Fawkes

by Nadine Brandes

  She said they’d gathered at least fifty men to fight.

  How many men did Dee have?

  The skies sent down gale after gale of icy rain, soaking us through the bone. My mind was as numb as my half-frozen body. The steeples popping up over the hilly horizon looked blurry—was that the rain or my own fog?

  The going was slow. With each town we passed through, we were met with stares colder than the weather. As though they’d encountered unpleasant strangers and had no desire to deal with more.

  Sorry about the rain.

  This is your doing?

  I’m doing everything I can to change Catesby’s mind.

  The mare plodded along. I looked to the skies. Maybe add some hail.

  Emma and I bypassed Alnwick Castle—they were likely gone from there by now and it was out of our way. With any luck, we’d arrive at Holbeche House a half day after Catesby. We would warn him—tell the men of Dee’s betrayal. Of the oncoming army.

  When our ride crested a hill in Staffordshire the next morning, the expanse of England lay before us—covered in late-autumn green and valleys filled with thick fog. I thought I saw movement far off in the fog. Horses maybe? A rider?

  “Should we ride for them?” Emma whispered.

  I nodded. If it was Catesby and his men, this worked even more in our favor. But if it was Dee and his plague army, we would at least know their destination. I spurred on the mare and we approached from the back right. I donned my mask, remembering, again, that I now had color power.

  My mind was so used to existing as a maskless that I didn’t even jump to the idea of color commands.

  The group was a posse of men. Townsmen, by the look of it. Each wore a sword on his belt and carried a matchlock musket. Each sported a mask of one color or another. I scanned for the multicolor mask near the front. Nothing.

  “Join us, men!”

  I spun to see a man astride a horse, waving to us. Emma tugged her hat lower over her face. The cloak helped hide her small frame.

  “What is your name and errand?” I called back.

  “I am Sheriff of Staffordshire. We seek Robert Catesby and his gang of traitors to the crown. They raided Alnwick Castle and have taken shelter at Holbeche House. The king’s men are meeting us within the hour and then we attack.”

  Within the hour.

  One hour.

  The sheriff turned his steed and barked orders at a man sending matchlock rifles from a flatbed wagon to a line of men, using color speech.

  Emma and I dismounted and my knees nearly buckled from the long riding. I didn’t dare ride away after the sheriff drew such attention to us.

  “I need to get to Holbeche House before the posse attacks,” I whispered to Emma, leading the mare up the line of soldiers.

  “At best, we have three hours.” Her rusty whisper mingled with the clank of metal and creaking of leather boots. “One for Dee’s army to arrive, one for their preparation, and then one for them to walk to Holbeche.”

  “You’re not coming.” On this, I wouldn’t budge.

  “I did not come all this way to—”

  I hauled her toward a copse of trees. “You can’t come. You are an Igniter—”

  “So are you!”

  “—and they will kill you, Emma. Instantly. Without question—no matter your sex or good intentions. And if you’re there, they won’t listen to me.”

  She clamped her lips shut.

  “If they are making a stand, they care not for their lives, nor whose lives they destroy in the process.”

  “Then why warn them at all? If you already know they won’t listen, then why are you going there?”

  I lowered my voice further. “I know Catesby won’t listen. He is the leader. But there are other men there—followers who have been gathered by Catesby in the heat of Keeper passion.” I thought of Rookwood and Bates, whom I barely knew. Jack and Kit—Father’s childhood friends. Wintour, my friend. “If I can save even one life from this oncoming slaughter, it is my duty. I should have stopped Catesby earlier—”

  “You did what you could. Today you are an honorable man.”

  She called me honorable, and from the outside I might seem that way. But inside, I didn’t want to go to Holbeche House. I didn’t want to warn anyone and I didn’t want to fight anyone. I would much rather disappear to a small English village and purge my memory of this whole ordeal.

  I supposed it wasn’t shameful to have those desires. As long as they didn’t rule me. “Keep the mare.”

  “No, you must take her.” Emma shoved the reins into my hands. “I already draw too much attention being a small African woman.”

  “Keep your mask on.”

  “I will, Thomas. But I’m still a woman and I still look like one. I don’t need a horse to draw the men’s eyes to me.”

  Voices in the camp rose to shouts and greetings—so loud I was certain they were yelling at us for a moment. But then I saw an army of men crest the hill, leading horse-drawn cart after cart of weapons and bags of musket ball. Crates of small daggers.

  At the front of this army rode Dee in his multicolored mask and, at his side, Henry Parker.

  I backpedaled into the trees so fast, the mare broke into a trot to keep up. Once the oaks blocked us from Dee and Henry’s view, I hoisted Emma into the saddle. “On second thought, maybe you should come with me.”

  Forty-Four

  Holbeche House looked brand-new. As though constructed and polished only to be destroyed in battle. No stains or rot or growing ivy.

  It had two stories with dormered windows in an attic. Dutch gables decorated side wings on each end of the house. Emma and I hung in the tree line. I dismounted and left her with the mare. This time, at least she didn’t argue.

  “Please come back to me, Thomas.”

  I pulled off my mask and tucked it into my belt—the White face turned against my thigh. I didn’t like hiding it—or hiding what the White Light had done for me—but an Igniter mask was deadlier than a war flag. “I’ll try.”

  “If you don’t, then I’m coming after you.”

  “Don’t you dare.” I gave her my full attention. “There’s no reason to, Emma.” I placed my hands on her shoulders. “What happens in that house is meant to happen.”

  “What if you don’t get out in time? What if Dee and his army attack while you’re in there? You’ll be seen as a traitor. You’ll be massacred!”

  “I am not going in alone.”

  Her eyes darted to my mask. It took her several breaths to calm and seemingly remind herself of all the things she’d once told me about White Light. “All right. I’ll be here.”

  I squeezed her hand and then left, not wanting to prolong my departure any more. Otherwise I might not depart at all.

  I could creep across the field or try to approach the house in a roundabout way. But that might heighten their suspicion of me. So instead, I strode across the field with my hands held away from my sides. Unarmed.

  But not unafraid.

  The skies drizzled. I strode foot over foot as though through a fire, my skin burning from a confusing mixture of shame and conviction. Shame for letting things get so far. Conviction over why I did the things I did.

  I was saving lives.

  That was really what this all came down to. It started with the African boy at the hanging. And then with the Keepers at the Tower. And then with the three hundred Parliament members and the king.

  White Light had been training me this entire time, and I hadn’t seen it until now.

  This was my contra tempo.

  This was my coup de main.

  And I strode onto the battlefield as though it were the field of a duel. Emma was my second. No audience.

  I passed through a wall into the courtyard with no incident. The gate was still open. Once closed, this house would be well fortified. I approached the entrance door and still no one stopped me. Perhaps Catesby and the men weren’t even at Holbeche House. Maybe they’d fled. They�
�d seen sense and weren’t actually making a stand.

  “It’s Thomas!” someone shouted from inside. “Thomas Fawkes has come!”

  My heart sank. That was Jack’s voice.

  They thought I was coming as an ally. To fight with them. Not for the first time, I wondered if Emma would be left in that tree line indefinitely. Waiting for my corpse to come out.

  I entered the house and shut the door firmly behind me. The interior was cold and dark yet smelled of acrid smoke. I blinked several times so my eyes would adjust.

  Hands clasped my shoulders and I looked into the face of Jack Wright. “Wintour said you were cured.” He wore a grin, with undertones of resignation and ferocity. No true joy.

  “Father was taken.” It seemed the only thing to say to the man who grew up with Father. Who sparred with him and was partly the cause of Father’s commitment to the Keeper way.

  A grimace overtook the grin. “We will avenge him.”

  It had already been days. Days that Father was in the Tower. They could have tortured him to death by now. A hollow suction in the pit of my stomach fed on what little hope remained. “I couldn’t help him. He told me to warn you.”

  “Then you’d best come in to Catesby.” Jack didn’t take my coat, acknowledging that the chill in the house was not my imagination. “We had an accident. The gunpowder got wet, and when spread by the fire to dry, a spark took to it.”

  That explained the smell.

  The pulse in my throat tapped double time to my footsteps as I made my way into the main room. I wanted to scream that soldiers were coming—that they must leave—but this needed to be handled delicately.

  In a wide room with a scorched hearth and burnt rug, I saw him. Catesby stood at the window, frenziedly polishing his mottled Grey mask. A spray of soot covered his face, blackened with the touch of fire. Blood slipped from gashes in his skin.

  He turned from the window. Slowly. And the first thing his eyes landed on was my mask at my belt. It had spun right way out—revealing the White. “Thomas.”

  I didn’t move. Didn’t dare drop my hand to the mask in case the other plotters in the room noticed. But Catesby knew.

  And he’d not listen to me now.

  “The”—I swallowed—“the soldiers are coming.”

  The room stilled in the preparations. Men—most of whom I didn’t recognize—faced me. Catesby didn’t seem to care what I was about to say or that I was about to affect the men’s morale. His indifference stung, driving the blade of betrayal deeper. He’d only ever truly loved the plot—as though it was a woman to whom he was bound.

  I believed he cared about the plotters too—Wintour, Percy, Father, Jack—but his care for them did not run as deeply as his commitment to the plot. It had blinded him. It had overtaken his mind.

  I couldn’t save him. But I could possibly save the others.

  I looked around the room at the men—Bates, Keyes, Rookwood, Percy, Catesby, Jack, Kit—and I didn’t want them to die. “The Sheriff of Staffordshire has a posse of two hundred men. They are barely two hours behind me.” At their intake of breath, I delivered the final blow. “Dee is at the head.”

  “Dee?” Bates asked. “The alchemist who controls all colors?”

  I nodded. “The very one.” I watched their courage slip from their shoulders like the fall of a cloak.

  “Ah, but reinforcements are coming!” a man crowed, coming up beside me. He wore gaudy and bright clothing. Even in the darkened house, he stood out like a bloom among thistles and looked a handful of years older than I was. I’d heard of Everard Digby’s flashy clothing. But he acted as though he wasn’t about to engage in warfare.

  I took in what he’d said and looked out the window. “Where from?”

  “From the towns we’ve passed—people too shy to step forward under the scrutiny of their folk. But now they follow. They’ve been following. They’ve been behind us this whole time.”

  “I have seen no one else.”

  His hope seemed to fade and he rushed to the window as though to prove reinforcements were behind him. Jack stepped up to the window and laid a hand on his shoulder. “It seems that those weren’t reinforcements we heard, Digby. Those were soldiers. The king’s men.”

  That was the last straw. Men fought for the door. Not everybody left, but those who did took horses and abandoned their weapons. Relief burgeoned inside me. Those men—the ones Catesby might consider cowards—were now safe. Alive and safe.

  Catesby didn’t try to stop them. But once the clamor for the door ended, once the men had sprinted across the courtyard and fled on horseback to all corners of England, he returned his attention to the room.

  And he counted. “Of our plotters we have Jack, Kit, Rookwood, and Percy left.” He didn’t include me.

  “Catesby, should this not be abandoned?” I asked. Whatever pride I had left was not worth the cost of cowardice.

  He clapped my shoulder, as he always did before a final statement. “We mean to die here, Thomas. I begrudge you nothing if you go.”

  “You begrudge me nothing?” I couldn’t leave without him knowing—without confessing. Bile and saliva and sorrow mounted in my throat. “Catesby, I wrote that letter. To the Baron. It was me!”

  I wanted to apologize, but how could I ask forgiveness for trying to save lives, to stop a war, to find truth?

  His gaze transformed into disgust. He shoved me away.

  “I had to! With the lives of three hundred people in my palm, how could you ask me to murder them all? That is not my right. That is not my role—no matter how passionate I am for a cause.”

  “You’ve sent us all to our graves. You chose them over us.”

  “You don’t have to die here! You are choosing death!”

  Jack wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Better death than the Tower,” he muttered.

  “You don’t need to go to the Tower.” Were they so determined to perish as martyrs? “Flee this house of darkness. Go with your lives and freedom!”

  If Catesby’s eyes narrowed any farther, they would close altogether. “Cowardice is not our way. We will not follow your example.”

  I stood my ground, reminding myself that I was not a coward. Reminding myself that White Light had asked for my action. It had freed me, healed me, and used me for this purpose.

  The door burst open and Tom Wintour tumbled in, sweat plastering his hair to his round face and tears dried on his cheeks. He lurched into the main room, gaze clamped onto the hearth. A frown. His eyes lifted. Searched the room. And when they found Catesby, all traces of worry and despair were shattered by a leap of his eyebrows and such joyful surprise it seemed as though he’d completely forgotten we were about to meet our ends. Wintour rushed to him. “They—they said you had died. From gunpowder in the hearth.”

  “I am about to die, dear Wintour. That is our fate here.” Catesby dismissed me with a turn of his shoulder. I was nothing to him but vermin beneath his boot.

  “And I will take such part as you do.” They embraced and something in me broke.

  It was time for me to leave. I’d done my part. I’d said my piece. And if I didn’t get out now, I’d—

  Jack jumped away from the window. “They are here.” He faced Catesby like a soldier reporting to his commander. “They are closing in on the wall. Gather your arms, men!”

  Forty-Five

  I didn’t fear death, but neither did I crave it.

  Not like the handful of men—of friends—before me, strapping their masks to their faces. Loading their wheellock barrels. Dispensing of their scabbards, knowing they’d have no reason to sheathe a sword again after this moment.

  They had something worth dying for.

  Ah, but you have something they don’t.

  And what’s that?

  Something worth living for.

  White was right. I wanted to live—to spend a life discovering what White Light and I could do together. I wanted to go after Father and see if I could somehow get him par
doned. I wanted to be with Emma.

  She knew me—all of me—and still loved me. Kissed me. Fought with me and joined me. We were designed for each other.

  Took you long enough.

  Ha-ha.

  It only took her a couple of months to reach the same conclusion.

  Yes, well, she’s always been ahead of me in school.

  No witty quip to that.

  So does this mean I’ll survive today’s battle?

  Just because you were designed for each other doesn’t mean you’ll be together.

  Ouch. So . . . I’m going to die?

  Focus.

  Catesby strapped on his mask.

  I backed away from the window. If I was found in this house, I would be accused of treason. So I would fight. But not with Catesby. And not against him.

  I would fight Dee.

  “Do we know how many?” Wintour eased up to the window and stole a glance.

  Jack shook his head.

  “Don’t do this, men,” I said. “There are two hundred soldiers out there. With Dee’s army, maybe more. There is no reason to die here!”

  Wintour acted as though I hadn’t spoken. “We need to know.” He looked to Catesby, who gave a nod and cocked his pistol. “I will find out.” He left the house.

  “Wintour, stop!” I hadn’t seen a single soldier yet, but my heart still thundered for him. As the plea left my mind, a crack rent the air and a musket ball struck him.

  Wintour fell, his sword tumbling from his hand. “No!” I cried.

  Catesby and I hurried to the window. The wall surrounding Holbeche House tore itself from the ground like a giant snake rearing its head. A line of soldiers—all wearing Grey masks—stood arm in arm, commanding the wall.

  After a moment of bated breath, the hovering stone flew over to the right and crashed back to the ground.

  So much for the fortification.

  The Staffordshire posse advanced. An army to take on a smattering of traitorous rebels.

  Wintour lay on the grass between the posse and the house. Catesby brandished his sword. “To arms! To arms!”