Babington stayed in bed. He had no wish to talk with Ballard. No one called him Captain Fortescue any more. What was the point when all the Pope’s White Sons knew him as a priest, not a soldier? As for talking with him, there had been too much of that already. Endless talking!
There was yet another sound: the clattering of arms and the shouting of men. Babington froze with horror, then slid beneath the bedclothes like a child hiding from its nurse, knowing that he would be found. So this was it; this was how it happened. The pursuivants had come for him. He tried to lie still and silent, his head hidden, but his heart pounded like a hunted stag’s and he knew it must give him away.
There was bellowing, a shout from Ballard, then the stamping of feet, moving away from the house.
He waited beneath the bedclothes for two minutes, five minutes, all the time expecting the sound of breaking furniture and stoved-in panelling. That was how these pursuivants worked. They broke apart property as well as lives in their hunt for priests and forbidden books.
The door opened and he could not suppress a groan.
‘Ballard is taken!’ It was Robin Poley.
Babington pushed back the bedding and looked at his friend with wide, questioning eyes.
‘Pursuivants?’
‘Sent by warrant of the Lord High Admiral. They have taken Ballard at the point of a sword.’
‘And they are gone, you say?’
‘Gone.’
‘What about you? Why did they not take you, Robin?’
‘I hid behind the privy and watched them. There were six of them. I could do nothing to help him.’
‘We are no longer safe.’
Poley smiled. ‘That is not so. This was not Mr Secretary’s work. I am sure he still means to deal honourably with you and afford you your pass into foreign lands. The pursuivants called Father Ballard priest. I think he was taken for that alone, not for his part in your enterprise, Anthony. We are both still safe.’
‘Thanks be to God,’ Babington said, but without conviction.
‘I will go to Richmond this day and crave an audience with Mr Secretary. It may be he still desires you to go to France. It may be that I can persuade him to have Father Ballard set free.’
Babington sprang from the bed with the energy of a newborn lamb, as though the languor of the past moments had been sloughed off like a good night’s sleep. ‘Enough of talk. Enough of Walsingham and his false promises. They are attacking us, Robin, and so we have but one course of action left to us. We must attack them back.’
He strapped on his sword belt, embraced his friend and kissed him. He knew what he had to do. It was all clear now. There was no time to lose. ‘Go, then, Robin,’ he said. ‘Go to court. See what can be done for Father Ballard, though I fear the worst for him.’
‘Farewell, Anthony.’
Babington gave Poley one last kiss and set off walking down the path, then broke into a run with his boy Job trailing in his wake. First he must find Chidiock Tichbourne and Tom Salisbury. They, surely, were the truest of friends and the most dependable of men. They must set off for Chartley without delay to find some way of securing Mary’s freedom.
Chidiock was not at his lodgings, so he tried Mane’s barber shop where they often met. Mane shook his head. ‘I heard he was kicked by a horse and was carried to St Bartholomew’s for a splint. He would have done better to come here, for I can set a bone as well as any man.’
Babington groaned with frustration and set off at a loping run westwards. He was about to go into Bart’s when he spotted Tichbourne sitting against a wall of the hospital, smoking a pipe. His left leg was stretched out before him
‘Chidiock, what has happened to you?’
‘Maggot of a horse kicked my shin.’
‘Is it broken?’
‘No, but I can scarce hobble, let alone walk.’
‘Can you ride?’
‘No distance.’
‘Chidiock, this is bad. I had wanted you to ride for Chartley with Tom Salisbury. We must act now or be for ever damned. Father Ballard has been taken. He will talk under torture – and then they will come for us all. We must either fight or flee.’
Tichbourne drew a lungful of smoke from his pipe, then blew it out. ‘Well, I can do neither. I am just trying to drag myself home, yard by yard.’
Babington stared at his friend in disbelief. Then he knelt down at his side and tried to push his hands under his arms. ‘I will carry you.’
‘Leave me. I will only serve to slow you down.’
‘I cannot leave a friend.’
‘Go, Anthony. With God’s grace, I will be well in time. Lame but limping, perhaps.’
Babington nodded. Yes, Chidiock was right.
‘Have you been to Hern’s Rents this morning, Anthony?’
‘No.’
‘Then do not go there. It is watched. Before my injury, I was on my way to you when I saw two men in the shadows and walked on.’
So nowhere was safe. They knew of Poley’s house, for they had taken Ballard there. Babington clasped Tichbourne’s beloved face in his hands and kissed his forehead. They had been on so many journeys and adventures together, across France and England. And now it was all going to end in horror. ‘Dominus vobiscum, dearest Chidiock.’
‘God go with you, too, Anthony.’
Babington’s aunt, Lady Darcy, pushed her maidservant out of the way and tugged her nephew into the hall of her sumptuous house. ‘Come in, dear Anthony, come in.’
He kissed her peremptorily, then gazed about the dark panelled room with hunted eyes. With his hand he waved the maidservant away and she scurried from the room.
‘What is it?’ his aunt demanded when they were alone.
‘We are discovered. I no longer know what to do. Perhaps if I were to stay here . . .’
‘You sound most agitated. Calm yourself. Tell me all that has happened.’
He sighed, then slumped onto a settle by the window. ‘Yes, I will tell you.’
His aunt listened in silence. She was a woman of fifty years with greying hair and the sharp, defiant air of certain women of the gentry and nobility who looked with undisguised scorn on any who thought to embrace England’s new faith. ‘You must steel yourself, Anthony,’ she said at last.
‘But what should I do?’
‘You must do what you have planned all along. You must play your part in deposing this usurper queen and her devilish acolytes and pseudo-bishops – and you must raise Queen Mary
to her proper place.’
‘But—’
‘Only then will you restore this family to its heights among the greatest in the land. Did your great-grandfather not attend on Henry the Eighth at the Field of the Cloth of Gold? He had Darcy courage. Now you must show your mettle.’
‘But, Aunt, you know what became of him. Lopped at Tower Hill.’
‘In defence of his faith. So must you defend the faith, though it cost you your life. Do not shirk.’
Babington was no longer listening. He had known all along what she would say. Great-grandfather had been executed for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace – the northern rebellion against King Henry’s assault on the Roman religion – and so the same was expected of him. It was the Darcy way. And, through his mother, Babington was a Darcy by another name.
‘I know not who to trust.’
‘Trust in God. Trust in your great-grandfather.’
Old Lord Darcy, whose head was planted on a pike at the southern end of London Bridge. He might have been a saint for all the talk of him since the day Babington was born. The first words he remembered from the age of three or four were his mother’s refrain: You are a Darcy, Anthony. You must not allow Greatgrandfather’s death to have been in vain.
They were the words that had brought him to this pass. There were times he would have liked to have wielded the axe himself, so sick was he of the family’s beatification of a man he had never even met.
His aunt was still talking. Her tongu
e so sharp and precise she could slice bacon with it.
‘Send your man to court with his pistol and you go to Chartley. If there were but two of you, it could be done.’
‘Savage? I am sure I can trust Goodfellow not to betray us
– but will he do the deed? And what of Gifford? What manner of man is he? He was at Rheims, ordained deacon. Surely he must be true. John Shakespeare? No, I do not trust him. Too close to Walsingham. Poley was right; they should never have had anything to do with a man like that. Oh, but Shakespeare had seemed useful at the time, bringing tidbits of information from the very office of the devil. And what of sweet Robin himself ? Some say he is sly, but I must trust him for he has my love. What of Ballard?’
‘Anthony, you are babbling. I know none of these names.’
‘Ballard. Why did he ever come to me with this plot? Why did I ever listen, for now I am damned; and I have damned my beloved friends. Without Ballard I would have lived my life in quiet comfort. Then there was Ballard’s friend Maude. Yet another traitor to our cause. Aunt, I believe there is no man I can trust. This was always Walsingham’s plot, not ours. He owned us and used us for his foul purpose. To what ends? Oh sweet Mary of Scots, I fear I know what ends . . .’
His aunt slapped his face. Hard. ‘Are you a man, Anthony? Be a man.’
Babington held his face where her palm had stung him. He looked into his aunt’s cold eyes. She had more courage than he could ever have. But it was not she who would be laid out on the scaffold to have her belly sliced open and her heart torn out.
‘I will go now, Aunt. I should not have come.’
As Babington left Lady Darcy’s house and walked eastwards past Ely Place, he did not note the two men following him on horseback, at a slow walk.
‘He knows not what he does, Mr Shakespeare.’
‘He sees danger at every turn, and yet he does not see for want of looking, Mr Scudamore.’
‘He is a traitor, yet a man could almost feel sorry for him.’
‘Indeed. And yet we have both seen the words he wrote. He would kill Her Majesty, smooth the way for England’s enemies to invade and put a foreign princess upon the throne. These are not the words of an innocent.’
Babington, for all his languor, had lethal ambition and ruthless arrogance.
Chapter 40
How many do we have? Babington was back at Poley’s home, though there was no sign of Poley yet. Why had he not returned from court? Even with the long river journey to Richmond he should surely be here.
How many do we have? Babington was scraping names on a sheet of paper, placing forth all those who might be counted on: Tom Salisbury, Chidiock Tichbourne (if his leg were to heal), Goodfellow Savage, Robert Barnwell, Henry Dunn, Edward Windsor, Edward Abingdon, John Travers, John Charnock, Dominic de Warre, Charles Tilney, Edward Jones, Gilbert Gifford, Robin Poley, Robert Gage, Sir Thomas Gerard, Jerome Bellamy, Katherine Bellamy. No, not Mistress Bellamy. This was no work for women.
All had been at the meetings in his rooms and at the tavern feasts. All had heard at least part of the plans. All had agreed that the Queen of Scotland must be set free, but few had spoken of assassination. Indeed, he knew that even Tom Salisbury had great reservations about such a course of action.
He cursed. There were simply not enough committed men. Where was Gifford? Where was Poley and why had he not come home from Richmond? Chidiock was wounded. Edward Windsor was gone to the country. During their meetings, it had seemed there were so many like-minded men willing to lay down their lives for the Holy Father. But now, looking at this scrap of paper, the total seemed paltry.
There was a soft knocking at the door. Babington tensed, then relaxed. Pursuivants did not tap at doors. They hammered them down with battering logs and announced their arrival with shouts and stamping and the clatter of arms.
‘Come in. Whoever you are, come in.’
There were two of them. Goodfellow Savage and young Dominic de Warre.
‘Thank God. I feared . . .’
‘Anthony, we have just heard about Father Ballard.’
‘Oh, Goodfellow, Dominic, this is a bad day. Robin has gone to court to find a way to have him released. And yet he has been gone a long time. Perhaps he, too, has been taken.’
‘We must act now.’ It was de Warre who spoke. ‘If we do not take the initiative, we will all die – and for nothing. At least let us bring down the tyrants first.’
‘He is right,’ Savage said.
‘Then we are all agreed.’ Babington handed a flagon of brandy to his two visitors. ‘Be seated, take the warming spirit, let us discuss our plan.’
‘It must be now,’ Savage said. ‘I will go to Richmond and find her. I am told by our Irish friend, Barnwell, how easily she might be surprised there – that she walks alone and unguarded in the gardens. I will do it though I die in the doing.’
‘Will Barnwell join you in the enterprise?’
‘He is with his master, the Earl of Kildare. I do not know if we will find him in time.’
‘I will go with you,’ de Warre said.
Savage gazed at him without expression. ‘What use will you be?’
The slender young man shrugged. ‘Whatever you wish. You are my captain, so I will do what I am told. I will fire the bullet if you desire, or hold the horses in preparation for your escape.
Command me and I will obey.’
‘He has courage, Goodfellow. You may need assistance.’
‘Very well. Come with me. But first I need weapons; and I need court attire.’ He held wide his arms to indicate his poor costume, a tattered remnant of a black suit of clothes begged from a lawyer at the inns of court. ‘I will never be allowed near the Queen in this.’
‘Is that truly all the apparel you own?’
‘I am destitute, Anthony.’ All the money from Shakespeare had gone in settling debts.
Babington drank his brandy. ‘Stand up, sir.’
Savage stood from the settle and raised himself to his full height. Babington shook his head in despair. ‘Clearly, you will fit no clothes of mine.’ He wrenched a gold ring from his finger and found a purse, emptying the few gold and silver coins into his palm. ‘This is all I have. Take it. Go to Tredger’s in Cheapside. He will have something, I am certain. If he demands more than I have given you, charge it to me. What weapons do you need?’
‘Two wheel-lock pistols. As small and as finely wrought as possible, for I must needs hide them within a bag or sleeve. They must be of the highest quality, for I will have to be sure that both will fire. If it is to be done, the end must be certain.’
‘And do you know where to acquire these dags?’
‘Yes, indeed. But the gunsmith will charge a great deal.’
‘Then use all the money and my ring to pay for them. Charge the whole of the apparel to my account, though it cost you fifty pounds. It matters not, for if God grants us success, then we will be repaid a thousandfold, both in this world and the next.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘What of John Charnock? What of Edward Abingdon and Roarer Tilney? Will they join you? It was always supposed to be six, but five will surely suffice. Edward and Charles are members of the Queen’s Guard – they must have access to her person.’
Savage looked doubtful.
‘Goodfellow?’
‘Abingdon and Tilney do not have the mettle for it. If John Charnock can be found, I think he would strike the blow with me, for he is a soldier. Can we find him?’
‘He keeps company by St Paul’s.’
‘I will go,’ de Warre said.
‘No,’ Babington said. ‘I will find him. Do you have horses?’
Savage grinned. ‘Dominic has a fine mount and I have an old gelding. Long of tooth but he has served me well. In truth he is all my wealth. When he is gone to the knackers, I will have nothing left in the world.’
‘Take one of mine for Charnock. If I find him I will send him to you at St Paul’s. If he is there, ride with him to Richmond. If not, then
do not wait. Go alone. Dispatch her.’
Shakespeare and Scudamore watched Goodfellow Savage and Dominic de Warre depart from The Garden. They now had another horse. That must mean they were expecting a third man to join them or they needed a sumpter to carry equipment.
Within the past hour, word had reached Shakespeare by messenger that it was finally considered that there was no hope Babington would reply to the forged postscript to Mary’s letter demanding the names of the would-be assassins. It was almost time to proceed with the arrests.
‘I will follow Savage and de Warre,’ Scudamore said. ‘They know you well. I think there is less chance of them spotting me.’
‘No. I will follow them. You stay here with Babington. I think you know what must be done.’
‘You are well armed? Savage is dangerous.’
‘Well enough.’ He felt the weight of a heavy petronel slung along his horse’s flank.
Without another word, Shakespeare wheeled his mount and kicked it into a slow walk, following his quarries at a suitable distance as they rode back into the city.
So it was really happening. Savage had steeled himself to carry out his vow. Shakespeare watched Goodfellow and de Warre with increasing dismay as they visited various shops in Cheapside and bartered for fine clothes and weapons. Two small wheel-lock pistols. Shakespeare saw them both, for Savage had them in his hands as he emerged from the shop, before looking around with suspicious, squinting eyes and concealing the weapons beneath his cape.
And then they mounted up and rode for St Paul’s, leading the third horse on a long rein. Whoever they were hoping to see was not there. They waited no more than ten minutes before they rode back eastwards, turning south towards London Bridge. He felt certain of their destination; they intended to go south of the river, then take the highway west towards Richmond Castle and a deadly appointment.
Anthony Babington was more scared than he had ever been. The vision of the scaffold and the rope and the knife were too real in his mind. If he closed his eyes, he knew the rope would twist about his neck and the knife would begin its horrible work. He was gasping for air and breathing in blood.
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