'I…' Gresham had a sense that something had slipped in Shakespeare's mind, that at long last the truth was going to emerge. He waited, hardly daring to breathe.
There was a ferocious clatter of hooves outside and shouted orders. Jane came in almost immediately. Soldiers rushed up the stairs — the King's soldiers. Gresham's men would have been powerless. Their leader was Sir William Wade, the gruff Keeper of The Tower.
'Sir Henry. I am bidden by the King to bring you to his presence.'
To Whitehall?' enquired Gresham mildly.
'No,' said Wade. 'To the Tower of London.'
Gresham would have expected a look of exultation on Shakespeare's face as they were led out. His victors vanquished. Instead, all he caught was a look of infinite sadness. William Shakespeare and Henry Gresham had stared into the same abyss, and were doing so even now.
15
September, 1612 The Tower of London
'Come, let's away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage'
Damnation. This was bad. 'And is my wife also to be blessed with the privilege of meeting His Royal Highness?' asked Gresham.
'My instructions are that if she is with you, then yes, she also must… she also is invited.'
Jane had retained most of her colour. The eyes were at their darkest. He alone could read the tension in her body.
'My lady, we have the honour of an audience with the King. Shall we proceed?'
They left the house and entered the carriage Wade had brought along with him, watched by a small and silent crowd. Why were two masons and a housewife being whisked off to king's arrest?
The Tower was a royal residence right enough, but no king or queen had lived there for years. It was bleak, forbidding and not infrequently stinking, and its main use was as a royal prison. It had a dreadful reputation, a building erected to symbolise raw power where hundreds more had died within its walls than had been executed on its green, and even more than that had screamed under its torture. The summons to The Tower was a signal. A signal of extreme disfavour.
God knew how Mannion had managed to be allowed to ride in the coach along with his master and mistress.
'He's trying to frighten us.' Gresham spoke tersely to Jane.
'It's worked,' said Jane, shivering inside her cloak. 'And there's me,' she said with a wry smile, 'with not a thing to wear.'
'Stay calm. Let me think.'
There was no point feeling fear at moments such as these. It was simply a diversion and a distraction. Nor was there time for tears or for talk. Focus. Focus. Become as hard as the stone of The Tower, as slippery as the eels in the river. On his ability to handle this situation rested his own fate, and that of Jane, his children and Mannion.
The bulk of The Tower and its grim curtain walls squatted over the Thames. First was the drawbridge leading over the moat, which was coated with scum and full of noisome lumps that did not bear close examination. The heavy wheels rattled over the wooden planking; they heard shouted instructions. A sharp left turn, the carriage groaning, under the Lion Tower, across the moat again and over the second drawbridge. The two round, squat forms of the Middle Tower stood in their way. More shouted instructions, a rattling as of chains, and the coach lurched forward again. Yet another drawbridge, and then the taller, round form of the Byward Tower. Under its rusting portcullis. Into the prison, with three vast towers and their gates blocking the route to freedom. At least they had not stopped even earlier and been put in a boat to be taken to The Tower through Traitors' Gate. Gresham's heart sank as it always did when he entered this desperate place, even on the weekly visits he made to see Raleigh. This time his wife was alongside him. Stop it! Don't divert! Don't weaken!
They were not to be sent pell-mell into some dripping, foul dungeon. James had hurriedly made a room in the White Tower available. It smelled of damp and decay, and there were bruised lumps on the wall where plaster had fallen off. The marks of the servant's brush were still on the floor. There was a vast fireplace in the echoing room, unlit, and one large window high in the wall. An ancient oaken table had obviously been retrieved from somewhere, behind which James had ranged seats. In front of the table were two poor stools. The judge facing the accused.
'The wisest fool in Christendom' an ambassador had called James. Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, he had been in his mother's womb when a group of Scottish nobles had murdered her lover, Rizzio, with cold steel in front of her. It was said he had a horror of naked blades from birth. Of no great natural beauty or form, his tongue was too large for his mouth and he was prone to slobbering as a result. He rarely washed, and seemed not to notice the filth that accumulated on the fine clothes he wore. Addicted to fresh fruit, his bouts of diarrhoea were legendary among those who had to clean his linen. Sweet wines were his other addiction. Few had seen him really drunk; even fewer had ever met him cold sober. Increasingly driving the late Robert Cecil, his Chief Secretary, to despair, James had spent more and more money as his reign progressed, perhaps a reaction to the poor, cold country of his birth and its famous poverty. And then there was his obvious lack of interest in women, and his attachment to young men.
Yet he must never be underestimated, Gresham reminded himself now. The King could order his and Jane's death immediately. This man had survived as King of Scotland, a country that ate its monarchs like others ate meat. While James was increasingly handing power to Parliament and the Puritans by his indolence and inaction, there was no hint of rebellion in the country. James was a writer and an intellect of no small merit. Like any king, he only enjoyed debates he was guaranteed to win, but the sharpness of his mind — when he cared to use it — had always been, clear. King James I had an instinct for survival.
But so did Henry Gresham. And he had no doubt that it was his survival that formed the agenda for today's meeting.
James did not stand as Gresham and Jane were ushered in through the creaking door, and Mannion forced to stand by the back wall by the armed guards. Deliberate rudeness? Indolence? Or simply the Scottish informality James was renowned for, when it suited him? He had the pair of them at an immediate disadvantage, of course. Gresham was dressed as a mason, Jane as a housewife. The guards had taken the weapons from both men. Their disguise, and the weight of their personal armoury, made it clear they were up to some dissembling, devious purpose. It was extraordinary also how poor clothes stripped away a man's — and a woman's — self-respect. Well, Gresham had the power to imagine himself dressed in a king's ransom of clothing if he so wished. He must not let it affect him! It was also crucial to know how drunk James was. Gresham blotted all else out for the moment, even the other figures seated by the King.
The glass of wine was there, of course, easily to hand. Yet the hand was not quivering, and the eyes — small, hard — seemed steady enough. Oiled, then, but thinking. Well in control.
Gresham let his eyes move to the others at the table. Dear God. On one side was the popinjay Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester. On the other was Sir Edward Coke. Was this to be his tribunal? Was his vision of hell, to be in a court chaired by Sir Edward, now a reality? If so, he and Jane were dead. But give nothing away.