Raleigh. Many here believe that it is your words that poison the Queen against me in my absence. They wish to call you to account. Is it your letters that tell the Court I and this army, its officers and its men are incompetent and cowardly?'
So that was it! Essex had managed to make it clear that the simmering frustration in the camp had finally boiled over. Essex's officers wanted a human sacrifice. What better than a man rumoured to be a spy, someone who seemed to have taken over, in small part at least, some of the favour of Essex?
'Because if it is so,' said Sir Christopher Blount, Essex's stepfather, 'then you are the traitor, not my Lord of Essex, and it is you who should suffer a traitor's death.' Blount could well have had the 'o' missed out of his surname when he was born. If Blount was gunning for Gresham, he really was in trouble. Scapegoat. That was what he was being set up as: a scapegoat for the disapproval the expedition was getting in London. Not just a scapegoat: a sacrificial lamb. The credit that would accrue to Essex if he executed one of Cecil's spies could be vast, particularly among his own army and its collection of hotheaded young officers. Yet Essex looked as if he was doing his best for Gresham. Given Essex's capacity to go for lost causes, perhaps he should worry about that more than anything else.
They had executed a brave Irish officer who had wrapped the English colours around his body and fled the battlefield only when all seemed lost, inviting any Irish who caught him to rip his guts out before killing him, so he could watch his own blood stain those same colours. Gresham's money was no use to him here in Ireland. Essex had the powers of a King. Essex's wild young men wanted a sacrifice. The more he thought about it in the split second he was allowed thought, the more Gresham realised what a perfect sacrifice he would make. It would assuage the army's need for blood, and it would also send a clear message back to England that Cecil's men were as vulnerable as any other. It was known that Gresham had some form of special relationship with the Queen, dating from the days of the Armada when she had knighted him, and never properly explained why. His death would show that Essex was powerful enough to execute even one of the Queen's creatures. And no one loved a spy.
I'm dead, thought Gresham, unless I can think of something very fast indeed.
He placed his hand on his sword hilt and drew its glittering length in one, easy movement. Thirty men recoiled, thirty hands went to their own swords, and with a strange rasping noise like a crocodile taking its last breath, thirty swords came out of their scabbards.
'I had this sword by my side,' said Gresham conversationally, 'when you, my Lord Essex, asked my men and myself to go on a suicide mission into the Pass of Cashel. I did not need to use it, but I did ride at the vanguard of my men, and I showed what man I am by my actions in that skirmish. I picked this musket ball out of my saddlebag, after the action. The one that caused this dam in my coat I could not keep, as it passed an inch behind my spine.'
Thank God he was wearing that same coat. He reached into a pocket with his other hand, found the musket ball he had kept with him since that day and tossed it onto the rush-strewn floor in front of Essex. It bounced once, and lay still.
He had their attention now. But how often and how quickly had he seen the audience turn against the actor holding the centre of the stage?
'At the Pass of Plumes' — some of the audience could not resist the slightest of titters — 'I hope I showed my loyalty, as I hope I have shown it at other times in this campaign.'
He did not need to mention the capture of Cahir Castle, after Cashel the only significant victory in the whole campaign. Most of those here knew that it was his plan of action that had led to its capture, and that Gresham had led the charge across the island where the castle lay.
'As for letters, I issue a simple challenge. I have not put pen to paper since my arrival in Ireland, nor instructed others to do so on my behalf. Not a single word of mine has gone back to England, to Robert Cecil or to Her Majesty. You may put that assertion to any test you wish. Ask them, or ask any man who can write in this our army, and if you find any proof that I have written to England these past months, I will deliver you my head on a platter, and save you the trouble of removing it from my body.'
He felt strangely calm now. All he had to lose was his life. As it so often did, that calmness was working on these men who moments earlier had been baying for his blood.
'And I issue a second challenge. Let any man who has proof against me, either of my cowardice or my disloyalty, let him come forward now, and face me as a man. Let God and trial by combat decide the issue.'
And with that, he plucked off his glove and dropped it neatly over the musket ball. It was his only hope. Essex was in love with chivalry, loved the idea of personal combat, of man-to-man challenge. It spoke to his belief in a chivalric code that had only ever existed in the minds of those who wrote romances.
Well, that had been very theatrical. Never mind that Gresham was far from sure he believed in God, and was certain that trial by combat always resulted in the victory of the bigger brute over the smaller one. Or perhaps God simply favoured the bigger brute? Part of Gresham's brain realised that this was actually a very interesting moment.
One of Essex's lickspittle supporters might be just stupid enough to pick up Gresham's glove, in the hope of gaining Essex's favour. Well, it was done now. He looked round the chamber, with a rather vague and philosophical interest. He really, really did not feel like killing anyone today.
No one moved.
Gresham leant forward and offered his sword, hilt-first to Essex in the ancient gesture and, with a reluctance he hoped he was not showing, dropped down on one knee before him.
'My Lord, the decision is yours.'
Well of course it was bloody well his. This idiot who happened to have been born in the right bed at the right time to the right woman had the power of life or death over countless humans, not least of all one Sir Henry Gresham. The fact that it was cruelly unfair had nothing to do with it, and never had. Was God like the Earl of Essex? Very beautiful, and quite terrifyingly random? It might explain a lot.
It was not until many years later that Henry Gresham realised one reason why, against all the odds, he had liked the Earl of Essex so much: it was his capacity to do the unpredictable. It was a talent that Gresham had used to save his life on a number of occasions, but which at times seemed very lacking in other members of his species.
Essex stood up from the mini-throne on which he had been seated, and drew his own sword. He advanced the short distance to Gresham, his sword extended before him.
Oh well, thought Gresham, win some, lose… He had always imagined he would not be able to complete the last word when the moment finally came. Or did the brain continue to work for a brief while after death?
'In England,' said Essex, clearly speaking now for all to know, but with his sword still held dangerously close to Gresham's neck, 'there is a Court based on rumour, falsehood and envy. In that Court, brave men can have their reputations and their honour tarnished by false report.'
Gresham could still hear him, so presumably he was still alive. There was a ripple of approval from the members of Essex's Court.
'Here in Ireland, deserted and misunderstood by our countrymen, we have no Court as such. Yet in this, our temporary Court of Ireland, we recognise courage and bravery more than intrigue and politics!'
He had struck a chord there, no doubt.
'Test your word? Prove your word? Henry Gresham,' Essex paused for effect, 'you proved your courage at Cashel and at Cahir.'
Then the stupid man flung his own sword on top of Gresham's. Gresham could not but help notice that both blades now pointed towards the Earl of Essex. He hoped no seers were watching.
'I will throw in my sword with that of a brave man, and believe the word of a fighting man before that of a flatterer, a sycophant or a courtier.'
Oh God! thought Gresham. Now I have to rise to my feet, clasp him in my arms and hail him as a brother. As I would willingly clasp a nettle, or a snake. And the others will roar, clap their hands, respond to this wonderful piece of theatre, without realising that I, Henry Gresham, rewrote the script while on the hoof, and changed its ending, so that I lived instead of hanging from a scaffold. And the only other person who knew what a farce, what a vast joke it all was, Gresham was holding in his arms now!
The onlookers were roaring, clapping their hands. It was better than a play. Southampton, Blount and Meyrick were looking like spoilt children denied a treat.
As Essex clasped him like a long lost brother, he whispered two words into Gresham's ear. Finally he
