The rebel heart

Chapter 8

April to July, 1599 Ireland

'E can award knighthoods — and is doin' it by the sackload, as it 'appens,' said Mannion. He was referring to the Earl of Essex. "E can proclaim someone a traitor, 'ang 'im or pardon 'im, as and when 'e wants. 'E can raise taxes — in fact, the only bloody thing 'e can't do is mint money with 'is 'ead on it.' Mannion took another bite at the chicken leg he held in his massive paw, leaving a shred of meat hanging out of his mouth as he carried on. 'And the only other bloody thing 'e can't do is decide what to do!'

The Council of Ireland had been meeting endlessly, while the army kicked its heels.

'I suppose 'e'll ask to see you again,' said Mannion.' 'E usually does. Though God knows why, seein' as 'ow he don't show any sign of listening.'

Gresham shrugged his shoulders, and dropped off" the low stone wall on which he and Mannion had been sitting. George had gone off earlier for a meal.

'He knows what I think…' As if on cue, a man in tangerine livery stepped out from round a corner of the castle and asked

Gresham if he would accompany him. At least Essex's servants were more polite than Cecil's.

Essex had moved from the Council Room to a side chamber. He was without Southampton, Blount or Meyrick, the only other person present a young page with a bruised face. Gresham had heard about that. Apparently the boy had dropped a jug of ale at supper the night before, and splashed the Earl's doublet. Essex had stood up and punched the boy, hard enough to fell him to the ground, then dragged him up by his hair, bent him over the table and thrashed him with a horsewhip. It had shocked many of the Irish there, not least because of the sudden violence of the action. The boy stood, eyes red, trying not to tremble with a jug and two simple pewter mugs on a tray. He had blond hair and pale-blue eyes.

‘Pour,' said Essex, and the page did so without being able to conceal the trembling of his hands. Gresham winked at the boy, feeling sorry for him. No one ever had much time for a page. He would let the dust settle for a day and then get Mannion to take him hawking for an afternoon, give him a decent meal. It usually didn't take much to cheer up a boy like him, and his stripes would heal soon enough.

'They tell me, my Council, very different things from your advice. They say Tyrone is reinforcing rebels in the south, in Leinster and Munster. They say we need to march there and destroy these reinforcements and only then move north and attack Tyrone.'

'There's no evidence of these reinforcements, other than hearsay that could easily have come from men paid to say it. Settlers in the southern counties always stress the danger they're in, to persuade you to give them support. The sight of our army in those provinces is as important to the settlers as any battles we fight. And if Tyrone's unwise enough to reinforce those in the south, it's all the less people to fight if we meet him in his stronghold.'

Gresham was getting tired of saying the same thing over and over again.

'They say there is no transport to resupply us if we take off to the north’ said Essex, undeterred.

'They mean,' replied Gresham, 'that it's far more dangerous to resupply you in the north. They forget how an army can forage for itself, or go on hard rations for a while.'

'What think you of my new Master of Horse?' asked Essex. Had he heard Gresham's earlier replies? For all the attention he paid them Gresham might as well have spent the time mouthing silently. This was getting very boring.

'My Lord, you know what I think of the Earl of Southampton. And he, no doubt, likewise of me. I think he's a piece of shit, with the same ability to rise to the top whatever water he's in. You also know what I think about your appointing him your Master of Horse, despite a direct prohibition from the Queen. You've enough enemies, without making a further one of the person you most need as your friend. And why, oh why do you have to make so many people knights? It infuriates the Queen — and some of the people you've knighted are just plain apologies for humankind!'

Essex had awarded knighthoods in profusion, as was his habit. Gresham knew why he did it. Underneath his bravado the Earl craved popularity; this was a cheap route to it.

Essex's brow furrowed. As usual, he ignored the question he did riot want to answer.

'The Queen is ill-advised, has always been ill-advised.' He looked up at Gresham. 'You know my problem? I have no feel for Ireland. I can't sense it, as I can sense England — its fields, its seasons, its pulse.' At times Essex looked like a little schoolboy, lost and rather forlorn. Yet this was the man who had savagely beaten a page.

'You've decided to take a large party to the southern counties,' Gresham said flatly.

'How did you know?' asked Essex.

'I guessed it a week ago. It'll let you "sense" Ireland, as you wish and need to do. It will reassure the settlers. It might allow you some easy combat to bed in the army and test the opposition. It'll mean there will be rich pasture in the more barren north when you do move there after Tyrone.'

It will also let you prance ahead of your army on your fine horse and receive the cheers of the settlers as you come into their towns, thought Gresham.

'You've summed up what was said at the Council meeting admirably,' said Essex. 'And still you think I'm wrong?'

'Yes,' said Gresham. 'But when people tell you you're wrong you dig your noble heels in and become even more stubborn, and determined.'

'Your plan? What would it be?' asked Essex.

'Head for Tyrone, force him to fight or to flee. Our intelligence is that he can call on up to twenty thousand men, but they're scattered over the country. If he's sent his men to the south then he's weakened his northern force even more. Yellow River proved how good his men are. But they aren't used to formal battle. Ours are. Now is our time to strike.'

'I dare not.' There was a tone of finality in Essex's voice. 'There you have it. England's noble commander dare not head straight for his enemy. I daren't because I come here to our Irish friends as a man given command firstly only by his link with the Queen and his position as her favourite, and secondly as a man with a reputation for rash and imprudent action. Someone has done their work well,' he added darkly. 'If I'm to retain the support of my Council I have to show that I listen to them.'

It would be Cecil, Gresham knew. Ireland was divided by the English who came over when there was war to be fought or new land to be grabbed, and the resident Anglo-Irish, some of them from the Norman stock that had originally invaded the country. No power from England could be sustained in Ireland without the support of the Anglo-Irish, those who lived in Ireland, farmed its lands and had based their whole future on their continued occupancy. Someone had done a good job in advance of poisoning many of the Anglo-Irish leaders against Essex; the rumours had been spread that he was a philandering popinjay. It had all the hallmarks of

Cecil's work. Essex had worked hard to show he was a steady hand, had done well. There had been no rages, no illnesses, no retiring to his bed. The only extravagance had been the strange business with the page.

‘I’d like you and your company to come with me on my expedition; to be the vanguard.' Gresham bowed. It was an order, not a request.

George emerged from one door, wiping his mouth, as Gresham emerged from another. Mannion soon made a third and together they enjoyed the warmth of the sun in the courtyard.

'Did you mention Wallop?' asked Mannion, after Gresham briefly told them the gist of his conversation. 'Or Kildare? Or Ormonde, for that matter?'

'No,' said Gresham, 'and I'm not sure I will.'

'What about Wallop and Kildare?' asked George, confused. 'Have you been keeping secrets from me?' *Not deliberately,' said Gresham. 'I've been doing some research. Now I have found but as much as I can, I can bring you in on it.'

'What research?' asked George.

'Sir Henry Wallop was Treasurer to the Irish Council and one of its most experienced people,' said Gresham.

'He's the one who died, didn't he, the evening we got here?' said George. 'Everyone said it was a bad omen.'

'Yes,' said Gresham, 'he did die, in agony, spewing his guts up. Mannion found out that two of his servants left the next morning, haven't been seen since.'

'What's odd about that?' asked George. 'Servants know their job goes when their master goes. They often clear off, after seeing what they can steal, of course.'

'Servants who are closely connected with preparing their master's food?' asked Gresham.

'Ah,' said George. 'I see what you mean. And Kildare? I take it you mean the Earl of Kildare?'

'Yes. Drowned in a storm in the Irish Channel. There's a strange amount of confusion surrounding the Earl's death. He was another stalwart supporter of us English, the good Earl. No one quite seems to know why he was out in the Irish Channel at the time, or understand a drowning in what one sailor described as "just a little bit of a blow". And no one seems to know for certain if he fell overboard, or even if his ship sank, or what. There's a rumour on the quayside that he was pushed.'

'Rumours on the quayside!' scoffed George.

'Perhaps,' said Gresham, 'but isn't it odd that two of the steadiest and wisest people in Ireland are suddenly out of the way — permanently — when the new Lord Lieutenant arrives? And then the wisest of the lot, the Earl of Ormonde, gets called away just when the Council is deciding whether to hit Tyrone in his lair, or go gallivanting off to the counties we already control for a beauty parade?'

'Well,' said George, 'these things happen. Trouble at home, trouble with the estate…'

'It'll be interesting to see when Ormonde returns whether or not the summons was genuine, won't it?' asked Gresham.

'Look, dear boy,' said George in his most annoying avuncular manner, 'are you sure you're not seeing conspiracy under every bed? I know I was the one trying to warn you in London about plots and plotting, but here in Ireland — surely it's simpler here?'

'Could it be as simple as Cecil trying to guarantee the failure of this expedition?' asked Gresham bluntly. 'Thereby helping to destroy Essex and his reputation? And since this army will undoubtedly fight at some time or other, and Essex will undoubtedly be unable to keep out of the fighting, and commanders in Ireland have an unfortunate habit of being killed in action or dying in agony in their beds, what might you do if you were Cecil, and wanted to destroy your chief rival for good?'

There was a long silence. George, subdued at last, spoke to his booted feet. 'I'd have Essex killed,' he said, in what was almost a whisper.

'Precisely!' said Gresham. 'Best way? Bribe one of our men to

"accidentally" fire a ball into his back in the heat of action. Friendly fire. Happens all the time. The great hero killed in action, falling as he would have wished in action facing the enemies of his Queen! It would probably never even come out that he had been shot by one of his own men. Get rid of Essex while he's safely out of the country, give him a magnificent state funeral to make the mob feel better. Back-up plan? Have him poisoned. Less glamorous for Essex, same result for Cecil. Oh, and take all the right people out or away to ensure the campaign's a failure.'

George was refusing to look at Gresham.

'Come on, George. Spit it out!'

'Henry…' he started clumsily. He hardly ever used Gresham's first name. 'Is… is this your way of telling me that Cecil has ordered you to kill Essex?'

Gresham looked aghast. 'Me? Kill Essex? Of course not, you great booby! Exactly the opposite in fact. I came to protect Essex!'

George smiled thinly, wanting to be convinced.

'Summat else you must 'ave worked out,' broke in Mannion. 'If Cecil wants 'im dead, he'll most likely 'ave to kill you too, gamble on finding that letter you forged before it did any 'arm. And if he wants this campaign to fail, 'e's gonna go for you on that score as well, seein' as 'ow you're the only person talkin' military sense to im.

George looked at them both.

'So we assume that even now someone paid by Cecil is out there looking to kill you and Essex?'

'Seems reasonable,' said Gresham casually.

'And you knew that before you agreed to come out here?' asked George disbelievingly.

'Why else do you think I came?'

There was a long silence.

'I've been doing some research on Tyrone as well,' Gresham broke the silence. 'Do you know the one word that comes out time and time again when people talk about him? Dissembler.'

'Educated in England wasn't he?' asked George, trying to gather his thoughts. His knowledge of Irish history was sketchy. George had spent most of his time in Dublin writing letters home. Whatever the problem was with his estates, it was taking up more and more of his time.

'Not only educated there, but seen as an Irish lord friendly to England. Even had some of his troops trained by us, knows our military tactics inside out. Fell out with Elizabeth when he was made one of Ireland's top chiefs and had to choose between supporting one of his family arrested by us or sticking with us. He chose family — not that he had much choice. His own lot would have skewered him if he hadn't. But everyone who knows him speaks of his charm, his intelligence — and his total and utter unreliability. This man lies like you and I have a piss — it's the most natural thing we do, and something would go wrong with our day if we don't do it regularly and frequently.'

'So?' said George.

'So we're being outmanoeuvred,' said Gresham, 'by someone who's as much English as Irish. Tyrone's sending us exactly where he wants us to go.'

'Will Tyrone kill Essex? If Cecil can do it, surely Tyrone can,' asked George.

'He won't 'ave to, at this rate,' muttered Mannion. 'If Essex goes off gallivanting all over Ireland in the opposite direction to this bastard Tyrone, 'e'll either kill 'imself or make the fuckin' Queen do it for 'im. I reckon if she don't get Tyrone's head, she'll want the Earl's.'

In early May Essex marched out with 300 horse and 3,000 foot. It was all he had left after reinforcing garrisons and positions in the rest of Ireland. The rather tawdry little castle at Athy had surrendered after firing a few token musket shots, and the old Earl of Ormonde had arrived at last bringing 700 foot and 200 Irish cavalry along with him, as well as the Lords Cahir and Mountgarret, both of whom had dabbled with the rebels, and now, in the most theatrical manner possible, begged forgiveness of Essex, who loved every minute of it.

Gervase Markham, one of Essex's young bloods, rode up to the head of the column, where Gresham was riding with Mannion and George at the head of seventy of his men and twenty-five of his horse.

'Sir Henry!' Markham called out. 'My Lord of Essex seeks your company!'

'Does he want me to write a victory sonnet?' asked Gresham.

Essex was sitting on a glorious grey, looking for all the world like a young god. Southampton rode by his side, instead of with the horse he was meant to be master of, looking like a sour lemon with mould on its skin.

‘I see you copy my horse,' said Essex. Gresham was riding a fine grey.

In London, Gresham would have replied that Essex copied his horse. Here, in Ireland, on campaign, he said nothing to his Commander in Chief.

'I need to draw the enemy out, give them a challenge they can't back away from,' Essex said. 'How many men do you have with you?'

'Seventy foot, my Lord, and twenty-five horse.'

'I am heading to the Pass of Cashel. You know of it?'

'I know it on a map,' said Gresham.

'It's ready made for ambush, I'm told. There are rough woods and bogs on either side of the roadway, excellent cover for the enemy yet providing a barrier on either side that we'd be ill-advised to try and cross.'

Essex reined in and looked at Gresham.

'I propose to invite the Irish to ambush us at the Pass of Cashel. I'll swing the army round with much noise and sounding of trumpets, take the road that leads only to Cashel. We'll delay subtly in our advance, so that those who're undoubtedly spying on us even now can ride or run ahead and gather a suitable force, if such a one exists.'

Gresham said nothing.

'Do you understand?' asked Essex. His horse was restless, as if sensing his rider's mood. 'I must see how great a force the enemy can muster, see how they fight, draw them into conflict.'

'And if they muster a large force, as at Yellow Ford? If they fight as well as the Irish appear to have fought there, beating over three thousand English troops?'

'That's where I need you.'

'Sir?'

'You've some of the best-trained and equipped troops in the army. I wish you to act as an advance party. Go to the pass ahead of the main army. Draw the enemy fire, allow me to gauge their strength, so that I know whether to attack with all my force or, if the enemy are too strong, retire before any proper ambush can be enacted.'

'What if the Irish read your mind,' asked Gresham, 'and hold their fire?'

'You're the experienced soldier,' said Essex. 'You must ensure they don't do so. Your force is large and threatening enough, I believe, to draw them out to reveal their full strength. Of course, if you're afraid I shall ask someone else. Or do it myself.'

It was the crowning insult, the one no gentleman could forgive. It had come out of the blue, shocking, unexpected and above all, unfair. The only saving grace was that none of Essex's other commanders were near enough to hear. Essex and Gresham had drawn away from the column and the slow-moving army moved on ponderously by their side. 'Of course I'm afraid,' said Gresham witheringly. 'Only fools feel no fear, and brave men are those who carry on despite it. But, my Lord, if you call me coward again, I'll kill you.'

He said it so simply that for a moment a listener might have let it pass by, before he realised not only that Gresham meant every word, but that Essex believed him.

'So be it,' said Essex. 'But if I call you it again, it'll be because you've failed me at Cashel, and if you've failed me there the Irish will have killed you long before you can kill me.'

Mannion was less than enthusiastic at the news Gresham brought.

"'Act as an advance party"?' exclaimed Mannion. 'Fuck me! This ain't no advance party! This is a fuckin' suicide party!'

'Is he testing you?' asked George, worried more for his friend than for himself. 'Is this him seeing whether, when the crunch comes, you'll fight for him, or whether your priority here is to stay alive and spy on him for Cecil?'

'It could be,' said Gresham, 'or it could be that he wants me dead.'

'What?' said George.

'I didn't just come here to protect Essex. I came here because I sensed, have sensed for months that terrible things are brewing, plots within plots, wheels within wheels, twistings and turnings. And that in some way I still don't understand, Essex is at the heart of it all. It's entirely possible I've misread the whole situation. Suppose Essex just wants a few easy victories to boost his image. Then he'll return to England and either blackmail Elizabeth into giving him Chief Secretary on the back of his popularity, or go for broke, lead a rebellion and either make himself King or marry one of his sycophants off to Arbella Stuart. In either case he either rules himself or rules by proxy, and he knows I'll stop him. This is a brilliant way to kill me with no blame attaching to him at all, and no suspicion.'

'I read the Bible once,' said Mannion. The interjection was so unexpected that George gaped at him. 'Bloody difficult it was, too. King David fancied this woman, didn't he, and sent out 'er husband — Uriah the Hittite, warn't it? Daft name — to the front line so 'e'd get killed and King David could 'ave the wife.'

'The difference,' said Gresham patiently, 'is that I'm not married.'

'No, but 'e don't half fancy Jane, don't 'e?' said Mannion. 'With you out of the way, she might be best off 'opping into bed wi' 'im. Better than bein' out on the streets.'

'I've left her money,' said Gresham, 'if I die. Leave the thinking to me, will you? If Essex wants me dead, it's not because he wants to bed Jane. It's because I might stop him doing what he wants to do.'

'Or it might be that we've got the best bloody company in the army to do it,' said Mannion.

'Well,' said Gresham, 'let's get them together and see if that's true.'

'We've got a little job to do,' said Gresham with the men gathered round him.

Gresham had asked to keep his men hidden in the centre of the column until their dash out. He had no desire for the Irish to guess his intentions, or see what some of his horsemen carried on their saddles, nor did he want his men picked off by Irish marksmen before the battle itself. He, Mannion, George and the three sergeants rode to the front of the column, still quite a long way from the start of the pass, but with much of its length visible.

'Round that bend, there,' said Gresham, pointing, 'that's where they'll drop the barricade. Trees, I guess, probably lashed together lengthwise so the whole thing can only move as one. Right. We know what we've got to do.'

It was uncanny, the way the same feeling always came over him before battle. It started with him seeming to go cold, yet not with a cold that would ever provoke a shiver. His sight became. sharper, his senses peaked so he could smell every nuance on the wind, hear every twig crack. Doubts, fears, uncertainties — all started to erode, until all that was left was a single-minded, ruthless vision.

There was a shouted order, and trumpets blared. The column staggered to a halt, just as it would if a commander had suddenly sensed the chance of an ambush ahead of him and needed to take time to assess the situation. The road itself was firm enough, but Essex's Irish horseboys had told him the truth. On either side of the pass was a boggy, rough terrain, bordered by thick woodland that could conceal a whole army. The woodland was in musket range, just, or the range of a man throwing the short spears or 'darts' favoured by the Irish.

Suddenly Gresham's seventy foot soldiers emerged from the middle of the column. They had taken off their heavy coats, were in their shirts, to the amusement and laughter of the rest of the army. Forty of them had muskets in their hands, the other thirty swords and bucklers, with muskets slung securely over their shoulders. They were jogging, moving surprisingly fast over the stony ground of the road, faces set in fierce determination, breath starting to come hard. The men looked lean, wiry. Gresham had trained them well.

'There!' said Gresham, at the head of the column. Shadowy figures had risen up from the very edge of the woodland, sunk down again quickly as if to a warning order. But it had been enough. Gresham looked at Mannion.

'Good fifty or so on each side. Mebbe more.'

Gresham nodded. The timing was crucial. The rebels would have their musketeers close by the trees. The heavy weapons would slow them down, make it harder for them to melt back into the trees unless they were close. The advance party would turn the corner, meet the barricade, stop in some confusion, probably detach some men to try and shift it. The Irish would choose their moment to fire on them, perhaps only a third of them, to give the impression they were a smaller force. They would hope to knock out five or six men, no more at that range. The English would falter, then form up to return fire. A few Irish would show themselves, at extreme range, invite fire. The Irish would wait until the first volley, then their sword and spear men would rise up from the ditches in which they had been hiding, closer than the musketeers, hurl their darts and rush in while the men were fumbling with the clumsy muskets, reloading.

Fire. Ground the musket. Ram a charge of powder down the muzzle, hoping there was no smouldering powder left in the barrel, in which case the new charge would ignite and blow your face off. Ram a piece of wadding down on top of the powder. Take out the ball, ram that down hard. Raise the musket. Pour the priming charge, check the firing mechanism. Fire. It took an agonising time, with wild, mud-coated and half naked savages leaping down the hillside towards you.

With any luck, it would seem to the Irish as if they were about to overwhelm the advance guard. The rest of the English column would be drawn in, ordered on. The Pass was the only way forward. To encourage the English to advance into the Pass, men would suddenly appear from the rear of the column, and on either side, opening fire or hurling their darts before vanishing into the turf. There would be some panic and confusion, no room to spread out on the treacherous ground, the army being pushed forward into the defile, still blocked by the trees lain over it and cunningly tied together. It was a technique the Irish were very fond of using.

Well, thought Gresham grimly, let's see if we can rewrite the script.

His men were about to round the corner, where he had gambled they would meet the barricade of trees. There! Two pistol shots in quick succession, followed by two more. Blanks, double-loaded with powder but with no ball in the barrel. A louder noise than a simple pistol shot. Unmistakable. It was the pre-arranged signal. The barrier was there, as predicted.

A trumpet blared, and Gresham and his twenty-five horse rode out at the gallop, scattering stones and earth as they went. It was a warm, muggy day, a thin layer of cloud or mist over the sun, no wind to move anything. The clattering of the hooves seemed to hang in the air, motionless. Ahead of them rode six Irish horseboys, local recruits whose loyalty had been shown in previous encounters. Great, unwieldy bundles were strapped to their horses' sides; bundles of faggots. Like those used to burn heretics. Gresham, George, Mannion and his three sergeants held smaller bundles tied by a single rope to their saddles. And on the other side, smouldering slow fuses.

As if on cue, a number of Irish emerged from the edge of the wood, advanced a few paces and either knelt to rest their muskets on top of a convenient mound, or drove sticks into the soft earth with a Y-fork at the top on which to rest the heavy barrel. The trumpet blast caught them unawares, the sight of the horsemen giving most of them cause for pause. By the time the Irish realised that the ground was too rough for the cavalry to attack them, Gresham's foot soldiers had jumped into the ditches, largely dry now, that ran along each side of the road. Resting their muskets on the front edge of the ditch, twenty men lined each ditch.

The Irish muskets were confused. They had expected to see the advance party milling around in the middle of the roadway, firing off at a virtually unseen enemy almost at random. Forty men dropping in disciplined style into the ditch, half hidden with not a shot yet fired, was not part of the plan, any more than thirty swordsmen dropping in behind them. There were a few, desultory shots from the edge of the woodland, no more. The English were hardly visible. Puffs of smoke hung motionless for a moment on the edge of the woods.

Gresham and his horsemen had only their speed as their protection. They rode pell-mell at the barricade. Every shock as his horse's hooves hit the ground was transmitted into Gresham's body. A wild, heady excitement took him over, the cold of combat being replaced by a fierce fire that seemed to rise from his stomach. He had seen men hit who were in this state, men who had ridden on unaware of the blood streaming from them. He was yelling now, screaming, as were his other horsemen, the dust and the noise incredible. Some of the Irish chose them as the better target. Every time a plume of smoke showed the whereabouts of an Irish marksman, at least two of the English muskets would crack out, aiming at the source of the shot. One of the horses faltered, but picked up and rode on. It had been nicked, no more. At that range a serious hit, particularly when the ball was losing momentum, would be more luck than judgement. Gresham felt his own horse stagger, tensed himself for the fall, but it top picked up and drove on, every sinew and muscle straining. There were one, two shots from the English side.

The horseboys stuck their slow fuses into the heart of the pile of faggots roped to each horse, and with a wild cry stood up in their stirrups, cut through the rope with a wild slash of the knife and hurled the faggots over the heads of the men in the ditch into the woods. For a few seconds, the piles hung in the air, and then with a whoosh of flame they ignited. Oil-soaked in the middle, the outer layers were damp and thick smoke started to pour from them. One horseboy suddenly crumpled like a shot bird, caught by a lucky musket ball. His horse panicked, reared up, dragging the dead body of its rider along the ground, the man's head bouncing obscenely up and down on the stones, a mass of blood and torn skin. The horse crashed into the barrier of trees, swung round and galloped back up the pass, leaving its rider draped across the dead branches like an offering at a sylvan altar. A thick pall of smoke hung now over the barricade, robbing Irish and English alike of their targets. There was just enough visibility to see the English horsemen arrive at the barricade, two or three tree trunks lashed together and laid right across the road. It was too high to leap, the great branches sticking up like the masts of a ship; the greenery of the leaves telling how recently the trees had been felled.

Gresham and five others reached the barricade, took their packages and jammed them hard under one of the tree trunks. As they did so, the other horsemen flung the heavy canvas coverings off the grappling hooks they had been carrying, threw them over the bulk of the same tree, yanked them tight and then rode back paying out long lengths of rope as they did so. The twelve charges of powder Gresham and the others had laid under the great trunk went off almost together; the fuses had been kept deliberately short. The force of the explosion lifted the great lump of wood several feet into the air. When the smoke and dust settled, it had been split in two. The horses had reared and bucked savagely at the explosions, but the hours spent training them to cope with noise paid off and none bolted. Their riders took the strain on the ropes, and dug in their spurs. With a great, grinding roar the two pieces of the once-great tree separated even further, leaving a clear gap in the road. There was a two-foot crater where the powder had bitten most hard.

Forty or fifty Irish on either side of the road, confused by the roar of twelve almost simultaneous explosions, rose from the rough ground in front of the woodland where they had lain hidden armed with swords or short spears, one or two with bows. The wisdom of where the English had gone to ground now became clear. Far enough away from the explosions to be unharmed by them, they had also for the most part held their fire. A rattling volley crashed out from the men on either side. Five, six of the Irish were flung back by the impact of a musket ball on their bodies, human flesh punched into rag doll. Seemingly uncertain, the Irish began to edge forward to muster a charge when, in what seemed an incredibly short space of time, a second, ragged volley came from the English, equally accurate.

A trumpet blared from back up the road, and the English column started to advance on the now cleared road. The remaining Irish hesitated for a moment, then with more and more flitting round the edge of the woodland they began to fall back. It was clear that, though they knew the terrain, they were finding the boggy ground on either side of the road difficult. More and more left it to join the hard surface of the road fifty or so yards beyond the broken barricade. The advancing English army were round the corner now. The cheer that went up at the sight of the opened pass was replaced by a more bloody roar, as the men saw the Irish scuttling back along the road in retreat. Uncontrollably, a mass of horses leapt forward from the column, swept down the road in pursuit of the Irish. Many of them were the young bloods Essex had recruited, wearing outrageously plumed hats that were no match for a full gallop, and which caught the wind like sails. Gresham and his troops had reined in, were standing by the side of the road. They let the horsemen thunder by in their vain pursuit — the Irish would melt back into the surrounding terrain and leave the road the minute they realised they were being pursued, and the ground was too treacherous for the horses to follow. As the dust of their passage settled, and before the main body of foot drew up, Gresham looked down and saw three or four fine hats lying in the dust, their high plumes sadly bent and broken.

'The Pass of Plumes,' he muttered and felt the stinging pain behind his eyes that always came after action. Essex rode up to him, hard. Clearly he had wanted to ride off with his young men, chase and cut the Irish down. A lone musket shot from down the road and the agonised whinny of a horse showed the folly of what the young men had done. They would turn about soon enough, when the initial excitement wore off and they realised they could be picked off one by one by hidden marksmen.

'A victory!' said Essex. 'Revenge for the Yellow Ford!'

Two and a half thousand men had died on the English side at the massacre of Yellow Ford. Here there were fifteen, perhaps sixteen Irish corpses. The body of Essex's horseboy lay draped over what was left of the barricade. One of Gresham's men had caught a musket ball in the mouth but had had the decency to fall unconscious and would be dead within the half hour, his face smashed to a pulp. A victory.

'Is it a victory from which we can claim to have learnt a great deal, my Lord?' asked Gresham, trying to keep the irony out of his voice. The pain was tightening now, sending hot needles into his eyes and down the whole side of his face. He yearned for darkness and a cold compress on his head.

'We've learnt that the Irish will run if they meet a foe of sufficient determination. Your men did well.' Essex looked carefully at Gresham, perhaps disappointed by his flat response. 'I'm grateful. Truly grateful. More perhaps than you might realise. I'll go and tell your men what I've just told you.' With that, he hauled his horse round, and galloped off to where Gresham's men were climbing out of the ditches. Essex sat beautifully on a horse. The men gathered round him, and after a few words Gresham heard cheers and huz-zahs thinly on the air. The fools. Yet it was no more than he would have done, and his time to say well done to his men would come.

Mannion tapped him on the shoulder. Gresham turned and looked round. He was wearing a padded coat for riding, deliberately loose fitting, its tail flapping behind him on the saddle. A neat hole had cut through the cloth where the coat had ridden out behind him at full gallop. An inch further forward and it would have smashed into the small of Gresham's back, pulverising his spine. Mannion had not finished. He leant forward, started to yank the strap off the saddlebag on Gresham's horse. It sat just behind his kneecap. A ragged hole had been torn in the leather. Mannion withdrew something from the bag. A flattened lead ball lay snugly cut into the cover of a book, where it had come to rest. The Revenger's Tragedy. With both shots the marksmen had allowed just a little too much for Gresham's speed, placed the ball a few inches behind where it should have gone.

'I think what we might 'ave learnt,' said Mannion, tossing the book to Gresham, 'is that the Irish have some fuckin' good shots. It ain't bad to hit a horseman at full gallop from that range, not bad by 'alf. Can't 'ave bin more than a dozen shots fired at us. That's bloody good shootin'. And they knew enough to pick out the officer, too.'

Something in Mannion's tone cut through Gresham's tiredness. 'You telling me this isn't an Irish ball?'

'I'm telling you. And I saw who it was fired it at you. Two of 'em, I reckon. One fired at the Irish, took everyone's attention. Other bugger swung round at you. Bloody good shot, too.'

As the excitement drained from Gresham the double reaction — to action and to a separate attempt on his own life — set in. He pulled gently on the reins, and his horse, which had been vaguely poking at some grass, ambled off under his lethargic control to where his men stood, Essex just having ridden off to lead the main column through the broken barricade. They cheered as Gresham reached them, grinned at him, and he leant forward out of the saddle, slapping hands and occasionally grasping and shaking one. They had reloaded their muskets, he noted, before mounting their celebration, so if more Irish had risen up from the woods behind them they would have at least received one full volley before their charge. That was good. That was training.

He noticed a bare leg sticking up over the side of a mound, some ten or twenty yards beyond the ditch. Leaping lightly from his horse, he handed the reins to a soldier, and picked his way to where the Irish body lay. The ground was littered with huge tussocks, soft marsh between each one; he felt the earth sucking at his boots.

"Ere,' said Mannion, catching him up. 'You sure about this? It only needs one man in those woods…'

Gresham said nothing. He needed to see the enemy. He reached the figure, pathetic now in death. He was a young man, perhaps not even sixteen. He wore a ragged shirt and some sort of pantaloons that looked as if they could have been made of canvas, with something that looked like a woollen plaid over one shoulder. Knitted and spun by a mother? By a lover? Even by a wife? The musket ball had caught him full over the heart, smashed into his chest. Death must have been instant. He had long, straight legs, at his age more like a woman's than a man's. They were muddy, scarred with scratches from brambles or thorns. He had no shoes, but the sole of the foot that was sticking up had hard, brown skin on it that Gresham suspected was tougher than any leather. The boy's face had a strange innocence, and though his lips were drawn back in a grimace of pain — or was it hate? — one could see how good-looking he had once been. The body was filthy, the boy's hair sticking out in spikes and also covered in mud — a smear of mud across his face. Foul living? Or disguise? A disguise that broke up the whiteness and the symmetry of his face, a disguise that covered him not just with the earth but the smells of the earth, so that the human smell a horse or dog might sense was battened over and covered?

Something glittered. Gresham knelt down, and saw that round the boy's neck, mostly covered by the plaid that had been thrown up round it by his fall, was a silver decoration. He moved the material gently to one side. It was thin, fragile, a thing of rare beauty, with tiny, intricate interwoven designs. Was he a chieftain's son, this young man? Sent out on his first foray to test his manhood. He had no musket by his side, merely a quiver of the darts the Irish favoured and a sword, workmanlike but with no decoration to it. Youth. He had moved forward too close to the enemy, and paid the price for his courage. Perhaps he had wanted to show the other men that he was not afraid, not knowing that all men knew fear.

'Don't move! Stay down!' Mannion hissed at him urgently. Gresham looked up.

A man was standing at the very edge of the woods. Tall, middle-aged, he had the wild beard and hair of the Irish, the same mud-stained appearance. He held a musket, pointing it straight at Gresham. It rested on nothing, no stick or mound, and the barrel was rock steady. Whoever this man was he had muscles of steel.

A wave of tiredness came over Gresham. It was his own folly that had taken him off the road within musket range of this wild man; his own folly that had made him stay by the body. He looked up at the man. Who cared? Would the world cease because this boy had been torn uselessly out of life? Would the world change when the musket ball tore into his own heart? Would death be like the longest sleep possible, pure oblivion and an end to terror and trial? But then there were the dreams. Who could know what the dreams might be?

Very carefully, aware all the time of the musket pointed at him, Gresham straightened the boy's legs before they froze in death at their grotesque angle. It was always a kindness; it saved someone the unpleasant task of breaking the corpse's legs to straighten them out. He laid the plaid carefully over the broad shoulders and exposed the silver ornament to the thin sunlight only now starting to creep out from behind the clouds. He cleared the clotted hair from the boy's face, folded his arms across his chest, closed his staring eyes. And stood up.

He looked across the void into the eyes of the man pointing the gun at him. For once, he did not feel fear. It was always going to happen like this, wasn't it? On some God-forsaken field in the Low Countries, in a back alley in London or in a palace in France. It could have happened so many times before, when the galleys had chased him at Cadiz, when Drake had shot at him, when the Armada had so nearly ground itself, at Tantallon Castle, in the Tower of London. So many times, so many escapes, each one chipping a tiny part off his soul, each one shrieking the question why. Why bother? Why go through this dance to the nonsense of time? To what end? To what purpose? So it happened by a pass that no one had heard of, after the most feeble of little victories. So be it.

He smiled a thin smile at the man, and turned to face him full on, dropping his hands to his side.

'Jesus!' he heard Mannion mutter beside him.

There was a rustle from behind him. His men had seen what was happening, were scrambling to join him. Though he could not see them, he could imagine numbers of them gauging the distance, deciding whether a shot at extreme range might be worth it. Slowly he held out his hand, never taking his gaze from the man with the musket, palm up, in the unmistakable gesture that says no. Do nothing.

The man waited an eternity, the barrel rock steady. Then, quite clearly, Gresham saw him nod. He let the musket drop, butt first, turned on his heels. And vanished into the woods.

'Fuckin' 'ell!' said Mannion. 'He came out o' nowhere, just as you started to finger that necklace thing. 'Ad 'is musket up before I could move.'

'He thought I was going to steal the necklace,' said Gresham. 'Thought I was a grave robber, a battlefield scavenger.'

'Why didn't he fuckin' shoot you anyway?'

'He was sending me a message.' Two of his men had reached him now, puffing and perspiring; four or five others were just behind him.

'If you're going to climb through these tussocks and this bog with your musket at full cock we'll lose more men from friendly fire than we ever do from Irish,' said Gresham with total calm.

The first man looked open-mouthed at Gresham, then almost comically down at his musket. With a shame-faced grin, he hooked his thumb over the hammer, let it click forward so that it was on safe. The story would go down in the books of course, though that was not why Gresham had said what he said.

There was Gresham, doin' the funeral rights over some Irish bastard, and up pops this savage, few feet away he was, and points 'is musket at him. Old Gresham e' don't even flicker. He carries on laying out the Irish bastard's limbs, like 'e were 'is mother, and then stands up. Stands up, I tell you! Not only stands, but turns and faces the bastard. Then 'e 'olds his 'and up, clear as daylight, tellin' us who're rushin' in to 'elp not to fire. An' they stand an' look at each other for Gawd knows 'ow long. And they nod at each other. I'm not kidding you — 'ere, pass the jug — they nods at each other. And the Irish bastard, 'e shoulders arms and fuckin' vanishes into nowhere, like these Irish bastards do, and Gresham, he turns round cool as a cucumber and tells me orf for 'avin' me musket at full cock! Would you believe it?

They would believe it, and embellish it, and men would look at him and think of it every time they saw him.

'It really doesn't matter, you know,' said Gresham to Mannion, when they were back on the road and out of earshot. 'None of it matters at all.' Yet by recognising it, he suddenly felt more free than he had for years. The pain in his head was lifting, and he had enough strength left to grin to himself. Something had changed within him when the wild man with the musket had nodded briefly at him.

A number of Essex's officers, mostly the younger ones and some of those who by now had returned from their vain chase, came up to clap him on the shoulder and shake his hand. Cameron Johnstone, increasingly seen alongside Essex's cronies, was hanging round at the back of the crowd. He was wearing what he called his campaigning garb, a coat even longer than Gresham's and fiercely clean white linen. When asked, he said simply that one had to keep up civilised standards.

'Thank you,' said Gresham.

'What for?' said Cameron. 'I very clearly didn't involve myself in your heroic charge. Unlike yourself, if I'm going to die, I'd like it to be on a matter of some significance.'

'You think this campaign is of no significance?' asked Gresham.

'I think its outcome will be of no significance. As a campaign, that is. Your leader has taken us off on a wild-goose chase, your recent so-called victory was in fact nothing more than a minor skirmish in which the Irish proved that they have refined running away to a proper military virtue. And I'm afraid the effect of this rather petty little victory on Essex won't be good. It's the idea of fighting that he's in love with. He's out of touch with the reality.'

'I still owe you thanks,' said Gresham, 'for the explosives.'

'Why?' said Cameron. 'You knew before I told you that gunpowder is far more effective if the force of the explosion is channelled. After all, that's only what a gun or cannon barrel does.'

'Yes,' said Gresham. 'But I hadn't thought of how to channel it. You gave me the idea of using a helmet, so all the force went upwards into the trunk.'

'Using a troop of horsemen to pull aside the trunk would probably have done it,' said Cameron generously. 'For some reason no one seems to have thought of that in Ireland before.'

Cameron touched his hand to his hat, and rode off. Gresham realised how much the gallop had bruised him, and gingerly started to rub his arms and legs. He took the copy of the play and, using his thumb, eased the musket ball out of the cover, stuffing the damaged book back into his saddlebag. His horse whinnied, jerked its head up and down three times, impatient to be off.

'Hold there, hold,' said Gresham, reaching out to stroke its head.

The rain. It had started to rain, a damp, all-pervasive drizzle that threatened to become a warm downpour. Soon the road would be turned to mud, the men and the carts slipping and sliding, the tents and the woollen clothing damp, nowhere for a man to get dry. Then the illness would come, the coughing, the stomach cramps, the retching sickness, the boils and the carbuncles that seemed to produce two more for each one that agonisingly burst.

'We're far from home,' said Gresham almost to himself, 'in a wild country that doesn't want us. It could be weeks before we're dry again, and soon the men'll start to fall sick, and die. What's the point?'

'The point,' said Mannion, 'is that you decided to bring us on this bleedin' expedition, and as we are on it we might as well make the best of it. So stop moaning and let's get back with the rest of this rabble before the Irish come back and pick us off.'

The walls of Dublin were just visible through the drizzle and low-lying mist.

'Thank Christ 'fer that!' said Mannion with real passion. 'Well, that were fun, weren't it?'

There was no answer from George or Cameron. The latter had attached himself to Gresham an hour ago. They rode with their chins dug into their chests, hats pulled down over their eyes, the rain defeating their eyelashes and driving into their eyes.

'The fun's about to start,' said Gresham.

'What fun?' asked George, suddenly alerted.

'Do you think the Queen's going to be delighted that after over two months campaigning we've got nothing to show for it — no major rebel army defeated and no major rebel stronghold taken? Nearly half our horses are sick or dead, the men are depressed and we've lost over four thousand of them. If Essex has any sense he won't be opening his letters in a hurry.'

But sense never was the commodity in greatest supply for Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. The Queen's letters were vicious. He showed them to his followers, increasingly favouring the younger ones, the hotheads. At times Essex seemed to despise the Queen. At other times he showed a total dependency on her goodwill.

'We are misunderstood and grievously wronged!' the young man shouted. The Dublin tavern was full, the low ceiling smoky from the guttering candles and lamps. There was a roar of approval from round the table. The others — fifteen or twenty or so — were well on their way to becoming seriously drunk. Spoiling for a fight, in fact, except that the enemy lay outside the walls of Dublin, unreachable, vanishing as quickly into the mists of Ireland as the mist itself could vanish at the first brush of sunlight.

The young man himself — thin, wispy-bearded with delicate hands and almost ludicrously long fingers — was the third son of a none too rich country squire from Shropshire. He had sold his annuity to buy his equipment for the campaign, hoping in some ill-thought-out way to gain fame and fortune in Ireland. Now his fine leather belt had rotted through in the damp, his horse had died shivering and he was relegated to little more than the status of foot soldier, too impoverished to buy another horse. He seemed to have found enough money for drink, judging by the state of him.

'We risk our lives for England,' he was saying, 'and those at home mock us for our efforts!' That went down well. There was another roar of agreement and approval. 'How can they understand this God-forsaken country, how even the bravest of men cannot fight with honour here?'

That got the biggest roar of the lot. The bogs, the perpetual rain, an enemy who would never come out to meet you but always melted away, an enemy who would simply burn a castle to the ground rather than stand and fight for it, an enemy who could not be drawn out to fight for any reason…

"We're criticised and condemned by those who stay at home and grow fat! And the Queen's advisers tell lies about us!'

Mannion watched silently from his corner, his tankard for once forgotten.

'They was stokin' themselves up right good and proper,' he reported. 'It's not good. 'E warn't alone, that young fool. There's 'undreds of 'em out there.'

'Well, Essex's answer won't help him with the Queen, or his own people,' said Gresham morosely. 'Decimation, it's called. It's a Roman idea.'

Sir Henry Harrington had been heavily defeated while out on a supposed punitive raid. Essex had court-martialled him, confined him to prison and executed his lieutenant for the crime of wrapping the English colours round his body and fighting until he dropped from exhaustion. Essex had also executed one man in ten of Harrington's force.

'So that's what you gets from a bloody education!' said Mannion morosely. 'Better off without it, in my opinion. We're losing enough men as it is from illness, without needing to help the Irish along and kill 'em ourselves.'

What need was there of a plot by Cecil, thought Gresham? Essex was his own plot against himself. The only time he had appeared to show any real energy or drive recently had been in pursuing revenge on Harrington's miserable troops.

Since his success at the Pass of Cashel, Gresham had been dropped from Essex's Council. Was it from envy of Gresham's heroic action? More likely it was the perilous loneliness of his relationship with Essex, all his other advisers seeming to see Gresham as the anti-Christ. There had been one attempt on Gresham's life already. If he was right, one was prepared for Essex. But when? And was another attempt on Gresham's life overdue? The animosity shown towards him by Essex's inner circle was palpable, almost a physical presence.

He and Mannion had found a decent room in the castle, high enough to be above the stench of the place on all but the hottest days, days which came rarely in Ireland. They were sharing a flagon early one evening, with Gresham worrying that he was falling into George's trap. Letters had come from home and plunged George into melancholia. He had refused all offers of consolation, refused even to divulge their contents, and had retreated off on his own. Again. If George had meant to come on this campaign as a friend something had clearly changed his mind. Now he spent most of the time on his own, consumed by his own devils. Nothing Gresham could say or do seemed to snap him out of it. It was unlike George, and Gresham felt intense worry for the man whose unfailing good cheer had been one of the mainstays of his life.

Even though it was not yet dark and only August, they had lit a fire, paying a King's ransom for coal rather than the smoky, heat-free lumps of peat that the Irish favoured. At least the peat smoke did not sting the eyes, which was more than could be said for the rough coal they had acquired.

'I think I made a mistake coming over here’ Gresham said finally. It was dark enough now for the flames of the fire to dance lightly on the walls and reflect in his eyes: in their centre, not like the crimson ring he had seen twice in Essex's eyes.

'Pity you didn't realise that months ago,' said Mannion.

'I came to protect Essex. Or maybe just to stand in Cecil's way. And to draw out my enemies. But I'm not helping Essex, and no clearer about who wants me dead.'

The two men identified by Mannion as Gresham's would-be assassins had deserted that same evening.

Gresham was impatient to get home. At the back of his mind was the fear that Cecil had engineered his presence on this trip to get him out of the country, so the next assassination plot against the Queen could succeed. Was Gresham overestimating his own power? Yet he knew he was the only force Cecil really feared, and the only agency in the Court that might, conceivably, pick up wind of such a plot before it happened.

England was like a vast pot, simmering with its rivalries and its tensions hidden under a calm surface. Now the occasional bubble was breaking that surface, the fire stoked up. Any moment now that pot would boil over.

Robert Cecil was in audience with the Queen. At his request, in an almost unheard-of concession, he had asked for Sir Walter Raleigh to be present, as well as Lord Mountjoy, Thomas Howard and the Earl of Nottingham. It was a rare combination. It was a Council of War, that much was clear, Elizabeth thought as her eyes flicked round the chamber. She was dressed outrageously again, the off-white material so hung with pearls and jewels as to distort its shape, its length too short, its sleeves somehow too cramped.

'The information is valid, Your Majesty,' Cecil was saying. 'Indeed, the Spanish force may already have set off. We must mobilise our troops and our ships now.'

It was always dangerous to tell the Queen what she must and must not do. Equally, if he had not done so, it would have belied the apparent urgency of the situation.

‘Is this force heading for England or for Ireland?' asked the Queen testily, as if its sending had been on the orders of Cecil and not the new Spanish King.

It was Nottingham who answered. He and Cecil had rehearsed this carefully.

'We cannot know,' said the Earl.*We believe in all likelihood the Spanish force is for England. We have sent many, many troops over to Ireland, and our most acclaimed general. It is possible that the Spanish are convinced that with our eyes set to the west we are vulnerable, as well as stripped of men.'

'And I have been persuaded to send two thousand more into this bog!' The Queen looked accusingly at her advisers, who dropped their eyes. In response to her angry and accusing letters, Essex had replied with a mixture of self-pity, self-justification and high drama. He had also included a few facts, such as that he had fewer than six thousand fit men left to him for the attack on Tyrone in the north that the Queen was pressing on him so urgently. The two thousand reinforcements she had finally agreed to send had had to be virtually dragged out of her with red-hot tongs. 'I am paying my Lord of Essex a thousand pound a day to go on progress!'

Queens went on progress. Elizabeth did not need to add 'royal' to the word 'progress' for her meaning to be clear. It was the opportunity Cecil had waited for.

'Your Majesty, I am sure the Earl of Essex will use the men you have sent wisely, and will launch the offensive we are all anticipating. Yet…'

'Yet what?' snapped the Queen. 'Out with it, man.'

'Yet in your next-message to him, it might be wise to insert an instruction that he should not return to England before Tyrone is subdued.'

Cecil did not add 'not return to England with the army with which you have equipped him', but all present heard the words even if they were not spoken. News of the dissent and anger in

Essex's force had reached home from the thousand and one spies in its midst. Like two contrary tides meeting in the middle of a great open channel, the anger and disillusion in Ireland met the anger and disillusion of those in England.

'So be it,' said the Queen, her eyes fixed unmoving on Cecil. He did not lower his gaze.

Excellent, he thought. Let the Earl of Essex mull over that message. Let him add it to the news that Cecil had been awarded the Mastership of Wards, the highly profitable post that his father Lord Burghley had held and which had built half Burghley house, the post which Essex coveted above all others. Let him realise who was master now in England.

'You're in favour again,' said Mannion. 'Summoned to a Council of War. 'Cept it's been goin' on for two hours already, so you probably missed the best bits. Messenger grabbed me outside. Get a move on.'

Gresham hurried off to the Council Room. Why this sudden summons?

Essex had been ill for weeks since his return from the fruitless but mercifully brief expedition to the west. It was an old and familiar pattern in the face of adversity: long, sudden bouts of supposed illness typified by deep melancholy and soul-searching, the need to be alone, the self-pitying wallowing that so annoyed Elizabeth. Perhaps as a child and a much-needed heir, illness had been a bartering tool, a way of reminding people of his true importance. Perhaps it had simply been a way of getting attention. All it achieved now was impatience on the part of those who followed him, and derision from those who did not. Yet in a strange way it seemed to add to his lustre with the common people, those who did not know him. A string of well-wishers, many of them of humble origins, had flocked to his door, some with pathetic gifts of fruit and food. Gresham had gained permission from the Master-at-Arms to have one of his own men guard all such gifts, and had even found a team of peasant labourers to act as tasters. How easy it would have been for Tyrone to slip poison into such gifts.

Essex was thinner than when Gresham had last seen him, slightly bent in his gait, and for the first time Gresham saw the hint of wrinkles beneath a man's eyes that predict the coming of age. How would Essex fare without his beauty if it ever left him? wondered Gresham. Very badly, he suspected. The knowledge of his physical attractiveness was a central building block, almost a cornerstone, of the man's whole personality.

It took only three or four seconds after he entered the room for every alarm bell in Gresham's head to start ringing. The expression in Essex's eyes, flashed a warning to him. Whatever had just been going on in this room, Essex had been opposed to it. His face had the mule-like expression Gresham had come to realise Essex wore when he was thwarted in his wishes or denied.

This was not a Council of War. It was a trial. And Gresham was the accused. It was there in the glares of those in the room, virtually all Essex's top commanders and allies, and in the smirk of Southampton, the gleam in the eyes of Gelli Meyrick. It was there in the fact that the conclave was being held in the main hall of the castle, a room big enough to dwarf the twenty or thirty people in it. Why hold the meeting here unless it was intended to summon many more to receive one of Essex's grandiose pronouncements? The outcome of a trial, perhaps?

'Sir Henry!' Essex jumped straight in. 'We receive news from London almost daily that our efforts here are derided and dismissed, that we are held in scorn, that our honour and our reputation are besmirched.'

Of course they were. Essex's young entourage in particular would be receiving letters from their friends back at Court all the time, would hear of the Queen's displeasure, of the promotion of Cecil. Gresham stayed silent.

'Many here among my Council believe you are a spy for the Queen, or for Robert Cecil or for Sir Walter Raleigh. Many here believe that it is your words that poison the Queen against me in my absence. They wish to call you to account. Is it your letters that tell the Court I and this army, its officers and its men are incompetent and cowardly?'

So that was it! Essex had managed to make it clear that the simmering frustration in the camp had finally boiled over. Essex's officers wanted a human sacrifice. What better than a man rumoured to be a spy, someone who seemed to have taken over, in small part at least, some of the favour of Essex?

'Because if it is so,' said Sir Christopher Blount, Essex's stepfather, 'then you are the traitor, not my Lord of Essex, and it is you who should suffer a traitor's death.' Blount could well have had the 'o' missed out of his surname when he was born. If Blount was gunning for Gresham, he really was in trouble. Scapegoat. That was what he was being set up as: a scapegoat for the disapproval the expedition was getting in London. Not just a scapegoat: a sacrificial lamb. The credit that would accrue to Essex if he executed one of Cecil's spies could be vast, particularly among his own army and its collection of hotheaded young officers. Yet Essex looked as if he was doing his best for Gresham. Given Essex's capacity to go for lost causes, perhaps he should worry about that more than anything else.

They had executed a brave Irish officer who had wrapped the English colours around his body and fled the battlefield only when all seemed lost, inviting any Irish who caught him to rip his guts out before killing him, so he could watch his own blood stain those same colours. Gresham's money was no use to him here in Ireland. Essex had the powers of a King. Essex's wild young men wanted a sacrifice. The more he thought about it in the split second he was allowed thought, the more Gresham realised what a perfect sacrifice he would make. It would assuage the army's need for blood, and it would also send a clear message back to England that Cecil's men were as vulnerable as any other. It was known that Gresham had some form of special relationship with the Queen, dating from the days of the Armada when she had knighted him, and never properly explained why. His death would show that Essex was powerful enough to execute even one of the Queen's creatures. And no one loved a spy.

I'm dead, thought Gresham, unless I can think of something very fast indeed.

He placed his hand on his sword hilt and drew its glittering length in one, easy movement. Thirty men recoiled, thirty hands went to their own swords, and with a strange rasping noise like a crocodile taking its last breath, thirty swords came out of their scabbards.

'I had this sword by my side,' said Gresham conversationally, 'when you, my Lord Essex, asked my men and myself to go on a suicide mission into the Pass of Cashel. I did not need to use it, but I did ride at the vanguard of my men, and I showed what man I am by my actions in that skirmish. I picked this musket ball out of my saddlebag, after the action. The one that caused this dam in my coat I could not keep, as it passed an inch behind my spine.'

Thank God he was wearing that same coat. He reached into a pocket with his other hand, found the musket ball he had kept with him since that day and tossed it onto the rush-strewn floor in front of Essex. It bounced once, and lay still.

He had their attention now. But how often and how quickly had he seen the audience turn against the actor holding the centre of the stage?

'At the Pass of Plumes' — some of the audience could not resist the slightest of titters — 'I hope I showed my loyalty, as I hope I have shown it at other times in this campaign.'

He did not need to mention the capture of Cahir Castle, after Cashel the only significant victory in the whole campaign. Most of those here knew that it was his plan of action that had led to its capture, and that Gresham had led the charge across the island where the castle lay.

'As for letters, I issue a simple challenge. I have not put pen to paper since my arrival in Ireland, nor instructed others to do so on my behalf. Not a single word of mine has gone back to England, to Robert Cecil or to Her Majesty. You may put that assertion to any test you wish. Ask them, or ask any man who can write in this our army, and if you find any proof that I have written to England these past months, I will deliver you my head on a platter, and save you the trouble of removing it from my body.'

He felt strangely calm now. All he had to lose was his life. As it so often did, that calmness was working on these men who moments earlier had been baying for his blood.

'And I issue a second challenge. Let any man who has proof against me, either of my cowardice or my disloyalty, let him come forward now, and face me as a man. Let God and trial by combat decide the issue.'

And with that, he plucked off his glove and dropped it neatly over the musket ball. It was his only hope. Essex was in love with chivalry, loved the idea of personal combat, of man-to-man challenge. It spoke to his belief in a chivalric code that had only ever existed in the minds of those who wrote romances.

Well, that had been very theatrical. Never mind that Gresham was far from sure he believed in God, and was certain that trial by combat always resulted in the victory of the bigger brute over the smaller one. Or perhaps God simply favoured the bigger brute? Part of Gresham's brain realised that this was actually a very interesting moment.

One of Essex's lickspittle supporters might be just stupid enough to pick up Gresham's glove, in the hope of gaining Essex's favour. Well, it was done now. He looked round the chamber, with a rather vague and philosophical interest. He really, really did not feel like killing anyone today.

No one moved.

Gresham leant forward and offered his sword, hilt-first to Essex in the ancient gesture and, with a reluctance he hoped he was not showing, dropped down on one knee before him.

'My Lord, the decision is yours.'

Well of course it was bloody well his. This idiot who happened to have been born in the right bed at the right time to the right woman had the power of life or death over countless humans, not least of all one Sir Henry Gresham. The fact that it was cruelly unfair had nothing to do with it, and never had. Was God like the Earl of Essex? Very beautiful, and quite terrifyingly random? It might explain a lot.

It was not until many years later that Henry Gresham realised one reason why, against all the odds, he had liked the Earl of Essex so much: it was his capacity to do the unpredictable. It was a talent that Gresham had used to save his life on a number of occasions, but which at times seemed very lacking in other members of his species.

Essex stood up from the mini-throne on which he had been seated, and drew his own sword. He advanced the short distance to Gresham, his sword extended before him.

Oh well, thought Gresham, win some, lose… He had always imagined he would not be able to complete the last word when the moment finally came. Or did the brain continue to work for a brief while after death?

'In England,' said Essex, clearly speaking now for all to know, but with his sword still held dangerously close to Gresham's neck, 'there is a Court based on rumour, falsehood and envy. In that Court, brave men can have their reputations and their honour tarnished by false report.'

Gresham could still hear him, so presumably he was still alive. There was a ripple of approval from the members of Essex's Court.

'Here in Ireland, deserted and misunderstood by our countrymen, we have no Court as such. Yet in this, our temporary Court of Ireland, we recognise courage and bravery more than intrigue and politics!'

He had struck a chord there, no doubt.

'Test your word? Prove your word? Henry Gresham,' Essex paused for effect, 'you proved your courage at Cashel and at Cahir.'

Then the stupid man flung his own sword on top of Gresham's. Gresham could not but help notice that both blades now pointed towards the Earl of Essex. He hoped no seers were watching.

'I will throw in my sword with that of a brave man, and believe the word of a fighting man before that of a flatterer, a sycophant or a courtier.'

Oh God! thought Gresham. Now I have to rise to my feet, clasp him in my arms and hail him as a brother. As I would willingly clasp a nettle, or a snake. And the others will roar, clap their hands, respond to this wonderful piece of theatre, without realising that I, Henry Gresham, rewrote the script while on the hoof, and changed its ending, so that I lived instead of hanging from a scaffold. And the only other person who knew what a farce, what a vast joke it all was, Gresham was holding in his arms now!

The onlookers were roaring, clapping their hands. It was better than a play. Southampton, Blount and Meyrick were looking like spoilt children denied a treat.

As Essex clasped him like a long lost brother, he whispered two words into Gresham's ear. Finally he released Gresham and went back to his chair that looked suspiciously like a throne.

'Sound the trumpet!' Essex announced grandly. It was the signal for a full meeting of the garrison, and Essex had used it once or twice before. The blasts on the trumpet were squeaky and out of tune — the trumpeter was clearly not expecting to be called and had to wipe beer and cheese off his mouth before he put his instrument to it — but effective enough. In ten minutes the hall was crammed with every officer in the garrison, and many of the men. The remainder gathered outside to wait for whatever news was to be passed out to them. Where were George and Mannion, Gresham wondered, with a slight twinge of worry? Cameron was one of the first to arrive, looking both studious and eager.

Essex stood up, and struck a pose, one leg out in front of the other, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other on his hip.

'I have reached a decision,' he said as loudly as he could without shouting. The acoustics in the hall were good, something a born actor such as the Earl knew full well; they gave his voice a slight echo and resonance, deepening it. If Essex heard the sotto voce mutter of, 'About fuckin' time!' from a man at the back of the hall, he did not show it. 'We march on the foul traitor Tyrone, march to bring the infamous rebel to his knees!'

There was a faint cheer at this, enough of a flame for Essex to fan. Gresham had heard so many of this type of speech that he more or less ceased listening, having learnt over the years when to cheer, stamp his feet or clap his hands. Essex's decision meant, presumably, that in a relatively short space of time men would be hacking each other to pieces. It was going to happen, and nothing could stop it. Why bother if a few words from the man who ordered it made the men feel a little better, even if only for little while?

He left the meeting feeling strangely light-headed. Perhaps only he fully realised what a lucky escape he had had.

'The strangest thing just happened to me on the way to the gallows — Oh, and Essex is off after Tyrone at last, now he's lost two thirds of the army and-'

Then he saw who was sitting at the back of his room, flanked by George and Mannion — Jane.

'What the hell are you doing here?' he exploded, disbelieving, shocked almost out of his mind. 'I gave you express orders to stay behind!'

'My Lord, I-' she began.

'How dare you defy me! Is this my reward for having taken you in to find my wishes flouted in this shameless manner? I explained to you the appalling difficulties if you joined me on this campaign. I actually took the time and trouble to explain to you, tried to treat you as an adult-'

'My Lord-' Jane was desperately trying to speak.

'I want none of your words!' ranted Gresham. 'You will turn straight round and-'

'You better listen to 'er,' said Mannion flatly. 'You really 'ad.'

Gresham looked at him.

'What?'

'You better listen to 'er,' said Mannion.

Angry beyond belief, Gresham heard something in Mannion's tone. Gritting his teeth, he glared at Jane. 'For his sake, and for his sake only, I'll let you speak. But make it short. Very short. And then turn round and head straight for England.'

Jane was thinner than when he had last seen her, with bags under her eyes, eyes which had dark rings round them. She wore a mud spattered riding dress — was clarted in the stuff. There was also a wild look in her eyes, a look he had not seen before, a look of total desperation. She seemed suddenly very vulnerable. He moderated his tone. Was he going soft in his dotage? 'Sit down. Now, tell me your story.'

Was there a flicker of gratitude in her wild eyes?

'It's so… stupid,' she said.

Why had he not noticed that her voice was a slight register lower than most women's?

'I was in the stables. I go there sometimes. I like the horses, and they know me now, at least the ones you left behind do.' She sensed herself rambling, visibly took a grip on herself, and carried on. 'There was a commotion outside in the yard. Your breeder had sent you three new horses, they were just being taken in. One of them was rearing up, he must have been spooked by something, I don't know, and there was a man almost pinned up against the wall, a man I'd not seen before. He looked terrified. Two grooms calmed the horse down, and the man, instead of walking, sort of ran. The horse had his back towards him by then, must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, lashed out with his back legs. One hoof caught the man on the side of the head…' She was living the horrific sight in her head now, almost talking to herself. 'His head was like — like an eggshell. It just… cracked open.' There were tears running down her face. 'I went to try and help, but it was too late. Everyone was shouting and screaming. All I wanted to know was who he was, if he had a wife or someone we had to tell about the accident.'

She stopped to compose herself.

'I asked everyone. One of the grooms said he'd seen the man before; he'd been to The House once, maybe twice before. He'd come in by the stable door and asked the groom to take him to Cameron Johnstone's servant. The one who keeps going over to Ireland. I didn't know what to do. You weren't there, Mannion wasn't there and Mary just screams all the time when anything happens. The steward's drunk by late afternoon, and because you were away we'd let half the servants go home for the harvest.'

'So what did you do?' asked Gresham, gently.

'All I could think of was how we could make the man look presentable for his widow or his family, with his head… so horribly smashed in. I ordered people to take the body inside, thinking perhaps at least we could wash it. They took it into the kitchen, dumped it on one of the slabs we use to carve up meat… I told the men to leave, and sent orders for two or three women to come and help me wash and dress the body. And this… this letter fell out of his clothing. Onto the floor. The kitchen floor.' She stopped for a moment, eyes wide now, full of the horror of the moment. 'The horse must have caught him twice, once in the head and once on the chest. His ribs were all broken as well, and the letter must have caught the full force of the hoof. The seal on the letter was broken. As I picked it up the top fold bent outwards and… and…' She looked up at Gresham. 'And I saw your name. So without thinking I started to read. I thought perhaps it was a letter for you, a letter that needed to be sent urgently to you in Ireland — I don't know!'

'And?' said Gresham as if talking to a child.

'And I read the letter. Decided you had to see it. But I couldn't trust anyone else, not after I'd read it. So I made Jack, Dick and Edward agree to ride with me to Ireland, the ones who'd been with us on the Anna. I felt I knew them, and they knew and sort of trusted me, and Dick is in love with me, sort of, and will do anything I ask… and I asked Jack, because he's the oldest and the wisest, to pick three other men they could trust. I remembered what you said about — rape, and other things. And I knew it was terribly important that you see this letter, and I thought six of your men would fight off anything other than an army and if we met an army it would all be lost anyway…'

She sensed she was starting to ramble again, and made a massive effort to control herself.

'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to disobey your orders, and I took six of your men and lots of your horses without asking you, and it cost a fortune for Jack to get us on board a ship, though I'm sure he got the best deal he could, but we rode as fast as we could and hardly slept.' All the tension, the emotion and the horror was rushing out of her now, uncontrollable. 'And all the time I was convinced that if we got here you would be dead.'

'Can I see the letter? Please?'

She leant forward, the paper clutched tightly in her hand so tightly that the paper was screwed up and wrinkled where her thumb and forefinger had held onto it. She had to make herself let it go. Gresham thought she would have died rather than release it to anyone else. Mannion had clearly been told of its existence, but equally clearly, from the eagerness with which he crowded forward to lean over Gresham's shoulder, had not seen the thing itself. In some way the girl had driven herself to cross an ocean by the belief that this letter could only be handed over to him.

He gently prised it from her grasp, opened the folds and read.

It was a curt, peremptory letter. It blasted Cameron, to whom it was addressed, for staying out of contact for too long. It reminded him that he who pays the piper calls the tune. And it ordered him, quite clearly and unequivocally, to kill Henry Gresham. It was even more specific than that. It ordered Cameron to kill Henry Gresham 'Before my Lord of Essex can return to England from his Irish folly.'

Gresham looked up at Jane, who was poised on the edge of her seat, tear stains visible on her cheeks where they had cut through the grime.

'Have you shared its content with anyone else?'

She shook her head. 'No. I did tell Jack that if anything were to happen to me on the journey, he should take the letter if it were at all possible from my — body — and make sure that he handed it to you in person.'

Gresham looked at Jane; it was as if he had seen her for the first time.

'Even here in Ireland they have hot water and rooms that can be made warm. Please go and refresh yourself after your — journey.'

From the state of her, the ride from hell might have been a better description.

'Then, if you wish, please join myself, George here and Mannion for supper.'

'Thank you, my Lord,' said Jane, for whom exhaustion had become normal. 'Please…' 'Yes?' said Gresham.

'Please don't punish Jack and Dick and Edward! Or the other three who came with us! It wasn't their fault. I made them do it.'

Gresham looked at her, and for all his control a smile started to play around his mouth. Dammit, he was becoming more attracted to this girl by the minute.

'I bet you did,' he said. 'My plan, actually, is not to hang, draw and quarter them — in front of their families, of course, just for good measure. Rather, I propose to thank, and reward them. They did well. Yet they had the lesser role. As for you, whose role was the greatest, all I have is… my thanks. Just a few moments ago, I thought I was fighting for my life with the Earl of Essex and his cronies. Now I realise the real fight may well have been behind my back. You may well have saved my life.'

He looked at her, and grinned. The way he grinned at Mannion, the way he grinned at George. He only half realised what he was doing.

'Thank you,' he said, simply and cheerfully.

She left, giving him a hesitant, almost fearful smile. As if she could not quite believe her luck. She managed to look stunningly beautiful despite — or was it because of? — her disarray.

There was a long silence after she had left the room.

'Bastard!' said Mannion.

'The one who's in this room?' asked Gresham mildly.

'No,' said Mannion emphatically. 'Not that bastard. Cameron Fuckin' Bloody Buggerin' Johnstone. That bastard.'

Gresham had registered the occasional visits of Cameron's servant. Registered them. Thought nothing of them.

There was always hope for Mannion. It was usually not a spiritual or a metaphysical hope, but a physical hope and expectation: of the next meal, the next drink or the next woman. He had decided long ago that thinking was probably a bad thing. Yet he was thinking long and hard over this one, and suffering.

'You believe the letter? Believe it's genuine?' Gresham was the calmest of all of them.

Mannion and George looked at each other. George was pale as a harvest moon, no colour in his craggy face at all. Something was wrong with him, something Gresham could not define.

'Yes,' said George. 'The girl wasn't lying.' He looked as if he was about to say something, but it never came.

'But you're all missing the interesting point,' said Gresham. 'Actually, three interesting points.'

'That a Scots bastard wants to kill you?' said Mannion.

'That's not the point at all,' said Gresham. There was a faraway look in his eyes. 'The first point is a lesson for us all.'

'A lesson?' said Mannion, only half managing to restrain his look of concern to George. Was his master losing it? 'You ain't in College now.'

'We're none of us ever out of College,' responded Gresham. 'The first lesson is that we can't plan for everything. Least of all a maddened horse. We think we're in control, we think we have it all planned. Then something happens. Something out of our control. Something that doesn't obey our orders. Something we didn't think of — like Jane finding this letter.'

'So where does that wonderful bit of philosophy leave us?' asked George.

'With the second point,' said Gresham. 'From the start of this business, I've been running to catch up. I'd ignored Essex and seen him as the Queen's plaything. I'd become complacent about Cecil, hadn't realised he was building a plot against me, let him steal the advantage. Right from the word go I've been reacting to events, instead of dictating them. I've been following, not leading. And I hate to be a follower.'

'Is there a point to all this?' George suddenly seemed very tired, and rather old. It was the first time that Gresham had considered his friend might be getting old.

'The most important point of all,' said Gresham, suppressing his pang of worry over George. 'Who signed this letter? Who ordered Cameron to kill me?'

George shook himself.

The signature's indecipherable. It could be anyone.' 'But don't you see?' said Gresham, exasperated and showing it. 'I've made the basic mistake!'

'Being born?' asked George glumly.

'No! Not finding out who it is wants to kill me. If I find out who wants me dead, then there's a strong chance I find out why. And if I find out why I start to see some sort of path through this forest that's threatening to make me lose my way.'

'That's Cameron then, isn't it?' said George, more animated now there was something to be done. 'He's the only definite link you have. He's bound to know who gives him his orders. I suppose you'll just have to torture it out of him.' George's lips pursed in a grimace. He disliked even the idea of torture, and Gresham knew that when its possible need arose there were moments when George began to regret his friendship with Gresham, and the avenues it sometimes dragged him down. 'But I don't think you should,' said George. 'I think if you do, you become just like your enemies, and no better than them.'

'Torture?' asked Gresham. 'I'll use it if I have to, but apart from the fact that Cameron's very tough, you can never guarantee that a man in physical pain tells the truth, only that he tells what he thinks will make the pain stop.'

'Physical pain?' said Mannion, picking him up. 'What other pain is there?'

'Mental pain,' said Gresham.

'What's that when it's at 'ome?' asked Mannion scornfully.

'Physical pain is when someone denies you your next meal, drink and woman. Mental pain is when you think that's what they're going to do. Can you get Cameron here, without showing what you think of him?'

'Course I can,' said Mannion. 'I'll be politeness itself.'

'Do that and he will spot there's something up. Just be normal. Tell him Essex has given me a job to do.'

Cameron came in ten minutes later, outwardly cheerful and fumbling in his bag.

'Here, I've a book for you if you…'

He looked up and into the barrel of the pistol Gresham had levelled at him. Instantly he turned and made as if to duck under both the pistol and Mannion, using the speed of his reflexes to get out of the room and gambling that Gresham needed a live man to talk to rather than a dead one to gloat over. His speed of thought was extraordinary.

He turned and the full force of Mannion's fist crashed into him. The impact knocked him two or three feet backwards, and he was unconscious by the time he hit the floor.

'I can't tell you how much I enjoyed that,' said Mannion, rubbing his sore knuckles.

When Cameron came to he was tied to a high-backed, ornate wooden chair, a separate strand of rope round his neck, pulling it back against the wood. He must have been in agony, but he only blinked once. There was a livid bruise down the side of his face already, and a tooth gone on the right-hand side, with a dribble of red blood coming out of his mouth.

Gresham held the letter in front of him so he could read it. Nothing changed in Cameron's face.

'How did you get hold of that?' he asked, slurring his words because his mouth was so swollen.

'In circumstances that were as accidental as they were fortunate. The man who delivered it is dead. We'd noted his earlier visits, and were watching him.' It would do no harm for Cameron to know that Gresham had in some way been responsible for the death, or that he had outguessed him. Jane had not known, of course, that Gresham had ordered Cameron and his servant watched like a hawk, or that all Cameron's outgoing letters had been intercepted. The irony was that Gresham had perhaps been too clever by half. He had not ordered incoming people to be searched, fearing it would tip Cameron off, preferring to have him believe he was unwatched in the hope that he might thus reveal more about who and what he was. The other irony was that despite all the money Gresham had spent on surveillance it was an angry horse that had revealed the real threat. And a watchful girl who happened to be able to read. 'In any event, the circumstances leave me in no doubt that it's genuine. Are you going to deny it?'

'The fact that the letter is genuine? No. The writer certainly intended to give me an order that he intended me to obey. What I do deny is that I would necessarily have carried out that order. Of that you have no proof.'

'Rather difficult to prove,' said Gresham, 'if the evidence one way or the other is likely to be my corpse.' His voice would have turned boiling water to ice. 'Except for one thing. Essex's officers just tried to have me hung, on the grounds of my being a spy for Cecil and passing back bad news to Court. I managed to get out of that one, just, with Essex's help, and as he clasped me like a long-lost friend he whispered two words in my ear. Cameron Johnstone. He was telling me that it was you who set up his Council. That it was you who were behind the idea of making me a sacrificial lamb. Perfect: you get someone eke to do the dirty work for you. And you stand by the scaffold, wringing your hands over how unfair it is and trying to offer consolation to George and Mannion.'

Cameron said nothing.

'I believe you're taking money and orders from someone who wishes me dead. I need to know who it is, and why.'

'And I won't tell you,' said Cameron simply. 'If you're vulgar and brutal enough to torture me, I'll hold out as long as I can, but then give you one of a hundred names any of which might be true. You're not a man short of people who want him dead, and your history goes back a long way. You'll never know if the information is the truth or not.'

Cameron was not denying that he had set out to have Gresham killed.

'I wasn't planning to torture you. Not in that way,' said Gresham.

'Am I meant to say thank you?' asked Cameron caustically. He was showing remarkable bounce for a man in his position.

'You told us a very interesting story when we first met. A very moving story about your wife and children.'

There! Something had changed in Cameron's impassive face, something behind the one eye that was still open.

'And it was the truth. You see, I rarely take things at their face value. I had people check up on you. More difficult than it would have been in London, but money always talks and Mannion is very good at going to taverns and inns where people do things for money and not for morality. Your wife and children did die, and there's every possibility they caught the plague from a spy sent to you from my Lord of Northumberland.'

'So?' asked Cameron, eyes steady now.

'The best stories are always the ones that are true. Or at least, true in part. I enquired a little further. It appears that your marriage was foisted on you by your advocate father as a condition of your inheritance, that it was functional at best and that it is possible that one of your children was actually the child of you and your mistress. Your childhood sweetheart, as it happens, the girl you always wanted to marry, and who you brought to Edinburgh and set up at no small expense with her other child who was certainly yours and lived with its mother.

'Apparently you were quite a good lawyer, but the need to keep two households and the sheer excitement of it all started you doing dirty work for the King, for Northumberland, even for Scotland's ally France and, so it's rumoured, even for Spain. There are those in the taverns who believe you also have a route to Rome.'

Cameron said nothing. Gresham could almost see and hear his mind working, putting up idea after idea to meet this new and unexpected situation, testing each one and discarding it, all at lightning speed.

'It took me three months. The easier task was to find out where your mistress lives, far harder was to find where you keep your money. But I did find out both. Or those I paid so handsomely did. So let me be plain. I won't torture you, even if you tell me nothing. I will keep you prisoner: we'll knock you out again, and bundle you back to England with a good half dozen of my men. What I will also do if we finish this little talk without my having found out the truth is to arrange for the place your mistress and child live to be burned down, and for the same favour to be afforded the place where your money is. Neither will survive. It's as simple as that.'

Did he mean it? Gresham knew he did. A life for a life: those he loved had been threatened, could die; it was the way of the world. And the final irony was that he, Gresham, was using exactly the same threat on this man as Cecil had sought to use on him. Had Gresham so cheapened himself as to become his enemy?

Cameron knew Gresham's threat was genuine. He was a man whose continued life was testimony to his success in measuring risk.

'Cecil,' he said. 'It's Robert Cecil who ordered your death, at least as far as I know.'

Gresham raised an eyebrow.

'It is truly as far as I know. I have never met Cecil, never spoken to him. All my orders — and my money — came through the little weasel of a man you tell me now is dead.'

'Your evidence for thinking your master is Cecil?'

'My actual evidence? Laughingly little. I was approached shortly after I landed with you, by this man. Asked if I would be willing to spy on you. And then to kill you. Naturally, I was interested to find out who wanted you dead. There was one obvious candidate. Cecil.

So I casually dropped his name into a sentence, in a way that made it seem clear I assumed I was now going to work for Cecil' 'And?'

'And the man went ballistic, turned a bright shade of pink, and spent so much time persuading me that Cecil was the last person he was working for as to convince me the opposite was true.'

'And why should Cecil want me dead?'

'I assume you can work that one out yourself. Firstly, he hates you, for personal reasons that have no basis in logic, but are simply a fact. More importantly, he's desperate to have the same position with the next King or Queen of England as his late father had with the present one. For that reason he is trying to manipulate the succession with every means at his disposal. I know at first hand that he's wooing my master, King James. I've recently come to believe that he's also wooing Spain with equal fervour. I think you call it riding two horses at the same time.'

'So how do I feature in all this?'

'The recent death of King Philip changed things for ever in the Court of Spain. The most trusted allies and secretaries to the King are now no longer certain of their place, new men of influence are coming on the scene all the time, making exactly the same sort of play for power that Cecil is hoping to do on the death of Elizabeth. Cecil's terrified that his dealings with Spain will be revealed. He's never trusted your relationship with Spain since you survived sailing on the Armada. He believes you may have links there, even be a secret Catholic and admirer of Spain. He believes you're the person most likely to ferret out his illicit correspondence with Spain, and that if you did you'd delight in using it to destroy him.'

'Why employ you as my assassin?'

If a bound and tied man could look pityingly on his interrogator, then that was what Cameron did.

'If a man known to be in the service of King James kills a leading English courtier, and one who seems to have a special relationship with the Queen, he could use that as a form of blackmail on James. Plus the fact that Cecil will then kill me.'

‘Well’ said Gresham, 'I didn't think it would be simple. Now, do please tell me why Cecil will have you killed as well as have you kill me?*

'Because he knows that I'm close on his heels with regard to his dealings with Spain. I made the mistake of asking too many questions of too many members of the Spanish community in London, before I knew who I could trust. One of them talked to Cecil. The answer's obvious. Get me to kill you, his prime threat, then get someone else to kill me, his secondary threat. Why do you think I was so keen to come with you to this God-forsaken country on this God-forsaken expedition? I'm actually safer here than I would be in England. Or even Scotland. But I guarantee you some person in this army has been paid a tidy sum to knock me off once it becomes clear that I or someone else has performed the same favour for you.'

Gresham looked for a long moment at Cameron. His eyes gave nothing away. Cameron met his gaze with equal fortitude, neither wavering nor blinking. As a result, unconsciousness came as a complete surprise to him when Mannion came up from behind and considerately gave a massive blow to the other side of his head.

'I want the men who came with Jane to turn round and take her back to England, together with Cameron. Take seven of the very best and most loyal men from the troop and one of the sergeants, pay them a King's ransom, and get them to go as well, as extra escort. Tell them to keep an eye on Cameron at all times, as if their life depended on it. I'll explain to Jane what's happening over supper.'

'You believe 'im?' asked Mannion. 'Do you?' asked Gresham. 'No,' said Mannion simply. 'What about you?' 'Me? I'm a happy man!' said Gresham. 'All of a sudden some things are starting to become clear to me.'

A messenger rode up to the castle for Henry Gresham at the same time as a messenger for Essex. Neither recipient was cheered by the news. Sir Clifford Conyers, commanding 1,500 men, was dead when the Irish sawed his head from his shoulders and made a present of it to the fighting Prince of Donegal.

As for Gresham's message, Cameron Johnstone had waited until the ship had docked and he was on the narrow gangplank with a guard before and a guard after him, and turned viciously and without warning and knocked them both off into the foot or so of black water between the grinding hull and the stone wharf. Before anyone else could leap onto the gangplank Cameron had slithered off it, was seen for a moment amid the barrels and the goods piled high on the quay, and then vanished.