Marbeck and the Gunpowder Plot

by John Pilkington

  Now, without taking his eyes off his captive, Skinner let fly an oath at Oliver. ‘Don’t wet yourself, you whey-faced javel!’ he sneered. ‘You think I want to start a fire?’ A savage glare appeared. ‘I don’t know how, but I’d swear you’re the cause of the last one, Tucker! Everything I owned was in that house – all of it, gone up in flames! As for me – I’m lucky to be alive!’

  ‘I’m very glad to see it,’ Marbeck said lightly. His reward was a jab in the ribs with the gun-barrel that made him wince.

  ‘Drop that fancy sword!’ Skinner yelled, shoving his unwashed face close. ‘Your poniard too – move!’

  Unhurriedly, Marbeck loosed his belt and let it fall to the floor.

  ‘Now get outside – Oliver, open the whoreson door!’

  It was done in some haste. With obvious relief Oliver brushed past them, stumbling through the stable to the yard door. He unbolted it and swung it outwards, letting in milky daylight. Marbeck, the caliver’s barrel pressed hard against his ribs, allowed himself to be driven out to the yard. As he went he threw a last glance at Cobb. The horse gazed at him from his stall, then was gone.

  ‘Over there, by the wall!’

  Skinner had taken a step back and was motioning to Marbeck. Weighing his options swiftly, and deciding that on this occasion they were somewhat scarce, Marbeck complied. The yard was small, surrounded by high walls lined with bales and sacks. A dung-heap, covered against the rain, filled one corner. Backing away from his captor, hands loose, he moved to a wall and stood still.

  ‘Do you mark this?’ Skinner cried, his face contorted with rage. He meant his injured arm, which Marbeck now saw was so stiff that he could barely move it. ‘Barber-surgeon says it’ll never heal properly! That’s your doing, Master Give-You-Goodnight! You and your smart swordplay … You’ve ruined me! I wish to God I’d never set eyes on you – you were a trial, right from the start. A bad penny … Nay, a bad omen. You arrived hard upon the sun’s eclipse – my beloved said so, the one you scorned to greet when she sat at my table! And here you are, hale and hearty, set to ride out without a care in the world. So what do you say now, before I splatter your guts across that whoreson wall?’

  But for answer, Marbeck said nothing.

  ‘I said: what do you say, before I end your stinking life?’ Shaking with anger, Skinner moved towards him, levelling the caliver. Even then Marbeck didn’t speak; there was a vestige of defiance within him yet, which would have its way. And then, to Skinner’s further rage, a calmness came over him.

  Three times within a fortnight, he reflected, he had stared down a gun-barrel. Twice he had been fortunate … Suddenly, he recalled the words of his boyhood mentor, Ballard: Once may be deemed a near-miracle, my boy, the old player had said; twice may be coincidence – but three times? No man will credit that …

  He glanced up then: at the grey November sky and the rooftops, with wisps of early-morning smoke drifting across. The people of London were lighting fires, cooking breakfast … There was a sound of hooves, from somewhere beyond Aldersgate. In the Tower, men who had failed to blow up the King waited to be tried and hung for treason, the one thing certain to follow upon the other. In Whitehall Palace, King James lay in his curtained bed, while his children slept safely in theirs. At Salisbury House, the Secretary of State would already be at his desk, his crookback frame propped up on cushions. While somewhere, perhaps a long way from London, Meriel might be waking … Whereupon Charlotte de Baume’s words came starkly to his mind: What would it matter, if you are slain by a lord or a lackey …? He let out a breath: was this pitiful rogue, then, to be his executioner?

  Suddenly, a laugh welled up. Of all the dangers he’d faced – at the hands of trained assassins, expert swordsmen and marksmen – the notion that his life could be snuffed out by a low-life wretch like Skinner seemed the most supreme irony of all. He faced the man then and allowed his laughter to spill forth.

  ‘By the Christ, you think I won’t do it?’ Skinner cried. He was beside himself with fury. Shaking yet resolved, he aimed his caliver at Marbeck’s heart. Beyond, just inside the doorway, Oliver stood grim-faced but resigned, fiddling with his pipe.

  Marbeck faced his nemesis … but even at the very last, a flicker of hope remained. After all, he’d been in similar predicaments before and survived them somehow; was there yet time for a Ballard trick?

  He swallowed, his smile gone … then he stiffened in dramatic fashion, throwing a look of alarm over Skinner’s right shoulder – whereupon Oliver chose that precise moment to drop his pipe. It fell with a clatter on to the cobbles and broke in two.

  Skinner gave a start and whirled round – whereupon Marbeck whipped his bodkin from his pocket and leaped …