comfortable lodgings would be exchanged instantly for the lowest and darkest dungeon in the Tower.
And that would be a kindness compared with what would happen to the messenger entrusted with such an embassy. Elizabeth had just sent off a foul and abusive letter to James, reprimanding him for making it known in Europe that he would be the next King of England.
'My Lord,' said Gresham, his manner now composed, 'can I with my poor muddled wits try to make some sense of this? You've just admitted to me, someone who's admitted that they hate you, that you wish to communicate secretly with the King of Scotland. Such an admission is sufficient to lose you your job and probably your life, and to condemn me, were I fool enough to act as your messenger, to a very painful and probably very sordid death. So you've given me on the one hand a chance to destroy you, and on the other a death warrant for myself.'
'I have told you the truth. As in so many cases, the truth does not justify itself. It is justified by its surroundings. If you left this room and said I wanted to communicate with James of Scotland, no one would believe you — you, who are implicated in every plot, and rapidly becoming an eminence noir in all who seek to replace our present Queen. Instead, they would believe you to be the person working for King James, and damn you accordingly for trying to bring the Queen's minister into disrepute. You know the truth of what I need. For once, that truth will remain with you. People might believe I am secretly in correspondence with James of Scotland. They will not believe it if their source of information is you.'
Gresham sighed. 'What you're saying is that I'm your only safe messenger. Anyone else you asked could use the information against you. I'm the only person no one would believe if I betrayed you. No one believes or trusts in me. I'm damaged goods. What a brilliant idea! How on earth would anyone believe that you would trust a damning message to someone who clearly hated you so much and was inherently untrustworthy?'
Cecil was silent.
Gresham spoke again. 'You're making me your messenger because no one believes you'd be stupid enough to do so. You've instant deniability. I can perfectly see what's in it for you. I'm rather less clear as to what's in it for me.'
'The survival of your friends,' said Cecil.
Gresham's heart missed a beat. He said nothing, always the greatest challenge to an interrogator. Cecil fell into the trap. People always did.
'You have only three true friends. I discount Essex — a drinking companion and a mere amusement. You care truly for only three people: that man-mountain of a servant you seem to have afforded the role of a father; Lord Willoughby, your friend and ally since you were at school; and that peasant girl you picked up on your way home from the wars.' Cecil paused for effect.
A tornado was raging in Gresham's head. He of all people should know the cost of loving another person. As the dying screams of someone he had loved had torn into his soul, just as the red-hot metal had torn into his friend's body, he had vowed never again to expose himself to this terrible pain. Jane, his ward, he could live without. Yet life without Mannion or George…
'So,' said Gresham, in the quietest possible voice, 'it's actually come to this, has it? No politics, no manoeuvring for position, no wheels within wheels. A simple, straightforward threat. Serve me, and work against a lesser friend, or be the agent of the destruction of those who are my real friends.' There was almost pity in Gresham's voice, behind the hatred. 'You must be truly desperate.'
Cecil said nothing. This time Gresham chose to fill the gap.
'George. It must be George,' he said. 'I don't care a rat's arse for the girl, and knowing how and where Mannion spends his spare time it's always a gamble whether he'll ever come home.'
Cecil remained silent.
'George told me someone was buying up the bills he had taken out on some of his land to feed his peasants through the famine years. Would that person be you, my Lord? And would it perhaps be the case that poor, soft old George over-extended himself to keep his miserable tenants alive, and mortgaged nearly all his estate, rather than the small portion he has always owned up to?'
'Lord Willoughby inherited an estate that was already two-thirds promised to the moneylenders,' said Cecil, in a calm, passionless voice. 'His father was a pleasant man, and wholly incompetent at managing his estates.' There was a shout from beyond the thick wooden door, a servant calling. Cecil's eyes flickered briefly towards it, as if expecting to see the door burst open and reveal a rampant Mannion. Gresham's eyes never left Cecil's.
'So you could ruin my friend at a moment's notice? Cast him, and his wife, and their screaming brood out onto the streets?'
Gresham hunched forward a little, the academic starting to study the question in depth. It was as if he was playing a game. 'But surely that's not threat enough? You know I've enough money for the both of us, if needs be. No, there must be something else.'
'There is,' said Cecil smugly. 'I needed evidence to show that Willoughby was so desperate for money he would do anything to get it. As for you, it is known, has been known for thirteen years, that you sailed aboard the Armada, were actually seen on its flag-ship, standing alongside its commander. Since then, you have been tainted by Spain. Indeed, many saw your military involvement in the Low Countries simply as a way to wash from your reputation your link with Spain. I will be clear with you, Henry Gresham.'
'Well,' said Gresham, 'that would be novel.' Cecil ignored the flippancy.
'I have prepared papers over many months past to incriminate you, your ward, your idiot servant and your clumsy friend in a plot to place the Spanish Infanta on the throne of England. I have also arranged for various equally incriminating items to be placed in the household of three people, each of them on the fringe of every shady business in London, each regular travellers to the continent, and each foreign. One is a Jew, which will, of course, help greatly in any accusations of guilt against him.'
Gresham remembered the pathetic figure of Dr Lopez, the Queen's physician, who when an old and harmless man had been hung, drawn and quartered on a trumped-up treason charge. The Earl of Essex had led the prosecution, and the fact that Lopez was a Jew had helped Essex greatly in securing the conviction. It had not been Essex's finest hour. Gresham had no doubt that if Essex were forced to choose between his own profit and the death or mutilation of someone else, selfishness would win. That was how blue blood stayed blue. It also made Essex, if anything, just a little more exciting. Like a warming fire that could at the same time burn a man alive.
'I have also bribed a minor official of the Court of Spain to testify that you have indeed been acting on behalf of the Infanta for these six months past.'
'And why should such a man put his own life at threat?' asked Gresham.
'Because he is dying, and he cares little if he dies a few months early if my money supports his family,' answered Cecil, as if betrayal, lies and perjury were the bread of his daily life. Which, come to think of it, Gresham pondered, they probably were.
'So you are telling me, my Lord,' said Gresham, 'that if I do not agree to be your messenger you will destroy me and my few friends by implicating us in a Spanish plot against the Queen.'
'Precisely,' said Cecil. 'And it will work, because of your past history and the cloud of suspicion that hovers around you in the Court and beyond.'
'A cloud of suspicion no doubt fostered greatly by you in recent weeks and months?' asked Gresham.
'Of course,' said Cecil, as if surprised by the question. 'Hanging, drawing and quartering is the preferred punishment for traitors. You will not be offered the axe — you are not sufficiently noble. Nor will Lord Willoughby, nor your lesser friends. A pity to see the beautiful body of your ward so treated.'
There were two sources of anger eating at Gresham's soul. The first was at himself. He had let himself be manoeuvred by his old enemy into this position of extreme vulnerability. The second was not useful now. It was a mere distraction to survival: it was anger against Cecil. It would have its day. But not now. Not yet.
'You must need me very much as your messenger,' said Gresham, 'to go to all this trouble.' The only way he could unsettle Cecil was to appear unnaturally calm.
'I need you as my messenger,' said Cecil, 'not merely because if you are caught with my message you will be disbelieved. I need you because my enemies will seek to find and kill my messenger. For that reason he must go alone or with a small party. I do not need a puffed-up servant paying lip service to loyalty until the first sight of an implement of torture; or a minor noble desperate for advancement and caving in to the highest bidder. I need someone skilled enough not to be caught in the first place, someone ruthless enough to fight off opposition and, in the final count, someone with enough to lose to keep his mouth shut if the worst happens. I need a killer who will
