The Desperate remedy hg-1 Read online

  'Was he with us when my room was gone through?' The room Gresham used as a study had been carefully searched one night some months ago. Only someone with an intimate knowledge of his papers would have spotted that a search had ever taken place.

  'It happened on the first night he was with us,' Jane responded, with a frown.

  'Didn't that make you suspicious?'

  'Three houses had windows broken that night, on top storeys, including our own. There was a roofwalker about that night, for certain. It never crossed my mind to think that your intruder was anything other than such a man, on the look-out for whatever he might find.'

  The houses crowding in on each other in London's streets meant that the roofs of even the finest properties often nearly touched each other. For the brave and the foolhardy, and for many thieves, there were roads across the roofs and into the houses more clearly laid out than the roadways beneath.

  Gresham turned to Mannion.

  'Bring this new man to me, in a half-hour. Send him to the dressing room, off the back balcony.' 'Do you want me there?' Jane asked.

  'I think we're best left to do the business alone,' said Gresham. This time Jane took no offence.

  They moved to the rear of the house, facing the river. Gresham's father had built a second great Hall at the back, with one of the finest balconies in London overlooking the Thames. A 'cut' from the main river allowed boats to dock at the House's own jetty. The room they chose to interview the new servant was just off the balcony, small and framed in brick and timber.

  There was a clumping up the stairs, and Mannion ushered in the new man. He was tall, well-built and powerful, some thirty-five years old with a mop of reddish hair. There was no change in Gresham's expression as he greeted him.

  'Good morning. Welcome to the House. You're pleased with your new post?'

  If the man, Sam Fogarty as he had given his name, felt any surprise at this affable expression of interest from his master, he did not show it. He spoke confidently, looking Gresham in the eye. The accent was thick as sewage, but comprehensible.

  'I'm well pleased, sir, to be in your Worship's service. It's the envy of London among serving-men to work in such a place.'

  Gresham nodded to Mannion, who drew silently closer.

  'Tell me, Sam, how long have you worked for my Lord Cecil?'

  'Cecil, sir?' To his credit, Sam's face hardly blanched. 'I've never worked for Lord Cecil. I came here from the north…'

  He did not hear the blow coming from Mannion, but merely saw his world explode into stars and an instantaneous moment of blinding pain.

  When he came to, minutes later, his feet were tightly trussed with stout cord, and his arms loosely tied behind his back. The top half of his body was extended over the opened trap door, a black hole from which a foul smell blew into the room.

  'One push from Mannion,' said Gresham carefully, coming round from behind the table at which he had sat with a goblet of wine in his hand, 'and you'll descend that chute head-first. It's brick-lined. It descends the height of the House, with enough curves in it to break your head to pulp. At the bottom is an old well. It's been spoilt by foul water from the river creeping in. We no longer use it for water. As far as we know there's no exit to the river. Or to anywhere else. Those who survive the descent splash around for as long as they have breath and then drown. We've heard them for a day or more, but they always fall silent. Now tell me, how long have you worked for Lord Cecil?'

  Sam's head was aflame, his gut sick with the foul stench of rotting flesh that swept up from the black depths of the trap door.

  'I know of no work for Lord Cecil…'

  Mannion pushed his body an inch or two closer to the drop.

  Sam screamed.

  'You see,' Gresham responded conversationally, 'I remember faces. I remember being ushered out through the servants' hall of his Lordship's house some two… or was it three?… years ago. And you were there, Master Sam, with your red mop, holding court to most of the kitchen wenches. I recognised you as you walked through the door. Your voice, as much as your hair and face. You were shouting to the wenches, back then, telling them a bad joke as I recollect…'

  Gresham grabbed the man's hair and pulled his head back, looking into his fear-crazed eyes. 'Now tell me, Sam Redmop, for the last time. How long have you worked for Lord Cecil?'

  'Sir… my Lord…' Suddenly, the man's whole body sagged. 'Spare me. Spare me. Four years. No more. Four years only.'

  'Break his leg. The left one.'

  The body writhed in protest. The crack was sickening as Mannion's club smashed the bone into a clean break. Sam screamed again.

  Mannion pulled the body back from the abyss and flung the trap door shut, bolting it securely. He turned then to the writhing and gasping body, cut loose the cord around its legs and with a practised efficiency set splints around the twisted limb.

  Sam's body could only flutter now, on the edge of unconsciousness. Gresham yanked his head round, more gently this time.

  'We'll pay for a surgeon to look to your wound. You'll walk again, and walk as good as ever you did if you're careful. The pain you'll suffer is your payment for daring to seek to spy on Henry Gresham. No one spies on Henry Gresham. No one enters his household as a spy.

  'You'll be held, in a secret place, until you can walk. You'll be given money, enough to get you back to Northumberland, and a little more. After that, it's up to you. Your Lord Cecil will be told that you came to visit the House, and that you suffered an accident in which you were most "unfortunately drowned. As far as Cecil is concerned you'll be dead. If he hears of your existence, he'll assume you've deceived him and turned to my service, and he'll kill you. I suggest a new name and a new livelihood. The old one is truly dead.'

  Gresham let the head drop, and turned away. He stopped by the door. 'It's not good to seek to betray Henry Gresham. Remember my mercy in sparing your life and sending you on your way.'

  He left, closing the door quietly behind him. Two porters entered and carried out the groaning, semi-conscious figure. Mannion growled a sentence of instruction at them. They nodded.

  Mannion found Gresham in the Minstrels' Gallery of the Great Hall.

  'Is it wise to declare war on Cecil?' he asked bluntly. 'Do you intend to send such a message to him?' 'Old friend, do you think I'm a fool?' 'Sometimes.'

  'Well, rest assured. Master Sam believes his death has been announced to Cecil. That makes him truly a dead man if he seeks to return to Cecil's service. As for me, I'll send no message to Lord Cecil. Far better that he should wait and wonder what's happened to his spy, see his man vanish into silence. Let's keep his Lordship guessing, old man. And whilst we're so doing, let's find out what's truly happening out there. And why Lord Cecil wants a spy in my house. He keeps me guessing about Bacon. Now I shall keep him guessing about his spy.'

  Mannion pondered this for a moment. 'Who'll tell your mistress that we hired a Judas?'

  'I'll tell her. It wasn't her fault. It's only by chance I was able to spot him as what he was. Just as important, will you help me to tell Cook and your mistress why I ordered two rotting sides of beef?'

  The trap door over which Sam had been suspended led to no well. It was a service chute, a straight drop to the ground floor where goods delivered from the river could be hoisted up to the top storeys of the House. A shutter at the bottom deprived it of light when closed. Two decaying sides of beef suspended on a shelf feet below the trap door provided the stench of the charnel house that so fixed the minds of those suspended above it.

  A short distance away down the Strand, Robert Catesby's party was also breaking up, Thomas Percy still bleating to whoever would listen how hard done by he was.

  Catesby marvelled at his own sense of relaxation, seeing and almost tasting the fear on the skin of the others. Even the delay in convening Parliament — it would not assemble now until

  November 5th — could be handled. The cursed powder would be subject to its interminable de
cay. The risk of a chance discovery in the cellar, or drink or pillow talk from one of the conspirators revealing more than was wise, was ever-present and grew with each extra day. Yet they had come this far. They would prepare as well for November 5th as they had for October 3rd. God would protect them.

  He began to hum the words from his favourite song of the moment:

  'Thou art my King, O God…'

  It had a springy, firm rhythm and a quick tempo, one of Tom Campion's best, he thought.

  Through Thee will we Overthrow our enemies And in Thy Name I will tread them down. 1 will tread them down…'

  Tom Wintour paused as he left the tavern. It had been a week or more since he had had a woman. The whores at The Duck and Drake were of the best kind, aimed at the fashionable clientele of the tavern. Even at this hour a handful were on duty, dressed like Court ladies. Why not, he thought, as his roving eye caught the glance of a particularly fine girl dressed in deep red. Why not? She was one of Moll Cutpurse's girls, he knew, and Moll's girls were the best there were.

  Chapter 4

  Gresham slipped out of the side gate of the House in the early evening. His doublet was worn and stitched in two areas, his hose washed out and his cloak threadbare at the edges. It was more and more difficult for him to act as an unknown in the city, or in Cambridge, but his change into the clothing of a gentleman fallen on hard times was not disguise, but caution. Where he was going, fine clothes were a call to robbery as well as a call to attention, and Gresham wished for neither. His sword hid its fine steel under a plain hilt and a weather-beaten scabbard. Behind him came Mannion, dressed in a rough jerkin.

  'We walk,' he announced firmly to his rather sour-looking body-servant. 'You're getting too fat, and you need the exercise.' If Mannion muttered something under his breath, Gresham chose not to hear it.

  It would have been far easier by boat, using the House's own vessels, the single bank manned by the vast-chested George, or even the magnificent four-bank of semi-regal splendour. Yet Gresham preferred to walk, despite the filth of the streets and the appalling press of the crowds. a restlessness came over him at times which could only be released by exercise, and in this instance there was the extra dimension of a need to feel in touch with the life and blood of the sprawling and corrupt city. And, of course, it allowed him to be rude to Mannion.

  London was at its noisiest. The lawyers flushed out from Westminster were there in force, heading back into the City along the Strand, soberly dressed and bent forward to hear the muttered protestations of their clients. It was a long walk, from the Strand to Fleet Street, entering the City at Ludgate and skirting St Paul's. From Watling Street and Candlewick Street they turned right to cross London Bridge, joining the throng of citizens heading to Southwark for the playhouses.

  They passed the stalls of the puppeteers in Fleet Street, each trying to shout above the din of the colliers, the chimney sweeps and the incessant din of the barrel-makers and every other worker who seemed to need a hammer above all other tools. The fresh-water carriers with their yokes and double wooden buckets, the strangely brownish water giving more than a hint of the River, the oyster sellers and the orange sellers all yelled their wares into the summer day.

  They crossed London Bridge, its ancient piers supporting the half-timbered shops and residences that made it one of the talking points of Europe. Gresham eyed the pitted and mouldering stone, feeling the bridge shudder beneath his feet, wondering as he always did how much longer it could survive the neglect of its foundations and the thundering torrent of the Thames.

  The Dagger in Southwark was Moll's place of business, before the magistrates or her creditors forced a change to another den. A significant portion of London's underworld was gathered there, nursing their sore heads. The assembled mass was one of the most unattractive sights he had ever seen, thought Gresham, a collection of rats and wolves in human form. He gave the merest nod to several with whom he had worked in the past. Gresham was ushered into the inner den of Moll, past three of the burliest men in London, all nursing vast cudgels.

  'Hello, Mary Frith,' said Gresham, his face alight with mirth at the figure before him.

  At first sight, it was not a woman at all who met their gaze. Dressed in doublet and hose, with hair cut short, Moll Cutpurse looked for all the world like a man, ensconced on a stool, legs set fairly apart and a brimming tankard of ale in her hand. The smoking pipe clenched firmly between her teeth added to the impression of a lad-about-town, determined to enjoy the day and the night as if it were his last. Only on closer examination did the smoothness of her skin and the twin bulges beneath her doublet become apparent.

  'Mary Frith! You insolent vagabond, you spittle of Bedlam!' The figure wreathed in smoke put her stool forward on to three legs, where previously it had been resting back on two, and grinned in equal measure at Henry Gresham. 'Mary Frith died years ago, as any true bastard knows full well.'

  Henry Gresham, a true bastard, accepted Moll's greeting with a low bow.

  'Bastard as I am,' he replied, 'I salute an even greater bitch, be it Mary Frith or Moll Cutpurse!'

  'You whoremonger!' she said joyfully, rising up from her stool and moving round the table to greet him. 'You come to me now for news, when you used to come within me! Am I so worn out as no longer to excite your fancy?'

  'Madam,' said Gresham, bowing even lower, 'I'm old and weary, starved in my bones, a mere dried-out husk of the man I used to be. I can admire your beauty from afar…' he stepped back and looked with admiration at the trim figure hidden beneath the man's clothes,'… but, alas, it needs a young man to sire a beauty with so much youth still in her!'

  Moll sat down on the table edge, stuck out her feet and took a huge draught of ale. Licking her red lips, she eyed Gresham up and down appreciatively.

  'You always were a liar, Henry Gresham, and I like that in a man. You're none of your penny-pinching, arse-grabbing kind of liar. You,' she said as she poked him with the end of her clay pipe, 'you lie like the Devil himself, and take delight in it. For that, I'll even forgive you the bruises! And you always did have a body from Heaven, even if your mind was from Hell.'

  Moll was fun enough to deal with and to lie with, but her evil temper was infamous, her mood swings greater than the tide on Dover beach, and she had had men, and women, murdered for a twopenny debt. She was one of the most dangerous people Gresham had ever known. She ran more brothels and stews than anyone except the Bishop of London, offered more watered-down wine and beer to tavern-goers and fenced for half the vagabonds in London. She defied authority, even to the extent of appearing on stage in front of a cheering full house at The Swan to recite bawdy ballads and sing songs that a sailor would blanch at. She had been arrested more times than she had eaten dinners, always bribing herself out of trouble with the seemingly endless money at her disposal.

  'Enough of this babbling.' Moll bored very easily. 'You've no more need of poor Moll and her like in the old way, even if I hadn't become a respectable businessman, which I have. And I hear you have someone to keep your bed warm at night, so what is it you intend to rob a maid of instead?'

  'I've never robbed you of anything you weren't hot to give, Moll Cutpurse,' said Gresham firmly, 'and for anything else I've taken you've received good coin in exchange. Enough of this babbling, indeed — yours and my own. The business is simple. What do you know that I should know?'

  Moll slumped down behind the table, signalled Mannion to take a seat and took another vast gulp from her flagon, motioning irritably for it to be replenished by one of the villains standing guard over the door. He took it in his huge paw, filled it from a nearby barrel and gave it back to her. She looked moodily at Gresham.

  'You're the fine one, Henry Gresham, aren't you? The others, they come to me with threats or with flattery, and they come to ask me a question. Where's the purse with seven angels in it stolen from my friend in St Paul's gone to, Moll?' With each question she adopted a different, whining tone. 'Find me a girl, Moll
, a nice clean girl. Find me a boy, Moll, a nice clean boy. Oh Moll, my cousin's inherited a pretty penny in plate and keeps it in his house, and it should be mine, Moll, it should be mine… 1 need to throw the dice for high stakes, Moll, or play the cards, and where are the best games to be had, Moll… I need a woman who'll do it this way, I need a woman who'll do it that way, I need a woman who'll do it in ways I haven't imagined… so many questions, so many crimes, so many deceivers. Yet you… you Devil incarnate… you ask the one question to which I've to give all the answers.'

  Moll got up suddenly, stuck her thumbs in her belt and walked over to the window.

  'I know you might as well stick your fine head up a cow's arse as gain any joy from the man Bacon. Neither you, nor the Privy Council nor God in his Heaven will ever prove anything against him that matters a fart.'

  It was pointless to ask Moll where her information came from, or which of the many men Gresham had tasked with news of Bacon had reported back to her. There was hardly a major household in London where one or more of the servants was not in her employ, information being as valuable a commodity as gold or women. Gresham knew that on occasions in the past Cecil had used her as an informant — it had been the cause of their first meeting.

  'So what else do you know that I should know?'

  'Had you come before tonight, I would've had little more to answer. I don't know why you've been set on a goose chase. Maybe there are those who want you set on a far road. But there's something brewing nearer to home, I reckon. Something more in your line of business… how much will you pay, for other news, Henry Gresham?'

  'A fair price’

  'Then you'd better meet a girl.' Moll gestured to one of the human tree trunks on guard. 'Wake up Nell from her groanings and bring her here — fast!'

  A red-cheeked young girl with the look of being fresh up from the country was brought into the room. She had been crying, and there was a livid bruise down most of one side of her face and stains on the extravagant red dress she wore, all crumpled now. She limped, clutching her left hip with every faltering step she took.