One soldier had seen Emma and me send the bullet into the back of Dee’s skull. That was all that was needed. He told anyone who would listen that an African girl and a boy with a White mask had killed the plague master with a single shot.
Any fears I had of being captured and killed fled as soldier after soldier wrung my hand, peered at my unusual mask, and ran out to inspect Dee’s body. Many were too wary to approach Emma, but several offered her bows and helped settle her into a wagon with a healer.
Rookwood and Wintour were the last two plotters living, and they were manhandled before being sent straight back to London. I didn’t even get to see them—to try to help them. Everything happened so fast. And everything stirred up conflicting emotions.
Relief and despair.
Freedom and guilt.
Success and failure.
The soldiers gathered all the masks of the plotters. I insisted they bury Catesby, Percy, and the Wright brothers. They obeyed reluctantly, but it brought me some measure of peace.
The leader of the company, a man named Walsh, took the stabled horses as spoils of battle, but I managed to claim Emma’s mare. I rode her back alone. Back to London. Back to investigate the fate of my father.
It had been four days.
8 November 1605
“Tell me everything.” King James turned my White mask over in his hands. I could read nothing on his face and barely think beyond the cold stone beneath my knees and the soldiers on either side of me.
Hero I might be called, but King James knew I had been at the Holbeche House. He knew my last name matched that of the famous soldier in the Tower dungeons.
So I told him what I could.
I focused on my personal journey—my pursuit of White Light. Or, rather, its pursuit of me. I tried my best not to compromise my friends, even though they’d been captured and many killed.
Within the first minutes of my return to London, I’d inquired at the Tower gate after John Johnson. They said his true name was Guido Fawkes and that he’d surrendered the names of the plotters.
They must have pressed him hard. It was with the greatest strain that I kept from weeping in front of the king. I left out bits about Father, not to be vague but because I couldn’t push the words past the thickness in my throat. “I was to row us to an escaping ship, but instead I challenged him.”
“Ye incriminate yourself, young Fawkes.”
I nodded. “So be it.” If Father could stand being taken to the Tower, then so could I. Perhaps I would see him. Perhaps I could—what? Encourage him? He likely wished I was dead.
King James turned my mask over and over. “But ye have also freed England of the plague.” He didn’t seem too concerned about arresting me. Perhaps my mask spoke of my change of heart—and maybe White Light had whispered some banter in his ear. I supposed the healing of an entire country was enough to excuse me from being the son of one of the plotters.
“It was a joint effort, sire,” I corrected. “Emma Areben, ward to the Baron Monteagle, fired the shot.”
“She and I have already spoken. She be a bold one, tha’. Would nae leave my court until I agreed to make clear the mask rights for those of color.” He chuckled. “So wha’ reward would ye ask of me?”
A reward was the last thing I wanted. I felt more like I deserved a cell in the Tower. “Ridding England of the plague is reward enough for me.”
“Ye killed Dee before he could train an apprentice in the ways of the Stone Plague. He been tormenting our continent since Luther’s death. You freed nae only England but all of Europe.”
Huzzah.
“I offer this reward only once.”
I bit my tongue to hold back the refusal. Think, Thomas. Don’t be a fool and throw away such an opportunity. If I were going to make a request, I would not hold back. I would be bold.
I wanted something that would better the world. I thought of all the times Percy complained that King James had broken his promise. What would he ask of the king? What would Catesby ask of the king?
“Stop the executions of the Keepers.”
King James leaned back in is throne. “And wha’ would happen then? They would form a group and pack my Parliament full of gunpowder. To ask this be to ask for my death.”
I saw his point. “But why must they be hunted and hanged as they have been?”
“They have other options. They can become Igniters, or they can leave England. Those who stay and are imprisoned are those who have chosen to defy me.”
Didn’t he realize that they disobeyed because they wanted him to stop persecuting them? How could they focus on discovering White Light when King James kept them too busy trying to guard their own survival?
I took several deep breaths. My fate already balanced on a wire, and if he would not grant me that request, then I would look to other needs.
Silence hung over the hall. I flicked a look up. King James looked amused. “If Your Majesty is willing”—I could not remain silent while kneeling before him—“I ask for the freedom of Guido Fawkes.”
Forty-Seven
“Tha’ be impossible.” There was no softness in King James’s face. He handed my mask back to a guard, who delivered it to me.
I took it and tied it to my belt. Its return was a show of faith from the king—he was someone who understood the White Light.
“Your father be a traitor to the crown—guilty of high treason—and will die a traitor’s death.”
My stomach dropped like a convict on the gallows. A traitor’s death. Hung until near dead, then disemboweled while still alive. And then cut into pieces and burned.
All in front of a cheering crowd.
I knew the sentence must be passed, but I had hoped for mercy.
I swallowed my dread. “I seem to want the impossible.”
“It be those who dream of the impossible who end up defying the very word.”
I gathered what remained of my willpower. “Then let me amend my request to this: allow me to visit my father. As a mercy to a father and son.” King James had children. Surely he understood the importance of such a relationship.
But maybe it was different for monarchs.
“Ye may visit him on the eve of his execution. Will ye claim this as your reward?”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I rose and he dismissed me with a nod.
As I backed from the room, something felt off. Incomplete. Like I’d missed an opportunity. What had I left unsaid? Unasked?
King James rose from his throne, but then I stopped. “Your Majesty.”
I did not look at his face, certain I’d encounter a thick impatience. “Would you allow Mistress Areben to paint the queen’s portrait? And if you or the queen finds the portrait favorable, might you provide Mistress Areben with a letter of recommendation?”
“I gave ye one request, Thomas Fawkes.”
“And I have taken advantage of it.” So why didn’t I feel regret? “I apologize only for taking up your time. Each of these requests weighs too heavily on my heart for me to neglect mentioning either one.”
“I will see to i’.”
For that reason alone, I was glad I did not help kill King James.
The night streets of London were not as dark as they once were. I strode through a London different from that of eighteen months ago. Hay bales no longer hung on hooks in front of houses. Bonfires lit every corner in their metal cages with night folk around them swapping stories.
But in every group I passed, no one talked about the eradication of the plague. They talked only of Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes and the traitors. His name was now famous for a new reason.
I stopped at a bonfire to warm my hands and catch the conversation. A child stood opposite the fire from me, playing with a straw man on a stick. She held it over the flames until it caught fire. She squealed. “The Guy is burning!”
The men at the fire laughed. “How’s he like them flames?”
I recoiled and hurried down the streets.
More and more I saw the straw men. Burned on a stick. Hung from a noose and then burned. Torn to pieces between two children, like a wishbone.
These miniature straw Guy Fawkeses were made from the plague hay bales. “’E’s caught and we be cured,” someone said.
The people thought Father’s capture cured the plague. They thought the plotters’ demise had set them free. No matter the gossip from the soldiers or the story that was told to King James, everyone liked a stretched tale more than the straight one. Just as they claimed that Keepers had started the plague, now they claimed the capture of Keeper traitors stopped it.
Their ignorance disgusted me. An insult to White Light and how it stopped the plot and destroyed the plague by speaking to me and to Emma. It had been patient with us. Taught us—taught me how to follow and how to use color speech.
Yet it received no credit.
“Burn! Burn! Burn!” Some older children threw straw man after straw man into the fire. “Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent,” they chanted, “to blow up the king and Parliament!”
“But he was catch’d,” a boy joined in. “With a dark lantern and a burning match!”
I could watch no longer.
Father had held so long to his pride. To his mask. To his legacy. And now his name represented something sinister. His name caused people to rejoice in death.
Why, oh why, hadn’t he listened? Why hadn’t he looked for truth himself instead of building his life and passions on the fear of it?
I slept at an inn on Cheapside—not the Bear and not the Duck and Drake. Too many memories there.
Two days later, I had a message from the king . . . for Emma.
He wanted her to come paint the queen’s portrait and he’d called me to caddy the letter to her—another small favor.
Today was the day. I strode to the Strand. If Emma had already visited with the king three days before, she was well enough.
I’d been thinking long and hard on how to approach Henry. Just because the plague had ended and the plot was unearthed—just because Dee was dead and King James was defining the mask laws for those of color—didn’t mean Emma was free.
Henry had worked with Dee. He had trained under Dee. He had helped Dee with the Stone Plague weapons and led those soldiers to a battle that ended up with half of them dead. Yet he was pardoned simply because he was the son of a Parliament member, and an Igniter, and involved in the capture of Father.
He loved Emma with a dangerous ferocity . . . and was determined to smother her into his pet.
I was going to free her once and for all.
I knocked on the door to the Monteagle household as a gentleman might—as a messenger who came from the king might. I was as poor and scrappy and stubborn as I’d always been . . . but my honor had matured. It had straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and strengthened my voice.
Ward opened the door, saw me, and shook his head. “’Twas a bad choice to come here, Mister Fawkes.”
“I have a message from the king,” I said with a voice as firm as the steel in my scabbard. “For Mistress Areben.”
Ward’s brow popped up as though he’d been struck in the face by a splash of water. “Do come in, sir.” As he walked down the familiar hall, I caught his mutter, “Though king’s caddy or not, this won’t be pleasant.”
As I was led into the empty sitting room to wait, I heard them through the ceiling.
“How can you be angry about this? I will be free to wear my mask on my belt like everyone else. Like you!” It seemed Emma had made a full recovery—at least her lungs had.
“I won’t let you go out like that if King James does pass a law. You have been too reckless.”
“I don’t need your permission!” she shouted.
“You are my betrothed!” A slam followed by fast stomps. They stopped, I caught Ward’s low mutter, and then the footsteps came my way.
I steeled myself.
Henry blasted into the sitting room, a bandage around the shoulder I wounded. When he saw me, revulsion crawled onto his face like a resident insect. “You think that because you have color power you can enter my home and visit my future wife?”
“I’ve entered your home upon the king’s orders.” I lifted the sealed parchment. “With a message for Emma.”
Henry held out his hand and I almost laughed. As. If.
“I will deliver it to her directly—”
“I am the lord of this hou—”
“—or not at all.” I let the words drop like a gauntlet thrown between us.
We stood in stalemate. Fire in his gaze. Ice in mine.
“She is not yet well enough for visitors.”
“I am perfectly well enough!” came Emma’s shout from the floor above.
I barely swallowed the grin. I’d missed her. I cocked my head to one side. “I demand, by order of the king, that you take me to her.”
Henry strode out of the room. I followed and we tromped up a narrow staircase to a closed door. Henry opened it and we swept in to a second-level sitting room where Emma reclined on a long couch by the window.
She stood upon our entrance, but kept a hand on the back of the couch for support.
I handed Emma the roll of parchment. She took it without removing her gaze from my face. It was our first time seeing each other since the skirmish at Holbeche House.
It seemed as though we were meeting for the first time. And yet as though we knew each other’s very core.
“Very well. You’ve delivered your letter.” Henry stepped between us. “I will see you to the door.”
“Are you ready?” I said to Emma.
Henry shoved me into the hallway. He saw me all the way to the entry, and that was when I spun on him. “You have no hold over Emma.”
Henry laughed in my face, so loud that spittle sprayed my skin. But nothing is quite so smothering as a silent room where no one joins in. “I’m her betrothed.”
“By force alone.” I settled my weight. “You teamed with Dee and almost killed her.” The outburst hung between us like the echo of a rifle shot.
“Dee was out of control.”
“Why would Dee take you as an apprentice anyway? You are a baron’s son—an apprenticeship is below your station.”
“I wasn’t his apprentice. I saw what he could do with the Stone Plague, and in exchange for my silence, he trained me in color speech the way St. Peter’s never could. You have no right to Emma’s hand.”
“And you think you do?” Henry would do whatever it took—team with whoever would take him—to achieve his desires. It was time for that to end.
“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding here.” Both Henry and I flinched at Emma’s voice. She stood at the edge of the entry, her curls floating about her face like black fire. She wore her peasant dress with her mask at her belt. She had a travel bag in her hand.
Both Henry and I reached to steady her, but she hovered just out of reach. “You see, my hand is not for the taking.” She met Henry’s scowl. “It’s for the giving.”
She stepped forward and slid her bare hand into my outstretched one. “I’m leaving, Henry.” Her other hand clenched the message from the king—the invitation to paint a portrait—against the handle of the bag.
Henry wouldn’t look at her. “You can’t. People don’t understand you like I do. They fear you.”
“I have to hope that will change someday.” Her fingers tightened around mine. Warm. Solid. Confident.
I let her fight her own duel.
She deserved that honor.
Her voice softened. “We had our time. And I think fondly of the days of our friendship. But I belong to no one—not the Baron and certainly not you.”
He glowered at me. “You would have her run away with you and work as a common maid?”
“No. I would have her live the life and use the talents for which she has been designed. To squander her skills and her delights would be to deny her life purpose. It would be cruelest of all t
o purge her of her very soul.”
Emma took the first step off the threshold. “Good-bye, Henry.”
Henry stood there like a wilted cornstalk.
I didn’t wait around.
Emma and I walked away together. Neither of us looked back.
Forty-Eight
30 January 1606
The Tower smelled of blood.
I entered through black spiked gates that creaked on their hinges as though rarely opened. As though reminding me that prisoners never got out . . . until hung.
The executions were slated for tomorrow. I’d spent the time since Holbeche House imagining all manners of reunions—none of them happy ones. The last I’d seen of Father, he was being dragged into the Tower while I hid in the street shadows.
Did he even know what had happened to the other plotters?
Did he know what I’d done?
“This way.” The warden led me to the Tower. The sun was setting. Half the pale stones were lit and the lower half darkened. I felt as though I was watching the hope drain from the very rocks.
We entered the icy stairs of the Tower. Torchlight bounced off the walls, but even its flicker seemed cold—snuffed by the frozen stones. Did Father have a cloak? A blanket? Anything to keep him warm?
Wintour was somewhere within these walls, but I was not allowed to see him. I had a feeling he wouldn’t want to see me either—he wouldn’t understand why I was free and he was condemned.
We passed the cells of other prisoners—could hear their groans, but not see their faces. Though the floors and routes bore only stains and no refuse, the Tower stank beyond anything the Thames could achieve. It wasn’t just human waste I smelled. It was sorrow. Hopelessness.
“Here.” The warden stopped at a door of metal bars. He pounded on them. “Visitor. Come into the light.” He didn’t wait to see if Father obeyed. Just left me, but still kept me in sight. No one escaped the Tower, and he wasn’t about to allow a young man to threaten that reputation, even if he had permission from the king himself.
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