The Desperate remedy hg-1

by Martin Stephen

  Years ago at Harrowden three of them had planned a raid on a neighbour's orchard, seeking the sweet apples that were his pride and joy. When they had seen the neighbour working in a far corner of the orchard the other two, one of whom was Tresham, had argued for strategic retreat. Catesby had roundly accused them of being cowards, at which the other boy, Tom, had leapt the wall and crept towards the trees. His howls as the neighbour had laid a springy branch with far more force than was necessary across his buttocks had kept Catesby and Tresham company as they huddled on the other side of the wall. 'I hear Tom speaking to me,' an angry Tresham had whispered harshly to Catesby, 'telling me how much pleasure he takes in being a hero!'

  Back in the present, Tresham was too angry to be diverted from his point. 'This isn't about cowardice. Have you thought, man, that the nation will be appalled to think such an act could be undertaken in the name of religion — a religion that preaches peace to one's neighbour! Every act of repression, every crippling penalty, will be justified by reference to this act of evil. Common folk will rise up against us! More than common folk! Every decent person in the kingdom will want our blood in revenge! This won't save Catholicism! It'll ruin it for ever! Axe you mad?'

  If any of Tresham's passion was penetrating Catesby's self-belief, it was not clear to Tresham.

  'It must needs be done,' he said, calmly. 'It's the necessity for all Catholics. We're forced to dangerous measures. We've no choice.'

  'And what support will you get? Where are your troops, your invading armies? Do you think Spain has signed a treaty so we can go to war again?'

  'The Spanish troops in Dover will march to Rochester and strangle London at the neck of the Thames. Percy's hordes from the north will march, and Catholics from Europe will flock to our support!'

  'And on whose word will these mighty offers march? Has the King of Spain told you in person that his troops will be at your beck and call? Has mighty Percy told you his peasants will march in winter to uphold your glorious act, those peasants he hasn't seen for most of his life! Have the commanders in Europe given you their word in writing they'll make that perilous voyage to put out a fire in London that'll never cease burning! You're mad, cousin, mad!'

  Catesby seemed unmoved. There was a strange light in his eyes, an almost unnatural calm in his manner. 'Fawkes is a soldier, a man of tried and tested mettle. He's been in Europe. He brings us word from the most high sources that the Spanish troops will act in our favour. He also brings word that Sir William Stanley will bring the English Regiment over to aid us. As for the Earl of Northumberland, he speaks through Thomas Percy, in whom his actions show complete trust.'

  'Fiddle-faddle! This Guy Fawkes, who is he? I guarantee you he's as close to the King of Spain as my nose is to my arse! Stanley is a clapped-out old man looking for a pardon and a safe return home, and God help us all if Percy's on your side. Why, that sweating idiot would betray his own mother for a farthing and a pint of piss!'

  'Calm down, cousin. Here, take a drink.' Tresham noted for the first time the jug of wine placed in advance in the room, and the exquisite goblets, new like everything else in the house. 'This is new to you. To others of us, those who've lived with it a long time, the shock isn't so great. Give it time. Give us, your friends of long standing, some of that time. Surely we're owed that much.'

  'But what of our friends? Of Montague? Mordaunt? Of my relatives? Monteagle? Stourton? You can't kill every Catholic noble in all England!'

  Tresham's heart was racing, his whole body pounding. He sat down heavily, drank deeply.

  'We can try and warn some of them,' said Catesby. 'In dangerous times all men face grave dangers.'

  'Money. I'll give you money.'

  Catesby got to his feet, ready to embrace Tresham.

  'No, not money to further this idiocy. Money to go away.' Catesby frowned. 'At least let this Parliament sit itself out, let's see what it does, what acts it passes. Who knows if the rumours are nothing but noise? Take a hundred pounds, take more. Take yourself and your hot-headed friends off to the Spanish Netherlands. Take time to think, and watch.'

  'And leave thirty or more barrels of powder sitting under the Lords' chamber? Risk removing it, being discovered? To be hung, drawn and quartered on a public scaffold for not having blown our enemies to Hell? Surely not, cousin, surely not.'

  Catesby was chiding him, as he might a child who had made a wrong translation.

  'So, are you on our side, or a traitor to it?'

  The irony of being called a traitor by a man who was about to blow up England's Government was not lost on Tresham. The heart of him wanted to cut and run, to leave the whole damned business behind him. Yet his head told him it was of no use. He had been so close to these men that he would be swept up and hung when news of it leaked out, as it surely would. This meeting with Catesby had sealed his fate, he realised. If they could condemn Walter Raleigh, what chance had he? Besides, he thought as caution tugged at the heels of his flying imagination, his only way out might be his interrogator, the gentleman with the piercing eyes and beautiful… whore? Consort? Even wife? From now on, whatever he did, he would be seen as one of the conspirators. He looked into Catesby's eyes, and realised that he had never truly known him. If he denied the conspiracy he could not even be certain that Catesby would not kill him. His calm was more terrifying than his anger would ever have been.

  'You've made me a part of your confounded plot. I supped with you last week, and now I'm dined here. Laying a trail, are you, one even the stupidest hound could follow? I've known you all my life. If your plot fails, do you think any of us will escape? You've hooked me to your line, cousin, without me even knowing there was metal in the water.'

  'So are you on our side, or a traitor to it?' Catesby's tone was mild, but relentless.

  'I'm a coward in your cause, Robin. Nothing but a bad cause can make me a coward.'

  It was starting to get dark when he flung out of Lord Stourton's house and struggled through the streets of Clerkenwell. The summer's dust and two-foot-deep iron ruts had been replaced with clinging mud and filth that threatened to go over the top of even long boots, or suck them off the feet that wore them. He found the sign of The Mermaid and doing as he had been bidden asked for the room kept by Mr Robin Cecil. The innkeeper, a surly figure, called out a tap boy and sent him to guide Tresham. He left him outside a first-floor room. Tresham knocked. There was silence. He looked around him. The wooden balcony which ran round the three sides of the inn, facing inwards into the yard, was empty. The inn seemed near deserted. Those who had colonised Clerkenwell had enough money to keep a full table at home, without need of the inn. He knocked again. Silence. He tried the door. It was open. The room inside was bare, cold. No lights, no sign of anyone having been there in days. Leaving the door swinging on its hinges, he went down the rickety steps, and out into the increasingly gloomy late afternoon. 'Your news?'

  He jumped and had his sword half out of the scabbard before he recognised the figure in black.

  ‘Not here, surely?' Tresham stuttered. Something like a grin flickered across the face of his interrogator. He led Tresham to another room on the other side of the yard. Inside there were the remnants of a meal, a good meal as far as Tresham could see. And the woman, together with the huge man Tresham had seen before. Without a word the ox of a servant began to clear, assisted by the woman. There was an extraordinary relationship between the three of them. Master, servant and whore? Man, wife and servant? Friends? Coconspirators themselves in some plot he could only imagine? There was an ease between them that dismissed hierarchy, an intuitive understanding so at times they hardly needed to speak to each other to understand.

  Tresham sat down on a stool, took the offered wine.

  'I know what it is they plan.'

  Without a word being spoken Tresham heard the other two draw near.

  'Speak,' the dark man said.

  Tresham took a deep breath. 'My cousin has stacked thirty-six barrels of prime gunpow
der beneath the Lords' Chamber at Westminster. It's in a cellar, hired by Thomas Percy, hidden under firewood. They plan to blow up Parliament, at the State opening, killing the King, the Prince, Lords, Commons and all. Three weeks. Three weeks from now. November the fifth.'

  There was a gasp from Jane, and even from the normally stalwart Mannion., Gresham sat like stone in his chair.

  'Is this… serious? Will they do this thing?' he asked, after a long pause.

  'It's serious. They'll do it.' Tresham was warming to his theme, feeling strangely more at home with this man and his woman and his servant than he had with his brother-in-law and with Catesby. 'The powder's there, placed by a man they brought over from Europe on Stanley's recommendation, one Guido or Guy Fawkes. My cousin Percy's a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The house is hired in his name, with this Fawkes masquerading as his servant. John or Jack Johnson, I think they call him. They mean to do it. The plan is to kidnap the Princess Elizabeth from Coombe House, and put her on the throne.'

  'They're mad!' Gresham spoke almost in a whisper.

  'I said as much, but to no avail. There's no reason in my cousin.'

  'Who else is involved?'

  'Those you know of. Some others you don't know. Is it necessary I give their names?'

  'I doubt very much that I'm the one who will do them the greatest harm.'

  'Over and above the ones you know? Ambrose Rookwood. Everard Digby. Tom Bates, Catesby's servant. That's all I know.'

  "No nobility?' Gresham asked, with sudden interest. 'Who is to be the Protector if this succeeds? Who's driving it? What about Northumberland?'

  'He was mentioned through Thomas Percy. Apparently Tom has given Robin his word that Northumberland's hordes will come streaming down once the Parliament is blown to Hell and backwards. Yet it could be bombast, from that man of all men. None others of true quality were mentioned by Robin. For God's sake, man, Stourton's married to one of my sisters, as is Monteagle! These are my family.’

  Family has never meant very much to you before, thought Gresham.

  'May I speak?' It was Jane. Gresham nodded.

  'What good will come of it? Why can they think your religion will be helped by this… this slaughter?'

  In a tired voice Tresham explained the Spanish troops, the English Regiment and again the hoped-for involvement of the Earl of Northumberland.

  Gresham got up and paced the room. His tension was clear.

  'It makes no sense. Northumberland hardly knows his northern lands, never mind commanding enough loyalty from his minions up there to let them come down and put their heads on a block.'

  'It don't always need blue blood to shed plenty of the red kind. Commoners can kill as well.' Mannion spoke, and Gresham swung round to him.

  'But commoners need a leader. Even the Peasants had Wat Tyler,' responded Gresham.

  'Is Catesby such a leader?' It was Jane who spoke the words. They hung in the air.

  'Could it be so? That Robin sees himself hailed as Protector? Surely no…' Tresham was aghast, unwilling to be convinced of what his heart told him.

  'Lucifer thought he could defeat God and be hailed in Heaven,' said Jane. 'Why should his works on earth have any less pride to them?'

  It was pure accident that brought Catesby into direct contact with Viscount Montagu. He had been walking through the Savoy, on his way back to the Strand, when he turned a corner to find himself face to face with the young Catholic Lord. A brave young man, Montagu had spent five days in the Fleet prison as his reward for speaking out in Parliament against the acts of recusancy. Just the sort of man to make Francis Tresham snivel in pity at the thought of his death, thought Catesby. Did they not realise, he and his kind, that if Christ had to die to save the world then a few men dying to save Christ was no price at all to pay?

  Catesby could not afford to ignore Montagu. He had been seen and recognised. The great Catholic families of England not only knew each other; they had frequently been brought up with each other.

  'Good morning, my Lord,' he said, bowing low. 'Are you well?' It was verging on the impertinent to speak so directly to one so well born, but Catesby was increasingly fed by a fire of risk. If Montagu was offended, he did not show it, asking after Catesby's health in turn with every show of sincerity.

  'Is it the Parliament that brings your Lordship to town?' enquired Catesby. Montagu's home was in Sussex. He offered to Catesby the fact that he was visiting his aunt, and hoped to gain the King's permission to be absent from Parliament. He did not need to specify his reasons to Catesby. Both knew that the devout young man would baulk at being present if any more laws against Catholics were passed, and might land himself in prison for an even longer term if he spoke his mind.

  'I'm sure your Lordship takes no pleasure to be there,' offered Catesby sympathetically. Well, if Montagu was already chasing the King for leave of absence, there was nothing Catesby needed to do more, except offer Montagu's likely absence as his doing to Tresham and the others.

  A storm was brewing, Catesby knew. His plot had been based on the Catholic family of England, the blood links between them that formed a mutual bond of huge strength, despite their bickering. Yet families protected their own. The death of some members of that family — leading members, the nobility who had held sway for years — was proving a sticking point. Catesby needed to stiffen their resolve, in this most crucial of all times.

  He knew that Fawkes, the Wright brothers and Tom Wintour and a servant were due to meet that day at The Bell in Daventry. He had sent his own servant, Tom Bates, to keep an eye on them. It was time to start drawing them all to London now. Whatever the risk, they had to meet with each other more and more. Only with them under his eye would he be assured that they would keep to his path. He had seen dissent in plots before, seen how disunity tore a plan of action apart. He was their leader. Only with him would they haul together on the one line, bring the strength they needed to the great project.

  'I need a Bishop, and a College of Theologians.'

  'What's a theologian?' asked Mannion, unhelpfully. He had been let off the leash for half a day, and had returned to the house in Alsatia looking smugly self-satisfied. Gresham and Jane had pointedly not asked him what he had been up to. Despite the length of their time in the bolt hole, Gresham had seen no sign that they were being watched. His scalp had not itched. He wished he could give Jane the same freedom, albeit she would not choose the same destination as Mannion. Perhaps another disguise and a trip to the playhouse was an answer.

  'Why would they help?' asked Jane.

  It was late evening, and the house should have been in bed. It was Gresham who kept them up, feeling forced to take pen and paper, and to try and sketch out the problems that lay before him.

  'Why, I'd listen to what the Bishops said, and know that the opposite answer was the right one. Or I'd listen to the theologians argue, and become so angry that I'd choose a path, even if only to silence them and their ramblings.'

  'Will it help to speak the problem out again?'

  'Perhaps. Who knows? It's all a question of what we do now. I believe the story of this powder. It's fanciful, even farcical, too much so to be an invention. No, the powder is there, right enough. Why it's there, and what to do about it, that's much harder.'

  'Surely we know why it's there?'

  'We know why Catesby and the others think it's there. We know how they intend to use it a bare few weeks from now. But such a monstrous evil… I can't believe there isn't blue blood at the heart of this, somewhere.'

  'Well, you have three Catholic Lords in Cecil's pocket — Suffolk,

  Northampton and-Worcester. Between them they run over half of the country.'

  'That's the problem. What've they to gain by a plot to overthrow the King and his Chief Secretary? They're well in bed with both of them, sitting very prettily on top of their own particular dung heap. They'd be mad to rock the boat, never mind blow it to pieces.'

  'Northumberland then?'

 
'Possibly, but if so, only at a distance. The old Earl is no arch-plotter. He prefers his study and his experiments, and brooding in silence on how harshly the world has treated him. He's deaf, you know. Deaf people live in fear, fear of things going on that they don't know about. Northumberland is more frightened than most. He knows his family history. He knows no-one in London trusts a Percy. If he's in this, then he's pulling strings, like a puppeteer.'

  'Surely all this is irrelevant? What they plan is obscene. It's an evil to end all evils. It must be stopped. Can't you simply swallow your pride, go to Cecil and reveal everything you know?'

  'Cecil wants me dead, remember? I daren't go to him, not without threatening one other person I care for greatly.'

  'Raleigh? Surely Sir Walter would never be involved in something such as this?'

  'Sir Walter involved? Never in a thousand lifetimes! Raleigh has never had to hide his powder, and I would have been the first to know if this was his hatching. But Raleigh's life hangs by a thread, and Cecil needs only the flimsiest of excuses to cut that thread. One hint of a plot and Raleigh is dead. Raleigh doesn't need to be involved in reality. All Cecil needs to pin the plot on to Raleigh is the slenderest of leads. You see, Raleigh is a real threat to Cecil. While he rots in the Tower, and the people line the riverbank to cheer him on his daily walk on the walls and a King who has had him condemned can't run the risk of executing him — now there's a threat not just to a King, but to the Chief Secretary who betrayed his friend! Popularity, Jane. Popularity. Raleigh has become popular.'

  Gresham was on his feet now, pacing the room.

  'It's the one thing Cecil can never have, the one thing he fears! Cecil has intellect in plenty. He has wealth, he has power and he has cunning, and he's cautious beyond belief. Yet the one thing that threatens him is a popular uprising. He's no feel for the common man, no, nor any love for them. He can sit in his palace and scheme and manipulate and plot and plan, but he can't reach out like Sir Walter can reach out and make people's hearts sing and their spirits rise just by the sight of him. So he fears Raleigh above all others, my poor captain in his captive tower, and he fears that Raleigh might win over the King. Raleigh's the symbol of the popularity Cecil will never have, and a power he'll never have, the power to move people's hearts and minds. Cecil knows it's a power that could be used to knock him off his perch, so he fears it as well as envies it.'