lazy walk he had taken out of this very door to piss in the street and making the door appear bolted on his return.
It was lighter in the south at this time of night, Gresham noticed, but the streets were almost deserted, activity seeming to be concentrated in the harbour area. They slunk through the streets, fine stone houses built high but casting even deeper moon-shadow as a result, narrow and with the heat of the day still radiating from their stone and brick facades, in contrast to the cold light of the moon. Gresham and Mannion knew where they were going. A wild sense of excitement filled Anna's heart as she followed Gresham and George, Mannion behind her, excitement tinged with terror at what she had allowed herself to become.
It took them fifteen minutes of walking, their good pace limited by the need to keep in the shadows, their heads bowed and their hands clasped humbly in front of them. Those who wished to officiate at the Mass did not run through streets at midnight. It was suspicious enough that they were out anyway. They started to climb a slight hill, the stone houses giving away to ill-built timber structures, bleached by the sun into premature age. Light was bleeding through the shutters of one, large rambling building, raucous conversation and laughter exploding from it. They ducked into a tiny courtyard, bathed in shadow, and Mannion stripped off his gown, revealing the jerkin and trews of a working man. Anna watched from under the lip of her hood, fascinated. Simple though Mannion's dress was, it was cut in the Lisbon style, a subtle difference from that which a workman in London might have worn, the material thinner, the style more loose and flowing, more generous, to cope with the heat. He ducked into what was clearly a tavern or an inn. A door opened, a shard of light cut through the gloom and suddenly Mannion was back beside them. 'Round the back.'
With a quick look to left and right, they crossed the narrow street, unpaved and little more than a path, through an open side gate and into what had clearly once been a stable yard but which was now weed-strewn and derelict. Evidently guests who stayed the night at this inn came on foot and brought no horses with them.
'For God's sake, George,' said Gresham, 'whatever you do, don't start knocking things over now.'
The tiny room had probably once been a stable, but was rough-plastered now, a small table at each end. By the door were two country stools, three-legged and with the wood hardly smoothed. Two candles were on the furthermost, equally crude table, with a chair behind it, facing the door. Gresham placed the candles carefully together. He took one of the stools and placed it behind the table at the far corner of the room where a chunk of plaster had fallen off some two or three feet up from the earth floor, revealing a patchwork quilt of reeds or straw.
'Sit there,' said Gresham to Anna. He was angry with her for her insistence on coming. He would show her tonight what being a spy meant. She had asked to come, so let her taste the reality of it.
He arranged her hood so that it threw a deep shadow over her face, concealing it. The hoods of the cassocks were unusually deep, she noticed as only a woman would, extending far further forward than was normal. Gresham seated himself in the centre of the table furthermost from the door, the candles half blinding anyone who came in from the night, obscuring the face and figure of the man behind the table. George was seated, as invisible as a man his size could be, by the door.
There was a slight scuffling noise from outside, and Mannion stepped aside from the half open door to allow a bulky figure to duck into the room. He stood there, blinking, trying to acclimatise himself to the half light and the two sinister hooded figures seated behind the far table.
'Sit down,' said Gresham. He was speaking in perfect Italian. Anna knew just enough of the language to follow the conversation. You cannot understand a human unless you understand his language, her father had said. Spanish she had spoken all her life, English she had learned from her mother and French and Italian she had been taught in the schoolroom. What would her father have thought if he had known where his daughter's future lay, here in a stinking room in Lisbon helping an English spy defeat a Spanish fleet?
The man looked shocked. 'You are Italian?' he stuttered. He was not drunk, but had been drinking. The veins on his nose and the bloodshot eyes suggested this had been a lifelong hobby.
'I'm the Englishman you were told to expect,' said Gresham, continuing the effortlessly fluent Italian. He had first learned the language because of an overwhelming desire to read Machiavelli in the original. 'A very unimportant Englishman, an expendable Englishman whose betrayal by you would bring few tears to the eyes of any in Government in England. Indeed, someone chosen because they were expendable. Someone without title or status, yet with access to a great deal of money. A very great deal of money. For the right service.'
The man looked round the small room, nervous, licking his lips. Something flew through the air, a flickering blur of darkness from behind the table. The man swung round, exclaiming, ready to leap out of the door. He found it blocked by Mannion, holding the bottle of wine Gresham had just tossed to him. Grinning, Mannion reached down to the bag at his feet, never taking his eyes off the man, and brought out a simple pewter goblet. He reached down by the side of the man, placed the goblet on the table. Then, grasping the top end of the bottle in one great meaty paw, he placed the neck end in his mouth and yanked down. There was a crack, and the top half of the neck sheared off, smoothly down one side but jagged glass on the side facing the man. Mannion raised the bottle up, almost threatening the man with the jagged glass. He reared back, collided with the wall, struggling to grab the dagger in his belt. Before he could do so, Mannion had, in one seamless movement, plonked the bottle down on the table, reached forward to yank the dagger out of the man's hand and stepped back, plunging the dagger into the cheap soft wood of the table so that it sank in a full inch, and left it quivering slightly there. He motioned the man to sit.
'Bartolome de Somorriva,' said Gresham. 'Italian, chief gun-founder at the Lisbon armouries.'
Bartolome slumped onto a stool, his pulse beating heavily in his thick neck. The skin was stretched over one side of his face. Had it come too close at some stage to one of the great furnaces the gun foundries depended on for their business? He grabbed the goblet, poured wine into it so that it splashed over the side, took a great gulp. Mannion reached over, took the bottle and swigged at it from the sheared glass. He wiped his lips. And held on to the bottle.
'That is my position. And my craft. You know it well.'
'I also know that you've a wife and family in Italy, and two mistresses here in Lisbon, neither of whom is aware of the other.'
Bartolome went pale for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders.
'What matter if one whore does not know of another?'
‘No great matter,' said Gresham, 'unless it becomes known that one Bartolome de Somorriva contracted the pox some three months ago, and has continued making the beast with two backs with his mistresses ever since, despite that knowledge. One of the women is also sleeping with several of the most important men in Lisbon, and has therefore in all probability infected those men as well.'
Bartolome recoiled as if slapped in the face. 'How did you know?' he asked.*You would not, you could not tell these people…'
'I require payment for my silence,' said Gresham in icy tones.
'Payment?' said Bartolome, genuinely confused and totally off balance. 'I am not a rich man. I…'
'The payment I require is different,' said Gresham. He had still not pulled back his hood, and the voice came from the black, ill-defined space shrouded by the folds of its cloth. 'Indeed, if you do what we ask, you'll be paid, most generously.' Gresham reached into his gown, drew out a purse and tossed it casually onto the table. It hit with a heavy thump. 'Go on, open it. Count it,' Gresham said.
The gold coins fell onto the table in an avalanche of wealth. One rolled off the edge, and Bartolome scrabbled for it in the dust.
'This is… most generous,' he said, looking up, the candlelight catching the sweat on his brow.
'It's a simple down payment,' said Gresham. 'There's five times as much if you do what we ask.'
An expression of knowing evil came into Bartolome's eyes. His assurance was seeping back, and clearly he was starting to feel on home ground. Carefully he fed each coin back into the purse, closed it, placed it somewhere amidst his considerable girth.
'And what is it that you ask of me? I am a simple man. I am a mere maker of guns, a working man.' He held the empty goblet up high, not looking at Mannion, staring at the hooded figure seated in front of him. The silence stretched out. He began to feel foolish, arm outstretched, empty goblet in hand. He turned to look at Mannion, intending to gesture to him to fill his cup. Mannion held his eyes, swirled his tongue round his mouth and very slowly allowed a string of spit to dribble from his mouth into the goblet. Then, carefully, he filled it to the brim with wine, and stepped back.
