No!
He had been out-thought by his old enemy, and such a threat would be simple vainglory. He could have killed Cecil tonight and got away with it. He knew it and Cecil knew it. That was the important thing: Cecil knew it. The advantage Cecil had over Gresham had been ripped away from him for a moment, a moment that Cecil had not planned for. That was enough. The seed had been sown: the idea that Gresham could never be entirely controlled. No harm in leaving a seed of doubt, though. As for Gresham, those who struggled frantically in the net caught it even more firmly around them. The man who got out was the man who took his time, found his knife and ever so gently made his escape.
And Essex? Gresham had always refused to be drawn into Essex's political ambition. Affording Cecil a right of reply would not kill Essex.
'My best regards to your dear children,' said Gresham. 'I'm delighted you've two friends at least.'
No more. No less. It was enough. Was there a brief flicker of alarm in Cecil's eyes?
Gresham moved forward. How satisfying to note Cecil drawing back, as if in fear. Gresham drew out his handkerchief, a fashion' able linen flag so vast as to substitute for a tent on campaign. Carefully, he wiped Cecil's vomit from the table, and threw the cloth into the fire, where it sizzled and spat before turning to black ash.
'Send me your instructions,' said Gresham. 'You're right, of course. I'll do what I can to avoid hurting my friends, not least of all because of what happened to another young man who claimed that dubious privilege of me. But pray I survive your mission. I'm also quite good at laying traps.'
And with that, he left.
Chapter 2
First Week of June, 1598 London
It was the simplest question of all, and for months it had been sounding like a death knell inside Henry Gresham's head.
Why create this wondrous piece of work, this extraordinary triumph of a creature called man, and bless it with sensitivity, creativity and imagination? Why go to all this trouble, and then allow that sensitivity to be corrupted and turn into a beast who could enjoy the screams of the man on the rack? Why plant creativity when all too often it soured into the creativity of murkier, ambition and politics? Why bless man with imagination and the capacity to learn so much when, in a few brief years, it all ended up as rotting matter — the flesh of the dead pig as indistinguishable on the spoil heap as the flesh of sensitive, creative and imaginative man?
Many less fortunate than Gresham might have commented, had they been privy to his thoughts, that to be one of the richest men in the kingdom, to be still young and handsome and to be acknowledged as one of the best swordsmen in the country, was not a bad position from which to be unhappy. Yet even that, the reprimand Gresham was honest enough to administer to himself, was having less and less effect on the black melancholia of his mood.
Cecil's summons had lifted his mood, but the sudden realisation that, through his own stupidity, he was now fighting for other lives than his own had plunged him even further down a black pit of depression. A strange melancholy, a sapping misery that rose like a fog over a fenland field, drained away all happiness, light and — colour. He fought it, as he had fought any threat to his survival all his life. Yet each day the grey mist advanced a little further into his soul, like a tide that would not be held back. And what would happen when it reached the core of his soul?
It was early morning in the Library of The House, the great mansion in the Strand erected by Sir Thomas Gresham and largely neglected by his bastard son. The day looked to be set fair, a brisk wind whipping up the Thames, but only the occasional, scudding white cloud marking the deep blue of the sky. Outside, most of London seemed to be thronging the street, wasps around the jam pot of the rich houses lying conveniently between the City and Whitehall, all with easy access to the river. With the return of the warm weather, the flies had returned. There seemed to be a plague of them this year, and their angry buzzing filled the houses of the great noblemen and the hovels of lesser men with impartial infestation.
There were worse places to be unhappy in. The early morning sun streamed in through the latticed windows, which stretched almost from floor to ceiling, giving a sweeping view out across the Thames. The blustery wind creamed the occasional white blur on top of the wrinkled surface of the water. Any boat that had one was under sail, the wind ideal for pushing up against the tide. Blue sky, blue water and white sails. It was so pretty. Yet the blue water held the filth of the thousands who crowded London, the seething mass of humanity that filled its streets with noise, discord and the rank sweat of assembled humanity. If God had not decided to make the River Thames tidal, sweeping the filth out to sea every day, London would have died of its own stench in a week.
That bloody girl, Jane, had got her claws into the Library, though God knew what business it was of hers, thought Gresham. Or when she found the time, given the amount of that precious commodity she spent in self- imposed exile locked in her room. She had spent the past two days there, the result of some perceived insult from her guardian. He was damned if he could remember what it had been. The Library held one of the largest collections of books in London, and the girl's interfering meant that some half of the books were now free from their coating of dust. Well, at least it kept her out of his way.
Mannion stood by the door, his huge bulk silent, watchful. Gresham was toying with a paper Jane had handed him, in silence for once. She had found it in a book she had been cleaning. It was a half-written letter from Sir Thomas Gresham to a business acquaintance, a Jew working from Paris. It was meaningless in itself, a business communication that presumably had put even more money into Thomas Gresham's vast pockets. Gresham was surprised at the shock he felt on seeing the handwriting after so many years, as cold and crabbed as the writer.
Father. What a strange, evocative word. A word with so many different meanings.
A great clattering in the courtyard and a great noise announced the arrival of Gresham's closest friend, and a promise that the edge of his loneliness at least might be dulled. George Willoughby — now Lord George Willoughby since the death of his father — had been out of sorts himself recently, worn down by the cares of the badly run estate his father had left him, but he was still a welcome diversion. Or had been, until Cecil had made it clear that George's friendship with Gresham might leave him surveying his own guts on a scaffold. There was always a great noise, wherever George went, and things to be bumped into. George never saw doors, and walked into them before opening them. The Library door decided to resist him — it was of stout English oak and had been there far longer than George — with the result that there was much bashing at handles and bad language before it swung open.
'Bloody door!' said George. 'Surprised a man of your wealth can't have a decent handle fitted!'
In more cheerful and youthful days this would have been said with a booming laugh. Now it was said with a rather morose glum-ness, perhaps even a tinge of jealousy. George's pride had refused Gresham's offers of money, however tactfully they had been presented. Still, there was enough good cheer left in the man for him to smile at Gresham. 'How very good to see you!'
George was married to Alice; this had been a condition set by George's father for his inheriting the estate. She was the daughter of his father's favourite hunting companion and had supplied him rather joylessly with two children, conceived on a thoroughly businesslike basis. His increasingly frequent visits to London from his vast inherited estate and its debts were an escape for him. Like so many people, he was drawn to the Court in the hope of picking up some crumbs of patronage. Unfortunately, his scrabbling for patronage left him less and less time to see Gresham.
The two men embraced fondly, the one tall, muscled and lithe, the other bulky and running now ever so slightly to fat, one eyebrow pulled permanently down in a droop. George's craggy face had been marked by the smallpox, and his nose looked as if a fat priest had knelt on it at his christening. It had not rained for a week in the country, and every movement that George made seemed to prompt a fine spurt of dust from his clothes. His boots were grey, as if he had just walked through the cold ashes of a fire. George turned to Mannion.
'He won't tell you to fetch the wine. I will. And an extra flagon for you. He won't order that, either.'
Mannion, who was standing at the back of the room, grinned. George was drinking too much, Gresham reflected, on the increasingly infrequent times he visited him.
