The Conscience of the King

As Gresham had long ago ceased to believe in Christ, the feast of his birth meant precious little to him. Yet he enjoyed the entertainments laid on for his two households, seeing them not merely as a duty but as a way of thanking his servants. The excitement in the faces of Walter and Anna was something new for him. Unconsciously, he began to enjoy the twelve days of Christmas through the eyes, ears and stomachs of his children.

Destroy the King's letters. Done, to all intents and purposes. Determine the manner of Prince Henry's death. Done. Neutralise Overbury. Not quite done, but well on the way, Gresham thought. The King's response to his idea regarding Overbury suggested the ambassadorship would flower and flourish in its own good time.

Find Marlowe. Not done, and the man still a very real threat to Gresham and his family. Find Shakespeare. Not done, and a key to the manuscripts. Destroy the manuscripts. Not done. There was too much left undone, Gresham raged inwardly. Including his plucking up the courage to meet Sir Walter, he added to himself.

Yet there was something else troubling him. Beneath all this was the feeling that somehow and in some way that he did not understand, he was missing a vital clue, failing to see a piece of the puzzle that was yet there, waiting to be stared in the face. The nagging fear grew like a headache. However much he shook his head, he could not stop the growing pain.

The King seemed unperturbed, delighted that the Court could come out of mourning in time for the Christmas celebrations. One of them included a performance of The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Or, more accurately, by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes of Ely. Gresham hoped it might flush out either Marlowe or Shakespeare. He was disappointed. Gresham attended as few of the other celebrations as he could decently manage, but Jane still needed two new gowns to meet the minimum obligations placed upon them.

'Is that a dress or merely a pelmet?' asked Gresham puritanically, noting how low the neckline on Jane's fabulous gown had plunged.

'My lord,' said Jane, 'it is a positive curtain wall in comparison with most of those you'll see tonight.' It was true. Daring though it was to Gresham, his wife's neckline still covered her breasts, more than could be said for many of the flimsily dressed women giggling and shrieking their increasingly drunken way through the evening.

The festivities at Court were even more extravagant than usual. The Elector Palatine had come over to England to be betrothed to the Princess Elizabeth in November, but the death of Prince Henry had forced a postponement. Elaborate entertainments were laid on for his extended stay, which it now seemed would last until the wedding in February.

December passed and January crawled on. There was increasing excitement at Court about the impending wedding, and an increasing dread in Gresham's heart as silence greeted his every enquiry as to the whereabouts of Marlowe and Shakespeare. The strain was greater on Jane, he knew, never knowing as she walked in the garden of The Merchant's House whether or not a madman with a crossbow was hiding in the overshadowing woods, for all the extra men they had hired to police them.

'Perhaps he's dead, after all,' said Jane one morning, as the rain poured down and blotted out the view from her window. 'Perhaps he killed Shakespeare, and then died of the pox himself…'

Gresham desperately wanted to reassure her, to agree with her. Yet he knew that to do so might allow her to relax her guard.

‘It's possible, but we daren't assume it's so,' said Gresham, hating himself.

‘I'm only guessin' as to how far gone he is with the pox,' said Mannion. 'But I've seen worse than him live a year or more.'

Jane could not conceal her excitement at the festivities laid on for the royal wedding. Outwardly she scorned Court and its ladies, inwardly becoming as excited as a maid-in-waiting when a great event beckoned. The climax, the evening before the wedding, was to build a replica of the fort and town of Algiers on the south bank of the Thames at Lambeth, and stage a mock sea battle and storming of the town. Well over five hundred watermen and a thousand musketeers from the local militia had been pressed into providing this spectacle, and Rochester and Chatham stripped of every longboat, pinnace and barge that could have mock masts strapped to it and bear at least one cannon.

There was the usual chaos at the Palace the day before the wedding. The old efficiency of Elizabeth's Court was a long-gone memory; James's household was run on excess and confusion. The Chapel Royal at Whitehall was relatively small, which to Gresham's common sense argued for moving the wedding to somewhere larger. Instead, attendance at the ceremony had been limited to barons and above, but in order for others to see the couple they would be sent on a circuitous route to the chapel prior to the wedding. To his intense chagrin, Gresham had been summoned to a rehearsal.

'You can guarantee the bloody King and his wife won't be at any bloody rehearsal!' he muttered, climbing into Court clothes. He had decided that Mannion could act Jane's part, to the immense amusement of the household, and spare her the need to kick her heels for hours in the shambles he knew they would find at the Palace of Whitehall. He would see her that evening, at the great naval battle, with the children. Their excitement had filled The House for days at the news they were allowed to watch.

So it was that Jane was left to her own devices on February thirteenth. Managing a household as vast as that of The House was second nature to her. She had become involved in its running as a young girl, when as a ward of Henry Gresham she had first entered its gloomy, almost derelict walls. It had been sadly neglected then, its servants corrupt, its fabric wasting. Gresham had had no wife, and The House to him had been no more than the extravagance of the father he had hardly known. Jane realised that in gifting to the man who was now her husband the best and most efficiently run household in London, she was in some way trying to pay back the man who had rescued her from rural squalor and given her his heart and mind as well as his body.

It was long after noon. Jane was humming happily to herself, checking the preserves in the vast larder, reassured that they would see The House well through into spring, when the messenger came. Young Tom was the grandson of Old Tom, who had for years been Gresham's Master of Horse. Increasingly, the servants in Gresham's household had a family lineage less illustrious in heraldic terms than those of nobles but nearly as long. Young Tom, as he would probably be known even if he lived to his sixties, had served only a year, and was at the gangling stage between boy and man. He was panting with exertion.

'Please, mistress. Master says as 'ow you're needed at the Palace as they've had to change all the plans, and please would you bring the little master and mistress along as well. Use the coach, he says, as it's safer, and for reason that all the landings at the Palace are clogged with boats for the fight tonight, and please you…' He said all this in one breath, having had little enough left to work with after his run home. Jane laughed, thanked him and felt only a mild twinge of annoyance. It was typical of the Palace to change plans at the last minute, or to have none at all. It was also increasingly the fashion to show off one's children at high-born weddings, using them almost as accessories, dressing them like little puppets in the high fashion of the day. Well, thought Jane, they could have her children if they wanted them, but young Walter would turn out in a very plain doublet and little breeches and Anna in a simple dress with no farthingales, and not a jewel in sight on either of them.

Jane felt a slight stir of unease when she bustled the children into the courtyard to enter the great coach and saw not John, who usually drove them, but his underling Nicholas. Nicholas too came from long-standing stock, men who had served the Greshams for years, but she had never been driven by him before, and the cargo, with her children on board, was precious. It would not have helped her unease had she heard that John had failed to return from the tavern last night, unprecedented in his long service. It would have been reported to Mannion that morning, had he not rode off so early with his master. No one had thought to report it to Jane.

'Can you manage us all in safety now, young Nicholas?' she called up to him, part in jest, as she clambered into the coach. He was white-faced, she saw, but put it down to nerves at his first full outing with his mistress and her children. He made no reply except to wave his whip reassuringly in her direction.

They assembled in the yard, as Gresham had instructed. Two riders in front, two riders each side and two at the rear, and a man with a charged pistol sitting beside Nicholas. The great gates were opened, and the whole magnificent entourage swept out into The Strand. The two lead horsemen, knowing they were heading to Whitehall, turned their mounts to the left.

With a cry, Nicholas cracked his whip and turned the lumbering coach right. Pedestrians turned in horror to see the huge vehicle with its fine horses bearing down upon them, gathering speed with every minute, and leaped to safety.

Jane felt a massive lurch and knew instinctively that they had turned the wrong way. Oh God! she thought. Nicholas has seen an enemy and driven the coach away from him.

The two lead horsemen failed to realise that the coach had not followed them. By the time they reined in, it had vanished from sight. Looking hopelessly at each other, and cursing themselves for their certainty that things would go as they had planned and expected, they yanked on the reins and reversed their path. Mannion's advice was ringing in their ears. Always expect the unexpected! They had been strutting ahead of the coach, clearing the way, full of their glory at serving the First Baron Granville. They knew the depth of their mistake, and in their stomachs hung the awful fear that tomorrow they would be dismissed in ignominy with no reference. Their panic lost them even more of their judgement. They drove their horses not back down The Strand but to the gates of The House.

'There! There!' shouted Nicholas meanwhile to the armed man by his side on the careering coach, his arm outstretched. The man gaped at him, looked in the direction indicated. The next thing he knew a tremendous kick landed in his side, and he was flung from the vehicle. He fell directly under the hooves of one of the escorting horsemen on the left-hand side. Reducing him to a bloody lump, the horse stumbled and fell, one leg at least broken, its rider hurled from his mount into a crunching, bloody collision with the earth. The horse lay there, twitching. Its rider lay still.

The five remaining escorts were confused beyond belief. Had a devil taken hold of Nicholas? Had the horses bolted on him? Had he seen an enemy they had missed?

Their confusion was not to last much longer. Heading into the

City and its warren of streets, Nicholas hauled the coach by sheer brute force to the right, down a noisome alley leading to the river. He knew the odds, had known them all along. He could commit the horses, now in panic and frothing, to the hole that formed the alley. After that, it was their instinct for survival that decided life or death. The horses chose life. They drove themselves neatly between the poor houses on either side, as neatly as a cork in a bottle.

The escorting horsemen were caught unawares by the coach's sharp turn to the right. The two on the inside reined back savagely as the coach threatened to squash them between its great bulk and the wall. Their horses stumbled, catching the sense of panic. The one remaining escort on the outside overshot completely. The two behind had time to rein in. Their mounts ground to a halt and reared in panic, but the riders controlled them and dug their spurs hard into their sides, driving them after the form of the coach. It was then that the men hidden in the alley dragged up the two ropes they had firmly stationed on either side. One at the height of a horse's head. The other at the height of its rider's head. Both horses caught sight of the first rope, instinctively dropped their heads and, at their speed, stumbled on their forelegs into a tumbling fall. Their riders were flung forward, still holding the reins. One caught the second rope full in his rib cage, the other on his Adam's apple.

Instantly the two men had fallen, a farm cart trundled across the alleyway. Its driver cut the traces, the horse bolting away. From nowhere four men appeared, cudgels in their hands.

The three remaining horsemen of the escort regrouped. None lacked courage. All felt a bitter sense of recrimination. They had failed their master and his mistress, delivered her and her children up to God knew what evil. Without a word being exchanged, they drew back on the reins and flung their horses forward at the barrier, trying to leap it in one bound and follow their mistress. The sickening thud of the crossbow bolts hit man and horse alike, the screams of the dying horses easily drowning the rattle and gurgle of the dead men.

One horse tumbled so hard that it careered into the farm cart, breaking a wheel and skewing it aside. The gap through to the alley had been opened at last. Yet there were none of Gresham's men to take advantage of it.

Except one.

Young Tom had delivered his message, then taken time to regain his breath. He was used to the comments of the maids and other girls, but he knew what he would get if he appeared among them breathless and sweating. He had caused a stir, right enough, by his message. He could see the coach being made ready. He considered going to the kitchen to claim his bread and cheese for lunch. He'd done his bit, hadn't he? And then a thought struck him, fiercer even than the pangs of his hunger. What about the horses? The man who had come from his master had said he would find a boy to look after the horses. But he'd been a rough sort of fellow, and what if he'd simply not bothered to find someone? Those horses had been his charge.

Tom ran out then, thoughts of bread and cheese banished, to see if he could beg his mistress to let him ride on top of the grand coach, so as to get back to the horses. But it was too late, the great coach was rolling out of the yard as he got there. What was there to do?

Be damned to bread and cheese! he thought. What matters is those horses. He ran after the coach. It was going the wrong way! Heart pumping, sweat pouring again, he chased after it.

He saw Nicholas, one of his heroes, point wildly with his arm, saw him kick his armed escort off the coach. He saw the carnage wreaked by the fallen body among the escort. From even further away, his limbs at full stretch, his breath threatening to tear his lungs apart, he saw the sharp, manic turn of the coach into the alleyway. And then, his ribs rising and falling as if there was no oxygen left in the world, he saw and heard the sickening noise of the crossbow bolts thudding into flesh. Saw and heard the death of men who had chafed him, helped him, guided him, men he had looked up to as the bastion of all knowledge in this world.

There was a gap. Between the farm cart and the entry to the alley. A gap rammed home by a horse still in spasms and a rider who lay totally still. Had the men with crossbows melted away like the men with cudgels? Or were they still there?

Well, the still very young but soon to be much older Young Tom thought — if thought is what happens in a man's brain at these moments — good men have died today. I will be in fine company if I join them. He ran for the gap.

No sudden blow in his side. No yells and cries. He was through.

He ran on, the narrow houses blotting out the sun. Despair. No sign of his mistress. How long could this winding alley run? Hope. The coach. Halted.

They were edging on the river. There were four, five men dragging his mistress from the coach. She fell out, drew herself up, seemed to be speaking. Seemed to be reaching to raise her skirt. One of the men flung out at her, knocked her back to the ground. She lay there, in the dust, motionless. The little girl was screaming. The boy just stood there, looking at the man who had struck his mother. There was a hurried conversation between the men, orders issued. Two of them picked up the body of his mistress, the others threatening the children to move in the same direction.

There was a boat by the rough jetty that abutted the alley. A longshoreman's boat, a cumbersome, single-masted thing designed to carry small cargo but needing four men to row it. The meat and drink of London's river traffic. They bundled the captives on board. The boat was unnamed, or, if it ever had been named, its emblem had fallen off through neglect. The men hauled oars out, prepared to row, the fitful wind giving them no help. As they did so, a figure flitted out from one of the poor lodgings that fronted the river. He was a small, dwarfed man with a strange, prancing high-step and a ludicrous wig. He stopped for a moment to give instructions to one of the men. That same man nodded, touched his forelock and hurried off back up the alley. Young Tom shrank into the wall as he passed by. He need not have bothered. The man had more important things on his mind than a young serving-man.

An agony of indecision hit Young Tom. What was he to do? He had coin enough in his pocket to hail a waterman and follow the boat on her course through the Thames. Yet even if he knew where she landed, what use could he be, a mere apprentice? Far better, surely, to take what he knew and run with it to his master at Whitehall.

Young Tom was growing up by the minute. Let God decide, he thought. 1 will stand by this derelict jetty and raise my hand and cry

Westward Ho ' If a boat takes me to follow, so be it. If I am ignored, then will I rush to my master.;

The first boat he hailed answered, and drew in to the jetty. He showed his coin first, as one did if one was of his status. 'Follow that boat ahead,' he ordered with far more conviction than he felt.

Would God or his master decide if he had made the right decision?

Ahead of him, Tom could see the men on the boat arguing. They gagged the little ones — the boy had been shouting, to try and attract attention Tom noted with approval — and bundled the two of them and their mother down into the forward hold. She was gagged too, his mistress, Tom's sharp eyes saw. Pray God they didn't suffocate her…

An overwhelming, burning sense of excitement came over Marlowe. Patience was hard for a dying man but he had grasped it as his only path to success. Vengeance, he thought, was a dish best savoured red-hot. He was about to enjoy the taste.

The boat was rocking up and down in a river that was frantically busy with the preparations for tonight's mock battle. This vessel was decked, with hatches cut into the planking to access the hold. The focs'le, at the bow and where the anchor chain was kept, was unusually large. A single lantern swung there, showing crude, straw-filled mattresses that had been nailed to the floor and halfway up the rough-timbered side of the hull. Set into the planking were three iron ring bolts, each with a short chain through them. At the end of each chain was an iron neck collar. Splinters of wood, lighter than the surrounding areas, showed where the ring bolts had only recently been screwed home.

Lady Gresham had been flung on the rough straw mattress, half-soaked through with river water. Her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back with twine, her feet similarly imprisoned. The great, clumsy and half-rusted neck chain clasped her, rough against the smooth length of her skin. She was conscious now, eyes flickering wildly about the dim room. Her children had been similarly secured to the great ring bolts. The girl was crying quietly; the boy too, but trying desperately not to.

'Welcome to my royal barge, Lady Gresham,' said Marlowe. 'It is a pleasure to meet you, at long last.'

Jane shook her head back and forth, trying to speak through the filthy cloth rammed into her mouth.

'Take off the gag, Your Ladyship? I think not, really I do.' He was enjoying this more than he could ever have imagined, the old sense of power flowing through him. He felt the swelling in his groin. 'You see, you might shriek and draw attention to this poor and humble boat. I hope these precautions — ' he motioned to the canvas sacking — 'will make this little patch of heaven almost soundproof, but why take an extra risk? You might cry out now, Lady Jane. You will certainly want to cry out, I hope, in a moment or so. I want you to feel everythinghe leaned his loathsome face close to Jane's. The teeth had almost all gone, and what were left were blackened and decayed — 'but the noise I make will be sufficient.'

Those huge dark eyes pleaded with him. There was a shout from on deck and the boat lurched. The rowers muttered curses and one shouted abuse at another craft that had come too close.

'What am I going to do?' asked Marlowe. 'Is that the question you would ask, were you free to do so?' The hold stank offish and tar, and creaked with every sharp movement of the boat. Take my revenge. My revenge for your husband, who pretended that he wanted to help me, and who all the time intended to sell me into slavery as a spy for Cecil!'

He ignored the frantic shaking of Jane's head. Her hands were heaving on the twine so hard that blood was flowing from her wrists; a sharp, bright red against the pure white linen tracery on the dark of her gown.

Marlowe noted her breasts, their proud swell under her gown; the sculptured, chiselled perfection of her face. Very carefully, he leaned forward and delicately lifted the hem of her dress, strewn around her ankles, until it rested just over her knees. The slim, stockinged legs, pressed sideways down on the rough deck, were smooth yet muscled like an athlete. They were trembling, Marlowe noted with pleasure. He yanked the dress upwards, hearing it tear. Those delicious legs were now revealed in all their length, tapering into her hips.

'Yes, Lady Jane, proud Lady Jane, beautiful Lady Jane. I intend to rape you. There is a long history, you know, of conquerors expressing their power over the conquered by using their women.' Even through the cruel gagging some sound managed to emerge, a strangled cry of… hopelessness? Of anger? She was bucking and writhing against her bonds. Good, thought Marlowe. It would make it better when he had her. 'Your children? Oh, I would not rape them. But I think it will be good for them to watch their mother meeting her real master, don't you? And, oh, just one more thing. I have the pox. A dreadful shame. Yet in my temporary distressed state, the best gift I can find to give to you and your dear husband.'

She kicked then, as hard as she could with both legs tied together. Marlowe was expecting it, had moved to her side, forcing her to twist even more of her body. Yet still she caught a glancing blow to his wrist. It was bandaged, seeping a yellow and green puss. He screamed, and bent double, holding his wrist to his side. When he finally gazed up, it was with a look of pure and sustained evil that Jane nor no other human had expected to see this side of hell. It was to haunt her for the rest of her life.

He stumbled towards her, grabbed her with surprising strength, and flipped her over on to her stomach. The neck collar caught and held her cruelly. Half strangled, she was kicking with her legs, flailing, but there was a great weight on her back. He cut the bonds tying her legs together and hit the back of her legs hard, forcing them apart. Using a knife, he slit her undergarments. She was exposed, defenceless. Marlowe was gasping now, sweat on his face, lips drawn back, hands tearing at his own breeches.

There was a crash so great as to topple him over, and a series of yells, footfalls on the deck. The boat lurched and lurched again. High, imperious voices were speaking to the rowers.

'By the King's command!' a voice was roaring. 'We're ten boats short from Chatham and the King has need of this vessel! Shut your mouth! You'll get paid for your pains!'

There was a thud, more yells, feet hitting the deck. His ruffians had decided to make a fight of it. With an obscenity, Marlowe bound himself up, grabbed Jane's legs and tied them again, and went to the hatch.

The fight was taking place at the rear of the boat. Marlowe slipped out on to the deck and snapped the padlock shut over the hatch before he was seen. His men were losing the fight, outnumbered. The leader of the King's men was a serjeant-at-arms. The Palace must be desperate indeed if a man of such standing was sent out to scour the river for extra craft. Then, to his horror, the serjeant-at-arms called out, 'Hey! You there! Ain't you that Cornelius Wagner?'

In the hope that Marlowe might be lured into attending The Tempest, a full description of him, under the name he had chosen, had been circulated to all the Court.

Marlowe took one look around him and leaped into the river. Other boats had gathered as the King's boat had smashed up alongside. There were catcalls, whistles, shouts of support for the defenders. No one believed the owner of a boat so commandeered would ever see a penny this side of Armageddon. There was no love lost between the King's men and those who worked the river. Rough hands hauled Marlowe out of the water almost as soon as he landed in it.

The serjeant-at-arms wasted no time. Who cared about a man who had jumped overboard and been rescued? They were desperately short of craft for the King's display and desperately short of time to prepare the craft they had. As if in answer to his prayers, a. sudden wind got up after the fitful spasms they had had all day. He roared at his men to unfold the primitive sail, put four of his best rowers on the oars and set off to find more vessels. The river had emptied around him as word spread.

In the forward hold Jane and her two children lay half-crippled with the chains around them, eyes staring, the cloth cutting terribly into their mouths. An agonised grunt was the only noise they could manage. Jane had wriggled and squirmed so that her dress had fallen over the triangle between her legs, covering her shame from her children.

Young Tom had seen the encounter and his heart had lifted. He had yelled and screamed at the men in the distance but to no avail. He was too far away. Frantic, Young Tom saw the sail drop, bellow and fill with wind, and the boat holding his mistress turn upstream to join the gathering masses at Lambeth. With the wind in its favour, it picked up speed and was soon lost in the mess of traffic on the river.

It was late afternoon and nothing of any significance had been achieved at the Palace of Whitehall except further chaos. Gresham had resigned himself and was reading a-book, seated on the stone wall of a colonnade, when he sensed a bad smell.

It was Sir Thomas Overbury. There was a flushed look on his face, one of almost eager excitement.

'Good day, Gresham,' he said, halting before him, chin out.

Gresham said nothing, did not move from his stone seat, and gazed coolly back at Overbury. Overbury flushed. He seemed intent on walking away, but changed his mind.

'Look to your wife, Gresham!' he snarled.

A chill struck Gresham's heart.

He stood up and Overbury sneered at him, turning away. He walked straight into the bulk of Mannion, who had appeared silently from nowhere. Again Overbury appeared to be about to say something, but without warning he leaped from between Gresham and Mannion on to the balustrade of the stone archway, vaulted it and sped off across the grass. There had been something in his eyes. Triumphalist. Vindictive. Vicious.

Both men ran to the gatehouse without a word, to where their horses were. As they reached the place they heard a young man's voice, screaming. 'Let me in! Let me in! I must see my master!'

It was Young Tom, exhausted, frantic with fear and worry. Gresham reached for him, took him from between the two guards, nodding to them.

Betrayal.' Tom poured out his story. Never place your complete trust in anyone! The coach driver had served Gresham's family for over ten years, and his father before him.

Jane and his children were locked in the bow of a boat commandeered for this evening's mock battle. The boat could be one of hundreds on the river, hurriedly rigged now to look like galleasses, galleons, carricks and argosies, their appearance changed even further.

'Send to The House,' Gresham ordered, i want every boat and every man on the river. Tell them to break through the booms if they have to.' The battle area was protected by booms upstream and downstream. 'Stop at every boat, check if the forehatch is open and its contents known. Explain there's been a kidnap.'

What if Marlowe had followed the boat, re-boarded it? What had he done to Jane before he had been forced to leave?

Men were flocking past them now to take their seats in the specially rigged stands from which the battle would be watched. Night was beginning to settle and torches were being lit.

'Master,' said Mannion. 'They're using real cannon, some of them live-shotted. Some of the boats are being blown up.'

'You, Young Tom, any other of our men — go down to the shore, grab a vessel each, somehow, anyhow. Start to check the boats. We know the size, roughly. We know it had only one real mast. It must shorten the odds. Go!'

It took a lifetime for Gresham to find Sir Robert Mansell, the Treasurer of the Admiralty and the man in charge of the evening. He was sweating profusely, despite the cold. He was flustered, angry.

'No, damn you, no!' he was roaring at a group of men. 'We must have more Venetians! More Venetians, I tell you! The men will just have to change sides, whatever they've rehearsed!' The river was in chaos. Several of the watermen were drunk, a payment in advance having been given to many to draw them out in the first place. There was powder everywhere. Some of the barrels were open-topped and perilously near to torches. Brass cannons had been hurriedly lashed to the decks of the vessels, many of which were dangerously overloaded with guns, extra masts, mock rigging and armed militia men.

Mansell's plan was for the invading forces to set forth from the Whitehall bank to be met in mid-stream by the vessels of the defenders. After a battle at sea, the attacking vessels, with the majority of the militia on board, would land on the Lambeth side and storm the fort. At the climax a whole section of the fort would explode, and defenders would put out from the breach for a last pitched battle before the attackers won home.

'My lord! You must cancel the battle!' cried Gresham. 'My wife and children are on board one of these vessels! Kidnapped by an enemy of the King!'

Wild-eyed, Mansell looked at Gresham. 'Stop it? Stop it? My lord, it's already started — can't you see?' There was a flare of smoke and a thin rumble crossed the river. The first cannon had been fired. Speckles of light began to flower from the walls of the mock fortress opposite. Muskets — though what idiot would fire a musket when no men had yet landed on the shore was beyond Gresham.

'There must be some way you can call back the boats!' insisted Gresham, shouting to make himself heard above the increasing noise.

'My lord, I tell you -1 can do nothing to control this… this… chaos!' Mansell flung out his arms, embracing the anarchy around him. There was a crash and a scream and a newly rigged spar on one of the largest boats tore from its temporary mast, burying two men beneath it in a tangle of rope and canvas. The sail caught fire from the tub kept for lighting the cannon fuse and the crackle of flames was added to the noise as men rushed with canvas buckets to douse it. Gresham had to hold on to Mansell's arm as he went to turn away. 'If it is as you say, my lord, then there is every chance those who commandeered the boat will have found her,' Mansell continued, eyes already looking beyond Gresham. 'Half the boats commandeered never made it to Whitehall. Even if she is in one of the boats, the ones to be blown up have been in preparation for weeks. There's barriers round them. And the live shot, God help us! Only in a few guns, and those aimed at the lower section of the fort!'

He rushed off and was soon lost in the melee.

Gresham was ice cold. The time for recrimination would come later. All he could do now was focus his terror on action. Splitting his forces had been the only way. They had to achieve maximum cover of the Thames. He ran down to the river bank. He would seize a boat. If needs be, he would search every vessel before the night was out.

The battle was not going well. The wind had sunk again to virtually nothing, and what little there was, was in the face of the boats on the north bank, driving them back to shore when they sought to set out. The overloaded boats were setting out and, with no wind to aid them, being swept downstream too fast. The smaller boats on the far side were milling around with no enemy to fight. When a boat did make it to halfway across the river, five or ten of the defenders surrounded it. Embarrassed at what in a military battle would have been a sinking, the attacking boats then retreated. There was much popping of muskets and the increasing blast of badly loaded cannons. To the spectators in the stands, including the King and Queen, it was increasingly boring.

For those on the river it was hell on earth. A sailor ran across a deck as one of his companions set off the vessel's only cannon. With no ball to stopper and focus its force, the burning powder sprayed the sailor's face and sides. The skin was ripped off him like a chef boning a fish, and with a scream he was hurled, his tunic burning, over the bow and into the river. Elsewhere, an excited boy ran to place another charge of powder into the smoking mouth of a ship's gun, forgetting to sponge out the barrel first. A fragment of still-burning powder caught the new supply as the boy spooned it down. The boy watched in disbelief as the exploding roar shot the ramrod out of the barrel, taking his hand with it. The gun captain was also unprepared for the involuntary ignition. He was standing behind the gun, which snapped back at him with the recoil, crushing his legs and pinning him against the mast. His scream drew the other crewmen to him. With no man at the helm, the boat veered out of its path, following the current. It crashed into another vessel, the splintering shock sending men overboard. Very few sailors could swim.

Jane felt as if she would never breathe properly again. She had bitten down on the rough gag in her mouth so many times and dampened it with her saliva that it had at least thinned. Yet it made no difference — she could not cry out. The boat had clearly caught a good wind, had turned, leaned over and beat up the

Thames to wherever it was heading, the thuck! thuck! thuck! of its bow driving into the waves. Jane eased herself over on to her back, her mind remembering the feel of the diseased hands spreading her legs. Pushing upright with all her might, she leaned against the side planking. Damn! Her head, as hard as she could push upwards, still rested half against the straw-filled canvas nailed to the wall. She had wondered if bloodying her body against the wood would have attracted the attention of those sailing the boat. She looked at her children. Their terrified eyes looked back at her. She winked at them, denying the despair in her own heart. It's all right. Mother is here with you. The man has gone. Someone will come and rescue us.

They did not believe her.

There were yells from the deck, and a lurching, forward motion as the sail was dropped and the boat brought round.

Jane struggled with all her might to get noise out of her mouth. The children, seeing her, tried the same. All that emerged were strangled, gurgled noises, easily absorbed by the straw, the timbers and the oiled canvas.

Footfalls on deck. Silence. The men had left. A lurching yaw to the right. Someone had hooked a rope on to their vessel. Movement, far less forceful than when they had been under sail. Silence on their own deck. Towed. They were being towed.

More shouts. As from afar. Cessation of motion. Footfalls on deck, brief. They were being moored to something, somewhere. Quick jerking movements of the boat. They were in quiet water, but water disturbed by other vessels. Heavy, heavy thuds on the deck aft of them. Strange noises, distorted, as of voices far away.

Jane knew what celebrations had been planned for that night, the celebrations she and her children should have witnessed from the stands at Whitehall. They had been commandeered for the great mock naval battle. Some man hired by the King had saved her from rape, saved her from being spoilt evermore for the man she loved. Perhaps a crew would come on board, find them, release them. Her heart soared. Yet she prayed to God the thumps she had heard on the deck had not been gunpowder.

And then, the lantern hung on the swinging hook so long ago began to flicker and die. Oh God, she thought. Within seconds the cabin was in total darkness. No sight now. No feeling in her numbed hands and legs. Only the sharp rocking motion of the clumsy boat on the short waves.

Above her, on the deck, the five squat barrels sat. From each a fuse led, joining together at deck level and running as a strand through a scupper on the side, hanging a foot and a half on the outside below deck level. A rough nail secured the fuse to the planking. An easy height for a man in a small boat to drive alongside, stand up and light the fuse, and get away before the powder exploded.

Gresham pushed through the increasing chaos to the waterline. More and more of the attacking boats were trying to set out. Many were simply swung downstream. A number, their rowers reduced to frantic exertion, were crawling towards the opposite bank. Every now and again a crew gave up and the boat shot off with the current.

A young man was roundly cursing five others. It looked as if they had set out, been swept downstream, rowed all the way up to Whitehall once more, and now he wanted them to start again. Gresham went up to him.

'I need to beg the greatest favour of my life from you,' Gresham said simply. 'Can I at least know the name of the person I'm asking?'

The young man gazed at the figure in front of him. Tall. Dressed in black, every fold breathing money. The most unsettling eyes the young man had ever seen. Soft leather shoes muddied to destruction. A courtier, all right. But something else.

'I'm called Walter,' the young man stated, equally simply.

'I'm called Henry Gresham,' he said, every particle in his body shrieking out for him to speed this up.

I bet you're not, thought Walter. I bet you're an earl of something like that, dressed as you are. But the man had given him his name.

'Pleased to meet you, Henry Gresham,' he said, offering his hand. Now he'd done it. Call an earl by his real name and it was your head bobbing along in the river the next morning. 'My full name is Walter Andrews.'

The first name of his son, thought Gresham. The second name — spelling apart — the only Bishop he had met and respected. Was it an omen? Henry Gresham did not believe in superstition. Yet his heart lifted. 'Pleased to meet you, Walter Andrews,' said Gresham as they shook hands solemnly. To business. 'My wife and my children have been kidnapped. Two of them. A boy and a girl. They're on one of the boats out there in this… mess.' As if to echo his words, there was a blast and a column of flame, followed by screams. 'Will you take me out on to the river and check all the boats…?'

Gresham had learned his self-control early. Learned to bear the taunt of 'bastard!', to bear the scorn of others, learned that to show what you feel is the ultimate weakness. Yet he had based that philosophy on a lonely, appalling selfishness. He had never allowed for the fact that one reasonably large person in his life, and two rather smaller people, would breach the route to his heart. So, for only the second time in his life, his emotion overrode his control. Disgusted and hating himself, he felt the hot tears burst up uncontrollably in his eyes and fall, burning, down his cheeks. 'Will you help me find my wife?'

Walter turned to his men. They were gawping at the scene in front of them. They had heard it all.

'Well,' said Walter, 'as for me, it's the first time someone's asked me to do anything useful all evening. As for these bastards he turned to his men — 'they're in revolt. Played out. Knackered. I don't suppose for a minute they'll agree to give up their sweat…' He turned to look at them.

'Bastards!' they called out in unison, with a strange happiness. 'We won't do it for fuckin' you, Walter Andrews!' said the oldest of them, rising to his feet. Gresham's heart sank.

'But we'll do it for fuckin' 'im!' he shouted. 'Show us the way to your wife, master! We're the men for it!' There was raucous cheering, a rush to put the oars in the water.

'They're not exactly easy,' explained Walter. 'In fact, they're fuckin' impossible. But they're good when they do get it together.'

Gresham grinned at him, the fire of war in his blood. He grabbed Walter's hand. 'One-masted, biggish, a hatch for'ard and a much bigger one aft. Taken late in the day, so presumably with minimal decoration, fake masts and the like.'

'We'll find 'er,' said Walter Andrews, 'if she's there to be found.' His eyes were looking for a way through the crowded waterway. His hand was raised, waiting to drop and signal for his oarsmen to bite the oars into the water. Suddenly he saw the opening, dropped his hand. They careered through three boats, rigged as galliasses, whose rigging had become inextricably entangled.

'Where d'you want to start?' asked Walter Andrews.

'Where the danger is,' answered Gresham flatly.

It was clear even to Sir Robert Mansell that the promised battle was not going to happen. It was rumoured that the King and Queen were about to leave the stands, bored by a few small boats firing cannon and muskets with blank shot. James would be more than bored, thought Sir Robert, if he knew what this failed extravaganza had cost him. He had one ace up his sleeve. Half of the fortress of Algiers was primed to explode at the climax of the battle, its wood and plaster walls impregnated with barrels of powder set to ignite with the lighting of one fuse. Just before the walls collapsed, three of the attacking boats were meant to explode as if hit by shore batteries. The powder set in the 'walls' and that in the three boats was not normal gunpowder. Those responsible for the fireworks had been allowed at it. The boats would go up with a fiery blue flame, sending rockets into the sky. The explosion of the fortress would be predominantly red and yellow.

'Well, the mock battle was over, with all that did for his standing and his reputation. Current, wind and tide had meant that the two opposing fleets had never been properly able to meet. Not to mention the shamefully drunken crew, and the gross incompetence of the Court. Yet all was not quite lost…

To hell with it, he decided. They would only dismantle the fortress the next day were it not blown up. What had he to lose? His reputation was gone already, yet might be restored by this last throw. If only he could manage the fortress to be blown up before His Majesty left the stands'. He hurried to give his orders. One of his lieutenants, the most trusty, was there. Six fresh oarsmen were in his boat. The twisted rope that would ignite the fuses was smouldering happily in its barrel. He sent them off to the three boats moored on the Lambeth side.

'There's three boats on the Lambeth side — primed with powder! Set to be blown up before the walls of the fortress fall apart!' Walter yelled to Gresham above the sounds of musketry, cannon and men being maimed.

'What of it?' yelled Gresham back.

'One of them ran into a stone jetty. Holed itself badly. My men tell me they were desperate. Word spreads on the waterfront. They set out to commandeer another boat. With one of the King's men on board.'

'So?' yelled Gresham.

'Look over there.' Walter pointed to the Lambeth shore. The Algerian fort was lit by what seemed hundreds, thousands of torches. In front of it, darkened and anchored, lay three other boats. Two of them were rigged as Venetian galliasses, double-anchored, a rude disguise over their plain origin as London riverboats. The third had no such disguise. Bobbing on only one anchor, it was single-masted. The barrels of powder, bound together by strong rope, were silhouetted against the light.

Hope flared in Gresham's heart. He nodded. Walter turned the tiller sharp over and yelled at his men. Already working hard, they redoubled their efforts.

Another boat shot ahead of them, for all their efforts. There was someone who looked like an official in its prow; As it crossed the halfway mark in the river, Turkish boats swarmed towards it, the fitful wind at their backs. The liveried official stood in the prow, shouting at them.

'Back off! Back off! Make way! Make way! On the King's business! Make way!'

Walter stood at the prow of his boat, hurling a gesture to Gresham to stand by him. 'Back off! Back off! Make way! Make way! On the King's business! Make way!' he echoed, pointing to the man dressed so clearly as a nobleman standing beside him.

The Turkish boats hesitated, backed off. Let them both through.

The King's boat shot towards the first mock galliass moored upstream. It made sense, work down the stream. The furthermost would have the longest fuse.

With a nod, Gresham directed Walter towards that furthermost boat downstream, the darkened vessel with no extra mast to hide its humdrum origins and only the five barrels of powder on its deck to show its purpose.

The current had eased now, wind and tide turning far too late to be of any real use. Walter still felt the need to heave a grapnel over on to the other boat, its claws digging deep into its wood. His boat slewed round, smashed against the hull of the other with a jarring crash.

There was a guard too on the middle galliass. He jumped up from his perch on deck, yelling at them, misunderstanding, warning them off the boat packed with powder.

Gresham leaped on board regardless, the ceremonial sword he had worn all day in his hand. There! A hatch for the main hold, beneath his feet almost. A smaller hatch forward.

The King's boat, on the orders of Sir Robert Mansell, reached the first of the ornately rigged galliasses. There was one man on board, keeping guard. Curtly, the steward ordered him into his own boat. He took the corded twine, smouldering redly at its edge, and applied it to the fuse, which was hanging over the side of the boat, at a convenient height for a standing man to ignite it. Thank God something had gone right tonight, as his own red-ended yarn ignited the spluttering fuse. On, he ordered, on to the second boat. Before they were blown to hell and beyond by this one. The men needed no encouragement.

There was a padlock over the forward hold, Gresham saw. All he had was his sword. He punched it through the hasp of the lock, wrenched it upwards. With a sharp 'Snap!' the blade broke off. With a despairing glance he turned behind him. Walter was there with something between an iron hammer and a chisel. He wasted no time going for the padlock. Instead he chopped, savagely, at the wood securing the hasps. One side sprang free.

Darkness. A stink of fish, tar and lamp oil hit Gresham from out of the hold. And something else. The smell of people breathing.

'A light!' Gresham yelled, beside himself. 'Give me a light!' Walter looked nonplussed for a moment, then yelled to his men. Something spluttered, and a thin, poor lantern was handed to Gresham, its flame already guttering. He half jumped down the ladder into the hold. In the dim light he saw his wife and his two children. Gagged. Eyes open wide. Necks held in cruel iron collars. Hands and feet bound.

He felt for the knot to Jane's gag, lost patience and grasped the dagger at his belt, ramming it into the stiff cloth behind her smooth neck. The gag came away and she fell forward, heaving, sucking in breath. Her hands cut into his body, holding him so hard that it was as if she was drowning. She turned her head, vomiting into the corner. He cut through the bonds around her wrists and legs, seeing the blood that stained the lace on the arms of her dress. The collar, the cruel iron collar, was still around her neck. He yelled to Walter, who smashed at the wood around the ring bolt. Gresham pushed Jane away with all the gentleness his enraged body could muster, moved to the children, ripped the cruel binding off Anna and then Walter.

The thud of the explosion hit them before the vast, eyeball-scarring intensity of its flame. The first boat had exploded, those who had fired it unaware that the King had left his seat in the stands. A sheet of fire vented its way to the stars, a moment of blue and white brilliance turning night into day. Yet the King's boat, shielded from the blast by its next target, had already made its way to the second moored galliass. The guard on its deck was screaming at them. The captain of the boat ignored him. His vessel crashed into the side of the second galliass, the fuse directly opposite. He lit it, and it spluttered into life. Then he heard for the first time what the guard was screaming.

'She's shifted! She's shifted! The anchor's gone!'

Christ Almighty! Instead of the two anchors, fore and aft, that had meant to secure the boat, there was only one, and that had clearly lost its footing in the bed of the Thames and was dragging. Only a few ropes kept the vessel from careering down the Thames to explode in the midst of God knew what collection of other boats and people. Cursing, the captain turned to hack the fuse off, but as he did so three or four short sharp waves flung his boat upwards. He fell forward, into the gap that had suddenly opened up between the two craft. The next wave pushed his boat back in again. His head exploded like a squeezed orange as it was pressed between the two hulls. The men on the boat saw the fuse well alight and backed off, the guard hurling himself into their boat, threatening to capsize it. With a final, bucking scrape the second galliass lifted over the ropes holding it against the current and swept downstream.

The ring bolt came away from the hacked woodwork. Jane was free now, yet it would need a locksmith to take the collar off her neck, and she had to stumble to her feet holding the chain and heavy ring bolt in her hand. Gresham hacked at the bolt securing

Walter and, with a final, tearing sense of relief, saw it come out of the planking. He picked up little Anna, already free, silent and shivering now, in his arms, his hand under the harsh collar, the chains wrapped around his arm. Jane tried to pick up Walter, but Walter the boatman stepped into the crowded area and took him off her. They made their way on deck. Walter's men were waiting in their craft, arms open to draw the children and the woman into their boat.

From out of the dark a wildly rigged shape bore down on them as if from nowhere — the second galliass, out of control. Its bow swept

Walter's boat aside, pushed it away as if it were paper. The stout timbers held, but the boat was pushed upwards, first hurling its men into the water and then capsizing. It floated forlornly for a few seconds, its crew hanging grimly on to it, and then began to move down stream.

The second galliass was crashing down the side of Gresham's boat when suddenly it snapped to a halt, dead in the water, bucking and yawling. Its dragging anchor chain had snagged on the ropes. Horrified, Gresham saw the fuse on the second galliass now hard by his side, fizzling to only a few yards away from the powder barrels.

There was a high-pitched yell from the other side of the boat. Gresham ran and looked out. In the darkness, lit by the strange flames of the mock battle, was a tiny rowing boat, a grizzled waterman at the oars, Young Tom in its bow.

'The other boat's about to blow! Here — take the children!' Gresham cried.

Tom grabbed a spare oar, dug it into the water and his boat careered to the side of Gresham's vessel. Walter the boatman was desperate to see if his men were still alive and his craft afloat, but he handed the boy Walter down to Tom as Gresham handed over Anna. Gresham turned to yell to Walter that there was a lit fuse on the second galliass, but the man had gone, a clean dive into the dark river to swim towards his capsized boat, still just visible in the murk, and the shouts of his men.

Gresham looked down into Young Tom's boat. It was dangerously low in the water. It might take one more, if they were lucky. Two and it would sink. 'Go!' he said to Jane, shrieking at her. She looked at him. Did he feel a squeeze on his hand or was it imagination? The little boat sank deeper, took water in over the side but righted itself as Jane tumbled more or less on top her children. Gresham took one glance back at the fuse. It was almost at the powder. He could just make it, perhaps…

There was a cry from the boat. Anna's chain had snagged on something. Young Tom and Jane were hanging on to it, taking the whole weight of the boat, or else Anna would have been dragged overboard, her neck broken with the impact.

Damn! Gresham followed the line of the chain in the darkness, saw it snagged on a rusty nail. With a superhuman heave he released it. The rowing boat swept away, off into the darkness. He turned. The fuse was two, three inches out of the powder. Tune for him to do a deep, clean dive, hopefully be underwater when the explosion went off.

He turned to the water and did not see the line of fire jump two inches and bury itself in the heart of the powder. He felt an almighty blow in his back, something tearing at his arm, and the breath was punched out of him as if he had been hit by God's hand. His body, not under his control now, was hurled forward out over the face of the Thames, his arms outflung as if in a mock crucifixion. In the extended, terrible moment before his body hit the water, Gresham knew that he was losing consciousness; knew that something had hit and hurt him badly, though as yet there was no pain; knew finally that this was his time to die. As the waters closed over his head, his last vision was of Mannion screaming at him. Strange, he thought, in that moment of strange near-clarity that comes to dying men. I thought it would have been Jane. Then it was over.

The rest was silence.