They heard the Earl long before they saw him. Most of London must have heard him. He was sitting by a map-covered table and he was screaming. Not just shouting, but screaming, so carried away that spit was flying across the room from his mouth. 'God's blood!' he yelled, 'Am I to endure this? Can a man not breathe? Must I be thwarted at every move?'
None of his entourage were willing to deny him. That had always been part of Essex's problem. The loyalty he inspired was that of the Messiah to his disciples, and only Judas had disagreed with Jesus. Gelli Meyrick, over-dressed in a turquoise doublet and a hat that could have shaded most of Cheapside, was standing by the table, looking vaguely menacing with a dark scowl on his face. The Earl of Southampton was standing by Essex's side — a sensible place to be in the face of the flying spittle — and he and Gresham exchanged guarded nods. Southampton was a fey creature, with a rather languorous manner and an ivory complexion that always looked pale and damp. Gresham thought him a vicious little pimp and, on the few occasions they had met, Southampton had shown every sign of returning the feeling. It was noticeable that on his drinking and wenching bouts with Essex, Southampton had not been present. Also in the room was Sir Christopher Blount, Essex's stepfather. He was more of a mystery than Southampton. Anyone who could survive Essex's mother had to be saintly, and Blount had always struck Gresham as more straightforward than his reputation for deviousness merited.
'Good day, my Lord,' said Gresham.
Essex swung sideways to face Gresham standing in the door. 'I am tried beyond my patience!' he shouted, but this time it was a shout, not a scream.
'Why so?' said Gresham.
'The Queen has denied me, not once, but twice over! The Earl of Southampton here, who I wish to be my Master of Horse…' Good choice, thought Gresham ironically. Southampton, the devious little prick, was about on the same level of intelligence as a horse, though not nearly so beautiful.'… I am told cannot have that position, and nor will My Royal Pestilence allow Sir Christopher here a place on the Council for Ireland.'
The problem, thought Gresham, is that there is no reason whatsoever why Blount should have a place on the Council for Ireland, save that he was Essex's stepfather and his duties might keep him for a little longer out of the company of Essex's mother. Anyone in their right mind would want that. Essex's mother was the most dreadful person Gresham had ever met.
Essex stood up suddenly, and his stool flew back, skittering, across the room, to land with a bang against the wall.
'I am tied to my own reputation!' he shrieked again.
No one jumped up from their seats. No one had any. Essex had adopted the royal prerogative of having no one sit in his presence. It was a dangerous sign. This is not a man in control of himself, thought Gresham. This is a man driven by a demon, or perhaps by the pox. But why no other symptoms? The Earl's face was as unmarked and handsome as ever, the hair flowing without need of a wig and there was no sign of the high, prancing step forced on pox victims, who lost all sensitivity in their extremities and so could not sense where their feet were landing.
'They call on me,' the Earl ranted, 'because there is no other, yet when I go, it is to leave my enemies behind me to triumph.'
A tremendous sense of loneliness, that was something else Gresham had noticed about Essex. That and the melancholia drew them together.
'My Lord,' said Gresham, taking a deep breath, 'isn't it about time you stopped shouting? It fails to impress the men. It is not what a top commander does.' A top commander, thought Gresham, strikes poses and makes calculated speeches to win over the hearts and minds of simple men, before leading them to their death.
A look of stunned disbelief swept across the faces of those in the room, not to mention that of Essex himself. People did not talk to Essex in this way, particularly when his river was in full flood. His face suddenly fell, his body slumped as if it was a corpse full of corrupt air, bloated in the sun, which had suddenly collapsed at the prick of a spear. He still had energy- enough to scowl at Gresham.
'Come!' he said, imperiously. The others glared at Gresham as he went with the Earl into an inner sanctum. This fool of a man was the Earl's drinking companion! They were his officers! Gresham felt their hatred almost as a physical force beating at his body.
The back room had a bed in it. A retreat for seduction? Gresham thought not. It was a hastily erected thing, on three trestles. Interesting. Gresham wondered if it went wherever the Earl went. Why did the Earl of Essex need a bed? Was it the pox? Or was it some other illness?
Something Gresham did not wish to remember crept into his mind. There had been a Fellow at Granville College. A loud, overbearing and frequently drunk man, he let it be known that he dabbled in the black arts. Few believed him. Gresham had been forced to undertake servant duties for lack of money. It was either that or starve. He had gone into the man's room one morning thinking him gone, and only five minutes into his rudimentary cleaning had realised that the bundle of rags in the far corner was a man. It had stirred, groaned. Thinking him ill, Gresham had helped him to the bed, sat him on it.
'It takes its toll,' the Fellow had muttered, acting as if drunk but in some way that Gresham sensed not drunk at all. Confused would have been a better word, but this was a man of outstanding intelligence, one of the most fluent debaters in the College.
'What takes its toll, sir?' Gresham had asked innocently.
The Fellow had looked at him, and Gresham remembered the livid, red rings round the man's eyes. Eyes of fire. Then the man had said, 'When the cycle… has finished and the… the blood is… used — gone — then the… tiredness comes.' The man could hardly speak. He was looking not at Gresham but through him to something so endlessly dark that Gresham could not see or even conceive of it.
'What blood?' asked Gresham.
It was as if the man had suddenly woken up. He blinked once, twice, three times, even shook his head.
'Why,' he said, 'the Blood of the Lamb. The Devil has no sheep in his field. Only the young ones. Only the lambs. Now leave me.'
He had rolled over on the bed, seemed to drop into an instant sleep. The Blood of the Lamb? It was the reference to the blood of Christ in the communion service. The Devil has no sheep in his field? Troubled, for no reason he could understand, Gresham had gone to one of his few friends in College. The friend had blinked.
'Sacrifice,' he had said. 'The Devil-worshippers make live sacrifice and drink the blood after they have performed a ritual over it, a reversion of the Mass, in Greek, not in Latin.'
'They sacrifice a lamb and drink its blood?' asked Gresham. 'What wonders! I do little more when I eat rare meat. If I'm ever lucky enough to taste a lamb at all.'
'No,' said his friend, looking very discomfited. 'Not a lamb. A child.' He had refused to say more, pleading a lecture to attend despite Gresham knowing there were none scheduled for that afternoon.
Was there a circle of red round Essex's eyes? Why was there a worrying reminder of the same extraordinary tiredness the Fellow had shown all those years earlier?
The Earl's voice was on the edge of slurred. Seemingly oblivious to Gresham, he flung himself on the bed, laid full out and put his hand to his brow.
'I need you to advise me,' the Earl said suddenly, just as Gresham had persuaded himself that Essex had fallen asleep.