difficult to wash out the blood…'
Gresham had noted that Essex's hand was resting on the hilt of his sword. Essex's hand stayed where it was. There was no humour now in his voice. 'No, I am not going to kill you now. But, as we are making a very uncourtly honesty the flavour of the day, it is entirely possible that I may do so later. I do not like the little pygmy, or those who work for him. I do like you, but that fact won't stop me killing you. Or you me, I suspect, if the need arises. I'm really not so sure you are Cecil's man. Not in your heart. I take it he has some dirt on you? Some hold over you?'
Gresham smiled a slight smile, but said nothing.
'I'll take that as a yes,' said Essex. 'And, in the name of that same honesty, I shall try and wean you off that detestable little toad …'
So that was where the inscription on Cecil's wall had come from.
'… and make you my man, rather than his. You will find me a better master.'
And that, thought Gresham, as he and Essex rose to leave the room, is probably the truest thing said in this bizarre conversation.
But at least Essex's ploy was quite clear. He would try to seduce Gresham away from Cecil, thereby hurting and humiliating his greatest enemy. Robert Devereux wanted Henry Gresham as a trophy, a living and possibly even a notorious witness to the great Earl's capacity to attract men into his party. Well, it suited Gresham to play the game for the moment. He had no option.
Before they reached the door, it shook with two mighty thumps, and a noise like an iron sheet being dropped onto a door key. Gresham shuddered. He knew that noise. The Queen's guard always dropped their pikes to the ground with a resounding crash when they arrived at their destination. They were overweight, and so wore their breast- and backplates loosely tied. The result was that the two heavy pieces of metal were forever grinding against each other, and bouncing off belt buckles. The door was crashed open by a guard, whose helmet showed a serious dent on its left-hand side. Valiant action against an enemy, wondered Gresham? Or contact with a door post while drunk?
Elizabeth's dress might have been dark red, if much of the cloth had been visible beneath the pearls. She was fanning herself. Essex and Gresham both swept off their hats, and bowed low, forcing their eyes to the floor.
The Queen ignored Gresham.
'Robbie, Robbie,' she crooned as a lady might talk to her pet dog, 'how is it that yet again you cost me money?' She extended her hand, and bid him rise up. 'My poor boat is smashed, and my loyal boatman distraught.'
Essex, upright now, gave her a brilliant smile.
'Majesty, I shall build you a new boat with my own hands, finer than that which Cleopatra rode in to meet Mark Antony-' he began grandly.
'Which like you, will look beautiful, but sink at regular intervals!' the Queen cut in. They both collapsed into peals of laughter, more like boy and girl than Queen and noble. Gresham was still bent forward in his bow, his back starting to feel as if he had collected the harvest in single handed.
'You may rise, Sir Henry,' said the Queen, who until this moment appeared not to have noticed Gresham's presence. 'While you still can,' she added caustically. Gresham rose up, to his considerable relief. The Queen looked coldly at him. 'I hear that yet again it is you who have led this young man astray.'
Gresham had learnt to take risks — small risks only — with the Queen.
'Your Majesty,' he said, 'I have tried for some years past to lead my Lord of Essex astray, but for some reason he has always overtaken me and left me as a mere follower.'
What might have been a flicker of grim approval crossed the Queen's face, and she turned again to Essex. It was as if everyone else had vanished, Gresham, the guards and everyone, and the only people in the room were Elizabeth and Essex. Her old eyes were alight for a moment, sparkling with the excitement of flirtation and dalliance.
'And will you take me, an old woman, to the play, my Robbie?' she asked in an unusually soft voice. When she chose she could bark with the sensitivity of a fog horn. Her eyes softened for a moment, gave a hint of the girl she once had been. Was she in love with this man? And was he in love with her, or with her power and office?
'I will take you…' said Essex, pausing deliberately'… even to the ends of the earth.' Somehow what should have been arch flattery was sincere. Adoration? Worship even? Essex needed the Queen's approval, not just for the money and the favours it brought, but almost more for the excitement, the sense of being at the heart of things. Yet at the same time there was a deep resentment, a burning anger at being in thrall, a fierce yearning to be free. God help Essex, God help England — and perhaps even God help Elizabeth — if ever she and Essex came to blows.
Chapter 4
Late June, 1598 Scotland
'I hate bloody Scotland!' said Mannion glumly.
'How can you hate it? You've never been there.'
'Don't have to 'ave bin somewhere to know you hate it.'
They were riding side by side, nearly at the moorings where the Anna lay ready to slip her anchor. The slaughterhouses at Deptford were pouring blood and offal into the river, turning the near shore-side sections of it a stinking brown. The ships jostled against each other in the moorings, the squeak and rattle of rigging vying with the thousand and one noises of a busy mooring. The slop of the waves on the stone steps was reassuring, but even they seemed tired. The day had turned heavy, hot and humid, with thick grey cloud lowering over London. There was nowhere for the air to go, and the stench of the slaughterhouses hung everywhere, sticking to clothes like an invisible devilish glue.
Gresham suspected that one reason for Mannion's reluctance to travel was that a relationship with one of the cooks in The House was starting to get interesting. The woman, recently widowed when her drunken husband fell into the Thames, was both good-looking and a good cook. The combination of sex and food was about as close to a vision of heaven as Mannion could go.
'Madge'll still be there when you get back, old man,' said Gresham with a singular lack of sympathy. 'Anyway, she's still in mourning for her husband, isn't she? Though why anyone would mourn for that drunken lout I'll never know. And how did he kill himself falling in? He came here looking for a job as a boatman and swore he could swim.'
'Tide was out when he fell in,' said Mannion. 'Twelve foot drop. Pity really.' Mannion's voice contained no shred of pity whatsoever. 'It's all silt down there, 'cept there's one rock within about a mile. He fell 'ead first onto it. The sharp bit of it. Stupid bugger.'
'Madge must have been heartbroken,' said Gresham drily.
Mannion did not see the joke, or chose not to see it. 'Bloody ecstatic, more like. She'd been tryin' to kill him for years. Anyway, that's not why I hate bloody Scotland.'
'Well,' sighed Gresham 'you're clearly going to tell me, so why not get it off your chest now and then we can all have some peace?'
'I hate it,' said Mannion, 'because it's cold, it's wet and it's a bloody long way away. And they eat oats boiled in water, cold with salt on top. And there's midges, and the beer's lousy. And,' he continued, warming to his point — it was clear he had been asking around in' the taverns, 'they say as 'ow the people in the lowlands are all miserable bastards who don't like drink or dancing and wear black all the time, and those in the mountains are mad as hatters and so pissed by nine in the morning that they can't give you the time o' day.'
'Well, that last bit sounds attractive for someone like you.'
'I enjoy a drink,' said Mannion. 'When 'ave you ever seen me out for the count as a result of it? I likes to experience my pleasures.'
Never, now Gresham came to think of it. Which was quite extraordinary, as he had never seen anyone capable of drinking as much as Mannion. A surprising number of conversations with Mannion ended with him in charge. Gresham decided to give up. They were nearing the Anna, and it was time for business.
Gresham had not been joking when he said he kept a vessel in permanent wait for him. Or had done so, in
