It was the time he took thinking that saved his life, he realised afterwards. A dishonest man would simply have denied any threat to the Queen. The sight of him almost visibly testing each scenario against her question, his reserve forgotten for once and his brow furrowed in concentration, was the greatest testimony to the honesty of his answer.
'No, Your Majesty, there is nothing associated with my journey that could threaten your throne or your life. Or rather,' and he allowed himself a dry little smile, 'I give you my word that there is nothing I know of or can predict that would be counter to your interests. No man can ever predict with exactitude what a journey will produce.'
He thought again. Clearing Cecil's name might even allow for a smoother transition of power when the moment came for the Queen to die. And Cecil would never hasten that death. James of Scotland had spent most of his life fighting for survival amid the rabid politics of his homeland. He knew better than most that those who killed or deposed a monarch acquired a taste for it. If Cecil did anything to hasten Elizabeth's death he would not only never gain James's trust; he would hasten his own death at James's hand.
'My journey will help preserve the life and fortune of those few I call friends. And, if anything, it will help rather than hinder your own assured long reign and good health.'
The Queen sat back, suddenly looking very tired.
'Take this ring.' She scrabbled in a box by her side, and produced a fabulous but crude emerald set ostentatiously in gold. 'Show it to the men outside this room, and they will let you pass. Had you not had this, my token, you would have left here under their escort for the Tower. And this time you would not have emerged.'
Something approaching despair filled Gresham's heart. He prided himself on being one jump ahead of his pursuers and those who threatened his life. Yet he had been trapped by Cecil, didn't know whether Essex was his ally or his rival and now had damn nearly been executed by the Queen, all in a state of blissful ignorance as to what was happening. To be in control was central to Henry Gresham's life. What was he playing at, letting these people out-manoeuvre him? Had the depression that had beset him these past six months finally corroded its way into his very soul, draining his will to live and dulling his judgement?
'You may present the ring to King James in secret. It is an agreed token between us.'
An agreed token? Why was there an agreed token between the Queen and the man to whom she had just written a foul and abusive letter, warning him off her kingdom and accusing him of gross presumption? 'And you will give him this as well.' It was a thin, sealed package. A letter, obviously. How interesting. It appeared that everyone in England wanted secret packages delivered to King James of Scotland. There was a tidy little business here for the right person.
'Yet you will cling to your initial stratagem, and take the girl along with you. She will be your given reason for making the journey. Your meeting with the Scottish King will be in secret, as will the exchange of the ring and the package. As no doubt will be the exchange of whatever other information you wish to give. Show the ring to the right people and it will gain you a secret audience with the obnoxious little sodomite.'
It was strange how sodomy and black magic kept cropping up together in Gresham's life.
'You will not under any circumstances let others know you are carrying my message. Those who have commissioned you must continue to think they are the sole reason for your visit, and that you cajoled me in my dotage by your charm and good looks into granting you a passport. And you had better bring the girl to me tomorrow, so I can be seen to question her in private. Yet from now on, you are not undertaking this journey on behalf of those who first asked you to make it, whoever they are. A higher authority now commands you. You are doing it as my messenger. A messenger of your Queen.'
Wheels within wheels. Deviousness within deviousness. What better way to cloak a mission from her enemies than by letting them think it was their mission? And now Gresham knew that beneath the public bickering and exchange of letters there was a different relationship between Elizabeth and James. Whatever it was, it was clearly both separate from the public domain and not based on a true meeting of minds. 'Obnoxious little sodomite' she had called him, with no lack of sincerity.
'And understand one thing, Henry Gresham.' He had never known King Henry VIII, but something in his daughter's tone made him understand the fear that man could provoke in others. 'If it becomes known that you have exchanged my ring and that package with the King of Scotland, if word ever leaks out, you will return to England not as one of its richest men, but as a pauper. Every piece of land, every house, every hovel and every asset you own will be stripped from you and fall to my Crown. You will become the penniless bastard you were before your father decided to rescue you.'
There was a third, long silence.
'I have no Bible here,' said the Queen of England. 'No witness, even. Yet I ask you to swear a simple oath, and to stand by that oath as if every Bible in the world was here for you to lay your hand on, and every witness including God. Will you swear to do everything — everything — in your power to preserve my reign for as long as I live? And will you swear to do everything in your power to ensure that when the moment of my death comes, it is through nature and God's will and not the actions of men?'
Gresham thought about this for a few moments.
'I wish you had not, Your Majesty, preceded your request by your threat. As for the threat, I take it as one of the most powerful I've received in my undoubtedly misspent life. I shall deal with it as I've dealt with all such other threats.'
A spark of imminent death flickered in Elizabeth's eyes. Not her death, which her soul could not contemplate. His death. He hurried on.
'As for the swearing… yes. I swear to what you ask. You've brought internal peace to England for forty years. You've fought off our enemies and kept them from invading our shores. I swear to preserve your reign and your life, for so long as you do naturally live.'
He dropped to one knee, and bowed his head. It seemed the right thing to do. The silence which followed was one of the longest in Henry Gresham's memory.
'You may leave my presence,' the Queen said finally, in a tone of impenetrable neutrality.
It seemed somehow inappropriate to thank her. He left her presence.
He was silent as they rode home, having given Mannion the briefest summary of what had taken place. Mannion had sucked on the hollow tooth he claimed had been there all his life but which he had never had seen to, and said nothing.
Scotland was renowned for killing its monarchs, and about as welcoming to its own kind as a steel-quilled porcupine, never mind a spy from the English Court. Things could get very unpleasant in Scotland, thought Gresham. As if the trip did not present problems enough, there was the added complication of the girl. Or two added complications, as it happened — coping with her on the trip, and not least getting her to go in the first place. She was his agreed cover, even more essential now the Queen had validated her as the reason for his going, but short of tying her up and stuffing a gag in her mouth he was damned if he knew how to get her up north, and the last thing he wanted was to have to try to do so with her kicking and screaming. Still, it was not in his nature to postpone a problem. As soon as they rode into the yard of The House and handed the reins of the grey over to a groom, he asked to see her. Asked. It was not as if he had rescued her, paid for the clothes on her back and the food in her belly, was it? No, he had to ask to see her, not command it.
She came in to the Library demurely enough, her eyes downcast, her hands folded neatly in front of her. He could see why she drove men mad. Yet his deliberately casual questioning of others had suggested she still had her virginity. Why had he chosen to meet her in the Library? Of all the rooms in The House, it was the one he most identified her with, except for the uncharted territory of the kitchens and servants' quarters. Yet it was, ironically, the room in which he felt most at home. So be it.
She was late, of course. She always was. She did it to show him who was in charge and to infuriate him. He stood by one of the huge windows overlooking the Thames, determined to remain ice-cold and not let her lateness affect him.
A more astute man would have realised that his summons had put her in a panic. Desperate to appear her best before him, she had thrown out every one of the pathetically few dresses she owned onto her bed, the clucking maid who was with her if anything more nervous and thrown than she was. At least her hair was washed, and the last of the infuriating spots had vanished from her face. What dress? What dress? The dark-green offering was her newest and, verging on the formal, hardly suitable for a young woman whose day would be spent helping to run one of the largest households in London outside of the Palace or Essex House. It would have to do. And she would only anger him more if she was later than she had already made herself!
