Martin Stephen: The galleon's grave

'More water. Now.' It was the Queen's voice, coming as if from far away. Something splashed in his face. He turned sharply away, found fluid forced into his mouth. He gulped, drank, suddenly grateful for the cool flow down his throat. 'Your idea?' Something had happened in his brain, and he could not tell if it was the Queen's voice or Cecil's.

'The Duke of Parma… he was the key, all along. I knew it. I knew it.' How many times had he said that? if his army didn't move, there was no invasion, no Spanish rule in England. The Armada, everything… it was just a joke! A great big joke! A terrible joke, an awful joke, a joke at the cost of human lives…' He was crying now, he noticed, writhing under the grip of the ropes. What a waste of fluid tears were. He would need that fluid soon, to cope with the rack tearing his body apart. Or would its absence ease the pain? 'So I had Tom Phelippes forge a seal. Paid him a King's ransom to forge a letter. Unlike you. I pay for proper forgeries. A Queen's ransom…' Suddenly it was overwhelmingly important for Gresham to get this right. 'The Queen's seal. And a letter under that seal. A secret letter.' Who was it giggling in the basement of the Tower? Surely it could not be Henry Gresham, who had spent so long gaining control of his body? 'A letter from the Queen offering him the throne of the Netherlands. If he let the Armada pass him by. If he let it swimmy swim swim…'

Something slapped hard across his face. Again. There was no doubting the hand this time or the voice. It was the Queen of England. One of the rings on her fingers had cut into his chin.

' You offered the Duke of Parma the throne of the Netherlands in my name?' she bellowed.

'Yes,' said Gresham simply. Despite the slap, the world was shifting softly in and out of focus. 'And I did a bit more than that, your Majesty.' He was very proud of himself for remembering the correct mode of address. Very, very very proud. Very, very very… I offered him your throne, actually. As it happens. The throne of England, in your name. Under your seal… If he left the Armada to its own devices. Well, not your seal actually, but your forged seal.' It was so important to get these things right. The room was starting to swing round again.

He was glad he could not see the Queen's face at that particular moment. She would probably be quite cross at the thought of a young nobody offering her throne to a foreign general.

'I thought he might like that. To be King of the Netherlands. It was only English support stopping him from winning for Spain. So if England came in on his side, he'd be bound to win. For himself. Then if he ran the Netherlands, a Catholic running a Protestant country, why not England? Rubbish, of course. Should never have a Catholic on our throne again. Too much trouble. But he wasn't to know that. Seemed a good idea at the time. So I gave him a letter he thought was from the Queen, offering to name him as her successor if he agreed not to invade. Don't worry. I bribed a secretary to steal the letter back and destroy it once Parma had read it. They lose a lot of things on campaign, you know,' he said stupidly.

Gresham turned his head, searching for the Queen. He wanted to see his death sentence in her eyes. Her face appeared from somewhere. From several somewheres. It looked venomous, angry beyond belief. Gresham meant to apologise. But it did not quite come out like that.

'I didn't do it for you, you know,' he said very seriously. 'Well, not exactly. I did it for peace. For the peasants. To stop the burning. I don't believe in war, you see,' he gabbled. 'It kills people. And I want them to live. If they can. Though a lot die anyway, don't they?'

He fell back, his head thumping on the bare wood. It hurt. How strange that he should notice that among all the other pain. The slight noise seemed to echo round the silence of the chamber. A hoarse, gravelly laugh came from the corner. A laugh Gresham knew. The laugh of a dead man.

Walsingham looked half dead, but whatever his body was telling him was clearly denied by a brain that had lost none of its edge. He could only walk with a stick, and a wide-eyed servant boy hovered near him, torn between fear of his master falling and fear for where he was and who also was in the chamber. And, perhaps, fear of what happened in that chamber. Walsingham laughed again. He bowed to the Queen, who nodded back. Cecil he ignored.

'Your own idea! Very good, very good! Your own idea!' Was Walsingham barking or speaking?

‘Is it good, Sir Thomas, that a man can forge his Queen's wishes? Offer her crown to another Prince? That an upstart can forge a letter giving away a crown!' asked the Queen, angry, venom in her voice.

'It is undoubtedly better if it is done without her knowledge, Your Majesty,' said the old man. 'As it is better that sometimes you do not know many things that have been done in your name. But most of all, better if it means the Duke of Parma is still in Ghent rather than laying siege to London and Your Majesty's person.'

There was silence after that.

'And remarkable,' said Walsingham, 'if it was done by a stripling who far from being rewarded for it was likely to end up here. He was indeed meant to tell Parma that the number of Dutch fly-boats was far in excess of his estimates. That his invasion barges would be swamped by them. Those were my orders to him.'

'Wouldn't have worked,' mumbled Gresham. 'Man like that, sees overwhelming odds as a challenge. Made him fight even harder. Needed more.' How strange that as well as being ferociously thirsty he also felt extraordinarily sick. 'Please,' said Gresham, 'I'm very sorry, Your Majesty, but I think I am about to be sick. Could you please start the torture now before I disgrace myself?' Dignity. After all, it was all one had.

There was a very long silence.

'Cut him free,' said the Queen.

The jailer was even more nervous, rubbing his hands together, bowing and scraping. 'I'd rather not cut the ropes, Your Majesty, as it means so much work threading new ones through the ratchets, and no little expense to replace all that rope. You see, you can't use them again if…'

'Cut that man free now,' said the Queen in an icy tone, 'or you will be the first person to test the new ropes through the ratchets.'

A knife appeared from nowhere, and suddenly the stretched figure of Gresham slumped amid a tangle of rope.

The agony of returning circulation was pain enough to send a man mad, as if white hot needles were being pushed through every vein and artery. He rubbed at his arms, could not stand up, did not know if he was allowed to.

Walsingham's voice cut through the thick air of the chamber. 'Your servant told us that you believed I was dead. Apparently the Spanish ambassador responded rather too enthusiastically to a report that I had succumbed to my illnesses, and sent a message to Parma.' Another stool had appeared, and Walsingham was seated on it, like a father by the bedside of his poorly child.

'Has my servant been tortured?' asked Gresham hurriedly.

‘I think he had received a few blows before we reached his cell. The man who gave them has a broken leg and a broken arm. A remarkable man, your servant. He said you were the biggest fool in Christendom because I was the only person who knew the truth and the only person who could bail you out, and still you went forward on your mission believing me dead. Yet he stayed with you.'

'He lacks sophistication, and beauty,' said Gresham, smiling slowly for the first time in days. The pain was easing now. It was simply agony, rather than unbearable agony.

'This man sought to offer your throne to a Catholic' Cecil's voice was higher-pitched than normal, his body seeming even more hunched, drawn in on itself.

‘I did so to stop a Catholic ruling over England,' said Gresham simply. She was bound to kill him. Even if only to stop the story getting out.