'Yes,' said Gresham, 'and a brainless one at that! All James wants is comfort and freedom from strain, and all his lover wants is the same! Robert Carr can't make a decision to save his life, other than what doublet to wear — and I bet that takes all morning and most of the afternoon. So that's where Carr's friend comes into his own. Overbury. Sir Thomas Overbury. Able. Intelligent. Wanting nothing more than to take the King's decisions on his behalf. Wanting nothing more than his share of power.
'The King's lover, more perplexed and far less able to deal with matters of state than his master, breathes a sigh of relief when his friend offers to help. Overbury. Brash. Arrogant. Receiving at third-hand unopened papers of state. It is Sir Thomas Overbury who now wields part of the power that Cecil once held. Yet Overbury has no protection of office. Ordinary men still have access to him. As did Kit Marlowe.' Gresham was speaking quickly now, as if to preserve his view in words before it slipped from his grasp.
'Marlowe goes for Overbury. Tells him he can destroy Cecil. Overbury's flattered. What power! Takes him in. Pays for him to be lodged out of harm's way. Talks to him. And then, one evening,
Overbury lets slip the existence of these letters. Too much drink, probably, fed him by Marlowe. Brags to Marlowe that Marlowe isn't the only one who has power over people.'
''They could be your insurance policy, these letters!' Marlowe says to Overbury. 'They could be your pension!'' It was Mannion now, picking up the baton. ''Think on it. Your friend Carr will lose his looks one day. There are enough pretty men in the Court, aren't there? And the King hates you. And his Queen. Let me have a look at these letters. I'm a spy, ain't I? I know about these things.' So Overbury brings these letters along, to show off. Lets Marlowe hold them. Tells Marlowe where he keeps them. Puts them back somewhere Marlowe knows about.'
'So the next thing that happens,' Gresham said, 'is that the letters disappear. Marlowe's also gone. And Overbury's set up to be the biggest fool in the country. Carr will lose faith in him if it becomes known he's the reason the letters are in the hands of an enemy. James will kill him, or kick his creature Carr out, which'll be just as bad. So how does Overbury cover himself?'
'He reports the letters are stolen,' said Jane, realisation dawning on her face, 'but stolehfrom Carr, not from himself. And he reports it to Sir Edward Coke, the legal bastion of the kingdom. Knowing full well that Coke will run to Cecil, of course. Suddenly it's somebody else's problem. He's covered himself brilliantly. But… why would Cecil care so much about Marlowe? He was dying, knew he was dying,' she continued. 'It seems an immense amount of effort to go to to get someone killed, when you won't be there to be disgraced. Why would Cecil bother.'
'Reputation/' said Gresham. 'More than anything else, he wanted his reputation not only to live on after him but to grow. Marlowe's the threat to that. I'm the other, knowing what I know. So set the two against each other. That way he can guarantee one threat at least's removed.'
'So Cecil wasn't really interested in getting the letters back?' said Jane. 'All he really wanted was for you to kill Marlowe and preserve his reputation as an honest broker and a loyal servant?' Something in her soul rebelled at the thought of Gresham being used merely as an unpaid assassin.
'Oh, I think Cecil would rather the letters were destroyed than not. He wouldn't wish more instability for the King he'd made his life's work out of. But they were just the lure to get me into the arena, draw me in. My getting the letters was always the secondary aim. The first was to force Marlowe to reveal himself to me, and for me to kill him.'
'Or for Marlowe to kill you. Why didn't Cecil tell you it was Marlowe? Why use this Cambridge bookseller thing?'
'Do you think I'd have taken on the job if I'd known straight away the real reason was to save Cecil's reputation for posterity, instead of the King's? I'd have laughed in Cecil's face.'
'Where do these plays come in?' added Jane. 'The manuscripts by Shakespeare? We can explain everything else, but not them.'
'God knows,' said Gresham, 'but haven't we solved enough problems in one sitting? Marlowe wants to stir up as much trouble as possible, and get some play of his performed. Probably reveal himself, like a genie out of the bottle, on its first showing. Look at me, everyone. The late, the great Kit Marlowe — alive and well! What a show- stopper that'd be… And anyway, that's not what bothers me…' He had to stop and think for a moment before completing his sentence'… what bothers me is you.'
'Me? What've I done wrong?' asked Jane, rather plaintive.
'Nothing. You've done nothing wrong. Cecil gambled that Marlowe would risk showing himself if it meant killing me. But haven't you spotted the really terrible thing?'
Jane looked nonplussed. Gresham stared at her. He had to tell her. For all the hurt, for all the pain, he had to tell her. If she was to protect herself she had to know.
'He didn't try to kill me. He tried to kill you, Jane.'
'But I don't-' i saw his eyes in the theatre,' said Gresham. 'They were looking at you, not me. The second bolt was aimed at you. And-that first bolt, the one I felt go by me earlier. It hit the wall just where you'd been a second before. 1 was six or eight feet away.'
'What have I done to deserve this? 1 she cried out. 'I've never set out to hurt or destroy anyone in my life. 1
'He's a sick man, Jane. Sick in his mind as well as his body. He was always unstable. Now he's fired up with years of festering revenge, and the pox. I think he's decided the best way to hurt me isn't to kill me, not yet at least. It's to kill my happiness. To kill you.'
The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity. She had fought against the thought that she and Gresham were equal targets for whichever madman was hunting them down. The realisation that she was the target, the way of inflicting the most pain on those she loved, threatened to clutch at and cut the parts of her mind that moored her to sanity. Where was the justice in this world?
'Not here, not on this earth with us,' said Gresham. Jane had not realised she had spoken out loud.
'So what hope is there?' She turned her face, despairingly, towards his.
'The hope in our own strength,' he said intensely. 'Justice lies with how strong we are. Safety lies in how strong we are. Survival lies in how strong we are.'
'I feel very weak,' she said.
'We all feel weak sometimes,' said Gresham. 'The strong are those who fight the feelings and carry on living.'
'I'll try,' she said, feeling like a lost little girl.
'I know you will,' said Gresham simply.
'Are you sure?' It was a very small voice that Jane spoke in.
'That you're my happiness? Absolutely. That it's you he wants to kill, to hurt me? No, not absolutely. But it'd be wise to assume it, until we can prove otherwise. We both know you're my weak spot. You and me, we're both at war with Marlowe, and Overbury for all I know. You know what it means. We're under siege.'
Oh God, not again, thought Jane. No leaving any house without an armed escort, no going out at all unless it was totally unavoid-able…
Mannion chose not to help Gresham, but to answer a different question. His mind had been working on it, clearly.
'That bastard Overbury wasn't behind the lot trying to do us in in the theatre.'
'Why not?' It was Jane who answered. 'He has reason enough to hate your master, and it's surely too much of a coincidence that he was there on the afternoon when it all happened.'
'He were surprised when he met us. You could see it in his eyes. And he only had a couple of men at best with him, and neither of those armed. He could have made a real difference in the fight, with a sword, but he cleared off. Are you telling me a bastard like that wouldn't want to watch and gloat if he'd gone to all that trouble?'
Gresham thought for a moment. 'You could be right,' he said, 'but it makes no difference if it's one man or two we've to guard against.'
He was pacing the room again, hand running unconsciously through the black mop of his hair. 'It's the mystery I want solved. The mystery isn't Sir Thomas Overbury or Sir Edward Coke, or even Christopher Marlowe. It's Shakespeare and these confounded manuscripts. We need to meet with Master Shakespeare. Urgently. All three of us.'
'I'm flattered,' said Jane, seeking to hide the pain in her mind and the awful, threatening waves of paralysing fear. 'But why do you need me?'
