stood before it and glowered at him. He veered in mid-course, changing direction to the jug and ewer with something like fresh water in them. He bent over it, motioning to Gresham, who came and poured the contents slowly over his head. He stood up and shook his wet mane like a dog coming out of the river.
'I'm growing thin. I stand in need of a good dinner,' Gresham said, replacing the empty ewer. 'I will be your Scottish cousin who's arrived from the north, in the hope of rich pickings in this city which has newly learned to love a Scotsman so much. Under the circumstances, young Catesby will be delighted to add an extra place to the table, so your kinsman can taste the delights of life with the nobility.'
'Hmmph!' grunted Jonson. 'I trust you've a good Scots accent?'
He looked enquiringly at Jane, and when she stepped aside went to the table and poured two beakers of cheap sack. He offered one to Gresham, who declined it, sipped appreciatively at his own lifer saver and offered Gresham's to Mannion. 'You're invisible, I see…' It was the phrase he used when Gresham did not wish to be recognised. ‘Why this sudden interest in my friends?'
'Is Robert — Robin — Catesby a friend of yours?'
Jonson sat down heavily on a stool. He tossed some written sheets to Jane with an inquisitorial raised eyebrow. She caught them, nodded and settled in a corner to read the scribblings that were Jonson's next play.
'It's most unfair and unusual that someone so beautiful should have intelligence as well,' grumbled Jonson, changing the subject. ' ' Blind Fortune still Bestows her gifts on such as cannot use them.''
'Is Catesby that beautiful?' asked Gresham, pretending not to notice.
‘Not him, you fool. Her. That angel who has mistakenly taken to living with an old satyr such as yourself. Perhaps she's hoping to reform you. Beautiful women like to reform lost men,' he added hopefully, watching her as she became instantly lost and totally absorbed in the manuscript.
'I thought it was her honesty you most liked?' There had been a massive row between Jonson and Jane when she had last criticised a piece of his writing. He had called her a lying slut and broken a perfectly good stool by hurling it against a wall, following which Gresham had broken his head. He had rewritten the piece though, Gresham had noticed. 'But you haven't answered my question. Is Catesby a friend of yours?'
'I know him. Everyone of my faith knows him. A friend? Hardly. I refuse to acknowledge the sun shines out of his arse, which is a prerequisite of anyone wanting friendship with him. Young Catesby sometimes has difficulty distinguishing between worshipping our Saviour, and his being our Saviour. He's not a good… influence, I think, on our younger people. But he has a good table. And I'm a good guest.' He gazed sadly down at the remnants of liquid in the now-empty beaker. 'They'll all be Catholics there. Are you after Catholics? Will your presence at our table bring harm to our faith?'
Gresham thought for a moment. If he was to expose a plot to kidnap the King, harm would come to the plotters. But to Catholicism? More harm would come if the plot were allowed to go ahead than if it were destroyed.
'To your faith, no. To some people of your faith, in all probability, yes. To you, too, Ben, if you plan to be in rebellion against the State, as well as against every person of culture and taste…'
The bantering tone did not hide the seriousness of Gresham's answer.
There was a bellow of laughter. 'Me? A rebel! God help me! Don't you think trouble enough comes looking for me, without me sending out invitations for more of it to come visiting?'
Ben Jonson had a mouth as big as his capacity for drink, and a wild reputation, but Gresham had never known him betray a secret. Or, at least, never betray one of Gresham's secrets. Gresham had rescued Jonson from the bailiffs and debtors' prison. The old secrets between them stood custodian over the new ones. Jane gave instructions for the bulging bag of washing to be sent off by servant to the laundress at the House. His manuscript she took away with her. The boredom of Alsatia was due to be lessened at least a little.
'There's risk in this dinner,' said Mannion flatly on their return. He was right. For all its huge size, London was a small town where those at the top of its society were concerned. The other guests seemed unlikely enough on the surface to recognise Gresham for who he was, but disguise would be prudent, and Gresham worked on two principles. Either one altered the original hardly at all, or one went for something outrageously different. He opted for the latter.
'Hold still, will you!' said a cross Jane as she applied the last of the dye to his hair and beard. It had been turned from the darkest black to something reddish, if not verging on positive ginger. A salve applied to his face, neck and hands (and, on Jane's insistence and in the face of his firm opposition, to the whole of the rest of his body) turned his skin dark, almost like that of a Moor. He had not trimmed his beard since they moved out of the House, with the result that it now straggled and looked, as Mannion said, 'Like a badly blown cornfield.' From his extensive wardrobe Gresham had chosen a suit of clothes that a country bumpkin might have been offered by the worst country tailor as being the height of fashion in London. The whole dreadful mess was topped off by a vast bonnet that clashed with his hair and beard and his suit of clothes, and a large eyepatch.
'For the first time in my life, I fear death,' he said to Jane as she finished the last patting on of paste to his beard.
He saw her face fall, and immediately regretted his teasing of her.
'Why so? If you feel that way, you must…'
He raised his hand to stop her. 'Can you imagine what my tailor will say if I go to my coffin dressed like this?' he asked, aghast. The swinging blow to his head was arrested only just in time as she realised it might disturb the newly applied colour.
Dressed like a country bumpkin, and a Scots one at that, Gresham was near besieged by every criminal on duty in London, who saw him coming and could not believe their luck. After he had been pestered with offers of women, card games, bowling alleys and dice halls where only yesterday a fortune had been made to rival Lord Salisbury's, couplings of such power achieved to rival Samson's, and various places where both had been achieved simultaneously, it was a relief to arrive at William Patrick's ordinary. Jonson always arrived at dinner as early as possible, to maximise the amount of time spent troughing at someone else's expense. He met Gresham, held back a brief explosion of apoplexy with commendable restraint, and brought him in to the company.
It was a lively affair. The Irish Boy served excellent food, with wine that was certainly drinkable. Gresham, who had a nose for these things, noticed that Catesby did not stint himself either with the room he had taken or the food and wine served. The room was fresh-painted and had clean rushes strewn on the floor, with hangings of some expense on the walls. A large window let some of the noise of the Strand through, as the cracks in the floorboards and door let some of the noise of the thriving, bustling ordinary up to assail their ears, but not enough to impede conversation.
'It's guid tae meet yae al, guid, guid…' Gresham, who had decided to be called Alexander Selkirk, slurred his words and let them tail off incoherently, a man middlingly drunk but also bemused with new sights and sounds.
He need hardly have bothered. Catesby barely glanced at him before he was dismissed. Jonson was the man, the star brought in to show how well-connected Catesby was, and all eyes were on him. A major playwright, a talking point at Court who was also a Catholic: Ben Jonson was a superb social catch.
'Well met, sir, well met.' It was Tom Wintour, shaking hands with the company, clapping those he knew well on the back. So this was the man for whose sake a whore's bottom would be sore for weeks to come, thought Gresham.
'Here, this is Selkirk, Alex Selkirk, a cousin of mine from Scotland… Cousin Alex, meet Tom Wintour…' Jonson was barely remembering to introduce Gresham. There was a crowd of people, there was good food, there was wine, and Jonson was expanding with almost every minute that passed by. Tom Wintour had come with Catesby. He was a short, stocky figure, with a round face and a cannon-fire way of speech. He was quick, agile, keeping his wit under control but showing a pushy argumentativeness that Gresham imagined could be explosive in more confined or tense situations.
'Have you brought a lot of your friends with you down from the north?' asked Tom Wintour with outward innocence. The reference to King James's horde of hangers-on drawing a guffaw from another member of the company.
'No, no,' replied Gresham, 'but I may hope tae do so if the pickin's are reet guid enough!'
A man to be watched, thought Gresham, someone with the power of the hothead but also the determination and intelligence to be a dangerous enemy. He had the body of a fighter too, Gresham noted, for all that he lacked
