The galleon's grave

Gresham could not repress a smile. 'I'm sure your extensive military experience will be a wonderful asset to you in that task,' he said. 'In fact, you'll be acting as a spy. Welcome to the club.'

'A spy?' Cecil sniffed. 'An ambassador with eyes is how I prefer to think of it. Spies are employees, after all, paid for their work.' Cecil realised his mistake as soon as he had spoken, but it was too late.

'Really?' said Gresham, who had less need of money than anyone. 'Fancy that. If I'd realised that someone was meant to pay me I'd have asked for the money… After all, you can never have too much, can you?' Which might well have been the motto of the Cecil family, come to think of it. Gresham doubted that the magnificent palaces Lord Burghley had built and was building were afforded from whatever allowance the Queen made to him.

'In any event,' said Cecil, moving rapidly on, 'you have the excuse of seeking your… ward's fiancй, I gave you my word that I would facilitate your access to Lisbon and to the Netherlands. You may join my party. You will be listed as an adviser, a status little above a servant. But alone. The woman cannot come with you.'

'I wouldn't wish her to do so,' said Gresham. 'The Netherlands is a war zone. There's no certainty of finding her fiancй perhaps not even a reasonable chance. What I need to do there doesn't involve her. It does, however, need your expedition, as my cover.'

Cecil's lips turned up in distaste at the word "cover". 'It has cost me in credibility to include you in our party,' said Cecil. Already it was "his" party, though as the mere son of a nobleman he was the least important member of it. 'So perhaps you may feel able to tell me, following our "agreement", what you achieved — if anything — in Lisbon.'

'Something. Perhaps nothing. Not enough. As I said previously, it's better you do not know. Particularly as we're heading into a country ravaged by war where even the best-escorted parties can't be guaranteed safety from brigands.'

Cecil blanched slightly. 'I am sure it will not come to that.'

He returned to The House and Anna. She had had a wonderful time over the twelve days of Christmas, though she would never admit it to Gresham, and was glowing as a result. The glow turned to frost when she saw him. The chaperone looked more miserable by the minute.

Cecil was not his only reason for being in London. Gresham very much wished to attend a party hosted by Edmund Spenser, who seemed about to give birth to his own baby, a lengthy poem called 'The Faerie Queene'. It was the least glamorous of the events Anna and Gresham had been invited to, but Spenser was a true friend, and a true poet, so the event was worth dragging him away from Cambridge. Anna refused to talk to Gresham, but had softened towards George and talked to him with some animation, seemingly with complete trust. At an earlier soirйe the Earl of Essex had made a pass at her.

'It was appalling!' she said, clearly not at all appalled. 'He is such a handsome man, a favourite of the Queen and they tell me he is a bolted Earl. Yet he dresses so carelessly!'

'It's belted Earl actually,' said Gresham later, as they walked the Long Gallery of The House, 'and yes, he's deemed to be the most handsome of the lot.' George had left to go home, his face long. His elderly parents were about to arrive in London on one of their increasingly rare visits, and spoil his bachelor life.

Anna looked at him. 'I do not listen in to your conversations. I fail to see why you should listen to mine. It is probably unsafe for me to even be near you. The girls at Court, they say you are dangerous.'

Well, dangerous to one or two of their husbands, perhaps. What was a young man to do if a girl flung herself at you? It would be impolite to refuse. 'Not as dangerous as the Queen will be to you, if she thinks you're stealing the attentions of her latest young man. So what happened?' His curiosity overrode his distaste for this foreign creature.

'The Earl — Robert Devereux is he not? — danced with me for the first time, and then took the second dance and even the third. I know he had ladies for the second and third dances waiting for him. I saw, because they were most upset.' There was no sign that Anna had been upset on their behalf. 'And then, in the third dance, he whispered in my ear!'

Gresham paused, and looked at the girl. Why had she not flung herself at him? There was more control to her than he had given her credit for, Gresham realised. The pan might be boiling, as Mannion had insisted to his laughter, but the owner was managing to keep the lid on tight. Now he thought about it, this must be the first really beautiful girl who had not flung herself at him. Did he mind? Of course not. 'And what did he whisper?'

'What men always whisper,' Anna said simply. 'To go to bed with him.'

'So what did you do?' asked Gresham, despite himself.

'I told him that I was a virgin,' she answered simply. 'And more than that, I was a Catholic virgin. So that I could only go to bed with a man who would guarantee me an Immaculate Conception.'

Despite himself, Gresham burst out laughing. 'And his response?' he found himself asking.

'He burst out laughing, like you. Men are all the same. He said that great though he undoubtedly was he was not yet ready to be the father of Jesus.'

Good on him, thought Gresham, his respect for the Earl of Essex reluctantly increasing. Then the bleakness of his situation forced itself into his mind. Once, as a child, he had seen a flock of pigeons scatter up from the roof of The House, winging up towards the clouds. Then, suddenly, one of the pigeons had crumpled in the air, as if shot. Yet there was no man with a gun nearby, no archer trying the impossible task of killing a bird on the wing. The dead bird, transformed in an instant from a thing of beauty to something inert and lifeless, had plunged like lead to earth, landing with a soggy thump on the roof, dislodging two of the tiles by its impact. The still-warm flesh lay motionless, the tiles skittering down the length of the roof to tumble and smash into pieces on the hard ground below. So it was with Gresham's mood at present, as he remembered the bleak reality of his future, the gaiety of the moment crumpling like a dead bird. ‘I must leave,' said Gresham. 'I have to go to Flanders.'

To find Jacques Henri?' asked Anna.

'That's part of my excuse. If this damned man of yours exists, which I'm beginning to increasingly doubt. But it's not my real reason. And I can't take you with me. It's a war zone there, out of control. It's going to be difficult enough keeping Cecil out of trouble and myself free to do what I need. And you would be at real, serious risk.'

She chanced a very rare smile, to herself more than to him. 'More risk than being stranded at sea on a sinking ship with fifteen pirates?'

Sometimes the best way to deal with a woman was to remain silent.

'You are happy for me to remain here?' she asked. 'Living as I do?' She was asking if he consented to her continuing to spend his money.

'Of course. You're my ward, aren't you?' Gresham liked saying that. It gave him a feeling of power. 'Yet for a short time, in a month or two, I may ask you to stay in a new place. Not for long, I hope.'

A puzzled expression crossed her face. It was time. He had no option. He had to tell this girl his real business. The truth. The truth that only Mannion had known hitherto. The truth that would most likely lead to Henry Gresham being killed in disgrace. As she was a Spaniard, perhaps he should have told her much earlier. Who knows? Secrecy becomes like a second skin, and humans are not like snakes who slough off their skin effortlessly. 'Let me explain,' he said. And then he told her the truth that had been haunting him for so long. The truth that he knew would decide his fate, his life. As he did so, he realised how stupid it must sound to an outsider.

When he had finished, he looked at her face. She was white, aghast. There were tears starting in her wide eyes — of shock? Of horror? Suddenly, surprisingly, he realised what a terrible moment this was. For the first time since he had known her she looked into his eyes, and broke down, the emotion shaking her whole body.