proud man, and he won't like speaking to an Englishman of no real birth, and I don't imagine he's much time for spies either. Yet I've got to persuade him to let me advise him, use my special knowledge.'
'So what if he doesn't want to come out to play?' asked Mannion, who was starting to let the wine talk for him.
'Then I've risked losing everything I love for nothing,' said Gresham bleakly.
'Spaniards could give you a bit more help in all this,' said Mannion, eyelids starting to droop in the welcome sun. 'After all you're meant to have done for them.'
'I get about as much help from them as I did when I was meant to be working for England,' replied Gresham. 'No one loves a spy.'
Yet meeting Medina Sidonia was easier than expected. Gresham presented the Duke of Parma's warrant to the servants guarding the door of the villa the Duke had taken ashore. A day later the summons came.
The room was cool and dark, the wine excellent, and the Duke courteous. Of medium build, the Duke's compact figure exuded authority, and a sense of calm. Gresham imagined that people would instinctively lower their voices when talking to him. A secretary sat in a corner before a small lectern, ready to record or write as instructed. A sallow, thin-faced man in a cheap doublet waited respectfully at the Duke's side.
'I am His Grace's English translator,' the man said proudly.
'The Duke of Parma writes well of you,' said Sidonia, his voice low. The man had an aura of dignity, in part due to his having come from a long line of men for whom the obedience of others was automatic, no doubt, but also emanating from his personality. 'He states that you have been fighting our cause with courage and guile these three years past, at great risk to yourself. As is confirmed by letters from the Escorial. You have met with the Duke of Parma? Recently?’ The Duke was speaking in Spanish, the translator speaking fluently and with almost no accent.
'As recently as March, my Lord,' answered Gresham.
'And his view of matters?'
How strange and worrying for Spain, thought Gresham, that in the tangled hierarchy of King Philip's Spain the Commander of the Armada and the Commander of Philip's army had not corresponded directly, but only indirectly through the person of the King.
'It is as you gathered, my Lord. He has assembled boats and transports in the canals. He has no deep-water port, but expects to be able to slip his troops out from the canals through Dunkirk under cover of darkness and with a feint to the north. There are two key issues. Firstly, the Dutch fly-boats are heavily armed and can navigate the shallowest of waters. Yet they are relatively few in number and the Dutch are disaffected. Also there is a faction among the Dutch that wishes him to invade England, believing the rebels' chance of victory is greater if the Duke is away in England. The Duke believes he can deceive the Dutch, that indeed they may wish to be deceived, particularly if Your Lordship would agree to detach some of your lighter and smaller craft to assist him.'
'That would seem hopeful’ said Sidonia. 'And the second key issue?'
'If you can place yourself between his transports and the English fleet for the crossing, the Duke of Parma believes all that's necessary is for your ships to block the English from his ships, not even to sink or defeat them.'
The Duke paused for thought, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. 'And you say that you sailed with Drake to Cadiz?'
Gresham gave a brief summary of his part in the raid.*No one knows the English fleet, its commanders and its operating procedures better than I,' said Gresham. 'I offer that knowledge to your Lordship, as and when you may care to use it.'
'Should I trust a man who betrays the land of his birth?' asked Sidonia. There was sudden steel in the voice, a sharp snap of authority. This was a man who lived his life by a strict moral as well as religious code, Gresham realised.
'No,' said Gresham, honestly. 'Probably not. Yet I've never done what I do for money, of which. I have no need. I've done it in part for my faith, which I've carried as a secret for many years, a secret that could have burned my flesh and ruined me at any time.'
'And why else have you done it? Why else have you served Spain?'
Gresham paused. This man would accept no easy answers. There were no easy answers for Gresham to give. 'Because the land of my birth has never accepted me, the bastard son of a rich man. For years it reviled me as a cast-off. Now it pays me lip service because of my wealth yet reviles me still. The land of my birth is defended by pirates who plead patriotism, led by a Queen who preaches service to England but is incapable of serving any except herself, a woman so selfish as to deny her country an heir and therefore condemn it to civil war on her death. Taking their colour from her, its ^leaders are men such as Robert Cecil, whose God and morality revolve around his own self-interest. Cecil, the Queen, Walsingham, Burghley… these people expect me to die for them. They would never live for me.'
‘You are very young,' said Sidonia, 'to harbour such bitterness. And when you find in your adopted country of Spain that leaders are not selfless, that the true faith has men observing and sometimes leading its worship who are truly corrupt, then will you become as bitter towards Spain as you are to England?'
'I didn't choose England,' said Gresham. 'It was a choice made for me. I chose Spain.'
There was a long silence, Sidonia's eyes resting on Gresham's, Gresham's startling blue eyes returning the gaze without flinching.
'I may call on your advice,' said Sidonia, 'but not yet. God willing, it will be a week or more before we sight England, and the San Martin is grievously overcrowded.'
That was true. Apart from the sailors and soldiers crammed on board, there were the forty men of Sidonia's retinue and the hordes of young Spanish noblemen desperate for glory.
'1 may call for you nearer the time of our conflict. Or I may not. Yet there is a tension, a conflict in you I sense but do not understand.'
There was a splutter from Mannion, understanding the Spanish before translation. *You are impertinent!' said Sidonia, the colour rising in his face.
'I apologise, my Lord,' said Mannion in Spanish. 'I've known him since he was this high.' Mannion held out a hand halfway down his own body. 'He was tense then, and at war with himself. That won't ever change. Asking your pardon for my impertinence.'
'I suspect he is not lucky in life,' said Sidonia, 'but may have been lucky in you. You are dismissed. Both of you.'
'Was that helpful?' hissed Gresham as they left.
'It was bloody true,' said Mannion.
They left Corunna on 21st July and made their first sighting of English soil, the Lizard, eight days later. An aching sense of regret drove through Gresham as he saw England again.
'What d'you think they're discussing?' asked Mannion.
The flagship had hoisted a huge flag bearing the image of the
Virgin Mary and a cross, and called the various commanders aboard. Gresham and Mannion had just heard Mass with the rest of the crew of the San Salvador. They did not consecrate the Host, of course, in case the rolling of the ship caused the body and blood of Christ to be swept or knocked overboard.
'I know what I would do,' said Gresham, eyes clenched in worry, his whole body showing the tension inside him. *What?' said Mannion, 'Sign up as a spy for France and Holland, so every country in Europe hates you instead of just half of 'em?'
'No,' said Gresham, hardly listening. 'I'd head straight for Plymouth. With this wind the English fleet is bottled up, can't get out. The advantage the English have is their speed. If Sidonia sailed pell-mell into Plymouth harbour the English couldn't manoeuvre, and he could board and take half the English fleet, maybe more.' Gresham waved a hand around. The huge wooden castles at the bow and stern of the San Salvador were there to contain soldiers who could pour down fire on an enemy deck from a great height, grapple and sweep a mass of men down.
'Might lose some ships,' said Mannion. 'Difficult entrance, Plymouth.'
'What would a few ships matter if you sank or boarded half the English fleet?' asked Gresham. What would Sidonia decide?
Gathered in the great cabin of the San Martin, Medina Sidonia's commanders were pressing him hard.
'We must detach a portion of our fleet and attack Plymouth! We have the chance to halve the numbers facing
