So I casually dropped his name into a sentence, in a way that made it seem clear I assumed I was now going to work for Cecil' 'And?'
'And the man went ballistic, turned a bright shade of pink, and spent so much time persuading me that Cecil was the last person he was working for as to convince me the opposite was true.'
'And why should Cecil want me dead?'
'I assume you can work that one out yourself. Firstly, he hates you, for personal reasons that have no basis in logic, but are simply a fact. More importantly, he's desperate to have the same position with the next King or Queen of England as his late father had with the present one. For that reason he is trying to manipulate the succession with every means at his disposal. I know at first hand that he's wooing my master, King James. I've recently come to believe that he's also wooing Spain with equal fervour. I think you call it riding two horses at the same time.'
'So how do I feature in all this?'
'The recent death of King Philip changed things for ever in the Court of Spain. The most trusted allies and secretaries to the King are now no longer certain of their place, new men of influence are coming on the scene all the time, making exactly the same sort of play for power that Cecil is hoping to do on the death of Elizabeth. Cecil's terrified that his dealings with Spain will be revealed. He's never trusted your relationship with Spain since you survived sailing on the Armada. He believes you may have links there, even be a secret Catholic and admirer of Spain. He believes you're the person most likely to ferret out his illicit correspondence with Spain, and that if you did you'd delight in using it to destroy him.'
'Why employ you as my assassin?'
If a bound and tied man could look pityingly on his interrogator, then that was what Cameron did.
'If a man known to be in the service of King James kills a leading English courtier, and one who seems to have a special relationship with the Queen, he could use that as a form of blackmail on James. Plus the fact that Cecil will then kill me.'
‘Well’ said Gresham, 'I didn't think it would be simple. Now, do please tell me why Cecil will have you killed as well as have you kill me?*
'Because he knows that I'm close on his heels with regard to his dealings with Spain. I made the mistake of asking too many questions of too many members of the Spanish community in London, before I knew who I could trust. One of them talked to Cecil. The answer's obvious. Get me to kill you, his prime threat, then get someone else to kill me, his secondary threat. Why do you think I was so keen to come with you to this God-forsaken country on this God-forsaken expedition? I'm actually safer here than I would be in England. Or even Scotland. But I guarantee you some person in this army has been paid a tidy sum to knock me off once it becomes clear that I or someone else has performed the same favour for you.'
Gresham looked for a long moment at Cameron. His eyes gave nothing away. Cameron met his gaze with equal fortitude, neither wavering nor blinking. As a result, unconsciousness came as a complete surprise to him when Mannion came up from behind and considerately gave a massive blow to the other side of his head.
'I want the men who came with Jane to turn round and take her back to England, together with Cameron. Take seven of the very best and most loyal men from the troop and one of the sergeants, pay them a King's ransom, and get them to go as well, as extra escort. Tell them to keep an eye on Cameron at all times, as if their life depended on it. I'll explain to Jane what's happening over supper.'
'You believe 'im?' asked Mannion. 'Do you?' asked Gresham. 'No,' said Mannion simply. 'What about you?' 'Me? I'm a happy man!' said Gresham. 'All of a sudden some things are starting to become clear to me.'
A messenger rode up to the castle for Henry Gresham at the same time as a messenger for Essex. Neither recipient was cheered by the news. Sir Clifford Conyers, commanding 1,500 men, was dead when the Irish sawed his head from his shoulders and made a present of it to the fighting Prince of Donegal.
As for Gresham's message, Cameron Johnstone had waited until the ship had docked and he was on the narrow gangplank with a guard before and a guard after him, and turned viciously and without warning and knocked them both off into the foot or so of black water between the grinding hull and the stone wharf. Before anyone else could leap onto the gangplank Cameron had slithered off it, was seen for a moment amid the barrels and the goods piled high on the quay, and then vanished.
Chapter 9
August to October, 1599 Ireland
Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and the nearest thing Ireland had to a King of its own, waited silently in mid-stream at the Ford of Bellaclynth, with the waters of the River Lagan lapping at his horse's belly. Small, grey-haired and in his mid-fifties there was little sign that this was the man holding England to ransom.
Tyrone's head was bowed, in an act of submission. Behind him, on the hillside, was a detachment of his own cavalry. Behind them, out of sight, was his army. They had paraded before each other, the Irish and the English forces, two days earlier, Essex challenging Tyrone to a pitched battle. Tyrone had refused. What need had he to fight, with eight thousand men to Essex's four thousand? All he had to do was block the way.
From the middle of the small English detachment on the opposite hill a figure broke away and rode steadily forward on a magnificent grey to the water's edge. It was Essex. He was dressed in gleaming half armour, and the sunlight glittering on the water glittered on the gleaming metal that encased him. Two armies held their breath. With the exception of one soldier, who belched. 'Bloody awful stuff, this meat,' he said, in the way of an apology.
He was chewing at a strip of dried, salted beef, of the type an army lived off when on the march. Mannion was the only person in the English army who seemed to enjoy the stuff or eat it by choice.
'So what's 'e goin' to do?' asked Mannion. He and Gresham were a part of the mounted English detachment that had crested the hill and escorted Essex to the parley.
'I've a terrible fear that he's going to make a complete fool of himself and of us,' said Gresham. 'It's increasingly been his response to a crisis.'
Essex had been in an awful state when Gresham had last seen him. This time his illness was real, and despite all the precautions dysen-try had ravaged him, drained him of energy, drained him almost of the will to live. He was in the recovery phase now, which meant that he had time and just about enough energy to realise how truly awful he felt, though the damned illness never seemed really to leave a person, returning when least expected.
Gresham had taken some wine with him. It was the very last of the stores he had brought over from England, carefully preserved from Mannion, and reserved for the first great English victory. It would be a very long wait for that moment. It might be better spent on doing something for the man meant to be the architect of that victory.
'Thank you,' said Gresham. 'I think I owe you my life.' He poured the wine. 'This comes from England. From my own cellars. It was simpler when all we used to do was chase women,' said Gresham, 'and get drunk.'
'I'm a married man,' said Essex, with the faintest glimmer of the mad young man Gresham had known in what now seemed a different age. Essex was propped up in bed for all the world like an old woman. 'I deny that I ever chased women.'
'All right,' said Gresham, 'they chased you. Can your noble stomach take a drink?'
'It can try,' Essex said, and they settled into a desultory conversation, leading nowhere, saying and proving nothing.