'Precisely so,' said Cecil.
'And I do this for love, my Lord?' asked Gresham. 'Love of my greatest friends, I mean, rather than for love of the Earl of Essex?' Cecil sniffed.
'There are consequences for you and for your closest friends if you fail me, yes,' he said. 'Those consequences have not changed. As I have said, I believe your friendship with Essex to be born out of a flagon, not out of any true meeting of minds.'
'I think the consequences have changed, my Lord,' said Gresham trying not to sound too smug, 'not least of all because there are now consequences for you as well.' Gresham had been looking forward to this for some while. He liked to be in the driving seat, and anyone not in that position with Cecil was likely to find that the alternative was to find himself under the wheels.
'How so?' said Cecil, trying not to appear interested.
'You were kind enough to give me a letter, with your own personal seal on it, to give to King James of Scotland.'
Cecil said nothing.
'As you know, it's extraordinarily difficult to make an exact forgery of a seal, particularly one produced by an expert. They can be made to look similar, but the finer lines are almost impossible to replicate exactly because they're cut by hand and each hand is slightly different. An expert will spot the difference in minutes.'
Cecil remained silent, his eyes boring into Gresham's. 'Here,' said Gresham, tossing a sealed paper in the direction of Cecil. 'I've tried to forge your seal on a number of occasions. I've used the best people, the very best people. This is the finest example I've managed.'
To all intents and purposes the seal on Gresham's letter matched that used by Cecil. Cecil strove to appear disinterested, but the colour had left his face.
'You can relax, my Lord,' said Gresham. 'It's good, I grant you, as good as money can buy, but it wouldn't fool an expert", not for long. But there's a technique for lifting an original seal off one letter and fixing it to another.'
And a devilish complex business it was, as Gresham could confirm, having witnessed its use on Cecil's letter to James.
'It works,' said Gresham confidently, 'most of the time at least. And it worked, thank God, with the letter you gave me for James. After rather a lot of effort, I was left with your seal complete and unbroken, and an opened letter.'
Cecil stayed silent.
'Congratulations, by the way. Your letter to James was excellent. Respectful, dignified, precise. An excellent refutation of two most serious accusations. But back to business. While duplicating a seal is very difficult, forging handwriting is far less so. You wrote to James in your own hand, of course. You couldn't trust it to any secretary. Your hand is a fine one, but it's College-taught, a standard script. Please open that letter. The one I passed you with the false seal on it.'
Reluctantly, slowly, Cecil reached for the letter, glanced briefly at the seal and cracked it open. The letter thus revealed was a letter in the hand of Robert Cecil. Every detail, every swirl was exact and precise. It was his own handwriting. Except that at the bottom of the page was a vast ink blot It happened. The pot was tipped over. The quill took on board too much ink, and decided to drop it randomly on the page. How the person forging that letter must have cursed his own carelessness!
The letter, blot and all, was an effusive paean of praise for King James of Scotland, regretting bitterly the time it would take for him to inherit his rightful throne, pledging undying loyalty to him and making some terse and deeply wounding criticisms of the 'old lady' running England from a red wig.
Cecil had the grace to go really white this time.
'Did you-' he started to ask.
'Did I place your proper seal, after taking it off your actual letter, put it on a clean version of this forgery and hand it to James? No. That would have been too easy.'
'So what did you do?' asked Cecil, his voice that of the snake.
'I took your original letter, the one I'd lifted your seal off, and re-sealed it with the best forgery I had of your seal. King James of Scotland got your original letter, right enough, albeit with a false seal. As I said, the forged seal isn't perfect. But it was probably good enough to fool the King of Scotland. After all, the letter you wrote does a good job of exonerating you from blame, actually makes a strong case for your not being either a sodomite or a Devil-worshipper. Why would anyone bother to forge a letter that in all probability puts you back in King James's good books? You can relax about that at least. The King of Scotland received the letter you wrote him, as you had written it to him. The only difference was that the seal was a forgery. A forgery he is unlikely to notice.'
'And my original seal? The one you tell me you lifted off my letter? To what use did you put that?'
'Well, I had to find a good use for it, didn't I? It's not every day I get the chance to make a letter look as if it came from you. That went onto a fair copy of this splodged letter. Same text, more or less. Except no blot this time. The one that protests undying love for King James, deep resentment at Queen Elizabeth and sufficient treasonous comments to have you hung. If not drawn and quartered.'
'And its whereabouts?' asked Cecil.
'In safe keeping. A treasonous letter with an apparently unbroken seal. A seal that matches in every line and whorl your seal, because it is actually your seal. A treasonous letter, written in your hand. A letter which the loyal Henry Gresham was tasked to deliver, but through loyalty to the Crown refused to do so.'
Gresham paused for a moment.
'The scene is positively tear-jerking. I really don't know why someone hasn't put it in a play. This loyal servant of the Crown, the humble Sir Henry Gresham, is blackmailed by the evil Robert Cecil, into taking a message to the King of Scotland. Knowing that the letter will inevitably be traitorous and disloyal, he is far too terrified to open it. Instead he uses his vast wealth to substitute it for a letter that merely protests my Lord Cecil's innocence of accusations of sodomy and Devil-worship, sealed with a hastily forged copy of my Lord's seal that only the King of Scotland would be fool or drunk enough to accept. He achieves his mission. My Lord Cecil seems happy with the delivery of the letter, and his threat to Gresham is placed at the least on hold. King James seems happy enough with what he has read. Everyone is happy. Including Henry Gresham, who of course has retained the original letter in the certainty that it is treasonous, who can produce it unopened, who now knows that the altered content is quite explosive. So Henry Gresham can now blow Robert Cecil out of the water on demand, at least while the Queen lives.'
The silence was long enough for a competent spider to have built a significant web.
'And where does this leave us?' asked Cecil. His composure never left him for long.
'Equal, I think,' said Gresham. 'You hold the mortgages on my friend's land and forged letters that will send me to the block. I now hold the equivalent on you. Touche.'
'And the Earl of Essex?'
Cecil was nothing if not consistent.
‘I’ve been asked by him to go on his Irish expedition. As a captain, with my own troop. At my own expense, of course. I said yes.'. Did Cecil's expression change?
'It's quite ironic, really. You see, the dashing Earl knows I work for you, and it would flatter his ego hugely if he could seduce me into his service. You have very few secure sources of information on Essex — for all his faults, those who serve him do tend to be very loyal — and you're equally desperate for me to go with him as your spy. Well, I am going, but not in answer to your threats or to his entreaties. I'm going because I have chosen to go.' 'Why did you do so?' asked Cecil.
'Ever since I met Essex I've had this sense about him. A sense that he is a mover and shaker, a sense that he is someone who will make and change history. There are two types of people in the world: those who simply live, and those who make a difference. Essex has the power to make a difference — for better or worse. And my sense is that his time is now. And because I'm beginning to realise that what's driven me to dirty my hands in the filthy game of power is the desire to make a difference, I'm drawn to him. Have you ever watched a good swordsman at work?'