'Why so, My Lord?' asked Gresham sensing the answer before it came.
'Because I could be lying. Because it would have been simpler for you to identify clearly your enemy, and because you must know that even if this time I did not seek your death I would do so, ruthless, remorselessly and without a pang, of conscience if I thought that by your death I would serve the better interests of the Protestant religion, of England and of the Queen. There you have it. I claim not to have sought to kill you. Yet I will do so if sufficient need arises.'
'I thank you for your candour,' said Gresham. Such a ludicrous situation! Could this really be happening? Did people have such conversations? Or had he in fact not woken up that morning? 'And of course, My Lord, I would ruthlessly, remorselessly and without a pang of conscience seek your death were I to truly believe that you sought mine.' Except you're probably rather better at it than I am, thought Gresham.
'If that is indeed so,' said Walsingham, 'then you have truly become a man.' Something like a thin smile creased one of Walsingham's lips.
' 'I doubt that I've made the whole of that journey,' said Gresham. 'Yet the journey I wish to make now is to Lisbon. You may remember,' said Gresham, 'certain points you made about Lisbon.' Walsingham remembered everything. 'You believed that there were central weaknesses there for Spain, in the event of a decision to invade England.'
'I still believe so. Though it cannot and never will be the whole answer.'
'And you believed the Duke of Parma and his army in the Netherlands to be the crucial factor.' 'An opinion I have not changed.'
'I had planned to address both issues,' said Gresham simply. 'In my own way.'
'I have been made aware of that,' said Walsingham, 'as I understand you have already discussed a visit to Lisbon and a visit to the Netherlands with Master Robert Cecil.'
Gresham's heart froze. Walsingham and Cecil were in regular conversation! Were both allied against him?
'You will remain aware that you are still working for me,' said Walsingham, ice in his voice. 'We discussed the usefulness of your visiting Lisbon and the Duke of Parma. The situation has not changed. You will indeed make both trips, God willing. But be clear that you will do so on my orders, and under my orders. Is that clear?'
It was clear.
'You might care to include a new issue in your plans. An issue we did not discuss earlier,' Walsingham continued.
'A third issue?' He really must stop sounding like a parrot. 'The Marquis of Santa Cruz is resident in Lisbon.' 'The Spanish High Admiral?'
'The one and only. The victor of Lepanto, and one of the cruellest and most savage commanders alive in Europe at the present time. And the best ally we have.'
'The best ally. Gresham was shocked. Was the Spanish High Admiral in Walsingham's pay? 'But Santa Cruz is a brilliant, inspirational commander. Santa Cruz is to Spain what Drake is to England — except Santa Cruz knows how to command a fleet.'
'Quite,' said Walsingham. 'Santa Cruz is a brilliant commander. He is an appalling administrator. Ships are piled into Lisbon harbour almost lying on top of each other. Some have a full supply of cannon but no shot. Others are loaded with shot but have no powder. There are vessels with spare cannon, some with no cannon at all. Meanwhile, pay is in arrears for the sailors, and men are dying of illness. Food newly taken on board ships is being eaten first, with the result that the older stock is left to rot. Either the sailors become ill through eating it, or they starve. I repeat, while the ships of King Philip's Armada lie in harbour, Santa Cruz is our best ally.'
'But if and when they, leave for sea?' Gresham followed on.
'That would be a different story. King Philip will try to write a battle plan for his fleet. He is prescriptive, fearful of losing control. Santa Cruz will ignore his King's orders if by so doing he can achieve victory.'
'So it would be a good thing if Santa Cruz's health problems became… terminal?'
'It would indeed.'
'Surely you've tried to make them so?' said Gresham. 'You must have a horde of spies in Lisbon to know what you know about the state of the Spanish fleet. No man can avoid an assassin for ever.'
'No. But some men are better at it than others.'
'And you would appreciate… help in eliminating Santa Cruz, if the opportunity arose.'
'An excellent turn of phrase,' replied Walsingham. 'So will you depart for Lisbon with England's cause at the centre of your heart?' There was a sudden sharpness in Walsingham's tone. Did Walsingham suspect Gresham's loyalties? 'There are those who think your enthusiasm for the Mass is not feigned. Those who have noted your failure to condemn Spain as a proper Englishman should, your admiration for what you call parts of its culture. Nonsense, of course, but dangerous nonsense, if heard by the wrong people.'
Had one of the wrong people reached the conclusion that he was sympathetic to Spain and thus enlisted Walsingham in having him killed? 'I'll depart for Lisbon with my survival at the centre of my heart. And hope, perhaps, that from that there may be some profit for England. As for Spain, I'm honest enough to see what it does well. That doesn't mean I want it ruling here in England. And my actions so far have shown what I'll sacrifice for England.'
Did Walsingham believe him? It was impossible to know, except Gresham was certain that if Walsingham believed now he was a spy for Spain he would not have left the house alive. Walsingham's final words were ominous.
'Take care, Henry Gresham, that you do not plot the end of your own life, needing no interference from men such as me.'
Well, there was no answer to that.
Gresham regaled George and Mannion with the gist of his conversation with Walsingham. He vaguely wondered about telling Anna, but dismissed it more or less instantly. True, her life might depend on whether or not Gresham's judgement of Walsingham was sound. But these decisions were man's work. 'So do you trust him?' George asked.
'Not completely,' said Gresham. 'It's why I rather wanted to go on these two trips as my own man, and not Walsingham's. It's still conceivable that he set me up to die either in some trade-off with Burghley, Cecil or even the Queen, and he made it clear that I might be spying for Spain. I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe that. What I do think is that if he felt a need to have me killed it's passed, and for the moment he finds me useful.'
'Do spies ever have any certainty?' asked George in exasperation.
'Well, one at least,' said Gresham cheerfully. 'They always know someone wants them dead, even if they don't always know who it is.'
No English ship was foolish enough to sail into Lisbon harbour. Gresham found a ship to take them to St Malo. Even there they found the captains unwilling to sail to Lisbon, for fear of being seized for the Armada. Eventually they came across a tubby little coastal vessel that had never lost sight of land in its long life and whose sole armament consisted of four iron cannons that had probably never been fired since they came out of the foundry forty or fifty years earlier. Gresham doubted it was a ship that the Admiral of the Armada would die for, but even this captain seemed unwilling. In desperation, Gresham asked that if he would not take them for his sake, then would he consider taking them for the girl's sake, in her forlorn search for her French fiancй. He agreed then, grudgingly. He was French, which helped of course.
If Cadiz had been full of ships, Lisbon was, fourfold. If Gresham had been worried about drawing too much attention to himself, he soon realised what a false worry it had been. It was chaos in the harbour, the normal trade of one of Europe's busiest ports piled on top of the vast fleet that Philip was assembling.
'Bloody Hell!' said Mannion. ‘You could feed England with what it costs to keep this lot idle here in port!'
They eventually came to rest in a dilapidated grey stone building which had slipped its foundations, leaving a large crack in the wall, and stone window ledges that drooped down to the left like a mouth frowning out of one side. The owner was an elderly Dutch merchant, reduced to letting rooms because of the terrible impact the continuing war in the Netherlands was having on trade.
'Strange, innit?' grunted Mannion, eyeing the meal they had been brought suspiciously. 'I thought as 'ow we'd stand out here, being English. Fact is, I doubt anyone'd notice.'
The port was heaving with every nationality on earth. Walking down the street where their house was situated they had heard Italian, French, Dutch and German spoken as well as Portuguese and Spanish. And English.
