Mid June, 1598 London
The extravagant and luxurious trappings of Essex House were a lie, of course, albeit a very pretty lie. A hundred tradesmen had been ruined by Robert Devereux's extravagance and his inability to pay for what he used.
'It must be Ireland, my Lord,' said Gelli Meyrick. 'It's been your destiny from birth. It's your chance for the future.'
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, did not glance in the direction of Sir Gelli Meyrick, his secretary. The Earl was stretched out on cushions, his long legs apparently carelessly cast in front of him, but not so carelessly as to fail to reveal either the fine silk of his hose, or the magnificent shape of the legs it hugged so closely. He was in his shirt, a goblet clutched in his hand. Dark sweat marks showed under his arms and across his back. He had come from the fencing master, whose session he had extended by nearly three quarters of an hour. Essex was good, and he knew it.
'Ireland,' he mused, the lilt of the Welsh accent he had never quite lost clashing with the more refined Court accent. 'You say is my destiny. Isn't it more accurate to describe it as my family's fatal attraction? Or perhaps you believe in kill or cure?' He tossed back what wine was left in his goblet.
The Earl's father, the father he had hardly known, had died horribly of dysentery in Dublin, his very innards seeming to turn to corruption. Power in Ireland was an enticing prize for the newly ennobled, those with no inherited land. Yet the lands and income Ireland offered had one weakness: much of the land had to be conquered before it could be raped for its income. Appointed by Elizabeth as Governor General of Ireland, the endless battles to suppress the wild Irish peasants and their treacherous feudal lords had worn out his father's body and what little wealth he had in equal measure.
'Your father tried and failed,' said Meyrick, unabashed, 'partly because he was never the soldier you are, partly because he went to Ireland for wealth.'
'God knows,' said Essex, 'I could do with the wealth! Is there no more money to be got from my lands?'
No, thought Meyrick, remembering the screams of the three men he had had whipped in front of their wives and children for hiding a few sacks of oats, there is not. However, the Earl should not be bothered with such trivia as the bleeding backs of his peasants. Indeed, he was soft enough to be moved by their sub-human wailing.
'We do all we can, my Lord. But Ireland is your Holy Grail. Take it. Drink from it. You'll be immortalised.'
'You flatter me,' said Essex, a faint smile crossing his lips. It was the smile that so helped him with women, suggesting as it did great sadness allied to great vulnerability. It was no lie. The Earl was a far more melancholic and vulnerable man in his own mind than he hoped his friends ever saw. 'And I know you flatter me. I'm like the child desperate for the nurse to tell him the same old story, the story that comforts not because of its content but because of its familiarity. So, carry on. Let me be the child I am. Tell me about immortality. My immortality.'
'Ireland is in turmoil. Tyrone is fighting to throw the English out of Ulster; has gone back on all his agreements. The Lord Deputy is dead and the Queen will appoint no new person. Our forces are weak and badly led, and one of our prime strongholds at Blackwater is under siege. Ireland awaits a true soldier. A man whose valour and leadership will finally wrest it from its warlords. And when Ireland finds its hero, so will England. It'll hail you as a saviour, as the man who finally marked out the greatest expansion to English rule since the loss of Calais.'
'Now tell me why all this will make me immortal?' whispered Essex, his voice dropping to almost inaudible levels.
'Because the Queen is dead!' hissed Meyrick. 'Not dead quite yet in her body, but nearly so. Dead in her mind. Dead in her leadership. Dead in her capacity to inspire the love and affection of her subjects. When you return victorious from Ireland, London and the whole country will be yours for the taking! This country has had Regents acting for the very young, when such a one has become King. It's a small jump for it to accept a Regent for the very old.'
'Or mount a rebellion,' said Essex. Some physical change had come over him, a hardening of the muscles in his face. His voice had changed as well, the rural Welsh lilt more pronounced now, yet the words more clipped. Essex did not like people to come close to him. Perhaps because he himself never quite knew what personality he would wear on any day, or even in the course of any one hour. He liked drink to act as a buffer between himself and those to whom he offered friendship.
'Crowns are taken by force of arms! Henry the Seventh felt no need to act as Regent for a failing King! To rebel against the Queen would be no rebellion at all. It would be a succession. A right and proper succession.' Essex's eyes were ablaze now and he swung himself off the couch, stood to his full height.
Was he as handsome as his admirers always claimed, Meyrick wondered? Probably not, but the combination of the clean body, the wide and handsome face and the money to dress it properly made for a powerful appeal, fired as it was by a mind that soared and crashed in an infuriatingly unpredictable manner.
Well, there had been no other career option for Meyrick when he had hooked his hungry claws into the handsome young noble-man, hoping against hope that this man would be the means of lifting him out of grinding, humiliating poverty. And it had worked, had it not? Sir Gelli Meyrick now ran the Earl of Essex's Welsh estates with a rule and a rod of iron that made him the most feared man in the Marches. Would this man, his master, become King of England? It was no more fanciful than the prospect of Meyrick gaining a knighthood had been ten years ago. Why not? How many of Bolingbroke's followers, when they had joined his service, had expected to end up wearing the King's livery?
'There is a tide in the affairs of men…'
Meyrick looked blankly at Essex.
'Shakespeare. Julius Caesar. It's spoken by one of the men who kill Caesar, and then try for his crown.'
It was typical of Essex that in the broad sweep of the idea he had forgotten that Caesar never had a crown, had been killed because he seemed about to claim one. He had also apparently forgotten the moment when old Lord Burghley had drawn a prayer book out of his pocket and pointed to the 55th psalm with trembling fingers, 'Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.'
Essex had been arguing passionately against peace with Spain at the time. But Essex was not finished.
'For each man there comes a moment, a moment of destiny, a moment of truth. It appears, it is there to be grasped… and then it goes, like a shooting star in the heavens. Grasp the right moment, and mere men become Kings and Kings become Emperors. Choose the wrong moment, and vaunting ambition turns into dust. Or kills the conspirators, as it did those who rose against Caesar. But who knows when that moment is?'
This was not Meyrick's strength. Intellectual debate bored him. Essex liked to patronise those around him, careful to keep his drinking companions to soldiers and bluff men of the world, or play-actors who would sell their souls for another jug and one good line. If he had attracted a circle of true artists, perhaps they might have challenged the sense of intellectual superiority he seemed to need so much. There was only that turncoat Francis Bacon perpetually whispering in his ear. Damn him! thought Meyrick. My life rests with this man, yet he can wear so many personalities in the space of one hour that he would tire out the very Devil himself. Which Robert Devereux, of the many available, am I talking to now?
'Am I Brutus?' asked Essex. 'Tumbling to my own destruction because I know my monarch is wrong, and simply clearing the way for Octavius Caesar to step in and take over the crown I should have won? Or am I Bolingbroke, making one strike because I know that all the fabric of government is rotten to the core, rotted from within, waiting merely for the one, savage blow to bring it all tumbling down in my favour?'
Or are you simply a vain, bloody and deceitful man who, for all that he seems to talk about others, can only talk about himself? thought Meyrick, and then dismissed the thought. It was not helpful to someone who had no other cause, and whose role was to stiffen in its determination the one cause he had.
Essex was standing by the window, victim of another sudden mood change. He spoke aloud, but Meyrick knew the words were private. He often did this, speaking out private thoughts apparently oblivious to the fact that others were hearing him. Essex was like a child, a fatherless child in desperate need of someone to tell him what to do.
'So little time!' he said. 'All that awaits the slow is the plague, or decrepit failing old age. So little time!'
'Make time your friend by grasping it,' said Meyrick, almost desperately, 'or lose it by delay!'
There was no answer. Meyrick waited, for seconds, for minutes. It was as if the Earl had frozen. Sensing something he did not understand, Meyrick bowed briefly, and left.
The image of a small boy swam before Essex's eyes. Eight or nine, perhaps, with unusually fine features, startling blue eyes and. a mop of blond hair. Why? Why had he given in? Some were granted time. Others had it ripped away from them.
How could one decision so change a life? It was as if the vast, open plain that he had strode so confidently was narrowing down to a dark tunnel that led only to one destination. Could the Devil speak true?
'I thought you was meant to be in charge of things?' asked an incredulous Mannion.
They were on the river, and eight men in the Gresham livery of purple and silver were rowing lustily, enjoying the sunlight and the exercise, and the fact that their boat was the smartest on the Thames, their master a dashing figure and their livery the best on the river that day. And not one of them was thinking that if their master was proved a traitor, they might well hang. The life of a servant was inextricably bound up with that of his or her master.
‘I am. Meant to be, that is,' said Gresham.
'This ain't no joke, this really ain't. This is one o' your specials, this is, like the time you comes 'ome calm as a cucumber and tells me we're going off to join the Spanish Fuckin’ Armada.'
'I understand in academic circles it's known as the Spanish Armada. Which it isn't, of course. Not the Spanish Armada. If you remember, they sent another one a year ago.' It had been blown away by gales in the Bay of Biscay.
'Well, I know it as the Spanish Fuckin' Armada. And I was fuckin' on it, which is more than your fuckin' academics ever were. And we were bloody lucky to get away wi' that little jaunt, and luck don't come twice — I bin thinkin'.'
'Don't,' said Gresham. 'Stick to what you know best — headaches from alcohol.'
Mannion swatted the sally aside. 'If we goes off to Scotland with a little love letter from Cecil to James, we might as well hang a bloody notice round our neck saying "TRAITOR! CUT ME BALLS OFF!" Secret mission or public, we're still on a hidin' to nothing'. There must be a way out of this.'
'You don't seem bothered I'm betraying Essex,' said Gresham.
'I'm as bothered as 'e would be about betraying us — and the answer is, 'e wouldn't give a sod. You 'as your fun with these toffs, but you never trust 'em.'
They were heading to a play commanded by the Queen, at Greenwich. It would be a comedy, Gresham knew. Her Royal Rotten Teeth would not contemplate a history or a tragedy, which would inevitably mention death. And probably a bad, anodyne and totally silly comedy, as that was the way the tastes of the old lady seemed now to be set.
The boat bit into a wave, and the oarsmen rocked back slightly in their seats.
'Cecil's set us up,' Gresham said bluntly. Better the truth. Better to let those who loved him see how stupid their love and loyalty were. 'You, me and Willoughby. We're over a barrel. I'm sorry. It's my fault for not seeing it coming.'
Gresham looked at Mannion who, to his surprise, grinned at him.
'Maybe. But I bet.'e ain't seen what you'll chuck back. You'll think o' something.'
Everything humanity didn't want went into the Thames, and it was unusual for Gresham to think of it as pure. Yet in comparison with the politics of Queen Elizabeth's Court, it seemed pure beyond belief.
'Still, I don't like it,' Mannion rumbled on. 'If ever you thinks you understands something Cecil's doing, it's the sign you've got it wrong. It's never simple, with that bastard. You missing a trick, are you?'
'Almost certainly,' said Gresham, 'but that's part of the game, isn't it?'
They were within sight of Greenwich now, its flags flapping in the brisk wind. It had always been one of the better Palaces. It held a special place in Gresham's memory. He had not lost his virginity there. That had gone a lot earlier, in a back alley near St Paul's. Instead he had lost something rather more important: his heart, making love to a girl who, for a brief moment, he had fooled himself into thinking he had fallen in love with. Now, in his dotage, he knew he had only ever been in love with one girl. And she had been a Spaniard who had chosen to reject him and marry a Frenchman. Still was happily married to the Frenchman, as it happened, with five children, three of them boys. He paid someone to report to him on her, though he knew he would never see her again. Did Anna ever think about him? He doubted it, yet she had chosen to give him her virginity when she had already decided to marry her Frenchman.
Gresham's mind was churning, and with more than the memory of puppy-fat romances. Mannion was right, of course. Cecil's plans were never simple. His only weakness was that the more complex his machinations, the more he believed that no others could penetrate their complexity. Cecil's Achilles heel was his deep-seated belief, sometimes hidden even from himself, that he was the cleverest man alive.
'Ever watched a fish in a net?' asked Mannion innocently. The river was passing them by at a satisfying speed. Mannion had once been a galley slave. He said it meant that watching other people row was one of his greatest pleasures.
'What?' said Gresham, his train of thought interrupted.
'Thrashes around, don't it?' said Mannion. 'Gets itself tangled more and more. Well, us, we're in that right bastard's net. We thrash around, we'll lose it. Clever thing is to stay calm. There ain't a net made that hasn't got a weak bit in it. We got to wait, that's all. Stay calm. Find the weak bit. And swim out through it.'
'Thank you,' said Gresham, his voice laced with irony. 'Exactly what I was thinking.'
As it had been, actually. As he so often did, Mannion had put into simple terms what Gresham worked out by a more tortuous and self-denigrating route. Gresham was in Cecil's net, and moaning about it would help him and his friends no more than it would help the fish. And, unlike the fish, they would need to think them-, selves out of this net.
There was always a way out! There always was!
The oarsmen were happy because they were well paid, well fed and well clothed. There was no comparison between being a boatman for Sir Henry Gresham and the back-breaking tedium of a peasant's life. No labourer who bent over to pluck a weed received a cheer from passers-by, as Gresham's oarsmen had just received a cheer for their fine appearance from an Alderman and his whole family. But perhaps the eight lusty men who rowed Henry Gresham's boat and the Alderman with his fat wife and two fat children rowed by two sweating journeymen, shared one thing. They were going to the play. The sense of excitement was uncontrollable, one reason why the authorities frowned on the theatre so much. They claimed that the theatres were breeding grounds for the Plague, but it was the plague of ideas spawned by the players, their living pictures of Kings overthrown and rebellion unleashed, that they were most scared of.
As if marking it as a forbidden pleasure, the playhouses were largely outside the boundaries of the old city, one wall of which was the River Thames. Situated on the south bank, beyond the control of the City Fathers, they stood side by side with the string of brothels that everyone knew were owned by the Bishop of London. Visiting a play held at one of the royal Palaces was a different kind of excitement, though Gresham often thought that the only difference between sex from a whore and sex from a lady-in-waiting was that the whore told you how much it would cost beforehand.
'Funny thing, isn't it?' said Mannion, who liked nothing better than a good play, preferably with a horrible murder in the opening scene. He was reading Gresham's mind again. 'The bloody authorities'll close a theatre down at the drop of a sneeze, yet if 'er 'Ighness invites any one of 'em to a show they'll be there in their finery quicker than an 'are in March.'
He glanced back to where the Alderman's boat was bobbing in the swell, falling rapidly behind. His fat wife was starting to complain that she had known all along it was too rough to go by boat.
Judicious use of Gresham's money had secured them an empty slot on the jetty that fed the Palace, by the simple practice of parking a wherry there four or five hours earlier. As the wherrymen caught sight of the Gresham livery they backed neatly out, the larger of the two men grinning at Gresham and doffing his cap.
Gresham's men started to edge the boat into the vacant space; the jetty overflowing with boats and people, the boatmen concerned about their fine paint, the men and women far more concerned about their fine velvets, silk and satins. Amid the chaos, a ragged-arsed little boy stood gawping at all the fine folk, thumb in his mouth, one of the human flotsam and jetsam of the river. Half an hour either side of this particular rush hour and a guard would have moved him on, but now no one had time or energy.
There was a shout from behind them, and Gresham and Mannion turned instantly. A huge boat, eight oars a side and more like a royal barge than a private vessel, was charging full ahead into the space reserved for Gresham, seemingly oblivious to the smaller boat that was already halfway to the spot. At its stern and on its mast flew the proud pennant of the Earl of Essex, the rowers dressed in the tangerine-coloured livery that the family favoured. The Earl himself sat languidly on a throne at the stern, talking to a man whose appearance would have made a peacock feel underdressed, oblivious to the chaos his men were about to cause.
'CLEAR THE WAY THERE! CLEAR THE WAY FOR THE EARL OF ESSEX!'
The man at the front of Essex's battleship was yelling at the top of his voice, and smaller boats were scurrying out of his way like ants, Essex's oarsmen not letting up as they raced to the jetty; if anything seeming to row even harder. It was a neat trick, if you could do it, to row for home as if chased by the Devil and then dig the oars in hard at the last moment and halt the boat before it splintered itself and the landing stage. Whether this lot were good enough to do it remained to be seen.
There was an outward civilisation in Elizabeth's England, but it ran only skin deep. The place at the jetty was clearly Gresham's. Essex was equally clearly trying to take it. Duals were fought for less. Honour was at stake, and reputation. Essex chose that moment to look up, casually, as if by accident, and his eyes locked on to Gresham's. He smiled, and waved a hand. It was a clear challenge.
He is enjoying this, thought Gresham. He has no need to fight for this poxy little mooring, except that it is a battle of wills and more exciting than the river on a normal day.
Gresham's men had not yet shipped their oars. There was time enough, just, for them to dip the blades into the muddy water and reverse out of the path of the Goliath heading at speed towards them. Most men would have done just that, if only to save their skins. Few who used the river, and even fewer sailors could swim. But Gresham's men were different. The river was a dangerous place, and they had to do more dangerous things on it following his orders than many liveried servants would have dreamt of.
Ramming. For all the social niceties of this situation, this was ramming. It was the best way of making a quick kill on the river. Head for the enemy, smash into their side, hole their boat, jump on board, grab whatever you wanted and back off to leave the evidence to sink behind you. Gresham's men were trained for this. He did not need to look at Mannion, or speak to him. It was at times like this that their intuitive understanding paid dividends.
'Fend off to stern.'
Gresham spoke in what seemed a quiet voice, but it carried to his men, to whom it was a familiar order, and somehow cut through the babble on the jetty, increased now by the excitement over what seemed to be a major collision.
The slight signs of uncertainty that had been visible among his men as they looked up in a moment of relaxation and saw a vast vessel bearing down on them at speed vanished, to be replaced by military order. The two men seated at the bow lowered their oars into the water, leaving them motionless for the moment, ready to give the vessel direction one way or the other as was needed. The next pair reached up the mast, where two vast boat hooks, stout timber with iron hooks at the business end, were strapped to the mast, almost equalling its height. Effortlessly they swung down the lengths of timber, so smoothly as to hide the difficulty of the act on a bobbing boat, and passed them forward for the stern pair of men. As if they were puppets, the men rose to their feet just as those behind them sat down to balance the boat, and the boat hooks were suddenly held like levelled pikes. This was the crucial moment. The two men at the stern had to direct the boat hooks, the two men behind them had to grab the end of the timber shafts as the impact threatened and give more strength to the lead man. Yet the seat of a pole has no point on which to fix, if it is to receive a big impact. The two men at the rear reached down into the lockers at their feet, and slipped a strange, leather contraption on their arms with a pouch slung beneath it. Into the pouch went the end of the boat hook.
'Secured!' the two men yelled in unison. This was what had taken the time in training, endless hours when the boat hook seemed to have a life of its own, when in securing it the rear man had swung it so widely as to knock the front man off the boat. How many hours of men splashing and swearing in the water had they undergone to produce this situation, whereby in seconds a small tree had been unslung from a mast, placed securely in the hands of a strong man ready to guide it and secured from behind by another man waiting to absorb the shock on contact?
They had the time, just. Momentum, that was the key. For all the fearsome strength and weight of the Earl's boat, like all boats it was surprisingly easy to push aside. Essex's boat was bearing down on them from almost directly astern. To Gresham's left was a motley collection of craft, mostly professionals delivering their human cargo. To his right was a rather splendid, gilded royal boat, too small to be a barge but still very grand. It was no choice.
'Fend off right,' he ordered, as calmly as before, but his pulse racing as if this was a real battle rather than a stupid battle for honour.
If it worked, Essex's boat would skitter off down their right-hand side. The bow oarsmen on that side shipped their oars and checked that those of the two stern men, wielding the boat hook, were flush along the side. It was all they had time to do.
The man was still yelling at the bow of Essex's boat, rather more frantically now. He was used to people getting out of his way, and the significant obstacle in their path had not moved. His eyes opened wide in startlement as the two huge boat hooks swung out and pointed at him.
'CLEAR…' he shrieked, his voice in danger of going falsetto, before he felt the deck shift under him, lost his footing and, in rather stately fashion, fell into the Thames.
The boat hooks caught Essex's barge just to one side of the bow. The men took the strain, actually took the one step back that the boat allowed them, and then pushed with all their strength. A sudden snag, the sinews straining and then Essex's ship started to slew round. One more heave, and the job was done.
Then the men wielding the boat hooks did something they had not been trained for. In a real fight, they would have awaited the order to fend off again, or stowed the boat hooks and gone off after their attacker. In this case, they simply raised the boat hooks to head height, dipping them down again as the rigging swept by. The careering weight of Essex's boat was unstoppable. It drove it through. The heavy boat hooks crashed into the pates of one, two, three and four oarsmen, flattening them in the bottom of the boat, their oars flying, before those behind realised and ducked. As they did so they forgot their oars, which smacked in contact with Gresham's boat and whipped back, smashing the men on the chest or on their hurriedly lowered heads. At one moment a boat hook seemed to be headed straight for the Earl of Essex and the fine bonnet he wore; he glided aside at the last second and the hook passed through empty air. Was he still grinning, Gresham had to ask himself?
Then, with a massive, grinding and wonderfully expensive crash, Essex's boat drove into the Queen's gilded plaything, smashing its own bow fully halfway into the final quarter of the other boat. Shards of wood like daggers flew through the air. The boat heeled over with the shock, so much so that its mast nearly touched the floor of the jetty, and then half-righted itself, filling with water and still enmeshed with Essex's boat. The rest of Essex's men were flung forward, Essex the only one with the sense to wrap his arms round a stanchion and stay more or less where he was. His popinjay friend was hurled forward, caught himself a nasty blow in the crotch on the guard rail, and catapulted over it into the river.
What a pity, thought Gresham, grinning now it was all over. That fine velvet, satin and silk would not survive a ducking. Was it that awful man who acted as secretary to Essex? The unfortunately named Gelli? The vicious Welshman?
The mast of the Queen's boat had not snapped as it heeled over, but must have cracked on impact. Suddenly, and without warning, there was the sound of tearing timber, and the mast wobbled, then snapped its rigging, tumbling down onto the jetty.
The boy was still there, his thumb still in his mouth, bemused, even more wide-eyed as the great men and women crashed into each other. He must have seen or sensed the mast headed towards him, but was frozen to the spot. The chunk of timber landed two, maybe three feet to one side of him. One of the planks it hit flew upward under the boy's feet, like a see-saw, catapulting him into the water. He could have hit another boat, knocked his brains out. Instead he flew straight as an arrow into the only clear patch of water left in that area of the Thames, and started to drown.
Shit! Gresham's world narrowed down to the small figure in the water. Two stupid men doing man things and fighting over their honour and who won a parking place on the river, that was one thing. No real harm done, except some broken heads, some wounded pride and a lot of work for carpenters. Gresham never thought if this whole farrago was worth the life of a worthless child. People do not think in these situations. Either they do, or they step back. Gresham was incapable of stepping back.
The finery on his back, understated though it was, would have kept a peasant and his family in food for a year. Oh, to hell with it. Life was about more than possessions.
To the amusement of his men, guffawing now at the ease with which they had bested the Earl of Essex and oblivious to the boy in the water, Gresham mounted the stern and dived cleanly into the water, his hat flying off as he did so and bobbing gently behind him.
His breath left him as the cold of the water bit through his clothes and into his flesh. The boy was going down for the third time, and sank just before Gresham reached him. Mentally bisecting the angle, Gresham kicked his heels and dived under, hand outstretched, knowing the murk of the Thames would hide the boy from him. His flailing hand grabbed hold of something — cloth? Gresham drove upwards. He drew in a huge gasp of air as he reached the surface, and saw with relief that it was indeed the boy he had grabbed. Flipping himself over on his back, he rested the child, spluttering and struggling feebly as he was, on his chest. He reached the jetty to a rousing cheer from a hundred or so bystanders, shouting partly because they were impressed, but also because they were ashamed that they, who had seen the drowning boy, had not felt inclined to risk themselves in the water. Reaching the scarred and tide-scorched rough wood of the jetty, Gresham heaved the boy onto dry land by sheer brute force. Overcome temporarily by exhaustion, he waited before heaving himself out, a ludicrous, drenched figure in Court dress, and hatless.
'Are you all right?' he asked the boy, who was wild-eyed with terror, and wetting himself. The boy's eyes connected with his rescuer.
'Fuck off, mister!' he said with a squeak, and repeated it for good measure. 'You fuck off, you!' He picked himself up, and ran off with a shambling gait into the crowd, a master of urban disguise.
Gresham felt a hand grab the back of his sodden doublet and, with surprising strength, haul him out of the water. His own men had formed a protective cordon round him, once they had realised what was happening, but they had obviously let someone through. Was it Mannion? No. It was the Earl of Essex.
A hand plonked something on top of Gresham's head. It was his hat.
'Well, Sir Henry,' said the Earl of Essex, 'at least you're wearing something that's partly dry. I picked up your hat from the water just as you dived in.'
'Thank you, my Lord,' said Gresham, spluttering a little.
However hard one tried, water always seemed to get into the lungs in escapades like this. 'It wouldn't do to be seen hatless in company.'
'Quite,' said the Earl, as if the conversation they were having was the most normal thing on earth. 'Now you must tell me, how did you train those men of yours to be so superb? Outstanding. Quite outstanding. If Philip Sidney had had men like that around him he'd be alive now. You must tell me how you did it.'
As the realisation of the stupidity of it all hit him, Gresham could no longer restrain his laughter. It burst out of him.
And to his surprise, Gresham heard Essex join him in the laughter. After all, life was a farce, wasn't it? A bad joke played on humanity, their punishment for feeling pain? Was Essex the only other man in the world who saw how ludicrous it all was?
Gresham allowed himself to be helped to his feet. The laughter subsiding, he looked at Essex. 'Forgive me, my Lord,' he said, with a formal slight bow. 'You are most gracious, and I am very silly.'
Essex looked at him, something glancing behind his eyes, lighting them up. 'Fuck off, mister,' he said.
And both men collapsed into yet more uncontrollable laughter.
Gresham was leaving visible puddles behind him as he walked with Essex into the courtyard of the Palace. Mannion followed a dutiful few paces behind, clucking like an ancient hen over a lost chick. He made it clear, without saying a word, what he thought about people who dived in to rescue a child no one would miss. From behind came various gurgling and sloshing sounds, and a torrent of swearing. Gresham glanced over his shoulder. An incandescent Gelli Meyrick was being hauled out of the river, his extravagant dress reduced to a sodden sponge, ruined.
'Shouldn't we wait for your… secretary, my Lord?' asked Gresham.
'He will look after himself,' said Essex carelessly. 'Gelli is very good at that. It's actually what he does best. If he needs me for anything, you can be sure he'll ask.'
They walked on in silence for a few moments, past the guards at the water gate, who drew their pikes up to attention in a salute to Essex. He pretended not to notice. Gresham suspected that had they not shown him this sign of respect they would have had the roasting of their lives. That was the trouble with real aristocracy, thought Mannion: treat you like a brother one minute then have you up for being too familiar.
'I've a room here in the Palace, and some old rags,' said Essex airily. 'I'm taller than you, but they'll fit you passably, I imagine, and I'm sure we can rustle up a towel.'
They walked on for a few more yards. Only Gresham would have noticed the slightest of changes in Essex's step.
'An urchin,' said Essex casually. 'A vagabond of no worth, destined to grow up a thief or a villain, or worse. Why did you risk yourself for him?'
Gresham's tone was the only dry thing about him.
'He is of no worth to us. I suspect to himself he is worth quite a lot.'
Very few people other than the Queen's servants kept a room in the Palace, particularly a large, beamed room with a generous fireplace and splendid views out over the river. Even fewer kept a stock of clothing that would have doubled the wardrobe of many a gentleman.
'Just in case, Gresham, just in case,' said Essex, as a servant brought garment after garment out of chests. Another servant laid a fire and lit it. The cold was starting to get to Gresham now, and he was fighting his body's desire to shiver. He found himself welcoming the heat of the fire.
Just in case of what, thought Gresham? In case he found himself with an unexpected overnight stay at the Palace in the old Queen's bed? Essex's arrogance, his assumption of superiority, was supreme, yet at the same time Gresham felt himself strangely unaffected by it. He was… amused, that was it. Amused, rather than offended. Why? Perhaps it was because the arrogance was so much on the surface, so understood by its owner as to make it no threat. With Essex, what you saw was what you got. Except by all accounts what you saw and what you got could change several times in the space of one hour. However, he was all conciliation and concern now, though never mentioning once that the reason for Gresham's sodden state was the arrogance of his boat master in seeking to claim a berth that clearly was not his.
If life as a campaigning soldier had taught Gresham anything it was to disavow his culture's horror of nakedness. He stripped down to his shirt, and then pulled that long, dripping garment over his head, allowing Mannion for once to towel him rather more vigorously than was strictly necessary, still cross at his master for taking what he deemed unnecessary risk. Essex had not quibbled when Mannion had made to enter the room. He glanced at Gresham's naked body, not lasciviously, but rather in the manner of a Welsh farmer looking over a bull he was about to buy. Did he notice the slight discoloration down one side of Gresham's whole body, the slightly paler tinge of the skin where a stupid soldier's carelessness had ignited the powder store? Only Mannion knew why there were so few oil lamps in any room Henry Gresham had power over. Candles were likely to snuff out if they were knocked over; a knocked oil lamp spread its flame. If he did notice, Essex said nothing, and nor did he comment on the various scars that adorned almost every part of Gresham's body. Instead, he looked almost dreamily out over the Thames.
'You'll join me at the play? Sit with me? It's the least I can do
… particularly if you tell me how you trained those men of yours. Superb! Quite superb! Put my lot totally in the shade.'
Something in Essex's voice told Gresham that the men on the Essex barge would be made to pay for what had happened out there on the river.
Gresham was dried off now, attending to the intricacies of unfamiliar buttons and fastenings. The doublet he had chosen was one of the most reserved in the Earl's spare wardrobe, but still had double-slashed sleeves and an immensely ornate neckline. The Earl wore his doublets cut high, probably to amplify the cut of his legs, and while Gresham thought it made Essex look faintly ridiculous, like a stork, it suited Gresham remarkably well. On the Earl there was the merest hint that the upper thighs were perhaps just a little too… fat? Perhaps he should ask Essex if he could keep the outfit…
I’d take them out on the river and tell them that we would stay there until they got whatever manoeuvre it was we were practising right. We went out at high tide to some mud flats. If they kept on getting it wrong, we'd get stranded on the mud flats as the tide went out, and they'd have to wait till the next high tide to get home.'
'And did you ever have to wait?'
'Oh, yes. Twice, as it happened. The first time they didn't believe me. The second time they were so desperate to get it right they were all fingers and thumbs. Not a bad training for a real fight.'
Gresham had seen outwardly well trained men panic under the pressure of battle, and load two powder charges into a musket, or ram two balls down the barrel. The effect in each case was lethal, the barrel peeling back and the marksmen blinded by splinters and burning powder. Once he had seen a man fire his musket with the ramrod still in the barrel. For some reason the gun had held firm, and in crazy slow motion the wooden pole described a lazy arc through the air and caught an enemy horseman a smashing blow neatly on the chin, where it peeked out from under his helmet, and threw him to the ground. It was a shot the man could never have made if he had planned it. It had turned the skirmish their way, as it happened. They had been outnumbered and losing their will to fight, and the ludicrous sight of the flying ramrod had persuaded them that someone up there must be on their side.
'Did you arrange for yourself to be picked up? Surely you didn't stay marooned?' asked Essex, leaning forward now, his interest really engaged.
'I couldn't leave, even if I'd wanted to. There was no way off those mud flats — you'd sink seven, eight feet if you tried to step on them. No one could leave the boat, and no one could join it. Tides take a long time to turn, I can tell you.'
'Food and water?' *No. None was allowed.' *Not even for you? The commander?'
'Especially not for me. I was making a simple point. If a vessel gets boarded on the river, it's not because those boarding it want to say hello. They're not going to leave any witnesses alive, particularly the commander. If the men fail, the captain dies as well. It's a simple lesson.'
'Didn't discipline suffer? You can have no secrets crammed onto a small boat with eight men.'
'Sometimes four, sometimes eight, sometimes sixteen,' said Gresham. 'Did it suffer? I don't know. I certainly wasn't going to shout at them for seven or eight hours. The punishment was having to be stuck there. So I played dice half the time, and then kept sane writing sonnets for the rest of it. Bloody difficult, sonnets.'
Mannion, who had been helping him in silence, stepped back, and nodded approvingly. Mannion had little pride in his own appearance, but great pride in Gresham's. Gresham winked at him and gave a slight sideways nod. It was time for Mannion to leave, or rather for him to wait outside the door. Essex would talk more freely if the two men were alone. He was clearly in it up to his neck with James of Scotland, and God knew who else. For once it might be in Gresham's interests to sound out Essex's political thoughts.
Essex hardly seemed to notice Mannion's departure. As he often did, he spoke, but in the manner of someone talking to himself.
'You played dice with them…' Essex mused, his brow furrowed in thought for a moment. His eyes swung back to Gresham, a signal perhaps that his mind had returned to here and now. 'Didn't they lose respect for you?'
'They lost money,' said Gresham, with a grin. 'I learnt to play dice with Drake, and on the Spanish Armada. In fact one of those men on the boat this afternoon, Dick, he owes me five hundred crowns still. I keep reminding him, but I don't think I'll get my money.'
This new vision of a relationship between commander and men was worrying Essex. He kept coming back to it, like a terrier after a rabbit that he was not convinced was quite dead.
'I couldn't do that,' he said with disarming honesty. 'I don't understand common men, not in the way I suspect you do. I've seen commanders in the field like you — on the very rare times I've been allowed to be a real solder!'
It was no secret that the Queen kept Essex on a leash, and that he wanted military glory more than anything else. The fury he descended into when the Queen refused him permission to go on one jaunt or another was legendary.
'Commanders like me? I'm hardly a great commander,' said Gresham. *No?' said Essex. 'I can see the way your men look at you, the way they trust you, the ease of the relationship they have with you. I can lead such men, I think, but I can never feel part of them.'
'Perhaps, my Lord,' said Gresham, suddenly bored with the conversation. You did not talk about leadership or how to work a body of men. You just did it. Theorising killed the whole thing dead. It was all common sense, after all. 'But I've an advantage over you.'
'An advantage?' said Essex, sensing an insult but not sure what it was. 'What do you mean by that?'
'You were born a nobleman, born to lead, born to see yourself as a cut above other men. Brought up in the household of the most powerful man in England.'
Where apparently you learnt black magic and sodomy, thought Gresham, though this is probably not the best time to mention it. Except there was no sense of any great evil emanating from this man, unlike Cecil. Essex was surprisingly likeable. Spoilt, selfish and certainly arrogant, but no one brought up as the heir to an earl-dom could ever totally avoid that. He was a philanderer and probably a depressive, and his mood swings were renowned. Yet underneath was a genuine power, allied to that strange vulnerability.
'I was born a bastard,' Gresham continued, 'to a merchant who happened to make the greatest fortune in England but who had no birth and no breeding. If I seem at ease with my men, and they with me, it's because we both recognise how similar we are. We're no different, really. I've just had more luck.'
Without realising he had done it, or why, Gresham's last words pushed Essex instantly into a different persona. Gresham saw at first hand one of those famous, meteoric mood changes in Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
'And if you can do what you have done without the power that breeding brings, how much should I do, who have had all that advantage, had the ear of the Queen… I, who love the Queen more than any other of her subjects!'
Dark, black melancholia, a bottomless pit of sadness and hopelessness into which one could only dive, helpless. It was a mood Gresham recognised from himself.
The ear of the Queen? It was probably one of her more attractive bits, thought Gresham, but you're welcome to it and the rest of her body. Love the Queen? It was entirely possible that Essex did. Royalty had that effect on some people, robbed them of their senses, made proud men obsequious, filled them with a slavish devotion. Perhaps Jesus had had the same effect on his disciples.
Essex's mood had swung totally in the space of a second. He was angry now, hauled up out of the black dog pit, on his feet, his face reddening, almost shouting at Gresham. Did the man have a dose of the clap, as many said? The disease was endemic in Court, and Essex a known philanderer. These sudden mood changes, often followed by plunges into mad depression were a feature of syphilis. Yet Essex showed none of the outward physical symptoms.
'I was born to power!' he was shouting now, like a lunatic. 'God gave me the breeding, the body and the brain!'
But not, thought Gresham, the modesty to go with it. Nor, as it happened, the money.
'And what have I done with it? Done with my precious ration of time? The gift we are given only once?'
Was this an act? No. There was real insanity lurking behind the Earl's frothings. Yet at the same time there was something else, the strangest sense of a different, almost an alternative intelligence at work, observing and assessing while all the time the outer person gave a very convincing performance as someone who had lost not just the marbles but any sense of the rules of the game.
'You've become Earl Marshal of England,' said Gresham, deciding not to pander to the rage or the self-pity. The appointment had been announced in December of the previous year. This was new in their relationship. They had never talked like this before. 'You've certainly had your ups and downs in Court politics, but as things stand you're the favourite of the Court. You're also, gratifyingly but dangerously, the man the people cheer as he rides through the street. Oh, and you're Master of the Queen's Horse, and holder of her monopoly of sweet wines. Not bad, even for an Earl.'
'Pah!' The scorn in Essex's voice was tangible, a tearing, terrible thing. 'I am mocked for my failure in the Azores, my Lord of Effingham made Earl of Nottingham and so to walk ahead of me at the opening of Parliament!'. Essex was conveniently forgetting that his appointment as Earl Marshal had restored his precedence over Effingham. 'To be sponsored by me for any post at Court is to have the kiss of death on one's prospects! The Queen ignores my nominations. Laughs at me, even.''
The expedition to the Azores in 1597 had been a disaster, the feud between Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh shaking and eventually breaking the whole mad-cap adventure.
'If naval engagements were subject to common sense and logic, or influenced by the effectiveness of their commanders, Spain would be King of England now and the leader of the Armada, Duke Medina de Sidonia, probably Earl of Essex, for all I know.'
It did not make sense under normal circumstances to remind a reigning monarch how many such had lost their thrones or their lives, nor to remind a proud Earl that his power was to all intents and purposes in the gift of the reigning King or Queen. Yet it seemed to have worked. Essex's head snapped round, his headlong descent into self-pity not stopped, but certainly slowed down. *You were there, not just with the Armada, but on it? You've never talked of it It was one of the great scandals of the time. They said you were a spy for Spain. They still do say so, some of them.'
‘I was there,' said Gresham simply, this time looking into his own soul, rather than trying to fathom that of Essex. 'On board the flagship of the Armada, by the side of its commander. I was a young man then, and already a spy, that most despised of all things. On a fleet led by the person who I still think of as the greatest commander of all. By the side of that man a petty tyrant deliberately stranding his men on mud flats to teach them a lesson is nothing. Nothing at all.'
'And was Medina de Sidonia so good a commander?' whispered Essex, his mood changed yet again. 'They say he was a coward, that he failed in his leadership.'
'He's the best man I've ever served with or under.' Except Sir Walter Raleigh, but given the relationship between Essex and Raleigh it was probably not tactful to mention that now.
'Why? Why was he so good?'
Essex was driven by what he knew in his heart he would never attain: military glory. It was one of the ways he would rescue his life, give it meaning. It was simple. You fought and won, or lost If you were lucky you lost your life in the latter case, and gained sweet oblivion from the mess of life. Did Essex share with Gresham a wish for death, to end the struggle, the fighting for position, the endless pursuit of ill-defined goals?
'Medina de Sidonia had lands, estates, position. A happy marriage, children. When he was summoned, without warning, to take charge of the Armada, he knew it would fail. Too much damage had already been done, and his intelligence told him that this outwardly great fleet was like a child damaged beyond repair in the mother's womb. His King had given him binding orders that crippled his freedom of action.'
'So he served an ungrateful monarch,' breathed Essex, 'and yet he still took the duty on?'
'Of course he did!' said Gresham, scornfully and stung for once into an entirely open response. 'He was a grandee of Spain, wasn't he? In Spain, nobility justifies itself by sacrifice. He knew he would lose his honour by leading a fleet that was destined to fail. And his honour is the only thing a Spanish nobleman has that matters. Our poor noblemen…'
Careful! Essex was poor, his extravagance paid for by a monopoly on sweet wines.
'… our poor noblemen hang round like hungry dogs outside the doors of the Court, destroyed if they cannot don a new doublet. In Spain the poorest noble thinks himself rich if he has his honour. Yet his King had called for Sidonia to do something that he knew would lose him his honour if he accepted and lose if he refused. He knew he would lose. Yet still he sailed, because he had sworn his fealty to his King. He knew that when he lost he would lose his own honour and reputation, the things more important to him and his ancient family than life itself. Yet in losing his own honour he would ensure that the real villain, his King, preserved his. It was a conscious choice, don't you see?' Gresham was getting carried away. He decided to let it happen. 'Forgive me, my Lord Earl. Do you know how many times he led his own flagship into the heat of the battle, exposed himself to every sharpshooter in England? A cannon ball does not stop in mid-air and bow to noble blood. So I sink a little when I hear you bemoan your own lack of advancement. The noblest commander I've ever met sacrificed his own reputation for a higher end, the reputation of his monarch. In my mind, true nobility consists of sacrifice as much as self-advancement.'
'And do I have that quality of true nobility?' For a moment, Essex was like a child before his father, seeking approval.
Gresham ran through the facts in his mind. Essex's boat master had tried to ram his way into a berth to which he had no right by brute force. Yet in the aftermath of a battle he had clearly lost, the Earl had shown no rancour, and rather put himself out to be generous to his erstwhile opponent.
'You may have, my Lord,' said Gresham simply. 'Or you may not. The jury has yet to return a verdict.'
'And you, Henry Gresham? What is your verdict?'
Why was the greatest nobleman in the country asking a mere Sir Henry Gresham what he thought of him? 'I don't give verdicts,' he said. 'And I trust only two people on this earth, and view that as a major weakness.' A weakness Cecil had been able to exploit. 'My personal jury is likely to stay out for the rest of both our lives, give no judgement on your standing or on my own. But it's a little better than that. I can tell you one verdict it won't be uttering.'
'And that is?' Essex, for short periods, had phenomenal power of concentration, bringing such intensity to an issue that he threatened to burn it out.
'I won't be telling you to, "Fuck off, mister!'"
Essex rocked back, a great guffaw coming from him. 'I think the level of gratitude shown to you by that street urchin is an emblem for the Court, as it happens, a measure of the reward we who haunt this place get for our sycophancy.'
A servant had brought some wine and some sweetmeats in on a silver tray, emblazoned with the Devereux arms, and left as silently as he came.
'Have you been sent to spy on me?' asked Essex casually, as he reached for the wine. 'I understand Cecil summoned you last week.'
There are defining moments in our lives, usually ones we have not prepared for, often ones where we think afterwards what we should have said or done. Was this what it had all been leading up to? Had Essex planned the invasion of the berth simply to meet Gresham intimately, lure him into a false sense of companionship and then find out the truth about him? Gresham had less than a second to decide. If he hesitated, he was declaring his guilt. If he owned up to being Cecil's creature, a man with the vast resources of Essex could have Gresham dead within the hour. If he denied it and Essex believed him, all it would take was a disloyal and bribed servant in Cecil's household and Gresham would find a dagger in his back. Gresham had no illusions that Essex would put his own interests and survival on a far higher priority than that of a convenient and amusing drinking companion. And he had no time to think!
'Yes,' said Gresham simply. 'Of course I have. In a manner of speaking. Cecil uses me to clean up some of his rubbish, and I fear that's how he sees you at present. But we ought to be clear on one thing. Cecil thinks I work for him. I don't. I work for the Queen, and for peace and stability in England.'
'And for yourself?' asked Essex.
'If by that you mean will I put my own survival before yours, yes. As you will undoubtedly put your survival before mine.'
'True,' said Essex, as if this went without saying. 'And you are willing to tell me that you will put your personal feelings aside, and work for Cecil and the Queen even if by so doing you harm me?'
Essex was gazing directly into Gresham's eyes now, and Gresham returned his gaze. Essex had his sword belt by his side, while Gresham's had been rescued from the jetty and was now presumably in the hands of one of his men somewhere distant in the Palace. Gresham had stripped naked in front of Essex, who knew there was no dagger hidden on his person. Gresham was as defenceless as he would ever be, his servant outside the room, and he had just confessed to being in Cecil's employ.
'Of course I am, my Lord,' said Gresham, seeming immensely relaxed. 'If that situation were to arise. Better the spy you know. It gives us both so much more control over the quality of the information.'
'Is this… normal? In your line of business, I mean. To be so open?' asked Essex, the merest hint of a laugh in his voice.
'Well, no, actually,' said Gresham. 'Come to think on it, this is the first time I've told someone I quite like that if the need arises I'll shaft them with the government. But somehow it doesn't seem unreasonable, given the circumstances. Indeed, it seems rather a good idea. I'm surprised I haven't thought of it before. It takes so much of the tension out of things. And, of course, I hate Cecil, and in a strange, drunken sort of way I really am quite fond of you.'
'They said you were a very, very strange man,' said Essex. 'When
I asked my own spies about you. I've never known whether you shared my company because it interested you, or whether you were being paid to do it.'
'I did so because you interested me. And because life quickens when you are there. Was it deliberate on your part to force an encounter earlier?'
‘No. There was no plan. But I could have stopped my boatman heading for your berth. I chose not to do so.'
'Why?'
'It was more fun that way. And the Queen has enough money left to build some more boats.'
'And why this sudden questioning about my motives? Our conversation today has taken rather a new turn.'
'I've become suspicious of everyone,' said Essex. 'Of necessity. The times are very… tense. My position with the Queen is not secure.' It was probably the truth. 'You're known to work for Cecil, and to hate him. And he you, so they tell me. Wasn't it you who gave the Queen his nickname? "My little pygmy" she calls him, to his evident distress.'
Cecil hated and despised references to his warped body. Gresham sighed.
'So the story goes, but alas it's untrue. Everyone believes it was me, but in fact the name was suggested to her by Cecil's father. It's more comfortable for Cecil to believe that it was me.'
'I can't understand how two people who loathe each other can work together as you and the pygmy appear to do. Or why a man as wealthy as you evidently are needs to do such work.'
'Yet you, my Lord, agreed a truce with Cecil when he was away on his ill-fated embassy for the Queen to the King of France. A truce which you honoured.'
'That was politics,' responded Essex airily. 'It suited him to be in France, and it suited me for that time not to be plotting. Simple mutual convenience.'
Gresham decided this particular conversation was going nowhere. 'Are we going to see the play, my Lord? Oh, and by the way, if you are going to kill me, would you mind starting now, while I'm wearing your clothes? It's so difficult to wash out the blood…'
Gresham had noted that Essex's hand was resting on the hilt of his sword. Essex's hand stayed where it was. There was no humour now in his voice. 'No, I am not going to kill you now. But, as we are making a very uncourtly honesty the flavour of the day, it is entirely possible that I may do so later. I do not like the little pygmy, or those who work for him. I do like you, but that fact won't stop me killing you. Or you me, I suspect, if the need arises. I'm really not so sure you are Cecil's man. Not in your heart. I take it he has some dirt on you? Some hold over you?'
Gresham smiled a slight smile, but said nothing.
'I'll take that as a yes,' said Essex. 'And, in the name of that same honesty, I shall try and wean you off that detestable little toad …'
So that was where the inscription on Cecil's wall had come from.
'… and make you my man, rather than his. You will find me a better master.'
And that, thought Gresham, as he and Essex rose to leave the room, is probably the truest thing said in this bizarre conversation.
But at least Essex's ploy was quite clear. He would try to seduce Gresham away from Cecil, thereby hurting and humiliating his greatest enemy. Robert Devereux wanted Henry Gresham as a trophy, a living and possibly even a notorious witness to the great Earl's capacity to attract men into his party. Well, it suited Gresham to play the game for the moment. He had no option.
Before they reached the door, it shook with two mighty thumps, and a noise like an iron sheet being dropped onto a door key. Gresham shuddered. He knew that noise. The Queen's guard always dropped their pikes to the ground with a resounding crash when they arrived at their destination. They were overweight, and so wore their breast- and backplates loosely tied. The result was that the two heavy pieces of metal were forever grinding against each other, and bouncing off belt buckles. The door was crashed open by a guard, whose helmet showed a serious dent on its left-hand side. Valiant action against an enemy, wondered Gresham? Or contact with a door post while drunk?
Elizabeth's dress might have been dark red, if much of the cloth had been visible beneath the pearls. She was fanning herself. Essex and Gresham both swept off their hats, and bowed low, forcing their eyes to the floor.
The Queen ignored Gresham.
'Robbie, Robbie,' she crooned as a lady might talk to her pet dog, 'how is it that yet again you cost me money?' She extended her hand, and bid him rise up. 'My poor boat is smashed, and my loyal boatman distraught.'
Essex, upright now, gave her a brilliant smile.
'Majesty, I shall build you a new boat with my own hands, finer than that which Cleopatra rode in to meet Mark Antony-' he began grandly.
'Which like you, will look beautiful, but sink at regular intervals!' the Queen cut in. They both collapsed into peals of laughter, more like boy and girl than Queen and noble. Gresham was still bent forward in his bow, his back starting to feel as if he had collected the harvest in single handed.
'You may rise, Sir Henry,' said the Queen, who until this moment appeared not to have noticed Gresham's presence. 'While you still can,' she added caustically. Gresham rose up, to his considerable relief. The Queen looked coldly at him. 'I hear that yet again it is you who have led this young man astray.'
Gresham had learnt to take risks — small risks only — with the Queen.
'Your Majesty,' he said, 'I have tried for some years past to lead my Lord of Essex astray, but for some reason he has always overtaken me and left me as a mere follower.'
What might have been a flicker of grim approval crossed the Queen's face, and she turned again to Essex. It was as if everyone else had vanished, Gresham, the guards and everyone, and the only people in the room were Elizabeth and Essex. Her old eyes were alight for a moment, sparkling with the excitement of flirtation and dalliance.
'And will you take me, an old woman, to the play, my Robbie?' she asked in an unusually soft voice. When she chose she could bark with the sensitivity of a fog horn. Her eyes softened for a moment, gave a hint of the girl she once had been. Was she in love with this man? And was he in love with her, or with her power and office?
'I will take you…' said Essex, pausing deliberately'… even to the ends of the earth.' Somehow what should have been arch flattery was sincere. Adoration? Worship even? Essex needed the Queen's approval, not just for the money and the favours it brought, but almost more for the excitement, the sense of being at the heart of things. Yet at the same time there was a deep resentment, a burning anger at being in thrall, a fierce yearning to be free. God help Essex, God help England — and perhaps even God help Elizabeth — if ever she and Essex came to blows.