him command of her horse.'
And the man's a silly little idiot with no more military training than a rag doll and even less brain, whose sole idea of military service is riding around on a horse looking glorious. God knows why Essex favoured him. It was one of the endless complexities of the man.
'And as for Sir Christopher, he's a good enough soldier, but he has no links with Ireland except through your family, and he's an unashamed Catholic. I've no reason to doubt his loyalty…' said Gresham, thinking he had no reason to confirm it either — he suspected Blount's loyalty was to the Essex family alone — 'but Ireland is a Catholic nation ruled by Protestants. To those who don't know him, Sir Christopher is potentially one of the enemy, not one of their rulers.'
Would Essex start to froth at the mouth again?
'I am not well,' was all he said. 'Those who tax me do not realise what they take out of my poor body. I sense it within me, the illness that killed my father, the rotten inner core that can break out at any minute. My curse is to have been born fair, so that people look no further and see my real state of health.'
What a wonderful actor the Earl would have made. The problem was, he dramatised everything, turning life into a script for a play.
'I know a good doctor,' said Gresham, thinking of Stephen Perse and feeling immensely stupid once he had said it. Even Perse had limited remedies for a gross attack of self-pity.
‘It is not a doctor I need,' said Essex, managing to combine a huge sigh with an equally huge sense of melodrama. Oh God, he was speaking as if reading from one of the player's scripts now. 'It is our country that needs a doctor.' He looked straight at Gresham, an unfathomable bleakness in his gaze. 'There is no doctor for my illness, and no cure.'
'In the meantime,' said Gresham, 'we can't offer the whole country a drink but we can certainly have one ourselves.' There was sweet wine on the table. Without waiting for permission, Gresham poured two glasses and offered one to the Earl.
Essex started to sit up, looking angry for a moment and then allowing his face to relax.
'You aren't like the others who serve me,' he said, rather plaintively.
'That's because I don't serve you.' said Gresham. 'I'm here by my choice. It leaves me free to say what I want to say, as distinct from what you want to hear.'
'Before you think yourself too much in charge,' said Essex, 'do you wish to know who tried to leave you at the bottom of the sea, on your recent northern trip?'
Gresham hid his annoyance. Essex had an excellent spy network. Gresham's was better, and London was a city of tongues. If Gresham had not been stuck on a boat, or had dared put Mannion ashore to start an investigation while he flogged up to Scotland, he too would have found the small man with the beard. It must have been the sailor who owned up to being 'family', the one who had leapt overboard. He must have run back to London, told his story in the taverns and walked into or been reported to someone paid by Essex. Essex had had a flying start to find the man. It would explain why Gresham's efforts had been so fruitless. The attacker must have been a prisoner of Essex's all the time. What a waste of time and money on the agents Gresham had sent out to scour London for the man.
"What even you mightn't know is that they were after you, not the messages you carried.'
Damn! How did Essex know about the messages? Or did he know about them? Was he just shooting in the dark, hoping to land a hit?
'I envy you your certainty,' said Gresham.
All of a sudden, this was a different Essex. He was the efficient mastermind of a complex spy network.
'Then you envy me something I don't have. The man in charge was betrayed to me by a fluke. One of the men he had trusted to sail with him, or at least hired to sail with him, owed a debt to my father. My long-dead father. Telling me that the man had sailed to attack you was his way of saying thanks and repaying the debt. That and the fact that you appeared to massacre very nearly everyone else he had hired. He was rather shocked. My informant sees you as a cross between Satan and Ghengis Khan. As for the man who hired him, I had him taken immediately I was given the story. Smallish, with a goatee beard and a strange hint of an accent. You wouldn't envy him. It took him… some time to tell what he knew. What little he knew.'
'How long did you torture him, my Lord?'
'Long enough,' replied Essex, 'or so I'm told. I wasn't present in person. I find that sort of thing rather distasteful.'
Gresham saw in his mind the flickering torches on dripping stone walls, the metal heated in the furnace, the stench of red-hot iron on human flesh, the pincers, the bloody mass at the end of a man's hands, the mouth agape with blood where the teeth had been slowly, ever so slowly pulled.
Essex could never quite wait long enough. Huge impatience was the price he paid for his occasional bouts of vast energy. If he had waited, knowing Gresham was bound to be interested in what he said next, and forced Gresham to ask the next question, it would have given him a moral ascendancy. As it was, he lost patience first and spoke.
'He was most insistent that his aim was to kill you. Not to gain access to whatever packages you carried. Those interviewing him were of the opinion that it was true. They're experienced in such matters.' The narrow, watery eyes of Southampton came to Gresham's mind, and the cruel malignancy in the eyes of Gelli Meyrick.
'Men under torture say what their torturers want to hear, to stop the pain, regardless of whether or not it's the truth,' said Gresham. 'Even the Queen knows that, which is why she so rarely has men tortured.'
'That's certainly true,' said Essex conversationally. There was strength back in his voice again, though he still sounded exhausted. 'But as I said, those doing the business were convinced that in this instance it was the truth. Perhaps because they had only started on him that day. Unfortunately, they could find out no more, including who paid him and why. He killed himself.'
'That was casual of your secretary,' said Gresham.
'They were moving him from being chained to a wall, to chaining him on a table, so I understand.' Gresham noted that Essex had not denied the presence of Gelli Meyrick. 'They thought he was unconscious, let him drop to the floor and turned round for a moment to prepare the table. It gave him enough time to grab a blade that was nearby — one of the one's they had been heating up for him, in fact — and stick it under his own ribcage. He died immediately. Warmly, but immediately.'
'Well, he would, wouldn't he?' agreed Gresham.
'Now tell me about Cameron Johnstone,' said Essex, who was proving full of surprises that day.
'What do you already know?' asked Gresham.
'That he has been at Court claiming to have the ear of King James. That he has recently come from Scotland courtesy of a trip on your ship. And that he has been commanded by the Queen to accompany me to Ireland, for reasons Her Divine Majesty has not seen fit to tell me.'
'He's a Scottish spy who was of use to me in Scotland, and came recommended from Northumberland,' said Gresham, 'and he masquerades as an advocate. He's spying on me and on the Court and will undoubtedly send reports back to King James on both you and on Elizabeth. Except I'm not so sure it can be called spying if you own up to it. He's attractively transparent about the whole business, and very good on Italian poetry.'
'Well,' said Essex, putting the goblet down, 'it'll make a difference to have someone spying on me for King James, bearing in mind that half my army is spying for Cecil, for Raleigh, for the Pope, for the King of Spain, for the King of France, for the Queen, or for all of them. I take it you've been able to find out no more than I about who is loyal in this army of knaves?'
'I don't think I'd tell you, my Lord, even if I had. I'd view it as my business. Unless, of course, it transpired that the plot was against you. You see, I've always valued our relationship as personal, rather than one soured by politics or anything other than a shameless interest in pleasure.'
'There's a plot against me,' said Essex. 'At the same time as you were despatched to Scotland, the Queen sent a messenger to HardwickHall.'
Hardwick Hall was the present residence of the Lady Arbella Stuart, resting prior to what many saw as her inevitable call to the throne.
'From which you assume what?' asked Gresham.
'That the Queen is selling her Crown,' said Essex bluntly, and the redness of rage began to rise again in his face. 'She will take the blood line of that damned woman and sell it to a foreign power. England will have a Queen in name but a King in reality. What will happen to this country if another Queen ascends the throne, tied by marriage to one of the crowned heads of Europe? What if terrible history repeats itself, and Arbella Stuart is used to legitimise the new King of Spain as King of England? What if the King of France is her choice? England conquered by a turncoat Protestant whose allegiance to his faith is based simply on the Crown of France being worth a Mass?'
'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, my Lord,' said Gresham quietly.
'A little knowledge? What do you mean, a little knowledge! How can you claim to know more than I?'
The arrogance was there again. You could see this man as Icarus, full of vaulting ambition and in his heart of hearts believing that he was greater than the sun. You could also see him craving the sun's blessing, and as an arrested child desperate to do the right thing.
Gresham gazed levelly at Essex. 'Spain's plan isn't for the new King to marry Arbella. Or at least it wasn't when I last heard. Even they recognise how the memory of Mary's marriage to Philip of Spain has ruined the prospect of repeating such a thing for many years to come.'
The two men Gresham paid in the Escorial Palace reported a new outbreak of realism among those who advised the Spanish monarchy.
'The plan rather is for the Duke of Parma to ascend the throne. He has a blood claim. He's a powerful figure. He'll make a treaty that allows Protestantism to continue in England. The Spanish believe that Parma will be an ally of Spain, but be sufficiently divorced from it to justify to the English a strong, male ruler. More importantly, the plan for Parma to be next King of England has the support of the Pope.'
Essex was looking horror-struck at Gresham. There was also an element of petulance in his face. Gresham had stolen his fire.
'And how can you claim to know this? You, a mere… gentleman at Court?'
'I may be just a gentleman who is an occasional attender at Court,' said Gresham, 'but I did once offer the Duke of Parma — the present one's father — the throne of England on Elizabeth's behalf. I have… contacts… in France, in Spain, and in Rome.'
'You did what?' said Essex, aghast, disbelieving yet drawn to the sheer cheek of the idea like a moth to a flame. 'You offered the English throne to the Duke of Parma?'
'Yes,' said Gresham, 'it's long story.'
'And Elizabeth agreed to this?' asked Essex.
'No,' said Gresham. 'There was a slight problem over that, now you mention it. A slight problem that involved the Queen, Cecil, the Tower of London and being put on the rack. As I said, it's a long story.'
'What have you done in your life?' asked Essex. 'What else do you know?'
'I know the rack's bloody uncomfortable, even before they start to yank the handles!' said Gresham.
'You're the greatest fool I've ever known!' said Essex, exasperated. 'What else do you know about the present situation?'
'The King of France is actually the main contender for the hand of Arbella. He's been led a merry dance by the Queen. She's spent her whole life giving suitors for her hand a merry dance.' Careful. Essex had probably been proposing to the Queen once a month on principle for the past ten years. 'Now she's doing the same thing with the suitors for a stupid girl who has royal blood. France has high hopes for chaos on the Queen's death, chaos into which it can step. I know letters have gone to Hardwick Hall from the King of France, and that so far there's been no response. I know Elizabeth is determined to have no woman succeed her. I know the Duke of Northumberland has swung behind the candidacy of King James, on the understanding that James will allow him "to hold a Mass in a corner" and not persecute Catholics. Cecil thinks he has it all under control, playing with Spain, with France and with James, worming his way into the favours of all three of them until he makes up his mind. Elizabeth also thinks she has everything under control: believes she has Arbella under her power, and is playing her usual game of encouraging both France and Spain to think they might be granted Arbella's hand, endlessly spinning out the secret negotiations. Most of the time, I couldn't judge who the
Queen will anoint as her successor, if she can ever bring herself to do it. Sometimes, I think it could be the Earl of Essex she anoints, and that her anger at him is a measure of the gift she knows she might give him.'
Essex's head shot up. There it was. A distinct, red ring round both his eyes. There was a long, a very long silence.
Gresham drew a deep inward breath.
'And just as Elizabeth wants no woman to succeed her, so I believe your gorge, my Lord, rises at the prospect of any man other than yourself becoming King of England.'
'On what grounds do you say that?' asked Essex, eventually. 'And who are you saying it to?'
'I say it on the same grounds that lead me to believe Elizabeth will allow no woman to succeed her. Instinct. It rarely lets me down. You're tied to the Queen by your oath of loyalty, and tied down by your dependence on her for the majority of your income. As for who I say it to — no one else, as yet.'
There was another very long silence.
'And by the way,' added Gresham, 'I believe there is a plot against you, though not one with Arbella Stuart at its heart.'
'You tie me in tangles!' said Essex, the colour even more marked in his face. 'You are worse than the Queen! Whose is this plot? What is this plot?'
'Cecil's,' said Gresham bluntly. 'Cecil doesn't care who gets the throne, as long as he can control whoever it is. He'll never control you. Therefore what he's trying to do is very simple: he's provoking you to rebellion. He's feeding your anger, your resentment of the Queen, in the hope that you'll rebel. When you do, you'll destroy yourself, and do his job for him. Cecil wants your body in two pieces on a scaffold on Tower Hill.'
'But if I return from Ireland the victor, the people will call for me!' said Essex. 'I will be their champion. I will be… unstoppable!'
'And Cecil knows that. But it was Cecil who was so forceful in suggesting to the Queen that you take command of the army for Ireland. What does that suggest to you?'
'That Cecil is a fool?'
'Cecil is never a fool,' said Gresham. 'He's someone who hates war. Not because of the killing and the maiming, or the suffering, but because of the cost and because war is random. Yet in this instance, he's done his research.'
Cecil had talked to several soldiers who had served in Ireland. Gresham had been intrigued when he had heard, knowing how much Cecil despised soldiers, his scorning of war and its waste. It had caused Gresham to interview those same soldiers, to get reports of the conversations they had had with Cecil.
'He believes that Ireland will defeat you. It's the biggest gamble in his political life. It's also the first time he's gambled anything on a war. He thinks the war in Ireland can't be won, and that by sending you to inevitable defeat you'll be shamed, and stake your all on a final blow, an act of rebellion.'
It was as if someone had put a dart straight into Essex's heart. He collapsed back on the bed, the redness gone from his face and replaced by a pallid sweat.
That's it, thought Gresham. You've been through this in your mind, faced up to the fact that Ireland destroyed your father, and decided that if you lose the war to make your final play for the throne! Cecil is right! You can be provoked to futile rebellion!
'And how can you know this?' asked Essex, his voice a whisper.
'Know it? I can't know it. But I know Cecil, and I know a little of you. You're passionate, impetuous, full of an outdated chivalric energy that ignores the real dirt of war. Cecil's cold-blooded, cautious, always planning in advance. If I were Cecil, I'd gamble on your losing in Ireland. It has, after all, been a bottomless pit for English military commanders, a stinking black hole that's swallowed up bodies and reputations. And the joy of it all is that he can't really lose. If you sink into the mud and the bogs of Ireland as so many others have, either you'll die as your father died or you'll come back discredited and in all probability be forced into a rash act of rebellion by your own overweening ambition.' Selective hearing. Gresham had just accused Essex of overweening ambition, but it was as if he had not heard. 'But what if you win? You'll be the hero of the day and perhaps even the month, but such fame rarely lasts. Cecil will have gained all the credit with the Queen for suggesting you so strongly, and proved what a selfless adviser he is. And in your absence he can secure his power base and attack yours, packing his allies more and more into the Court.' Gresham paused for a moment. 'I tell you this, my Lord. You're in danger of becoming another victim. Not of your own vanity and ambition, with which you're well supplied. But rather of the vanity and ambition of Robert Cecil.' As many of us, including myself, stand in danger of becoming a victim of Robert Cecil, thought Gresham. 'Cecil wants you to rebel. For the first time in his life, he wishes a rebellion. Is trying to engineer it, to provoke it. He needs to do something big if he is to take over in power and influence from his father. You're being manipulated.'
'Why does no one else tell me these things?' asked Essex.
'Because they've got more sense. Because they depend on you for their livelihood. Because all great men surround themselves with people who say what they want to hear. And because though I sometimes think you're one of the biggest fools I know, and I wouldn't trust you most of the time for more than the price of a drink, you make me laugh and at least you've got a personality.'
'I'd hoped to tell you things you didn't know,' said Essex. 'Instead, you've told me things I should've thought of. If Cecil is plotting Ireland as my doom, I'd better make sure I understand the country. Hadn't I?'
There was shock on the faces of the others when Essex emerged. Quite clearly, when their master had one of his fits of passion they were used to him retiring to bed for days. Rather than welcoming his return, they seemed almost resentful of it. If one gets accustomed to dealing with a madman, the return of sanity can be as taxing as the madness itself. Systems, thought Gresham, systems. We all live by systems, learn how to cope with the idiocy of life by systems. Disrupt the system and you disrupt the person.
‘You're an experienced soldier with a high reputation' said Essex to Gresham. 'Few of those close to me have such experience.' Well, that would do Gresham a lot of good with Meyrick, Blount and Southampton. 'Give us your opinion of Ireland.'
Campaigning had nearly killed Gresham, yet being a soldier was like an illness that once in one's veins could never quite be got rid of.
'I've never served in Ireland,' said Gresham, with no trace of pomp or circumstance, 'but I've talked with those who have. I'm sure you've talked to them as well. I doubt you need my pearls of wisdom.'
Try us, Sir Henry.' It was the weasel Southampton. 'I am sure we are all desperate to learn from your knowledge.'
Gresham eyed Southampton with a contempt he did not seek to hide.
'I can believe you're desperate for all sorts of things you can't get,' said Gresham. 'My knowledge isn't one of them.'
Southampton could have, should have challenged him to a duel for such an insult. Instead, he snickered, a simpering, sickening little giggle.
'So… forthright!' said Southampton. He meant rude, of course. Then his face narrowed. 'So full of breeding! As one might expect from a man whoring his services as an informer and a spy to the highest bidder!'
The challenge hung in the air. The others in the room froze.
Gresham took off a glove, carefully tugging at each finger.
'There you have me, my Lord,' he said, in a regretful tone. He looked calmly at Southampton, and the man suddenly took a pace back. Something in Gresham's eyes chilled him, cut through even his spoilt arrogance. 'I've no breeding, whereas you have more than you can handle, I'm sure. As for the whoring bit, I'm truly a bad man of business; I give my services for free, alas. But I do have manners. And manners tell me that a gentleman responds to a challenge.'
Gresham tossed the glove towards the table. Before it could land, a hand plucked it out of mid-air. Essex's hand. Well, if he was ill it had not yet affected his reflexes.
'No,' he said. 'I will not permit this. I will have no squabbling among my allies or my friends.'
That was a little rich, coming from Essex, who had nearly torn apart the expedition to the Azores by his permanent and unreasoning feud with Sir Walter Raleigh.
'As you will, my Lord,' said Gresham easily. He and Southampton would have their day. 'But please do tell this brat of a Lord to keep inside his kennel for fear that it's he who gets bitten by something bigger, better and more dangerous.'
Southampton made as if to respond, but again caught Gresham's eye and halted with his mouth half open. It made him look even more vacuous than usual, and Gresham caught the slightest hint of a smile from Gelli Meyrick. It was not a smile of friendship, more a sharp-toothed recognition from a predator of a fellow animal that had been wounded.
'The campaign in Ireland,' said Essex. 'I wish to hear your views.'
Gresham looked round the room. Playboys. Adventurers. Blount had seen some service and was a bluff enough soldier. Outside there were some good men who would serve in Essex's army. But in here? Essex's previous military ventures had been distinguished by the tangerine livery of his men, many trumpets and the excellent playing of drums, rather than by any military success or sign of strategic planning from the commander. Brave, yes: no one could take that away from him. But a great general pays others to be brave. He is paid to command and to think. Could Essex think for long enough to get the job done? As for the rest of his crew, they were hangers-on, men like Meyrick who were excellent at terrifying tenant farmers and peasants, bullies to the core, or young, spoilt idiots like Southampton who thought war was about pretty uniforms. Oh, well…
'I'm sure you've heard all this before.' Essex was about to say something, but Gresham held up his hand. As he fingered the maps, Gresham seemed to grow in stature, become less of the shadowy figure of vague menace, more the commander. 'The land itself appears to be your greatest enemy. It's uneven, marshy, treacherous to foot and horse, subject to wild swings in weather, with bogs even on top of mountains. All this seems to breed a strange marsh fever. The Irish seem to be able to melt into their landscape. They've skills our soldiers haven't even begun to learn. They can shadow an army for days and give no hint of their presence, rising up out of the swamp, the bog or the grassland as if they were wraiths. So many of the ways are treacherous, fords over rivers so few, that it is folly to stray from the beaten path. Yet the Irish can find their way over bog and marsh and will adopt a favourite tactic of dropping one or two trees across a path, blocking a route, then punching in from the sides and rear, melting away if they meet fierce resistance, wiping out the party if they don't.'
'So can a campaign in Ireland ever be won?' asked Sir Christopher Blount.
'Any campaign can be won,' said Gresham. 'The Irish weakness is their lack of unity, which Tyrone is addressing; their lack of artillery, which means that forts and strongholds can be held far longer than would be the case in the rest of Europe; and their fear of our cavalry, which has always been our strongest hand in Ireland.'
'And our weaknesses?' It was Essex.
'The English Pale, our sphere of influence, is based in relatively few counties and is supported by English settlers. There's a host of Irish chieftains who will support whoever pays them most. Vast tracts of Ireland have never been actually conquered by us. There's a fierce patriotism in Ireland, and we've profited as we have only because so many of the Irish hate each other more than they hate us. Now they are starting to unite. England and its troops can command Dublin and some of the counties, working from castles and strongholds, while the Irish can command the countryside with their wild kerns. They can overwhelm our troops if they gather in sufficient number as they did at Yellow Ford. If they receive troops and artillery from Spain in large numbers, they will be able to match us in the fixed battle and take our strongholds by siege.'
Gresham was saying nothing that was new, but a part of his heart fell as he realised from the glum expressions round the table that some of it at least was new to his listeners.
'So what would your plan be?' It must have cost Essex much, with his dreams of military glory and vision of himself as a commander, to ask that question. What did he think Ireland was? A gentle version of the Forest of Arden?
'Go for the heart of the matter. Head straight for Tyrone's base in Ulster, kill him or drive him into the countryside for ever. Tyrone is the key, England can divide and rule well enough in Ireland. It is when Ireland unites that we face defeat. Tyrone is the key to Irish unity.'
'How goes your recruiting?' asked Essex, changing the subject in his infuriating mercurial manner.
'I'll bring one hundred foot, fifty horse and fifteen officers to your command. If we have until March to train them, they'll be passable.'
'And will you join my command team?' asked Essex.
'I will not, my Lord,' said Gresham. There was the hiss of indrawn breath from someone in the room. 'I will be too busy whoring my services. But I will fight for you, and for the Queen, and fight long and hard.'
'So we're off again,' said Mannion, as they walked away from Essex House, the mud frozen on the paving that made the Strand one of London's better-favoured streets.
'Does it make you unhappy?' asked Gresham.
'No,' said Mannion. 'Seems to me life's just one fight after another, always has been, always will. If yer not fightin' people, you're fighting life. I know war's bloody horrible, and from the sound of it Ireland's worse than most. But at least out there you know who the enemy is, you know who you're fightin'. Way we lead our lives, we're spending most of the time fightin' without knowin' who it is we're fighting.'
'I suspect,' said Gresham, 'that there'll be the enemy we can't see and the enemy we can see in Ireland as well as in London.'
'Well,' said Mannion with a grin, 'we'd best get down to trainin' those buggers we've just recruited to make sure when we does get shot it's at least by an Irishman!'
'Why can't I accompany you?' asked Jane.
'Don't be monstrous!' said Gresham. 'You're a woman!'
'I'm glad you've noticed,' she said tartly. 'Mannion tells me there are literally hundreds of women who follow the army. I've shown I can be useful. In medieval times Kings used to take their wives away with them on campaign. Queen Eleanor had two of her sixteen children on campaign.'
'Good God! You're not pregnant, are you?'
'No, I am not!' said Jane, going a deep red. 'I was using it as an illustration!'
'The women who follow the army are not normal. They — they are
…' How could Gresham explain to a young girl what the women who followed the army were?
'They are common-law wives,' said Jane, 'that's what Mannion told me.'
'They're whores!' said Gresham, desperately. 'Give them any fancy name you like, but they're whores for the comfort of the men. Many of them are… shared between men. I'm sorry. I can't put it any more plainly.'
Jane stood silent. It was impossible to know what she was thinking.
'Don't they cook? And wash? As well as… do the other thing?'
'What?'
'Well? Don't they?'
'Yes, I suppose some of them… look after their men, I suppose-' 'Well!' said Jane triumphantly, 'I can come as your housekeeper! I can make sure you get decent meals and clean clothes and-'
'Why on earth do you want to come?' asked Gresham. 'This is war, for God's sake. People will die, half of them from marsh fever! It is no place for a proper woman. It just isn't.'
'I want to come because… because…' her face went red again. 'I want to come because it gives me a role! If you leave me here… I'm not your wife! I'm not your mistress!' She had the grace to blush. 'I'm not even a servant! I'm a nothing! An expensive mistake who spends your money, wears the clothes you pay for, lives only through you. At least on the boat I was serving a purpose, was doing something. Here, with you and Mannion in Ireland… I'm nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.'
For almost the first time he felt a tinge of sympathy for her. But he had no option.
'Look, I'm sorry,' he said, and perhaps he was. 'I'll have enough to worry about with my own survival in Ireland and that of my men. If you were there I'd have to worry about you. And I'm not prepared to be the person who's responsible for your death.'
'But you don't think twice about being responsible for your own death? Or the men you take with you.'
'I know what I'm doing. So do they.' ' 'What if I know what I'm doing? What if it's what I want?'
'I'm sorry. Campaigning is no place for a young girl.'
There was a rebellious, angry expression on her face which carried through to the whole way she stood.
'Do you want me to be really blunt with you?'
'Aren't you always?' she retorted.
'There's no way I could guarantee to keep you a virgin on such a campaign as this is likely to be. And before you say anything' — he had seen her about to speak, to remonstrate — 'what I mean is rape. Pure, simple rape. There are men there, possibly many men, who would simply bide their time, take their chance, wait till I was out of camp. They would come to your tent — and no one I know has ever been able to lock a tent — and put a bag over your head so you couldn't identify them. Then in silence, their silence at least so you couldn't recognise their voices, they'd rape you. With a rag stuffed in your mouth to drown your cries.'
That got through to her, he could see. She gave a bow, lower than her normal cursory bob, and retreated.
The odd thing was, a part of him was sorry to leave her behind.
There was a great banging and crashing down in the yard, the boom of a voice and the sound of a door being assaulted. George almost fell into the room.
‘I’m coming with you!' he announced. 'Now shut up and understand one thing. I'm bored out of my mind at home, this is a great adventure and I am not, I repeat not, going to let you go to Ireland without me to keep an eye on you. Fetch the wine.'
Dear George, thought Gresham. You won't be raped, but I've just moved heaven and earth to stop Cecil from ruining you, and now you insist on coming to Ireland where a great clumsy oaf like you will be the first to get an Irish dart in his breast or catch dysentery, and so you will kill yourself after I have been to all this trouble to stop you getting killed or worse.
But in his heart of hearts he was glad.
The horses were restless, pawing at the ground and snorting, impatient to be off on the journey they sensed was imminent. There must have been fifty at least gathered in front of Essex House, and a straggling line of men and baggage carts, together with 200 men dressed in the tangerine finery of the Essex livery. They were blocking the Strand and attracting a vast crowd, all of whom had fallen silent for the prayer.
They had hoped for the Bishop of London, but he had declared himself ill. Essex's chaplain, who had the advantage over the Bishop in that he actually believed in God, read the specially written prayer. Heads bowed. Even the horses seemed to sense the occasion, and calmed down. It was so silent that the brisk wind could be heard flapping the pennants tied to the spears.
'Almighty God and most merciful Father…'
The chaplain's voice was thin, half blown away on the breeze.
The vengeful words, asking for destruction to be hurled on the heads of England's enemies, seemed more futile than threatening. The final 'Amen' rolled round the street and its close-packed houses like a subtle roll of thunder.
There was a shouted order and, led by the Earl, the mounted men wheeled round and rode for the embarkation at Chester. Old women, men and boys started to shout and cheer, a gathering crowd crying out their good wishes and blessings, an old woman with tears in her eyes at the sight of the fine Lord on his magnificent charger.
The weather seemed set fine until the party, swelled by even more hangers-on, reached the fields of Islington. There, out of nowhere, black clouds boiled up. Within seconds the fine plumes on the hats of the officers lay slicked down onto wet cloth, horses and men were drenched by the sudden downpour and large lumps of hail bounced off the track, turned instantly into mud.
The old woman who had cried at the sight of Essex had followed the slow-moving train of baggage carts, despite the evident pain in her legs. She stopped now, tears of rain dripping down her lined cheeks.
'It's an omen,' she whispered, 'an omen.'
There was no one to hear her, the driving noise of wet rain on cloth, flesh and ground drowning out all other noises except for the jingle of harness and the squelch of hooves and feet on the roadway.