The galleon's grave

The pain finally scored a small victory over Cecil. He shifted, and his lips tightened over his thin mouth.

It was time to get serious. Even if Cecil was his would-be murderer Gresham would not find out tonight. Ail he could do was plant snares, blocks, so that if he was the culprit he would pause before trying again. Like the poacher, Gresham had to set his traps over a wide ground, wherever the animals might tread. Yet he was now the hunted, not the hunter. 'We live in complex times, Master Cecil,' said Gresham.

'How so?' There was the tiniest hint of a sneer in Cecil's voice.

'You are a man in the midst of making, or breaking, your career. Your main rival for the Queen's favours is the Earl of Essex. Beauty and the Beast, in fact.' Cecil stiffened at that, but said nothing. 'Or more accurately, ancient breeding versus self-made man. You see, for all your father's power and wealth, you have no noble ancestry.'

Why did Cecil bridle at that? Gresham stored away the weakness for possible future use.

'I make no insinuations,' said Gresham, 'against the son of the Queen's Chief Minister. Perish the traitorous thought! Why men have been killed for less.. not that that was an insinuation, of course. Merely a slip of the tongue. But I do have one more thing to mention, in passing, as it were.'

'And what is that?'

'Your illustrious father is out of favour because he is seen as having expedited the signing and the sending of the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots. The Queen is claiming her ministers acted without her authority.'

'Gossip,' said Cecil easily. 'Idle Court gossip. If you had-attended Court more, you would learn how to treat such tittle-tattle.'

'I'm so glad it's just that,' said Gresham, sounding relieved. 'You're obviously secure in your power and influence. Me? I have someone trying to kill me, someone who doesn't want me to know who they are. So I need a little insurance on my life. And from a number of people, until I identify my real enemies. We're two very different people. I've have no dependants, no family as such, no one to cry for my death.'

'How sad,' said Cecil, with earth-shattering insincerity. I suspect that even this early in my career there are many who would cheer up dramatically if I were to die,' said Cecil, with a dry humour that was the nearest he ever got to laughing. *You miss the point,' said Gresham. 'I'm not interested in who would cry if you died. I am interested in who you would cry for if they died. I'm in love with only myself. That's my strength. They tell me you are in love with someone else. That's your weakness. If I determine that you attempted to kill the person I most love — me — I will activate my insurance, and the person you most love will die.'

'You have a window into my soul, do you, Henry Gresham?' asked Cecil mockingly.

'No, but perhaps the beautiful Elizabeth Brooke has one.'

Cecil shot to his feet, and the candles all round the room flickered as if in anger.

'How dare you?' Cecil roared, There was a scurrying at the door, and the two servants appeared, bursting in and halting only when Cecil raised his hand.

Cecil could have tried to kill me then and there, thought Gresham. Outnumbered three to one, disadvantaged by being seated, a quick thrust of a dagger and a lifeless bundle in a weighted sack thrown to join the other bodies in the Thames that night. He could see the thought passing through Cecil's brain. 'You don't know what arrangements I have in place should I not return from this house. It'd be gratifying to kill me. It wouldn't be intelligent,' he warned Cecil.

Cecil motioned the men away with his hand.

He was terrified of women, fearing their scorn of his body. Elizabeth Brooke was the daughter of Lord Cobham and would bring him social respectability as well as a dowry of two thousand pounds. It was also said, extraordinarily, that Elizabeth was both a lovely girl and one who felt some love at least for Cecil. There was no accounting for women.

'As I said, attachments such as this are a weakness of yours. My lack of attachments is my strength. No harm need come to the woman you love. All that's required is that you are proven to have done no harm to me, and attempt no such harm in the future.'

'I do not respond to threats,' said Cecil with acid in his voice. 'And what is most certain, above all other certainties, is that those who threaten me need look first to the threat to their own lives.'

'Wonderful!' said Gresham, suddenly infinitely relaxed. 'Marvellous! You realise what's happened of courser Cecil did not realise, clearly. He was wrong-footed by the ebullient cheerfulness of Gresham's tone, confused. 'We've acknowledged that we're enemies. At last the slimy protocol of Court has been replaced by some real human feeling. My desire to kill your fiancee if you're the person seeking to kill me. Your desire really to kill me if I make that threat.'

'If my reaction to our relatively brief acquaintance is any guide, there must be many who wish you ill, Henry Gresham,' said Cecil.

'But few who will say it so clearly,' said Gresham with immense cheerfulness. 'How strange, yet how admirable, that from dislike can come honesty. Now we know each other.'

'You will never know me,' said Cecil. *Nor you me,' said Gresham, 'but we can both know enough to get by.'

'Why did you come here tonight?'

'To see if it was you who tried to have me killed.'

'And have you?'

'Our meeting has prompted interesting thoughts,' said Gresham, smiling, relaxed now. 'And there is something you could do as a gesture of goodwill.'

Cecil shifted uneasily in his seat. Was it physical pain, or mental uncertainty?

Tou talk of goodwill after making bizarre threats against me?'

'It was rumoured before I left that there was to be a diplomatic mission to the Duke of Parma, to see if peace could be negotiated between Spain and England. Has it happened?' Gresham asked.

‘You are well informed,' said Cecil. It was actually George who had been well informed, but Gresham saw no reason for Cecil to know that. 'No, the mission has not yet taken place. It will not do so for some while.'

'The rumour also had it that you were to be a member of this mission. I need to accompany it. Your influence in allowing that to happen would be helpful.'

‘I would have thought Sir Francis Walsingham's influence was sufficient to ensure you your passport? Why not approach him?'

'I may well do so. Yet his influence is not necessarily so massive as to resist an objection from, say, Lord Burghley. That same man who might seek to oppose my presence on this mission in the face of, say, an objection from his son.'

'I repeat, you have just threatened to kill or maim my fiancee,' said Cecil, a vicious anger still in his voice, 'and now you are asking for my help. Do you not recognise a certain irony in your request?'

'I prefer to think of it as pragmatism,' said Gresham. 'You would happily kill me without a moment's thought if I stood in your way. I reciprocate the gesture. The pragmatism comes in because all your climbing of the greasy pole at Court comes to nothing if our country collapses to an invasion and Spain rules in London. My presence on the diplomatic mission might help avert that.'

'And how can I be certain that you work for England, and not Spain? How can I be certain that letter you say was forged was not genuine?'

'You can't. But if I was a spy you would have an excellent chance to catch me out in the close company we would be forced to keep on such an expedition.'

'And what would you do on such a mission? I do not relish one of our members being caught spying when we are in effect in enemy country. I care not if you lose your life, but it would be a sadness if in losing your own life you threatened the lives of the others on the mission.'