down in the books of course, though that was not why Gresham had said what he said.
There was Gresham, doin' the funeral rights over some Irish bastard, and up pops this savage, few feet away he was, and points 'is musket at him. Old Gresham e' don't even flicker. He carries on laying out the Irish bastard's limbs, like 'e were 'is mother, and then stands up. Stands up, I tell you! Not only stands, but turns and faces the bastard. Then 'e 'olds his 'and up, clear as daylight, tellin' us who're rushin' in to 'elp not to fire. An' they stand an' look at each other for Gawd knows 'ow long. And they nod at each other. I'm not kidding you — 'ere, pass the jug — they nods at each other. And the Irish bastard, 'e shoulders arms and fuckin' vanishes into nowhere, like these Irish bastards do, and Gresham, he turns round cool as a cucumber and tells me orf for 'avin' me musket at full cock! Would you believe it?
They would believe it, and embellish it, and men would look at him and think of it every time they saw him.
'It really doesn't matter, you know,' said Gresham to Mannion, when they were back on the road and out of earshot. 'None of it matters at all.' Yet by recognising it, he suddenly felt more free than he had for years. The pain in his head was lifting, and he had enough strength left to grin to himself. Something had changed within him when the wild man with the musket had nodded briefly at him.
A number of Essex's officers, mostly the younger ones and some of those who by now had returned from their vain chase, came up to clap him on the shoulder and shake his hand. Cameron Johnstone, increasingly seen alongside Essex's cronies, was hanging round at the back of the crowd. He was wearing what he called his campaigning garb, a coat even longer than Gresham's and fiercely clean white linen. When asked, he said simply that one had to keep up civilised standards.
'Thank you,' said Gresham.
'What for?' said Cameron. 'I very clearly didn't involve myself in your heroic charge. Unlike yourself, if I'm going to die, I'd like it to be on a matter of some significance.'
'You think this campaign is of no significance?' asked Gresham.
'I think its outcome will be of no significance. As a campaign, that is. Your leader has taken us off on a wild- goose chase, your recent so-called victory was in fact nothing more than a minor skirmish in which the Irish proved that they have refined running away to a proper military virtue. And I'm afraid the effect of this rather petty little victory on Essex won't be good. It's the idea of fighting that he's in love with. He's out of touch with the reality.'
'I still owe you thanks,' said Gresham, 'for the explosives.'
'Why?' said Cameron. 'You knew before I told you that gunpowder is far more effective if the force of the explosion is channelled. After all, that's only what a gun or cannon barrel does.'
'Yes,' said Gresham. 'But I hadn't thought of how to channel it. You gave me the idea of using a helmet, so all the force went upwards into the trunk.'
'Using a troop of horsemen to pull aside the trunk would probably have done it,' said Cameron generously. 'For some reason no one seems to have thought of that in Ireland before.'
Cameron touched his hand to his hat, and rode off. Gresham realised how much the gallop had bruised him, and gingerly started to rub his arms and legs. He took the copy of the play and, using his thumb, eased the musket ball out of the cover, stuffing the damaged book back into his saddlebag. His horse whinnied, jerked its head up and down three times, impatient to be off.
'Hold there, hold,' said Gresham, reaching out to stroke its head.
The rain. It had started to rain, a damp, all-pervasive drizzle that threatened to become a warm downpour. Soon the road would be turned to mud, the men and the carts slipping and sliding, the tents and the woollen clothing damp, nowhere for a man to get dry. Then the illness would come, the coughing, the stomach cramps, the retching sickness, the boils and the carbuncles that seemed to produce two more for each one that agonisingly burst.
'We're far from home,' said Gresham almost to himself, 'in a wild country that doesn't want us. It could be weeks before we're dry again, and soon the men'll start to fall sick, and die. What's the point?'
'The point,' said Mannion, 'is that you decided to bring us on this bleedin' expedition, and as we are on it we might as well make the best of it. So stop moaning and let's get back with the rest of this rabble before the Irish come back and pick us off.'
The walls of Dublin were just visible through the drizzle and low-lying mist.
'Thank Christ 'fer that!' said Mannion with real passion. 'Well, that were fun, weren't it?'
There was no answer from George or Cameron. The latter had attached himself to Gresham an hour ago. They rode with their chins dug into their chests, hats pulled down over their eyes, the rain defeating their eyelashes and driving into their eyes.
'The fun's about to start,' said Gresham.
'What fun?' asked George, suddenly alerted.
'Do you think the Queen's going to be delighted that after over two months campaigning we've got nothing to show for it — no major rebel army defeated and no major rebel stronghold taken? Nearly half our horses are sick or dead, the men are depressed and we've lost over four thousand of them. If Essex has any sense he won't be opening his letters in a hurry.'
But sense never was the commodity in greatest supply for Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. The Queen's letters were vicious. He showed them to his followers, increasingly favouring the younger ones, the hotheads. At times Essex seemed to despise the Queen. At other times he showed a total dependency on her goodwill.
'We are misunderstood and grievously wronged!' the young man shouted. The Dublin tavern was full, the low ceiling smoky from the guttering candles and lamps. There was a roar of approval from round the table. The others — fifteen or twenty or so — were well on their way to becoming seriously drunk. Spoiling for a fight, in fact, except that the enemy lay outside the walls of Dublin, unreachable, vanishing as quickly into the mists of Ireland as the mist itself could vanish at the first brush of sunlight.
The young man himself — thin, wispy-bearded with delicate hands and almost ludicrously long fingers — was the third son of a none too rich country squire from Shropshire. He had sold his annuity to buy his equipment for the campaign, hoping in some ill-thought-out way to gain fame and fortune in Ireland. Now his fine leather belt had rotted through in the damp, his horse had died shivering and he was relegated to little more than the status of foot soldier, too impoverished to buy another horse. He seemed to have found enough money for drink, judging by the state of him.
'We risk our lives for England,' he was saying, 'and those at home mock us for our efforts!' That went down well. There was another roar of agreement and approval. 'How can they understand this God-forsaken country, how even the bravest of men cannot fight with honour here?'
That got the biggest roar of the lot. The bogs, the perpetual rain, an enemy who would never come out to meet you but always melted away, an enemy who would simply burn a castle to the ground rather than stand and fight for it, an enemy who could not be drawn out to fight for any reason…
'We're criticised and condemned by those who stay at home and grow fat! And the Queen's advisers tell lies about us!'
Mannion watched silently from his corner, his tankard for once forgotten.
'They was stokin' themselves up right good and proper,' he reported. 'It's not good. 'E warn't alone, that young fool. There's 'undreds of 'em out there.'
'Well, Essex's answer won't help him with the Queen, or his own people,' said Gresham morosely. 'Decimation, it's called. It's a Roman idea.'
Sir Henry Harrington had been heavily defeated while out on a supposed punitive raid. Essex had court- martialled him, confined him to prison and executed his lieutenant for the crime of wrapping the English colours round his body and fighting until he dropped from exhaustion. Essex had also executed one man in ten of Harrington's force.
'So that's what you gets from a bloody education!' said Mannion morosely. 'Better off without it, in my opinion. We're losing enough men as it is from illness, without needing to help the Irish along and kill 'em ourselves.'
What need was there of a plot by Cecil, thought Gresham? Essex was his own plot against himself. The only time he had appeared to show any real energy or drive recently had been in pursuing revenge on Harrington's miserable troops.
