Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

Mannion grunted. 'His Majesty celebrates a cow farting in a field, as long as he can drink to it.' He took a swig of beer.

Jane appeared perfectly content without a social life in Gresham's absence. Such a life was hers for the asking. Money and fame mattered more than morality in the London of King James I, and the beautiful 'niece' of the wealthy and mysterious Henry Gresham would be a catch for any hostess, and a fine chase for any man in town. She never appeared tempted, but it did not mean that the young woman in her failed to enjoy hugely the opportunities when they arose.

'His Majesty, for once, is being economical. He kills two birds with one stone. The masque is both to welcome the ambassador from the Emperor, one Prince George Lodovic, and to bid farewell to the Spanish Ambassador,' announced Gresham.

Mannion had grabbed a crust which the maid had missed from the table, and was chewing on it with his few remaining teeth. 'They do say as the noble Prince' — no-one could put more loathing into the word Prince than Mannion — 'comes with his baggage overstuffed.'

'He brings three Earls,' piped up Jane, eagerly, 'one Baron, twenty-four gentlemen, twelve musketeers and one hundred servants. It's the talk of St Paul's,' she said, with great authority.

'Pigs feeding at the trough!' exclaimed Mannion, stuffing a remnant of Gresham's meal into his cavernous mouth, and spitting out a bit of bacon gristle. Something seemed to have got stuck in what was left of his molars. Gresham's eyes were drawn reluctantly and with extreme distaste to the sight, as Mannion dug for the stuck strand of meat with the enthusiasm of a miner sure he was on to a major seam of pure gold ore.

King James would be displeased at having to break off from his hunting. It was necessary for his health that he should hunt, he had told the Privy Council, and his health was, after all, the health of the nation. He had demanded they help take some of the burden of State affairs off his bending back. Cecil would have rubbed his hands with glee, thought Gresham, at being left to rule over the very fabric of government in the absence of the King. However, there was so much money from Spanish bribes sloshing around the Court that the departure of the Ambassador needs must require the King's return from hunting, and probably provoke the whole Court to go into mourning.

'What's the entertainment?' asked Jane.

'The entertainment will be provided by several fat Aldermen whose health will be put to great strain by the weight of jewels they and their even fatter wives will don for the evening, and a race between most members of the Houses of Lords and Commons to see who can place his face closest to the buttocks of His Royal Highness.' Gresham warmed to his theme. He started to mince round the chamber, bowing to various walls and doors with an inane smile on his face. 'The winner gets a pension, a title and the right to take first shot at Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. The loser has to try and extract an intelligent comment from Her Royal Highness the Queen Anne, but may opt to be hung, drawn and quartered instead, on the grounds that this is a sentence that at least leads to a relatively quick death.'

'My Lord!' said Jane, genuinely shocked. 'You shouldn't speak so about the King and His Queen!' She adopted the cool calm of the enigmatic beauty when at Court, but would talk for hours afterwards when she returned home about who had been wearing what and been seen speaking to whom. Gresham had once taxed her with her love of everything royal, pointing out some of the less savoury features of King James I of All England.

'It's perfectly possible, my Lord,' she had replied primly, 'for the institution to be divine whilst its agents on earth are merely human.'

Gresham looked at the eager sparkle in her eyes, and relented. At least she was not being distant, aloof and dignified, which he hated.

'I'm given to understand that His Majesty has commanded a masque from your good friends Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, in which the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity will appear to welcome Prince Lodovic, and bid farewell to the Spanish Ambassador. We go because Sir Francis Bacon will be a guest — a guest of honour, in fact, reading a pretty speech of welcome from the House of Commons. It's at Whitehall, of course. I remember you told me you had a most commanding book of sermons to read, and so informed the Lord Chamberlain that I'd be going alone…'

'Sir!' Jane shrieked in anguish, before the lights dancing behind his eyes told her the truth.

Gresham had obtained details of all Bacon's engagements by bribing his clerk. A word to one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and an invitation to Gresham had been immediately forthcoming. It gave Gresham a grim satisfaction that he had no need to beg an invitation from Cecil. As a major landowner and the patron of what many considered to be Cambridge's leading College, and as a known servant of the Crown for many years past, Gresham had no need of such help.

'Do I do gracious, or do I do alluring?' asked Jane.

'You "do" whatever will preserve and protect my honour,' said Gresham, 'which is a far more important thing than your female vanity. However, I'll gracefully accept as my due any information you might come across in the course of the evening.'

He had taken Jane with him as his niece to a levйe some years earlier and been incensed by her flirting with a young nobleman. He had been about to box her ears when she had poured out to him a torrent of secrets so damaging to the young nobleman's father that twenty full purses would not have bought the information.

'Weren't you ashamed?' he asked, part in horror, part in amazement at the skill with which the little vixen had stripped the fool of his secrets.

'Why?' she had asked, with total sincerity. 'I'm more worried about conceiving a baby than I am about being bedded by one, and anyway I do it for you.' She did, Gresham had realised. This was a woman who far preferred pitting herself against a man in the search for secrets to preparing a fine capon for supper, or supervising the making of the season's preserves. Her bкte noire was sewing.

Since then he had used her whenever it could be safely done.

Gresham stood up and paced the room. Tell me, who goes out with you on your errands to St Paul's?'

'It's usually young Will. He secretly hopes to marry me and he defends my honour…'

'No jesting.' The swooping, instant change of mood — like a hawk coming out from behind the sun, Mannion had commented — was upon him, and it froze the air. 'From now onwards you'll take three men with you, two in company, one a way behind. Make one of them Harry.'

Harry had seen service abroad, and been a gunner on one of the ships that had fired so many shots with so very few hits against the vast galleons of the Spanish. He was tough, very strong and totally ruthless.

'As you wish.' Jane curtseyed to Gresham, a troubled look on her face. 'Am I permitted to know why these extra precautions are necessary?'

Because, thought Gresham, I have let happen what I vowed would never take place. I have fallen in love with you. You are wanton, and then you are saintly, you are strong and hard and then the softest voice I know, you are fierce in one moment and vulnerable in the next, you fight to the bitter end yet you are defenceless. 1 do not understand you, though I know you in bed, and 1 know that when I am with you my heart beats faster and my life has an extra colour in its palette. You have become precious to me, and that gives power over me to any person who decides to take you and hold you and hurt you. You could be held and used against me, young miss.

'Whatever trail it is that Cecil's setting me on it'll carry danger. I can't believe other than that Will Shadwell was on his way to see me in Cambridge, and someone cared enough to kill him. Does that damned bead mean anything? Maybe Will had come across something the Catholics want hidden, or perhaps even Bacon is considering a public return to Rome. I must assume there's a link, even if I don't know what it is.'