One of the students had already acquired a name as a wag and a wit. He could not resist the temptation, knowing it would put him in the folklore of Granville College. He whispered it, but enough heard.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘the pen, or its product at least, is indeed mightier than the sword.’
Gresham, as ever, was oblivious to his growing reputation. A comforting hand came over his shoulder. It was that of The Manciple of Granville College, a sodomite whom Gresham had appointed because he could not care less what a man got up to between his sheets, but cared passionately about how good a job he did. And The Manciple did a superb job.
‘If you’ll forgive me, sir, what you need is a stiff drink and a warm bed.’
And for once The Manciple did not mean his own bed.
He led Gresham out of the Library, supporting him down the stairs back to his own rooms.
In the morning the damage to the books in the Library turned out to be greater than initially appeared. It was not the smoke, or the relatively few books touched by fire, but the savage rain that descended on Cambridge in the early hours of the morning. The rain and the wind that came with it drove though the hastily-erected sheets that had been pinned over the broken window, and the rain water affected more books than had been touched by the fire. A thorough appraisal of the damage done, which books were irretrievably lost and a new shopping list were urgently needed. Gresham had no doubt as to who was most qualified to complete the task: Jane. He amused himself for a moment with the thought of Jane, dressed in her country smock, turning over each volume. It was about the only thing that would provoke a rebellion in Cambridge, a woman in College.
So Gresham lied.
He put it about that the attack on the Library had weakened its joists, and that the books would have to be moved out temporarily so the Library could be stiffened and redecorated. A series of carts, in the early morning, took the contents of the Library, carefully wrapped, away. Away, as it happened, to the unused tithe barn at The Merchant’s House, a building entirely wind and water-proof, where Jane, in her smock, received each volume as if it were a new-born child.
She had largely completed her work, or at least an initial survey, deciding that just under thirty of the precious volumes had been lost or damaged beyond repair, when her eye was caught by one of the undamaged books. It lay awry on the top of its pile, for some reason, an otherwise undistinguished volume of work by minor classical poets. She lifted it off, and opened it at the title page. It was as if the back cover had swollen somehow, bulging out and distorting the binding. Fearful that water had got into the binding; she fetched a sharp knife and pierced a tiny hole at the point where the binding most bulged. No water came out. What did peek out was a tiny, yellowing corner of paper, totally unlike that which formed the body of the book.
Many printers lined the binding of their books with old, disused pages from earlier books. Paper was expensive, and never thrown away. Yet Jane had never found a printer who packed the binding with paper more expensive than that which formed the body of the book, and the tip of yellowing parchment was clearly of the top grade. Her curiosity won over her deep-seated desire not to desecrate book. She sliced through the binding, to reveal a single, yellowing sheet.
Gresham had accompanied the carts back to The Merchant’s House. It was early afternoon, and Mannion and Gresham sitting in companionable silence by an open fire, tankard in hand.
Jane knocked, and walked in.
A quick smile touched Gresham’s lips, and her heart jolted. He was pleased to see her. Not pleased because her arrival meant sex, not pleased because she brought food or wine. Pleased because it was her personality who had knocked and walked through the door. He actually liked being with her.
It irritated her beyond belief that when she loved him most she reverted to the role of the compliant female. She bowed her head, and proffered the yellowing parchment.
‘My Lord, (he had remonstrated with her when she called him that), ‘I think you should read this. I found it stuffed into pack the back binding of an inconsequential volume.’
He looked at her, and she knew that he recognised that this was important. He took the paper, took it over to the candle.
He read it, and put it down on the table, looking up into the rafters as he did so.
‘Will someone please put me out of my agony?’ said Mannion, witnessing all that had taken place but mightily confused. ‘What exactly is going on?’
‘You remember all those attempts to kill me?’
‘Course not,’ said Mannion. ‘Clean forgot. Not as if they was tryin’ to kill me as well, was it?’
‘This is the reason,’ said Gresham, holding up the paper.
‘What?’ said Mannion. ‘That? A piece of paper?’
‘A piece of paper,’ said Gresham, ‘but also much more. Jane understands, as well as I do. She’ll explain.’
‘It’s a piece of paper,’ said Jane quietly, ‘that’s a Deed of Gift. It transfers the property that in effect now forms Aldgate in London to the Master and Fellows of Granville College.’
‘So?’ said Mannion, who was barely interested. ‘We knew that’d happened and that a Master sold it to Cecil.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, ‘except this Deed which seems to be perfectly legal, says that the Master and Fellows can’t do exactly that.’
‘Exactly what?’ said Mannion.
‘Sell the land on,’ replied Jane. Her face was flushed, her eyes dancing with excitement. ‘Or, rather this Deed states that the land can only be sold on with the express permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York.’
‘I still don’t see ...’ said a confused Mannion. Gresham cut in.
‘I’ve looked in the closest possible detail at the sale of the land to Cecil’s father. I can tell you now, there was no signed permission from one Archbishop, never mind two. And given that the Deed has the Royal Seal on it, I’ll bet the condition is binding.’
‘Jesus!’ said Mannion. ‘So Cecil doesn’t own bleedin’ Aldgate and the College does! That’ll knock a pretty hole in his coin chests!’
‘No,’ said Gresham. ‘The College doesn’t own Aldgate. I do.’
Mannion’s jaw dropped.
‘You do?’
‘I do. You see, the original donor was one Sir Thomas Gresham. My father. This deed was clearly written to stop a corrupt Master and Fellows doing exactly what they did, namely swap the College ownership of the land for a personal private pension. The Deed makes it clear than in the event of any skulduggery, ownership of Aldgate reverts to my father. Or, if he’s dead, his heir. Me.’
‘So,’ said Mannion, the cogs visibly and painfully turning in his head, ‘Cecil must have heard of this bit of paper...’
‘... or thought that I might find it. Either way, he needed me out of the way if he was to hang on to a sizeable part of his fortune.’
‘The audit!’ exclaimed Jane. Her face collapsed. ‘Oh God! I could have killed us all?’
‘What?’ said Gresham, confused himself now.
‘I ... I got at you,’ said Jane. It was clear she had difficulty pronouncing the word ‘nagged’. ‘I said it was a disgrace that there wasn’t an annual audit of the estate, that it was all fine and well you saying you carried all the details in your head, but that simply wasn’t good enough. And you got cross, and started to flounce, and said you supposed you might as well want him to do a proper audit on the College while you were at it. And I said yes, and you got even more cross. Then you stormed out and made a great show that you were about to audit both your estate and the College, because you actually realised I was right ...’
Gresham gritted his teeth. She was dangerously close to the edge, this girl.
‘... and that was when people started to try and kill you, so you
had your mind on other things and didn’t do anything.’
Cecil must ’ave picked up word you was doin’ one of these ‘audits’,’ said Mannion. ‘Means lookin’ at every bit of paper you own, don’t it? ’E must have thought the paper was bound to come out.’
‘Do you know the funny thing?’ said Gresham. ‘God knows how the deed got stuck in the back of a book, except that it was a book I gave to the College from my father’s library at The House.’
Had his father hidden the deed, leaving some trail to it that for some reason time had obliterated? It would have been like his father to do that.
‘If Cecil hadn’t tried to burn down the College Library, we’d never have found the deed. An audit wouldn’t have probed every rough binding. Cecil actually ordered the thing that gave us the Deed in our hand.’
‘But you thought he didn’t want to destroy the College physically? Why did he change his mind?’ asked Jane.
‘My best guess is that he needed absolute proof that the Deed had been destroyed. He could only get that if he laid his hands on it first. So a double plan – kill me to stop me finding and using it, and arrange things so he had unlimited access to the College and anywhere a paper might be stored – which would have included access to the House and The Merchant’s House if I were dead.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Jane with a furrowed brow, ‘but why change his mind and try to burn the College down? It might destroy the Deed, but he could never know for certain if it had.’
‘God knows what goes on in Cecil’s mind,’ said Gresham. ‘I’m increasingly beginning to think my father must have said or written something to say that the Deed was in a book somewhere. It would have been typical of him to tell the Master the Deed existed when he gave the College the land, as a warning, with a riddle to hint at where it was. What if the existence of the Deed was passed down by word of mouth from Master to Master, and reported to Cecil’s father when he in effect stole the land?’
‘Why would a Master tell Cecil’s father that the land he lusted after might be repossessed at any time?’
‘Because even the greediest Master would fear for his life if after having struck a deal with the most powerful man in the land he was shown to have acted under false pretences. I think Cecil realised he wasn’t just going to lay his hands on the Deed, and that after what I said when I lied to him that I knew what it was he wanted I might just actually have it, or know where it was. But if it was indeed hidden in a book, the best place to hide it is in a book in a library, an obscure book no-one will read. He’s in effect stopped from killing me until Raleigh gets his pardon, in case my death were to cause his Spanish pension to be revealed. So a change of plan, burning the College down, wouldn’t give him absolutely certain knowledge the Deed was destroyed, but it would appreciably lessen the odds. I think events combined to make him accept a probability that the Deed was destroyed in place of the certainty he’d initially craved.’
‘And you know what else he’ll have done, don’t you?’ said Mannion. ‘No point in just burnin’ the College Library down, was there? For all Cecil knew, that paper could ‘ave been in the College Library. Or The Library at The House. No library at The Merchant’s House, so they won’t go there. But while’ we’re sittin’ here, The House could have been burnt down.’
‘Well,’ said Gresham, ‘if it has, it has. I’m rich enough to rebuild it now, anyway. And I‘m not riding through the night to find if my house has burnt down, If it has, London will be riding to me.’
Jane noted his calm. The House had been above all Sir Thomas Gresham’s house, the father Gresham had hardly known and certainly not loved. Gresham’s father was a brooding presence in The House. Gresham did not like uncertainty, and he did not and probably never would know why his father had chosen to leave a vast part of his fortune to the bastard son he had never shown affection for. There was a part of Gresham, Jane thought, that would actually be quite glad if The House burnt down.
Chapter Twelve
December to January 1604
London did indeed ride out to Gresham, though not with bad news. The rider clattered over the drawbridge the next day, just as Gresham had swung up on his horse to start the same journey in reverse. It was Stephen Travis, the young Captain Gresham had recruited to help at the proposed invasion of the College.
‘Sorry to halt you, he said, ‘but we had a bit of a funny business at The House the other night. Thought you ought to know.’
Gresham had retained Travis’s troops to guard The House.
‘You mean someone tried to burn The House down?’
Travis looked shocked.
‘How did you know?’
‘Did they succeed?’
‘You don’t seem very concerned either way,’ said Travis. ‘But as it happens, they didn’t.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’d decided to put out a barrier on the river, Nothing very much, ropes tied to barrels, guarding the jetty. And two men in a boat, to patrol. They caught two men. In a boat. Half drunk. Both set to hurl bombs through those delightfully expensive windows of The House overlooking the Thames.’
‘You have the men?’
‘We have them. But ...’
‘But that isn’t what made you ride to see me.’
‘I suppose not. How did you know?’
‘It’s a long way from London, and men like you don’t ride to tell people like me that nothing has happened. So what did make you ride out?’
Travis sighed. ‘I’m a mercenary, if the truth be known. No more, and no less. I’m also a rather good mercenary, as it happens. I take pride in myself. I take pride in my men. If I’m paid to kill a number of other mercenaries, and I do so, I feel good. What I never do is make it personal. I never believe in a cause I fight for. I never allow emotional entanglement to get in the way of my killing the people my employer has paid me to kill. It’s much simpler that way.’ He paused.
‘And?’ prompted Gresham, sensing there was more to come.
‘And then I met you,’ said Travis. ‘And you made it personal.’
‘How so?’
‘I found myself thinking that I’d fight for this man even if he didn’t pay me. Sacrilege! The death of the mercenary creed.’
‘Thank you,’ said Gresham. It seemed the right thing to say.
‘No thanks needed. In fact, I’d quite like to damn you to Hell.’
‘Why?’
‘Because in my business one must never, ever have a conscience. And I fear you may have given me one.’
‘And why is your conscience troubling you?’
‘A new contract is being offered. It should bring me joy. Work. Employment. My fine troop kept together.’
‘But ...?’
‘But you, damn you, started me thinking about who I worked for. And, frankly, I’m both very hostile to my would-be employers, and rather concerned about what I might be asked to fight for.’
Gresham waited. Travis had come to tell his story. He would do so, in his own time.
‘What do you know about the livery companies?’ asked Travis.
‘As much as anyone who isn’t a member,’ replied Gresham. ‘My natural father was a leading light in the supposed top company. I suppose I could have become a member – I think you get it either by birth or buying your way in – but I never bothered. I imagined there would be all sorts of problems in getting in as a bastard, and I had better things to spend my money on. And the few members I knew were definitely not my type.’
‘Tell me more,’ said Travis, asking the questions now. Gresham decided to humour him. What did he have to lose?
‘Well, as I’m sure you know, the original companies ruled all the trades, decided who could practise a trade, ran all the apprentice schemes, were meant to kick out people who didn’t
come up to the mark, and so on. They had a stranglehold on their trade, and charged accordingly. They used their wealth to take over the City of London, and stitched up the appointment of the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and all the rest of the bunch.’
Gresham thought for a moment. ‘I suppose I owe my attitude partly to what I thought of my father. Do you know he made a considerable part of the fortune I now spend by smuggling arms in from Germany? He declared them as silks, satins and velvets. In one shipment alone he smuggled eighteen thousand dagges – you know, the pistols.’
Travis nodded.
‘I only found out when I went through my father’s records. He’d trade in whatever brought the most money, without care to the law, or morality. He was totally unscrupulous. So I’m afraid I tarred all liverymen with that brush.’
‘And you say they’re not your type?’ questioned Travis, with a rather evil gleam in his eye.
‘Frankly. It just looks like another trough to me, like the Court. Self-interested men going through the motions, but driven in the main by overwhelming greed or a lust for power. Oh, I’m sure there are decent people among them, but most of the ones I’ve met are fat and boring businessmen who’ll never make it to the Court, so have tried to imitate it at a level they can access. They have their own Halls, like mini Palaces. They rank the Companies against each other on the basis of their wealth, just like the great noble families of England sweat hours over who has precedence over whom. They give themselves grand titles – do I remember a ‘Renter Warden’ visiting The House when I was a child, or something equally daft? They’re despised and mocked by the hereditary aristocracy as tradesman, but that same aristocracy still need their money so make the occasional gesture to them.’
The Coming of the King: Henry Gresham and James I (The Henry Gresham Series Book 3) Page 21