An overwhelming desire to sleep came over Gresham. He had heard about this, from soldiers who had been in battle. The dreadful tiredness, the total imperative to sleep. The Daisy groaned as another wave lifted her water-filled belly up out of the sea. 1 must not sleep. We must somehow claim back the boat from the elements, must somehow get back to England, Gresham repeated to himself.
'We're sinking.' It was Anna. She had emerged from the cabin. How could a young girl's voice be so commanding? Somehow she had managed to comb her hair. 'I'm pleased to say I know nothing about the sea except that it is wet and unpleasant in ways I had never dreamed of,' she said to Gresham. 'Yet even I can see this boat is settling deeper and deeper into the water, not least of all because there is a foot of waters in my cabin that was not there an hour ago.'
'Water,' mumbled Gresham.
Mannion took over. 'Wooden ships, they're funny. You see, the wood really wants to float. It's what it was designed to do. Seen ships like this stay afloat for days. There's another thing, both bad news and good news. Load of them barrels they gave us when we set off. They're empty. Found that out too, soon after we set off. 'Bout half of them. That's what you can hear now.'
There was a constant bumping and crashing from within the hold as the ship rose and fell uneasily in the swell.
'They're helping us keep afloat, I reckon.'
'Raft,' said Gresham. 'Build a raft.'
They were dead in the water. Miraculously the two tops'ls were still largely intact, but flapping uselessly as the last savage swing of the storm had severed the ropes that hung at their foot, tensioning them and holding the wind. Leng had crept out from whatever corner he had been gibbering in, calmer now, just looking as if someone had held him underwater for half an hour.
'We have to build a raft,' said Gresham. 'Got some water left, got some food not spoilt. Use the empty barrels to build a raft, while the old Daisy's still got some life in her. Rig a sail as a shelter. Keep Anna out of the sun. You can survive for weeks, if you can keep out of the water. That's what kills you, staying in the water.' He was almost raving, feeling his control leaving him.
'Can I ask just one question?' asked Anna.
'You just have. Now will you shut up and let us get on with it?'
Why had he rounded on the girl, thought Gresham? Because he was exhausted, because crisis after crisis was piling up in his life, and most of all because he had not asked for her to be there as an extra burden, a burden demanding he think about someone other than himself. He liked being selfish, he had decided. It was safer, simpler, far less complicated. And deep in his soul, he was beginning to think that he would never set foot on land again.
The girl ignored him.
'Why are you going to build a raft?'
Gresham sighed, deeply and long.
'Because this ship is sinking. And because unless we're to sink along with it, we need something on which we can float. Can we carry on now?'
'Certainly,' she said. 'But it would be easier, would it not, to go to wherever we're going on that very big boat that's been in sight for nearly ten minutes now?'
The men turned, their jaws dropping. The Merchant Royal, one of the London ships that had separated from Drake's fleet what seemed a lifetime earlier. Scouring the ocean for Drake, blown off course in the same storm that had nearly killed them. The wonderful sight of the ship bore down on them, the two little flapping sails having let her see them before even Anna's sharp young eyes had picked out her bulk on the ocean.
Chapter 6
July, 1587 London
‘I came as soon as I received your message,' said Robert Cecil. Well, that was true at least, thought Walsingham. Cecil had come by boat to Barnes from Whitehall, against the tide if the sheen of sweat on his boatmen was anything to go by. The journey would have pained Cecil, Walsingham knew. His warped back made no travel easy, not even by boat. It was intentional, of course. The more pain Cecil underwent before their interview the more Walsingham might catch him off guard.
The room was small, but overlooked the garden at Barnes through a long, latticed window that was disproportionately large. Walsingham had avoided the garish decoration that was suddenly the fashion, and stayed with sombre, dark panelling, while a feeble fire gagged in the grate and gave out no heat.
'How may I be of assistance?' asked Cecil. He was young still, thought Walsingham. In a few years he would shear his last comment of the slight note of ingratiation it now contained, but in his inexperience, he managed to make a straightforward comment ever so slightly patronising.
His family had no breeding. Walsingham was sure that in some way this was Cecil's weak spot. He needed to know for certain.
Insurance. Knowing where this man was vulnerable was important if Walsingham was to be allowed to bow out of power, instead of being kicked out The vicious battle for power that was taking place at Court was between breeding and ability. Men like Cecil had wits enough for ten, and a supreme sense of politics derived from always having to guard their backs. Their opponents, Essex in particular, had breeding, charm and the easy nonchalance of those bred to power.
'It is possible that I might be of assistance to you' said Walsingham, with a smile neither of them believed. 'I learned long ago that men of sense acknowledge debt, and ensure that it is always repaid. I am a poor man.' Well, that was true. What money he once had had gone into financing his network of agents. Therefore I can give only knowledge, in the hope that one day those to whom I give it might be in a position to return something I need in payment back to me.'
Cecil had to think about that one. Undoubtedly he was thinking that he should beware the Devil bringing gifts. Yet he was a young man, and the curiosity and rashness was there in him, even if it was not vented in wine, women or gambling like most young men. Cecil would take the bait.
'What knowledge is it that you have, and think might be of interest to me?' asked Cecil carefully.
There! He would swallow the bait! 'I can hardly help but be aware of your interest in the young man Henry Gresham,' said Walsingham. Was there a slight colour come into Cecil's face? A slight tightening of the skin round the lips? Only the most suspicious person would have thought so. 'I wonder if you are aware of a most amusing story regarding that young man?'
Cecil shook his head, his leaning forward betraying his interest.
'You know his background?' asked Walsingham.
'I believe so,' said Cecil, on firmer ground now. 'His father was immensely rich, a fortune made largely through moneylending. He apparently conceived a bastard. It was not until quite late in the bastard's life that it was realised his father had left him a vast fortune, having neglected him while he was alive.'
True, as far as it goes,' said Walsingham. 'But have you ever wondered why such a highly respected man should acknowledge a by-blow at all? A bastard may be a… a regrettable fact of life for such a man. Yet we both know the river hides many such secrets. I wonder why Gresham's father took the trouble to acknowledge him? And, moreover, why he chose to make him such a wealthy bastard?'
'I had assumed… a sense of duty,' said Cecil. 'And the father died childless, after a boy born in wedlock departed this life, did he not? Perhaps the father felt it preferable that the line continue, even from such flawed seed, rather than it die out…'
'It may well be so,' said Walsingham. 'It may well be so indeed. Yet the birth of a bastard was not the only extraordinary thing to happen in the life of Sir Thomas Gresham. You are too young to remember, yet some years ago, he was made guardian to a young lady. A quite extraordinary young lady. The reasons are lost in time. Perhaps they were as simple as a young woman needing a guardian and an old, wealthy man being deemed the most suitable candidate.'
'And the outcome?' asked Cecil, engrossed.
'The young lady in question was a nightmare. Beautiful, independent, possessed of a will entirely of her own. And of very bad judgement. They clashed, violently, from the outset. The servants recollect him complaining t
hat unlike most men he had been made to suffer Hell here on earth by this woman placed in his care, instead of waiting until after his death. In any event, the lady left his household after a period of time.'
'Is that all?' asked Cecil, disappointed.
'In public?' said Walsingham. 'Yes. Except if one listens to the servants, a very different story emerges. A story of a wild young girl deciding to make an old man rather happier than he claims to have been. Of a child born some six months after the lady I have mentioned left Sir Thomas Gresham's house. Born, I might add, in conditions of strictest secrecy. A child later acknowledged by Sir Thomas as his own, and named Henry Gresham. With no mention, now or then, of the mother, her origins, her background or who she was.'
'And are you sure of this?' asked Cecil.
'Yes,' said Walsingham. 'I am.'
'And who was the girl?' asked Cecil.
'Lady Mary Keys,' said Walsingham flatly.
The colour drained from Cecil's face. Interesting, thought Walsingham, very interesting.
'Lady Mary Keys… the sister of Lady Jane Grey?' asked Cecil, his voice almost a whisper.
'The same,' said Walsingham. 'Lady Jane Grey, whose blood-claim to the throne of England was sufficient for her to be declared Queen for nine days, placed there by unscrupulous relatives before being removed by Queen Mary and executed for her folly. So you see, the blood of Tudor Kings flowed through Lady Mary Keys, enough of it to make her sister Queen for nine days. In that sense, if in no other, I suspect Henry Gresham's first name was chosen with some care.'
'And why have you told me this, Sir Francis?' asked Cecil, his eyes staring now.
Why, thought Walsingham? Because breeding is the one thing you will never have, and the lack of it frightens you. Because I do not know if you are acting for your father, for yourself, for the Queen, for Leicester, for Essex or for someone whose existence I am not yet aware. All I know is that Henry Gresham features in your plans, and that this news will make you fear him that little more, and in your youth and inexperience that fear might make you reveal just a little more.
'I have told you,' said Walsingham, 'because men of our position should trust each other. Were you to find out from other sources what I have just told you, you might consider that I had been withholding information from you. You are a rising star. I would wish to have your complete trust.'
'Does Gresham know who his mother is? That he is… distantly related to monarchy?'
'That I do not know. Yet it would not surprise me. Henry Gresham is a rather deep young man, who may know more than even I suspect.'
Cecil had emphasised 'distantly related', Walsingham noticed. Good. He suspected that Cecil already resented Gresham's good looks and fine body, as well as the independence his money brought him. Only in intelligence were they a match for each other, Cecil's superiority resting simply on his awareness of Gresham being a bastard. And now Walsingham had taken that away, and as well as unsettling him had perhaps gained an inch more of Cecil's trust.
'Are there others who know the truth about his birth? Others at Court?' asked Cecil.
There! Walsingham had sensed it. The tremor, the flicker of something behind the words. Walsingham sensed that for Cecil much rested on this answer.
'It is possible,' said Walsingham, appearing to think the question over for a few seconds, as if it had never occurred to him before. 'But if you were to ask me to guess, I would say… no.'
Cecil visibly relaxed. His parting was as quick as he could make it, only just the right side of civility.
So what did Walsingham now know, he mused as the dust settled after Cecil's departure? Cecil was involved in a plot of some sort or another, and Henry Gresham was probably little more than a pawn in it. Yet for Gresham to play his part it was necessary for those who wielded power in the Court not to know that Gresham had been born not just on the wrong side, but on the wrong side of a very expensive blanket. Well, Walsingham was a long way from an answer, but in the slow, measured and remorseless manner that had served him so well over the years he was gaining a little more information all the time. And Henry Gresham? Walsingham had no doubt that he had lessened Gresham's chances of survival, but Gresham had been a volunteer to join the murky world of espionage. He would sink or swim, as plain luck and merit dictated. Just as Walsingham had had to do when he was a young man.
*
The Merchant Royal had mercifully sailed to London, berthing at Deptford. Gresham felt as if the journey from Plymouth to London would have succeeded where a Spanish galley and Drake and his enemies had failed, and killed him at last. He had pleaded with the Captain to be first off. Their arrival on deck would be the talk of every tavern in London the first minute one of the Merchant's sailors made it ashore. He had tried to explain the situation to Anna, felt that he owed her that at least.
'Someone wanted me killed on Drake's ship. I can't be certain of who it is. The minute the ship docks the story will be out in London, and for all I know whoever wants me dead will try again. I can't use my own house in case it's being watched, and George's house in London will be as well watched as my own. We have to smuggle ourselves to an inn, and not even a good one. It has to be one where people don't always want to be recognised…'
'What death warrant is out on me?' asked Anna. 'Apart from the social death of having nothing to wear, no servants to care for even my basic needs and no home to go to. Nor any parents to find in this nonexistent home!' Her tone was cold. 'You tell me that my… guardian is rich, a person who speaks with the Queen of England.' She gave a sharp laugh. ‘Yet he and his ward have to disguise their passage through London as if they were criminals. I believe this is a rich person,' her voice was loaded with scorn, 'a friend of the Queen!' She cursed the hot tears she felt rising up in her eyes, turned her back on both of them quickly before they could see.*1 think you are both criminals, and liars.' Her voice was steady.
Gresham was losing what little patience he had. Mannion looked as if any moment he would take the girl and put her over his knee.
'My being made your guardian and your stupid coming aboard the Daisy means that we are now associated, seen as being together. Any enemy of mine will be an enemy of yours!'
'This is a poor country, where honest women cannot safely walk the streets,' she said scornfully.
'It's a country fighting for its existence,' said Gresham, 'and I'm sorry you've been caught up in that fight. Either way, my life is at risk if when we leave this ship I am recognised, or if I am recognised by your presence. We're lucky. We'll land after the sun's gone down. We can shroud you in a cloak…'
'There is a simpler way,' said Anna in a matter-of-fact voice.
'There is no simpler way,' said Gresham. Needle shafts of pain were beginning to shoot through his head, and he had never felt more tired, the exhaustion a physical presence pressing down on him. 'I've already-'
'Dress me as a man,' said Anna simply. 'Or as a ship's boy. They have clothes on board, clothes that will fit. What news is there in a ship's boy leaving a ship? Particularly if his hair is crammed under a cap and his face blackened with dirt.'
There was a stunned silence. Gresham and Mannion looked at each other aghast.
'Don't be ridiculous!' exploded Gresham. 'Young girls can't go around in trousers, for Heaven's sake!'
'Please stop talking like a father when you are only the age of a son. And a very young son at that,' said Anna, her voice as sharp as a sword being taken out of its sheath. Why were these men so… stupid. How long did it take them to see the obvious? 'If you really think we're in danger, two seamans and a boy going ashore will attract far less attention than two men and a woman.'
'Seamen. Not seamans.' Gresham looked her over. He guessed her hips were quite boyish, pleasantly rounded for sure but nothing like the vast, child-bearing mountains some women carried. But her breasts
… even under a loose-fitting linen shirt…'
'Now you've inspected the goods at length, do you want to buy?'
Anna's voice was acid, stinging, having been insulted by the mental undressing to which her body had been subjected. 'Shop can't stay open all day…' It was a phrase her favourite nurse had used. Gresham controlled the flush that threatened to creep into his face. Damn! Had he been that obvious?
'I was thinking…' How do you tell a well-brought-up seventeen-year-old female Spanish aristocrat that her breasts were too big? Mannion interrupted.
'It's not as daft as it sounds. She's right, it'll be less dramatic if we're just a lad and two men. And we sure ain't going to get a woman's dress on board this ship. Getting some clothes for a lad'll be a doddle.'
Feeling that he was being ganged-up on, Gresham faltered, losing the battle with the redness in his cheeks. 'But what… what about concealing… how do we hide… you know…' He felt like cupping two imaginary breasts to his chest. To Hell with it! 'You know your… female bits?'
Was there the faintest glimmer of amusement in the girl's eyes at Gresham's discomfiture? Mannion had turned to the tiny window. Why was he silently shaking?
'They can be strapped back, wound with tape, as a long as it's not too long,' she said, as if discussing her breasts with a man was an everyday commonplace. Perhaps it was, thought Gresham, for all he really knew about the girl.
Gresham found himself stirring, against his will, at the prospect of someone taking on that job, and brought himself round by imagining that he was jumping into the cold, clear water of the Cam on a winter's day. Sex was like food. It was an appetite. You didn't let it touch your heart.
Leng had been useless in providing them with information. Gresham and Mannion had bided their time, then cornered him one evening aboard the Merchant Royal.
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