his thoughts in order.
'It's as if the Queen is taunting Essex as well as punishing him — not killing him, but denying him the contact, the favour and the money he needs. That's her instinct — has been all her life — defer the decision until the last moment, change your mind all the time, never put in the killer blow. It's what she did with Mary of Scots. Yet it's wrong with Essex, as it was wrong with Mary. All you do is provoke rebellion. Cecil must know that, and if Cecil told her either to take Essex back into the fold or get rid of him for good on a treason charge, I think she'd do it. So, logically, we've got to deduce that Cecil's holding back, letting the Queen go her own, sweet and thoroughly misguided way. That means he sees profit for himself in Essex rebelling.'
'But how could he profit?'
'He's always seen Essex as a playboy. He's always underestimated the power and strength of popularity. He's always opposed Essex.'
'Why didn't Cecil 'ave Essex killed in Ireland?'
'Perhaps he tried,' said Gresham. 'Perhaps Essex jumped the gun by running home.'
A sudden thought crossed Gresham's mind, a new and blazing insight.
'What if Essex has made a friend and an ally of James? What if he's won with James?' he asked excitedly. 'What if James really does believe Essex is his man, and that Cecil is a sodomite and a creation of black magic? What if the letter I carried up to Scotland failed to do its job? Perhaps Essex was more persuasive and won James round? My God! Essex can be persuasive right enough, and he can write like an angel when he's in the mood. He knows how to flatter as well — he's had a lifetime of practice with the Queen. If he's actually won with James, that would mean Cecil would have to produce an absolute thunderbolt to dislodge Essex from James's favour. James is a devout believer in the divine right of Kings — that monarchs hold their power from God, not man. If Essex rises up against Elizabeth, he damns himself in James's eyes!
It's about the only thing that would wipe Essex out of James's favour! James will never support someone who rises up against their lawful ruler. If Essex rebels, it proves Cecil right all along. It gifts him power with the King-elect, clears his greatest rival out of the way so he can get on with cosying up to James and securing his accession when the time comes. So perhaps Cecil is provoking a rebellion by Essex because he believes it'll fail and deliver final power to him?'
Mannion interrupted. 'But half the Court and even some of our men, and our two contacts in Spain reckon Cecil's been takin' money from Spain for years, to get the Infanta on the throne.'
'He probably has,' said Gresham, 'but he's bound to smarmy up to all contenders while there's any doubt over the issue. He's like the Queen in that. Keep everyone happy until the last minute. I admit Iwas tempted to see him favouring Spain and the Infanta for a while. She'll be putty in his hands, after all, while James is a tried and tested monarch, and no one's fool. Then I thought again. James would come to England as the King of a terribly poor nation, someone thanking God and anyone who had got him the throne for what he was about to inherit. Far better that than have King Philip of Spain pulling all the strings, and having to keep the Queen in control and her father as well.'
'So you're saying that all this trouble with Essex,' said Jane, her eyes wide, 'is because Cecil thinks he will self-destruct. And if he does, Cecil has rid himself of one of his greatest enemies, and built up his reputation for prudence and for being right with both the Queen and James.'
'Then it must 'ave been that bastard Cecil who tried so 'ard to get you killed, first on the Channel and then by that other bastard Cameron fuckin' Johnstone — beggin' your pardon,' said Mannion with a nod to Jane. 'He knew you were a friend o' Essex, knew you'd probably put 'im off rebellion. Must 'ave bin eatin' nails when you stopped him from bringing an army back from Ireland.'
'I suppose so,' said Gresham, 'but somehow it doesn't seem right. Cecil really wanted me to take that letter to James. And hiring twenty men to kill us before the letter was delivered — it doesn't make sense for Cecil, and it's just not his style to kill someone so… so lavishly. Cecil's a back-of-an-alley man if ever there was one.'
'Well, me, I'm stickin' with Cecil trying to set up Essex and stick you one while 'e's at it,' said Mannion, with the strong sense of a man whose journey had ended.
'I'm sticking with something else,' said Gresham. 'I'm sticking with the fact that whoever's been trying to kill me is doing it because I'm one of the few people who might, just might, talk sense into Essex and stop him from rebelling. So someone wants Essex to rebel. But the style of the murder attempts — they haven't been Cecil's style.'
Jane looked at Gresham, and said in a very small voice. 'I think there's something else you ought to know.'
'What's that?' said Gresham, mildly. His mind was on Essex and Cecil. Was it really that simple?
'Lord Willoughby. George,' said Jane.
'What about him?' Dammit! Why, when things were going so well, did the girl have to bring in one of his oldest friends! Willoughby was off territory for her, off limits.
'I know George — he's said I can call him that — is one of your oldest friends, and I know I've no business commenting on him. And I like him a lot. He was always so nice to me when I first came here, when I was an orphan in this terrifying house and seemed to belong to no one. And when I grew up he never dribbled over me or made a pass at me or thought it was clever to be lewd and suggestive.'
'So?' Gresham's tone was cold.
'So Mannion said women were like witches and had intuition. And George — Lord Willoughby — he's changed so much this past eighteen months, ever since the Essex affair started. Changed when we saw him, and now changed because he won't see you.'
'So?' said Gresham again. 'People change. People have moods.' He had decency enough not to refer to the several hundred changes of personality her adolescence had inflicted on him.
'But down at St Paul's’ said Jane, more nervous by the second, 'they talk of all sorts of things. Not just books. Not books at all most of the time. And they've mentioned all the people you've mentioned — Southampton, Rutland and all the lesser people. And — and — and they've talked of George. Lord Willoughby.'
Gresham gave a caustic laugh.
'George has never been at the centre of any events, now or ever. What are they saying of George at St Paul's? That he watched an ear of wheat turn ripe in the country? That he yawned in his dreadful wife's face?'
'No,' said Jane, raising her eyes to look into his. 'They say he's in the pay of Spain. They say he's working for the downfall of Essex.'
Gresham burst out laughing this time, genuine laughter. 'George! You must be joking! George couldn't conspire to swat a fly. Oh, certainly, he hates Essex, always has. But dear, clumsy old George as a spy! It's simply a joke. St Paul's gossip.'
Jane was holding back tears. 'I'm sorry, truly sorry. I knew you'd hate me for saying this. I've tried so hard not to. But you see, the gossip was that he was in London at times when I was sure if he'd been here he'd have come to see you. Except he hadn't. So I didn't believe the gossip. And then I saw him.'
'You saw him?' asked an incredulous Gresham.
'After I've been to see the booksellers, I like to walk through the cathedral. With Mary, of course, and my escort. You know how many people gather there, people who have nothing to do with religion.'
The fact that the nave of St Paul's was used by every criminal in London had given numerous poets the chance to play upon the difference between 'nave' and 'knave'.
'I saw him — George, that is — talking to a man in a corner. They looked like they were arguing, and then George threw up his hands, like this' — she imitated a gesture of mixed anger and frustration — 'looked round and stalked off, pulling his hat low down over his face. He didn't see me, I'm sure.'
'That proves nothing,' said Gresham. 'Even if it was him he could have been talking to anyone.'
'It was him,' said Jane more firmly. 'And I spent the next two or three days waiting for him to visit, because I couldn't conceive of his being in London and not coming to see you. But there was nothing. No visit. No letter, even.'
'And that,' said Gresham, 'was enough to make you believe that George Willoughby — my oldest and beyond any shadow of doubt my most naive friend — was spying for Spain?'
'No,' said Jane; and there was a terrible finality in her voice. 'Like you, I thought life would be much easier if it hadn't been George, if it was someone else who looked and walked like him. And I think I'd half persuaded myself that I'd been mistaken, that it wasn't really him, until that dreadful night on the boat. The Anna.'
