The Conscience of the King

Damnation. This was bad. 'And is my wife also to be blessed with the privilege of meeting His Royal Highness?' asked Gresham.

'My instructions are that if she is with you, then yes, she also must… she also is invited.'

Jane had retained most of her colour. The eyes were at their darkest. He alone could read the tension in her body.

'My lady, we have the honour of an audience with the King. Shall we proceed?'

They left the house and entered the carriage Wade had brought along with him, watched by a small and silent crowd. Why were two masons and a housewife being whisked off to king's arrest?

The Tower was a royal residence right enough, but no king or queen had lived there for years. It was bleak, forbidding and not infrequently stinking, and its main use was as a royal prison. It had a dreadful reputation, a building erected to symbolise raw power where hundreds more had died within its walls than had been executed on its green, and even more than that had screamed under its torture. The summons to The Tower was a signal. A signal of extreme disfavour.

God knew how Mannion had managed to be allowed to ride in the coach along with his master and mistress.

'He's trying to frighten us.' Gresham spoke tersely to Jane.

'It's worked,' said Jane, shivering inside her cloak. 'And there's me,' she said with a wry smile, 'with not a thing to wear.'

'Stay calm. Let me think.'

There was no point feeling fear at moments such as these. It was simply a diversion and a distraction. Nor was there time for tears or for talk. Focus. Focus. Become as hard as the stone of The Tower, as slippery as the eels in the river. On his ability to handle this situation rested his own fate, and that of Jane, his children and Mannion.

The bulk of The Tower and its grim curtain walls squatted over the Thames. First was the drawbridge leading over the moat, which was coated with scum and full of noisome lumps that did not bear close examination. The heavy wheels rattled over the wooden planking; they heard shouted instructions. A sharp left turn, the carriage groaning, under the Lion Tower, across the moat again and over the second drawbridge. The two round, squat forms of the Middle Tower stood in their way. More shouted instructions, a rattling as of chains, and the coach lurched forward again. Yet another drawbridge, and then the taller, round form of the Byward Tower. Under its rusting portcullis. Into the prison, with three vast towers and their gates blocking the route to freedom. At least they had not stopped even earlier and been put in a boat to be taken to The Tower through Traitors' Gate. Gresham's heart sank as it always did when he entered this desperate place, even on the weekly visits he made to see Raleigh. This time his wife was alongside him. Stop it! Don't divert! Don't weaken!

They were not to be sent pell-mell into some dripping, foul dungeon. James had hurriedly made a room in the White Tower available. It smelled of damp and decay, and there were bruised lumps on the wall where plaster had fallen off. The marks of the servant's brush were still on the floor. There was a vast fireplace in the echoing room, unlit, and one large window high in the wall. An ancient oaken table had obviously been retrieved from somewhere, behind which James had ranged seats. In front of the table were two poor stools. The judge facing the accused.

'The wisest fool in Christendom' an ambassador had called James. Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, he had been in his mother's womb when a group of Scottish nobles had murdered her lover, Rizzio, with cold steel in front of her. It was said he had a horror of naked blades from birth. Of no great natural beauty or form, his tongue was too large for his mouth and he was prone to slobbering as a result. He rarely washed, and seemed not to notice the filth that accumulated on the fine clothes he wore. Addicted to fresh fruit, his bouts of diarrhoea were legendary among those who had to clean his linen. Sweet wines were his other addiction. Few had seen him really drunk; even fewer had ever met him cold sober. Increasingly driving the late Robert Cecil, his Chief Secretary, to despair, James had spent more and more money as his reign progressed, perhaps a reaction to the poor, cold country of his birth and its famous poverty. And then there was his obvious lack of interest in women, and his attachment to young men.

Yet he must never be underestimated, Gresham reminded himself now. The King could order his and Jane's death immediately. This man had survived as King of Scotland, a country that ate its monarchs like others ate meat. While James was increasingly handing power to Parliament and the Puritans by his indolence and inaction, there was no hint of rebellion in the country. James was a writer and an intellect of no small merit. Like any king, he only enjoyed debates he was guaranteed to win, but the sharpness of his mind — when he cared to use it — had always been, clear. King James I had an instinct for survival.

But so did Henry Gresham. And he had no doubt that it was his survival that formed the agenda for today's meeting.

James did not stand as Gresham and Jane were ushered in through the creaking door, and Mannion forced to stand by the back wall by the armed guards. Deliberate rudeness? Indolence? Or simply the Scottish informality James was renowned for, when it suited him? He had the pair of them at an immediate disadvantage, of course. Gresham was dressed as a mason, Jane as a housewife. The guards had taken the weapons from both men. Their disguise, and the weight of their personal armoury, made it clear they were up to some dissembling, devious purpose. It was extraordinary also how poor clothes stripped away a man's — and a woman's — self-respect. Well, Gresham had the power to imagine himself dressed in a king's ransom of clothing if he so wished. He must not let it affect him! It was also crucial to know how drunk James was. Gresham blotted all else out for the moment, even the other figures seated by the King.

The glass of wine was there, of course, easily to hand. Yet the hand was not quivering, and the eyes — small, hard — seemed steady enough. Oiled, then, but thinking. Well in control.

Gresham let his eyes move to the others at the table. Dear God. On one side was the popinjay Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester. On the other was Sir Edward Coke. Was this to be his tribunal? Was his vision of hell, to be in a court chaired by Sir Edward, now a reality? If so, he and Jane were dead. But give nothing away.

Gresham walked to a position just in front of the two stools. He bowed deeply to the King. The other two he ignored. He sensed the curtsey from Jane by his side. He was so proud of her. No tears, no wailing. She felt the fear, of course. Yet she had the mark of real courage. Feel the fear and conquer it.

'Sir Henry… and Lady Gresham…' The accent was already quite thick. Under pressure, or when the drink was truly in him, James retreated to a thick Scottish burr. The 'Sir' had almost been 'Sair'. Pressure or drink?

James waved a hand, carelessly. 'Or is it Sir Henry and Lady Gresham? Or two stonemasons and a housewife?'

There were titters from Coke and Carr. Sycophantic idiots! Gresham calmed himself.

'I believe we follow in a tradition set by Your Majesty's illustrious forbears,' said Gresham, bowing to the King. 'Previous monarchs of this country have changed their garb and wandered unannounced through their realm as though they were mere subjects…' Or they had in folklore, at least. Most of them in reality wouldn't have lasted two seconds in a real bar room brawl. 'It is sometimes good for those of lesser worth, such as my wife and myself, to emulate the actions of our superiors, and by doing so learn from them.'

You clever bastard, thought Gresham. And, no doubt, thought King James. Yet it was good at this stage to not show too much fear.

James paused for thought. Carr, Gresham had time to note, was gazing vacantly out of the window. There was a long pause.

'Would you care to take a seat?'

'We thank Your Majesty for his courtesy,' said Gresham. A seat in front of a monarch was a privilege. Courtiers spent most of their time standing. Yet the delay in asking them to sit had made it clear just what a privilege was being offered. Neutral. Neutral. Nothing yet on which to base a ploy. Listen. Look. Learn. Personally Gresham would have preferred to stand. He sat.

'Perhaps ye may be wondering why I summoned you here, rather to your surprise I should not wonder? I do apologise, of course, for any disruption to your plans.' The 'of course' rendered the apology meaningless. The threat was clear, unequivocal. It breathed out from the evil stone and brick that surrounded them., No one was brought to The Tower for their pleasure. 'I'm sure I may have dragged ye away from more important things.' The accent again. 'Ye' rather than 'you'. Had it been 'more', or was it 'mair'?

'There can be no more important things than Your Majesty's pleasure,' replied Gresham. God, why do I hate this sycophancy so much? 'We are more than pleased to serve Your Majesty, and count it a privilege to be in Your Majesty's presence at any time.'

'Aye,' said the King, 'you do that well, Sir Henry, well indeed.' Was there the slightest hint of a smile beneath the bearded face? If so, it vanished almost immediately. 'Yet the reason for my ordering this meeting is a good deal more important than the exchange of Court pleasantries, however weel ye may do them. There's shite on the velvet of your reputation, Sir Henry. I fear you may be working against me, sir!' James's coarseness was legendary. In the popular eye it was one reason why he had felt uneasy at appointing the clean-mouthed Andrewes as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Time for a hard stab.

'I am mortified to hear so, Your Majesty. Yet I will say to you now, sire, with your permission, that I have never in my life knowingly stood against any crowned monarch, or sought to dispute the right of any monarch to govern and to rule. I believe the health of the nation lies in the health of the monarch. I have been willing in times past to put my own life down as my bargaining counter to support that belief.'

Well, thought Gresham, that's almost the truth. I actually believe better the devil you know, and better any devil than the devil of rebellion. I've seen where that leads.

There was a dignity and power to Gresham's simple statement that carried its own weight of meaning. There was a prolonged silence. James reached out and took a lingering sip of his wine. Then he looked, pointedly, at Sir Edward Coke.

Coke was the accuser! That look told Gresham his true enemy!

Coke also knew that he was on trial. Yet there was the flush of achievement in his face. He had manoeuvred Gresham onto his own choice of battleground. This was a court hearing. Coke was the prosecutor. Gresham and his impossibly beautiful wife the accused. But there was no jury here to call the prosecutor to order. Merely a half-sodden monarch, whose single word could mean that this man and his wife never left The Tower.

'Yet you would not deny, Sir Henry,' asked Coke in his most silky voice, 'that you were instructed by the late Lord Salisbury to find and return certain… papers. Papers that were of importance to His Majesty? And that you were instructed by the same good lord to work with myself in pursuit of that aim?'

Carr was gazing, his mouth half-open, at Coke. The distaste he felt for the wrinkled lawyer was clear. Did Carr have any brain at all?

It was an old lawyer's trick. Start reasonable. Ask questions to which there was only one, positive answer. Establish thereby one's desire as a prosecutor to be fair to the witness. And then screw him. Therefore, it was necessary for Sir Henry Gresham to stop the process somehow.

First of all, he looked to the King, his eyebrow slightly raised. Do I have your authority to answer this man? the eyebrow said. After all, in a room where the King of England (and Scotland, in this case) sits there is only one authority. Before speaking to a lesser authority, one should obtain the permission of the higher authority.

There was an almost imperceptible nod from James. Yet he would have noted the courtesy.

'I fear I would deny that, Sir Edward.'

Coke looked as if he had swallowed a prune stone. This was not according to the plan.

'It is possible that for you a summons from Robert Cecil was a new occurrence. I regret that for me, and indeed latterly for my wife, it was no such thing.' Gresham turned to James, speaking as if in confidence. 'Cecil used me as an agent in Your Majesty's interests on numerous occasions. Such summonses usually came late at night, latterly in the form of one Nicholas Heaton.' The air froze for a moment. 'These calls were peremptory and always involved me risking my life. For some reason, it always seemed to be my life and never Cecil's. I grew accustomed to accepting the challenges, but not without noting with whom lay the danger.'

It was there! Something that was unequivocally a smile, albeit briefly, had passed over James's face.

'But you cannot deny that you were summoned, and that you were given instructions?' Coke bored in, only half-realising that he had given away most of his game plan. He was harsh, aggressive. This should have come later. Somehow Gresham had managed to jump the hearing forward.

'But of course.' Gresham was now all sweet reason. Yet he should have been nervous, on edge, and Coke the voice of calm. 'Of course I was summoned, as in countless times past. And, as in countless times past, I went. I went, Your Majesty,' and as Gresham spoke he turned again to the King, 'to meet Robert Cecil, your Chief Secretary. To my surprise, I found the meeting was with Robert Cecil and with Sir Edward Coke. And later, after he had beaten up a servant and tried to attack me, with Sir Thomas Overbury.'

'Ye met Overbury? And he was violent?' James had let his head sink into his vast ruff, but now he straightened up. Had Coke been stupid enough not to tell the King of Overbury's presence? Yes, by the look on his face! Before Coke could interject, Carr jumped in.

'Your Majesty,' he said, 'this slander against Sir Thomas is unfair, without Sir Thomas here to prove it false. Might I ask to summon him.

'No, sir, you may not.' The King cut off his favourite with a sharpness Gresham had never seen before. That tightening across James's brow — James tolerated Overbury because he loved Carr, and Overbury made it so that the one had to come with the other. Yet even James was not insensitive to the awfulness of the man. 'And did it surprise you, Sir Henry? To find Sir Edward there?' It was the King who spoke, to Coke's obvious annoyance. Coke had raised his hand to respond as well.

'Yes, Your Majesty,' replied Gresham candidly. 'And horrified me.'

Was he prepared to take the greatest gamble of his life? A gamble that would risk not only his own life, but the lives of those he loved? One throw of the dice to decide it all?

He threw the dice.

'You see, Your Majesty,' he explained carefully, 'I despise Sir Edward.'

Robert Carr sucked in his breath so hard as to make it ricochet in the half-empty chamber.

'I do so,' Gresham flung into the silence that followed his bomb blast, 'because I believe he helped betray the man I see both as my early patron and hero, Sir Walter Raleigh.'

There was a gasp from Carr. Walter Raleigh, locked up for years now on the King's orders after a show trial led by Coke. Walter Raleigh, his estate at Sherborne ripped from him and given to Carr. To protest his case before the King and to claim an allegiance to Raleigh was to appear before God and declare a pact with Satan. Double jeopardy. Was Gresham intent on suicide? An expression of glee crossed Coke's face. An expression of distaste flickered on James's brow. Before it could take seat, Gresham spoke on.

'I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty, for my feelings towards that man. I know that in speaking of my belief in him I risk forfeiting my own life, and that of my wife and children. I know you believe he has done you grievous wrong.'

King James loathed Raleigh, saw him as the last of the great Elizabethans and one of the greatest threats to the monarch who had succeeded Elizabeth. Gresham's friendship with Raleigh was widely known. Coke had hoped to introduce it perhaps two-thirds of the way through the interrogation, and use it to damn Gresham. However, it seemed Gresham was going to use it to damn himself.

'And do you challenge that he is a threat to me? Do you challenge that he has sought to do me grievous wrong?' King James leaned forward as he spoke, aggressive, almost violent in his tone.

'I know you believe him to be so. I know you have the power to make that belief a lasting judgement. I would plead with you, as others have pleaded with you, to review that judgement, though at a different time and hopefully in a different place. Yet I give you my word that at no time have I or will I ever conspire against Your Majesty, or use my friendship with Sir Walter to do so.'

'Words are fine things,' said the King after a pause. It was impossible to judge his feelings from his face. 'Sir Edward here for one deals with them very finely. But words are not always the truth, are they, Sir Henry?'

'That certainly is true,' replied Gresham, feeling his way, 'but I would ask Your Majesty to consider one thing.'

'Which is?'

'Sir Walter Raleigh saved my life. I am indebted to him. It would have been easy for me to cut off from him when Your Majesty's disfavour became clear, to dissemble, to lie about my feelings in order to worm my way into Your Majesty's favour. To become a fawning courtier. As so many have sought to do.' He turned pointedly to Coke, who had the decency to flush. 'My loyalties are worn on the outside of my body for all to see. They are to Your Majesty, to my friend and to my wife and children.' Though in reverse order, as it happens, thought Gresham, bearing in mind that it would not be tactful to tell that particular truth at this particular moment. 'I suppose I am asking Your Majesty to see my declared love for Sir Walter as proof of something else. I am no dissembler. I am no liar. I am no threat. It may well be that I am a devil of sorts. At least I am the devil that is known.'

'Well, you have my eldest son and my heir on your side, Sir Henry, that much is true…' Prince Henry visited Raleigh, talked to him. Some said he viewed Raleigh as more of a father than James, admired him far more. It would not necessarily be of any help to Gresham. Indeed, it was rumoured that Prince Henry's affection for Raleigh increased his father's wrath against him.

'But yet…' King James's face lit up. Gresham had seen it do so once before, when he had paraded bishops and clergymen before him for a debate, and for a few brief moments the matter had gone beyond its tedious script and a real dialogue had taken place. It had been between James and Andrewes, Gresham now remembered.

'… this is the issue Sir Edward brings to me! He does believe you are a threat, Sir Henry. A most serious threat.'

Gresham felt the dryness in his throat, the tension rising in his neck.

'How might that be so, sire?'

Sir Edward leaned forward, eager to state his authority and his case. James waved him into silence, to an apoplectic response all the more fearsome for the fact that Coke could not vocalise it. Was he going to blow up? thought Gresham. It seemed Coke's fate to be told to shut up in Gresham's presence, either by the late Robert Cecil or by the King.

'I have a man called Marlowe in my care, Sir Henry. A dead man already, who from the wound in his arm is lucky not to have been killed twice over.'

Damn! How had Marlowe of all people gained sanctuary from the King?

'I understand that you were instrumental in "arranging" the death of this man many years ago. Testimony that despite your words, Sir Henry, there is much that you do and have done that is not worn on the outside, and about which the truth is not known.'

'Certainly, sire, I helped arrange for his escape. The fake death was Marlowe's idea. He never could distinguish between high drama and reality.'

'More importantly, I understand that this man had papers of mine that I wished to regain possession of. Sir Edward acted as my agent in this matter. You may speak now, Sir Edward.'

Coke needed no second bidding. Gresham could see he was straining to stand up, desperate to pace the courtroom. 'This man Marlowe approached me after you, Sir Henry, failed in your attempts to track him down.'

So that was how Marlowe had broken through into the King's hearing. He had gone directly to Coke this time, as he had gone to Overbury before.

'With His Majesty's permission, we arranged for the return of the papers. I even sent one of His Majesty's servants with Marlowe to supervise the collection of this material, hidden, I believe, in a strange place…'

Gresham could sense what was coming.

'Nicholas Heaton was the servant. He seemed suitable for these… underhand dealings, as he had gained experience under his former master. And lo and behold, what is the outcome?'

Coke was now well in his stride, declaiming, almost roaring. Gresham had seen the mood and the delivery once before, at Raleigh's trial. Its presence now, triumphalist as it was, did not bode well.

'We find that after weeks of apparent ignorance about this man Marlowe, the man whose false death you orchestrated all those years ago, all of a sudden you are there at the very time and in the very place these papers are being retrieved! An extraordinary coincidence, is it not? We find these papers are taken off Marlowe — stolen from him — by you. Marlowe is grievously injured — by you. His servant is crippled — by you. And Nicholas Heaton ends up a bloodied lump at the foot of King's College Chapel — murdered, we must assume, by you!’

Put like that, thought Gresham, it did not sound as if he had a terribly strong case for the defence.

Coke was in his element. 'Do you view it as your right to murder the King's servants? And why, when you are so contrite about posing no threat to His Majesty, do you continue to hold papers that you know could be damaging to him?'

'Your Majesty,' said Gresham. 'I do not believe it is my right to murder your servants.'

Though I would like to ask why it is that they seem to consider they have a right to murder me.

A few precious seconds to think. Some things at least were clearer now. Marlowe had some other hold over James. He had used it to strike a bargain — money? His life? Even a performance of his play? Heaton had been sent along as his minder. With the

King's backing it became clear why the route into King's College Chapel that night had been so effortless, why so many doors that should have been locked had been opened. Gresham wondered whether the intended finale for the evening would not have been the death of Marlowe anyway.

'The story is a simple one,' Gresham said. Well, probably it was. The problem was that he had not yet written it. Gresham looked again to the King.

'Your Majesty, Sir Edward is correct in that I had failed to trace Marlowe. He despises me, by the way. I was instrumental in getting him over to France, but for whatever reason things went wrong for him after that and I became an object of his hatred. He attempted to murder me and my wife at The Globe theatre. By means of several vagabonds and a crossbow bolt. I'd even greater desire than Sir Edward to find Marlowe. He was a personal threat to me and my dearest, as well as to my ruler.'

James was clearly interested now. He had not sipped at the wine for minutes, was leaning forward with his head cupped in his hands, his eyes fixed on Gresham. James had enjoyed interrogating witches in the past, Gresham remembered, and had seen himself as a skilled cross-examiner. Unfortunately the witches had ended up being burned alive.

'Your Majesty, on the night in question I was visited by a drunken sot who is one of my Cambridge informers. Long Lankin by name. He'd seen Marlowe in a house. Long Lankin, and the college porter who saw me eject him after midnight, will confirm what happened. They're both simple men, not able to deceive. I set off to see if Marlowe was still there.'

'Alone, Sir Henry? Set off alone at night when by your own admission you knew you faced attempts on your life? Can we believe-?' Coke's tone expressed total disbelief.

So, to Gresham's intense surprise at her interruption did Jane's. 'Yes, Your Majesty, we can believe! Hard though I found it to believe, and hard though I sought to make my husband's life when

I heard of his crass idiocy!' Jane, silent until now, had risen to her feet, her head still bowed in deference to her King, her every muscle tense, her eyes flashing. 'A lawyer' — what a world of scorn there was in her voice — 'would have waited for other people to act, would have considered his position, hidden behind someone else, sat back, weighed the odds. A normal, sensible man would have waited for help, called out to servants! A normal, sensible man would have stopped to think! Yet my husband is neither normal nor sensible. He is a fool, Your Majesty, a fool who cannot resist the excitement of action and who throws caution to the wind if by haste he can speed up the resolution of an incident. I sometimes think he is in a hurry to meet his own death, and has been since the day he was born.'

'And you still love him?' James's voice was flat, without emotion.

'Your Majesty, I have no option,' she said simply. James looked at her for a moment, with the dark, dead eyes of a fish. He nodded to her, not without courtesy. She bowed her head and retreated to her seat.

'Carry on, Sir Henry.*

'Your Majesty, I followed Marlowe and his servant to the chapel. Followed them in. Saw the servant take a satchel out from behind the beams in the space between the vaulting and the roof. I knocked out the servant and took the satchel from him. Marlowe threw a knife at me. I threw that same knife back, hit him in the arm. I had partly tied them both up, intending to remove them to a place of safe-keeping, when I heard a noise from the roof. I went up. Whoever it was tried to knock me off the ridge. I killed him, after he had tried to kill me. Only then did I realise it was Heaton.'

'Why did you hurl him off the roof?' It was Coke, trying to wind himself up again.

'He still had breath and some blood in him after I pierced his neck with my sword. I hung him over the parapet to try and extract information from him. Why was he there? Who'd sent him? Why had he tried to kill me? He was the King's servant. It seemed wise to know

…' Gresham turned and gave a low bow to the King '… if I was indeed to have my murder sanctioned by Your Royal Highness. He died before he could speak, and slipped off the parapet. When I got back to the vaults, Marlowe had gone.'

'And if your actions were so innocent to the King's interests, why have you not returned these letters to me or to His Majesty?' Coke was almost screaming.

'Because the satchel was empty.'

There was a horrified pause.

'Empty?' It was Coke.

'And wad you be guid enough…' the accent was as thick as sour cream now'… to tell your King why you think it might have been so?'

'There is only one explanation,' Gresham replied. He said no more. The tension mounted with the silence. 'Go on!' said Coke.

'Nicholas Heaton. I guess he removed the actual papers some time beforehand.'

'Preposterous!' exploded Coke. 'Your evidence?'

'It is reasonable to suppose that Marlowe had told Heaton roughly where the papers were hidden. He would have to have done so, for Heaton to arrange for the relevant doors to be left unlocked. Yet there are very many bays behind the beams, any one of which might have held the papers. You have to reach over a top layer of bricks to feel inside the bays. There is years of dust and bird droppings on top. Do you still have Heaton's clothes? If you do, you will notice that the bottom half of the sleeves on his tunic are soiled with just such dirt, and part torn. I noticed it immediately. I think Heaton had searched several of the bays before he found the one with the papers in it. He took them out before Marlowe arrived.'

'Why would one of the King's servants do such a thing?' asked Coke, floundering.

'You are innocent in the ways of espionage, Sir Edward, for all your skill in a court of law!' Gresham was scathing. 'The charitable reason was that Heaton did not trust Marlowe, was expecting some surprise or other. Far more likely is that Heaton intended to use the papers for his own advantage. It is my guess that he would have killed Marlowe and his servant, perhaps coming back to you and saying the papers were not there. More likely, you'd never have seen him again. He would've sold the papers to the highest bidder and vanished overseas with the proceeds.'

‘Is this not disloyalty beyond belief?' Coke spluttered.

'Think, Sir Edward.' Gresham was lecturing now. 'For years the man had bullied and chased for Robert Cecil, dealing with the lowest of low life and, no doubt, taking bribes as a matter of course. Important and loyal enough to be granted a new job, surely, but with none of the access to that master that guaranteed him so much favour with his first employer. A servant's wages, Sir Edward? Compared with the value of those papers, and a life in the sun where he would never have to call another man master?

'Your Majesty, I do not have those papers,' continued Gresham, his eyes meeting those of King James directly and without flinching, i never did. I do have the satchel in which they were contained. No doubt you are searching my homes now. You'll find nothing, except the satchel. My people in Cambridge will confirm what I have said. And if you send a messenger up into the vault of King's College Chapel, ask him to check how many of the bays behind the roof beams have had their layer of dirt and dust recently disturbed. See if Heaton's tunic has been kept, and examine it. Or ask of those who stripped him before his burial.'

'So you did nothing, Sir Henry,' mused the King, 'because you thought it might be myself who wished to dispose of you? Are you willing to call a king a murderer then?' The silkiness of James's tone did nothing to diminish its menace.

‘I would be most loath to do so, Your Majesty. Yet Your Majesty will understand me if I say that where there are plots, a wise man considers that all things might be true until they are proved false.'

James had survived the Bye and the Gunpowder plots to kill him, as well as an attempt to blow him up in Scotland. 'I will suggest, with the greatest respect, that despite Sir Edward's attempt to have me beheaded, you've more need of my services than ever. Sir Edward is a great lawyer. He's a babe in swaddling clothes when it comes to darker matters. Those letters are still around. 1 will find them. I will return them to their author. If I am so permitted by Your Majesty.'

James sat back in his chair, reached for his wine and took a long, appreciative slurp. 'Well, well,' he said with a sigh. 'Who would have thought such a day could provide such entertainment.' He looked at Gresham. 'I am inclined to take you at your word. In every respect. As you have guessed, your houses are being searched at this very time. I will indeed send to Cambridge. I will send a trusted man into, these vaults of which you speak. I will see if Master Heaton's clothing has been retained. In the meantime, I think a chamber can be found here for you, your wife and your man there. One with a real fire, perhaps.'

'I am thankful to Your Gracious Majesty for his hospitality,' bowed Gresham.

'One more thing,' said James, rising to leave. 'There will be guards posted at your door. For your own protection, of course. And to ensure that your close proximity to your good friend Sir Walter does not encourage you to visit him, or he to visit you.'

Gresham, Jane and Mannion bowed deeply as the King left the dank chamber. Coke waited behind.

'You-' Gresham rounded on him, cutting him short with the sheer compressed ferocity of his voice. 'You have tried to lose me my life, Sir Edward. You were unwise to make even more of an enemy of me.'

Guards came, politely enough, to march them off. Jane turned to Gresham, her eyes close to desperation. 'How could you…' she began. He knew what she wanted to say. How could you give all those hostages to fortune — the torn tunic, the scruffed brickwork, denying you have the letters when they will turn our houses over and find even your most secret of hiding places…’

He placed a finger to his lips and tried to force a world of words into his gaze. The guards would have been told to listen out for just such a conversation, and one misplaced word could cost them their lives. In their new rooms there would most likely be a hole in the wall or roof with a man or two listening for the duration of their imprisonment.

All this he tried to tell her, and more, silently. To tell her that, before pushing the body to the ground, he had rubbed the tunic arms of the dead Nicholas Heaton across the stonework and the bird shit on the roof until they were stained and one arm torn. That, for good measure, he had torn off a tiny strip from one of the letters, with a single, harmless word on it in the King's hand, and stuffed it into the pocket of the dead man's tunic. To tell her that he had descended from the roof and back into the vaults, his every nerve straining for sounds of more visitors, and carefully reached over and disturbed the dirt in every single bay in the vaults, filling his nose with dust and making his throat like sandpaper. To tell her that the secret hiding places in The Merchant's House and The House were now covered with a thick layer of sand, as if they had tried to soundproof the floors of both buildings, and that the mechanism that swung up the plank had been removed, the plank nailed to the joist just like any other. There were two other hiding places in both houses, full of trifles, designed to be found in just such a search. To find the truly secret places they would have to rip up every floorboard in both houses, and dig deep into the sand. He wanted to tell her, without words, that even if they did, both gun-metal boxes were empty. The papers were where King James could never find them. All this, he wanted to tell her, he had done just in case. That he was above all a professional, and it was because he did such things that he had lived longer than any other. To tell her that he had taken extra care to prepare his alibi this time, because he knew it was her life he was playing with as well as his own. To tell her that they were secure. To tell her that he had mentioned none of the precautions he had taken because if she did not know she could not tell others of them, even by accident.

She looked, and she looked, and she looked into his eyes. And then, the guards noticed, something almost like a smile came over her face. She held out her hand. Sir Henry Gresham, Lady Gresham and his manservant walked together into captivity in the Tower of London, smiling.