him.
He had put Jane to bed, and then gone to an old, battered chest that nowadays he rarely had cause to open. Among its contents was a bottle of a reddish fluid. The smell of it hit him as he opened it, and in a second he was back in his cot in the Lowlands, crying for the blessed liquid that would ease his pain and send him back into the numbed, drowsy state that was his only escape from suffering. The physik had been supplied by an ancient orderly. Gresham knew neither its origins nor its contents, but years later he had gone to one of the most secret and successful apothecaries in all London and described the colour, smell and taste of the physik, as well as its effect on a ravaged body and mind. The apothecary had nodded, gone to a back room and emerged with a small vial.
'What you were given was in all probability a much diminished potion than this you see here now,' he had lectured. 'Be warned. What is here is five, ten times the strength of what you had before. Taken in small measure, and only in time of strictest need, it will offer release from pain both of the body and of the mind. Yet- be warned. Taken too often, it will imprison the taker whilst appearing to release him.'
So the mixture, whatever it was, was dangerous to know, should only be taken sparingly and if the dangers were ignored would destroy you. Not a bad emblem for his dealings with Cecil, thought Gresham. He forced a minimal dose down Jane's barely resisting throat, and left her. He knew that her drug-induced sleep would fade into a more natural slumber, and that the twin healers of time and sleep would allow her not to forget what had happened, but to accept it and still live on. In time. For the pain in that time he. could do little, except help her over the first hurdle.
That done and Jane settled, he posted Martha by her bedside and took himself off to think.
Someone had tried to kill them on the river, that much was clear. Simple robbery? Gresham doubted it. There were easier pickings on the river that night, far easier than a boat manned by six sturdy men. The attacking boat had gone straight for them. It had been well-manned, heavy-built, expensive. This was not an attempted robbery. It was an attempted assassination.
There were too many men, and some women, who might want Henry Gresham dead. There had been a rosary bead on Shadwell's corpse, and Shadwell’s final meeting had been with the Catholic Percy. There was a rosary round the neck of the ruffian who had tried to kill Jane. Had Gresham come too close to a new Catholic plot, first through Will Shadwell and then by means of Moll, and made himself their target? Or had he offended Bacon? Did Cecil want him dead, despite the papers that Gresham's death would release? Had someone found out his role in the Essex rebellion, and sought to take revenge in the name of the dead leader? Or had one of the Spaniards flooding the Court after the peace treaty found out about his involvement in the Armada, and decided that to exact vengeance on water would be sweet revenge for the loss of so many Spaniards and so much prestige? The Spaniards were the most
Catholic nation in Europe, with rosary beads enough to fill the Thames. Had King James discovered the role Gresham had played in the execution of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, so many years ago, an execution which had acted to blood the young Henry Gresham into the world of espionage and intrigue? Mary had been a Catholic…
There were simply too many options. Once, hiding in a ditch in Norfolk in pouring rain, a young rabbit had emerged from its burrow on the side of a dried-up stream and gambolled on the bed of the old watercourse, below Gresham. He had welcomed the animal, feeling in it an unspoken companion and noting that his cover must be good if the rabbit had not realised his presence. Then, swollen with the torrential rain, a dyke had burst and a small, rumbling wall of water torn down the old path of the stream. There were four, five, perhaps even six ways up from the bed, and Gresham willed the rabbit to run up one of them to safety. Yet the number of choices seemed to confuse the animal, which was still looking, stopping and starting when the water hit it and tumbled it along in its path, sucking it against one too many boulders. Its broken, twisted body lay there until the crows had plucked half its flesh off through the wet fur. Too many choices confused a man, as they had confused the rabbit. It was not movement that killed, but staying still. Someone was forcing an issue with Gresham. Someone wanted him dead. He must decide who it was.
Concentrate! Will Shadwell's murder had started it all and a supper with a drunken Thomas Percy. Whatever he had heard there sent him running pell-mell off to Cambridge, and triggered his killing. Percy had command over men, was ruthless and would murder in an instant if he thought it would serve his own ends or ensure his survival. Had Percy ordered Shadwell's murder, regretting what he had told him, and Gresham's murder, fearing what he might find out? Percy was newly and surprisingly appointed to the King's bedchamber. He could have wished to kill Gresham as a Catholic fearful of the exposure of some plot, or perhaps even on the orders of the King.
Shadwell’s ring linked Sam Fogarty to the murder, and because he was Cecil's creature linked it directly to Cecil himself. Yet it could be dangerous to draw too many conclusions from that. Gresham knew at least two nobles who were taking money from both the Spanish Catholics and the Lowland Protestants, and a rogue such as Sam could have two, three or four masters. Sam Fogarty was a Northumbrian. Was he in the pay of the arch Catholic, the Earl of Northumberland, as well as in Cecil's pay? Or was Sam Fogarty's true master the Catholic faith, and was he a spy in Cecil's household for that faith, as well as a spy for Cecil in Gresham's household? If Fogarty was a religious fanatic then the chances of Gresham getting the truth out of him were slim indeed. Men who were prepared to die on a bonfire for their faith, and who feared the fires of Hell if they betrayed it, often could not be broken even by torture.
If Cecil wanted Gresham dead he would have been better off leaving him in Cambridge, where his only servant was Mannion and where a drunken student could climb into College under cover of dark, never mind an assassin. Yet Cecil had called him to London, to live in the well-guarded House, and where even on the river he was guarded by sturdy and loyal men. Cecil had much to lose by Gresham's death and too many secrets that risked exposure, but how much did he have to lose if the King his master had ordered Gresham's death? Now there would be a conundrum for his Lordship! Ordered to kill Gresham and out of favour if he failed, but very much out of favour if he succeeded and Gresham's papers became public knowledge. Cecil was devious enough to try and satisfy his master and keep Gresham alive by arranging a murder attempt, but ensuring that it failed. Yet if his assailants on the river had been in any way uncommitted to their task, Gresham had seen no sign of it.
One coincidence struck Gresham as too obvious to be dismissed.
Shadwell and Percy had dined in The Dagger. Shortly afterwards, Shadwell had been murdered. And where had Gresham chosen to go almost as soon as he could after seeing Cecil? To The Dagger, to meet the most notorious purveyor of information in London. Shortly afterwards, someone had tried to murder him. Visits to The Dagger were clearly very unhealthy propositions at present, and not only because of the quality of the ale. If Thomas Percy was behind the murder of Shadwell, Gresham's visit to The Dagger must have sounded every alarum bell in the man's head. What if Percy believed Shadwell had left a message for Gresham, writing down secretly whatever it was as insurance in case he never reached Gresham? What if Shadwell had told Moll whatever it was he had learnt, knowing it was only a matter of time before she met Gresham? It was time Moll left town, even if only as a precaution. She and The Dagger were too close to this fire for it not to burn her sooner or later, and he had too much affection and need for Moll to want to see her share Shadwell's fate.
Gresham roused Mannion, who slept on an old army mattress by Gresham's bedroom door. Hastily he scribbled a note by the flickering light of the candle.
'Here, take this to The Dagger, to Moll. Don't leave before you see it in her hands. Go armed, and wake three men to go with you.'
It was two o'clock, with not even the bakers nor the milkmaids stirring, but Mannion did not question his orders. He gave a simple nod, and left. If Moll Cutpurse had any sense she would be gone from London by dawn, or hidden in some rat-infested warren in the City where even the King or a Catholic God could not find her. She would know when to emerge. Her kind always did. Would whoever the murderer was have gone for her already? He doubted it. A killing on the river, shrouded in fog, was one thing. It would take longer to flush Moll out of her den, cunning vixen that she was, and longer even than that to mount an assault on The Dagger, with Moll's private army of ruffians around her.
He was no nearer an answer, though if Moll took his advice he might at least have stopped another murder.
Should he have kept one of his attackers alive? In terms of Gresham's code of conduct the answer was clearly no. Life was the cheapest of all commodities. There was a simple rule for such piracy, as there was for the footpads who preyed in gangs on many roads: kill, or be killed. From the moment that prow had appeared out of the fog every person on board both boats, except poor Jane, knew that no quarter would be given. He killed only those
