Drake's ship, then a letter giving me… instructions. Said it was on the orders of higher authority, for God's sake!'
This was not helpful. He was probably telling the truth. For all Gresham knew, the order to set him up could have come straight from the Queen. Or Burghley. Or Walsingham. Or Cecil. Leicester. Essex. His mind started to reel. He did not know who. He did not know why.
'What are you going to do with me?' asked Leng, panic in his eyes.
'This,' said Gresham, and rammed a stinking piece of cloth in the man's mouth. No point in waking the ship. There was a sudden movement from Mannion, a sharp crack! and Leng's eyes opened wide in fear as he tried to scream.
'It's a clean break,' said Mannion, letting Leng drop to the deck. 'Between the knee and the hip, so it'll hurt more and cost you more to get round on. But if you're sensible and you don't mind waiting, you'll walk just like normal. Quite a long time from now, mind. Time for you to think about what happens when you betray people. Leastways, when you betray people like us.'
Tears were streaming out of Leng's eyes, the enormity of what had been done to him hitting home as the torrents of agonising pain screamed into his brain. His every urge was to wriggle and move, yet each time he did so more unbelievable pain shot through his body.
Gresham looked down at him. There was no emotion in his voice. 'I'm a bad one to betray,' he said quietly. 'Never do it again or it'll be your neck, not your leg.'
Shortly after sunset, Gresham stood on the shore thinking back to the moment over three months ago when he had stood on the Plymouth quayside. Then he had several changes of clothing, chests containing essentials for a sea voyage and barrels with his own private food store, a load that had cost him a small fortune to get taken on board the Elizabeth Bonaventure. Now all he had was what he stood in. And Mannion. And, of course, the girl, who was shivering in excitement, disguised in a loose shirt, heavy leather jerkin that was two sizes too big for her and trousers gathered under her knees. Worsted stockings did nothing to hide the shape of her calves, though boys could look good there too. Her luxurious hair was crammed under a working man's cap, and from far enough away she looked for all the world like a lad out for his first night in the big city. It was a cold night for July, the wind driving lances of rain intermittently, shutters banging on the poor houses and warehouses lining the waterfront. He and Mannion looked round, waving the boat off to muffled good wishes from the four crew. They were at an obscure jetty. Stepping back against the wall of the nearest ramshackle, crazily-leaning house and out of the half moonlight, they listened for a full five minutes. All seemed quiet. Carefully, quietly, hugging the side of the streets, they made their way to a hovel a quarter of a mile away in Deptford, used more commonly by smugglers and pickpockets than by gentlemen. In this part of town people averted their eyes from passers-by. Anna did not ask why Gresham and Mannion knew of the inn. At least his knowledge of its normal clientele meant that the landlord let them in. To his surprise, the room was reasonably clean, and there seemed to be no tiny creatures scuttling over the bedding.
Though neither of them said it, the girl was a burden. It should have been Gresham and Mannion who went to beard Cecil, but they dare not leave the girl on her own. Take care, now,' said Mannion, gruffly, grumpy about having to stay behind. The girl said nothing. At least for all her pride she seemed to recognise that Mannion posed no threat to her virtue. If she still had it, of course.
Gresham used more of the money sewn into his doublet to hail a boat, a lantern swinging from its bow and stern. Up through the dangerous arches of London Bridge, the tide helping them, the river surprisingly full of bobbing lights. There was more shipping moored below the bridge than Gresham had ever seen. England was gathering its forces for the final battle, as Spain had been gathering hers. Yet London's efforts seemed puny by the side of the power they had seen assembled in Lisbon and Cadiz. There were no galleys moored in the Thames, no trained fighting vessels. There were ships aplenty, fine ships, but they were merchant vessels with merchant crews, not warships.
Gresham shivered. Drake may have 'singed the King of Spain's beard,' but beards grew again, and even without his beard his face and body were of immense strength. They would talk about Cadiz as if it was a great victory, yet it might be that all they had done was waken the sleeping giant. And Cadiz had been a raid. Just a raid. For all the noise that would be made, the English had made a quick dash into a weakly defended harbour, with no warships of any significance there to protect it except some galleys, and dashed out again. How would those raiding ships fare when faced with the massed lines of Spanish and Portuguese men o' war?
The city was dangerous at night, men rich enough being led by torch and lantern light, men placed fore and aft. Individuals about their private business slunk in the dark under the leaning houses, burying their heads in their cloaks, seeking the anonymity of the night. Cecil's house was silent, dark. The pounding on the door would have woken the dead, but took longer to wake the servant.
He was an old man with a ludicrous sleeping cap covering his bald head. He peered through the small, square viewing panel set in the door, squinting to outline the figure outside.
‘I come with news from Cadiz, straight off a ship of Drake's squadron!'
Was the Merchant Royal the first back? Almost certainly not. But there was no chance Drake's main squadron would have returned yet, its speed dictated by the lumbering hulk of the San Felipe.
'I have vital news for Robert Cecil! I must report to him on my mission!'
Would it work? Yes! The door was opening. The man had recognised him! It would take some years yet for Henry Gresham to realise just how many people did remember him once they first set eyes on him. He followed the old man along gloomy corridors, the only light that of the lantern. 'Wait here,' the old man grunted. They were in what was little more than a slightly widened corridor, with a poor bench along one wall, inset in a window. The old man vanished, the dancing light of the lantern following him as he stumped along yet another hallway, finally turning a corner. Gresham found himself in a darkness broken only by the feeble glimmer of a single candle in a wall sconce. Heavier footsteps came down the hall, two sets of them. The men were clearly servants, thick-set and expensively dressed in the Cecil livery.
'Come with us,' said the taller of the two men, and turned away. Gresham made no move.
'In the house I own, The House, as it happens, on the Strand here in London,' Gresham stressed, 'I am accustomed to the servants addressing visitors with courtesy.'
The man coloured, seemed uncertain. He was clearly unwilling to recant his rudeness at all — after all, Gresham's dress and his body had been three months at sea — but also unwilling to detain the guest from his master.
'Perhaps the easiest thing would be to send someone with good manners,' said Gresham helpfully.
The man finally muttered something which could have been, 'If you'd care to follow me… sir', and Gresham decided to take the olive branch. Judging by the look on the man's face Gresham was likely to find the same branch sticking out of his own back later that evening.
'Do by all means sit down,' said Cecil. The room was lavishly panelled, and to gild the lily expensive French tapestries hung on two walls. They showed mythical beasts pursuing men. One of them had human flesh hanging from its bloodied fangs. Perhaps it was an emblem for the Cecil family.
Cecil's chair was high-backed, with ornately carved arms, one of the few luxuries Gresham had seen in the house. He was in full day dress, the single, fur-lined vestment of an older man rather than the fashionable doublet and hose of the gallant. The remains of a meal, simple by the look of it, lay in front of him on an oaken table, polished so that the light of the many candles reflected back from its surface. Cecil gestured, and the two ungainly men made haste to clear the table.
'Will you take some wine?' asked Cecil civilly. If he had felt any shock at Gresham's being alive he had not shown it.
The jug and goblets were of gold. Was Cecil one of those who needed to see his family wealth in order to believe in it? Or was this supposedly solitary dining simply a show to impress?
'What a pleasant surprise to see you so soon on your return. Do tell me about your mission,' said Cecil smoothly, as if asking after the progress of someone's summer vegetables in their kitchen garden. 'I have heard some news, of course. But a first-hand account always has some value.'
Gresham gazed levelly back into Cecil's eyes. There was no response there, no emotion. Just a blankness.
'A major victory was achieved.' Gresham's tone was intense, full of importance. He even leaned forward to make his next statement. 'The Battle of the Barrel Staves was well and truly won by England,' said Gresham. 'We proved ourselves the world's masters in destroying unassembled pieces of barrels. Positively ignoring the many
