The Desperate remedy

Chapter 11

"Fool! Fool! What a complete fool I’ve been!' Gresham's anger was uncontainable. It surged through the House, seeming to shake the very walls, threatening to tear him and all it came into contact with apart. The candles had been out, and hurriedly relit. They guttered, smoking from where there had been no time to trim the wicks.

'Do be quiet, will you?' Jane seemed angered by his anger. 'It's not foolishness I hear, it's self-pity! If you're a fool then we're all fools! Who could've dreamt of the King's Chief Minister wishing to blow up the King and Parliament?' She was scared. The rampaging thing that was Gresham was like a wild creature. She felt her world falling apart, torn by forces beyond her control.

The accusation of self-pity stung him like a slap across the face, because it was correct.

'That's where we've all been fools. How could I not have seen it? He doesn't want to blow up Parliament. He wants the credit for discovering the plot to blow up the King and Parliament! Can't you see? He's been in control of this from the start. The only people who benefit from this are the King and his chief henchman.

'It all makes sense now,' he continued. 'Unpopularity — I said that was the key. The King's increasingly unpopular, and Cecil's never been popular. The Raleigh business gives them a permanent thorn in their side, which they can't remove, and the Treaty with Spain's laughed at. Everyone knows the Court's awash with Spanish pensions and bribes. When this so-called plot is exposed, at the last minute, Cecil will go down in history as the saviour of the nation and the Protestant faith, and James receive a huge backlash of sympathy. They'll ride on the back of this for years to come. It's all too easy for them.'

'But I'm still not clear,' said Jane, her brow furrowed in thought. 'Did Cecil start the plot off?'

‘I doubt it. Catesby probably gave it to him on a plate. A God-given hothead, on whom Cecil placed a saddle without him even realising he was being ridden. Catesby must have walked straight into the arms of one of their agents overseas when they were looking for someone to deal with the powder.'

'And Fawkes?'

Gresham started to rampage among the vast pile of papers he had hurled on to the table when he returned. They were the reports of the spies and informers they had engaged at the start of this business, page after page of painstaking notes.

'The agent he walked into, of course. Either turned years ago, or suborned latterly. Look at his record! Born to a fine Protestant family, sells up his inheritance to go and fight in the Netherlands. All right, when he gets there he chooses to fight for Spain. So? Who has the money and the gold in the Netherlands? Who's paying a pension to nearly every one of James's courtiers at this very moment? The Spaniards. To Catesby and Wintour he's been a soldier of conscience. What if he's only ever been a soldier of convenience? A mercenary, fighting for the side that gives him most and pretending a religion to win promotion? Whilst taking a fat purse from Cecil to spy on the Spaniards, his employers, in the meantime!'

'So Catesby walked unbeknowingly into a trap set by Cecil?'

'Catesby triggered a series of thoughts in Cecil's mind, more like. The idiot goes blundering through Europe, looking for someone to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and latches on to one of Cecil's double agents. What a stroke of luck for Cecil — he has a real, a genuine conspirator to make the plot look real, and all the while he's paying the man with his hand on the fuse. It can't go wrong for him, provided he keeps a sufficient distance. No wonder he wanted me somewhere else.'

'What about Percy?' asked Jane.

Gresham threshed around among the papers again.

'Just look at his record. As wild as they come. Where is it…' he pounced on a piece of paper,'… thirty-four charges of dishonesty proven against him by Northumberland's tenants. He's nothing more than a bully boy, and then all of a sudden he marries a woman and converts to Catholicism — what a miraculous conversion! I'll bet anything you care to put down that was when he was grabbed to spy on the Catholics. What a bargain — he could tell them about the grand Earl of Northumberland, as well as the lesser kind. If you think about it, a Percy must have seemed like God's gift. Being a traitor is poured into them at birth, and what better guard against a northern rising than to have one of Northumberland's kinsmen on the inside!'

'I… I just can't take this in,' said Jane. 'Is everyone in the spy or a double agent in this world? Is there no-one… normal?’

'Oh, yes,' said Gresham, 'there're plenty of normal people. They die young.'

'Well,' said Mannion. 'That's all fine and well. A bit of philosophy always helps at a bad time, as I'm first to admit. But now that's over, can we decide what we're going to do?'

'What indeed,' said Gresham.

He looked almost devilish, his face receiving the light flung up from the lamps on the table. Jane felt a shiver of fear run through her body. How well did she know this man?

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'forgive me for being a stupid woman.' She glared at Gresham. Wisely, he said nothing. 'But how do Fawkes and Percy get out of this? The plot has to be discovered for James and Cecil to get the benefit, but if it's discovered it's death for Fawkes and Percy.'

'Fawkes just makes sure nothing does actually blow up, and then he's off on the nearest ship on the Thames. New identity, new life and a great deal richer than ever he was before. As for Percy… how do you think a knighthood and some fat manors would do him? The brave discoverer of the infamous Gunpowder Plot! The man who risked life and limb to ensure that every man involved in this blasphemous endeavour was brought to justice. Or he could simply take a fat purse and a different name… but I doubt it, somehow.'

'So what do we do now? Expose Cecil's involvement? Or just let the plotters walk into Cecil's trap, and pretend we never knew?'

'There you have it. it's Machiavelli's choice, isn't it?'

'Machiavelli died some years ago. We're still alive, in case you hadn't noticed. So, for that matter, are the plotters, King James and Robert Cecil,' said Jane acidly. 'I think we can keep Machiavelli out of it. After all, he played the wrong game and ended up being tortured and put out to grass, didn't he?'

'But the basic quandary he posed lives on, as it lived before he was born and as it will live on whilst humans seek and abuse power.' Gresham was lecturing her, unconsciously adopting the pose of a Fellow of his College talking to a young student. 'You see, Machiavelli said that truth wasn't necessarily worth very much, if it meant thousands of people dying. Good rulers put the welfare of their people above such minor things as truth and morality.'

'You're not a ruler,' said Jane, practically.

'No, but I could bring down Cecil and King James, I think.'

'Do you have evidence?'

'I could gain it easily enough. Men like Fawkes and Percy were paid to be traitors to their kind once. Pay them enough and they'll turn on Cecil as easily as they turned on their supposed friends.'

'So what will you do?' asked Jane, the anxiety cracking her voice.

'What will I do?' mused Gresham. The fire had smoked badly on being re-lit. In their panic to reawaken the household some wet timber had been placed on it. Now it had caught, and the cheery red flicker of the flames reflected in Gresham's eyes.

'What will I do?' he repeated. He turned towards Jane, with a thin, broad smile on his face. 'I shall be Machiavelli.'

The instructions to Fawkes had been clear. The frightened messenger was the same ambitious little rabbit Fawkes had showed the powder to an age ago. Fawkes was Cecil's safety catch, his half-cock on the pistol. Fawkes had to remain on guard until the last possible moment before the discovery of the powder, in case one of the other plotters decided to take matters into their own hands and light the fuse. Also, Cecil could not appear to know too much. A search party could not simply go directly to the cellar and find the powder. There had to be two searches, the first of the whole area. It would be told simply to observe and to report, to take no precipitate action that might trigger off the plotters. As such there would be no risk to Fawkes, particularly if the barrels were well buried under the faggots and firewood. If questioned he could claim quite truthfully to be servant to Thomas Percy, the tenant of the house. Who would distrust the servant to someone so recently appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber?

Suffolk would do to lead the search party. And Suffolk would be told to arrest no-one, to take no. action that might start a panic, thought Cecil. He would summon that fool Monteagle to go with Suffolk in the first search party. Let Monteagle report that the pile of brushwood really was very large for the size of house above it, so they could go back to it later. It would all add credibility.

The second search, the one that would go back to the cellar, would take place at one o'clock in the morning.

'One o'clock!' whispered the frightened rabbit, though there was no-one nearby to hear or to see. 'The time is most important! My

Lord says you may leave after midnight, but not before! If a hothead such as Catesby were to hear the plot exposed he could still seek to blow up the building and so provoke rebellion.'

My Lord may go and fuck himself, thought Fawkes, if he has enough red blood in him to fuck anything, which I doubt. An hour was cutting it too fine, but he did not doubt that my Lord would have a watcher in the vicinity. Cecil was right, of course. With a gaping hole where Parliament had been the rumours could fly, and who knows what might catch seed in the confusion.

The rabbit scuttled out of the cheap lodgings, and did not notice the figure in expensive doublet, hose and short cloak detach him-self, after a decent interval, from the wall and tuck in behind him on his route back to Whitehall. The figure could not fail to notice that two other men, in rough jerkins and with pockmarked faces, were also following the courtier, ahead. Typical of his type, the courtier stuck his chin in the air and barged his way through the common people, a testy 'Make way! Make way!' issuing from his lips. Suddenly he came upon two working men who, instead of moving aside in the busy, narrow street, put shoulder together to shoulder. He cannoned into them. Did one flick his heels to help him down into the mud? It was difficult to see, but certainly one of the men caught him a heavy blow on the head with his foot as he walked past the figure he had just helped knock over. Almost instantly, the two other men came up to the prostrate figure, and knelt down as if to offer help. There was a momentary flash of steel, so fast that no-one watching could be certain they had seen it, and the two men stood up and moved on, becoming lost immediately in the crowd.

The courtier's throat was cut, his life-blood ebbing away into the mud and staining the fashionable yellow starch of his ruff. Cecil had closed off one possible leakage of information in advance of the final act of his great play. The courtier gaped up at the figure in doublet and hose, gasping, terror in his eyes.

'They… they have stabbed me!' he croaked, unnecessarily.

'On your master Cecil's orders, be sure. If you wish a surgeon,' said Henry Gresham, bending down and whispering into the courtier's ear, 'you must first tell me what you said to Master Fawkes.'

The search party had seemed as inept as the rabbit had promised. Lurking outside, Fawkes had given his name as Johnson and told the leader he was Thomas Percy's servant and this Thomas Percy's rented house. The senior Lord in all his finery had seemed to be in a hurry to be anywhere except where he was, and the other young popinjay had tried to ask more questions but been hauled away by the other.

At eleven o'clock he took a simple lantern and materials to make the fire and light the fuse. The rabbit had been insistent that these were left by the powder, as if to suggest that everything was ready to ignite it at a moment's notice. He dressed carefully for the cold night, the spurs jangling as he walked for the last time to the cellar and opened the ancient door. Keyes had given him a watch, to time the fuse, as he thought. He had little realised that it would time Fawkes's escape. He sat on the stool he had lugged down into the cellar, not lighting the lantern, just letting the darkness and the silence enfold him. The dust, the ancient smell of decay, had become almost a comfort to him. So much danger in these barrels, so much threat, yet so much silence and peace here, underground. A broad grin lit his face in the dark as he thought on his master, Cecil. He wished he could see the expression on Cecil's face when the surprise was delivered. A pity he would be long gone.

He dimly heard the church bells strike midnight, and rose stiffly to his feet. He needed no light to walk to the door, the path learnt off by heart. He stopped, suddenly. A noise? From outside? He waited. Silence. A dog, or the wind. Nevertheless, he was careful in drawing back the door. Silence. He poked his head round the door for one final inspection. There was the tiniest flicker of light…

A roaring yell, and the full weight of the door was flung against his unsuspecting body, hurling him back into the cellar. He was down, and three, four, five men were on top of him…

'Leave off!' he screamed. 'I am under the orders of…' A sixth sense made him close his mouth. Something had gone wrong, horribly wrong. Yet these men — King's men, he saw by the uniform — were clearly not going to kill him or it would have been done by now. My Lord Cecil could not bear to have his part in this exposed… No, while he was alive he had power. This must, must be a mistake. He could surely stave off the truth until Cecil found a way of releasing him…

As the bound figure of Fawkes was bundled away by his men, Sir Thomas Knyvett mopped his brow, despite the cold of the night.

'A dreadful business, Sir Henry, dreadful business. You note the man was booted and spurred for flight? Cloak and hat and all! Had you not come in all haste with the message to commence our search early I fear he would have escaped! A dreadful business, dreadful…'

'It was, Sir Thomas, a pleasure to be of service to you, to my Lord the Earl of Salisbury and to His Majesty the King,' replied Sir Henry Gresham.

Kit Wright could not sleep. He envied any man who could do so, on this night of all nights. He was uneasy at being parted from his brother. As children the others had always joked that they hunted in pairs, and without his brother he felt strangely incomplete. Essentially a pious and a decent man, Wright prayed with his bare knees against the splintered boards for half the night. He failed to find his usual consolation. The same deep anger was there still in his soul for the seeming death of the religion he loved in the country he loved, the anger that Catesby had seen and tapped into. Until now that anger had killed any qualms of conscience he might have, but now, with the terrible thing so near, he could not rid his mind of screaming, the screaming of those buried under the rubble of Fawkes's powder.

He gave up sleep, dressed, and lay on his cot, fully clothed. There was a noise, surely? He got up, and opened the shutter. His heart stopped. A tide of torchlight was coming up the Strand, twenty, thirty, maybe even forty men. For him! For him! They must be coming for him! He turned and grabbed a cloak, buckling his sword as he flung open the door of his room. Even in his haste, he was not the first. The landlord, ludicrous in long nightshirt with offensive stains round its middle, had already unlocked the door and was standing, barefoot, gaping at the outside. Wright pushed past him, and halted as a dazed and half-dressed Lord Monteagle thrust past him, to be hailed from horseback by a finely dressed noble. 'My Lord! My Lord!' the noble was saying, as Monteagle's servants tried to put him in contact with his horse in the increasing melee of people. 'We must call up Northumberland! Now! With haste!'

There could be only one reason for every noble's house on the Strand to be being woken up this long after midnight. The plot had been discovered. How long did he have? Keeping as close to the sides of the houses as he could, Wright ran to Wintour's lodging, at The Duck and Drake. Breathlessly he gasped out the news. Wintour, as ever, kept control, pulling his clothes on as he spoke.

'Go to Essex House,' he commanded. 'Listen; they'll have the true story there, if they have it anywhere. If it's as we fear, go to Percy's lodging. Tell him to leave, now. It's his name on the cellar lease. He'll be the first warrant they issue — and find out if Fawkes is taken!’

'He's a calm one, my Lord!' The first questions were being asked of John Johnson, the man found in the cellar. 'He tells us nothing except his name, and that he's a servant of Thomas Percy. I didn't expect to see such calm in one so evil.'

Why had that fool Knyvett gone so early? Why?

He was here now, bustling in his own importance.

'Your messenger came most timely, my Lord.'

Messenger?

'He did?' replied Cecil.

'Sir Henry Gresham made fine speed to inform me of the change in plan.'

A great darkness opened up in front of the Chief Secretary.

One by one the plotters were roused, and, bleary-eyed, headed for the stables where their horses kicked and rose, sensing their owners' nervousness. From over London, they drove their mounts furiously, heading north, following the route Catesby, Bates and Jack Wright had taken the day before, the route to The Red Lion at Dunchurch. It was there they had planned to meet, to rally the band of armed, mounted Catholics who would sweep through the West Country raising a fire of rebellion as red as that burning at Westminster. Fear made them flee, some homing instinct sending them to where they had planned to go all along. No-one raised the alarm with Francis Tresham, and not only because he was a newcomer. The further away he was, the more belief in his guilt spread like a cloud of smoke among the plotters.

Meet at Dunchurch.

It was the only security they had left.

If there were legends to be told about this affair, thought Ambrose Rookwood, his ride would be the greatest legend of all. He had left London last, except for Tom Wintour. He had supplied the horses for the others, but kept the best for himself. Thirty miles in two hours, on one horse! His head was aflame with the power and the exhaustion of it. His every limb ached, and he could hardly distinguish between his own sweat and lather and that of his present horse. He had overtaken Robert Keyes just beyond Highgate, then Percy and Kit Wright. Catesby, John Wright and Bates he saw on the horizon just beyond Brickhill.

They reined in. Catesby looked calm, but his eyes noted the state of Rookwood and Keyes.

'Well, Ambrose, your horses have done you proud to stand the pace! But why so fast?'

Rookwood had no other words. He blurted out, 'We're discovered! Fawkes is taken…'

Catesby. Bates. Jack Wright. Kit Wright. Keyes. Percy. Rookwood. The seven men stood in silence, the loudest noise the breathing of the horses, its steam stretching out in the cold air. The six scarves the men wore fluttered gently in the morning breeze. They were fine work. Rookwood had provided them. The weaving contained representations not only of the cross, but of items used in the Mass. Tom Bates had none, of course. He was a servant.

Silence. It was broken first by Jack Wright. His reaction was to start to curse, slowly at first, but with a rising voice of fear. The others looked, instinctively, to Catesby.

'Hold your noise, Jack!' Catesby's voice was like a whiplash.

'All is lost only when we all lose heart! There's chaos in London, isn't there? Confusion? Signal enough for all good Catholics to rise up on our side. We have horses, we have armour, we have weapons, don't we? We have men gathered at Dunchurch, don't we? All we need is stout hearts!'

Despite themselves, the men felt the warmth of his magic work its way back into the freezing bones. They rode, the Devil behind them and the Devil in front. Percy and Jack Wright tore at their cloaks, hurled them off into the hedgerow, as if by that small loss of weight they could drive their horses even faster.

Catesby yelled something back at them, in a delirium of speed and pounding hooves. They grinned insanely back through the blinding sweat and muscles that ached as if it was the men's feet driving them forward.

The furore outside seemed to bend the timbers of the house. Francis Tresham waited for the door to be flung inwards, to feel the hands round his throat, the blows to his body and head or even the stinging slash or probe of a blade. He waited. Why had they not come for him?

'Are you wishing to go the way of Lord Walsingham?' Mannion asked Gresham, glumly. Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster, had nearly bankrupted himself keeping a web of agents up and running. Gresham had placed one, two men on each of the plotters, one to watch, one to report wherever possible. The cost was appalling.

What was Tom Wintour playing at? The plotters were running now, running as he had hoped they would do when the letter was delivered to Monteagle. Gresham had nearly followed Catesby out of London, but to follow a man on those lonely, deserted roads without being discovered was almost impossible, and Gresham's instinct was to stay in London at least for a while to keep track of the anarchy he had unleashed. He had tracked Tom Wintour, choosing him instead of Thomas Percy because Wintour was the closest of all the conspirators to Catesby and, Gresham suspected, the born leader among them.

Gresham had witnessed Wintour issuing instructions, and then expected him to run for the stables where he kept his gelding. Instead Wintour had headed purposefully towards Westminster itself, the seat of the crime. Was it him escaping discovery by sheer bravado? Had he so much faith in Guy Fawkes resisting interrogation?

He saw Wintour stop and listen to a group of excited men in the street, and then followed him as he headed down King Street. There a crude barrier had been erected across the road, and a soldier barred his way. Wintour showed immense control, his shrugging manner, his easy craning of his head to look down the street perfectly those of the idle man caught up in a flood of gossip, speculation and interest.

Or was his gazing down the street simply the act of the vacuous onlooker? What was it that he so clearly wished to gain sight of? Whatever it was, he was unwilling to give it up. He walked round almost the whole perimeter of the Palace of Westminster, but there was a pattern to his ramblings, Gresham noticed, always returning to the one spot.

Whynniard's house. The phrase came back to Gresham from something Tresham had said. The plotters had started by hiring a house in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, a house owned by John Whynniard. They had started a tunnel from there, Tresham had said, but given up the idea as beyond their physical and technical skills. That was when the cellar under the Lords had become vacant, allowing them to ditch the unfinished tunnel.

There it was. Whynniard's house. Gresham had been sufficiently interested when Tresham had mentioned the house to walk past it himself, and keep a watcher on it for a week. It was shuttered, empty. Yet now the empty house seemed to be the common denominator in Tom Wintour's appallingly dangerous trek round Westminster, even though the cordon thrown round Westminster meant he was unable to get closer than a stone's throw to-it.

A soldier was starting to look suspiciously at Wintour. He had stopped for the third time in the same spot, the one nearest the house. Without seeming to notice, Wintour began to melt towards the back of the crowd, breaking off from it and heading in the direction of the livery stables when Gresham knew he kept his horse. The house, thought Gresham, might repay some attention. But now his most urgent aim was to keep up with Tom Wintour. Had the plotters dispersed? Or had they run to some assembly point, from where they would try to rouse the nation? The game was still being played, and Gresham guessed the next rounds would be decided out of London.

'You will leave us!' Cecil spoke with a fierce intensity, hating the dullness of the guards as they looked fearfully back at him. They were below ground level, the dismal, dark room set into the very foundations of the White Tower. He knew what the guards were thinking. Leave Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, alone with this blackguard, this Devil on earth, this Guy Fawkes… fear of what would happen to them if the Chief Secretary was attacked fought for a brief moment with fear of the Chief Secretary. Fear of Cecil won. They backed away, bowing. Cecil closed the door. The bottom of it grated on the filthy floor.

Fawkes was huddled on the floor, rubbing his shoulder where the guards had hurled him to the ground. His head was badly gashed where he had been thrown down, the blood half-dried, fresh seeping through the caked residue. The cell was lit by the flames of a rough torch hung in an iron bracket. Even by its light the wetness on the walls glistened and sparkled on the five-hundred-year-old stone.

'Why did you betray me?' Fawkes's voice was rough, but steady enough. Cecil was caught off guard. It should not be Fawkes, the prisoner, opening this conversation.

'I did not betray you!' hissed Cecil through clenched teeth. The cold was penetrating even through the thickness of his rich cloak. 'You were betrayed by the fool who brought the orders for the search forward by an hour.'

'My Lord, we had a bargain.' There was fear in Fawkes's voice, but also resolution, and a tone Cecil could not quite track down.

'The terms and conditions appear to have changed very significantly!' he snapped.

'You'll have to have me testify, my Lord,' said Fawkes. The blow to his head must have disorientated him. He spoke in starts, as if suffering from momentary losses of concentration. 'I think it wouldn't be in your Lordship's interest to have me testify the truth.'

Fawkes's body was shaking now with the cold, Cecil noted with satisfaction.

'Many better than you have died in this Tower, without word and without testimony,' said Cecil, looking with loathing at Fawkes. 'Many have screamed for weeks in this Tower before they welcomed the sweet release of death. Have a care what you threaten.'

'No,' said Fawkes, 'have a care what you threaten.' His teeth were chattering now. 'If someone knows enough of your plans to bring the time of the search forward an hour, then someone knows enough of your perfidy to place you, my Lord the Earl of Salisbury, in this Tower, to die or to scream for your death alongside me. You need me, you need me to give a confession that will confirm your version of events, to name your other conspirators. If I stand firm, my Lord, many can challenge your honour's actions. None can prove them false.'

How grating was that accent of Yorkshire, how ludicrous the Spanish lilt laid over it.

'As you seem so much in control,' Cecil said as his eyes flicked over the manacles that chained Fawkes's feet to the wall, 'you will certainly be able to tell me what you wish me to do.'

Fawkes was shivering heavily now, his arms clasped round himself in a feeble attempt to keep warm.

'Move me to a secret chamber, a chamber with warmth and food. Many who have been tortured here have never been heard. Now may one be tortured who never was. Put out that I was steadfast, then that I was put to the torture. Write me a confession, what you will. I'll testify to your plot, as you'll have me do.'

'And then?’

'And then I shall die, weakened so far by the unspeakable pain you put me to that my constitution gave in. Here, in this Tower. Out of sight. And you will get me to France.'

There was something of desperation in Fawkes's voice. As well there might be. Cecil's mind was racing.

A live, testifying Fawkes would be an asset, if he testified correctly. The Keeper of the Tower, Waad, had incriminated Mary Queen of Scots. Hiding the nature of what was happening to Guy Fawkes was a mere biting-on compared to the meals that man had eaten. As for France, it was a long journey from London to Dover and across the Channel. A long and dangerous journey.

'Guards!' Cecil shouted. 'This man is no good to us dead with cold. Take him to a chamber with fire in it — warming fire, not the torturer's brazier! And keep his legs in chains!' he said viciously, as he left to discuss matters with Sir William Waad.

Robert Wintour had been having supper with Catesby's mother. Catesby had determined to tell his mother the truth before riding on to Dunchurch, but as he sat on his sweating horse outside his home he felt for the first time a chill wind blow through die heat of his self-belief. He could not face his mother, not now. He sent Tom Bates to summon Wintour to a field outside the house. Robert Wintour had always been a baleful recruit at best, unlike his firebrand younger brother. Now he was totally downcast.

'We should surely throw ourselves on the King's mercy,' he said, 'and with God's grace some mercy might be shown.'

Catesby hardly bothered to answer.

'There will be no mercy. We must ride on to Dunchurch, to meet with the company. Only then can we decide.' He did not give a single backward glance to the house under whose roof his mother fretted.

There were over a hundred people gathered in and around The Red Lion. Brothers, cousins, relations, younger sons of Catholic families, all had gathered. Catesby had hoped for more, at least a hundred and fifty. Yet even now it might be enough. A babble of voices greeted Catesby's arrival. His heart began to beat faster, as it always did when he stood in front of a crowd. The blood began to speed through his veins. He held his hand up to command silence.

There was silence.

Briefly, quickly, he told them of the plot, that the powder had been discovered, but that London was aflame with rumour and suspicion.

'Are we sheep or cattle, to troop gently to our slaughter? Or are we men, men with a faith to be fought for? We have horses, we have guns, we have powder. If we ride now, ride for our freedom and our Faith, hundreds will join us from the west, the west where the Faith has always lived and flourished. We must strike now, strike while confusion reigns. Are we men of faith, or are we cowards?'

He was shouting now, standing up in his stirrups.

There was silence. They looked at him in the feeble light of a few torches. Then one, then a second, then a third turned away from the light, edging their horses off into the darkness. There was a pause, then a fourth, a fifth and then a stream. A muttered, muted babble of conversation rose between those left. Just as it seemed the departures were ended, another two or three would turn and move away, like rows of infantry having remorseless gap after gap blown in their line by withering cannon fire as they waited for a charge.

Robert Catesby had failed. For the first time in his life, he had spread the cloak of his character, the fire of his personality, out to a group, and seen it fall on stony ground. Soon, there were hardly forty left in the square outside the inn, making it seem almost deserted.

The fire cooled in Catesby, leaving a solid, hard dark nugget of cold in its place. He would die now, he knew. Perhaps he had always known. In a strange way the realisation took a dread weight off him. He was certain now, certain in a different way. He owed himself a good death. Himself, and the others he had brought along for all these months and years. They would want, would need to die with him, he knew.

He smiled, disconcerting even more those nearest to him. He allowed the runt of his rebellion, the rebellion that never hap-pened and never would happen, to eat and rest a while. The sulky landlord and servants were desperate to be rid of them, desperate to avoid the taint they knew their association would provide. Even now they were remembering the detail they would so willingly give to the King's men and the Sheriff's men when they arrived, as they most assuredly would arrive.

And then, shortly after eleven o'clock at night, they began the ride. It should have been told of in some ancient saga, become a story to read out by the fireside on late, cold winter's nights, to frighten the young children. It was a ride of despair and desperation, of harsh and stupid courage. It was helpless and hopeless, madness in human form, a ride of the Valkyrie where only the horses had hope and their riders were dead men already.

From Dunchurch to Warwick Castle; the stables there raided, ten fresh horses taken to relieve the mounts of those who had ridden from London. Robert Wintour wringing his hands — 'It will make an uproar in the country!' — Ambrose Rookwood disdainful, his supply of fine horseflesh inexhaustible. On, on to John Grant's house at Norbrook, to pick up the powder, shot and muskets hoarded there. Through Snitterfield, across the treacherous ford of the Alne, on to Alcester. Through Arrow, then out along the Worcester Road, and then on the back roads and by-ways to Huddington. Two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. Fifteen terror-driven, bone-crunching, muscle-wrenching hours. Sleep. Mass at three o'clock on the Thursday morning, then down to dress in armour, to pick arms and take ammunition from the long tables loaded with weaponry, the remainder hurled into carts. Six o'clock on a bleak morning, bodies crying out in agony at seating again on a saddle. To Hanbury, across Bentley Heath to Hewell Grange, Lord Windsor's house. The house empty, glum villagers standing by as they broke in, taking armour, more weapons, powder and money from a trunk containing over Ј1,000. Burcot. Lickey End. Catshill. Clent. Hagley. The names reeled off like so much flotsam passing a watcher by a riverbank, the names blurring into one another, increasingly meaningless. Sullen people, watchers, onlookers. 'We fight for the Faith!' No response. Occasional yells, muttered reply, 'We live for King James!' Onwards. Stourbridge. Heavy rain, drenching men, animals and powder, the ford racing, dangerous for fit men, perhaps lethal for tired men and horses. Holbeache House, the home of Stephen Littleton. Enough. They were exhausted. Sixteen hours to travel twenty-five miles. Rookwood had galloped thirty miles in two hours, earlier, on the one horse. Catesby had made over ten miles an hour, on his ride out from London. They were slowing, had stopped.

They must have rest.

They were pathetically fewer now. Servants had deserted, snapping off the road and away from the cavalcade when an opportunity arose. They had boxed in the party at front and back, but there were not enough of them to guard the sides and length as well.

Catesby had withdrawn into himself, even Percy seemed to be quiet. Only Tom Wintour, who had joined them late, had energy, walking, talking, organising a defence. They needed more men, if they were to fight off the likely assault on Holbeache and live to ride again. An outrider had reported a party, probably the Sheriff of Worcestershire, trailing them. Not one Catholic had joined their progress, which had leached men like a sandbag leaching out in the rain. John Talbot lived ten miles distant, at Pepperhill. He was Robert Wintour's father-in-law. Would Robert go to ask for men and support? 'How may I go, when he'll guard my wife when I am dead?' Tom Wintour looked with contempt at his brother. Without a word, he put his aching body on his horse again, and rode out to John Talbot's house, seeking the help he knew in his heart would not be offered.

Gresham rode harder even than he had ridden on that day from Cambridge to London. They had spirited Tresham out of his lodgings, placed him in a safe house. Dunchurch, he had said, repeating it as if it were a litany. They must go to Dunchurch. It is where they planned to gather, under cover of a hunting party, to raise the country up in rebellion. They will go to Dunchurch.

Gresham arrived at The Red Lion as the rump of the party was leaving on its mad, foolish dash across the country.

'Where are they heading?' he had hissed to an ostler, trying to thrust coin into the man's hand.

'To Hell and beyond, as far as I cares!' the man had replied, thrusting the money aside and running back into the inn, distrust visible in his every gesture.

Catesby's crew had rested, taken food. Gresham had no time. With an inward groan he remounted. At least following was not difficult, despite the driving rain. Servants and other riders peeled off from the party at regular intervals, to much shouting and yelling. At the start their leaders tried to give chase, but soon exhaustion crept in, and they simply tried to box in the cavalcade with their own horses. Still the leakage from the party continued, still the numbers, dimly visible sometimes, audible always, diminished. They were slowing down all the time, like a drowning man whose flapping at the water becomes more and more feeble as his strength leaves him.

Gresham had never felt more tired. He was soaked through, shivering violently with the cold, his teeth chattering so that he could hardly bite on the hard-baked meat he had flung into his saddlebag as he had left London. Yet he had to keep on guard. The servants and gentlemen who. had escaped Catesby's party flew past him on the road, drawing their swords if they had them and fearing he was a pursuer. One had even taken a scything blow at Gresham's head with his sword as he had passed, Gresham blocking it only at the last second with a clang of steel. Finally, just as his horse was about to expire beneath him, the tattered, pathetic remnant of the party had come to rest at Holbeache. They could enter the house, with its warmth, its fires and its food. Gresham was examining the lay-out of the courtyard and steps up into the main house, wracked with icy cold, when his passport into Holbeache emerged from inside. The courtyard gate opened, revealing another horse and rider. The horse was a thoroughbred, a beautiful animal, but its rider was clearly a fleeing servant, whose riding experience was limited to sitting on the back of a cart on its way to market. The man was bouncing violently up and down on the back of the horse, clearly terrified. Gresham forced his own mount out into the roadway with perfect timing, taking his foot out of the stirrup and giving the rider a hefty boot as he was at the top of his bounce and halfway out of his saddle already. He fell with a yelp, escaping being dragged along only because his feet had never properly found the stirrups of his own horse.

Gresham took the rough jerkin and trews from the stunned man and sent him, half naked, bouncing along the road on his own exhausted mount. Liberally covering his disguise in mud, he walked into the house, or rather stumbled and gasped into it.

'A bite of bread and ten minutes by a fire, I beg of you?' He did not have to feign exhaustion. T've ridden from Dunchurch, but my master, he took off without me just outside the house. Help me, please. I've no master, no home and like to have no head when all this comes out…' The harassed woman he had spoken to had hardly listened, glancing all the time nervously over his shoulder, pushing him in the direction of the kitchen.

He was inside. The kitchen was a babble of noise. Servants shared their master's fate, and there was real terror in their ranks. Old campaigning instincts took over. Gresham grabbed a fistful of greasy, half-warm meat from a stone table and a mug of small beer that appeared somehow out of the chaos, and crammed both down his throat. The plotters were together in the Hall upstairs, he heard. They would not be leaving now, he thought, with night coming on. They were blown, exhausted. There was enough of the real Henry Gresham left to light a tiny smile in the corner of his mouth. He was inside the lions' den. It was about time he decided what use to make of his achievement.

Thomas Percy looked at the sodden crowd of his fellow plotters and cursed the luck that had exposed Fawkes. Clearly, Cecil's plan had misfired. Or had Cecil betrayed them? He doubted it. If Cecil had wanted both of them out of the way Percy would not have been let to go with the others to end up in this dreadful hole of a house. Percy caught the tail of his fear, which was starting to fly up and away like a kite out of control, and brought it back down to earth again with an effort. He had to assume that his job remained what it had always been, to kill Catesby and as many of the other conspirators as possible. Cecil had always feared Catesby, recognising in him the capacity to lift and sway an audience. He had been willing to use him, the perfect unwitting foil for a plot that would bring Cecil nothing but credit, but yet he had always feared his power to incite. Cecil had been too much scarred by the ability of Sir Walter Raleigh at his trial to win hearts and minds by the power of his words and the attraction of his figure. He did not want Robert Catesby standing at the Bar, weaving the same spells with his audience that he had woven with the conspirators. Catesby had to die decently early, and that was Percy's role:

He had considered killing him on their journey, but no chance that did not threaten his own life had presented itself. The life of Thomas Percy was a very important thing, and soon to become even more important. Once Catesby had been disposed of, and the other plotters either killed or handed over to authority — Cecil had wanted some two or three at most, no more, if possible — then Percy would return in triumph to London bringing Catesby's body slung over a horse. He had thought on that, and thought that it would look best stripped to its shirt, as it would have been for an execution. He had reminded himself that he must drape the body over a horse as soon as possible after Catesby's death, before it froze in death and stuck out on either side like a bar across the saddle. In the midst of that triumph, he and Cecil would discuss the details he would give about the treachery of the ninth Earl of Northumberland, how the evil Earl had unwittingly placed in the hands of his kinsman the details of the treachery and the revolution he planned — his kinsman, who having handed the fate of the ninth Earl over to Cecil would, of course, become the tenth Earl of Northumberland. Had he riot always claimed, even to the ninth Earl himself, that his branch of the family was older than that represented by the ninth Earl? Well, now he would prove it.

The powder they had taken from Hewell Grange had been loaded into an open cart. The drenching rain had soaked it. Their plan now was to rest for as long as it took to get their breath back, and then dash into Wales to gather support and await news of the landings and the Spanish troops that Percy had lied about to

Catesby. There never were any plans for invasion, and never any knowledge of any part of the plot by the ninth Earl — a delicious irony which Percy intended to savour when he became the tenth Earl.

Yet they might have to make a stand at Holbeache. The Sheriff of Worcestershire was on their trail. A servant who was probably running away had run into the Sheriff's party, over a hundred men, and gone back to Catesby as the lesser evil. Catesby and Wintour were convinced they could beat off the Sheriff's party, who would be untrained men in the face of a determined, well-armed opposition fighting defensively and for their lives. It was a classic situation — thirty men defending who were fighting to keep their lives, a hundred or so attacking who could only lose them.

'The powder from Hewell Grange is soaked through. If this place is put to siege, we might have need of it.' Percy spoke gruffly, in the old-soldier manner he had adopted from the outset with the conspirators.

'What do you suggest — warm it with a match?' It was Digby, a pale imitation of himself.

'Almost. It's wet enough to make spreading it out before the hearth safe enough. If Tom manages to bring back some extra people, the more dry powder we can show them the more likely they are to think we've a chance.'

He was surprised they agreed to it, but it was exhaustion speaking through their actions, and despair. Any action seemed to put back the tide of hopelessness.

They spread the powder out on to the stone hearth, moving the rushes aside first. The fire was well established, the wood seasoned and long since past spitting. Catesby, Rookwood and Grant took seats at the long trestle table to one side of the fire, hastily drawing up plans for the defence of the house. Henry Morgan, one of the few from the Dunchurch 'hunting party' who had stayed with them, joined them, as did Percy, for a while. Robert Wintour was huddled in a corner.

'I had a dream last night.' His sepulchral tones startled the men by the table, all of whom looked up.

'I saw church steeples bent awry, and sad, terrible faces inside the churches, looking out. Faces of despair.' Was he talking to himself, or to them? It could have been either. The men turned back, one by one, to their crude plans for defence. The problem was that few of them knew the house, and the owner was out of it with Tom Wintour.

Percy stood up, announcing he was going to piss. As he went to the door, it opened in his face, and the frightened figure of a servant came into the Hall, a huge pile of fresh logs held in front of him, half covering even his face. Percy pushed him aside, causing him to stumble and drop the top two or three logs. The servant mumbled apologies, as scared as the rest of the Holbeache servants, placed the remnant of his load on the floor and scrabbled to pick up the lost logs. A few of the conspirators glanced his way, disinterested, and looked away. Very carefully the servant made his way to the side of the hearth. He stopped as he saw the powder laid out, carefully moving round the black earth piled on the floor. He bent to lay his logs on top of the others on the side of the hearth, but the top log seemed to leap out from the pile of its own accord and fell into the fire. It crashed into the flames, dislodging embers that flew almost gently through the air and landed red among the black of the powder. The servant, who could see what was coming, flung the rest of his logs forward and dashed for the protection offered by the side of the jutting stone fireplace.

There was a blinding flash, and a sucking roar. For a brief instant Holbeache was turned into Hell. From a scene of almost peaceful domesticity the Hall was reduced to smouldering ruin. Panelling had caught fire, and those upright in the room were rushing to smother the small flames. The peculiar, acrid stench of powder mingled with the stench of burnt flesh and smouldering wood. John Grant was sitting on the ground, making small keening noises, rocking backwards and forwards, his hands clutched to his eyes.

They were burnt out, even blacker than the surrounding skin in his crisped, baked face, his hair, eyebrows and beard half gone and scorched. The man Morgan still had some sight, but was badly burnt. Catesby and Rookwood were badly scorched, both in obvious severe pain.

The two Wright brothers had been dozing in a corner, now jerked into wakefulness by the blast of fire. Percy rushed back into the room. Robert Wintour had escaped the worst of the searing heat, huddled in his corner. He was standing now, staring wild-eyed at the devastation. He stuck his arm out, a shivering finger pointing at Catesby and the others.

'The faces! The faces!' he said. 'The faces in my dream! These are the faces!' He waited, as if for an answer. His hand dropped to his side. He raised his eyes, locked them on to the pain-filled vision of Catesby. 'Well,' he said, in a low voice of total hatred, 'you have your blast now, cousin!' He turned and left.

There had been exhaustion, some despair and fear (in the room before, but also some bravado. Now there was nothing. It was as if they realised it was over. It had to be God's judgement. Those who had intended to blow up their enemies by powder had themselves been blown up. The link was too clear, too obvious.

Catesby was recovered enough to speak. The fire had caught the one side of his face, pulling up his lip so that it seemed he had a permanent snarl. Robert Catesby. Jack Wright. Kit Wright. John Grant, writhing on the floor, hands fluttering at the wet bandage round his destroyed eyes. Ambrose Rookwood, moaning as the cold of the bandages touched his burnt flesh. Thomas Percy. With the exception of Rookwood and Wintour, the men stood at the end of the affair almost as they had stood from its outset.

'We are too few to fight.' Thomas Percy spoke the obvious.

'Then we must die fighting.' It was Catesby. No-one raised his voice against him.

Tom Wintour stopped as he, entered the hall, his face draining of all blood in shock. He ran to Catesby, looking in horror at his ravaged and twisted face. If only he had brought good news! There was no help coming. Sir John Talbot had not even let them inside his house, but shouted them off as he might a carrier of the plague. A fleeing servant had told them of the explosion, and Stephen Littleton, the owner of Holbeache, had slipped away from his side. Everard Digby had gone. Tom Bates, the ever-faithful servant, was also missing.

'Where is my brother?' It was Tom Wintour, his eyes roaming the room.

'Gone.' It was Kit Wright. 'With all the others.' Robert Wintour had waited this long in his life to take a decision of his own.

Henry Gresham had picked himself up from the side of the fireplace, where the blast had thrown him. He was bruised badly enough, but nothing was broken. The heat had singed the back of his head, in between the collar of his jerkin and his bonnet.

He had intended only to eavesdrop on the plotters. The smell of the powder had hit him even through the door. In an instant he was back in the Netherlands, and it was as if the pain that had been his constant companion then for months came back to hit him also. Picking up the logs strewn outside the door and going in had been a terrible thing for him to do. When he had met Percy his heart had stopped, but Percy was not the type to recognise a lowly servant.

He had wanted to be sick as he had contemplated the fire, the powder and the need to fling his log into the midst of the fire. Yet the irony, the awful, dreadful irony, of firing these men up with powder, the sheer justice of it, had driven him. Loose powder does not explode, he knew, but burns off in an instant, developing a searing heat and light.

Those who know an explosion is about to take place can profit in the seconds immediately following. With no mental shock to add to the physical, Gresham was able to pick himself up in the immediate aftermath, scuttling through the door before anyone thought to ask of the servant who had caused the blow. He doubted any realised even that it had been the servant, so great was their confusion. What a pity Percy had chosen that moment to leave. Gresham was surprised by how little damage the fire had done. He could not judge at that moment the damage it had done to the spirit, as well as the bodies, of the plotters.

Gresham knew that the Sheriff of Worcestershire was hastening to lay siege to the plotters. The servant whose clothes he had taken had babbled of little else. Percy had to die at Holbeache, that much Gresham now knew. The question was how.

Thomas Percy was much taken at that moment by the other side of the question. How to preserve his life? He had believed they could beat off the Sheriff's men easily enough, with a pistol ball in the back for Catesby in the dying moments of the fight, or on their flight into Wales. That damned explosion had killed no-one, but merely increased the odds for their attackers and made the plotters vow to fight to the death. Well, so be it, mused Percy. There was risk in all things. He was playing for an earldom. He would wait for the siege, kill Catesby and then prove his credentials by firing a ball into one of the others — Tom Wintour by preference — and shouting that he was an agent of the King's. Far better than an agent of Robert Cecil for these country bumpkins.

The call to arms came some time before eleven o'clock. They propped the blinded Grant up in a corner, still moaning. Rookwood declared his intention to fight, though God knew if he could see enough to hit anyone, thought Percy. At the windows, they could see that it was more than a hundred men gathering outside. Torches lit those out of range, whilst movements in the shadow showed men running up under cover of the darkness to hide close to the walls, there presumably to make an assault through the main gate into the yard. Suddenly, a flickering light showed them more. Someone had lit a fire, almost under them. They were being smoked out. Damn! If they had more men they could have mounted a guard on the outer perimeter.

Catesby turned his head stiffly, and looked at Wintour. The latter nodded, the briefest of gestures. Grabbing their weapons, they moved out and down into the yard.

Torches had been thrown over to give light, and lay guttering on the cobbles. It was too late. Enemy men were already in the yard. As Wintour burst out of the door shots rang out, most ill-aimed and wildly high. One caught Wintour, shattering his shoulder. He shrieked, a weird, unearthly noise, fired a wild round from his pistol and hurled it to the ground, dragging his sword up to defend himself as men with pikes started to circle warily round him.

Catesby had come down the stairs hanging on the arm of Percy. Jack and Kit Wright leapt out through the door and more shots rang out. Both dropped to the ground. As if by accident it was Catesby's body that swung round and forward as they came out of the door, moments later. One shot banged viciously into the night air, but the others had fired at Wintour and the Wrights, and were clumsily reloading. It looked as if Catesby and Percy were standing back to back, but Catesby had swooned as they hit the night air and was only half-conscious.

Gresham was standing by the side of the courtyard. He had floored one of the first soldiers to creep up over the wall into the yard with one blow from the stock of the hunting rifle he had taken from the house. The helmet was too large to fit, the leather jerkin hanging off his frame. Other men flooded into the yard. Gresham saw Tom Wintour rush out and spin round in response to a fusillade of shots. Then the Wright brothers were dropped like gamebirds. Rookwood was clearly wounded, as was Morgan, stumbling around with the injured Wintour. There was a pause in the firing, partly through the need to reload, partly through the growing realisation that this pathetic band posed no threat.

A trooper had run to Gresham's side, his eyes full of the glazed fear that Gresham had been so familiar with in Flanders. His musket was unfired, waving wildly in the air. Gresham decided he might as well act to stop the boy shooting him.

'Soldier!' he snapped. 'Come to it, man! Give me your name!'

'John… John Streete, sir,' mumbled the boy, regaining a grip on his musket.

Wintour yelled, for Catesby, Gresham thought, and the soldiers turned towards him. Catesby emerged in the doorway, hanging off Percy. As if in slow motion, Gresham saw Percy place his pistol against Catesby's side, saw the flash and the body of Catesby stiffen and slump, mouth agape. As if in one single smooth movement Gresham brought up his gun, aimed and fired, the crack of the rifle almost simultaneous with that of Percy's pistol. Percy's mouth was also agape, he was about to shout out and cast Catesby's body to the ground. The bullet caught him and he jerked violently backwards, his inert body almost bouncing on to the cobbles.

Gresham turned to John Streete, standing gaping by his side. He pulled the boy's musket arm towards him, yanked the trigger and caught the gun as it recoiled, firing into the air.

'There, boy,' said Gresham. 'Two birds with one shot. Go on, claim the credit.'

Gresham turned, and saw Catesby crawling back into the house. The pack of soldiers were advancing on Rookwood, Wintour and Morgan. Wintour made a mad dash forward. His sword was knocked out of his hand, and a soldier, crazed with fear, was about to plunge his pike into the wounded man's midriff. There was a barked command.

'Hold. Hold! Some of these are better kept alive for His Majesty!'

Catesby had crawled just inside the door. He was holding his gold crucifix, sobbing with pain and exhaustion. He half turned as Gresham clattered through the door.

'Selkirk!' he moaned, in frightened recognition. Then the light went from his eyes. He slumped to the ground, dead. Gresham heard the noise of advancing men. Quickly, he tore a picture of the Virgin Mary off the wall where it adorned the entrance to Holbeache House, and wrapped Catesby's still warm fingers around it. As the first of the other soldiers burst in through the door, Gresham retreated into the shadows.

The soldiers were out of control. They were stripping the corpses of everything they: bore. Even Kit Wright's boots had been taken, and the silk stockings he wore under them. Percy's body, half naked, lay on the cobbles, mouth open, eyes staring. A soldier who had missed the best of the plunder gave it a vicious kick as he passed by. His head lolled back with the blow, slack, empty.

Gresham gazed back at the lights, the shouting and the smashing noises as the house was torn apart. He turned, and without a word he started the ride back to London.