The Conscience of the King

Best was when the weather allowed the old theatres to be packed to the hilt, with a roof open to the heavens. The worst was the plague, which could close the theatres and take the actors from roaring profit to catastrophic loss and god forsaken tours of the sticks. So far in 1612 their luck had held.

Going to the play was a ritual in the Gresham household, and huge fun. Soon they would consider bringing the children, but as things stood it was an outing for Gresham and Jane only. And, of course, the servants. Mannion considered it his divine right to accompany his master and mistress everywhere they went. Gresham also paid forborne of the more senior servants to go with them, as well as some of the young ones. In return, the servants had to row the great eight-oared boat that was the pride of The House to deliver themselves arid the couple from The House's own jetty across the bustling river to within a few hundred yards of The Globe.

'So which idle varlets do we take to the play today?' asked Gresham, squaring his bonnet and straightening the sleeve of his doublet.

'Well,' said Jane, ticking them off on her fingers, 'there's Harry, of course, as boat captain. And I think we ought to reward the younger Harry, the one who joined us two years ago. He's put him' self out to be pleasant, and he works like a horse. Then there's Jack in the stables-'

'Can any one of them row?' interrupted Gresham.

'Well,' said Jane, smiling sweetly, 'we'll all of us know the answer to that very shortly.' Jane commanded intense loyalty from the servants, despite an occasional fierce temper and on very rare occasions an ability to revert to her peasant upbringing and adopt a very forthright and robust style of conversation with a servant thought to have pocketed the occasional item, or bought two chickens but magically only delivered one to Cook. At such moments a dread hush descended over The House and people walked on tip-toe.

There were a few low clouds scudding across the blue and a brisk wind lifted their faces as they came out of the Water Gate and advanced down the stone jetty. The lapping of the water was music to them, alongside the creaking of the wood and the shouts vaguely heard from the river. Coming up to midday, the river was at its busiest. Every type of boat, from the gilded splendour of a king's barge down to the tiny, rotting tub with only one oar carrying what looked like a beggar erratically cross-stream, was scurrying up and down the length of London's main street. With a brisk wind, those that had it put up sail, the stark white of a brand new set contrasting with the faded and yellowing canvas of the commercial traffic. Ropes snapped across the wooden pile of the masts, sails cracked in and out as the wind blustered, and everywhere was the lap of the tiny wavelets on the wooden hulls.

Their boat was for eight oarsmen, four to each side, with room at the prow and stern for easily that many passengers. Gresham and Jane took their seats at the stern, covered by a sumptuous awning. Jane had never favoured the pearly white complexion of the court lady and Gfesham loved the subtle tinge of bronze her perfect skin always carried. She seemed impervious to sunlight, her upbringing having given her an immunity denied to other Court ladies. Gresham had questioned the need for the awning, designed to keep the sun off a lady's skin as much as to keep off the rain.

'Surely you don't need that great waste of money flapping over your head?'he had asked.

'My lord!' she had exclaimed. 'What would the world be coming to if Court ladies only demanded what they strictly needed?'

The motley collection of servants grinned at them in delight as they climbed on board, doffing their caps, not hiding their excitement and pleasure. What better day could it be? They served the handsomest man and the most beautiful lady in London, and were viewed with awe by other great men's servants because of their master's dark reputation. They had good food in their bellies and good cloth on their backs. They were to ride in style on the best boat on the Thames. The sun was shining, there was a snap in the air and they were off to the playhouse. It was good to be alive on that fine July morning.

'Well,' said Gresham, standing and looking down at his men as they pushed off, 'can you sorry-looking collection of apologies for men find the strength to hold an oar? Or have we wined and dined you and kept you in such luxury that with one pull you'll be moaning that you can do no more?'

The response was eight oars hitting the water in unison, and a massive surge out into the river that would have had Gresham off his feet had he not known exactly what was coming.

'Feeble!' he said mightily, gazing down on them with the half-smile that his face fell into in repose. 'Well, keep trying. At this rate we might make it for the third act.'

Gresham sat down again and raised an eyebrow at Jane, who was gazing out across the river with fascinated concentration. Mannion, behind them, had a firm grasp of the tiller.

The river here was fast-moving, muddy brown even in summer and with a blue sky. Unlike the Fleet river, which was little more than a stinking ditch of sewage, there was a semblance of health if one did not look too closely into the brown water. Yet only the crassest of fools would drink from it. Neither Jane nor Gresham had ever washed in it.

The flag was flying bravely from the thatched roof of The Globe, a many-sided brick and timber construction dominating the skyline. They landed the boat at a private jetty whose owner guaranteed secure berthing, and whose collection of thugs (most of them his own children) would have frightened off Attila the Hun and all his hordes had they come a-thieving.

The men held the boat while first of all Jane and then Gresham crossed on to the shore. Gresham looked down on the head of the younger Harry.

'Ready for the play, then, Harry?' Gresham took care to know all his servants by name. It was, he thought, one of the basic gestures of respect to the people with whom one lived and on whom one depended.

'That right I am, sir!' grinned Harry, tousled hair ruffed up by the brisk wind.

The roads leading to The Globe were narrow, and the vast coaches that some of the audience insisted on using could block whole streets, as had happened today. Gresham, Jane and his men marched through the throng and on to the gate that they and some of the more select of the audience used to gain access to their seats. The doorkeeper nodded them through. Gresham was well known. More and more mutton dressed as lamb going to the old theatres, thought Gresham, with each year that went by, despite divine visitations from the likes of whoever was in the coach. Further sign that the richer and better bred went to the indoor theatres, leaving the old ampitheatres such as The Globe for riff-raff. Oh, there was quality enough still, if one looked. The lawyers and MPs who had always supported The Globe were still there, but fewer, and there were more young men in cheap shoe buckles and rosettes, with extravagant embroidered waistcoats in appalling taste and bursting their seams because of cheap thread almost as soon as they were worn.

'Sir Thomas! How delightful to see you again!' Gresham spoke easily as the figure of Overbury clambered up the narrow stairs to the first tier. Overbury started, and turned around. His face was a mess, Gresham noted happily, a riot of black and blue bruising around his mouth and nose, ascending to a massive black eye. Overbury's lip curled as best it could.

'The bastard and his whore!' he sneered at Gresham, daring him to fight, hand on his sword.

It was beginning again, thought Jane. Her stomach turned cold. The hatred. The violence. Men pitted against men. At least in the village that had spawned her you could predict the relationships, awful though they might be. Here, in the world of a Court lady, bitter hatred could be revealed in a glance from those who knelt together at the communion rail, vicious enmity enflamed by a chance meeting at the theatre;

'Why, Sir Thomas,' said Gresham, 'there's no need to refer to yourself in those terms. We all know you've no breeding and that your mother was a whore. But those of us who frequent high society know that the best sort are always liars.'

Sir Thomas made to draw his sword. Something in Gresham's easy smile, and the men who moved to his side, stopped him. He gazed at Gresham, scorn enough in his voice to blister paint.

'You will pay for that. Not here. Not now. But in some other place.'

He turned, and with his servant brushed aside the bodies crowding up the stairs as they strode purposefully down them.

They took their seats, their servants in front of them. Gresham watched the audience, as much a show as the play itself. For many of the young blades the theatre was somewhere not to watch but to be seen. Preening and pandering, they were so tightly corseted they could not bend, and their vast collars or ruffs seized their heads and necks as if in a vice. Their hats rose like steeples into the sky, marking them out. Forced by the clutch of starch and lace to gaze down stiffly on everyone they saw, they could only look at a person by swinging their whole body round to face them. The apprentice boys were out in force in the Pit, brawling, scuffling and swearing to impress the schoolboys who would pay twice over for their place, once by their precious penny and another by the thrashing they would endure, bent over the block, as a result of their truancy.

The tier was full, unusually so, apart from the benches Gresham's money had reserved. Gresham was relaxed, happy. The momentary stain of Overbury's presence had rippled but not dented his com-posure. It seemed to have upset Jane more, but now she was gazing happily around her, nodding to an acquaintance, sharing as they all did in the excitement of so many people gathered in one such small place, feeding off the raw human energy the sheer intensity of contact generated.

There was what the players would call a fanfare of trumpets and what Gresham would call an unholy blast of noise. It was the traditional start to a play.

The audience called it Beatrice and Benedick, after the hero and heroine who were deeply in love but whose bickering and witty battling for position had caused audiences to howl with laughter and cry with sympathy for years. It was one of the plays that had made Shakespeare's name, a play loved by both the Court ladies and the groundlings in the Pit. The actors called it Much Ado About Nothing.

The play was beginning. A duke-like figure, gorgeously costumed, was speaking to two girls. The boy actors playing the girls were breathtakingly convincing.

'I learn in this letter that Don Pedro ofArragon comes this night to

Messina…' 'How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?'

The first gallery usually housed the men of substance. There were other, more private boxes in the tiers, but the first gallery was a favoured and expensive spot. Gresham's mind had already engaged with the play, the extraordinary way in which a few words from a painted actor could take two or three thousand souls instantly into a strange court in a foreign land, and make them believe they were there. A distant, detached part of his mind noted that among the wealthy audience who patronised the tier were an unusually large number of heavy, thick-set men. Which other gentry had brought their servants to the play? he wondered idly, without sufficient interest to look around and trace the man.

'I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?'

'He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.'

'He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.'

'I will hold friends with you, lady.'

The house was restless. Sometimes in a play the noise would lower itself to a gentle hum, the nuts be consumed early on. Those selling their produce or their bodies in the Pit would be drawn into the play themselves. At other times the house spun and buzzed like an angry wasps' nest, the actors clinging on to every word and holding on for their lives. For no apparent reason, this was such a day.

'Good Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble?' 'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you..

Something extraordinary happened. Three rather beautiful, pure amber lines of liquid arched from the very top gallery and splashed gently on to the crowd below. Confused, thinking it raining on a sunny day, men and women looked up, open-mouthed, and caught the liquid on their upturned faces and in their lips.

It was piss. Human piss. An appalling, humiliating, unbelievable insult to the honour of those soiled in the mess. Three louts had stood on the edge of the top gallery and pissed on the groundlings in the Pit. There was an almost soundless roar as those desecrated in the Pit caught sight of the men who had dared to do this. As a single, heaving mass, the men among them, and a few of the commoner women, made for the stairs to confront their attackers.

Oh God, thought Gresham, as realisation of the truth banged down inside his mind like portcullis after portcullis smashing down on stone. There was chaos in the Pit, uproar as those dirtied by the act were ignited by it in a riotous desire for revenge. Panic spread through the two and half thousand souls in the audience, the play forgotten, reality smashing through the play's carefully wrought fantasy. Those not set on revenge rose to their feet, drew their loved ones to them, looked around in confusion.

Under cover of this total chaos, unseen by the audience blinded by fear, Gresham noted with horror the fourteen or fifteen men dressed as servants rise to their feet as one, reach inside their tunics and rough jerkins and draw out hardened wooden cudgels or wickedly edged cheap knives. Their target was clear.

Gresham.

Jane.

For a single, terrible, bleak moment, Henry Gresham gazed full into the face of his own death. In less than a second the appalled realisation of what he had done thudded into his brain. Lulled into false security. Seduced into relaxation by pleasure, like the man knifed at climax by his lover. His servants, his eight men, were here to enjoy. They were not armed. He started to draw his weapon out from the scabbard, as if in slow motion. It would be there fully two or three steps ahead of the man fixedly charging at him, club already upraised. He would, he could kill that man. But what of the horde of others that followed him?

He was too much of a fighter to take his eye off the man who would either be killed or who would kill him: the first in the mad rush of his attackers, the one with the brute strength to have hurled himself to the forefront of the charge on Gresham. Yet part of him disengaged from his main self, almost as if it floated above him.

Something extraordinary was happening.

His men were standing on their seats, drawing weapons from their tunics and jerkins. There was panic in their eyes, fear, confusion. The look of soldiers. The glint of metal. Boat axes! A heavy, short wooden shaft. A glinting, razor-sharp cutting and chopping edge on one side, a vicious sharp point on the other.

Mannion. Shouting orders at them. Not shrieking, nor yelling. Shouting — clearly, firmly, almost calmly. Mannion, who had risen to his feet a split-second before the attackers, a crucial, life-saving split second, to warn their men of danger. Mannion, who, for no reason he nor any Other human would ever know, had quietly ordered the boat crew, as he usually did, to take the boat axes out of the locker, and a knife or two if they wished.

Just in case.

Gresham used his other arm to fling Jane viciously to the ground. Never taking his eyes off his attacker, he waited until the man had drawn back his cudgel for the blow that would have smashed in Gresham's skull. At that precise moment he flicked the blade of his sword across the man's face. He caught one eye, missed the second by a hair's breadth. The shock was terrible. Even though Gresham's flick had not caught a single muscle controlling his arms, the man's hand suddenly flexed open as his eye exploded and the club flew out of its grasp. Caught by his own momentum, lunging forward, Gresham stepped up on to the bench as his assailant, his face a bloody mess, flopped by him to crash senseless to the floor.

Someone screamed. Jane. Some primeval communication made him look not at her sprawled body on the floor but to his left. He had chosen the right assailant. The man rushing at him from the right had been the nearest, the most dangerous. Yet the man rushing down on him from the left had been only a second behind. Gresham's brain had mathematically computed the threat and turned instinctively to the right as the greater risk. It left him with no time to deal with the man charging in from the left.

The man had a short, flat forehead and thick, bushy eyebrows. For a moment Gresham's sword felt as if it weighed several tons, as if the act of dragging it round to meet his second assailant would take a whole lifetime.

Would his sword have met the man from the left before his cudgel or his knife met Gresham's flesh? He was never to know.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, a hole opened up in the forehead of the second attacker. A flicker of light, and a boat axe was embedded there, between the bushy eyebrows.

As of a moment the light of life was expunged from the man's eyes. His sightless, mindless body flung past Gresham as had the other man's. Mannion had flung the axe. Mannion, hauling a second boat axe from his jerkin even as he yelled encouragement to Gresham's men.

One or two seconds, that was all it seemed. One or two seconds for the first of the attackers to be halted by Gresham, the second to be killed by Mannion. One or two seconds to cause the mass of men to falter, shocked at the sudden loss of two of their fellows. One or two seconds enough for Gresham's men to hurl themselves to their feet and gather round their master.

The attackers wavered. For another second it looked as if they might halt, turn and run, but their momentum as much as anything else carried them forward. They broke on the curtain wall of Gresham's servants, the strong keep of Gresham and Mannion, a double line before the prone body of Jane.

There was a sickening thud as body met body, club met flesh and muscle and sinew fought against muscle and sinew. The men grunted as they landed their blows, grunted as they took a blow and felt the pain searing up their limbs.

One of Gresham's men was lifted half off his feet by a blow from a cudgel, flung back into the benching. Another man, scarred face, missing teeth, broke through a gap and lunged at Gresham. Off balance, Gresham lunged back, using the extra length of his blade, knowing that a swordsman against a club had only one chance. His sword pierced the man's shoulder. He screamed and fell, hand clutching the wound. Gresham's blade was stuck, in flesh or ensnared in the rough woollen cloth. With a final sobbing heave he yanked it clear.

They had to reach the back wall of the theatre. They had to position themselves so that they were only dealing with an enemy coming at them from the front. Thank God Jane was wearing a skirt more like a countrywoman's, without the huge hoops and farthingales a more vain person would have chosen.

The three men who had pissed on the Pit had vanished, the surge of men and women hunting for them dissipated in the long haul up the stairs and the fruitless search of the top gallery. There was chaos, men and women looking fearfully up at the roar of battle coming from the first tier. They were streaming out of the theatre as fast as the cramped exits and their legs would allow.

Three attackers had come leaping at four of Gresham's men.

'Get to the back wall!' Gresham yelled, his voice cutting through the shouts and screams. Clambering, clambering all the while for that damned wall. Thrusting as the pack closed in. Feeling their hot breath, the stink of garlic from one, the dreadful stench of rotting teeth from another. Keeping that grip on Jane's wrist. The grunts, sharp, spasmodic explosions of breath from both sets of men. Muttered curses, shouts, a scream as a blow landed. Feeling with his feet the broken benches beneath him. Only able to risk the quickest of glances backwards.

Young Harry had tripped over a bench and exposed himself to a blow from a swinging club. It hit his ribs, blowing the breath out of him. Just as his assailant was about to land a final blow on his pate, Harry turned aside, dodged. The club intended for his head smashed on to a bench. Splinters flew, the bench cracked near in half.

A rough, hard surface bit into Gresham's back. The wall! Now they could point outwards, a sharp-tipped semi-circle daring someone to break it. Jane suddenly dropped down behind a broken bench. Wounded? No, thank God. Sensible. Gresham was dimly aware of something lightly flitting past his face, a thud following on a short moment later. A fly? A bird? He had no time to ponder it. Was this Overbury's doing? Revenge for his humiliation? So where was he?

Some of the attackers were losing heart. This length of battle was not what they had been paid for. Yet by now the theatre was almost empty. The thugs decided to make a last throw of it.

They had guts, he would give them that, thought Gresham. That, or they were being extraordinarily well paid for their thuggery. The attackers hurled themselves at the line of Gresham's men. With Jane secure behind the upturned bench, Gresham leaped forward, sword in hand.

Two of Gresham's men went down, but several of their assailants grunted, screamed or dropped like stones. Gresham's line swayed, seemed to buckle but then flexed out again. Knocked back, the man who was the leader of their attackers turned and swore at the rest for being cowards, and then leaped forward, flinging himself at the line with immense courage from the height of a bench, Whatever else he may have been, he was no coward.

He was a thin, wiry figure, with a goatee beard and small, close-set eyes. As well as a club, he brandished a long knife. Screaming, he leaped forward with his club arm upraised.

Suddenly, his hand was no longer attached to his arm. The severed body part, with the club still clenched in it, dropped to the floor while a jet of bright red blood shot from the stump. The man looked on in disbelief at his own hand falling to the ground. The blow Gresham had delivered with his sword was almost impossible.

Bone needs an axe to slice through it, not a sword blade. A sharp edge helped, of course, but the real trick was a flick of the wrists — it could only be done two-handed — at the point of impact that delivered all the strength not just of the swordsman's arm but of his whole body. There was a sickening thud as Mannion delivered what must have been a death blow, breaking soft brain tissue as well as bone.

The attackers looked at the severed hand, the smashed head of their leader, the stump of his arm. Without a word, to a man they turned and ran. They were disciplined, still, after a fashion. There was a scream from one of them,' and they turned to pick up their own. Eight or nine were grievously wounded, but still able to walk or be supported. Two of them dead? Three? Gresham reckoned it could not be less. Four with their leader. Two of the attackers, one heavy built, the other a light weight, made to grab their leader, legs stuck ungainly over a bench. Gresham's men growled, moved forward.

'Hold!' said Gresham. It was a croak, no more. His throat was dry beyond belief. It was enough. His own men held back. 'Take him,' said Gresham to the mob. His sword pointed at them, menacing, all-powerful.

The two men looked at him. His authority was complete. They darted in, grabbing the body, the bloodied head bumping pathetically as it dragged over the bench and floor. Gresham's men did not move. The heavy-set man flung the body of his leader over his shoulder. The stump of the arm was still losing blood, a thin stream now, almost in droplets. The pale, pathetic thing that had once been a human hand lay on the planks, still.

Gresham reached back to grasp Jane's wrist.

It was not there.

Then he heard a scream. Jane. Jane's voice. 'THERE!' it said.

He turned, and his heart froze in his ribs. Jane, his beautiful girl, the thing he loved more than life itself, was smeared in blood, huge blotches of blood on her face and arms and the bodice of her dress.

Where was she wounded? Where was she wounded?

Then he realised that the blood was not hers but the blood of the man whose hand he had severed, flailing over her like an obscene shower. Her eyes were wide open, and the hand Gresham had grasped so tightly was pointed over his shoulder, behind him. A part of his brain found time to notice the rough, red marks all round her slim wrist, where he had manhandled her and held on with such force.

He turned, feeling as he did so that his every movement had been slowed down ten or twenty times, noting Mannion's mouth open ever so slowly in warning, suddenly inhabiting a world of total silence. There, almost on the other side of the theatre, was a warped figure in a black cloak, the hood thrown back to reveal a whitened and shrunken pate with a wig ludicrously hanging off to one side. He held a crossbow in his hand, the bolt resting in its groove and notched, the string cocked. Slowly, ever more slowly, Gresham saw the fumbling hands, hands behaving as if they could not feel the wood and iron, raise the crossbow and hold it rock steady.

He must have watched the whole fight. Organised it. Hidden the crossbow earlier. His insurance.

The finger tightened on the release. There was a twang. The figure threw the crossbow away. It tumbled to the floor, and the figure scurried out of The Globe.

A scream of agony tore its way from Gresham's heart to his throat, but he heard nothing. He saw the bolt leave the weapon, and with agonising, awful slowness compared to the speed of the bolt turned again to thrust Jane to the ground and himself in front of her. But his hand found nothing on which it could push. Jane had dropped to the ground with a lightning reaction. With nothing to block his momentum, Gresham knew his body would coincide exactly with where Jane's body would have been, with exactly where the bolt was heading. With the very last of his strength he sought to twist in mid-air, to at least present his arm and rib cage to the bolt rather than his exposed back.

He was like a man doing a back-flip over a high bar, feet just off the ground, head flung back, chest arched upwards, when the bolt struck.

It pierced his doublet as if the satin was thin air, and ran across his rib-cage with such precision that the line of its passage was not marked with red swathe over the whole flesh but simply with reddened areas where the upwards thrust of his ribs had felt its passage. The bolt thwacked into the rear wall with massive force, embedding a third of its length into the soft timbers. Pinioned, Gresham hung by his doublet for a moment, suspended, face up to the sky. Light, sound, colour and heat returned to his life as by the click of fingers.

Mannion, in the last second of his mad rush towards his master, crashed over the broken bench and tumbled on to his back.

'God's blood!' said Gresham, drawing his head up to look at the. bolt that suspended him from the theatre wall.

A quiver of something that might have been release ran through Mannion's body. Picking himself up, but making no attempt to remove the pin that hung his master from the rear wall, he announced casually, but in a loud voice, 'I've told you what happens to people who hang around the theatre.'

The smooth silk of Gresham's fine doublet, any more than the linen of his shirt, offered no resistance to the steel of the crossbow bolt. Gresham dropped unceremoniously to the floor, in a tangle with both Mannion and the blood-stained Jane.

Suddenly Mannion's comment was the best joke ever made by anyone in the history of the world. Young Harry, a great wound on the side of his head already beginning to dry and blacken, started it with a thin, almost insane giggle. It spread through the other men, to Mannion, to Gresham and to Jane, so that they rocked and sobbed with laughter, making the very floor shake.

Their laughter did not last long. For many the pain was too keen to be overlaid by relief. One man was unconscious, another still only half conscious. Three others were coated in their own blood, groggy, confused, nursing wounds that made walking difficult. At least one had a broken arm. Others would find, in a few minutes, as the red heat of battle dissipated in their blood, that they had broken a finger or even a rib. Those that could stumbled to their feet, the wounded ones pathetically trying to smooth their dress while new red blood seeped through the blackened mess.

'Not bad,' said Mannion matter-of-factly, 'for beginners. Not bad at all.'

They stiffened with pride. Proud of what they had done. Proud of what they had prevented. Proud of their master, who had outguessed their enemy from the start, who had thrust himself forward at perilous danger, who had risked his life first and in some strange way not commanded but rather asked them to risk their lives second, if that was their choice. And, if the truth be known, proud of their mistress. No screaming, no pouting, no fainting. A mistress who had become in a moment a soldier, one of them, obeying orders. Who could look at her and deny that she was a woman? Yet who could see her courage and deny that she was in every vital respect a man?

'Thank you,' said Gresham. They nodded. It was all that was needed. The talking had been done by their weapons, their bodies and their courage. 'We need to get young Harry home to some clean water and a bandage,' he said easily. 'And we needs remember that there could still yet be an enemy out there for us.'

That sobered them, the thought of the men they had fended off regrouping, waiting for them in the narrow streets outside.

The world had heard about the disturbance. There was excitement in the streets, women huddled in corners looking up quickly as they passed, pointing, gossiping. They put Harry in the centre of their group, with Jane, who saw no shame in helping to hold him up. The crowds, chattering, watching, curious, parted before them as they marched, heads held high, alert, towards the boatyard. They reached it without incident, followed by a crown of street urchins. Even they were silent for the most part, gripped by the stern, dark figure of Gresham and the startlingly blooded figure of Jane, who had only been able to clean off a portion of the mess in the theatre.

'D'ye want a man or two to help you back over the river?' asked the surly owner of the boatyard, moved to interest for once.

'Do we need help?' asked Gresham. His men stiffened, looked offended.*No, thank you. We don't need help.'

The wife of the owner rushed out, a dumpy little woman with three chins and rosy cheeks. She carried a jug of clean water and a surprisingly clean cloth. She was all flustered.

'My dear… mistress… I just wondered if you might want to… I mean, I don't know what's happened, but…'

Jane gazed down silently on the head of the woman, who was becoming increasingly sure she had made a dreadful mistake with the great lady. Fancy calling her 'my dear'! Why, what was she…

Jane put her hands on the woman's shoulders. Surprised, the woman lifted her head. Jane planted a kiss firmly on her forehead.

'You're the kindest thing I've seen all day,' Jane said.

'Oh, my lady!' said the woman, blushing from her roots, overwhelmed. 'Do keep the jug and the cloth…' At that she rushed off back into the timber-framed house she occupied with her husband. A few moments later, Jane's face and hands at least were clean.

'Can you helm a boat as well as fight off an enemy?' Gresham asked Jane.

'I'd build the bloody boat myself if it got me home and into a bath!' she muttered, gathering up her skirts and grabbing the tiller, a huge tract of her mind still numb, anaesthetised by shock.

Only three of the men were fit to row. Mannion and Gresham looked at each other. Gresham pulled off his doublet. There was a film of blood on his shirt where the crossbow bolt had grazed his ribs and the collar he wore was torn. Mannion took up the place by his side, replacing young Harry and the other most seriously hurt man. The men grinned, amused by their master taking on their role.

Gresham turned to Mannion. 'Old man, whatever you do — don't breathe over me!' Mannion belched contentedly and settled to his oar. 'Now row!'

And they moved out of the wharf, limping in comparison with the speed they had made when they left the jetty at The House only a few short hours ago. They were clearly a grand boat, of the sort to attract attention anyway. The presence of someone who was clearly a gentleman at an oar, wounded men at the back of the boat and, most of all, a glorious beauty manning the helm, got them more attention on the crowded river than the Armada had when it first entered the Channel. There were whistles, hoots and then cheers from professionals running the ferries back and forth, which in turn attracted the attention of all the other traffic on the river. Before long, they had an admiring escort of small and some quite large boats, intrigued, following them to wherever they were going.

Someone from The House must have spotted them, and spotted that this was not a normal return. Figures began to gather on the jetty. More and more joined them, until it seemed that every occupant of the warren that was The House was gathering to welcome its lord and its mistress. A hush fell on the assembled crowd of servants, from the might of the steward to the lowliest of the kitchen boys, when they saw their mistress's bloodstained clothes, and wounded men in the bay of the boat. They counted the numbers. Had everyone come back? Then young Harry raised his head and managed a grin, and one of the other wounded waved a greeting. There was an almost explosive roar of relief as the gathered crowd realised that all their team had returned, and that even the wounded were walking. A huge rolling cheer rocked the jetty.

There seemed to be hundreds of hands reaching out to grab the prow of the boat and ground it. Jane, her lips pursed in concentration, was determined to make no mistake. The boat kissed the jetty as lightly and as delicately as a mother kisses her firstborn. She's about to burst into tears, thought Gresham. That first quiver. It's there. She's had enough. He rose to his feet, rocking the boat.

'Next time,' he said loudly, matter-of-factly, 'steer a little finer, will you? Otherwise, that was quite good. For a woman.'

She looked at him and stiffened. The tremor vanished. Three weeks of words passed between them in an instant. Gratitude. Annoyance. Anger. Amusement. Understanding. Fear. Pride. Worry. Total exhaustion. Gresham went to her, took her hand. He looked over to what must by now be every resident of The House except, he dearly hoped, the gateman.

God, he was tired, he thought. As ever, there was the physical tiredness. But it was the mental exhaustion, the throbbing pain in his head, that was by far the worst. Yet he had to say something, didn't he? The whole house had gathered to welcome their master and mistress home. They would remember this for generations, tell each other stories into the small hours of the morning as the filched candles in the servants' hall guttered and died. He glanced at Jane. She nodded, imperceptibly. How not to sound pompous and vainglorious? How not to patronise these men and women, who had fought for him and shown every willingness to die for him. How to say the impossible?

'Thank you for your concern,' said Gresham, bloodstained, a thin line across his chest and on his arm where a glancing blow from a club had scathed his skin. Not for a moment did he realise what an extraordinarily violent, dark and powerful figure he cut.

The boat was bobbing under him, uneasy in the short, choppy waters of the jetty. He kept his feet easily.

'We went to the theatre, and a group of men liked us even less than the play. There were… how many of them were there, young Harry?' asked Gresham theatrically, looking at the bloodied figure still slumped on the deck.

'Fifty!' came the clear reply, to a cheer from the others in the boat.

'So we defended ourselves against a hundred men,' said Gresham seamlessly, to a roar of laughter from his assembled servants. 'And, of course, The House won.'

There was an uproar from the assembly. The reality of blood, and pain, and man's vicious inhumanity to man, excused by jokes and bravado. Unbidden, lines came into his head. Shakespeare. King Leir.

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.

He helped Jane out of the boat, and politely shook off the offers of help as he put both feet firmly back on dry land. They clapped them both as they alighted from the boat. Gresham turned, embarrassed, to his men in the boat, the ones who had done the real men's work. They were clapping him too. They were clapping him? Sweet Jesus, was there no justice in this world? He should be clapping them.

Jane was delivered into the hands of numerous women, with a clucking and fussing of vast proportion, and vanished up the jetty. For once, Gresham noted, she succumbed to it willingly. This was a woman who really wanted her hot bath. Young Harry was delivered into the arms of an equal number of women, though rather younger than those who had flocked to Jane, Gresham noted. Well, he was guaranteed a good night, one way or the other. The other wounded were ushered up the jetty, the hubbub of conversation diminishing with their progress.

Two men took the boat back to the boathouse, bobbing their heads as they passed Gresham, a thousand questions in their minds which would never pass their lips. There was still a fair crowd left gathered on the jetty, gazing in awe at Gresham and Mannion. Gresham wanted to dismiss them, to walk back to The House with

Mannion as he had walked with him after so many battles, fights and feuds.

Then, all of sudden, he saw what neither he nor Jane had noticed before. The nurse had brought out little Walter and Anna to watch the return of their parents. They had stood at the back, and not «ven Jane's huge sensitivity to the presence of her children had alerted her before she was whisked off. What on earth happened to children when they saw their parents come back bloodstained from a battle? Surely it was too early in their poor, innocent lives for them to realise that their parents, and the whole damned world, were mortal? And why the hell wasn't their mother here to sort this dreadful finale out? Women knew about these things! Men were… men were there to do the fighting, not the explaining!

His son and his tiny daughter were standing either side of their nurse, hands in her hands. Both tiny figures gazed at Gresham with eyes as round as full moons.

'Well,' said Gresham, eyes locking on those of his children. It was, of course, entirely in his imagination that the other servants drew back to let him speak to the children, 'the truth is, some nasty men…' He felt, rather than saw, a flicker rumble through Mannion's body as he tried to stop the laughter inside him. 'Some nasty men… decided to be… not nice to me and to… Mummy.' Was Mannion about to spontaneously self-combust with hilarity? Or was it Gresham's imagination? 'Then some nice men…' If he didn't stop this now, Mannion would certainly die. 'Oh, bugger it!' said Gresham to his children. 'Some bastards tried to kill your mother and me. We won. They lost.'

There was a huge cheer from the servants.

'And I was wounded a bit, but not badly.'

Gresham's children were still looking at him as if he was the eighth wonder of the world.

'And the truth is, I'm really tired, and I wouldn't mind a helping hand from you both to get me back to the house and into a warm bed.'

The children ran to him instantly.

'It's all right, Father,' said Walter. 'We knew you needed to swear.'

'Are you really not hurt?' piped up little Anna.

'Look, little one,' said Gresham, picking her up and cradling her. He pointed to his chest. 'A scratch. No more than you do when you fall over a stony path. Less, probably.' He put her back down on the ground, hiding his pain as he did so.

Walter was trying to push his father's hand so far upwards to support him that it threatened to imbalance Gresham. Anna was content to hold his hand lightly, taking care to match her step with his so that she did not jar his arm. At the same time, she did not let go of Mannion, who was holding her other hand with a gentleness that belied his size.

'Jesus Christ!' said Gresham as they both collapsed inside the first doorway that offered itself after the children had been detached from them. 'Can we go to bed?'

'No!' said Mannion, firmly. 'At least, not before we've washed and cleansed that wound across your chest.' Body-servants had, after all, a duty to the body of their master.