The Queen was quite capable of gracing a horse, though usually travelled by water in London on one of the great state barges. Today, however, she had chosen the vast, lumbering carriage that must have been a nightmare for the coachman to control in the narrow streets of the capital. They pulled the horses up and drew them to the side, Anna having the sense to realise that someone great was passing by, even if she did not realise that it was the greatest person in the land. Instead of speeding by, spattering them with mud and dust, the coach slowed and then stopped some yards ahead of them. Its escort, in the Tudor colours of green and white, drew up, their horses snorting. They waited, uncertain, and men leaped down from the roof of the carriage. The door was opened, a carpet laid on the road. Queen Elizabeth stepped out on to the street.
Oh no, thought Gresham. Not the Great Bitch Incarnate! His murderess? Please, dear God, preserve me from this!
A ragged cheer went up from the bystanders who had stopped to gawp. Gresham and Anna froze on their horses, then made deep obeisance from the waist, before leaping off their mounts — Gresham bowed low, very low indeed. Anna bowed her head and bobbed down, holding the curtsey at its lowest level. Thank God someone had brought her up to know what to do, thought Gresham.
'Here!' The voice was imperious. When the daughter of Henry VIII wanted something, no one was left in any doubt. 'Cease your bowing and scraping! Come here. And bring those horses with you.'
Gresham had been about to hand the reins to one of his men, but moved forward now, to the edge of the carpet the Queen's men had laid to preserve the hem of her dress. And what a dress. Deep, deep red, bejewelled as if to rival the night sky, and slashed, the ruff extravagant, the sleeves so puffed as to have life of their own. The Queen eyed Henry Gresham up and down appreciatively.
'Young Henry Gresham, unless I am very much mistaken!' she exclaimed.
'Your Majesty,' said Gresham bowing deep again, hat in hand. Alive, he thought. Just in case you wondered, or had wanted me dead.
'Young Henry Gresham who absents himself from my Court, I see,' said the Queen, dangerously. Correction; every word she spoke was potential danger, thought Gresham, including these.
'Your Majesty, I have until yesterday been at sea for several months, with the forces of Sir Francis Drake. Nothing except the urgency of serving Your Majesty overseas would otherwise take from me the pleasure of attending Your Majesty's court.'
'Hmph!' said the Queen, in a most unladylike grunt, 'so I hear that you picked up a prize of your own on your recent sea voyage. Show yourself, girl. Come forward now!' She motioned to two men to take Gresham's and Anna's horses. Eyes lowered, Anna advanced, curtseyed again.
Oh help, thought Gresham, had she been listening? Does this silly girl know who this is? Does she think it's some dowager aunt of mine who's accosted me in the street?
'Well,' said the Queen, 'I could see they would fight over you. Is it true, girl, that your mother died on board ship? That she cast you on the mercies of this young wolf here?'
'Your Majesty,' said Anna, eyes still decorously lowered, 'it is true that my dear mother departed this life at sea. As your all-knowing Majesty will know, I was placed in the guardianship of your subject here.'
'I am sorry for your mother, and for you in your loss,' said the Queen, not unkindly. Anne Boleyn, her mother, had been executed for adultery before she knew her, thought Gresham, and called a whore ever since. It must give her a limited line in sympathy for dead mothers. Of all people on earth she had been dealt a Devil's pack by her breeding. Yet she had survived. Against all the odds. The Queen looked at the beautiful girl and her horse, the striking young man standing beside her. They were an embodiment of good breeding, for all that Gresham was born on the wrong side of the bed. Like their respective horses, they were the summit of their species. The Queen stared at the young bastard in all his glory, and the young girl, the splendour of her beauty shining out despite the riding habit twenty years out of fashion.
'It will end in tears,' she said, but with the slightest of smiles playing on her make-up smeared face, her eyes dancing with fierce intelligence. She looked directly at Anna. 'I of all people know how hard it is to be a woman in a man's world. They would rather own us than obey us, these men. So you, young lady, can I come to your rescue?' Suddenly Gloriana appeared rather tired, and above all old. 'Is this young man terrorising you? Is he haunting you? Would you wish that I make you a ward of Court — though, God knows, I have enough expenses to my charge already!'
Had the Queen looked at Gresham as she spoke?
Anna risked her own tiny smile. 'No, Your Majesty, not terrorising me. He is trying to be very distant,' and here she chanced the smallest of looks up at the Queen and into her eyes, 'as he tries to be very distant from everyone. But he is perfectly proper.'
The Queen laughed out loud, an unashamed belly laugh that would have done a fifteen stone man in a tavern proud. 'Well,' she roared, 'if you keep them distant you've won your safety! Well, my offer stands.' She was clearly becoming bored, and the wind was starting to blow up the street, the crowds increasing by the minute. 'If you wish me to take you in, find you a good English husband even, you may contact me. And as for you, Henry Gresham…' She turned to him. 'Come and see me in my Court! There are enough who would die for such an invitation. Do not be so arrogant as to refuse one from your Queen that others would give their lives for. And one other thing. Lay a finger on that girl and it won't only be your head stuck on a pike on London Bridge!'
And with another roaring laugh, she ascended into her coach. Gresham's shoulders were beginning to sink back in relief as he let out his breath. Then, as she was almost in through its vast door, she turned and motioned to Gresham to come close. His shoulders pulled upwards again. Her teeth were black and Gresham was surprised her breath could not be seen like a putrid brown stain on the air. She leaned close to him.
'Tell me,' said the Queen, 'is it true that Drake said he intended to swinge the King of Spain's beard, and then changed it when that damn fool Secretary of his put him right?'
You never knew with royalty, that was the problem. They could be your best friend one minute, and then have you up for treason for telling a bad joke or being over familiar. And this one could be chatting away knowing full well she had just ordered him killed. Gresham gambled. He leaned forward even closer to Elizabeth, wondering if at that proximity his trimmed beard would catch fire at her breath.
'As a mere subordinate, Majesty,' he said, 'and someone who Sir Francis saw fit to take a shot at…' she would have heard that story for certain, 'you would expect me to be the soul of discretion. Yet I can confirm that a certain rather unconventional assault on the King's beard was proposed, somewhat sotto voce, before a correction was issued and a rather different threat was made fortissimo.' He leaned in even further, almost touching her face. Had he got the mix of deference and the conspiratorial right? 'However, Your Majesty, what is not widely known is that when the first threat was made I was the only person looking away to Cadiz harbour. I swear two additional Spanish vessels sank the minute our commander uttered his unique threat to the King of Spain.'
He had got it right, thank God. An appreciative snort of laughter emerged from the unnaturally red royal lips, wrapped now in a grin of positively malicious enjoyment. Then her face darkened. Gresham's heart sank with it.
'And what does the young man who I hear such things of…' Such things, Gresham's mind raced. Talk of good things, or bad things? 'What does he think about the prospect of Sir Francis Drake commanding the only wooden walls that stand between my kingdom and Spain?'