'But if I return from Ireland the victor, the people will call for me!' said Essex. 'I will be their champion. I will be… unstoppable!'
'And Cecil knows that. But it was Cecil who was so forceful in suggesting to the Queen that you take command of the army for Ireland. What does that suggest to you?'
'That Cecil is a fool?'
'Cecil is never a fool,' said Gresham. 'He's someone who hates war. Not because of the killing and the maiming, or the suffering, but because of the cost and because war is random. Yet in this instance, he's done his research.'
Cecil had talked to several soldiers who had served in Ireland. Gresham had been intrigued when he had heard, knowing how much Cecil despised soldiers, his scorning of war and its waste. It had caused Gresham to interview those same soldiers, to get reports of the conversations they had had with Cecil.
'He believes that Ireland will defeat you. It's the biggest gamble in his political life. It's also the first time he's gambled anything on a war. He thinks the war in Ireland can't be won, and that by sending you to inevitable defeat you'll be shamed, and stake your all on a final blow, an act of rebellion.'
It was as if someone had put a dart straight into Essex's heart. He collapsed back on the bed, the redness gone from his face and replaced by a pallid sweat.
That's it, thought Gresham. You've been through this in your mind, faced up to the fact that Ireland destroyed your father, and decided that if you lose the war to make your final play for the throne! Cecil is right! You can be provoked to futile rebellion!
'And how can you know this?' asked Essex, his voice a whisper.
'Know it? I can't know it. But I know Cecil, and I know a little of you. You're passionate, impetuous, full of an outdated chivalric energy that ignores the real dirt of war. Cecil's cold-blooded, cautious, always planning in advance. If I were Cecil, I'd gamble on your losing in Ireland. It has, after all, been a bottomless pit for English military commanders, a stinking black hole that's swallowed up bodies and reputations. And the joy of it all is that he can't really lose. If you sink into the mud and the bogs of Ireland as so many others have, either you'll die as your father died or you'll come back discredited and in all probability be forced into a rash act of rebellion by your own overweening ambition.' Selective hearing. Gresham had just accused Essex of overweening ambition, but it was as if he had not heard. 'But what if you win? You'll be the hero of the day and perhaps even the month, but such fame rarely lasts. Cecil will have gained all the credit with the Queen for suggesting you so strongly, and proved what a selfless adviser he is. And in your absence he can secure his power base and attack yours, packing his allies more and more into the Court.' Gresham paused for a moment. 'I tell you this, my Lord. You're in danger of becoming another victim. Not of your own vanity and ambition, with which you're well supplied. But rather of the vanity and ambition of Robert Cecil.' As many of us, including myself, stand in danger of becoming a victim of Robert Cecil, thought Gresham. 'Cecil wants you to rebel. For the first time in his life, he wishes a rebellion. Is trying to engineer it, to provoke it. He needs to do something big if he is to take over in power and influence from his father. You're being manipulated.'
'Why does no one else tell me these things?' asked Essex.
'Because they've got more sense. Because they depend on you for their livelihood. Because all great men surround themselves with people who say what they want to hear. And because though I sometimes think you're one of the biggest fools I know, and I wouldn't trust you most of the time for more than the price of a drink, you make me laugh and at least you've got a personality.'
'I'd hoped to tell you things you didn't know,' said Essex. 'Instead, you've told me things I should've thought of. If Cecil is plotting Ireland as my doom, I'd better make sure I understand the country. Hadn't I?'
There was shock on the faces of the others when Essex emerged. Quite clearly, when their master had one of his fits of passion they were used to him retiring to bed for days. Rather than welcoming his return, they seemed almost resentful of it. If one gets accustomed to dealing with a madman, the return of sanity can be as taxing as the madness itself. Systems, thought Gresham, systems. We all live by systems, learn how to cope with the idiocy of life by systems. Disrupt the system and you disrupt the person.
‘You're an experienced soldier with a high reputation' said Essex to Gresham. 'Few of those close to me have such experience.' Well, that would do Gresham a lot of good with Meyrick, Blount and Southampton. 'Give us your opinion of Ireland.'
Campaigning had nearly killed Gresham, yet being a soldier was like an illness that once in one's veins could never quite be got rid of.
'I've never served in Ireland,' said Gresham, with no trace of pomp or circumstance, 'but I've talked with those who have. I'm sure you've talked to them as well. I doubt you need my pearls of wisdom.'
Try us, Sir Henry.' It was the weasel Southampton. 'I am sure we are all desperate to learn from your knowledge.'
Gresham eyed Southampton with a contempt he did not seek to hide.
'I can believe you're desperate for all sorts of things you can't get,' said Gresham. 'My knowledge isn't one of them.'
Southampton could have, should have challenged him to a duel for such an insult. Instead, he snickered, a simpering, sickening little giggle.
'So… forthright!' said Southampton. He meant rude, of course. Then his face narrowed. 'So full of breeding! As one might expect from a man whoring his services as an informer and a spy to the highest bidder!'
The challenge hung in the air. The others in the room froze.
Gresham took off a glove, carefully tugging at each finger.
'There you have me, my Lord,' he said, in a regretful tone. He looked calmly at Southampton, and the man suddenly took a pace back. Something in Gresham's eyes chilled him, cut through even his spoilt arrogance. 'I've no breeding, whereas you have more than you can handle, I'm sure. As for the whoring bit, I'm truly a bad man of business; I give my services for free, alas. But I do have manners. And manners tell me that a gentleman responds to a challenge.'
Gresham tossed the glove towards the table. Before it could land, a hand plucked it out of mid-air. Essex's hand. Well, if he was ill it had not yet affected his reflexes.
'No,' he said. 'I will not permit this. I will have no squabbling among my allies or my friends.'
That was a little rich, coming from Essex, who had nearly torn apart the expedition to the Azores by his permanent and unreasoning feud with Sir Walter Raleigh.
'As you will, my Lord,' said Gresham easily. He and Southampton would have their day. 'But please do tell this brat of a Lord to keep inside his kennel for fear that it's he who gets bitten by something bigger, better and more dangerous.'
Southampton made as if to respond, but again caught Gresham's eye and halted with his mouth half open. It made him look even more vacuous than usual, and Gresham caught the slightest hint of a smile from Gelli Meyrick. It was not a smile of friendship, more a sharp-toothed recognition from a predator of a fellow animal that had been wounded.
'The campaign in Ireland,' said Essex. 'I wish to hear your views.'
Gresham looked round the room. Playboys. Adventurers. Blount had seen some service and was a bluff enough soldier. Outside there were some good men who would serve in Essex's army. But in here? Essex's previous military ventures had been distinguished by the tangerine livery of his men, many trumpets and the excellent playing of drums, rather than by any military success or sign of strategic planning from the commander. Brave, yes: no one could take that away from him. But a great general pays others to be brave. He is paid to command and to think. Could Essex think for long enough to get the job done? As for the rest of his crew, they were hangers-on, men like Meyrick who were excellent at terrifying tenant farmers and peasants, bullies to the core, or young, spoilt idiots like Southampton who thought war was about pretty uniforms. Oh, well…
'I'm sure you've heard all this before.' Essex was about to say something, but Gresham held up his hand. As he fingered the maps, Gresham seemed to grow in stature, become less of the shadowy figure of vague menace, more the commander. 'The land itself appears to be your greatest enemy. It's uneven, marshy, treacherous to foot and horse, subject to wild swings in weather, with bogs even on top of mountains. All this seems to breed a strange marsh fever. The Irish seem to be able to melt into their landscape. They've skills our soldiers haven't even begun to learn. They can shadow an army for days and give no hint of their presence, rising up out of the swamp, the bog or the grassland as if they were wraiths. So many of the ways are treacherous, fords over rivers so few,
