The rebel heart hg-4

by Martin Stephen

  How could one decision so change a life? It was as if the vast, open plain that he had strode so confidently was narrowing down to a dark tunnel that led only to one destination. Could the Devil speak true?

  'I thought you was meant to be in charge of things?' asked an incredulous Mannion.

  They were on the river, and eight men in the Gresham livery of purple and silver were rowing lustily, enjoying the sunlight and the exercise, and the fact that their boat was the smartest on the Thames, their master a dashing figure and their livery the best on the river that day. And not one of them was thinking that if their master was proved a traitor, they might well hang. The life of a servant was inextricably bound up with that of his or her master.

  ‘I am. Meant to be, that is,' said Gresham.

  'This ain't no joke, this really ain't. This is one o' your specials, this is, like the time you comes 'ome calm as a cucumber and tells me we're going off to join the Spanish Fuckin’ Armada.'

  'I understand in academic circles it's known as the Spanish Armada. Which it isn't, of course. Not the Spanish Armada. If you remember, they sent another one a year ago.' It had been blown away by gales in the Bay of Biscay.

  'Well, I know it as the Spanish Fuckin' Armada. And I was fuckin' on it, which is more than your fuckin' academics ever were. And we were bloody lucky to get away wi' that little jaunt, and luck don't come twice — I bin thinkin'.'

  'Don't,' said Gresham. 'Stick to what you know best — headaches from alcohol.'

  Mannion swatted the sally aside. 'If we goes off to Scotland with a little love letter from Cecil to James, we might as well hang a bloody notice round our neck saying "TRAITOR! CUT ME BALLS OFF!" Secret mission or public, we're still on a hidin' to nothing'. There must be a way out of this.'

  'You don't seem bothered I'm betraying Essex,' said Gresham.

  'I'm as bothered as 'e would be about betraying us — and the answer is, 'e wouldn't give a sod. You 'as your fun with these toffs, but you never trust 'em.'

  They were heading to a play commanded by the Queen, at Greenwich. It would be a comedy, Gresham knew. Her Royal Rotten Teeth would not contemplate a history or a tragedy, which would inevitably mention death. And probably a bad, anodyne and totally silly comedy, as that was the way the tastes of the old lady seemed now to be set.

  The boat bit into a wave, and the oarsmen rocked back slightly in their seats.

  'Cecil's set us up,' Gresham said bluntly. Better the truth. Better to let those who loved him see how stupid their love and loyalty were. 'You, me and Willoughby. We're over a barrel. I'm sorry. It's my fault for not seeing it coming.'

  Gresham looked at Mannion who, to his surprise, grinned at him.

  'Maybe. But I bet.'e ain't seen what you'll chuck back. You'll think o' something.'

  Everything humanity didn't want went into the Thames, and it was unusual for Gresham to think of it as pure. Yet in comparison with the politics of Queen Elizabeth's Court, it seemed pure beyond belief.

  'Still, I don't like it,' Mannion rumbled on. 'If ever you thinks you understands something Cecil's doing, it's the sign you've got it wrong. It's never simple, with that bastard. You missing a trick, are you?'

  'Almost certainly,' said Gresham, 'but that's part of the game, isn't it?'

  They were within sight of Greenwich now, its flags flapping in the brisk wind. It had always been one of the better Palaces. It held a special place in Gresham's memory. He had not lost his virginity there. That had gone a lot earlier, in a back alley near St Paul's. Instead he had lost something rather more important: his heart, making love to a girl who, for a brief moment, he had fooled himself into thinking he had fallen in love with. Now, in his dotage, he knew he had only ever been in love with one girl. And she had been a Spaniard who had chosen to reject him and marry a Frenchman. Still was happily married to the Frenchman, as it happened, with five children, three of them boys. He paid someone to report to him on her, though he knew he would never see her again. Did Anna ever think about him? He doubted it, yet she had chosen to give him her virginity when she had already decided to marry her Frenchman.

  Gresham's mind was churning, and with more than the memory of puppy-fat romances. Mannion was right, of course. Cecil's plans were never simple. His only weakness was that the more complex his machinations, the more he believed that no others could penetrate their complexity. Cecil's Achilles heel was his deep-seated belief, sometimes hidden even from himself, that he was the cleverest man alive.

  'Ever watched a fish in a net?' asked Mannion innocently. The river was passing them by at a satisfying speed. Mannion had once been a galley slave. He said it meant that watching other people row was one of his greatest pleasures.

  'What?' said Gresham, his train of thought interrupted.

  'Thrashes around, don't it?' said Mannion. 'Gets itself tangled more and more. Well, us, we're in that right bastard's net. We thrash around, we'll lose it. Clever thing is to stay calm. There ain't a net made that hasn't got a weak bit in it. We got to wait, that's all. Stay calm. Find the weak bit. And swim out through it.'

  'Thank you,' said Gresham, his voice laced with irony. 'Exactly what I was thinking.'

  As it had been, actually. As he so often did, Mannion had put into simple terms what Gresham worked out by a more tortuous and self-denigrating route. Gresham was in Cecil's net, and moaning about it would help him and his friends no more than it would help the fish. And, unlike the fish, they would need to think them-, selves out of this net.

  There was always a way out! There always was!

  The oarsmen were happy because they were well paid, well fed and well clothed. There was no comparison between being a boatman for Sir Henry Gresham and the back-breaking tedium of a peasant's life. No labourer who bent over to pluck a weed received a cheer from passers-by, as Gresham's oarsmen had just received a cheer for their fine appearance from an Alderman and his whole family. But perhaps the eight lusty men who rowed Henry Gresham's boat and the Alderman with his fat wife and two fat children rowed by two sweating journeymen, shared one thing. They were going to the play. The sense of excitement was uncontrollable, one reason why the authorities frowned on the theatre so much. They claimed that the theatres were breeding grounds for the Plague, but it was the plague of ideas spawned by the players, their living pictures of Kings overthrown and rebellion unleashed, that they were most scared of.

  As if marking it as a forbidden pleasure, the playhouses were largely outside the boundaries of the old city, one wall of which was the River Thames. Situated on the south bank, beyond the control of the City Fathers, they stood side by side with the string of brothels that everyone knew were owned by the Bishop of London. Visiting a play held at one of the royal Palaces was a different kind of excitement, though Gresham often thought that the only difference between sex from a whore and sex from a lady-in-waiting was that the whore told you how much it would cost beforehand.

  'Funny thing, isn't it?' said Mannion, who liked nothing better than a good play, preferably with a horrible murder in the opening scene. He was reading Gresham's mind again. 'The bloody authorities'll close a theatre down at the drop of a sneeze, yet if 'er 'Ighness invites any one of 'em to a show they'll be there in their finery quicker than an 'are in March.'

  He glanced back to where the Alderman's boat was bobbing in the swell, falling rapidly behind. His fat wife was starting to complain that she had known all along it was too rough to go by boat.

  Judicious use of Gresham's money had secured them an empty slot on the jetty that fed the Palace, by the simple practice of parking a wherry there four or five hours earlier. As the wherrymen caught sight of the Gresham livery they backed neatly out, the larger of the two men grinning at Gresham and doffing his cap.

  Gresham's men started to edge the boat into the vacant space; the jetty overflowing with boats and people, the boatmen concerned about their fine paint, the men and women far more concerned about their fine velvets, silk and satins. Amid the chao
s, a ragged-arsed little boy stood gawping at all the fine folk, thumb in his mouth, one of the human flotsam and jetsam of the river. Half an hour either side of this particular rush hour and a guard would have moved him on, but now no one had time or energy.

  There was a shout from behind them, and Gresham and Mannion turned instantly. A huge boat, eight oars a side and more like a royal barge than a private vessel, was charging full ahead into the space reserved for Gresham, seemingly oblivious to the smaller boat that was already halfway to the spot. At its stern and on its mast flew the proud pennant of the Earl of Essex, the rowers dressed in the tangerine-coloured livery that the family favoured. The Earl himself sat languidly on a throne at the stern, talking to a man whose appearance would have made a peacock feel underdressed, oblivious to the chaos his men were about to cause.

  'CLEAR THE WAY THERE! CLEAR THE WAY FOR THE EARL OF ESSEX!'

  The man at the front of Essex's battleship was yelling at the top of his voice, and smaller boats were scurrying out of his way like ants, Essex's oarsmen not letting up as they raced to the jetty; if anything seeming to row even harder. It was a neat trick, if you could do it, to row for home as if chased by the Devil and then dig the oars in hard at the last moment and halt the boat before it splintered itself and the landing stage. Whether this lot were good enough to do it remained to be seen.

  There was an outward civilisation in Elizabeth's England, but it ran only skin deep. The place at the jetty was clearly Gresham's. Essex was equally clearly trying to take it. Duals were fought for less. Honour was at stake, and reputation. Essex chose that moment to look up, casually, as if by accident, and his eyes locked on to Gresham's. He smiled, and waved a hand. It was a clear challenge.

  He is enjoying this, thought Gresham. He has no need to fight for this poxy little mooring, except that it is a battle of wills and more exciting than the river on a normal day.

  Gresham's men had not yet shipped their oars. There was time enough, just, for them to dip the blades into the muddy water and reverse out of the path of the Goliath heading at speed towards them. Most men would have done just that, if only to save their skins. Few who used the river, and even fewer sailors could swim. But Gresham's men were different. The river was a dangerous place, and they had to do more dangerous things on it following his orders than many liveried servants would have dreamt of.

  Ramming. For all the social niceties of this situation, this was ramming. It was the best way of making a quick kill on the river. Head for the enemy, smash into their side, hole their boat, jump on board, grab whatever you wanted and back off to leave the evidence to sink behind you. Gresham's men were trained for this. He did not need to look at Mannion, or speak to him. It was at times like this that their intuitive understanding paid dividends.

  'Fend off to stern.'

  Gresham spoke in what seemed a quiet voice, but it carried to his men, to whom it was a familiar order, and somehow cut through the babble on the jetty, increased now by the excitement over what seemed to be a major collision.

  The slight signs of uncertainty that had been visible among his men as they looked up in a moment of relaxation and saw a vast vessel bearing down on them at speed vanished, to be replaced by military order. The two men seated at the bow lowered their oars into the water, leaving them motionless for the moment, ready to give the vessel direction one way or the other as was needed. The next pair reached up the mast, where two vast boat hooks, stout timber with iron hooks at the business end, were strapped to the mast, almost equalling its height. Effortlessly they swung down the lengths of timber, so smoothly as to hide the difficulty of the act on a bobbing boat, and passed them forward for the stern pair of men. As if they were puppets, the men rose to their feet just as those behind them sat down to balance the boat, and the boat hooks were suddenly held like levelled pikes. This was the crucial moment. The two men at the stern had to direct the boat hooks, the two men behind them had to grab the end of the timber shafts as the impact threatened and give more strength to the lead man. Yet the seat of a pole has no point on which to fix, if it is to receive a big impact. The two men at the rear reached down into the lockers at their feet, and slipped a strange, leather contraption on their arms with a pouch slung beneath it. Into the pouch went the end of the boat hook.

  'Secured!' the two men yelled in unison. This was what had taken the time in training, endless hours when the boat hook seemed to have a life of its own, when in securing it the rear man had swung it so widely as to knock the front man off the boat. How many hours of men splashing and swearing in the water had they undergone to produce this situation, whereby in seconds a small tree had been unslung from a mast, placed securely in the hands of a strong man ready to guide it and secured from behind by another man waiting to absorb the shock on contact?

  They had the time, just. Momentum, that was the key. For all the fearsome strength and weight of the Earl's boat, like all boats it was surprisingly easy to push aside. Essex's boat was bearing down on them from almost directly astern. To Gresham's left was a motley collection of craft, mostly professionals delivering their human cargo. To his right was a rather splendid, gilded royal boat, too small to be a barge but still very grand. It was no choice.

  'Fend off right,' he ordered, as calmly as before, but his pulse racing as if this was a real battle rather than a stupid battle for honour.

  If it worked, Essex's boat would skitter off down their right-hand side. The bow oarsmen on that side shipped their oars and checked that those of the two stern men, wielding the boat hook, were flush along the side. It was all they had time to do.

  The man was still yelling at the bow of Essex's boat, rather more frantically now. He was used to people getting out of his way, and the significant obstacle in their path had not moved. His eyes opened wide in startlement as the two huge boat hooks swung out and pointed at him.

  'CLEAR…' he shrieked, his voice in danger of going falsetto, before he felt the deck shift under him, lost his footing and, in rather stately fashion, fell into the Thames.

  The boat hooks caught Essex's barge just to one side of the bow. The men took the strain, actually took the one step back that the boat allowed them, and then pushed with all their strength. A sudden snag, the sinews straining and then Essex's ship started to slew round. One more heave, and the job was done.

  Then the men wielding the boat hooks did something they had not been trained for. In a real fight, they would have awaited the order to fend off again, or stowed the boat hooks and gone off after their attacker. In this case, they simply raised the boat hooks to head height, dipping them down again as the rigging swept by. The careering weight of Essex's boat was unstoppable. It drove it through. The heavy boat hooks crashed into the pates of one, two, three and four oarsmen, flattening them in the bottom of the boat, their oars flying, before those behind realised and ducked. As they did so they forgot their oars, which smacked in contact with Gresham's boat and whipped back, smashing the men on the chest or on their hurriedly lowered heads. At one moment a boat hook seemed to be headed straight for the Earl of Essex and the fine bonnet he wore; he glided aside at the last second and the hook passed through empty air. Was he still grinning, Gresham had to ask himself?

  Then, with a massive, grinding and wonderfully expensive crash, Essex's boat drove into the Queen's gilded plaything, smashing its own bow fully halfway into the final quarter of the other boat. Shards of wood like daggers flew through the air. The boat heeled over with the shock, so much so that its mast nearly touched the floor of the jetty, and then half-righted itself, filling with water and still enmeshed with Essex's boat. The rest of Essex's men were flung forward, Essex the only one with the sense to wrap his arms round a stanchion and stay more or less where he was. His popinjay friend was hurled forward, caught himself a nasty blow in the crotch on the guard rail, and catapulted over it into the river.

  What a pity, thought Gresham, grinning now it was all over. That fine velvet, satin and silk would not
survive a ducking. Was it that awful man who acted as secretary to Essex? The unfortunately named Gelli? The vicious Welshman?

  The mast of the Queen's boat had not snapped as it heeled over, but must have cracked on impact. Suddenly, and without warning, there was the sound of tearing timber, and the mast wobbled, then snapped its rigging, tumbling down onto the jetty.

  The boy was still there, his thumb still in his mouth, bemused, even more wide-eyed as the great men and women crashed into each other. He must have seen or sensed the mast headed towards him, but was frozen to the spot. The chunk of timber landed two, maybe three feet to one side of him. One of the planks it hit flew upward under the boy's feet, like a see-saw, catapulting him into the water. He could have hit another boat, knocked his brains out. Instead he flew straight as an arrow into the only clear patch of water left in that area of the Thames, and started to drown.

  Shit! Gresham's world narrowed down to the small figure in the water. Two stupid men doing man things and fighting over their honour and who won a parking place on the river, that was one thing. No real harm done, except some broken heads, some wounded pride and a lot of work for carpenters. Gresham never thought if this whole farrago was worth the life of a worthless child. People do not think in these situations. Either they do, or they step back. Gresham was incapable of stepping back.

  The finery on his back, understated though it was, would have kept a peasant and his family in food for a year. Oh, to hell with it. Life was about more than possessions.

  To the amusement of his men, guffawing now at the ease with which they had bested the Earl of Essex and oblivious to the boy in the water, Gresham mounted the stern and dived cleanly into the water, his hat flying off as he did so and bobbing gently behind him.

  His breath left him as the cold of the water bit through his clothes and into his flesh. The boy was going down for the third time, and sank just before Gresham reached him. Mentally bisecting the angle, Gresham kicked his heels and dived under, hand outstretched, knowing the murk of the Thames would hide the boy from him. His flailing hand grabbed hold of something — cloth? Gresham drove upwards. He drew in a huge gasp of air as he reached the surface, and saw with relief that it was indeed the boy he had grabbed. Flipping himself over on his back, he rested the child, spluttering and struggling feebly as he was, on his chest. He reached the jetty to a rousing cheer from a hundred or so bystanders, shouting partly because they were impressed, but also because they were ashamed that they, who had seen the drowning boy, had not felt inclined to risk themselves in the water. Reaching the scarred and tide-scorched rough wood of the jetty, Gresham heaved the boy onto dry land by sheer brute force. Overcome temporarily by exhaustion, he waited before heaving himself out, a ludicrous, drenched figure in Court dress, and hatless.