‘The Bugger …’ this was Mannion’s usual term for King James VI of Scotland, ‘is a person. A person will remember who first told him he was headed for Heaven. And if he’s any judge of character, he’ll look at Carey and look at Henry Gresham, and decide who really brought him the news.’
‘Can’t you go by sea?’ Jane asked. Gresham was surprised. Her last sea voyage to Scotland had seen them attacked and nearly killed, sent her half-mad.
‘It’s too slow,’ he replied. ‘The ride will be a nightmare, but it can be done quickly. If Carey holds up.’
‘Must you leave Mannion behind?’ she asked. Mannion grinned.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and behave.’
She gave him a look Gresham had once seen her give a very young courtier who had propositioned her. ‘I’m not worried,’ she said very firmly, ‘about the effect of your presence with me. I am worried about the absence of your presence on him.’
‘And I want him protecting you, not me,’ said Gresham. ‘Someone’s tried to kill you once, and if I wanted me dead I’d kidnap you, knowing I would come, and summon me to a private meeting. And kill us both. You’re only safe here, in The House. And I’ll only believe you’re safe if this great ox is your sergeant-at-arms. He knows his business. You’ll have to do what he tells you.’
‘I always do,’ said a newly-demure Jane. She paused. ‘Until I don’t agree with him.’
Gresham had three men paid to tell him if the Queen died. He did not bother to go to bed, and true to his foreboding the knock on the door came in the small hours of the morning. He left immediately, Jane making no fuss except demanding a kiss that in happier times would have led on to a most enjoyable half hour. He left with three servants and a string of horses, stopping to pick up a fuddled Carey at his lodgings. Carey had been drinking; not a good omen.
Carey needed to pick up the blue ring from James from his sister, who had stupidly refused to give it to Carey in advance. She feared he might ride off on a false rumour, she said, and where would that leave the family’s fortunes? Gresham had noted the confidence the sister felt in her brother, and lost even more confidence in their mission.
They arrived at the gates of Richmond Palace.
‘Can’t let you in, nor anyone out,’ said the surly Porter. He stank of stale urine. ‘Orders.’ The orders apparently outweighed the hefty bribe Carey had boasted he had given to the Porter to cover just this eventuality. Everyone knew it was standard practice to seal the Palace when a monarch died.
‘But I must gain entrance!’ wailed Carey, seeing his glory snuffed out before it had started.
‘Quiet!’ hissed Gresham, his horse unsettled by Carey’s voice.
A figure appeared at the gate. It was Sir Edward Wotton, Comptroller of the Household. Carey had bribed the Porter. Gresham had bribed the Comptroller. The latter was far, far more expensive, but proved Gresham’s belief that you got what you paid for.
‘Let these men in,’ said Sir Edward. ‘They are friends.’
The gate swung open.
‘How is the Queen?’ Carey asked as soon as he had dismounted from his horse.
‘Pretty well,’ Wooton lied. The Porter was listening, Gresham noted. The answer spooked Carey, who was so scared that he turned away and made for the still open gate, on foot. Gresham nodded to Wotton.
‘Sir,’ said Wotton, ‘I know you well. I will give orders that you may come and go as you please.’
It was an awful lot of money that had changed hands between Gresham and Wotton, and it bought a lot.
Carey turned round, and allowed Wotton to lead them to his sister’s rooms. A crowd of women were there, weeping and wailing as they thought people – and women in particular – ought to do when a Queen died. There was lots of noise, little real emotion.
Wotton was nervous, Gresham realised. He had been bribed to let Carey in, and was now scared he had let himself in for more than he had bargained for. He watched Carey like a hawk, and there was no chance to pass over the ring in the brief conversation he managed with his sister. Suddenly there was a peremptory summons to the men in the room to move to the Privy Chamber, where many of the Council were assembled. Gresham followed on, and a guard tried to bar him. He flashed the Queen’s ring at him, enough to confuse him and let Gresham duck under the pike. It was clear that the Council knew of Carey’s plan; that bloody woman, his sister, must be to blame, thought Gresham. Three or four of them had taken Carey aside and, in effect, told him to forget his travel plans.
At this moment it became personal for Gresham. Up until now, he had simply been repaying a debt to Raleigh, engaging in silly games that seemed marginally less dangerous than those he spent living with every day. Now he saw the stupid idiots who claimed to rule England in all their power, and it irritated him beyond belief. As, indeed, did Carey.
The Council decided to head off to Cecil’s chamber. He, apparently, had still not been told of the death of the Queen.
‘Hold back,’ whispered Gresham, ‘stay at the back of the crowd, then break off. See Hunsdon.’
Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, was Carey’s brother – ill, dying, but still able to walk. Carey and Gresham held back, ducked down a side alley. They ran to Hunsdon’s room, banged on the door, woke him up, He, poor man, was clothed, fuddled. He was preparing to meet his Maker, not his brother. He joined them, followed them to the gate. The Porter let Hunsdon through, but stopped Carey.
‘’Let him out. I’ll answer for him,’ Hunsdon yelled.
The Porter let him go,
Lady Scrope had managed to leave the monstrous regiment of women and somehow get herself into a room above the gate. With a dramatic gesture she flung the sapphire ring down to her brother, nearly managing to fling herself out of the window in the process. Carey caught the ring, and looked at it.
‘Move!’ hissed Gresham. ‘Now you have the confounded ring, ride with it! I have horses waiting …’
‘No,’ said Carey, all blood gone from his face now he actually held the ring. ‘Now I have the ring the Council will give me their consent. It will be … safer that way.’
‘Safer!’ exploded Gresham. How he wished Raleigh was here to knock some sense into his protégé. Typically, Raleigh had chosen to go to the West Country when anyone with any sense was flocking to London. ‘There’s no safety in waiting! Cecil will chop your arm off if it means one of his men first brings the news to James. Ride, man. Ride now.’
‘No,’ said Carey. ‘I shall go to my friend the Knight Marshal at Charing Cross. He will tell the Council when they assemble at Whitehall of my holding the ring, and get them to sanction my journey.’
Good God, where had the Lord put brains when he assembled this man? He would not be argued with. Gresham felt inclined to call it a day. He had tried, and it was not his fault if this man was a dolt. He deliberately reigned in the horse he now rode, falling behind Carey. If a group of armed men leapt out of the shadows to attack Carey, Gresham felt under no obligation to defend a man who had ignored his advice.
Despite his grand title, the Knight Marshal lived in rather squalid lodgings in Charing Cross. The man, Sir Arthur Savage, did not know Gresham, but knew of him, and glared at him as if Satan had suddenly appeared at a christening.
‘My friend!’ Carey spluttered. ‘I hold a ring …’ He embarked on an explanation that made him seem like one of the angels tasked with announcing the birth of Christ. Poor old Sir Arthur was tasked to ride to Whitehall and obtain Council’s permission for Carey to ride north. Carey seemed to have such a vision of himself as lead angel announcing the birth of Christ to the shepherds that he assumed Council would hail him as a divine being and send him on his way.
‘Why not go yourself?’ asked Gresham.
‘Because … it would not be seemly,’ said Carey.
‘Not at all!’ said Carey, who then flushed and said no more.
The Knight Marshal clattered off to Whitehall. Gresham and Carey found themselves gazing at each other over a table littered with the remnants of the Knight Marshal’s supper.
‘I am grateful to Sir Walter for offering your assistance, Sir Henry,’ said Carey pompously, ‘but it is not needed. I feel this journey as a personal mission, fulfilling my destiny …’
‘How many times has someone tried to kill you in the past three months?’ asked Gresham, who was by now in a foul mood.
‘Pardon?’
‘How many times has someone tried to kill you in the past three months?’
‘I don’t see the relevance of your question …’
‘The relevance is that recently two men tried to kill me in an alley in Cambridge, a whole crowd tried to kill me and what passes for my family – oh, and burn my house down – and a rather smaller number tried to run me down on the river and either drown me or smash my head in. Somewhere in all that there was a poison attempt. The relevance is that I’m still here. You ride with that ring, and half of England will be after you. You might just need my skills.’
‘Surely no one will …’
‘Try to take that ring off you? Why not? You seek to be first to establish yourself as prime pig at James’ trough. How many others are there with similar or greater ambition? And do you think they’ll put the life of a minor courtier before their ambition? And do you think Cecil will want to be second in line when it comes to informing his new Master of his impending joy?’
‘What … what should I do?’ Carey was sweating, and a vein pulsing on his forehead.
‘Ride out to Whitehall with our train of horses, to see if you meet your old friend scuttling back with his tail between his legs. And if you do, ride like hell to the north without even waiting to secure your hat.’
It took quarter of an hour to assemble the horses. Halfway there, they met Sir Arthur who pulled Carey aside and warned him that after banal words from Cecil Sir William Knollys, an old friend, had whispered to Savage that Cecil planned to arrest Carey as soon as he appeared, imprison him and send his own man north. For a wavering moment Gresham was sure Carey would throw the ring at him, and ride off in stark fear into the night. But the man had something in him still. Stupidity, probably, that did not allow him to realise the risk he was taking. Hauling his horse round, Carey yelled at Gresham,
‘Have we time to get away?’
Good question. Cecil believed he had given soothing words to the Knight Marshal, would expect a reassured Carey and the ring in an hour or so. After an hour and a half, he would send men to find Carey. Half an hour. They would find Carey gone, search the house, go back to Whitehall. Another half hour. Another half to a whole hour to find people strong enough and loyal enough to make the journey, and beat Carey into a pulp, and find one of Cecil’s lackeys of high enough rank not to insult James. Good, fast horses with staying power would be needed, oats, water, food and weapons packed: no. Nearer an hour than a half an hour.
‘We’ve three, maybe fours hours start. Now ride!’
The one advantage Carey had was that he at least knew the way to the north: it was his route home. Gresham had taken part in the mad ride for home, when the Earl of Essex facing disaster as Elizabeth’s general in Ireland had decided he was being misrepresented at home and rode back from Ireland to London without break or halt. By comparison with escorting Essex, Carey was easy. He rode at a slow gallop, and after the first five or six hours Gresham relaxed. If Cecil had really determined to halt Carey, he would have sent a fast party to kill him, with a ring-carrying group following up more sedately to take over the mission. In his dotage Gresham would remember the figures – they rode the 162 miles from London to Doncaster that night – although he would remember it as not being particularly hard. By Friday night they came to Withrington, Carey’s home, only 99 miles from Edinburgh. It was a strange, ribbon development building. It had been fighting off raiding parties for hundreds of years, but how it had done so was God’s guess. It had a fantasy, ancient Gothic tower and four more comforting round turrets, but appeared to have been added on to and built on a series of whims. Gresham feared Carey would stick there, but to Gresham’s surprise Carey was impressively efficient. The reluctant, country courtier was on home ground here in the frozen north. At court a mere servant, Carey was God in the Middle Marches, the Queen’s representative, the nearest his people would ever come to the Queen.
In a sudden flash, Gresham realised what had driven Carey to this mad-cap ride. Everything he was, everything he had depended on the job he held from the Queen. Warden of the Middle Marches. If the new King chose to strip Carey of his title, he became nothing, and it would be as if his previous honours had never existed.
Living death, Gresham thought. To be a God, and then to be plunged to nothing at the flick of a ruler’s hand. What would it be like to have been at the very top, and then find oneself plunged down the rank chain? Gresham doubted he could bear it.
He ordered the Deputies of the Middle Marches to announce James as King at the market crosses in Withrington, Morpeth and Alnwick. He was on his horse again before dawn on Saturday, with a saddle sore and, frankly, bored Gresham reluctantly putting aching muscles on to saddle. By noon they were at Norham Castle, built of gentle sandstone that belied the violence such border holds had seen and caused. Exhilarated, Carey set off for Edinburgh, hoping to be there to catch James at supper.
Then a most extraordinary thing happened. Bored as he was, Gresham was not suicidal, and rode a few paces behind Carey, his eyes doing a 360⁰ scan every few seconds. The borders were wild places, and part of Gresham expected attack from brigands. He looked round the empty landscape, and when his gaze returned to Carey, he had gone. There was no-one on his horse’s back, and it had stopped.
Carey had fallen off his horse.
There was no pot-hole, no saddle girth that came undone. He just fell off, whilst going at what was little more than a brisk canter. Gresham did not know whether to laugh or cry, but soon choose the latter. In falling off, Carey had held on to the reins. As he climbed to his feet, covered in thick mud. He yanked the reins. The horse, a poor thing from Norham, swung round, dragging Carey with it, and kicked him, hard. On the head. There was a crack as if thunder, and Carey lay poleaxed on the ground, with more blood pumping out of his head than Gresham had ever seen come from any man.
To his shame, Gresham’s first thought was not for Carey, one of the greyest men Gresham had ever met. Instead, his mind spoke to him.
‘Have I come all this bloody way for nothing?’
*
Jane was bored. She was also cross with herself for being bored. She had known precisely what it meant when she gave both her body and her mind to Gresham. It meant long periods on her own, worrying about him and whether she would ever see him again. It meant a different form of loneliness. She was not married to Gresham, but was simply his mistress. Her appearance at any party or dinner without him, even had she wished to go, would signal that she was available. A social life apart from things shared with her man was impossible for her. Unlike many beautiful women, she was only half aware of her beauty and the effect it had on men, but she had seen the power of that effect. She purported to view it with contempt, but it was more true to say that it scared her. So she stayed in The House and busied herself with the myriad duties of a woman in charge of a great household, and waited. Her boredom was aided and abetted by the fact that Mannion had seriously limited her riding out, something she loved, and when she did so she had to be flanked by a veritable army of men.
As usual, when her mood was low, she we
nt to the library.
The door was slightly open, but she felt no alarm. The specially trained maid who cleaned the library had her own key, and it was her time of work. Pushing through, she stopped dead in the doorway. There was a man in the library, a man she did not know. He was short, squat almost, with a deeply wrinkled and weathered face that made it difficult to guess his age. There were books off the shelves, open, most on the table but some on the floor.
‘Who are you?’ asked Jane.
‘From the bookseller,’ the man mumbled in a thick country accent. ‘Checking up on what needs a rebind.’
‘Wait here until I return.’ Jane took the heavy iron key from her apron, preparing to lock the man in. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of something odd, sticking out from the foot of one of the shelves. A foot. The maid’s foot. Sitting in a pool of blood.
The man saw her reach for the key, followed her eyes to the ill-hidden body. Suddenly, something flickered in his hand, and he leapt at Jane, knife arm outstretched. Jane’s reaction was completely instinctive. She swung the door open, and the man smashed into it, rebounding from the heavy oak and on to the floor. Jane moved forward to pull the door shut and lock it, but the man reached out and grabbed her ankle. She fell into the room, across her attacker. He was scrabbling for his knife, knocked out of his hand. She knocked the breath out of him as she landed, and as she struggled to get up she managed to kick him in the face for good measure. She found herself standing by the table, littered with open books. The man had not cried out when he had hit the door, or when Jane had kicked him. He struggled to his feet, looked round wildly, grabbed his knife and lunged at Jane. Again acting on pure instinct, Jane grabbed the nearest book, used it like a shield. So hard did the man drive his blade that it actually pierced the book, a half inch of the blade coming out the other side. Before he could pull the book and the knife out of her hands, Jane twisted the book round, and suddenly found herself holding both book and knife. She flung one of the heavy books on the table at the nearest window, and a King’s ransom of glass shattered and fell into the courtyard below. The man looked at her, blood dripping from his nose. She could see he was weighing up his options. Attack and silence her, and then make his getaway? Or just run? Jane decided to help him. Drawing in every possible ounce of breath into her lungs, she screamed.
The Coming of the King: Henry Gresham and James I (The Henry Gresham Series Book 3) Page 10