Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

'I hear you have been of good service to Our State in times past, Sir Henry.'

Ears around the Hall pricked at this. Many of the time-servers were either unconscious of spewing their guts up in their favoured location, or banging at their whores, but the professional power-brokers would neither have drunk too much nor expect to go to bed before His Majesty. There was no sign of Cecil, Gresham noted, but those who reported to him would be sprinkled throughout the Hall.

'What little I have done can never be enough, Your Majesty. Those of us who can offer some small service only regret it is not more.'

Will Shadwell really regrets he could not do more. Like stay alive. Do you know how many die to keep you informed, you Scottish runt?

'Aye,' replied the King, belching delicately into an ornately ruffed sleeve. 'Yet tell me, Sir Henry, why are you alone of my subjects not beating a path to my door requesting favour? We do not see you at court, Henry Gresham. I see no letters from you pleading for advancement.'

The King was rumoured to despise those who did not come to him begging. The endless requests he received — and granted — for largesse were flattering to his soul, confirmation of his power.

Oh God, why I do get into these conversations!

'Sire, it is true I have done work for your State and Kingdom…'

Well, everyone's State, if the truth be known — but truth and Kingship ne'er did sit easily side by side.

'… which work has been its own reward.'

Well, that was true enough. It had to be, of necessity, for the likes of

Gresham. The miserable bastards Walsingham, Burghley and Cecil had not paid for so much as a horseshoe.

'It is also work that has needed little advertisement, and perhaps been best done quietly and discreetly. As for advancement, Fate has been kind to me. I have what I need to be content.'

'Would that the rest of my subjects felt so!' exclaimed James, sipping at the wine in the jewel-encrusted goblet he held in his hand. It was difficult to know if his enthusiasm was genuine or counterfeit.'His hand was fine, white, delicate, Gresham noticed.

'May I say more, Your Majesty?'

'Aye,' replied the King, gazing at Gresham from under hooded lids, 'you may indeed, man.' The Scottish accent had become more marked. The Scottish Court was rumoured to be far more informal than the English Court, and James exchanged words with his servants as well as his courtiers at mealtimes.

'It is in the nature of Kingship for the servant to ask of the master. Yet the good servant knows that the master who gives without being asked gives with twice the heart he might otherwise have done.'

And take that up your tight Scottish arse and do with it what you will.

King James I of All England, the first man in history to have had actual sovereignty over the two nations of Scotland and England, gazed speculatively at Gresham. This man is not drunk, thought Gresham, merely liberated by alcohol. Nor is he stupid. No, very far from stupid.

'I go shortly to Oxford. I must not offend by seeming to neglect the great University of Cambridge. Does Granville College have rooms fit for a King?'

'There is no room in the land fit for Your Majesty,' said Gresham, bowing low again.

You creeping little toad. When in Whitehall, do as the sycophants do… Yet Gresham was surprised to see a glint of humour in the King's eyes, recognising the ironic flattery for what it was.

'But certain, Your Highness, if such rooms do not exist now they will do so by the time Your Majesty grants us the honour of Your presence.'

'So be it.' The interview was ended, not impolitely. 'I shall visit you, Henry Gresham. You are near to my hunting lodge at Royston, are you not, in Cambridge? I bid you and your beautiful niece God speed and a safe journey home to your fine house on the Strand.'

Gresham let out a long breath as they emerged from the Great Hall.

'What was all that about?' asked a bemused Jane.

'I think he wants you as his mistress, and was just looking to see if you fitted the bill, so to speak,' said Gresham, and received a poke in the ribs for his pains. 'Mind you, looking at you now, it's probably the House he wants, as being more beautiful and certainly more valuable…'

‘I didn't like the sound of "your fine house on the Strand",' said Jane. 'It's ten to one he wants it for one of his stinking Lords.'

They mounted their barge and set off back to the House. The four men had drunk but were not drunk, Gresham was pleased to see. The river was a dangerous place at best of times, and in pitch dark with a fog it was more dangerous than ever. The torches set all round their boat gave each of the men a halo as the flickering light caught the moisture in the night air.

Jane curled up on to his shoulder, wrapped in a vast boat cloak. He looked fondly down on her dark head, and softly began to sing to her, a song by Tom Campion.

'Come you pretty fake-eyed wanton. Leave your pretty smiling. Think you to escape me now With slippery words beguiling…'

She turned her head to look up at him. 'I've no desire to escape, my Lord,' she said solemnly, 'unless you have truly novel plans for the remainder of this night.'

Gresham laughed softly, and then suddenly stopped.

The sound of fierce rowing came to them from somewhere very near on the river, regular, hard splashes in the water, even the sound of men exhaling hard, grunting with effort. Six, possibly eight men, rowing hard in the fog and yet with some skill, and showing no light — there was no missed stroke there, but a hard, regular and practised rhythm. Coming nearer, as far as the fog would allow noise and location to be identified.

Gresham stood and exchanged glances with Mannion. He nodded.

'Douse and arm! Douse and arm!' he hissed to his four men. He turned to Jane. 'Down, down! Into the middle of the boat. Crouch as low as you can, and cover yourself with the cloak.'

Other women would have screamed or asked fool questions. Jane merely nodded, and crouched down low in the boat's centre.

The boat moved gently, rocking in the swell.

Gresham's boat crew were well trained. A rich man's boat at night on the river was fair game to the river pirates, and Gresham's men had often needed to row him into situations where good manners mattered less than sharp blades and a stout heart. The torches at the prow, stern and sides were doused. The men set their oars at the rest position, and scrabbled in the central locker for the crossbows that were kept there, passing one apiece to Mannion and to Gresham. The crossbow was a good, one-shot weapon for the sort of engagement they might face. Once wound there was no need to draw the arm back to fire, merely a trigger to pull and release the short, lethal bolt. The trajectory was flat, ideal for short-range work, release was instant if the weapon was pre-wound, and it could then be discarded for the short boat axe that the lockers also carried. A sword was too long for the close work that fighting on a small deck required, a dagger too short. A heavy, double-sided short axe was ideal, allowing the fighter to carve his way through an enemy and knock aside, with a long knife in his other hand for really close work.

The men shipped the oars, silently, only a rustle of cloth and foot on board betraying their presence. The crossbows were well maintained, and wound without the infuriating screech that would have given them away. They drifted in silence, the fog and the darkness blinding them, the only sound the lapping of the water on the boat's hull. Both shores were too far away for what dim light might be showing there to penetrate the mist. If they kept this drifting up for too long they would be swept through, or more like smashed on to, the arches of London Bridge.

The enemy had given themselves away by stopping as soon as the torches had been doused. A nobleman hurrying home would have continued on his way. A large, expertly rowed craft showing no light and coming up from behind, and presumably marking them on their torches, that stopped when they did? It was after one thing: them.