Gresham looked pityingly at the master. He nodded to Jack and Dick. Without warning, they stepped forward and grabbed him.
'No!' he screamed.
There was a second splash, and silence. Mannion had come back up on the deck. 'Pity if 'e can swim,' said Mannion.
'He can't,' said Gresham. 'I asked him when we hired him. He said it was a good thing if the master couldn't swim, meant he took more care not to sink the ship.'
They released the crew, but not before they had reloaded the two forward swivel guns with grapeshot, and pointed them down at the well of the ship where the crew gathered. They seemed more con-fused than mutinous.
'Your master and your newly acquired sailing master betrayed me,' said Gresham factually, trying to pretend that white-hot iron bars were not beating against the inside of his skull. 'The noise you heard' — and which had clearly terrified them — 'was a vessel manned by those who had bribed him to allow it to intercept us, to rob me and then to dispose of my men and my ward over the side.'
Had they known? Gresham doubted it. The master had seemed to Gresham not only a man who liked to keep things close to his chest, but to keep as much money as possible as well. Sharing the truth meant sharing the spoils, and he only needed the sailing master and the look-out to be in the know.
'They were both killed in the action.' Let them work out the detail. 'An action that fought off around twenty armed men, as it happens and cost the life of one of my own men.' The odds shocked them. Somehow they knew this man was not boasting, that he was telling the simple truth.
'I need to know who was family among you. You have my word that I will not harm you, but put you ashore in the morning. But I must know who you are, because I cannot trust any blood relation of your master. I must and will place them under guard until they are landed. If you do not tell me,' he said calmly, 'I may have to torture you to find out.'
Would he have done so? With his head hurting as it was… He need not have feared. At the mention of torture there was a collective gasp of horror, and the three crew members who were family to the late master owned up seconds before the rest of the crew pointed them out. One of them was the little ship's boy. Family they may have been, but they were not showing any remarkable sadness for the loss of their relative.
Did Gresham realise the impact he made? Probably not. A dark, menacing figure, he stood casually on the quarterdeck, one hand holding a superb sword, the other on the firing mechanism of the swivel gun. In the dim light, he could have been the Devil, and several of the crew were persuaded that he was.
The three family members were taken to the hatch that led to the hold. Suddenly, without warning, the older of them kinked left, right, and ran for the side. Vaulting the side rail, he put his arms out before him and made a perfect dive into the blackness of the night.
'Bugger!' said Mannion under his breath.
'I think we can assume that one can swim,' said Gresham. It was a good distance to the shore. The other two were put back in the hold and the hatch battened down again, the door from the hold to the cabins securely locked and a spare piece of timber nailed over it for good measure.
'Who among you is the best sailor?' A middle-aged man stepped forward. 'Is there someone who can sound the depth?' The man nodded. 'Then get him to do it now.'
The chosen sailor stood at the bow, and swung a lead weight easily in his hand. The bottom of the lead was stuffed with tallow, so that when it touched the bottom it would come up with sand or gravel or whatever lined the sea at that point, telling the experienced mariner where they might be. The rope onto which the lead was tied had cloth or small metal items attached to it at regular intervals. Even in the dark the leadsman could sense when the lead had touched bottom, draw up the line and by feeling the item woven into the rope know how far down it had stretched.
Three times he flung the lead forward, three times found no bottom.
Gresham turned to the sailor who had nominated himself as the most experienced. 'Can you and the remaining men rig a sea anchor? Take in the sails?'
'Best thing to do,' said the sailor, knuckle to his brow. 'We're in deep water, and the sea anchor'll keep us there. Can't be more'n four or five hours to dawn…'
At dawn they would put in to the nearest port, find or send for someone to pilot the ship to Scotland.
'How's the girl?' asked Gresham. They were sitting on the stern rail each clutching a pewter tankard full of wine. Mannion always packed the essentials. The wind, which had threatened to get up at one point, had settled to something not quite strong enough to whip up the white horses on top of the waves, and seemed to be easing even more. Action always left Gresham exhausted, and with the same burning headache. Sleep was impossible, and he was haunted by the image of the broken-nosed Tom, and the girl, standing on deck with the pistol in her hand like some awful goddess who had been spirited up from the deep.
'The girl?' said Mannion. 'Asleep. I thought she'd pop 'im, you know,' he said in a tone of wonderment, and no small admiration, ‘I really did.'
'I think she did too,' said Gresham. 'And I'm damn sure he did.'
"Well, watch out next time you and 'er have a row,' said Mannion, 'and make sure she ain't near a gun.' He thought for a moment. 'I 'ate fuckin' people who try to kill us,' he said finally, taking a pull on his tankard and smacking his lips. There was something special about food, drink and, for that matter, sex, after a man had looked death in the eye and beaten it. For this time, at least.
'More than you hate fucking Scots?' said Gresham. The drink would not help his head the next morning, but it was helping to dull things now, which was what mattered.
'Depends if the fuckin' Scots try to kill us. What a right bloody mess!' Mannion said. 'Everyone thinks you're plotting against everyone else. Cecil would kill you at the drop of a hat — if you don't deliver that bloody letter. The Queen'll reduce you to rags — and me as well, come to think of it — and probably have you knocked off in the Tower while she's at it, if you don't deliver her bloody package. Essex — God knows what 'e'll do, 'cept I wouldn't trust him as far as I can spit and he ain't goin' to like it if 'e 'ears you've carried messages gettin' Cecil off the 'ook. And now we've got someone else — or mebbe one 'o them trying to kill us.'
'Not trying to kill us exactly,' said Gresham wearily, 'though they would've done, I'm sure. All this business tonight was about getting what we carried. But which one? Cecil's message? Or the Queen's? Did Essex get wind of a message that would stop his campaign with James? Or have we walked into plots from the Pope, from Spain or from France, without realising it? And how did whoever it is know about either package? Has someone infiltrated Cecil's household? Or the Queen's? The Court leaks like a sieve, but when it really matters, both Cecil and the Queen are past masters at keeping secrets.'
'I'll tell you somethin',' said Mannion.' 'Ooever organised that boat that attacked us… it's not someone used to dealing with you.'
'How so?' said Gresham. Mannion's mind was clearly working on a different track to his own.
'Tailing us like that. How often does another ship weigh anchor and leave a mooring at exactly the same time as another? Why would a faster ship like that one stay just so far behind us? A courtier wouldn't notice it. We would. That boat, and the man who ran it, it's someone who don't really know you, someone who's got you down as just another stupid messenger.'
The miscalculation had cost twenty men their lives. Gresham tried to get his aching brain around the problem. Who was trying to kill him? Was it just for the messages he carried? And if it was, why were they so important? Whoever it was had access to real money. Hiring a decent boat and the men to sail it did not come cheap.
'What about 'im up there?' asked Mannion. The look-out had regained consciousness now, could be seen straining at his bonds.
'We'll decide about him in the morning,' said Gresham tiring suddenly of the killing. 'Your watch or mine?' he asked, aching from the core of his soul for Mannion to take over.
<
br /> 'I reckon I'll manage the first two hours,' said Mannion. 'You get your head down for a bit. But there's summat we 'ave to do before that.'
They could have just heaved the dead bodies over the side, would have done so without a moment's thought in the heat of the battle. But now it seemed different. After the red mist of battle something like sanity returned. Or was it simply a different form of madness? They would give each man a cannon ball tied round his ankles, and Gresham, who they had been trying to kill a short while earlier, would say a few words he did not believe over them as they slid off the plank into the sea. We cling to these rituals, thought Gresham, and where there is clearly no meaning in life we try to give it some significance in death. It was a necessary farce. He moved wearily, needing to check that the stiffening bodies had indeed been laid out with their legs and their arms straight. It did not do to have the sickening crack of an outstretched elbow in the middle of a funeral service as the body slid down the smoothed wood.
The Council Chamber seemed empty, but much of the power of England was there — the Queen, Essex, Lord Admiral Howard of Effingham, now Earl of Nottingham, Robert Cecil and the Clerk of the Signet, Thomas Windebank.
They were standing, the great men, as they often did. Essex was red in the face, almost shouting. The other men were pale-faced, nervous, sensing something wild and uncontrollable in Essex. The Queen was impassive, her head bent low. No smiles now between her and Essex, no sparkling eyes or fine compliments.
It was Ireland, of course. The need for a new Lord Deputy in Ireland was beyond pressing, was now a dire necessity. Elizabeth had decided on Essex's uncle, Sir William Knollys. Essex had started to argue passionately against his uncle, one of his greatest allies in Court, and was forcibly putting the case for Sir George Carew. It was transparent. Carew was one of Cecil's men, and his absence from Court would aid Essex greatly and inconvenience Cecil to the same extent. In addition, Ireland had a wonderful habit of either killing its Lord Deputy or ruining their political future.
Elizabeth raised her head, interrupting Essex's tirade.
'I thank you, my Lord Essex,' she said imperiously, 'for your wise counsel. But I am Queen.'
Essex did not have the sense to shut up. He tried to interrupt her. Mercifully, she chose to ignore him, and carried on. 'Sir William Knollys will go as my Lord Deputy to Ireland. It is decided.'
Essex's fists were clenching and unclenching, the colour rising higher and higher in his face. With an expression of sheer contempt and a gesture that would have been more suitable for a man rejecting the advances of a whore, he turned his back on her.
He turned his back on her.
It was an inconceivable insult to turn one's back on the monarch, unthinkable, unspeakable.
Elizabeth's head jerked upright, and what little control she had left she lost. With one swift move she leant forward and delivered a stinging box on his ears. The sharp smack of her slap echoed in the appalled silence of the stone-vaulted chamber. One might deliver such a blow to a silly lady-in-waiting, or to an idiot servant. To do so in public to an Earl, at a Council meeting, in the full panoply of state business, was unprecedented, unbelievable.
Essex turned and shrieked at Elizabeth. And worse, inconceivably worse, he clapped his hand to his sword hilt, and pulled perhaps two or three inches of the steel out of its scabbard.
There was a gasp from the other men. To make to draw one's sword on the monarch was high treason. It was not an insult that would have the perpetrator banished from the Court. It was a gesture that would have the culprit kneeling on the block at Tower Hill.
This is an outrage!' screamed Essex, apparently oblivious to the dual outrage he had just committed. ‘’I will not bear this!' He took his hand off his sword hilt, more in the manner of someone making a great concession than of a man recognising a great error. 'I would not have borne this from your father, and I shall not bear it from you, a woman.'
The men were transfixed, gazing in horror at the sword hilt. It was Nottingham who stepped forward, put himself between the Queen and the errant Lord, pushed him back. Nottingham said nothing.
There was silence in the Chamber.
Essex was flushed, standing at his full height. He looked round the room, saw no help from the other men there, looked in the eyes of the Queen and saw what Anne Boleyn must have seen in Henry VIII's eyes at the very last.
He rushed from the room. Had the first two or three steps been an attempt to retire gracefully, facing the Queen? Or had it taken him that long simply to turn?
All eyes were on Elizabeth. She gazed in silence for a moment at the door through which Essex had left. Then, without another word, she swept past the other men, and left.
Essex stormed down the corridors of the Palace, oblivious to where he was. Suddenly he came to a dead end, a dark, brick-built avenue ending starkly where what had once been a door had been filled in. He paused, as if waking from a dream. It was the dark, narrow tunnel that had been the stuff of his dreams. Here. Now. Real. What had he done? What had he done!
He had always been obsessive, prone to swings of mood. Yet always before he had been able to pull back, a deep instinct warning him in time to allow his charm to work its wonders. Always, until… What was the figure forming in his imagination in the pattern of the brickwork? Was it the pensive face of a small boy?
Alone, with no servants and certainly no Queen to see and hear him, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, sank to his knees, and sobbed. Sobbed almost like a little boy.
Chapter 6
Late July, 1598 Scotland
Their arrival in Scotland was an anti-climax. Blustery, sharp winds chased them up the coast, threatening a storm that never quite happened. They saw numerous other sail, but none seemed to want to follow their exact course, none seemed threatening. Gresham eyed with grim memories the towers of Dunbar Castle, perched on its twin rocks, and the vast three-towered bulk of Tantallon Castle, but no boats scuttled out to chase the Anna, and Tantallon seemed deserted. There was no quayside berth for them at Leith, but the anchorage seemed half empty by the side of the bustle of London. A cloud of smoke, coal and wood seemed to hover permanently over Edinburgh, even though it was the middle of summer.
The first disappointment was horses. All they could seem to hire. were small nags, underfed and as grumpy as their owner. Still, Gresham had dressed in the most sober and sombre manner to avoid attention, and the horses were at least in keeping with his clothes. The second disappointment was what was rumoured to be one of the best hostelries in the city. It was dark, cramped and stank of stale piss, where previous inhabitants had clearly not bothered with chamber pots. He set Mary, the maid, and his three men working to scrub the rooms, even cajoling some hot water out of the kitchen and some half-decent soap. He left the job to Jane's ministrations. She seemed settled now, quiet but calm, and had made no mention of her brush with the master since it had happened. Before Gresham left, he noted that she had donned a simple smock, and was on her hands and knees, scrubbing away like a washerwoman. How extraordinary to move so quickly and easily from being the most beautiful woman at Court to this. Dick had returned to the world of the sane alongside her after the battle, yet Gresham could detect no familiarity between the young man and the beautiful girl of the same age. Whatever else Jane had mastered, she had the ability to send out the strongest possible signal to any interested male that she was not available. If rumour was to be believed she was the first woman in England to turn Essex down.
Gresham and Mannion set off to get the sense of the city. James held Court at Holyrood Palace; it was a poor thing from the outside compared to the Palaces Elizabeth owned. The forbidding bulk of the castle and Arthur's seat dominated the city, overlooking the stinking pond that they call Nor' Loch. It was not a place to bring cheer to the soul, Gresham thought.
Cameron Johnstone was the name Gresham had been given when he had asked for a contact in Scotland. A thin, straggly lawyer dressed from head to toe in blac
k. Part of his garb would have been fashionable in London five years earlier, but part showed a strong French influence. The impression of legal respectability was spoilt by a thin scar that ran from his chin to just under his right ear. His accent was as thick as Scottish rain, but understandable. His office was also clean, and Gresham and Mannion had learnt enough about life in Scotland to relish what seemed to be the absence of fleas on both their host and his furnishings.
'Ye'll be wanting refreshment?' asked the man, and a fat servant girl with freckles and great plump cheeks brought in wine. It was good. French, by the look and the taste, and had kept well.
Something nagged at the back of Gresham's mind. He knew he had never talked with this man before, never met him face to face. But had he seen him before? There was something vaguely familiar about the slightly shambling figure, the way the head was held slightly to one side…
'Now,' said the man, 'I'll be of the mind that you'll no want to be wasting your time or mine. Any friend of the Earl of Northumberland is a friend of mine — though not of all my countrymen, I might add.' He allowed a brief grin to flit across his features. The Percy family, Earls of Northumberland, had been fighting the Scots, when they had not been fighting their own King, for time immemorial. It was a relationship based not so much on love and hate as familiarity and hate. Percy had business interests in Scotland, had recommended this man and had provided him with a letter of introduction.
The lawyer glanced at Percy's letter. He listened as Gresham gave his invented story of being told of a Scots couple who had briefly lived in the village from where he had rescued Jane, who had paid a local man to look after the girl while they were away 'for a few months' and who had never come back. East Linton, that was the name of the village they claimed to have come from. Jeffrey was the name that had been given, said Gresham. Angus Jeffrey and, perhaps, a Belinda Jeffrey. He knew it was not much, but it was all he had to go on. Johnstone looked at Gresham, having taken brief notes, and Gresham felt he was being looked into and through.
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