his whole body had poured its passion and its intensity into that one focal moment of release, met by her soft cry. For a few seconds after that moment, even sometimes for a few minutes, Gresham felt at peace, the demons inside him stilled. So it was with Jane, he suspected. A new demon was in her, a shared demon. How it would fit with the others inside her head, the restless spirits whose nature he could only guess at, only Jane would know. There would be no more tears for others to see, Gresham knew. She had killed a man. She would learn, like him, to cry inside her head.
He needed to hide, to take cover, to go to ground. Yet at the same time he needed London and the access it gave to his network of spies.
He woke with his mind clear. Breakfast over, he spoke with Jane and Mannion, his tone clipped and definite.
'Raleigh was right. We have to lie low, to hide ourselves until we can find out what all this is about. We're moving, to Alsatia,' he announced. 'Or rather, I am moving. Jane, you can stay here. If you do, you'll be well protected, as protected as money and men can make you. Even then, we can't guarantee there won't be an assault on the House, or more likely a fire to drive you out and into the arms of whoever wants purchase against me. In Alsatia we'll be on our own. Safer, for a while, until our identity leaks out. Yet more in danger, from those we'll be surrounded by. Not to mention plague and pestilence.'
He looked at her, noting her chin jut out just that little bit further as he spoke, sensing as much as seeing the head tilt upwards. 'I come with you, my Lord, if you'll have me.' 'So be it.'
Alsatia lay between Whitefriars and Carmelite Street. No constable or night watchman ever troubled the narrow streets of Alsatia, no law enforcement agency ever lightened its paths. It was a haven for any criminal escaping the hue and cry. Authority in Alsatia lay in a man's brute force and cunning. A force of order, but never law, was more or less enforced by whatever criminal warlord had dominance at any given time, but mastery could change hands three or four times in a year as rival groups and gangs fought their silent and bitter wars out of sight of any judge or jury. Unlike other areas such as Southwark, where the brothels and gambling dens could flourish until the law took notice of them, Alsatia offered little or no entertainment, merely a kennel where wild dogs could hide and lick their wounds, if they were not first killed by their own kind also in hiding. It ranked with the brick kilns of Islington and the Savoy, its distinction being that of all the human cesspits in London. Alsatia was the most foul and the most extreme, talked about with bated breath by the good citizens of London, and with the reddest flush of embarrassment if ever mentioned by a woman.
'But first I have another shorter journey. To my Lord Cecil.'
There was a gasp of breath from Jane. Mannion looked glum, and sucked at his tooth with the hole in it. Whenever Gresham took a decision Mannion thought was ill-advised, a piece of flesh or bread always seemed magically to reappear in that tooth.
'Surely not!' said Jane, emboldened by shock and fear. 'He must be behind all this! What madness is it to walk into his parlour!'
'It is madness, which is why he won't consider it, because it's something he would never do himself. That's why he's not his father's son. Oh, he'll plot and scheme and poison and murder, but he's cautious, always cautious. He thinks all men are lesser versions of himself. He's at his weakest when dealing with someone totally unlike him, someone who's never thought like him in all his life.'
Gresham took Mannion and four men with him to see Cecil. Unusually, he rode the cumbersome great coach that his father had ordered. It was a monstrous machine, and made every rut and canyon in the roadway seem three times deeper than it was. It was fit only for old men tottering their way from one visit to another, or fine ladies too fat or too well-bred to walk or mount a horse, and Gresham hated it. Yet it had solid walls and was defensible, with its very cumbersome nature turning it into a fortress on wheels when under attack.
It was fitting that a man with Imperial ambitions lived in a palace. Gresham barged his way through to the ante-chamber. With the King returned from Oxford, and happily killing as many wild animals as he could find in Royston, Gresham knew Cecil would be sitting at the centre of his web. A crowd of hopefuls were waiting kicking their heels, desperate for an audience.
Gresham approached the Clerk sitting like a little God at his desk.
'The King's Chief Secretary is far too busy to see those who come without prior arrangement,' announced the Clerk, sniffing through an elongated nose whilst looking down it at Gresham. 'If you insist I will take details of your petition,' he added in a tone that made it clear the petition was doomed never to meet his Lordship's eyes. A host of other eyes focused on Gresham, from the threadbare old man with a tattered bundle of papers clutched in his hand to the gallant in fine silk and satin but with a haunted look in his restless eyes. The place stank of fear, of despair and of lost hopes.
Gresham leant over and whispered something in the Clerk's ear. His eyebrows rose until they were entangled in his hair. The Chief Clerk to the King's Chief Secretary scuttled off to knock hesitantly on the guarded door. He emerged a short while later, looking even more flustered, and bowed to Gresham, ushering him in. Mannion remained outside, impassive.
Cecil was alone. It was possible that he might have had a hurriedly dismissed floozy with him, more likely one of the wild Irish harpers whose music he had so taken to. The expensive hangings could have concealed any numbers of doors. How could a man with so much ugliness in his soul have so much love of fine art and music? thought Gresham. Yet somehow Gresham doubted Cecil had been with anyone. Cecil simply liked to keep people waiting, and he fed on the anxiety and desperation of those parked outside his door, almost as if the power to deny them his presence confirmed the very power that he held.
The setting was different from the room where Cecil met his spies. It was opulent, with the hangings alone worth a small fortune. It was vast, the mullioned windows letting in bars of strong sunlight that glowed on the richly polished table in the centre of the room. Cecil sat in a huge, ornately carved chair at the head of the table. The usual mass of papers was spread before him. Why so many papers, thought Gresham, for a man with the most ruthless memory he had ever known? Ten perfectly carved matching oak chairs were ranged each side of the table, with a single, simpler chair at the end of the table. Ordered around the room were twenty or so other chairs, each worth a yeoman's ransom. The message was clear. This was a room that dwarfed the individual. It spoke of meetings of powerful men, of decisions taken by rulers.
It was also a room where clearly the petitioner was meant to sit at the end of the table with a vast lump of gleaming wood between him and the Chief Secretary. Gresham, who was never good at obeying orders spoken or unspoken, simply stepped round and marched up the side of the table.
Was there a flicker of fear in Cecil's gimlet eyes? It was difficult to say, the damned table was so long and Cecil so far away from the door.
Gresham walked the length of the table, remembering to drag his feet a little. He stopped by the side of Cecil, pulled out an adjacent chair and casually seated himself, as if drawing up a chair to his oldest friend. As he did so he pulled his sword scabbard aside with just a touch more force than was strictly necessary.
'Do sit down,' Cecil said softly, making a vague motion with his hand, long after Gresham had done so. There was no sign of anger that the man he had tried to kill was here, alive, seated in front of him.
'Thank you, my Lord,' said Gresham, gracefully.
There was a silence. It stretched into an uncomfortably long time. Gresham sat calmly, a quizzical smile on his face, his eyes never leaving Cecil's impenetrable black gaze.
Cecil broke first. 'You did ask to see me, I believe?'
'Did I?' said Gresham, in a surprised tone. 'My apologies, my Lord. A number of your servants have attempted to make contact with me, and so I assumed the invitation was yours. I wondered perhaps if you wished news of Sir Walter Raleigh, your Lordship's old friend?'
'My servants?' said Cecil, apparently equally surprised, and ignoring the gibe about Raleigh. He knew Gresham's relationship with the most distinguished prisoner in the Tower. 'You surprise me, Sir Henry. I was not aware of sending any servants to speak with you.'
No, thought Gresham, you just sent a group of ruffians to murder me. I suppose you could call them your servants.
'That is certainly true, my Lord,' replied Gresham, 'as the servants in question did not have the holding of speech with me as their first priority.'
'I am surprised, therefore, that these speechless creatures were able to identify themselves as my servants. Are you sure in your surmise? I would be angered indeed if there were those seeking to impersonate servants of His