than the person I knew. I see Sir Edward Coke in London four days from now and I'm not feeling as if I'm going there knowing much more than I did when I left Cecil.'
'I'd be happier steering clear of this Sir Edward Poke,' interrupted Mannion.
'Sir Edward Coke,' said Gresham patiently. Mannion had taken an instant dislike to the man.
'Whatever,' said Mannion dismissively. 'He's trouble. I've got a nose for these things.'
'Be thankful your nose can't smell your own breath, old man,' said Gresham. 'As for Coke, you know I'm no friend of his.'
'No. But you ain't had to fight him before. Not direct. And I bet Sir Edward Joke can stop being funny right quick.'
'Coke..Gresham started to say limply, and then gave up. He turned to Jane.
'Be careful,' said Jane in a sombre voice, before he could speak. Why waste her words? Henry Gresham could act almost all things except being careful. 'You've a weakness. This is the man who gave Raleigh a show trial, who preaches the law and then suspends justice when a king wants a man condemned. You hate him before you know him. Your hatred could blind you.'
'Well, we know more about Coke than we do about Shakespeare.' Gresham was pacing the room again, head down, hardly seeing the others.
'Top lawyer,' said Jane, 'but…'
'Go on?' said Gresham.
'The legal booksellers say that he trades on that reputation, and sometimes gives outrageous judgements which no one eke dares challenge because of his reputation with the other lawyers.'
'What about the clash with Bacon?' Gresham asked. Sir Francis Bacon had brushed across Gresham's life as an academic author but never as a political opponent. There were very many who disliked Bacon intensely. Gresham had always found him human, amusing and able. He had a brain the size of a Spanish galleon, but much nimbler and faster. Of course he had no morality at all, except to his own self interest, but had freely confessed as much to Gresham with an engaging wit and honesty that somehow robbed his amoral-ity of its venom.
'You know more than I do,' said Jane. Bacon was homosexual, tied to a wealth-generating but loveless marriage.
'I know he's locked into bitter battle with Coke over who'll be the next Attorney General. The popular bet has to be Coke. He's got himself the image of a legal god, he's done James's dirty work for him in court time after time and Bacon can be his own worst enemy.'
Jane prepared to reply, then noticed Mannion looking with excessive interest out of the window. Alice was the newest and youngest of the servants recruited to The Merchant's House, sent to work in the kitchens. A rather bewitching, fair-haired girl, she had been ordered into the kitchen garden to beg herbs for the cook from the gardener. Did she know how her hips swung as she walked into the garden, basket clutched before her? Or was it mere innocence?
'Do I have to warn you again?' Jane's voice was low and so threatening that it stopped even Gresham in his tracks. Fascinated, he watched a rare insight into the hidden relationship between two of the four most important people in his life. 'That girl is in my charge. I talked to her mother, I gave my word she would be looked after. You mill not touch her.'
Mannion looked direct into her eyes.
'She's simple,' said Jane. 'She doesn't appear so. You might be forgiven for thinking her normal. And she's very beautiful. Her mother was in despair because no one would take her into service and all the men wanted to take her into bed. I said I'd help her. And if she finds her John the Ostler, who'll love her because she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and who'll forgive her a simple mind, then so be it. That will be her choice, and his. But I'll not have her spoiled by a careless and powerful man, in breach of my word to her mother.'
'Well then, mistress,' said Mannion, grinning at her. Grinning at her? Gresham was part amused, part outraged. Would he have dared grin at Jane in such circumstances? 'You're lucky to have me on your side, aren't you? There's only one real man who could put her in harm in this place, and only one real man as could protect her. And I'm both.' He ambled over to Jane, as if to put his cup down on the table at which she sat. 'You see, I'm happy to go for the willing. I've never gone for the weak.'
'I know,' said Jane.
'You want her wed to John the Ostler?'
'He needs to love someone other than a horse, and her simple nature won't stop her being a good wife to him.'
'Leave it to me,' said Mannion. And they both smiled.
'Excuse me!' said Gresham, 'and hello. Is there any possibility of my being allowed back into this conversation?'
It was rare for Jane to flush, but she did so. It was left to Mannion to resurrect the conversation.
'We were talkin' about Sir Edward Bloke, weren't we?' asked Mannion innocently.
'Sir Edward Coke, you blunt-wit ignorant peasant!' shouted Gresham, his patience at an end.
There was so much he did not know, the clinical part of Gresham's brain was telling him. Well, inaction would find nothing out. That sense of total concentration that Jane and Mannion knew so well came over his whole body.
'London. All of us. To meet Sir Edward. And to visit the theatre.'
7
26th May, 1612 Sir Edward Coke's Home, London
'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'
Five o'clock every morning in order to extend his working day. It was an easy story to circulate and, thought Gresham, easy to maintain once it was established, without actually having to get out of bed.
They set out at noon. It was only a relatively short walk from The House, with its favoured position on The Strand, to Chancery Lane. Gresham and Mannion could have taken a boat, ridden or taken the vast coach that Gresham's father had had built when those cumbersome contrivances had been fashionable. Today Gresham felt the need to walk, to get back in touch with London's ebb and flow, feel its pulse.
It had been dry for weeks and within seconds a thin layer of dust covered Gresham's boots. The clouds hanging loose in the sky threatened rain, had done so for days. At least they were spared the sucking, clinging mud, but not the steaming piles of horse shit littering the road or the stained yellow and brown earth where night soil had been thrown carelessly into the street. The smell of grass still blew in from the green fields visible past the houses on the northern side of The Strand, to mingle with the stench of the river and the open sewer that occasionally the street was allowed to become. Then there was the endless, richest smell of all: the smell of humanity. The perfumes and scents worn by the wealthy men and occasional lady; the nosegays of sweet orange or apple designed to ward off evil vapours; the sudden, intrusive, raw stench of sweat from the carters or porters carrying huge loads on their bending backs; the stale, warm, sickly sweet smell of the men and women who could neither afford clean linen nor to have what linen they owned washed every day.
The nearer they came to the old City walls, the closer together the houses grew, the more cramped and crammed the streets. The steep-pitched roofs almost touched their opposite neighbours. When it rained an avalanche of water poured from the roofs on to a few yards of street below, digging a trench with sheer force of water. You could sink deeper than your knees into the mud of a London street, and leave your boots in the sucking mire when your friends dragged you out. The noise was incessant. The cries of the street traders were everywhere, raucous, yelling, insistent.
