Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

Cecil was alone. It was possible that he might have had a hurriedly dismissed floozy with him, more likely one of the wild Irish harpers whose music he had so taken to. The expensive hangings could have concealed any numbers of doors. How could a man with so much ugliness in his soul have so much love of fine art and music? thought Gresham. Yet somehow Gresham doubted Cecil had been with anyone. Cecil simply liked to keep people waiting, and he fed on the anxiety and desperation of those parked outside his door, almost as if the power to deny them his presence confirmed the very power that he held.

The setting was different from the room where Cecil met his spies. It was opulent, with the hangings alone worth a small fortune. It was vast, the mullioned windows letting in bars of strong sunlight that glowed on the richly polished table in the centre of the room. Cecil sat in a huge, ornately carved chair at the head of the table. The usual mass of papers was spread before him. Why so many papers, thought Gresham, for a man with the most ruthless memory he had ever known? Ten perfectly carved matching oak chairs were ranged each side of the table, with a single, simpler chair at the end of the table. Ordered around the room were twenty or so other chairs, each worth a yeoman's ransom. The message was clear. This was a room that dwarfed the individual. It spoke of meetings of powerful men, of decisions taken by rulers.

It was also a room where clearly the petitioner was meant to sit at the end of the table with a vast lump of gleaming wood between him and the Chief Secretary. Gresham, who was never good at obeying orders spoken or unspoken, simply stepped round and marched up the side of the table.

Was there a flicker of fear in Cecil's gimlet eyes? It was difficult to say, the damned table was so long and Cecil so far away from the door.

Gresham walked the length of the table, remembering to drag his feet a little. He stopped by the side of Cecil, pulled out an adjacent chair and casually seated himself, as if drawing up a chair to his oldest friend. As he did so he pulled his sword scabbard aside with just a touch more force than was strictly necessary.

'Do sit down,' Cecil said softly, making a vague motion with his hand, long after Gresham had done so. There was no sign of anger that the man he had tried to kill was here, alive, seated in front of him.

'Thank you, my Lord,' said Gresham, gracefully.

There was a silence. It stretched into an uncomfortably long time. Gresham sat calmly, a quizzical smile on his face, his eyes never leaving Cecil's impenetrable black gaze.

Cecil broke first. 'You did ask to see me, I believe?'

'Did I?' said Gresham, in a surprised tone. 'My apologies, my Lord. A number of your servants have attempted to make contact with me, and so I assumed the invitation was yours. I wondered perhaps if you wished news of Sir Walter Raleigh, your Lordship's old friend?'

'My servants?' said Cecil, apparently equally surprised, and ignoring the gibe about Raleigh. He knew Gresham's relationship with the most distinguished prisoner in the Tower. 'You surprise me, Sir Henry. I was not aware of sending any servants to speak with you.'

No, thought Gresham, you just sent a group of ruffians to murder me. I suppose you could call them your servants.

'That is certainly true, my Lord,' replied Gresham, 'as the servants in question did not have the holding of speech with me as their first priority.'

'I am surprised, therefore, that these speechless creatures were able to identify themselves as my servants. Are you sure in your surmise? I would be angered indeed if there were those seeking to impersonate servants of His Majesty the King's Chief Secretary.'

Mistake, Gresham thought. Your first mistake. You should not need to use your rank to boost your credibility.

'I would not worry overmuch, my Lord.'

'And why should that be, sir?' enquired Cecil, raising one thin eyebrow and feigning boredom despite the patronising impertinence of Gresham's tone.

'The scoundrels in question were an unhealthy lot. Indeed, I believe all but two of them died of a sudden, one is near to death and another broke a limb.'

Let Cecil think one of the murderers lived on. All the bodies could not have been washed up yet, and even Cecil could not keep a count of every body in the Thames…

'How very unfortunate,' mused Cecil.

‘Not at all, my Lord,' replied Gresham. 'Rather I view it now as God's justice on any soul impertinent enough to pretend to be in your Lordship's employ. Thanks be to God.'

'Well, well,' said Cecil, flatly. 'This has been most interesting. Most interesting.' His tone suggested it had been as interesting as an examination of his master's scrotum. 'But do tell me, as you are here, how things go with the investigation of… Sir Francis Bacon.'

Gresham leant forward, suddenly, conspiratorially. Even the icy control of Cecil could not stop him from a sudden, sharp movement back in his seat.

'I have it on the firmest evidence,' said Gresham with total sincerity, 'that he is the Fiend incarnate.'

'How so?' said Cecil, revealing more interest than he intended.

'It is said that he possesses the Philosopher's Stone, the alchemist's secret, the magic stone that turns all it touches to gold. There is one problem, and one problem alone.'

Cecil's avarice overcame his intelligence. 'Problem?' he said, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. 'What problem?'

'In its present refinement Sir Francis's stone will turn to gold only the turds of members of the true aristocracy. He has tried it on all manner of substances, and on all manner of turds, but it will only work with those produced from men of the highest breeding.'

Gresham stared hard at Cecil. Cecil's family was of low birth, brought to ascendancy by the mind and not the breeding of Cecil's father, old Lord Burghley.

'This is a problem indeed, my Lord, because as my Lord knows better than I, there are many cheap and imitation Lords about the place nowadays, my Lord, Lords who claim, my Lord, high birth and breeding but who are only lately come into their Lordships, my Lord, and have no more breeding than a turd. My Lord.'

If ever hate could bum a hole in a man's eye sockets there is smoke in your eyes now, thought Gresham.

'Clearly,' Gresham continued, relaxing against the hard back of the chair, 'this matter is of equal importance to the enquiry into Sir Francis Bacon's sodomite tendencies, a matter which I know carries the highest importance to the welfare of the nation. Indeed, one part of the anatomy seems to turn up wherever one looks in the case of Sir Francis. I shall enlarge the scope of my enquiries to cover both areas, so to speak.'

Cecil was stockstill, as if frozen. Gresham could see the tick, tick of the pulse in his neck. It was double Gresham's pulse.

I think you do not have a very great sense of humour, Chief Secretary to the King, particularly where the butt of die humour is yourself.

'On less serious matters, I must report, my Lord, that I have been experiencing minor difficulties in the conduct of my investigation.'

Cecil's eyes had gone on a brief journey to Hell, noted the suffering that could be inflicted on a human body, and returned to the land of the living with renewed enthusiasm, particularly as they looked at Gresham.

'Do tell me,' he said, in a voice of coach wheels on gravel.

'I suspect the wicked Sir Francis has detected my enquiries.'

Let's play you at your own game, thought Gresham, bluff and double bluff. Let Sir Francis be my code for Robert Cecil. Let's see your mind race to break that code.

'Sir Francis has set men to spy upon me and scoundrels to murder me. I believe he has also forged letters in my hand, purporting to show me as a Papist.'