Et post quingentos rursus ab orbe datos
Octavagesimus octavus mirabilis annus
Ingruet et secum tristitia satis trahet.
Si non hoc anno totus malus occidet orbis,
Si non in totum terra fretumque ruant,
Cuncta tamen mundi sursum ibunt atque descrescent
Imperia et luctus undique grandis erit."'
For the Fellows, the Latin translated instantly in their minds. Gresham saw the confusion on the faces of some of the students, and cut in before they started to babble their ignorance to each other.
'"A thousand years from the virgin birth
Five hundred more allowed the globe,
Then is the wondrous eighty-eighth year
Bringing with it great woe. If, this year,
Total catastrophe does not befall, if land
And sea do not collapse in total ruin, yet
The whole world will suffer upheavals,
Empires will dwindle From everywhere
Will be great lamentation."'
This time the silence was longer. *Nonsense!' It was one of the most enfeebled of the Fellows, taken now to spluttering and declamation as the power of his mind left him. 'Superstitious nonsense, from those with brains in their backsides rather than in their heads. We shall not fight Spain if our soldiers and our sailors start in the belief that they are already dead.'
'Why, sir,' said Fat Tom, who claimed ancestry from Julius Caesar, and also claimed his ancestor's skill in military planning despite, never having been within shooting distance of an arquebus, 'I hardly feel we need to bring backsides into the debate. I person-ally always try to keep them out.'
The students laughed, as Tom had intended. Tom called everybody 'my dear' and spoke in a rather high voice from the top of his nose. He had once been challenged by a student who had called him a sodomite. Tom was a man who never willingly used one word where twenty would do. He had looked down on the boy, who could have been sent down for such an insult, and gave an answer that had immediately entered the folklore of the College. 'Young man,' he had said, 'I had to choose some years ago whether my pleasure was to come from food and drink or from sexual congress. My choice of the former makes the latter impractical, as I have trouble finding a bed to support me alone. At best, therefore, I can only be a sodomite in theory, and as you have shown a total inability to grasp any theory whatsoever, I would suggest that if such accusations are to be made then they should come from someone who does not have his brain up his arse.'
Tom's style and voice were deceptively languid. He spoke as if to the general mass. All knew he was talking to the man whose father was the government. 'If there is fear, it is only because men can see what government is blind to.'
'Your meaning, sir?' asked Cecil mildly. He had not pretended that the statement had been directed at anyone but him, but the neutrality of his response made him seem merely courteous and interested, rather than offended.
'There is confusion in our ranks, sir.' Tom was equally courteous. 'It's known that Spain is gathering ships. We have the greatest opposing army this side of antiquity a short sea journey away in the Netherlands, under Parma, the most powerful general in the world today.'
A mutter of agreement and fear went round the tables. Nowhere was dread of Spain stronger than in Puritan Cambridge. The Duke of Parma and his fierce Spanish soldiers were names used to frighten naughty children.
'There is… less confusion than you might conceive,' responded Cecil carefully, leaning forward. 'The Queen is eternally vigilant!'
'Why, so Her Majesty is,' said Fat Tom, 'but to us yokels out here in the country her generals appear less so. Where is the army that will repel the Duke of Parma? And with such soldiers as we have, where is the strategy? Are we to defend the whole coast, every port and harbour and beach, spread such men as we have around so thinly that they will report an invasion but be too weak to fight it off? Or do we concentrate our men at focal points to meet the attacker, risking that they land where we do not expect and march on London unopposed. Both tactics are risky, but it's even more risky to have no tactics at all!'
Tom was on the verge of rudeness, the distinction between that and academic robustness always being blurred. Cecil refused to rise to any bait.
'We have soldiers enough,' he said. God knows where they were, thought Gresham. England had never had a standing army, and the few professional soldiers it could muster were most of them in Flanders, failing to defeat the mighty Duke of Parma. 'But more than that we have our ships, surely? Ships enough to drop King Philip's lumbering galleons to the bottom of the sea, with or without Parma's precious soldiers in them.'
'The sea,' said Fat Tom, warming to his cause even more, 'is vast and even the most "lumbering'' of galleons is very small. Our fleet and theirs could pass each other in the night as if both were invisible.'
'And we have Drake…' said Cecil with an air of finality. There was a slight tick in his left eye, Gresham noted, an almost invisible flickering of the flesh. Drake. El Draco. Feared above all others by the Spaniards. Rumoured to have a magic glass through which he could see the position of every Spanish ship at sea. How else to explain the miraculous way he found the Spanish treasure vessels? A murmur of approval swept over the students. Drake was a talisman, a magic symbol to wave away fear of invasion. 'Drake is a mighty figure indeed. And captaining, of course, one of our new fine ships. Ships that can dip and weave across the waves like a dancer, sailing almost into the wind…'
In the face of bitter opposition, Hawkins, The Queen's Admiral, had cut down the huge castles that dominated the bow and stern of warships. Instead he had forced through new vessels with low, lean profiles, eminently more manoeuvrable and capable of sailing almost directly into the wind. The great castles had been for soldiers, so that they could pour down a musket fire on their enemy and then launch themselves down on their foe as they came alongside, grappled and boarded. Yet these vast castles fore and aft, their size almost a symbol of the ego of the ship's captain, caught the wind like a vast sail, made the ships almost unmanoeuvrable unless the wind was directly behind them.
We have ships that can stand off from an enemy and blow it out of the water. No boarding, no coming alongside.' It was Gresham taking over now. He had no need and no desire to offend Cecil, at least not until he knew what this man's game was. Yet if he was to become involved in the defence of England, it would be as wise to hear the answer from London to some obvious questions. 'But Drake has never commanded an English fleet in battle with another fleet. Even the Queen described him as her pirate,' Gresham said. A flicker of laughter went round the table. 'His only experience is in attacking primarily merchant vessels, or inferior forces, for the purpose of taking their cargo and enriching both the nation and himself. Glorious, certainly. But the Spaniards have fought pitched battles at sea, with several fleets.'
Though I wonder how glorious it really is, thought Gresham, or whether it is simply greed. And piracy.
'Our captains, even if they know how to use our ships and can resist the lure of treasure, are reported to be at each other's throats more often than they fight the enemy,' Gresham continued. It was known that Frobisher had threatened to tear Drake's heart out. 'Each ship in our fleet is a mere individual, operating at the whim of its captain. It's like an army where the officers are at war with each other, and each soldier takes a personal decision which enemy to fight!'
'I think,' said Cecil smoothly, 'that our captains can be trusted to unite in the face of any threat we might face from Spain. And if a young man such as yourself, with no experience of sea-faring, can identify these problems, think you not that those with all the experience in the world of seafaring, and their masters, are aware of them as well and have plans in hand to solve them?'
It was a good, telling point. There was a buzz of support from round the table. People needed to believe in this, Gresham realised. He also realised he had not added to the number of his friends by seeming to challenge
the reassurance of Cecil, and the reputation of Drake. The thinnest possible glint in Cecil's eyes suggested that he knew he had scored an emotional victory, if not an intellectual one, with the Fellowship.
The knock on the door came shortly after Gresham returned to his rooms. Mannion had been dismissed and was no doubt now haunting one of the less respectable taverns in Cambridge. Cecil motioned his own servant away, ordering him to shut both the outer and the inner door. It was an unusual slip from a man Gresham suspected weighed every move. Gresham could have pointed out that these were his rooms and it was therefore his decision as to whether the doors were open or shut. He kept his counsel.
'It is kind of you to see me,' said Cecil, inclining his head to Gresham and knowing that Gresham had no option.
'It's an honour,' Gresham replied, inclining likewise and knowing that it was not.
'You argued your case well,' said Cecil. The man had small, gimlet eyes. The cut of the long cloak he had donned, and the doublet under it, obscured the crook in his back, and his hair was arranged so as to cover in part the indentation in the side of his head that his detractors said had been caused when his wet nurse had dropped him on to a stone floor.
Yet I lost it, thought Gresham. However well I argued, it was you who took the balance of the Fellowship with you. What had Walsingham once said to him? To admit weakness is sometimes to gain strength'.
'Had we been in formal disputation, I think we both know you would have won,' said Gresham. Formal debates were the meat and drink of Cambridge academic life, central to its academic processes.
'Those who say what the listeners wish to hear frequently defeat those who tell the truth,' replied Cecil, something akin to a dry smile passing his lips.
Well now! Two sets of truth following on one from the other! At this rate we'll be in bed together by midnight and married in the morning, thought Gresham. 'I'm forgetting my manners,' he said aloud. 'Can I tempt you to some wine?'
'How kind,' replied Cecil. The voice was thin, reedy, but with the strength of wire. Gresham got up and poured the wine into a fine Venetian glass. If Cecil noticed how expensive his drinking vessel was he did not show it, merely toying with the stem as if distracted. Gresham decided to say nothing. It was Cecil who broke the silence. 'Unfortunately you are correct. We have no proper army to defend our shores. Drake is unreliable. Our ships are individuals, not a unified fleet such as the Spanish possess, with tactics they have tried out in battle.'
Gresham was able to control his face. Here was an admission indeed — an admission that could be taken to come direct from the Queen's Chief Minister.
'You will condemn me, no doubt,' said Cecil. Was he aware of the shock he had caused? It was difficult to know; the man was a courtier and a politician, bred to hide his feelings, as Gresham had been forced to learn to do. 'Condemn me for seeking to defeat your arguments tonight in front of your Fellowship when I knew them to be correct.' Was there the slightest hint of pleasure that he had been victorious?
'I condemn no one,' said Gresham, 'I leave that to judges and to politicians.'
'It is an instinct for one such as myself to calm fears,' said Cecil. 'Even more so if they are true.'
'I am no sailor,' said Gresham, repeating what he had said to Walsingham. "What role can I play in these great events?'
'From what little I know, you can act as eyes and ears for our country in Lisbon. And I believe for some while you have acted as an… agent, for Walsingham?'
'You must know I have,' answered Gresham simply.
'A spy? Are we allowed to use the word?' In using it Cecil had allowed a degree of venom to creep into his voice.
'If you don't, others will. And spies are necessary, after all,' said Gresham. 'As are dogs. And even lice must be necessary, or surely God would not have created them?'
'Very necessary,' said Cecil with the same distaste as one might describe the fellow who cleared out the midden. Both men were resisting an urge to scratch. 'In any event, here are the papers Sir Francis wished you to have. He requested that. I urge caution on you. As I am sure you know, such orders as he has chosen to give you will mean your death if they are found on your person in a foreign country. Sir Francis suggests-'
'That I destroy them once they are read. It is an order with which I'm familiar,' said Gresham with a thin smile.
'Indeed,' said Cecil, pleasantly. Why did his pleasantness worry Gresham? 'And I wish you well on the voyage. I understand Sir Francis is hoping for a great victory related to barrel staves.'
'Barrel staves?' said Gresham incredulously. A sense of humour was not a feature he associated with Robert Cecil. 'Are we going to acquire large quantities of barrel staves and beat the Spaniards over the head with them? I would have thought pikes and muskets were a more conventional-'
Cecil refused to rise to Gresham's sarcasm. He interrupted Gresham.
'My lord believes we can cripple the Armada through barrel staves as much as through cannon fire. A great Armada of ships requires thousands of tons of food, of wine of water, of powder — all stored in barrels. Where else can such commodities be stored? Have you tasted beer from a barrel made of unseasoned staves?'
Sour beer! Of course! Water was a dangerous drink, and the brewing process seemed to take the badness out of water. Even Gresham knew what happened on board ship if a barrel was broached and the contents poisoned through unseasoned timber. Such timber also bent and shrank, letting out the contents. Mind you, so few hops were used in brewing the beer for the Queen's ships that the stuff was rumoured to be rotten before it got into the barrels. Cecil continued, as if lecturing a child.
'Because the wood for staves has to season and, because Spain needs far more barrels than are currently available, the order has gone out for suitable wood across Europe. Small boats, mainly, in their hundreds. Heading for Lisbon. Walsingham believes if we can sink or capture enough of these vessels, we will give the Spaniards gut rot for food and poison for their drink. Drake's instructions are to patrol off Lisbon or Cadiz, attack if he can. If not, he should pick up all the coastal trade, sink most of it.'
'While this is fascinating,' said Gresham, 'I'm slightly at a loss to see its relevance’
'It is very simple,' said Cecil. 'Sir Francis needs not only information on the great ships that Philip is gathering — their cannon, their shot and their powder — but he wishes you to ascertain the state of the lesser shipping, the state of those unglamorous supplies that will underpin Spain's fleet.'
An unglamorous mission then, thought Gresham, seeking to find out unglamorous facts. 'Is there enmity between your father and Walsingham?' he asked Cecil. It was almost a random thought, allied to a desire to unsettle him. Why did Gresham dislike him so much?
‘Not at all,' replied Cecil. Gresham had chosen the wrong question. Or Cecil was hard to unsettle. 'If there were, it would hardly be likely that I would be running errands for Sir Francis.'
I cannot see why you should run such errands, thought Gresham, and it worries me. More layers of intrigue. Yet as far as Gresham could judge, Cecil had not told him a single lie. Who could hope to disentangle the truth from the lies?
The usual permissions have been given to the College, I understand,' said Cecil. The 'usual permissions' were letters from the Privy Council requesting that 'no hindrance' be given to one Henry Gresham for absence 'required in the service of Her Majesty'. It would, of course, lead to the usual resentments, as if Gresham did not have enough trouble in College already. And he would need to pay someone to cover his lectures.
Some instinct had drawn Mannion back. He stepped into Gresham's rooms as Cecil brushed past him.
‘We're going to sea to fight the Spanish, then spy in Lisbon,' said Gresham.
For a moment a strange expression flickered across the face of the normally phlegmatic Mannion. Then it was gone. 'Fight the Spanish?' he said. 'I thought all you wanted to do was to get into bed with them.'
Gresham sighed, and chose to ignore the sally. He
relayed his conversation with Cecil.
'I don't like it, not one bit,' said Mannion. 'That Cecil's on the ladder right enough, and 'e don't mind who 'e treads on to get up it. The way these bastards work at Court, I bet 'e 'asn't given you half the story.'
'There'll be battles at sea that'll decide the fate of England. Maybe set the map of Europe for hundreds of years to come. And I've been offered a ringside seat. What man could turn that down?' asked Gresham. Well, it would make a story for the girls, and there was some excitement in it.
'One with more sense than you,' responded Mannion. 'Well, I'm glad I taught you to swim.' He had indeed done so in Gresham's youth. Gresham's hatred of the sea did not extend to swimming in the cool clear waters of his father's lake, or the upper reaches of the Cam before Cambridge's sewage stained its waters.
'Let's hope we don't have to,' said Gresham, with feeling.
Chapter 3
April, 1587 Goa; Plymouth; The Attack on Cadiz
Her childhood in Spain had been idyllic, and she was too young to notice the increasing signs of poverty on their estate. The first blow had come with the news that her feckless father had been forced to take up a posting in God-forsaken Goa, India, and rent out what few lands they had remaining, taking his wife and daughter into a prison of prickly heat and alien people. Fortunes were being made in Goa. His breeding could help gain him a post, but nothing could compensate for his lack of basic ability. She had been deeply disturbed by the need to move, though no misery could equal that of life in Goa itself. Then the second blow had come — the death of her father from some nameless, wasting fever that had used up more of their precious money uselessly in medical fees. She had not realised how much she had loved the vain, ineffectual man until she faced life without him. Then came the third blow, the news from her mother, whom she adored, that she was to rescue the family fortune by marrying the French merchant Jacques Henri, a sweating lard-of-a-man she had met only once in Spain, and who had not even lifted his heavy-lidded eyes to meet her own.
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