Since his success at the Pass of Cashel, Gresham had been dropped from Essex's Council. Was it from envy of Gresham's heroic action? More likely it was the perilous loneliness of his relationship with Essex, all his other advisers seeming to see Gresham as the anti-Christ. There had been one attempt on Gresham's life already. If he was right, one was prepared for Essex. But when? And was another attempt on Gresham's life overdue? The animosity shown towards him by Essex's inner circle was palpable, almost a physical presence.
He and Mannion had found a decent room in the castle, high enough to be above the stench of the place on all but the hottest days, days which came rarely in Ireland. They were sharing a flagon early one evening, with Gresham worrying that he was falling into George's trap. Letters had come from home and plunged George into melancholia. He had refused all offers of consolation, refused even to divulge their contents, and had retreated off on his own. Again. If George had meant to come on this campaign as a friend something had clearly changed his mind. Now he spent most of the time on his own, consumed by his own devils. Nothing Gresham could say or do seemed to snap him out of it. It was unlike George, and Gresham felt intense worry for the man whose unfailing good cheer had been one of the mainstays of his life.
Even though it was not yet dark and only August, they had lit a fire, paying a King's ransom for coal rather than the smoky, heat-free lumps of peat that the Irish favoured. At least the peat smoke did not sting the eyes, which was more than could be said for the rough coal they had acquired.
'I think I made a mistake coming over here’ Gresham said finally. It was dark enough now for the flames of the fire to dance lightly on the walls and reflect in his eyes: in their centre, not like the crimson ring he had seen twice in Essex's eyes.
'Pity you didn't realise that months ago,' said Mannion.
'I came to protect Essex. Or maybe just to stand in Cecil's way. And to draw out my enemies. But I'm not helping Essex, and no clearer about who wants me dead.'
The two men identified by Mannion as Gresham's would-be assassins had deserted that same evening.
Gresham was impatient to get home. At the back of his mind was the fear that Cecil had engineered his presence on this trip to get him out of the country, so the next assassination plot against the Queen could succeed. Was Gresham overestimating his own power? Yet he knew he was the only force Cecil really feared, and the only agency in the Court that might, conceivably, pick up wind of such a plot before it happened.
England was like a vast pot, simmering with its rivalries and its tensions hidden under a calm surface. Now the occasional bubble was breaking that surface, the fire stoked up. Any moment now that pot would boil over.
Robert Cecil was in audience with the Queen. At his request, in an almost unheard-of concession, he had asked for Sir Walter Raleigh to be present, as well as Lord Mountjoy, Thomas Howard and the Earl of Nottingham. It was a rare combination. It was a Council of War, that much was clear, Elizabeth thought as her eyes flicked round the chamber. She was dressed outrageously again, the off-white material so hung with pearls and jewels as to distort its shape, its length too short, its sleeves somehow too cramped.
'The information is valid, Your Majesty,' Cecil was saying. 'Indeed, the Spanish force may already have set off. We must mobilise our troops and our ships now.'
It was always dangerous to tell the Queen what she must and must not do. Equally, if he had not done so, it would have belied the apparent urgency of the situation.
‘Is this force heading for England or for Ireland?' asked the Queen testily, as if its sending had been on the orders of Cecil and not the new Spanish King.
It was Nottingham who answered. He and Cecil had rehearsed this carefully.
'We cannot know,' said the Earl.*We believe in all likelihood the Spanish force is for England. We have sent many, many troops over to Ireland, and our most acclaimed general. It is possible that the Spanish are convinced that with our eyes set to the west we are vulnerable, as well as stripped of men.'
'And I have been persuaded to send two thousand more into this bog!' The Queen looked accusingly at her advisers, who dropped their eyes. In response to her angry and accusing letters, Essex had replied with a mixture of self-pity, self-justification and high drama. He had also included a few facts, such as that he had fewer than six thousand fit men left to him for the attack on Tyrone in the north that the Queen was pressing on him so urgently. The two thousand reinforcements she had finally agreed to send had had to be virtually dragged out of her with red-hot tongs. 'I am paying my Lord of Essex a thousand pound a day to go on progress!'
Queens went on progress. Elizabeth did not need to add 'royal' to the word 'progress' for her meaning to be clear. It was the opportunity Cecil had waited for.
'Your Majesty, I am sure the Earl of Essex will use the men you have sent wisely, and will launch the offensive we are all anticipating. Yet…'
'Yet what?' snapped the Queen. 'Out with it, man.'
'Yet in your next-message to him, it might be wise to insert an instruction that he should not return to England before Tyrone is subdued.'
Cecil did not add 'not return to England with the army with which you have equipped him', but all present heard the words even if they were not spoken. News of the dissent and anger in
Essex's force had reached home from the thousand and one spies in its midst. Like two contrary tides meeting in the middle of a great open channel, the anger and disillusion in Ireland met the anger and disillusion of those in England.
'So be it,' said the Queen, her eyes fixed unmoving on Cecil. He did not lower his gaze.
Excellent, he thought. Let the Earl of Essex mull over that message. Let him add it to the news that Cecil had been awarded the Mastership of Wards, the highly profitable post that his father Lord Burghley had held and which had built half Burghley house, the post which Essex coveted above all others. Let him realise who was master now in England.
'You're in favour again,' said Mannion. 'Summoned to a Council of War. 'Cept it's been goin' on for two hours already, so you probably missed the best bits. Messenger grabbed me outside. Get a move on.'
Gresham hurried off to the Council Room. Why this sudden summons?
Essex had been ill for weeks since his return from the fruitless but mercifully brief expedition to the west. It was an old and familiar pattern in the face of adversity: long, sudden bouts of supposed illness typified by deep melancholy and soul-searching, the need to be alone, the self-pitying wallowing that so annoyed Elizabeth. Perhaps as a child and a much-needed heir, illness had been a bartering tool, a way of reminding people of his true importance. Perhaps it had simply been a way of getting attention. All it achieved now was impatience on the part of those who followed him, and derision from those who did not. Yet in a strange way it seemed to add to his lustre with the common people, those who did not know him. A string of well-wishers, many of them of humble origins, had flocked to his door, some with pathetic gifts of fruit and food. Gresham had gained permission from the Master-at-Arms to have one of his own men guard all such gifts, and had even found a team of peasant labourers to act as tasters. How easy it would have been for Tyrone to slip poison into such gifts.
Essex was thinner than when Gresham had last seen him, slightly bent in his gait, and for the first time Gresham saw the hint of wrinkles beneath a man's eyes that predict the coming of age. How would Essex fare without his beauty if it ever left him? wondered Gresham. Very badly, he suspected. The knowledge of his physical attractiveness was a central building block, almost a cornerstone, of the man's whole personality.
It took only three or four seconds after he entered the room for every alarm bell in Gresham's head to start ringing. The expression in Essex's eyes, flashed a warning to him. Whatever had just been going on in this room, Essex had been opposed to it. His face had the mule-like expression Gresham had come to realise Essex wore when he was thwarted in his wishes or denied.
This was not a Council of War. It was a trial. And Gresham was the accused. It was there in the glares of those in the room, virtually all Essex's top commanders and allies, and in the smirk of Southampton, the gleam in the eyes of Gelli Meyrick. It was there in the fact that the conclave was being held in the main hall of the castle, a room big enough to dwarf the twenty or thirty people in it. Why hold the meeting here unless it was intended to summon many more to receive one of Essex's grandiose pronouncements? The outcome of a trial, perhaps?
'Sir Henry!' Essex jumped straight in. 'We receive news from London almost daily that our efforts here are derided and dismissed, that we are held in scorn, that our honour and our reputation are besmirched.'
Of course they were. Essex's young entourage in particular would be receiving letters from their friends back at Court all the time, would hear of the Queen's displeasure, of the promotion of Cecil. Gresham stayed silent.
'Many here among my Council believe you are a spy for the Queen, or for Robert Cecil or for Sir Walter
