Two of the men they had sent to Essex were his relatives. The third was his erstwhile jailer who he had outwitted on every occasion. This was not the action of a Council with armed soldiers gathered round the Palace of Whitehall. Gresham thought of the fifty fat and pampered men who supposedly guarded the Queen, the edge on their pikes blunted by the gilding applied to the blade. These were the guards who had allowed the Earl, on his own, to burst directly into the Queen's bedchamber. Cecil, who had done so much to allow this rebellion, scorned military men and warfare as the last resort of the incompetent. Perhaps now he was being hoist by his own petard. Had he underestimated the power of the Earl and the 300 armed men Gresham had seen in the yard?
If Essex ordered his men to the Court, he would win the power he had craved for so long. Gresham knew it, felt it. If Cecil had prepared for this, it would have been armed men who came to Essex House not conciliatory Privy Councillors. Gresham was feeling rather sick, and his head was swimming. There were five Georges, where for a brief and merciful period there had been only one. He felt the need to vomit.
Essex burst into the dining hall. George stumbled to his feet. Essex ignored him. Poor old George, thought Gresham irreverently. His greatest skill was to be ignored by important people. Essex stood over Gresham with fifteen or twenty people behind him, every one of whom wished Gresham dead. Cameron, thank God, did not appear to be among them.
'I see you've managed to move in the night,' said Essex.
Damn the man! Someone in his position should not have remembered where he left a prisoner the night before.
'So, Sir Henry,' said Essex, laying ironic emphasis on the 'Sir' and getting the laugh he had aimed for from his followers. He drew his sword, and placed it not on Gresham's neck but pointing straight at his crotch. 'I and my men move out now.' He half turned to those behind him. 'They have banished us, they have told lies against us, they have tried to kill us. And now we march to tell them the truth, and to bring back justice to the land.'
A huge cheer rocked the vaulted ceiling of the hall.
'But do I turn to my left as I leave my house? To the Palace of Whitehall, to the Court and to the Queen? Even to Cecil and Raleigh?'
There was a huge cheer at this, even greater than before.
'Or do I turn to my right, to the City where my support lies, to pick up the thousand men you tell me do not exist, the men who will let me take the Tower — to the armoury for London, the fortress that commands it and commands the river — and the Palace?'
The red ring was round his eyes now, the flaming mark of the Devil.
'What is your advice, Sir Henry?' Again the ironic cheers, albeit a little confused. This game was going on too long. 'Do I go to the left or to the right? Think carefully before you answer. Kingdoms might depend on it.'
Gresham tried desperately to concentrate on Essex's face, which was going in and out of focus all the time. The right answer was clear. Go to the Court. Turn left. Capture the Queen, kill Cecil. But what if other, undiscovered Spanish marksmen were lurking there to kill Essex as well as the Queen? The fate of a country might depend on this decision, whether to turn to the right or the left.
If Essex turned left, England might have him as its next King. The wild, uncontrolled Earl, less suited to be a King than any man Gresham knew. Or it might find its throne handed over to Spain, its oldest and most bitter enemy, whose last reign over England had, under Queen Mary, produced clouds of greasy, smoke smelling of burnt human flesh.
If England was to survive, Essex had to turn right. To the nonexistent thousand men of Sheriff Smith, away from the Court.
What to say to Essex?
'Turn left, my Lord,' said Gresham. 'Turn left to the Court. It's your only chance.'
There was the longest pause in Henry Gresham's life.
‘We turn right,' said Essex. ‘We go to the City.' There was a muttering from the men behind him. 'This man has no love for me. He has tried to deceive me, lied to me about my thousand men. If he tells me to go one way it is to deceive me. We go to enhance our forces. We go so we shall be marching by afternoon on the Court with a thousand men, and the Tower in our hands!'
There was a confused cheer, and Essex swept from the room. That same rather half-hearted noise emerged shortly afterwards from the yard and, after a great clattering of hooves, a sudden silence descended on Essex House.
Time passed.
Gresham was still seated on the floor by the window, his back up against the panelling. George had wandered off to the other end of the room, and Gresham was gazing up, despite the pain in his neck, at the winter sunlight flooding in through the glass. He was entranced by its beauty. There was a faint thud from the other end of the room, and the noise of a pot breaking. Dear old George, clumsy as ever. He never could stop knocking things over. It wasn't worth moving his eyes from the wonderful light. Gresham called out, 'Bring some food, will you? And take this bloody rope off my feet before they fall off!'
There was silence, and a terrible fear crept into Henry Gresham's heart. He turned his head, slowly, painfully.
George's mouth was open in an expression of total surprise, his eyes wide, gaping, empty. He had fallen over a table, and a bowl full of pieces of bread was jammed under his cheek and raised up against his eye at a ludicrous angle. The dagger in his back stuck out like an obscene crucifix.
Cameron Johnstone, sword in hand, looked casually at the body, wiped the hand that had plunged the dagger into George against his side, and advanced towards Gresham. There was nothing in his eyes at all. No feeling, no compassion, not even any regret.
He stood over Gresham, and stuck his sword under Gresham's chin, not caring that the point broke flesh, producing a little stream of warm blood.
'Pleased, are you?' He had grabbed a piece of stale bread on his passage to Gresham and was eating it casually. 'I take it my fifty men won't be there to meet Essex? Or Sheriff Smith, for that matter.'
'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 loyalty? 'They need a few eyewitnesses, and people who won't call out for Essex. I'm an obvious invitee.' The food rose in his throat as he contemplated what he must do and see. A blow struck in anger, a blow struck in the heat of battle, these had a validity, justification. The slow, cruel, methodical process of an execution, its clinical lack of emotion, its reasoned premeditated calm, sickened him to his core.
'And what of us?' he asked gazing fondly at her.
She looked up, startled.
'Are you unhappy with our relationship?'
'No,' he said, 'I'm not. I have everything — a mistress for my bed, a companion when I need one who yet knows when to leave me alone, a steward for my house. You, on the other hand, have very little, not even security. You place no restriction on me, no obligation. It hardly seems fair.'
Jane looked at him levelly, glorious eyelashes framing the unfathomable depths of her eyes.
'It's as I choose and as I wish,' she said simply. And something like a grimace crossed her face. 'The person who tries to tie you down will simply be left with a broken rope in their hands. And ropeburn.' She rose.
'Before you go,' he said, 'you should know I've arranged for an annuity to be paid to George's children.'
Lord Willoughby's estate had proven bankrupt on his innocent death as the result of a stab wound from a wild and drunken supporter of the Earl of Essex.
'Lady Willoughby's also been looked after.' There was distaste in Gresham's voice. He could think of better uses for his money. 'She seemed reluctant to care for the children of a bankrupt — I didn't tell her about the annuities — so they're going to the care of Gervase Markham.'
As far as the public were concerned, Gervase Markham was a lively young man who had left the service of the Earl of Essex when it became clear that the Earl was headed towards rebellion.
'May I ask you something?' said Jane. 'Was it Spain who tried to kill you, on the boat and in Ireland? And when Cameron said he killed someone trying to kill the Queen, who was that? Was he telling the truth?"
&nbs
p; Gresham sighed. 'Cameron told the truth about the assassination attempt on Elizabeth. It was a fool of a young Scotsman, put up to it by some hotheads in James's Court who thought that if they killed Elizabeth James was bound to inherit, and Christmas would come early to the Scottish Court. James heard about it, and simply wasn't prepared to kill a fellow monarch. He didn't have to; he knows she'll die of natural causes in a few years anyway. So James ordered Cameron to stop the assassination — to Cameron's great annoyance, I imagine. Cameron had been bought by Spain then, and a Scotsman killing Elizabeth might have done wonders for the Spanish claim. But it'd all come about too early, and Cameron daren't disobey James in case he revealed himself.'
'And on the boat?' Jane prompted, 'and in Ireland?'
'It was the Spanish on the boat. I thought they wanted the two messages from Cecil and the Queen. Oh, they'd have used the one from Cecil to blackmail him, and the Queen's message was simply to say thank you — rather grudgingly, I imagine — for stopping the assassin. But the messages would have been a bonus. It was me they wanted. I'm sure they saw me as the only person talking sense to Essex, and all their plans hinged on him leading a rebellion. So I was a real threat, and what better way to dispose of me than out of sight and out of mind at sea? It would have been just another boat that set sail and was never seen again.'
'And Ireland?' she asked.
'That's the funny bit,' said Gresham. 'When they were all set to hang me, at the Council of War, that was Cameron's doing. He and Spain wanted me dead, so what better way than to organise a judicial killing, let Essex's cronies vent their hatred of me as a rival for
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