control.
'Challenge your will? Are you God, as well as Secretary to His anointed?'
'You have no evidence of this. No evidence at all.' Cecil's voice had dropped, his body fallen back into the chair.
'I have a story that men will believe, because it fits so many facts and fits the hatred and suspicion they have of you. I have the drafts of that letter you have in front of you — and a devil of a time it took, I can tell you — in the same hand and in a manner that progresses so convincingly that all will believe the authorship. And I have a plotter. Francis Tresham, to be exact, kept where you will not find him.' Gresham doubted that last comment, personally. If Cecil pulled out all his resources he could find anything, even a clean spot on the King's body. 'And several signed accounts by Tresham, undeniably in his hand, and witnessed, hidden also where you will not find them.'
'What is it that you want from me?' hissed Cecil.
'A chair would be pleasant,' said Gresham, with a polite smile. He was still standing. Angrily, Cecil motioned him to sit, never once taking his eyes off him.
'Do you hate me, Henry Gresham?'
It was an odd question, coming from the source it did, but Gresham paused to answer it.
'Yes, most certainly. More so than perhaps any man alive or dead.'
'Then you wish to destroy me?'
'Oh, no!' Gresham's laugh so startled Cecil that he fell back a little, and blinked owlishly. 'You see, only a person whose soul stinks like the foulest sewer could run a country such as this. A murderer, a torturer, an abuser, a liar, a cheat and a lost soul before God. These are necessary in a ruler. Some people have to die, of course, some have to meet the rack and some have their guts sawn out in front of crowds to make peace happen. Some, it is true, have these things happen to them who do not deserve them, or who are unlucky, or who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but all things come at a price. Peace and stability carry a higher price than many. And they carry the highest price of all for the ruler, the leader of that midden we call politics and human life. They carry the price of a lost soul, and eternity spent in Hell. Yes, I hate you, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Because I hate you, I am happy for your soul to be the price of peace in this country. I would like to kill you, to see you suffer and writhe in front of me as you have seen so many others. But I must make Machiavelli's choice, and go for the greater good at the expense of some of the lesser pleasures.'
The silence extended for a minute, perhaps more.
'So what it is that you want from me?'
'Nothing.'
'Nothing?’
'Well, nothing really. I wanted to have the pleasure of your knowing what I knew, that your attempts to gag and mislead me had failed, as well as your pathetic attempts to blackmail me. I suppose I ought to have your oath that you will take no steps to harm me, or those closest to me. No strange deaths in alleyways, or long decaying illnesses from poison.'
'Is not the Papal archive enough?' asked Cecil, his hatred of Gresham beginning to infect his voice.
'I thought it might be, but you proved me wrong. And it's not just the Papal archive where I keep papers, believe me. But you see, there is something strange about you, rotten and corrupt as you are. I have never known you go back on an oath you have sworn. Quite extraordinary. But this oath will be special. You will swear it on the life of your son.'
'On the life of my son… but I…' Cecil was almost speechless, grabbing for words.
'You had better pray for a long and peaceful life for me, my woman and my servant. Because if we die, in any way that might lead back to you in any way, your son will die.'
'You would not…'
'Yes, I would. You cannot lock a child away from life. Unless you can hide it away completely you cannot lock it away from the reality of death. Look at me, Robert Cecil. And then tell me if you think I lie.'
Unwillingly, Cecil found himself looking straight at Gresham.
'You have sought to bring your full power against me. You have failed. You will swear to do everything in your power to ensure that no harm of any kind comes to Henry Gresham and those nearest and dearest to him. And if you break your oath, your son will die.'
There was no lie in Henry Gresham's eyes. There was a look that told of all the innocent children those eyes had seen slaughtered, the women raped, the babies with their throats slashed. There was a look that told of the plotter Kit Wright, fighting for his religion, leading a mad, hopeless and courageous charge into the yard at Holbeache. Kit Wright, the stolid, dependable Kit Wright, the man who thought quite genuinely that if one believed in something then one had to be prepared to fight and to die for it. Kit Wright, who could in many respects have been Mannion, if Mannion had chosen to give his total loyalty to Catholicism instead of to Gresham. Brave and foolish Kit Wright, lying in the filth of the courtyard, with a rough soldier frantically yanking at the silk stockings on his dead legs for booty.
Yes, thought Robert Cecil, my son will die at this man's hands if I break my oath. The hatred gleaming in his eyes, with every word dragged out of him as if by red-hot pincers, Robert Cecil swore his oath.
'Well, that was good,' said Gresham lightly. 'Every good boy deserves favour, and so I'll give you something else for your pains, and as a gesture of my goodwill. I wouldn't have you deposed, Chief Secretary. It amuses me to have that in my power, but it's a power I won't exercise. Someone less evil might come along to run the country, and perhaps if you were deposed you might have time to take a part of your soul out of the Hell it so richly deserves.'
'Cease this jesting!' said Cecil. 'Have you not had your satisfaction?'
'This isn't jesting,' said Gresham, 'and if there's any satisfaction in the air, it will be your own. You hold Guy Fawkes, don't you, in the Tower at this very moment?'
Cecil did not answer. He knew Gresham knew the truth.
'Wondering what to do with him, no doubt. What jolly talk there must have been between you both, when he was brought in by Knyvett's men. Has Guy Fawkes ever mentioned to you his relationship with the ninth Earl of Northumberland?'
'His relationship?’
'Yes. You thought Fawkes was your man, didn't you? It never crossed your mind that he was someone else's. Before he started to receive money from you he'd been employed by Northumberland. From the outset, in fact. It was Northumberland who spotted him as a young man, sent him over to Europe and paid to settle his wife — Maria, I think she's called — and their son Thomas, in his absence. You see, Fawkes never was a soldier of fortune. He always was a soldier of conscience. When you came along with your offer for him to turn spy, Northumberland encouraged him to say yes. Northumberland always despised you, never trusted you. It amused him to have one of your spies in his pay.
'And then Catesby came along. Northumberland knew the plot was a disaster, knew it would turn the country against Catholics.
And he knew exactly why you were urging Fawkes to go along with it. So he planned a little surprise all his own.'
'Are you seeking to tell me that this Guy Fawkes was in the pay of Northumberland?' said Cecil.
He was a clever man, thought Gresham, you had to admit. He had never actually admitted to any involvement in the plot, or that he had employed Guy Fawkes. Even the oath he had sworn had not been an admission of guilt.
'Is in the pay of Northumberland.'
'And what was my Lord of Northumberland's aim in all this?' To his credit, Cecil recovered quickly. Gresham could almost see the machinery of his brain grappling with this latest problem.
'Very simple, really,' said Gresham. 'He was going to let you expose the plot, take all the glory and revel in it. He was going to wait until you put on trial whatever few pathetic plotters you had managed to keep alive.
'And then he was going to blow up the House of Lords.'
Cecil's face went as white as a full moon.
'Oh, don't worry,' said Gresham cheerfully, 'he wouldn't have killed anyone. Or at least no-one important, just a few servants. He'd have blown the mine when the House was empty. And because of where it was, it wouldn't have been the whole House of Lords. Probably just one wall or so of it.'
