Martin Stephen: The Conscience of the King

Walter and, with a final, tearing sense of relief, saw it come out of the planking. He picked up little Anna, already free, silent and shivering now, in his arms, his hand under the harsh collar, the chains wrapped around his arm. Jane tried to pick up Walter, but Walter the boatman stepped into the crowded area and took him off her. They made their way on deck. Walter's men were waiting in their craft, arms open to draw the children and the woman into their boat.

From out of the dark a wildly rigged shape bore down on them as if from nowhere — the second galliass, out of control. Its bow swept

Walter's boat aside, pushed it away as if it were paper. The stout timbers held, but the boat was pushed upwards, first hurling its men into the water and then capsizing. It floated forlornly for a few seconds, its crew hanging grimly on to it, and then began to move down stream.

The second galliass was crashing down the side of Gresham's boat when suddenly it snapped to a halt, dead in the water, bucking and yawling. Its dragging anchor chain had snagged on the ropes. Horrified, Gresham saw the fuse on the second galliass now hard by his side, fizzling to only a few yards away from the powder barrels.

There was a high-pitched yell from the other side of the boat. Gresham ran and looked out. In the darkness, lit by the strange flames of the mock battle, was a tiny rowing boat, a grizzled waterman at the oars, Young Tom in its bow.

'The other boat's about to blow! Here — take the children!' Gresham cried.

Tom grabbed a spare oar, dug it into the water and his boat careered to the side of Gresham's vessel. Walter the boatman was desperate to see if his men were still alive and his craft afloat, but he handed the boy Walter down to Tom as Gresham handed over Anna. Gresham turned to yell to Walter that there was a lit fuse on the second galliass, but the man had gone, a clean dive into the dark river to swim towards his capsized boat, still just visible in the murk, and the shouts of his men.

Gresham looked down into Young Tom's boat. It was dangerously low in the water. It might take one more, if they were lucky. Two and it would sink. 'Go!' he said to Jane, shrieking at her. She looked at him. Did he feel a squeeze on his hand or was it imagination? The little boat sank deeper, took water in over the side but righted itself as Jane tumbled more or less on top her children. Gresham took one glance back at the fuse. It was almost at the powder. He could just make it, perhaps…

There was a cry from the boat. Anna's chain had snagged on something. Young Tom and Jane were hanging on to it, taking the whole weight of the boat, or else Anna would have been dragged overboard, her neck broken with the impact.

Damn! Gresham followed the line of the chain in the darkness, saw it snagged on a rusty nail. With a superhuman heave he released it. The rowing boat swept away, off into the darkness. He turned. The fuse was two, three inches out of the powder. Tune for him to do a deep, clean dive, hopefully be underwater when the explosion went off.

He turned to the water and did not see the line of fire jump two inches and bury itself in the heart of the powder. He felt an almighty blow in his back, something tearing at his arm, and the breath was punched out of him as if he had been hit by God's hand. His body, not under his control now, was hurled forward out over the face of the Thames, his arms outflung as if in a mock crucifixion. In the extended, terrible moment before his body hit the water, Gresham knew that he was losing consciousness; knew that something had hit and hurt him badly, though as yet there was no pain; knew finally that this was his time to die. As the waters closed over his head, his last vision was of Mannion screaming at him. Strange, he thought, in that moment of strange near-clarity that comes to dying men. I thought it would have been Jane. Then it was over.

The rest was silence.

Late February to March, 1613 The House, The Strand, London

He was in hell, he knew. The agonising, burning, searing pain was as anticipated and more, the perpetual agony of the incessant heat to be expected. But why was it so dark? Surely Lucifer would want his prisoners to see the flames as well as feel them? And why were there sometimes these voices, flittering in and out of his brain, never so close as to be understood? And the tiny, fragmentary moments of great peace, when a cooling balm seemed to come over him? It was strange. Well, he had eternity to understand it…

There had been two explosions, though Gresham had felt only one. The first as the powder on the second galliass was ignited by the fuse, the second as Gresham's boat blew up in sympathy. The blast had mostly been directed upwards — the engineers had secured iron panels around the barrels so that the explosion made a fiery plume up into the sky. It had still nearly swamped Jane's tiny boat, and for a few seconds she could see herself and her children being dragged down to the bottom of the Thames by the weight of the chains and the neck collars. Then there had been a thump alongside, willing hands reaching down to help them. The House. A boat from The House. The largest boat, sturdy, able to survive almost anything, full of men, angry men, their men.

Mannion had been in the second boat. For a brief moment he saw his master silhouetted, arms outflung, against the impossible-light of the powder. He had ducked as the surprisingly weak blast passed over them, wrenching the boat around and leaving them deaf but otherwise unharmed. He had seen the body, face down in the water, the cloth ripped off its back, blood across the white of the flesh. As he came to within yards of it, urging the men on and on, it sank. Mannion dived cleanly into the water, into the pitch black, down and down and down. His hand flailing in front of him caught hold of something. Hair. His master's hair. He kicked upwards with huge force, arms now around Gresham's chest.

They thought he was dead. A huge, jagged splinter of wood had struck him in the arm, just above the elbow, and hung there. A leg was broken. He was not breathing! Mannion flung himself on Gresham's chest and pushed down with all his might three times. He turned his master over, hung his head from the edge of the decking, thumping at his back. One minute. Two minutes. Nothing. An awful, hacking retching suddenly came from Gresham's throat and his body convulsed, arching upwards in a spasm so powerful that it threatened to tip him over the side. Mannion waited for the vomit and foul water to dribble from Gresham's mouth, pushed down on his rib cage, waited, and then placed his mouth firmly over Gresham's. He removed his lips from the cold flesh of his master, repeated it. With another shuddering, heaving spasm, Gresham sucked in his own breath. Mannion cradled him until they reached the shore.

They sat by his bedside. His breathing was slight, feathery, threatening to stop at any moment. He was in a deep coma, showing no sign of consciousness. The first doctors shook their heads, retreated into a corner and muttered, and then suggested intensive bleeding.

He had been covered in blood when they had brought him back home. A part of Jane rebelled, not least against the thought of the cruel little knives piercing her husband's flesh. God had put as much blood in him as he needed, and he had lost pints of it. Why did he need to lose more? Mannion took her aside.

'Look, mistress,' he said. '1 ain't no surgeon. But your master and me, we seen a lot of injuries on campaign, never mind the ones he's 'ad. He never did like bleedings, I can tell you for sure. He refused when he had a fever once, wouldn't be doing with it. We saw lots of people bled on campaign. Bled on purpose, that is. Didn't see any of 'em get any better for it, and saw a lot get worse.'