Martin Stephen - The rebel heart

'Has Cecil sent you to attack me? He seems willing enough to-order one of his closest allies to attack my friend, in public, in full view of the world?'

'If Cecil is the biggest shit in the land, then Grey is certainly a major and steaming turd. In that sense at least I'm smelling rather clean at present.'

'Who sent you this time? Which of my enemies?'

'Your biggest enemy is yourself,' said Gresham brutally. 'You're being set up, you idiot, and you can't see it. And as for who I'm working for, I've just uncovered a spy who has tried to have me killed, all because I try to keep an eye on you. If you want to kill yourself, go ahead. You always were a pig-headed fool who listened either to himself or to the wrong people. But this is personal. You're in danger of getting me killed, and that takes friendship too far.'

'You spin a fine tale, but what value is there in friendship that comes out of a glass?' Essex was speaking fast, as if he had somewhere else to go in a hurry. 'Do you think I don't know how much I'm being pushed into a situation I don't want! It's like Ireland all over again, in case you hadn't noticed. I had to go over to that God-forsaken country because my reputation and my honour gave me no option. The worst mistake of my life! I've lost access to the Court, I'm ruined — a passive victim for the next time Cecil wants to set me up in some invented plot against the Queen. Do you think I don't know what happens to disgraced nobles? Even if they don't plot themselves, they become a centre for everyone who does. Look in that yard if you want to know how many unhappy sword-bearers there are in England!'

'Are you really telling me you've no option but to rebel?' asked Gresham, incredulous. 'Or is that what that bunch of brainless hotheads I just met coming out of your room tell you?'

Essex looked Gresham full in the face for the first time since they had met.

'I have friends other than you. Other advisers. Men who have contact with my future, not my past.' As if on cue, the door opened.

Cameron Johnstone had dyed his hair black, grown a full beard and a moustache of similar colour, and must have eaten himself silly to put on two or more stone. The coal-black hair clashed with the wrinkled face and neck of a man nearing forty, but the combination of appearance change would have been enough to fool most onlookers who had never met or spent time with him. He had also changed his clothing. Gone was the sober attire of the Scottish advocate, to be replaced by double- and treble-slashed doublet and hose, in emerald green, pinched in at the waist, ballooning out until captured again just below the knee. The whole array was just this side of fashionable.

Cameron came unsuspecting into the room without knocking, Gresham noted, saw Gresham and turned to run, only to meet the vast bulk of Mannion who had stepped out from behind the door and closed it. He stood four-square in front of it, short sword clutched firmly in his hand. Cameron flicked a glance towards the window, sized Gresham up.

'We're on the second storey,' said Gresham quietly, 'and there's no balcony, no other door. Quite a fire risk, actually. And if you attack me I'll have my sword through your traitorous, stinking heart before you can even reach your dagger.'

'Kill him,' said Essex, 'and you'll have to kill me. And you'll never leave this house alive.'

Gresham weighed up the odds. Essex was lying. Mannion could kill Cameron in the blink of an eye, and Essex, good as he was, was no match for Gresham. If both jobs were done quickly enough, the noise in the house would cover them. They could probably make it down the stairs and out through the yard.

But he didn't want to kill Essex! And was Cameron worth it?

'You're wrong,' Gresham said easily. 'As you usually have been these past two years or so. If we killed you both, the odds are on our side. Which is more than can be said for you if you're listening to this turncoat little animal.'

'You think he works for Cecil,' said Essex. 'I know. There are others who think he works for the Pope, for France and even for Spain. But I know the truth. I know that he works for King James the First of England, or the man who will become so soon enough; he has done so all along.'

'And therefore is your only hope,' said Gresham, sadly.

Essex looked up sharply. Cameron simply stood there, half crouching, eyes darting from one speaker to the other.

'How say you?' asked Essex.

'You've lost the favour of the Queen, Cecil controls the Court and Raleigh will kill you if you ever get back into favour. You hate the Spanish and they hate you, Henry of France distrusts you and you're too proud to contemplate divorcing your wife, even if you could, and too honourable simply to push her down some stairs, so you can't marry the dreaded Arbella Stuart. King James is your only hope of getting back into royal favour. Oh, I can write this little toad's speech for you,' said Gresham motioning towards Cameron who jumped slightly, as if worried there might be a knife in Gresham's fingers. 'And of course,' he continued, 'James doesn't want you to rebel as such, just keep the Queen in your custody for a while, so you can talk sense to her, perhaps even arrange an abdication. Or at least a sworn document in front of every bloody Bishop in the country stating that James will be the next King.'

Gresham could see he had got it right from the expression in Essex's eyes.

'Get out of here, please,' said Essex, after a long pause. 'I can no longer trust you. I'm sorry. I acknowledge the friendship we've had in happier times, but it must end now. It was a different friendship, for different, more innocent times. We won't see each other again.'

What Essex was saying was so extraordinarily similar to what Gresham had said to George a short time earlier that he had a fit of deja vu.

'That choice is yours. But if these are to be my last words to you as a friend, they're the most important I've ever said to you in my whole life. Don't trust this man. Like the Devil who seems to speak true, he'll only lead to your destruction. There's nothing good for you in this man. Nothing.'

He did not say goodbye. He motioned to Cameron to move aside, waiting for the rush with the dagger that did not come. They made it out to the yard and into the street without incident, slightly to Gresham's surprise.

'Now I am confused,' said Mannion.

'You're always confused,' said Gresham absent-mindedly. 'It's not your fault. It comes from not having a brain.'

'This is serious,' said Mannion. 'George thought Cameron was working direct for Cecil, which means it was Cecil who tried to kill you. Essex thinks Cameron's working for James, which means it's James 'oo tried to knock you off. Can't both be right, can they?'

'No,' said Gresham, 'but they can both be wrong. Horribly wrong.'

All the time he was thinking how extraordinarily clever someone had been. George was an ideal recruit. Right under Gresham's nose and beyond suspicion of spying on him. Out of the London circle of spies, informers, cut-purses, rogues and rascals, and as far distant from the roistering drunkards who made up Essex's crowd, George could be seen near them without arousing the least suspicion. Another country bumpkin on the edge of the charismatic leader's life, looking on in wonder and innocent admiration, probably never going to exchange even a word with the Earl in his life.

'You goin' to tell me?' said Mannion. 'I mean, tell me who Cameron is actually working for?' There was little sign of hope in his voice. He had met Gresham in this mood before, when he closed up like a castle with portcullis and drawbridge firmly shut, and not a light on in any of the towers.

‘No,' said Gresham, 'not yet. Not until I'm certain. But I want you to do something. I want all those men we've had working for us given new instructions. I want to know who George's been seeing. Everyone. I said I could read him like a book. There's a page he hasn't shown me. He's keeping something from me. I must know what it is.'