Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

'Upstairs…' Mannion breathed at him, and he fled up the thin wooden treads like a bolting rabbit.

Gresham sat at the table. The shutters had been closed, and the room was full of lamps. He was dressed in black, with a small, neat white ruff the only contrast on his dress. Several of the Gresham jewels sparkled on his fingers and his clothes. There was a chilling stillness to him. He flicked a hand, inviting Tresham to be seated.

Tresham was a wiry, unkempt figure in his late thirties, Gresham knew. He would have guessed him some years short of that, his boyish face showing few wrinkles. At first glance he was quite handsome, but the effect was reduced by a set of thin lips and eyes that flickered all the time like a snake's tongue. His shirt was filthy, the doublet over it richly slashed and pointed but crumpled and dirty. He wore muddy riding boots over a fine hose that would not have shamed an audience at court.

'Who are you? What do you want?' Tresham barked out the words, his hand fingering the fine sword hanging by his waist.

'I'm your avenging angel,' said Gresham mildly, 'and I can send you to Heaven or to Hell. What I want is to decide which one it will be.'

'You have no hold over me, you…'

Gresham cut Tresham short with one simple motion, holding up the palm of his hand.

'Francis Tresham, born 1567, first child and only son of Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton and Muriel Throckmorton of Coughton. Educated at St John's College and Gloucester Hall.

'First arrested in June 1591. You altered a Privy Council warrant, didn't you? Instead of some Godforsaken tailor who owed you money you substituted the name of a troublesome tenant. Then you beat him up and his pregnant daughter.'

'That's not true! The man was a rogue, he…'

'Shut up,' said Gresham, quietly, and for some reason Francis Tresham did so.

'Bailed out by your father this time, and countless times there-after. Married Anne Tufton of Hothfield, and soon one of the wild band who gathers in Essex House giving promises as rashly as they spend money they do not have. Arrested again in 1596 for possible involvement in a Catholic conspiracy, and arrested in 1601 for involvement in the Essex uprising. Bribed out of the Tower, to the near ruin of his father. The father who is now dead, of course. The loving father who spent thousands of pounds on rescuing his son, despite the fact that the son in question, allowed to live in the manor of Hoxton, tried to cheat his father out of lands he owned there…'

Tresham had sat with head bowed. Suddenly he placed both his hands under the table and heaved it up at Gresham, following it with a mad rush, his sword half out of his scabbard. It had worked for him in countless taverns and brawls.

He could not remember properly what happened next. The strange, dark man was suddenly not behind the table, but standing to one side. Tresham felt a huge blow to the side of his head, and then a searing, roaring pain. The dark man's toe connected with vicious power between his legs, the flat of his foot sending him flying through the air. He flew into the wall, cracking his head on a timber, and blackness descended.

'I knew you'd have to hit him,' said Mannion contentedly, dragging up the prostrate figure and propping him upright against the wall. 'Shall I tie him up?'

'No,' said Gresham. 'Let him try again, if he needs to. He must know who his new master is. He won't learn tied up.'

When Tresham came round he was aflame with pain. The most beautiful girl he had ever seen was sponging the blood off what felt like a large hole in his head. He felt sick with the agony in his groin.

The girl spoke calmly, as she took the sponge away. 'I think I'll not try to ease the pain down there,' she said. 'Look at me.'

He did so. Her eyes were the most startling dark pools he had ever seen, burning with an intensity he had only seen before on the coldest and clearest star-lit night.

'Take my advice. Don't fight him. Here or elsewhere. He'll win, and you'll die. Listen, do what he says, and you might live.'

She placed the bloodied cloth in a rough wooden bucket, and moved out of the light. Was he in Heaven, or in Hell? And was this stunning creature an angel or a devil?

'What do you want?' asked Tresham, muzzily.

'Shall we start again?' It was the same figure, dressed in black, seated behind the same table that had been returned to exactly the same place. Yet this time there was a silver jug and two goblets on the table, and a delicious smell of fruity wine. The wild thought crossed Tresham's mind that the man had known he would hurl the table back, had not placed the wine on it until the first, annoying little trial of strength was over and they could get down to business. A different type of fear began to flood through his veins, a fear so sharp that it started to soften the physical pain and make it less important.

'Guido or Guy Fawkes. Robert, or Robin as he is sometimes called, Catesby. Thomas Percy. Thomas Wintour. Robert Wintour. John Grant. Kit Wright. John Wright. Robert Keyes.'

Suddenly the pain returned.

'Do you want to come and sit at the table? To take some wine with me? You're not bound.'

The confidence, the sheer arrogance of the man. As far as Tresham could see there was only the woman in the room, seated in a corner. They had not even taken his sword or dagger away. An overwhelming sense of defeat came to Tresham. He crawled to his feet, sucking in his breath as the blood flowed through his broken head and sent needles into his brain and groin.

'What do you want? Who are you?'

Tresham knew the questions were sounding like an increasingly pathetic litany.

'I want you.' Gresham spoke as if it were the simplest thing in the world. ‘I know that something evil is being planned by a group of men who number you among their friends. I believe you either know of it, or are in a position to find out. And I know that you face ruin and prosecution already, because you've been in trouble too many times, and you'll be associated with whatever these your friends are up to regardless of whether or not you're involved. You're a very lonely man, Francis Tresham.'

He paused for a moment..

'And you're a fool. You've chased every fashion and innovation the world could offer, without thought, without sensitivity and without feeling. You've lived your life as if life itself was created only for you, and for your enjoyment.'

Tresham looked up, startled.

'Granted, you seem to love your wife as much as you love anyone except yourself, but even that's not much. I believe you're one of nature's traitors. A spy. A double agent…'

'My father was a pompous old fool.' There was defiance, a cruel arrogance in Tresham's eyes. As well as a capacity for a very quick recovery. 'He spent thousands on vainglorious buildings. What matter if some of that money was diverted to my vainglory? At least I was a living thing, not a thing of cold brick and stone! For him I feel no guilt.'

'I'm sure you don't,' said Gresham. 'But now you'll turn traitor for me.'

'And why should I do that?'

'For self-interest, as you've done everything in your life. Because if I know that your friends are about to behave most dangerously, so will others know, and you're too selfish to wish to be dragged down with them. Because I'll give you a great deal of money. And because I'll kill you if you don't.'

'How much money?'

Gresham told him. His eyes opened wide.

'Can you prove to me you have that much money?'

Gresham tossed a purse on to the table. It shivered under the weight. Tresham pulled it open, let the gold coins run through his fingers. Gresham felt rather than heard Jane's disapproval from behind him.

'Do you have to give good money to such a… stench of a man?' Jane had asked. She had never quite got used to, and never quite brought herself to believe, how much Gresham was worth. He saw money as a tool. She saw it as security.