Martin Stephen - The Conscience of the King

'So you believe the Prince was not poisoned?'

'No. On the contrary. I believe he was poisoned.'

Gresham felt a bolt pass through his body. 'How so?'

'I suspect the Prince was poisoned by drinking water. This fever of which I speak is often linked to foul water. The Prince was an abstemious man. I have no doubt he would order liquid drawn only from the finest well. Yet all it needs is for a servant to confuse two pails, or indeed for the servant who draws the water to be ill himself, or for the servant to save time by going to the nearest rather than the purest source. Or perhaps the servant left his master's water by a privy. Dr Forman was most insistent that on no occasion should water be drunk. Small ale is the least that should be permitted.'

'Well,' said Gresham, 'at least the Prince's father is safe from this fever.'

'How so?' enquired Napier. Gresham had forgotten the absence of a sense of humour.

'His Royal Highness is not renowned for drinking water,' said Gresham.

He endured the lecture on the problems created by excessive consumption of wines, thanked Dr Napier profusely and left Lambeth.

Gresham and Mannion sat in the rear of the boat as they were rowed home across the river.

'It costs a fortune, you know, every time you do this,' grumbled Mannion.

'It's a fortune I have. And we have to find Marlowe and Shakespeare.'

Gresham had ordered every contact, agent and informer they knew in London to locate them.

'They're both of them good at disappearing, that's all I can say,' said Mannion. It was a difficult time to trace someone; the winter weather was making travel difficult. In addition, it was as near certain as could be that neither Marlowe nor Shakespeare were in London, where wagging tongues were far more numerous, and there was no sign of Shakespeare in Stratford, the only other easy possibility for his whereabouts.

'What do you reckon Marlowe's game is? And Shakespeare's?' asked Mannion.

'Shakespeare's easier,' said Gresham, resisting the temptation to drag his finger in the water as they rowed smoothly in mid-stream. 'He's got himself into a mess he can't get out of, so he's just bolted, like a frightened rabbit. Marlowe may have had an idea where these manuscripts — the one's in the writers' original hand, the ones that prove authorship — were, but Shakespeare must have moved them by now. He's the only one who knows their hiding place, unless Marlowe, or the King, or you and I torture it out of him. He's terrified that one of us will get to him.' 'Why doesn't he just burn the lot?'

'Who'd believe him? The risk then is that we'd all torture him to death, believing he knew where they were, and he'd have nothing to buy us off with.'

'And Marlowe?'

'He's harder. He wants the truth about the plays he wrote under Shakespeare's name acknowledged. He wants his new play performed. And he wants revenge. All before he dies of the pox. Most of all he needs those manuscripts to prove his authorship. His problem is that the minute he raises his head he's a dead man. He's not just got me on his tail, he's on the run from the King. I think he's probably hunting Shakespeare as hard as we are. We need those manuscripts. And Shakespeare's the only one who knows where they are.'

'Be a laugh, wouldn't it,' said Mannion, picking his teeth again, 'if he had gone and destroyed them? If we're all charging around for something that don't exist?'

'Hilarious,' said Gresham. 'Positively side-splitting.' Yet the thought had occurred to him. Life was fond of such great jokes as that.

November-15th December, 1612 Cambridge

The King would not return to London, not for his son's funeral, nor for his new Baron. He hated London anyway, and now it was tainted with the death of his son. So it was that twenty-four chaplains, Prince Henry's pages, his gentlemen, his solicitor, his counsel-at-law, his groom porter, the grooms of the privy chamber and the bed chamber, his sewers, carvers, cup-bearers, his secretary, his treasurers and the Comptroller of his Household, his Master of Horse, distinguished nobles, friends, ambassadors from all Europe, four thousand mourners, servants, gentry and noblemen, took four hours to wind their way from St James's Palace to Westminster Abbey for the most ornate funeral service anyone could remember. Prince Charles, now heir to the throne, was chief mourner. Of his mother and father there was no sign.

Nonetheless, it was vital for Gresham's plan to have Coke, Bacon and Andrewes there with him when he met the King. Gresham's messengers took on new horses. The final agreed meeting ground was ironic. Granville College, Cambridge. Near to James's favoured hunting grounds at Royston and Newmarket. Fitted out with rooms built for a king.

They held another feast, of course, but it was a strange, subdued affair, the students hardly daring to speak in the presence of the black-garbed and black-faced King of England. Even the Fellows were quiet, respectful. James drank heavily, but remained taciturn, the wine failing to lift his mood. It was, the announcement had said, a 'private visit*. As if the King of England, with his hundreds of retainers and the noise and bustle of a whole household, could ever go anywhere privately.

They met after the meal in the Combination Room, the five of them. King James, Gresham, Bacon, Coke and Andrewes. And Mannion, of course, slipping in behind them all. It was the same room Gresham had had built for the Fellows of the college. The fire was blazing to impossible proportions. The fine, oaken table, designed to hold the whole Fellowship with space to spare, had a high-backed chair made into a throne by the adornment on its back of the royal arms. The other chairs along that side had been removed. On the opposite side were four lesser chairs. A beautifully decorated silver jug sat by the King's throne, full of the King's favourite sweet wine. By it sat a golden goblet. One of the goblets James had given to Gresham in The Tower. Gresham had thought about the symbolism. The servants to their King are as silver to gold. What the King has given he can just as quickly take away.

Gresham bowed James to his seat, and motioned the others to go to their allocated places opposite him. Coke was fuming, angry and uncertain.

Gresham retreated to the opposite side of the table from James and motioned Mannion forward. He handed Gresham a bound package, which he opened. Inside it, written on fine paper, were two letters. Gresham brought the letters out and showed them to James. The letters from the King to his lover. The explicit, detailed letters.

'Your Majesty,' said Gresham, 'three days ago my servant here' — he nodded in the direction of Mannion, who bowed his head to the

King — "heard that these letters had been, so to speak, placed on the open market. I assume that Nicholas Heaton released them, expecting to profit from his treachery. The new owner saw no reason in Heaton's death to postpone a sale. I sent my servant to purchase these letters.'

'And did he pay good coin for them?' asked James, staring at his own handwriting in the flickering light from the great fire and the candles.

'He paid in a different way, Your Majesty,' said Gresham. 'The owner paid with his life. Your Majesty, these are the letters, are they not? The letters Your Highness wrote? It is only Your Majesty who can confirm them for what they are!'

Gresham thrust the letters towards James. He let his eyes run down them but made no offer to take them. It was as if he felt distaste at touching them.

'They are the letters,' said the King, his lip lifting. ‘I thank you for doing at least what others seem unable to do.' He did not look at Coke, but Coke squirmed. 'You may leave them on the table.'