Shakespeare's Rebel by C.C. Humphreys

again, seeing his glory, then looked back at John. ‘And yet,’ he said, his voice softening again, ‘so many others have failed before me. Not only my father, who left his bones there. Every commander since.’
    John smiled. ‘The greater glory yours then, my lord, when you do what even Sir Walter Devereux, of illustrious memory, failed to do. And meantime, avenge his death in rebels’ blood.’
    He watched the face transform again. Father and son, he thought. Honour and revenge. A mixture for a chalice more potent than even Sir Robert Cecil could concoct.
    ‘By the helm of Mars,’ the earl exclaimed, ‘you have hit it there, John Lawley.’ He reached up to scratch his beard, now with vigour. ‘Yet Ireland is a quagmire, and its inhabitants barbarous. It is not like fighting the hidalgos of Spain, who live in cities they would defend and whose honour bids them fight you face to face. The Irish have no honour, nor any city worthy of the title. We have the only one, Dublin and the smallholdings around it, a few fortified places beyond. The rest is a wilderness of moor and mountain, swathed in the foul mists from which they slink to attack a patrol here, murder a sentry there, bleeding the army drop by drop. Waiting for the foul contagions of their bogs to sicken every second soldier.’ A huge sigh shook him, and then the voice grew stronger. ‘Yet if I were to march into his heartland, lay waste to his land, ravage it and his people till they cry out for relief – and force Tyrone to a pass of arms? What then?’ He gripped John’s hand. ‘S’wounds, what if he would meet me alone and armoured under our armies’ eyes, to try the cause in single combat? Nay, he is older than me; aye, and I am Champion of England.’ Essex tipped back his head and laughed. ‘Then let him send five champions, one after the other or all at once, I care not. I’ll take them on, yea, and beat each one too!’
    The colour of his beard might have changed – but the man himself had not. Give him a sniff at blood and solitary glory, John thought, and he will take on the armed world and damn all odds, just as at Cadiz. ‘My lord, that is the spirit that wins wars.’
    ‘It is. Yet Tyrone is known to be as cunning and as devious as . . . as that crouchback who stands between my Bess and me.’ He nodded up to the lights of the hall, then turned back. ‘I will need a force equal to its task. I will need an army worthy of the name. Not a rabble of . . . what was it that Falstaff said tonight? Something of . . .’ Essex stood straight, one arm aloft, in the pose of the player, ‘ “of slaves ragged like Lazarus, revolted tapsters and ostlers, trade fallen”?’
    ‘He did indeed, my lord. And may I say, well spoken!’
    The arm chopped down, then flew up again. ‘Out on such rogues!’ he yelled. ‘For I will have the cream of England’s warriors! The noblest captains that e’er drew steel.’
    ‘Drawing only for you!’
    ‘The gunners who sank the Great Armada . . .’
    ‘Storming again!’
    ‘Musketeers who shattered the legions in Cadiz.’
    ‘Rallied once more to your standard,’ John called.
    The earl stepped forward, his hand dropping on to the other’s shoulder. ‘And I will have you, John Lawley. I will have you.’
    When hell freezes over, John thought, but said, ‘Yours in the ranks of death as ever, good my lord.’
    He was grasped, hugged. Essex was as tall as he, which was tall, and that blunt beard prickled his ear like a blackthorn hedge. The voice was moved by tears. ‘John, Goodman John. We march together again to war!’
    ‘Yes, my captain.’ John unclasped, stepped away, took a breath. ‘Indeed I yearn for that hour when I will, with all speed, follow you to Ireland.’
    ‘Eh?’ Essex, all smiles, now frowned. ‘Follow?’
    ‘Yes, my lord. You spoke of an army worthy of your cause. So I will to my own county to raise a regiment for the fight.’
    ‘’Twill be good to have some Cornishmen in