The Desperate remedy

Chapter 8

It was dark outside, the first wind of winter dashing against the houses, and bringing with it a fine rain that first put a layer of watery, tiny jewels on a woollen cloak, and then soaked it through.

'I saw him as if for the first time last night,' said Francis Tresham. He was sitting at the table with which he had tried to knock the brains out of Henry Gresham only a few days previously, sipping morosely at the fine wine Gresham had placed in his hand. 'He's a vulture, isn't he? I suppose I've been under his spell most of my life. I think it was your being there that let me take a step back almost, to see him as he really is. He doesn't care about God, does he? Or perhaps he thinks he is God? Either way, I realised last night, for all his talk, who Robin Catesby does care about. Himself.'

Which is perhaps why you would recognise it more easily than others, thought Gresham, as it describes the pair of you equally well. Gresham's hair and beard had returned to their normal black intensity, apart from an occasional flash of orange when the light caught it from a certain angle.

‘I could ask Jonson who you are,' said Tresham. He frequently changed the tack of a conversation, without warning. It followed the restless, ever-changing direction of his eyes, as if anything he gazed at for more than a few seconds became too hot for them to rest on. Perhaps it was a trick to catch the listener unawares; perhaps it was just his nature.

'You could ask,' said Gresham calmly. He knew Jonson was safe. If Tresham did not know that fact, he would find out easily enough without need of words from Henry Gresham.

'Tell me again what it is you offer me.'

'When we've amassed enough information to deal with this plotting, you'll receive travel documents to France, a thousand pounds in your purse and secret passage to a ship, out of the way of your friends or Cecil, whichever one is most hot to kill you.'

'How can you do that?'

Because, young man, I have had a plan waiting these years past to release Sir Walter Raleigh and get him to sanctuary in Europe, a plan he has refused to use, believing it would be taken as confession of his guilt were he so to escape.

'I can do it. That's all you need to know. You'll be taken to the south coast and there put on a boat, and delivered to France. The thousand pounds is in addition to any money you can raise yourself. You'll want to tidy your affairs, won't you, and leave as much as possible to your wife and family? You'll be given another name, and papers in that name that will pass any muster.'

'What about my family?'

'That's up to you. They can come later, when the hue and cry's died down, or you can leave them. You can tell me later.'

If Tresham had decided whether he would desert his family or not, he was not going to let Gresham see it.

'I think I'm to be inducted on Monday. I'm bid to another dinner, at Lord Stourton's, in Clerkenwell. The invitation came from Robin. Stourton's my kinsman.'

'I know,' said Gresham, whose mind by now carried an encyclopaedic list of the inter-relations between England's Catholic families. 'So is Lord Monteagle. It's no secret.'

'It's strange the invitation comes from Catesby, not from my relative. It makes me think there's a reason other than the pleasure of my company for my being invited.'

'Then you must go.'

'What freedom do I have?'

'Freedom to do what?'

'Can I speak as myself, or do I have to speak from a script that you've written?'

'There are only two conditions. Firstly, you must speak as keeps you on the inside of whatever is happening. If by staying there you can bring it to an end, then so much the better — but you must under no circumstances be so dismissive that you're excluded. You're no use to me in ignorance. The second is that you must report back to me immediately, and tell me everything that took place.'

'Here?'

'Usually, yes. On Monday, no. There's an inn, the sign of The Mermaid, at Clerkenwell. Ask to be shown to the room taken by Mr Cecil.' Tresham's eyes widened. 'Mr Robin Cecil. I'll meet you there.'

'Can he be trusted?' The question was Jane's. She had read Jonson's manuscript, liked it, and was now descending into restless boredom again. It was going to be called Volpone, or The Fox, his play. It had made her yearn to go to the playhouse again.

'We'll find out soon enough. While we're under this threat I don't want you out of my sight.'

'I know,' she said simply. 'But if we're found out then I'll be the least of your troubles. I can be secret, too, you know. When it really matters.'

A number of those Tresham had been at school with, and some of his adult friends, were now dead. Several had died of the plague, one thrown from a horse, others of illnesses that seemed to have no name and no cure. Another had been knifed in a brawl, and spoken gaily to Tresham as the life blood had ebbed from him. The death of his father had shattered him more than his so-called friends knew. Enemy that he had been, his father had offered a strange security and comfort. Sir Thomas Tresham had been an anchor point in his life. And now even that great certainty was gone.

He had felt so brave, when he was young. Now all he felt was fear.

Clerkenwell lay outside the City walls. Until recently a village to the north of the City, bounded by the Fleet on one side and Charterhouse on the other, the relentless march of London had swallowed it up, its residents claiming that the country winds blowing over it from Islington kept the plague at bay.

Stourton had married Frances, Tresham's sister, and though there was a twenty-year age gap between them he had become close friends with Catesby. Lady Frances Stourton had a permanently world-weary look to her, and conducted all her business distractedly, as if something terribly important was happening elsewhere.

'Francis, you're very welcome here, as ever.' She used the same tone of tired affection, as ever. She was in mourning, of course, and Lord Stourton all commiseration at the loss of his father-in-law. At the same time, he seemed distracted, removed from his usual self. Catesby was no different, seeking first to charm Frances and then turning his attention on to Stourton. Yet dinner was ended early, and Catesby asked leave to hold a few words with Tresham. Tresham felt his heart tighten.

Winter was drawing in, and a steady fire in the new hearth lapped at the edges of the cold. The room was square, with latticed glass looking out over the garden. The panelling was light, almost irritatingly so, being so new as to not have darkened or weathered properly. Family portraits glowered at Tresham. They were a proud crew, the Stourtons.

Catesby looked at Tresham, and felt, not for the first time, the stirrings of unease. For long simply a plaything, a stringed instrument on whose neck Catesby could play whatever tune he pleased, Francis Tresham would always be a risk. A risk of a different kind, Thomas Percy, had failed to deliver the rent money due on the

Westminster house whose cellar hid such a terrible secret. Fawkes had had to be sent to pay Henry Ferrers and Whynniard what they were owed, masquerading as 'John Johnson', Percy's servant. Just as pressingly, Fawkes was insisting on the money needed to hire the ship from Greenwich that would take him abroad after the explo-sipn. Fawkes had been hired for his skill with powder. It was not expected that he would remain on after the explosion, but nor had Catesby expected him to be quite so pressing with the money for his escape route. That great baby Everard Digby had provided some coin, but Tresham was now heir to a rent roll of Ј3,000 a year. Tresham was rich, was from one of the great Catholic families, wasn't he? Then it was time for him to be called on.

Francis Tresham could feel the blood leaving his face and hands as Catesby told him the bare bones of his plan. Rarely had he heard anything so mad. Could a man's heart stop and he still live on? How could he report this to the man in dark clothes? He drew a deep breath. He recognised the tactic from lesser conversations. Catesby had first of all delivered the shock, and now was winding up into full justification, a passionate torrent of words starting to flow from him, in contrast to the almost jerky rhythms with which he had described his plan to take most of England's nobility to Hell. Tresham stood up, held up his hand.

'Stop this, cousin, stop this. Will you be silent?' No-one told Robert Catesby to be silent. A flicker of yellow covered Catesby's eyes, and vanished as quickly. 'Are you mad? Would you damn us all?' Tresham started to pace the room, unconsciously wringing his hands together as if to squeeze the correct words out of them.

'This isn't damnation — it's salvation,' Catesby answered, urgent to make a speech.

'Forgive me. I hadn't realised God had taken a simple little word out of "Thou shalt not murder". How can it not be damnation to kill so many guilty and innocent alike? Why, to kill some of our greatest friends? Of a sudden you have a monopoly on Divine judgement, do you, cousin?'

'I don't, but, those who do have sanctified and approved the plan. You've heard Father Garnet speak of how a smaller evil is permissible in the pursuit of a greater good. Of how if the innocent in an evil city are besieged then they must take their chance with the rest? I can show you the texts that…'

'Faith! Damn your stupid texts! And damn the stupid priests who read them! Hold off that, will you? I'm no scholar of theology. Yet if you really do believe that the Bible sanctifies such an act, let Francis Tresham for the first time take on the robes of a saint. The Bible be damned. I tell you this act is an act of madness, as well as an act of murder! It'll kill us all!'

'Are you then willing to be the only Catholic in England too much of a coward to take up the cause? Are you willing…"

'Hold off again!' Tresham had never before interrupted Catesby, never mind doing it twice in quick succession. Few had, when he was in full force, or seeking to get there. A force of nature, his father had once described him, not entirely approvingly as he had seen every servant girl go weak at the knees in his presence. 'You can forget the old cowardice trick.. It's been used once before, and it doesn't work. Remember poor Tom in the orchard?'

Years ago at Harrowden three of them had planned a raid on a neighbour's orchard, seeking the sweet apples that were his pride and joy. When they had seen the neighbour working in a far corner of the orchard the other two, one of whom was Tresham, had argued for strategic retreat. Catesby had roundly accused them of being cowards, at which the other boy, Tom, had leapt the wall and crept towards the trees. His howls as the neighbour had laid a springy branch with far more force than was necessary across his buttocks had kept Catesby and Tresham company as they huddled on the other side of the wall. 'I hear Tom speaking to me,' an angry Tresham had whispered harshly to Catesby, 'telling me how much pleasure he takes in being a hero!'

Back in the present, Tresham was too angry to be diverted from his point. 'This isn't about cowardice. Have you thought, man, that the nation will be appalled to think such an act could be undertaken in the name of religion — a religion that preaches peace to one's neighbour! Every act of repression, every crippling penalty, will be justified by reference to this act of evil. Common folk will rise up against us! More than common folk! Every decent person in the kingdom will want our blood in revenge! This won't save Catholicism! It'll ruin it for ever! Axe you mad?'

If any of Tresham's passion was penetrating Catesby's self-belief, it was not clear to Tresham.

'It must needs be done,' he said, calmly. 'It's the necessity for all Catholics. We're forced to dangerous measures. We've no choice.'

'And what support will you get? Where are your troops, your invading armies? Do you think Spain has signed a treaty so we can go to war again?'

'The Spanish troops in Dover will march to Rochester and strangle London at the neck of the Thames. Percy's hordes from the north will march, and Catholics from Europe will flock to our support!'

'And on whose word will these mighty offers march? Has the King of Spain told you in person that his troops will be at your beck and call? Has mighty Percy told you his peasants will march in winter to uphold your glorious act, those peasants he hasn't seen for most of his life! Have the commanders in Europe given you their word in writing they'll make that perilous voyage to put out a fire in London that'll never cease burning! You're mad, cousin, mad!'

Catesby seemed unmoved. There was a strange light in his eyes, an almost unnatural calm in his manner. 'Fawkes is a soldier, a man of tried and tested mettle. He's been in Europe. He brings us word from the most high sources that the Spanish troops will act in our favour. He also brings word that Sir William Stanley will bring the English Regiment over to aid us. As for the Earl of Northumberland, he speaks through Thomas Percy, in whom his actions show complete trust.'

'Fiddle-faddle! This Guy Fawkes, who is he? I guarantee you he's as close to the King of Spain as my nose is to my arse! Stanley is a clapped-out old man looking for a pardon and a safe return home, and God help us all if Percy's on your side. Why, that sweating idiot would betray his own mother for a farthing and a pint of piss!'

'Calm down, cousin. Here, take a drink.' Tresham noted for the first time the jug of wine placed in advance in the room, and the exquisite goblets, new like everything else in the house. 'This is new to you. To others of us, those who've lived with it a long time, the shock isn't so great. Give it time. Give us, your friends of long standing, some of that time. Surely we're owed that much.'

'But what of our friends? Of Montague? Mordaunt? Of my relatives? Monteagle? Stourton? You can't kill every Catholic noble in all England!'

Tresham's heart was racing, his whole body pounding. He sat down heavily, drank deeply.

'We can try and warn some of them,' said Catesby. 'In dangerous times all men face grave dangers.'

'Money. I'll give you money.'

Catesby got to his feet, ready to embrace Tresham.

'No, not money to further this idiocy. Money to go away.' Catesby frowned. 'At least let this Parliament sit itself out, let's see what it does, what acts it passes. Who knows if the rumours are nothing but noise? Take a hundred pounds, take more. Take yourself and your hot-headed friends off to the Spanish Netherlands. Take time to think, and watch.'

'And leave thirty or more barrels of powder sitting under the Lords' chamber? Risk removing it, being discovered? To be hung, drawn and quartered on a public scaffold for not having blown our enemies to Hell? Surely not, cousin, surely not.'

Catesby was chiding him, as he might a child who had made a wrong translation.

'So, are you on our side, or a traitor to it?'

The irony of being called a traitor by a man who was about to blow up England's Government was not lost on Tresham. The heart of him wanted to cut and run, to leave the whole damned business behind him. Yet his head told him it was of no use. He had been so close to these men that he would be swept up and hung when news of it leaked out, as it surely would. This meeting with Catesby had sealed his fate, he realised. If they could condemn Walter Raleigh, what chance had he? Besides, he thought as caution tugged at the heels of his flying imagination, his only way out might be his interrogator, the gentleman with the piercing eyes and beautiful… whore? Consort? Even wife? From now on, whatever he did, he would be seen as one of the conspirators. He looked into Catesby's eyes, and realised that he had never truly known him. If he denied the conspiracy he could not even be certain that Catesby would not kill him. His calm was more terrifying than his anger would ever have been.

'You've made me a part of your confounded plot. I supped with you last week, and now I'm dined here. Laying a trail, are you, one even the stupidest hound could follow? I've known you all my life. If your plot fails, do you think any of us will escape? You've hooked me to your line, cousin, without me even knowing there was metal in the water.'

'So are you on our side, or a traitor to it?' Catesby's tone was mild, but relentless.

'I'm a coward in your cause, Robin. Nothing but a bad cause can make me a coward.'

It was starting to get dark when he flung out of Lord Stourton's house and struggled through the streets of Clerkenwell. The summer's dust and two-foot-deep iron ruts had been replaced with clinging mud and filth that threatened to go over the top of even long boots, or suck them off the feet that wore them. He found the sign of The Mermaid and doing as he had been bidden asked for the room kept by Mr Robin Cecil. The innkeeper, a surly figure, called out a tap boy and sent him to guide Tresham. He left him outside a first-floor room. Tresham knocked. There was silence. He looked around him. The wooden balcony which ran round the three sides of the inn, facing inwards into the yard, was empty. The inn seemed near deserted. Those who had colonised Clerkenwell had enough money to keep a full table at home, without need of the inn. He knocked again. Silence. He tried the door. It was open. The room inside was bare, cold. No lights, no sign of anyone having been there in days. Leaving the door swinging on its hinges, he went down the rickety steps, and out into the increasingly gloomy late afternoon. 'Your news?'

He jumped and had his sword half out of the scabbard before he recognised the figure in black.

‘Not here, surely?' Tresham stuttered. Something like a grin flickered across the face of his interrogator. He led Tresham to another room on the other side of the yard. Inside there were the remnants of a meal, a good meal as far as Tresham could see. And the woman, together with the huge man Tresham had seen before. Without a word the ox of a servant began to clear, assisted by the woman. There was an extraordinary relationship between the three of them. Master, servant and whore? Man, wife and servant? Friends? Coconspirators themselves in some plot he could only imagine? There was an ease between them that dismissed hierarchy, an intuitive understanding so at times they hardly needed to speak to each other to understand.

Tresham sat down on a stool, took the offered wine.

'I know what it is they plan.'

Without a word being spoken Tresham heard the other two draw near.

'Speak,' the dark man said.

Tresham took a deep breath. 'My cousin has stacked thirty-six barrels of prime gunpowder beneath the Lords' Chamber at Westminster. It's in a cellar, hired by Thomas Percy, hidden under firewood. They plan to blow up Parliament, at the State opening, killing the King, the Prince, Lords, Commons and all. Three weeks. Three weeks from now. November the fifth.'

There was a gasp from Jane, and even from the normally stalwart Mannion., Gresham sat like stone in his chair.

'Is this… serious? Will they do this thing?' he asked, after a long pause.

'It's serious. They'll do it.' Tresham was warming to his theme, feeling strangely more at home with this man and his woman and his servant than he had with his brother-in-law and with Catesby. 'The powder's there, placed by a man they brought over from Europe on Stanley's recommendation, one Guido or Guy Fawkes. My cousin Percy's a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The house is hired in his name, with this Fawkes masquerading as his servant. John or Jack Johnson, I think they call him. They mean to do it. The plan is to kidnap the Princess Elizabeth from Coombe House, and put her on the throne.'

'They're mad!' Gresham spoke almost in a whisper.

'I said as much, but to no avail. There's no reason in my cousin.'

'Who else is involved?'

'Those you know of. Some others you don't know. Is it necessary I give their names?'

'I doubt very much that I'm the one who will do them the greatest harm.'

'Over and above the ones you know? Ambrose Rookwood. Everard Digby. Tom Bates, Catesby's servant. That's all I know.'

"No nobility?' Gresham asked, with sudden interest. 'Who is to be the Protector if this succeeds? Who's driving it? What about Northumberland?'

'He was mentioned through Thomas Percy. Apparently Tom has given Robin his word that Northumberland's hordes will come streaming down once the Parliament is blown to Hell and backwards. Yet it could be bombast, from that man of all men. None others of true quality were mentioned by Robin. For God's sake, man, Stourton's married to one of my sisters, as is Monteagle! These are my family.’

Family has never meant very much to you before, thought Gresham.

'May I speak?' It was Jane. Gresham nodded.

'What good will come of it? Why can they think your religion will be helped by this… this slaughter?'

In a tired voice Tresham explained the Spanish troops, the English Regiment and again the hoped-for involvement of the Earl of Northumberland.

Gresham got up and paced the room. His tension was clear.

'It makes no sense. Northumberland hardly knows his northern lands, never mind commanding enough loyalty from his minions up there to let them come down and put their heads on a block.'

'It don't always need blue blood to shed plenty of the red kind. Commoners can kill as well.' Mannion spoke, and Gresham swung round to him.

'But commoners need a leader. Even the Peasants had Wat Tyler,' responded Gresham.

'Is Catesby such a leader?' It was Jane who spoke the words. They hung in the air.

'Could it be so? That Robin sees himself hailed as Protector? Surely no…' Tresham was aghast, unwilling to be convinced of what his heart told him.

'Lucifer thought he could defeat God and be hailed in Heaven,' said Jane. 'Why should his works on earth have any less pride to them?'

It was pure accident that brought Catesby into direct contact with Viscount Montagu. He had been walking through the Savoy, on his way back to the Strand, when he turned a corner to find himself face to face with the young Catholic Lord. A brave young man, Montagu had spent five days in the Fleet prison as his reward for speaking out in Parliament against the acts of recusancy. Just the sort of man to make Francis Tresham snivel in pity at the thought of his death, thought Catesby. Did they not realise, he and his kind, that if Christ had to die to save the world then a few men dying to save Christ was no price at all to pay?

Catesby could not afford to ignore Montagu. He had been seen and recognised. The great Catholic families of England not only knew each other; they had frequently been brought up with each other.

'Good morning, my Lord,' he said, bowing low. 'Are you well?' It was verging on the impertinent to speak so directly to one so well born, but Catesby was increasingly fed by a fire of risk. If Montagu was offended, he did not show it, asking after Catesby's health in turn with every show of sincerity.

'Is it the Parliament that brings your Lordship to town?' enquired Catesby. Montagu's home was in Sussex. He offered to Catesby the fact that he was visiting his aunt, and hoped to gain the King's permission to be absent from Parliament. He did not need to specify his reasons to Catesby. Both knew that the devout young man would baulk at being present if any more laws against Catholics were passed, and might land himself in prison for an even longer term if he spoke his mind.

'I'm sure your Lordship takes no pleasure to be there,' offered Catesby sympathetically. Well, if Montagu was already chasing the King for leave of absence, there was nothing Catesby needed to do more, except offer Montagu's likely absence as his doing to Tresham and the others.

A storm was brewing, Catesby knew. His plot had been based on the Catholic family of England, the blood links between them that formed a mutual bond of huge strength, despite their bickering. Yet families protected their own. The death of some members of that family — leading members, the nobility who had held sway for years — was proving a sticking point. Catesby needed to stiffen their resolve, in this most crucial of all times.

He knew that Fawkes, the Wright brothers and Tom Wintour and a servant were due to meet that day at The Bell in Daventry. He had sent his own servant, Tom Bates, to keep an eye on them. It was time to start drawing them all to London now. Whatever the risk, they had to meet with each other more and more. Only with them under his eye would he be assured that they would keep to his path. He had seen dissent in plots before, seen how disunity tore a plan of action apart. He was their leader. Only with him would they haul together on the one line, bring the strength they needed to the great project.

'I need a Bishop, and a College of Theologians.'

'What's a theologian?' asked Mannion, unhelpfully. He had been let off the leash for half a day, and had returned to the house in Alsatia looking smugly self-satisfied. Gresham and Jane had pointedly not asked him what he had been up to. Despite the length of their time in the bolt hole, Gresham had seen no sign that they were being watched. His scalp had not itched. He wished he could give Jane the same freedom, albeit she would not choose the same destination as Mannion. Perhaps another disguise and a trip to the playhouse was an answer.

'Why would they help?' asked Jane.

It was late evening, and the house should have been in bed. It was Gresham who kept them up, feeling forced to take pen and paper, and to try and sketch out the problems that lay before him.

'Why, I'd listen to what the Bishops said, and know that the opposite answer was the right one. Or I'd listen to the theologians argue, and become so angry that I'd choose a path, even if only to silence them and their ramblings.'

'Will it help to speak the problem out again?'

'Perhaps. Who knows? It's all a question of what we do now. I believe the story of this powder. It's fanciful, even farcical, too much so to be an invention. No, the powder is there, right enough. Why it's there, and what to do about it, that's much harder.'

'Surely we know why it's there?'

'We know why Catesby and the others think it's there. We know how they intend to use it a bare few weeks from now. But such a monstrous evil… I can't believe there isn't blue blood at the heart of this, somewhere.'

'Well, you have three Catholic Lords in Cecil's pocket — Suffolk,

Northampton and-Worcester. Between them they run over half of the country.'

'That's the problem. What've they to gain by a plot to overthrow the King and his Chief Secretary? They're well in bed with both of them, sitting very prettily on top of their own particular dung heap. They'd be mad to rock the boat, never mind blow it to pieces.'

'Northumberland then?'

'Possibly, but if so, only at a distance. The old Earl is no arch-plotter. He prefers his study and his experiments, and brooding in silence on how harshly the world has treated him. He's deaf, you know. Deaf people live in fear, fear of things going on that they don't know about. Northumberland is more frightened than most. He knows his family history. He knows no-one in London trusts a Percy. If he's in this, then he's pulling strings, like a puppeteer.'

'Surely all this is irrelevant? What they plan is obscene. It's an evil to end all evils. It must be stopped. Can't you simply swallow your pride, go to Cecil and reveal everything you know?'

'Cecil wants me dead, remember? I daren't go to him, not without threatening one other person I care for greatly.'

'Raleigh? Surely Sir Walter would never be involved in something such as this?'

'Sir Walter involved? Never in a thousand lifetimes! Raleigh has never had to hide his powder, and I would have been the first to know if this was his hatching. But Raleigh's life hangs by a thread, and Cecil needs only the flimsiest of excuses to cut that thread. One hint of a plot and Raleigh is dead. Raleigh doesn't need to be involved in reality. All Cecil needs to pin the plot on to Raleigh is the slenderest of leads. You see, Raleigh is a real threat to Cecil. While he rots in the Tower, and the people line the riverbank to cheer him on his daily walk on the walls and a King who has had him condemned can't run the risk of executing him — now there's a threat not just to a King, but to the Chief Secretary who betrayed his friend! Popularity, Jane. Popularity. Raleigh has become popular.'

Gresham was on his feet now, pacing the room.

'It's the one thing Cecil can never have, the one thing he fears! Cecil has intellect in plenty. He has wealth, he has power and he has cunning, and he's cautious beyond belief. Yet the one thing that threatens him is a popular uprising. He's no feel for the common man, no, nor any love for them. He can sit in his palace and scheme and manipulate and plot and plan, but he can't reach out like Sir Walter can reach out and make people's hearts sing and their spirits rise just by the sight of him. So he fears Raleigh above all others, my poor captain in his captive tower, and he fears that Raleigh might win over the King. Raleigh's the symbol of the popularity Cecil will never have, and a power he'll never have, the power to move people's hearts and minds. Cecil knows it's a power that could be used to knock him off his perch, so he fears it as well as envies it.'

'But what's the link between this and this powder plot?' asked Jane, genuinely bemused.

'What if Cecil knows something is brewing? The details can't be clear to him. No man like him would knowingly leave a ton of powder beneath his seat of power. But say he's caught the rumours, and sees in this plot a way to prove Raleigh a traitor at last? Say he bides his time and then seizes as many of the plotters as he can find. How many under torture wouldn't confess to Raleigh's being the ringleader? It would explain so much. Why Cecil is desperate to keep me out of the way, why he feared me so and set me off on a false trail. I've made no secret of my allegiance to Sir Walter. For God's sake, I visit the man in his prison openly! There are few men who could unstitch a plot to make Raleigh appear a traitor, and few who would want to do so as much as I. I'm one such. Perhaps the only such.'

'Did it kill Will Shadwell?' asked Jane.

'Of course,' said Gresham. 'Percy must have blurted something out to Shadwell when he was drunk. I wonder if Will took the story to Cecil first of all? That would be a fine joke. Cecil watching this lovely little plot bubbling away, his marvellous excuse to get rid of Raleigh once and for all, and along comes Will Shadwell ready to spoil it all with an early disclosure. I flattered myself thinking Will Shadwell was running with a story to me. I bet he was running away from Sam Fogarty and his crew; he must have picked up he was being followed, and seen me sis the only person who could protect him against Cecil.'

Jane was looking perplexed. 'But I still don't see why you can't just go to Cecil? Expose the plot and you stop a slaughter…'

'And I give Cecil myself as well as Raleigh, served up nice and hot on a plate! Think what happens if I appear in front of Cecil with the details of this fantastical plot. One of Raleigh's fiercest supporters, and a spymaster to boot? I'm clapped into jail the minute I open my mouth, and instead of saving my master I become an agent for his death! How easy to have me not as the discoverer of the plot, but as one of its leaders. There's a forged letter to prove me a Catholic. What was done once can be done again! I've supped with the plotters, haven't I? And I have a direct link to Raleigh. They can have me backwards and forwards between the plotters and the Tower quicker than a pair of oars in the flood tide. They can rack me until I say what they wish, never even need to bring me out in open court. Look at Raleigh's trial — his chief accuser was never even presented!'

'You would never testify against Raleigh!' exclaimed Jane.

'I would never willingly or knowingly testify against him, while I was in possession of my own senses. But courage and fortitude have nothing to do with torture, Jane. Christ himself on the Cross denied his father. It's not just their bodies men lose on the rack. It's their minds. Anyone can be broken, in time.'

'So you can't speak out, and you can't remain silent. Aren't there others you could reveal the details to?'

'That must be the answer. Young Tresham's a complicating factor. He's to be stopped from cutting and running, by the way. He's impulsive by nature. Before too long he'll weigh the odds -

God knows, I would if I struck a deal where I could be arrested and taken to the Tower as a traitor if my mad cousin spoke one word to the wrong people — and work out that it might be better for him just to vanish off to France on his own.' 'So who do you tell, and how?'

'There're enough pompous fools in the employ of the Crown who'd leap at the chance to discover a plot, but the mere discovery isn't enough. If the powder is simply found, it could still be proven as Raleigh's as much as anyone else's. No, however it's done, it has to be by some route or other that keeps it within the Catholics, identifies the whole awful business as driven by religion.'

'Well,' said Jane, 'you'd better get that pen and paper ready. How many Catholic sympathisers do we know?'

Someone was crying, not too far away in the house. The noise could be heard even above the noise of a great house being shut up and closed down, a keening wail that seemed to have no start and no ending. It would be one of the servants, Tresham thought. He was still not recovered from his madcap ride from London to Northamptonshire. Many of the servants had worked their whole lives for the Tresham family. They were wailing, as servants always did, yet little they knew how much better for them it would be to be dispersed before the avenging angels of Cecil descended on the house crying treason. He had done with Rushton, whatever happened. Already the house felt as if it belonged to someone else.

Tresham believed he could still stop the plot. If that was the case, Rushton could be opened up again easily enough. The death of so many Catholic nobles was the key, he was sure. It might not work as an argument for postponement on Catesby, but it could work on the others. He had laboured the point with his dark angel. The man showed so little resemblance to Alexander Selkirk, the semi-drunk Scot who had accompanied Jonson, that Tresham had to pinch himself to know they were one and the same. 'Selkirk' had not disagreed with him, but gazed levelly into his eyes and said resignedly,

'You must try, as best you can. It's best you don't know of the other plan to destroy this plot before it happens. You'll be all the more surprised when you do hear of it. Remember when you're challenged to stick with the truth.' Tresham had pondered on that, not really understanding, and pleaded to be allowed to ride north and close up his home, bringing his family down to London.

'Why should you wish that?' the man had asked.

'I leave this country for a while, whatever happens. I need to put my affairs in order, gather my money and bring my family together so that when I vanish they can help and support each other. I must also consider being arrested.'

'Why so?'

Tresham had had the same thoughts as Gresham. 'One loose word from any one of the plotters and they could be betrayed. I'm implicated now, regardless. If I'm arrested I can plead that I tried to stop the plot — which is quite true — and stayed with Catesby simply to act from the inside to further act against it. If I move my family to London it will confirm my innocence. A man who fears the fire doesn't move nearer the furnace.'

•No,' said Gresham, 'but a man who wants to light it most certainly does.'

You are, thought Gresham, very optimistic indeed about your likely fate if this plot is discovered. Live in hope, though. It does no harm.

'A lesser brain than yours,' he continued, 'might think to strip his house and gather his wealth, then return to London and vanish quietly before anyone knew what was happening.'

Was this man a mind-reader? Just such thoughts had been gaining increasing strength in Tresham's mind.

'Such thoughts wouldn't merit serious attention, from a sensible man, for two reasons. Firstly, a man who vanishes is still alive, and can still be found. Secondly, there is a watch on you at all times. It's an experienced watch, by people who make their living out of it, and would as soon as kill you as keep tail on you. We'll decide when you leave, together. Let this be our own private little conspiracy.'

So it had ended, and Tresham taken the mad ride to Rushton. Dust was rising everywhere, as hangings were taken down and the few precious carpets taken up, clothes and bed linen assaulted to rid them of dust before being packed tight into the chests that littered the halls, and stairways. What few fires there were blew smoke throughout the house, as doors were banged open and shut to the carts and horses waiting outside.

There was one final thing to be done, apart from face the anger and incomprehension of his mother, wife and sisters. The family papers, so carefully tended and preserved by his father, had been sealed three times over, and placed in the house where no unfriendly eyes would ever gaze on them. It felt like a burial.

Tresham headed for White Webbs, the Enfield home of Anne Vaux. He knew that Father Garnet would be there, together with Catesby, Fawkes and Tom Wintour. Catesby had assured him that Anne knew nothing of the detail of the plot, yet he felt a deep unease. White Webbs had become the gathering centre for the conspirators. It was riddled with priest-holes, and conveniently close to London. He could not believe Anne Vaux would agree to mass slaughter in Parliament. Yet he could not see how she would not know, given the iron hand of control she and the other Catholic women exercised over the Faith in England. Father Garnet was a garrulous fool, and to be trusted as much as any Jesuit, yet how had he supported this murderous plan? Catesby was insistent that Garnet knew about the plot and endorsed it.

Tresham felt a deep, inner exhaustion as he entered the familiar doors, doors that once had been comforting to him. Catesby, Fawkes and Tom Wintour were there, with Robert Keyes. He had not liked Fawkes on their one previous meeting, feeling in him a contempt for the civilians with whom he was temporarily involved. His dislike had increased now he realised that this was the man who had planted the powder, and the man who was prepared to light the fuse to it. To Hell with the Lords in Parliament, who probably deserved to go there anyway. The powder could blow up whoever it pleased, but there was a terrible danger of Francis Tresham being caught in the blast..

From the start Tresham sensed a difference in Catesby. They were seated together in a room of dark oak panelling, bare of portraits but with mullioned windows overlooking the tended garden. By it a kitchen maid was poking at a mass of green in the kitchen garden, seeking the best plants to take back inside to Cook. Tresham looked enviously down on her bent back, noting her complete absorption in her task. Could his life ever be that simple?

'We're bound to blow up several of our own kind. Not just common people — the people whose leadership we depend on! Are we Catholics, or are we cannibals, feeding off our own kind?' Tresham was pushing at the point.

There was a sardonic grin on Fawkes's face. He rarely spoke, and when he did it was with a strange tang of Yorkshire and Spain in his accent.

'People die in wars,' he said now. 'Innocent people, as well as guilty people and soldiers.'

'For too long,' said Catesby, 'we've seen our battle as being about ideas and faith. Those things aren't "what we fight with. They're what we fight for. And fight we must. Do you think those who might die in the Lords would think their lives lost if by their death we bring God's rule back into England?'

'They won't be able to tell us, will they?' grunted Tresham. 'They'll be dead.'

'Some, not all. Many won't come, because they know they'll have to pass legislation against our kind. Others we can warn.'

They ran through the list. It was far too long. There was young Thomas Howard, recently appointed Earl of Arundel and restored to that ancient title. How could the young Lord Vaux be allowed into the massacre, given what the Vaux women had done for the Faith over the years? Tresham argued, as he had to, for his two brothers-in-law, Monteagle and Stourton. Then there was Lord Montagu… why, Gatesby had dined with two of them hardly a week past. Had he taken their supper whilst looking at them and knowing he was signing their death warrants?… Tresham had an unexpected ally in Robert Keyes, when he spoke in defence of Lord Mordaunt. Keyes was Tresham's age, a large man with a flowing red beard, but a generous soul, for all that he was a poor man. He had been one of the first to join the conspiracy. Perhaps it was the pair of them speaking out in favour of Mordaunt that provoked Catesby to show his fangs.

'Mordaunt!' he sneered. 'Why, I wouldn't tell that man a secret for a room full of jewels! It's precisely because of men such as him that we can't tell all and sundry what's to happen. They'd destroy us as readily as if we marched to tell the King ourselves.'

'But the young Arundel,' said Tresham. 'Surely if we kill such as him we're killing our hope for the future?'

'Why, then, stop him from coming by other means. Isn't there a man here who could give the boy a wound that'll keep him in bed for a week or two?'

A splutter of conversation broke out around the table. Catesby let it run.

'Hold!' he announced firmly, after fully quarter of an hour of pointless debate with no conclusion. 'I myself have warned Montagu.' He glared round the table, daring any there present to deny him his right. 'One or two of the others, possibly, I might tell hours before, if I so decide. You will leave it with me.'

There was total silence around the table.

'This is no petty squabble,' he carried on, in a low voice that carried as if it had been sharpened. 'This is the battle for the soul of England. Didn't Christ die to redeem us all? Wasn't Christ innocent of all evil? Didn't his mother, and his father, have long hours to mourn his death? Sometimes the innocent must perish with the guilty, sooner than lose the battle.'

They arranged to meet again on October 23rd, at The Irish Boy.

A wider gathering was planned for the day after at The Mitre tavern in Bread Street, between Cheapside and the river, though not for the conspirators. Catesby was cheerful enough to muster a smile when he told his devilish company not to meet him there. He was due to meet ambassadors for the archdukes. He had spread the word that he and Charles Percy, Thomas Percy's brother, were forming a troop to go and fight in Europe, partly to lure away any Government spies in the taverns, partly to reassure Anne Vaux and Father Garnet. For those who did not probe too deeply, the expedition was good enough cover for their purchase of horses and weapons.

From Bread Street, mused Francis Tresham, you could see both the Tower of London, its White Tower with its four new pepper-pot cupolas, and St Paul's, still without its steeple after a lightning blast in Elizabeth's reign. Prime executions spots, the Tower and St Paul's. He felt a clawing in his stomach, and wondered if the crowds would be gathering in one of those spots to see his disembowelment before November 5th.

It had to be stopped, this madness. It had to cease.