'Your fifty men won't be there, or so I hope. They'll be spitting nails, careering down into the sea with their mooring ropes cut and fifty of my own men shadowing them. Sheriff Smith'll be there. Briefly. To tell Essex to bugger off. He's been persuaded to change his mind.'
'Well, there's a thing,' said Cameron, and actually flipped a piece of bread in the air, catching it in his mouth as it fell. As he did so the point of his sword sunk further into Gresham's neck producing more warm blood.
Gresham suddenly shouted, 'Well, you're safe now, aren't you? It's only George and me who knew the truth about you and Spain, and George's dead and I'm about to be! Isn't that right?'
'Why are you shouting?' said Cameron, quickly glancing round the empty room. There was no one there, just the tables littered with pots and scraps of food. At least the shock of his shout had made Cameron withdraw the blade an iota, instead of pushing it in even further.
'Because… because…' Gresham was forcing himself to remain conscious. He might as well be aware of the moment when Cameron killed him — it would be the last thing he would ever be aware of. 'Because I'm delirious and concussed from where you hit me, and because where there should be one of you there are three or even four sometimes, none of them any more attractive than the others… my, you have put on weight,' he added inconsequentially, 'shouldn't eat so much bread.'
'Oh, very funny,' said Cameron. He pushed the blade back in a bit, for good measure. 'But I don't want you to die just yet. Very soon, but not just yet. You see, you've caused me more problems than anyone eke I've met. If only Essex had turned left and gone to the Court. I tried to persuade him. If only.'
'So you had other men at Whitehall?' asked Gresham.
'And only at Whitehall, as it happens,' said Cameron. 'None at Nonsuch, or Greenwich or Hampton. Only at Whitehall. Three of them. It might have been enough. But Essex wouldn't listen. He thinks you are the cleverest man in England. Was convinced that the cleverest man in England would never give him the right advice, was too loyal to the Queen to do so. You double bluffed him, didn't you?'
'Yes,' said Gresham. There was not much more to say. Elizabeth would never know he had saved her throne, kept his word. In doing so, he had ensured Essex's death. The rebellion would fizzle out without the men Essex was expecting, and by the time he reached Whitehall there would be half an army round it. Was it a fair exchange? Essex for Elizabeth?
It is better for England, he kept saying to himself. Not that England would ever know, or care.
'Well,' said Cameron, 'you may have double bluffed him, but you won't do it to me. There are two more people who know about me, aren't there?' He tweaked the blade a little, to emphasise the point. 'There's that woman of yours. The lovely Jane. I'll have her raped before I kill her. Might even do it myself. Several times. The rape, I mean, as well as the killing. So she knows what she's done by believing in a shit like you.'
The agonising pain in Gresham's head and the different pain in his neck began to spread to the rest of his body.
'And then there's that hulk of a man you call your servant, and who's actually your master. Mannion. We need something special for him. I wonder… perhaps if I castrate him and cut out his tongue, but let him live?'
'He might surprise you,' said Gresham suddenly.
'You've surprised me,' said Cameron, withdrawing his sword and looking carefully at its bloodied point, 'but not for much longer. And I don't propose to let anyone else surprise me.'
It is a strange sight seeing half a man's head mashed to pulp by a lead pistol ball that enters from the rear and blows out the front of the face. The half of the head that is still recognisable carries the expression formed by the last order the brain was capable of sending it. So as Cameron Johnstone died, the left-hand side of his face retained the look of snarling superiority. His body stood upright for a ludicrous second, and then toppled forward.
Mannion stood by the table from under which he had emerged, a smoking pistol in his hand.
'I don't propose to let anyone else surprise me!' he said, and spat on what was left of Cameron's head. 'Castrate me, would you, you bugger!'
'I shouted when I saw the latch lift up!' said Gresham desperately.
'I know,' said Mannion, cradling him as George had done. 'I tried to keep him talking as you crept up under the table,' said Gresham.
'I know,' said Mannion.
'And he killed George. George saved my life earlier,' said Gresham gabbling. 'Do you think there's any chance he's alive?'
'I didn't know that about George,' said Mannion with infinite compassion. 'And I'm afraid he really is dead.'
'Oh God,' said Gresham, and fainted.
Chapter 14
25 February, 1601 London
Gresham and Jane were sitting in the Library. Few households ate breakfast as a formal meal, preferring to grab a crust or a handful of leftovers from supper. Dr Stephen Perse at Cambridge had advised Gresham always to start the day well with food. Gresham's weakness from campaigning days was cremated bacon, burnt to a crisp on an open fire. This morning he had to force the food down his throat. Jane joined him at breakfast if he asked, but never ate.
'Why won't you take breakfast with me? I mean actually eat with me?' he had asked idly one morning.
'Because that is what a wife would do,' she had answered simply. Most men dreaded their mistress demanding marriage. Jane must be the first mistress to have turned the offer down.
The rebellion had fizzled out, of course. Essex had left it too late. If he and his men had been by St Paul's Cross at eight in the morning, in time for the first sermon, they might have started a tidal wave that would have swept through London.
As it was, they marched to the east, turned right, through streets that were increasingly empty. Sheriff Smith, whom Essex had never met, always relying on others, denied any promise of support and had fled through his back door. The City authorities drew a chain over Ludgate where Essex had entered, meaning he would have to fight to get back even to his own house. He lingered in Fenchurch Street, in the house of Sheriff Smith, stealing the supplies the Sheriff kept in his kitchen. Roused to action at last, he fought a minor skirmish at Ludgate, was beaten back and finally made it to the river. In the end Essex retreated to his house, the most dynamic thing he did all day being to ask for a clean shirt, because his own was soaked in sweat. When the Privy Council brought up cannon to demolish the house, they surrendered: Essex, Southampton and the rest.
'Do you wish you had gone to the trial?' asked Jane.
'And rub his face in the fact that I helped destroy his rebellion — a man I'd once claimed as a friend? No. And the trial was a farce, as all such trials are. A show trial.'
In response to a heated accusation from Essex, Robert Cecil admitted that he had said to Sir William Knollys that the Spanish Infanta had a claim to the throne, but in such a context as to make the statement meaningless. Both he and Knollys denied they had fixed up their story beforehand. It had destroyed any case Essex might have had, condemned him.
'But they let Southampton off,' said Jane, 'merely locked him up in the Tower.'
They said it was because of his youth and inexperience. Yet this was a man who had drunk a murdered child's blood. Gresham had talked of Essex's confession to no one. Essex had never said who the men in white with hoods were or where they came from. Were those men so powerful as to be able to protect Southampton, even if they could do nothing for Essex? Was English society corrupted to its core with Devil-worshippers? Or did the Devil really exist, and look after at least some of his own?
'Are you going to… the Tower?' asked Jane hesitantly.
'How can I deny a summons to attend the execution from the Queen? I've no option.'
'Why has she asked you?' Jane looked worried.
'They're executing him inside the Tower in case there's a riot. They've made no public announcement.' The order for Gresham to attend had come late the night before, the most strict secrecy enjoined on him. A final test of
