'What's the minimum number of men you need?'
The man's brow furrowed in concentration. It was clearly with only the greatest reluctance that he spoke. He was caught in a dilemma: when Gresham had hired him it had been plain as a pikestaff that the man was not only rich, but knew about boats. There were some as said that he had sailed not against the Armada but actually on it. 'Well, two more might let me stand down most of the rest, I suppose, so that we run with a full crew in the day and have only two on watch at night, if the wind is steady and the boat's working well. It's not ideal, but it'll do. There must be a good man at the helm, of course, and one as a look-out. It's dangerous out there, and I don't mean just the chance of running into another vessel.' He thought for a moment. 'But I would implore you, sir, to let me keep my new sailing master. The only other man I could have trusted to take charge on a watch left me last week to take up his own command.'
Gresham would probably have to compromise on that. Experienced sailor that he was, he was no navigator, nor qualified as a captain. He spoke as if granting a great favour.
'By all means keep your sailing master,' said Gresham. And I will ensure that either Mannion or myself are awake whenever he is on duty. 'And you'll have four extra men. My men. These two here and two more I'll send for. They've all been at sea. The two you see here are quite experienced.'
Was fate playing against him? There were ten, perhaps twelve men in The House he would trust in a fight. Apart from Jack and Dick, he knew of only two remaining whom he could call on as reinforcements. The rest he had allowed to go home to their villages, knowing he would be gone perhaps for months, knowing also what a difference the men would make to their families and their villages for the harvest. Many of the great London houses ran on a skeleton staff in the summer, the owners fleeing the heat and increased plague risk in London for the country, the servants desperate to get back to their homes to help in the crucial time that could decide whether a family starved over the winter.
Yet at least he had two men at The House, men with no family to return to. Gresham's boatmen were all originally sailors. They were tough, adaptable and very happy to swap the sea for the Thames. There was little glamour in life at sea. Take the Anna, Drake had taken ships as small with him around the world. It was standard policy to take twice the men one needed on any long cruise, on the assumption that half would die of disease or injury.
Even though Gresham sweetened the signing off of the new sailors who had been recruited with a week's wages, two of them took it very badly, looking poisonously at Gresham and rubbing their foreheads. Gresham's sense of danger grew, was screaming at him now. He knew that when a man touched his chin in talking he was uncertain, when someone played with their earlobe they were considering a lie. His life had depended at times on knowing these things, reading the language spoken by the body as well as hearing the words spoken by the mouth. And he knew that the man who rubbed his forehead in that manner was not only angry and disturbed, but scared and rebellious as well. Why so? The men had received a week's wages for no work, and sudden appointment and dismissal were as much a part of a sailor's life as fighting the sea or eating badly salted beef. Had these men been paid to act as spies on the spy? To steal the packages he carried from Cecil and from the Queen, and her ring? If so, he was well rid of them. But it meant that the secret of his trip was out, to someone at least.
He motioned to Mannion.
'Sure you're not just getting into a panic?' asked Mannibn gruffly. 'You've been in a right old mood for months past now.' It was the nearest Mannion would ever come to criticism.
'The master talked about our voyage to Scotland,' said Gresham flatly.
'Well, that is where we're bloody well goin', ain't it?' said Mannion.
'But he doesn't know that!' said Gresham. 'When I ordered him to get ready, I mentioned a long trip. Supplies for two months. I didn't say where we were going!'
'But there's others who knows, ain't there?' said a perplexed Mannion.
'Think about it,' said Gresham. 'I know. You know. The girl knows. Cecil has every interest in keeping my going a secret until I've at least embarked and am well on my way. The Queen likewise — which is why I never mentioned the reason for my request to see her to anyone before the audience, and why she agreed to issue the passport in secret and make no announcement. Of course people will find out where I've gone. There are no secrets in England — or, probably, in Scotland. But I bent over backwards to keep the knowledge secret until we were halfway up the coast and out of harm's way, too late for anyone to stop us. We did everything to make sure our destination was a secret. And an old sea captain doesn't exactly hob-nob with a lady-in-waiting who might just conceivably have been listening outside the door, or spend time with one of Cecil's servants. Someone else told the master we were going to Scotland.'
'And?' said Mannion.
'And the only reason, the only reason, must be to suborn him, buy him. The quick blow on the head, the search of us and our baggage? Or the arrangement to meet with another vessel off a certain point at a certain time?'
'So what do we do now?' said Mannion, looking around the quayside. 'Call it off and go 'ome?'
'What for?' said Gresham. 'Cecil'll pull the plug on us if I don't get going. The Queen'll have my balls, likewise. And if we do turn round and get another crew in time, what's to stop it happening all again? We've got the two of us, two good men we've trained ourselves and two more we can get in time. And we can lay on a few surprises. We've faced lots worse odds. And we know what might be coming. Better out than in, I say. If someone's after us, let's bring them on, find out who it is.' He paused for a moment. 'I'm tired of all this shadow-dancing. Let's get this out in the daylight. I'm tired of running away. Let's run into it, head first.'
Gresham felt a cloud lifting from his soul. It was madness to walk into a trap with himself, five men and little more. But it was doing the unexpected, taking a perverse control. If his instinct was right, he would soon have an enemy to fight. A real, physical enemy, tangible and visible.
'Right you are,' said Mannion, simply. He rarely agonised over decisions. 'We got some more work to do, then, ain't we?'
There was time enough to get some extra supplies from The House and the two men — Gresham hoped they were still there and had not already gone off to some tavern — and still catch the tide. He had planned for everything to be ready two hours earlier than was strictly necessary, assuming Jane would be late by at least that much.
Jane appeared on deck.
'Lucky bugger!' an onlooker shouted, as Jane bowed politely to Gresham.
Lucky? The particular bugger who had cried out did not know half of it — the tears, the tantrums, the moral blackmail… well, at least she had agreed to come and not made his life difficult. He owed her something for that. If she kept to it, of course. Storms at sea could take on a new meaning over the next few days.
The age of chivalry could not be allowed to die entirely, and so the master's cabin had been given over to Jane, tiny as it was. She shared it with her maid, Mary, who was thankfully ugly enough to put off even Mannion's roving eye. Gresham had never doubted that Jane's maid had to come with her. It was not only that the girl would need help dressing, particularly if as part of their cover, she was to be paraded before a King as she had just been paraded before a Queen. Sarah had been persuaded to part with two more Court dresses, so there were now three packed carefully in a chest all their own, carefully sealed against damp and salt spray. It was also the more mundane matters. It would be wholly unseemly, for example, for a man to enter the cabin in the morning and ditch the contents of the chamber pot over the side. That was definitely another of the maid's jobs. Gresham took over the one other, even tinier cabin, knowing without asking that Mannion would sleep at the foot of his truckle bed. The master, pushed out by the need to house Jane, would make do with a hammock slung at the rear of the hold, an old sail slung across to mark out his space even though the hold was empty apart from Gresham's baggage.