'Sometimes you are a stupid man, and this is a surprise for someone who is so rich. Mary is a very good maid and we are friends of best,' replied Anna primly. 'Girls do not talk to each other in the same way as silly men.'
The tone was that of a monarch reprimanding the lowliest of servants. Gresham suddenly realised he was being dismissed as a person of no importance. He found it strangely annoying. It was alright on a deck or where men were in control. Here it was different.
She was passionate, the girl was, Mannion reckoned. It had taken him some while to sense it. Sometimes beautiful women were like alabaster pots, marble, made of a material that somehow you could never warm up. But this one, though it was a real good coating of alabaster, there was fire in her belly alright, though she hid it. She was young enough even not to recognise it for what it was. Virgin? He reckoned so. You could tell. But it was only a matter of time.
They were arguing now, again.
'It's "best of friends",'said Gresham.
'Exactly. That is what I said.'
'No, you said "friends of best".'
'I did not!'
'Why do you always deny things that are the truth?'
'I do not always deny things that are the truth.' Anna paused for thought. George's jaw had still not returned from the floor where it had dropped on first sight of her, and the obviously nonplussed man had tickled her vanity. 'I sometimes do this, but only when it is necessary. And with you it is often necessary, because you are often very pompous and talk to me like an old man, when in fact you are still a boy and hardly older than me.'
'I think I'll take Edmund Spenser's parakeet to Lisbon instead of you. The one he got from the Indies? It's more beautiful than you, and when you want to shut it up you just put a blanket over its cage,' said Gresham. Gresham and Spenser the poet had long been friends.
'Oh yes! So now you want me to climb under your blanket, is that it?'
'I never said…'
So they had moved from a rather strange formality in their dealings into bickering like an old married couple. Mannion decided to block it out, but was vaguely aware that the pair of them kept it up all the way to the Palace. God help them if this went on all the way Lisbon.
He knew that he had to go and see Walsingham. He both dreaded it and, if he was being honest with himself, felt real fear.
'I hear your… ward's admission to the Court went very well,' said Walsingham, no hint of tension in his voice.
'If by that, sir, you mean that she was made several offers of marriage that night, and rather more offers for shorter-lived relationships, then the evening was certainly a success,' said Gresham, who had found himself ignored more and more as Anna had taken the floor and the hearts of several young men and not a few old enough to know better.
'My Lord,' said Gresham, who presently felt unable to engage in idle chit-chat, 'I need to know if you ordered my death at sea.' Well, Gresham had never asked a question quite so directly before. The only sign of surprise was a slightly raised eyebrow. Yet even that from Walsingham was the equivalent of a heart attack from another man.
'And why would you think I had done so?'
He had not denied it! Something came near to cracking in Gresham's heart. He could handle any man, even the Queen. Yet of all men, Walsingham was the one who he felt least able to defend himself against. Briefly Gresham explained what had happened, the lethally incriminating evidence planted on him.
Walsingham gazed in silence out of the window for several minutes after Gresham had finished. From far away came shouts of children playing in the Thames, risking their death of cold. It had been a tiresome ride out to Hammersmith and then on to Barnes. Finally he turned to Gresham.
'Welcome to your rite of passage. You are familiar with the phrase? It is when a young man is set a task, or faces one, that defines his move from child to adult.'
'I don't understand,' said Gresham, floundering.
'As a child, you could ask a question such as you have asked of me and expect an answer that would either put your fears to rest or give them cause. I suggest that if you analyse your own feelings, you will be responding now as a man. As a man, you will know that were I to deny having issued your death warrant it could just as easily be a lie as the truth. The answer, therefore, serves no meaningful purpose. A few simple words of denial do not mean you can afford to ignore the possibility that I might be seeking your death. You will have to guard against that as a possibility whatever, from now on, if you wish to survive — and you, Henry Gresham, have a finely developed instinct for survival. It is the realisation that there are no easy answers that distinguish a child from a man.'
Gresham knew the truth of what was being said even as Walsingham spoke, knew that he could never again have total trust in this man just as he fought against that realisation.
'As it happens,' said Walsingham, 'I did not arrange for that commission from Spain to be forged or found. It irritates me that someone sought to kill one of my agents. Yet you will be ill-advised to take comfort from my words.'
'Why so, My Lord?' asked Gresham sensing the answer before it came.
'Because I could be lying. Because it would have been simpler for you to identify clearly your enemy, and because you must know that even if this time I did not seek your death I would do so, ruthless, remorselessly and without a pang, of conscience if I thought that by your death I would serve the better interests of the Protestant religion, of England and of the Queen. There you have it. I claim not to have sought to kill you. Yet I will do so if sufficient need arises.'
'I thank you for your candour,' said Gresham. Such a ludicrous situation! Could this really be happening? Did people have such conversations? Or had he in fact not woken up that morning? 'And of course, My Lord, I would ruthlessly, remorselessly and without a pang of conscience seek your death were I to truly believe that you sought mine.' Except you're probably rather better at it than I am, thought Gresham.
'If that is indeed so,' said Walsingham, 'then you have truly become a man.' Something like a thin smile creased one of Walsingham's lips.
" 'I doubt that I've made the whole of that journey,' said Gresham. 'Yet the journey I wish to make now is to Lisbon. You may remember,' said Gresham, 'certain points you made about Lisbon.' Walsingham remembered everything. 'You believed that there were central weaknesses there for Spain, in the event of a decision to invade England.'
'I still believe so. Though it cannot and never will be the whole answer.'
'And you believed the Duke of Parma and his army in the Netherlands to be the crucial factor.' 'An opinion I have not changed.'
'I had planned to address both issues,' said Gresham simply. 'In my own way.'
'I have been made aware of that,' said Walsingham, 'as I understand you have already discussed a visit to Lisbon and a visit to the Netherlands with Master Robert Cecil.'
Gresham's heart froze. Walsingham and Cecil were in regular conversation! Were both allied against him?
'You will remain aware that you are still working for me,' said Walsingham, ice in his voice. 'We discussed the usefulness of your visiting Lisbon and the Duke of Parma. The situation has not changed. You will indeed make both trips, God willing. But be clear that you will do so on my orders, and under my orders. Is that clear?'
It was clear.
'You might care to include a new issue in your plans. An issue we did not discuss earlier,' Walsingham continued.
'A third issue?' He really must stop sounding like a parrot. 'The Marquis of Santa Cruz is resident in Lisbon.' 'The Spanish High Admiral?'
'The one and only. The victor of Lepanto, and one of the cruellest and most savage commanders alive in Europe at the present time. And the best ally we have.'