The Queen sat back, suddenly looking very tired.
'Take this ring.' She scrabbled in a box by her side, and produced a fabulous but crude emerald set ostentatiously in gold. 'Show it to the men outside this room, and they will let you pass. Had you not had this, my token, you would have left here under their escort for the Tower. And this time you would not have emerged.'
Something approaching despair filled Gresham's heart. He prided himself on being one jump ahead of his pursuers and those who threatened his life. Yet he had been trapped by Cecil, didn't know whether Essex was his ally or his rival and now had damn nearly been executed by the Queen, all in a state of blissful ignorance as to what was happening. To be in control was central to Henry Gresham's life. What was he playing at, letting these people out-manoeuvre him? Had the depression that had beset him these past six months finally corroded its way into his very soul, draining his will to live and dulling his judgement?
'You may present the ring to King James in secret. It is an agreed token between us.'
An agreed token? Why was there an agreed token between the Queen and the man to whom she had just written a foul and abusive letter, warning him off her kingdom and accusing him of gross presumption? 'And you will give him this as well.' It was a thin, sealed package. A letter, obviously. How interesting. It appeared that everyone in England wanted secret packages delivered to King James of Scotland. There was a tidy little business here for the right person.
'Yet you will cling to your initial stratagem, and take the girl along with you. She will be your given reason for making the journey. Your meeting with the Scottish King will be in secret, as will the exchange of the ring and the package. As no doubt will be the exchange of whatever other information you wish to give. Show the ring to the right people and it will gain you a secret audience with the obnoxious little sodomite.'
It was strange how sodomy and black magic kept cropping up together in Gresham's life.
'You will not under any circumstances let others know you are carrying my message. Those who have commissioned you must continue to think they are the sole reason for your visit, and that you cajoled me in my dotage by your charm and good looks into granting you a passport. And you had better bring the girl to me tomorrow, so I can be seen to question her in private. Yet from now on, you are not undertaking this journey on behalf of those who first asked you to make it, whoever they are. A higher authority now commands you. You are doing it as my messenger. A messenger of your Queen.'
Wheels within wheels. Deviousness within deviousness. What better way to cloak a mission from her enemies than by letting them think it was their mission? And now Gresham knew that beneath the public bickering and exchange of letters there was a different relationship between Elizabeth and James. Whatever it was, it was clearly both separate from the public domain and not based on a true meeting of minds. 'Obnoxious little sodomite' she had called him, with no lack of sincerity.
'And understand one thing, Henry Gresham.' He had never known King Henry VIII, but something in his daughter's tone made him understand the fear that man could provoke in others. 'If it becomes known that you have exchanged my ring and that package with the King of Scotland, if word ever leaks out, you will return to England not as one of its richest men, but as a pauper. Every piece of land, every house, every hovel and every asset you own will be stripped from you and fall to my Crown. You will become the penniless bastard you were before your father decided to rescue you.'
There was a third, long silence.
'I have no Bible here,' said the Queen of England. 'No witness, even. Yet I ask you to swear a simple oath, and to stand by that oath as if every Bible in the world was here for you to lay your hand on, and every witness including God. Will you swear to do everything — everything — in your power to preserve my reign for as long as I live? And will you swear to do everything in your power to ensure that when the moment of my death comes, it is through nature and God's will and not the actions of men?'
Gresham thought about this for a few moments.
'I wish you had not, Your Majesty, preceded your request by your threat. As for the threat, I take it as one of the most powerful I've received in my undoubtedly misspent life. I shall deal with it as I've dealt with all such other threats.'
A spark of imminent death flickered in Elizabeth's eyes. Not her death, which her soul could not contemplate. His death. He hurried on.
'As for the swearing… yes. I swear to what you ask. You've brought internal peace to England for forty years. You've fought off our enemies and kept them from invading our shores. I swear to preserve your reign and your life, for so long as you do naturally live.'
He dropped to one knee, and bowed his head. It seemed the right thing to do. The silence which followed was one of the longest in Henry Gresham's memory.
'You may leave my presence,' the Queen said finally, in a tone of impenetrable neutrality.
It seemed somehow inappropriate to thank her. He left her presence.
He was silent as they rode home, having given Mannion the briefest summary of what had taken place. Mannion had sucked on the hollow tooth he claimed had been there all his life but which he had never had seen to, and said nothing.
Scotland was renowned for killing its monarchs, and about as welcoming to its own kind as a steel-quilled porcupine, never mind a spy from the English Court. Things could get very unpleasant in Scotland, thought Gresham. As if the trip did not present problems enough, there was the added complication of the girl. Or two added complications, as it happened — coping with her on the trip, and not least getting her to go in the first place. She was his agreed cover, even more essential now the Queen had validated her as the reason for his going, but short of tying her up and stuffing a gag in her mouth he was damned if he knew how to get her up north, and the last thing he wanted was to have to try to do so with her kicking and screaming. Still, it was not in his nature to postpone a problem. As soon as they rode into the yard of The House and handed the reins of the grey over to a groom, he asked to see her. Asked. It was not as if he had rescued her, paid for the clothes on her back and the food in her belly, was it? No, he had to ask to see her, not command it.
She came in to the Library demurely enough, her eyes downcast, her hands folded neatly in front of her. He could see why she drove men mad. Yet his deliberately casual questioning of others had suggested she still had her virginity. Why had he chosen to meet her in the Library? Of all the rooms in The House, it was the one he most identified her with, except for the uncharted territory of the kitchens and servants' quarters. Yet it was, ironically, the room in which he felt most at home. So be it.
She was late, of course. She always was. She did it to show him who was in charge and to infuriate him. He stood by one of the huge windows overlooking the Thames, determined to remain ice-cold and not let her lateness affect him.
A more astute man would have realised that his summons had put her in a panic. Desperate to appear her best before him, she had thrown out every one of the pathetically few dresses she owned onto her bed, the clucking maid who was with her if anything more nervous and thrown than she was. At least her hair was washed, and the last of the infuriating spots had vanished from her face. What dress? What dress? The dark-green offering was her newest and, verging on the formal, hardly suitable for a young woman whose day would be spent helping to run one of the largest households in London outside of the Palace or Essex House. It would have to do. And she would only anger him more if she was later than she had already made herself!
He prided himself that none of his true feelings showed as she arrived a full ten minutes after what was reasonable. He turned, and nodded formally to her.
She prided herself that none of her true feelings showed as she arrived, desperately wishing she had had time to put at least the tiniest smidgeon of powder to her face and neck.
Well, the stick insect he had picked up as a child from the side of a muddy pond was no stick inse
ct now, thought Gresham. No wonder she turned heads wherever she went. She was a fine crop to be harvested by some suitable young man, and the sooner he arranged it the better: for her and for him. Though God knew how you organised such things. Bess Raleigh would know, must know. In the meantime, he needed her. Please, God, if you are there, just this once, make her do what I want…
He had written a fine speech in his head, but he looked at her and gave up. His conversations with Cecil and with the Queen had contained very real threats of death and ruin, and he sensed danger in his relationship with Essex. And these were threats he had failed to see coming! A sudden wave of tiredness swept over him, like the water closing over the head of a drowning man. He looked at her.
'I need your help.'
It was as simple as that. For a fleeting moment he appeared vulnerable, rather like a brave little boy who had lost his parents and was standing in the market place determined not to show his fright.
'I need you to do something for me which will undoubtedly be uncomfortable and… and which might even be dangerous, perhaps.'
If he failed in his mission for Cecil or for the Queen he would be ruined and Jane cast back onto the streets at best, and at worst hacked to pieces for the edification of the mob. And he had a growing sense of dissolution, of impending terror. Was England about to be plunged into civil war? Would the four horsemen be unleashed on England? Whatever the answer, it lay in the Queen, in King James, in Cecil and in Essex, all of them interwoven into the fabric of this bizarre journey he was required to make.
And then one of the most surprising moments of Henry Gresham's life happened.
'I will do as you ask,' she said, looking him in the eye. Not sulky. Not reluctant. Matter of fact, no argument.
What had gone wrong?
He started to gabble, 'We must travel to Scotland by sea. In my barque, the Anna. Though it's summer, such a voyage always has risks. And… I need you to pretend.'
He was struck by her extraordinary eyes, wholly dark but with tiny flecks of light in them.
'What is it you wish me to pretend, my Lord?' Again, matter of fact. As if this conversation was the most normal thing in her life.
Gresham sighed. 'The real reason for my journey is difficult to explain. No. I'll be more honest with you: it's better that you don't know. If things go wrong, which of course I'm almost sure they won't, it's vital that people think you know nothing. If they think that, they'll leave you alone. If you know nothing about the real reason, it's far easier to give that impression.' He looked at her, and saw her intelligence. 'I'm not trying to patronise you,' he said simply. 'It really is that ignorance is your best defence. But I need an excuse, and the one I have arrived at is to invent some Scottish ancestry for you, make the reason for the trip a search for your real parents. The Queen's agreed to grant us a passport on that basis.' Unconsciously, he let his humour show. 'It's usually a good thing to agree with the Queen.'
He realised as he said it how insulting his suggestion was. Jane must have cared about who her parents were. And now he was proposing to use what was central to her concept of self as a mere cover for other, more important things which at the same time she was not allowed to know. He waited for the explosion.
'I'll find it difficult to summon a Scottish accent.'
He started to formulate an answer, and then realised just in time that she was making a joke. And in making it, saying yes to the whole thing. He allowed himself to grin.
'You and me both,' he said. 'There are certain sacrifices I wouldn't ask anyone to make.' He paused for a moment. 'Oh… there is one other thing. Before granting the passport, the Queen wants to meet you, tomorrow. If she's seen-' At his words Jane's control vanished. She squeaked, and put a hand to her mouth in shock. Well, it was almost like a squeak. It was a noise that clearly she wished she had not started to make, and which she tried to stifle from somewhere around stomach level, where it appeared to begin. It lost a little momentum as it progressed from stomach to breast, from breast to neck, from neck to throat and from throat to mouth, but there was still enough left of it to burst out in what could only be described as… a squeak.
'My Lord!' she said in desperation. 'I have nothing to wear!'
Oh God! How could he have forgotten? Even a man such as he could not fail to recognise that honour, reputation and life itself for a woman depended on the dress she wore to meet the Queen. It was entirely reciprocal. How could he have forgotten that to present a young girl to the Queen in the wrong dress was as if to present her naked?
A sudden calm descended on him. This was a life or death crisis. He was good at those. It was only young girls for whom he was responsible who threw him. This was different. He looked Jane up and down, and a separate part of his brain noted the startled and even rather fearful effect this produced on her. He was undressing her in his mind, right enough, but not for that reason. Not yet, anyway. This was business.
Lady Downing. Sarah. Married at around Jane's age to a semi-senile suitor, she had enjoyed her husband's wealth and compensated for what he could not provide by starting an affair with Gresham, one of his very first acquaintances with a lady-in-waiting. Except that Sarah had been very bad at waiting. Their physical relationship had lapsed when she had married her second husband, but they had stayed good friends. Sarah had married a mere stripling of forty-six after her first husband died, and been plunged into mourning when he too had died of a canker some three years later. They were about the same height* Sarah and Jane, and seemed to push out against their dresses in more or less the same places. Sarah would help. Thank God they had remained the best of friends when the business between the sheets had ended. As for seamstress, alterations, ribbons and… and things girls cared about, it was still daylight, and money talked.
'MANNION!' Gresham bellowed. In time of need… Mannion was never far away from Gresham, but this time the old fool must have been hovering outside the door.
Gresham turned to Jane. 'I'm sorry… I should've thought. There's an answer. Lady Sarah Downing. She's an old friend of mine.' To his credit, Mannion kept a straight face. 'She's got a stock of Court dresses a mile high.' Did Jane's face lift a little at this? 'She's about your size. We'll go there now in the coach. You — ' he turned to Mannion — 'find me three seamstresses and two jewellers. Get them here, the first with their kit and the second with their wares. Tell the seamstresses they'll be working through the night and most of the morning. Tell 'em why — it'll make them more committed — and offer them three times the going rate. This is a crisis.'
He turned to Jane. 'I hope…' What he saw with his intuitive instinct for reading faces was the most extraordinary kaleidoscope of emotions he had ever witnessed. In business mode now, he was detached, needing to cut to the quick and to identify what the quick actually was. 'Please tell me what it is you want to say?'
Jane appeared almost in despair. 'My Lord,' she said, 'I have never appeared before a Queen. Never dreamed that I would be presented at Court. I have nothing to prepare me for this. But…'
'But what?' said Gresham, impatient.
'But Lady Sarah Downing? Two jewellers?'
She waited. Gresham said nothing.
‘I am a person of no breeding!' she said at last. 'I can't appear before the Queen in rags. But at the same time I can't appear as mutton dressed as lamb! Overdress me and I'm as humiliated as if I was under-dressed.'
A number of memories of Sarah floated before Gresham's eyes. Some were unprintable. All were happy.
'Sarah's a great Court lady,' he said, 'but she's human, and surprisingly normal. Try to trust her, if you can. Tell her just what you've told me.'
Mannion had left, and the yard was full of the noise of a great house being woken up.
'Thank you,' said Gresham, still in business mode, 'for making something I was dreading surprisingly easy.'
'Thank you,' said Jane, 'for letting a girl of no breeding meet the Queen of England.'
Why had it all gone so easil
y?
Gresham had not heard the brief conversation that had preceded her meeting with him. By some strange coincidence, Mannion had bumped into the hastily dressed Jane on her way to the Library.
'He needs yer to say yes to goin' with the both of us to Scotland.'
'And?' said Jane, cocking an eye to one of the very few men she had come to trust. If she had learned anything from Henry Gresham it was to mask her feelings, although her heart seemed to have speeded up to three times its normal rate.
'It's bloody dangerous,' Mannion said factually. 'But fer Christ's sake, say yes, and give 'im an easy time of it.'
Jane looked him in the eyes for a brief moment, then nodded carefully, before going to meet Gresham.
Gresham was relieved at the outcome of his request. He was staggered when, the next morning, he saw its product. The dress Jane and Sarah had chosen was of the finest dark-green velvet. It seemed to hug Jane's upper body, and then glance splendidly off her waist, cascading like a waterfall. Yet she had reserved the greatest stroke of genius for herself. Such a dress would be slashed to reveal perhaps an irridescent blue or even a pure black silk. Against the dressmaker's entreaty, Jane had insisted that the rich slashings show underneath not an oasis of blue or black, but simply more of the dark-green velvet. The only concession she had made was to ask for the openings to be lined with a modest number of small pearls. We are here, the pearls seemed to say, and if we thought we were more than we are we could be used to reveal a glow of colour that would rival a mallard's neck. But we are not so. We are simply a young girl in a borrowed dress, and we know who we are. As ever, the lack of pretension made a more powerful point than a week's artifice would have achieved.
Gresham's jaw dropped when Jane was presented to him. He had not seen this girl — this woman — before. She was extraordinarily, stunningly beautiful. It was not the dress with its cunning line, or the make-up so sparingly and skilfully applied, nor the wonders they had done with her lustrous hair. She was not made beautiful by what she wore. She made what she wore look beautiful. He looked at her for a moment, his face expressionless, sensing her yearning for his approval.
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