door.
'I'll kill you, Tom Phelippes, if I have to. You do know that, don't you?' said Gresham conversationally, the fine point of the dagger resting gently on top of the table's rough planking, held vertically there by the tip of Gresham's finger.
'I know it,' said Phelippes, whose face had gone a deathly colour, the pockmarks standing out lividly on the flesh of his face, 'yet if he who gave me the orders to forge your writing kills me for telling, as he surely will, why should I not choose an easy death now?'
'Because you can never know for certain that he will kill you, or find out what you told me, but you know you are surely dead by my hand if you don't tell me.' The level gaze of Gresham's eyes held and locked Phelippes' vision. He started to blink rapidly, like as rabbit caught in the light of a flaring torch. He shook his head, a tone of defiance beginning to underpin his fear.
'You can't kill me here, Henry Gresham!' he announced. 'I've no knife, I'm searched for weapons. Only you are with me. They'll accuse you of my murder as surely as Herod was accused of the slaughter of the innocents.'
'Perhaps they would, Tom, if I were to kill you with my knife,' mused Gresham. 'But you see, you've already drunk your death in that wine I so kindly supplied, and which you were so kind to drink in such quantity. My good friend Dr Simon Forman assures me of the potency of the mixture. You've drunk your death, Thomas Phelippes — unless, that is, I care to let you drink this antidote I happen to have in my purse, within the hour.'
Gresham withdrew a thin, stoppered bottle from his purse, containing a clear fluid. Phelippes' eyes followed it, as they would a vision from Heaven or Hell. Simon Forman was rumoured to have concocted more poisons than the Borgias.
'So do you want your next drink, Tom Phelippes? Or will you have done and be content with your last drink? Your last drink ever, that is…'
'You wouldn't do this to me!' spluttered Phelippes.
'I wouldn't have done it to you, before you betrayed me. Those letters you forged in my hand are my arrest, my trial and my hanging, drawing and quartering on the block, Tom Phelippes, as you full well know. Your death would seem a fair exchange. Enough of this chatter. Do you talk, or do I leave you to die?'
'I talk. The antidote…'
'Comes when you've finished speaking. First the letters. Why?'
'Because Cecil commanded — why else do you think? And because he paid. You know the loyalties in our game. To money and to preservation. Friendship comes a long way third.'
'Your honesty does you credit. A pity it didn't come earlier. Here, you may drink from the one bottle.' Gresham tossed the glass towards him. Phelippes grasped at it convulsively, ripped the stopper out and crammed the fluid down his throat. 'It takes two bottles to stop the work of the poison. The second is there when you finish. These names. Tell me what you know. All that you know.'
Gresham tossed a piece of paper to Phelippes. On it were the names given him by Moll Cutpurse.
Tom Wintour, Robert Catesby, Kit and Jack Wright and Thomas Percy.
Phelippes looked up, startled, his professionalism temporarily overcoming his fear. 'Catholics, one and all. A set of brothers. All related, by birth or by marriage. Catesby and the Wrights were held in the Tower together in '96.'
'Tell me about each one.'
'Why, do you think I've a clerk to hand?' Gresham held the glass bottle over the flagged stone floor. 'This has to come from my head, you know! Peace, peace, I'll try.'
Phelippes rocked back and closed his eyes.
'Catesby… old Catholic family, handsome devil of a man. Good swordsman too, by all accounts. Caught up with Essex, wasn't he? You would know better than I…' He gazed slyly at Gresham, who returned his look unmoved. 'Wife died, so I believe; thick with the priests. House in Lambeth, or used to have one there. Also lodgings in the Strand… A hothead, powerful, many friends. One to watch, definitely, one to watch…
'The Wright brothers… Catholics to the core, good swordsmen both
… reckoned some of the best in the country. Up to their necks with Essex and his song and dance, with their friend Catesby. Travellers to Europe, both of them, up to no good. It was me who tipped off Walsingham about them…
'Tom Wintour… Wintours of Huddington Court, sitting on a fortune with the saltpans at Droitwich — God knows what they have to rebel about with their money. Another known Catholic, younger brother. Restless, fiery, Witty, fond of the women and the wine… another traveller, up to no good I would guess…
'Percy… now there's a man of piss and wind. Does Northumberland's dirty work for him, went to negotiate with good King James for Northumberland, angry, vainglorious… King seems to like him… hates Cecil… nettles in his arse and an ambition that burns him dry. Wild, wild, to be steered clear of… master of no-one yet servant to none in his heart as well… For God's sake, man, will you give me that bottle’
'Eventually,' said Gresham calmly. 'One more thing. You're a professional traitor, Tom, aren't you? So who's my lever into opening the lid of this affair?' Gresham's eyes could have pierced through the timbers on a ship's side as they looked at Phelippes. 'Who can be bribed into betraying their friends from this group? Who is there of your kind amidst these men?'
Phelippes looked longingly at the bottle. Gresham made no move.
'Tresham,' he croaked. 'Francis Tresham. I know he's not on your list, but he's been in bed all his life with those who are. He's a thieving, violent, angry little runt, and if his friends and relatives are up to mischief you can bet Francis Tresham won't be far away.'
'More,' said Gresham. 'I want more.'
'Big Catholic family.' The sweat was now running in small beads across the cavities on Phelippes' face. 'Father a patriarch, big builder, big spender. Had to bail the boy out endless times. Had to bribe him out of here, the Tower, after the Essex rebellion. Young Tresham's lucky still to have his head. He's a wild one, out of control — for God's sake give me that bottle’
'Here.' He tossed the second bottle to Phelippes, who fell upon it and managed nearly to swallow the bottle as well as its contents.
'Don't betray me again, Tom,' said Gresham as he took his leave of the miserable cell and its occupant. 'In an hour or so you'll start to feel ill, and then your body will seek to expel the poison you fed it, by venting your bowels and your stomach. It'll be forcible, and it'll hurt, I'm pleased to say. A lot. You'll be able to take no food for three, four days, perhaps even a week, and your gut will hurt all that time as if it had been fed molten lead. But you'll recover, unless you catch the plague in the meantime. And by the way, the other wine is pure.'
It took them an interminable time to move through the various gates that let them out to the Thames, twice as long as it had taken them to enter.
'You've not used poison before, master,' said Mannion. There was no accusation in his carefully guarded tone. 'I haven't this time,' said Gresham.
But I was sorely tempted. Forman gave me the bottle of poison that is here still in my purse. I was ready to pour the wine into the goblets we brought in the basket, and slip the poison in by sleight of hand. I wanted him to die, to suffer for what he had done. And I don't know why I stopped in time.
'There was no poison?' asked Mannion incredulously. Gresham's act had clearly convinced him.
‘No poison in the wine. The last bottle contained a potion that Forman assures me will give Thomas Phelippes a gut-ache that he'll remember for the rest of his misbegotten life.'
Mannion started to laugh, his hilarity causing his whole body to shake so that he had to grasp one of the rotting wooden stakes by the jetty.
'In dosing him I did no more than my civic duty. A change gives as much peace as a rest, and those who tend Phelippes will soon have a new stench as a change from that of the ditch!'
Gresham laughed alongside Mannion. In his laughter was a sense of release. Without conscious thought on his behalf, he now knew who his enemy was.
Jane had awoken when they returned to the House. Traces of the drug were still in her. She was sitting in a back room overlooking the river, thin and drawn, with a blanket over her shoulders despite the summer's day.
Gresham was brusque with her. 'I think I know why someone tried to murder us on the river last night.'
She turned to look at him, the fire in her eyes dead.
