Martin Stephen: The Desperate remedy

'We live in wicked times, Sir Henry. Wicked times.' Cecil sighed. There was no goblet or wine for him. In all their meetings Henry Gresham had never seen food or drink pass Cecil's lips.

Well, mused Gresham, you should know, as having created no small measure of that wickedness yourself.

'There are those in our midst who seek to deny the most basic, the most central commandments of Our Lord. Those who seek to do so whilst holding positions of very real power. Wicked men, Sir Henry. Truly evil men. Do you not agree?'

Catholics. It had to be Catholics. Damn, Gresham thought, anything but Catholics.

'You know of Sir Francis Bacon, I believe?' Cecil enquired, responding to Gresham's silence, leaning forward. It was his most beguiling gesture. In leaning forward the collar of his cloak drooped and the ruff dropped slightly, revealing his warped neck. 'Indeed, I think you have dined with him?'

Bacon? Bacon? Gresham's mind, behind its public mask and the half-smile, was in a turmoil. Bacon had been accused of most things, except being a Papist. Bacon's intelligence was matched only by his ambition. He had spent a lifetime trying to get inside the Queen's linen and was now trying to get inside the King's. Gresham hoped it was cleaner than the outside of the monarch. Bacon was just another man of talent trying to compensate for a lack of birth, driven by the same ambition that drove all those who came to Court. What had Bacon to do with the state of the nation?

'He has been to College, my Lord,' Gresham replied light-heartedly. 'He talks well,' he added dismissively. Let Cecil make the running.

'It is not his talk that concerns me, Sir Henry,' replied Cecil. He was sitting back now, ready to launch the blow. 'It is his sodomy.'

Gresham's face did not flicker. His expression did not falter. His pulse missed not a beat. He held down a massive urge to burst out laughing.

'Is it proven, my Lord?' enquired Gresham, his expression serious.

'No,' replied Cecil, looking coldly at Gresham. 'It is not. Yet if it is true, I must have it proven. I believe you to be the man to find such proof.'

Sodomy was a capital offence, certainly. The growing band of Puritans shouted the evils of fornication at an increasing number of street corners, to the hilarity and amusement of the populace. When they denounced the double sin of sodomy, the crowds ceased their laughter and joined in the shouting. Yet more and more the fashionable end of society was turning to experiment, be it with the new weed tobacco, strange concoctions of wine and herbs or the practice of sex. Sodomy was ill-advised. It was hardly the stuff of which the survival of nations was composed.

'I hope, my Lord,' responded Gresham carefully, 'that I have some experience of finding proof. Yet are you not better advised to set one of similar inclination on to this project? Why not set a thief to catch a thief? Am I to believe this is an urgent matter?'

'You might consider my example, Sir Henry. I believe very little.' Cecil's eyes bored into Gresham. Gresham did not flinch, the infuriating half-smile still on his lips. 'I observe a great deal. I merely use that which I have.'

Touchй", thought Gresham. Or if not that, stalemate.

All in all, it left them in their usual state of even balance. Both despised each other, yet had need of what each other had to offer. Each one could destroy the other, but knew the destruction was likely to be mutual. In that room Gresham was in the presence of raw power, pure and simple, and Henry Gresham could not resist the taste and smell of it.

Yet to be set on to determine the destination of Bacon's prick? After a frantic summons to travel without delay and post-haste to London? Bacon was fiercely ambitious. That much was widely known. He was in debt. That was also widely-known. And most known of all was the fact that he had one of the best brains in Christendom. He was related to Cecil, but the relationship, complicated by too many embattled women, had not been easy. It was also rumoured that, in common with Kit Marlowe — an earlier tragedy — he thought those 'who liked not boys were fools'. It was all good stuff for gossip in the ordinary and the tavern, but even if Bacon was proven to have buggered every boy in Europe it would hardly set England tottering on its constitutional heels. Essex had been Bacon's patron, of course, before Bacon had turned against him and even helped in his prosecution. Was this Cecil paying back an old debt, slowly destroying the last vestiges of those who had supported his old enemy Essex?

His scalp started to itch unbearably, even though he would swear no flea had made its entry to his head. He refused the overwhelming urge to scratch his itch.

'I will do as you ask, my Lord,' said Gresham calmly. 'It is my choice to do so.' Their eyes locked for a brief, fiery clash, and then both went dark. 'Yet I think there are greater issues than one man's buggery, in the present times.'

Cecil mouthed an insincere farewell, failing to rise to show Gresham to the door. There had to be a deeper reason for all this, thought Gresham as he left. At a guess, Bacon had offended Cecil, or was coming to be seen as a threat to Cecil's power in some way. This had to be personal. Would Gresham help destroy the man if it were so? He would see. He had felt no compunction working against Essex and bringing him down, not least of all because he saw Essex as both a threat to the nation and a lifelong enemy of Sir Walter Raleigh. If Bacon seemed a fly not worth the squashing, Gresham would leave him in peace and return an infuriatingly bland report to Cecil.

A servant appeared from nowhere and held open the carved and varnished door. As he passed through Gresham felt a distinct increase in temperature. Was it the room? Or was any room occupied by Robert Cecil colder and darker by virtue of its occupant?

'God's blood!' yelled the informer.

The cheap red wine had spilled out of his mouth and across one of the weeping ulcers that ringed his lips.

If Gresham was disturbed by the blasphemy, he did not show it. He leant casually back in his chair and motioned invitingly to the jug and the man's half-empty tankard. He carefully laid his arm in between some of the more poisonous stains on the table and gazed at the half-drunk informer.

'So have you news of Bacon's household?' asked Gresham patiently. Gresham's enquiries after Bacon had coursed out through the underworld of London. This was the latest lead that had emerged from its sewers.

The informer grunted, reached for the jug and poured himself a life-threatening dose of vinegar. He drew back on it, careful this time to make no spillage. He made as if to wipe his lips, remembered in time the damaged flesh thereabouts, and poked out instead a thick red tongue to gather up the residue.

'Yes, I do. Truthfully, I do. The little man has… visitors. Young visitors.'

The conspiratorial tone he sought to adopt was spoilt somewhat by the vast belch of foul breath that ended his sentence. The explosion of air seemed to rock him back, like a loose-shotted cannon.

Little man? Sir Francis Bacon was not particularly short, though certainly no giant. Those who envied the size and scope of his brain tended to vilify his build, as if the latter reflected the former. It was a common mistake of the time. If it had been true, the pathetic stunted and warped figure of Robert Cecil would not contain the most powerful brain in the country.

'The names of these young visitors?'

The informer's eyes were still glazed with the shock of his own eruption. God forbid he might fart next, thought Gresham. If he did it was likely to have lumps in it.

'Names? Names?' The man took another swig. 'These things have no names. They're sweepings, sweepings. Bastards taken at birth from a whore's bed, or saved from the river.'