Martin Stephen - The Conscience of the King

There was silence from the fireplace. It was followed by another deep chuckle. 'You have another work in my hand that you must find, do you not, Baron Granville?'

'I do, Your Majesty.'

'Then find it,' said the King, with a sharpness that stung the air. 'Reward my largesse, as so few seem to do. And be my hawk, Baron Granville, as Cecil was my beagle.' The King had often referred familiarly to Cecil as his 'little beagle'. 'As for the rest, I have heard. I am a king, beset by more quandaries than ever a mere mortal conceived of. Yet still I listen.'

He stood, and the others stood with him.

'My saint.' His gaze lingered on Andrewes. 'The problem with sainthood is the trials those who receive it have to endure in order to earn it. They become too good, too divorced from the politics of power. My sinner? Well, all of those here are that.' He gazed at Bacon. 'Sin can be forgiven, if the quality of service merits the forgiveness. My solicitor? Well, there are two of those, are there not?' His gaze flicked between Bacon and Coke. 'And my survivor?' He looked directly at Gresham. 'There is a bond between those whose gospel it is to survive. And a special bond between those who believe that mere survival is not enough, and that to survive with honour is all that matters. Do you wish that bond to be cemented, Henry Gresham, First Baron Granville? I doubt it. Your survival has always been linked to your independence. Yet if my hawk is to return to my gloved hand, it needs to know I am its master. Perhaps the best way is to ensure that our survival is linked.' He paused for a moment. 'Thank you,' he said. His eyes were on Gresham. 'We will reconvene, I hope. My private council. When the business is concluded.'

He swept out of the room. The fears of those present were rep-resented by the depth of the bows they offered to the departing monarch.

Later that night, Gresham lay with Jane. The house was silent, the flames dying in the hearth, the light that of one single candle.

'So the letters are destroyed…' She breathed, feeling easy in her mind for the first time in months. She lay with her head on his chest, arm flung over him, unconsciously seeming both to clutch and protect. She was naked. He could feel her breast pressing against his side, and the first signs of arousal.

'Well… sort of,' replied Gresham, shifting his body.

'Sort of? Sort of? What do you mean "sort of?'" The alarm was clear in her voice and the stiffening of her body.

'Well, the King and two of the country's leading lawyers saw them burned by one of its most respected bishops,' said Gresham meekly, fearing the storm to come.

'But?' said Jane.

'That's why the meeting took so long. I needed to slow the timing for the work to be done properly. It was so important for James not to hold the letters close, which is why we needed to meet in the Combination Room after nightfall. The light in there is always bad.'

'Why did you need bad light?' asked Jane darkly.

'The letters that were burned were forgeries. Brilliant forgeries, I might add. I doubt the King would have seen them for what they were even in broad daylight, but I wanted to lessen the risk.'

'But why burn forged letters?' asked Jane, confused now beyond all belief.

'So that I can retain the originals, merely as a bargaining counter, should the King decide to set his hounds upon his hawk. One never knows when such things might become useful.'

Was there no end to the lengths this man would go? Exasperated, Jane rolled on to her stomach and hit her pillow. Unwittingly it revealed more of the length of her body to her husband.

'Are they safe?'

You are not, he thought, looking at the sweep of her back and the tantalising hint of what lay beneath. Out loud, he said, 'They're safe. Where they can never be found, and where they'll be destroyed instantly if any hand other than my own turns the key.'

'Isn't this betraying the King? The King who's ennobled you, given you his trust?'

'I'll serve the King better than any,' said Gresham, 'and I'll give him my total loyalty. I'll risk my life in his affairs, if needs be. But what one must never do with kings or queens is give them your trust. Never. Not to them or to anyone, as it happens, if you wish to live. The only person to hold complete trust is oneself. His Majesty knows that of me, as I know it of him.'

'And do I have your complete trust? Am I the breaking of the golden rule? Or is there a part of you that's withheld from me?'

He swung round to face her, eyes taking in the glorious curve of her body. 'I intend to prove conclusively in a moment that I withhold no part of me from you,' he said, grinning. 'And the answer to your question, damn you, is yes. I've weakened myself in the way I swore I would never do. By allowing you into my heart. Now, enough of this prattling! Will you allow me to weaken myself a little more?

She shivered as his hands began to move. 'Well,' she said, gazing at him with the innocence of a child and her eyes half closed, 'I don't suppose it'll do me very great harm.'

December 1612-13th February, 1613 The River Thames

As Gresham had long ago ceased to believe in Christ, the feast of his birth meant precious little to him. Yet he enjoyed the entertainments laid on for his two households, seeing them not merely as a duty but as a way of thanking his servants. The excitement in the faces of Walter and Anna was something new for him. Unconsciously, he began to enjoy the twelve days of Christmas through the eyes, ears and stomachs of his children.

Destroy the King's letters. Done, to all intents and purposes. Determine the manner of Prince Henry's death. Done. Neutralise Overbury. Not quite done, but well on the way, Gresham thought. The King's response to his idea regarding Overbury suggested the ambassadorship would flower and flourish in its own good time.

Find Marlowe. Not done, and the man still a very real threat to Gresham and his family. Find Shakespeare. Not done, and a key to the manuscripts. Destroy the manuscripts. Not done. There was too much left undone, Gresham raged inwardly. Including his plucking up the courage to meet Sir Walter, he added to himself.

Yet there was something else troubling him. Beneath all this was the feeling that somehow and in some way that he did not understand, he was missing a vital clue, failing to see a piece of the puzzle that was yet there, waiting to be stared in the face. The nagging fear grew like a headache. However much he shook his head, he could not stop the growing pain.

The King seemed unperturbed, delighted that the Court could come out of mourning in time for the Christmas celebrations. One of them included a performance of The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Or, more accurately, by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes of Ely. Gresham hoped it might flush out either Marlowe or Shakespeare. He was disappointed. Gresham attended as few of the other celebrations as he could decently manage, but Jane still needed two new gowns to meet the minimum obligations placed upon them.

'Is that a dress or merely a pelmet?' asked Gresham puritanically, noting how low the neckline on Jane's fabulous gown had plunged.

'My lord,' said Jane, 'it is a positive curtain wall in comparison with most of those you'll see tonight.' It was true. Daring though it was to Gresham, his wife's neckline still covered her breasts, more than could be said for many of the flimsily dressed women giggling and shrieking their increasingly drunken way through the evening.

The festivities at Court were even more extravagant than usual. The Elector Palatine had come over to England to be betrothed to the Princess Elizabeth in November, but the death of Prince Henry had forced a postponement. Elaborate entertainments were laid on for his extended stay, which it now seemed would last until the wedding in February.