The Desperate remedy hg-1

by Martin Stephen

  'He hunts with the hounds and runs with the hare, I think,' said Gresham. 'If you were to pick someone more likely to be in this foul business, it must be him. His family are Catholic through and through. He's connected to the Howards and the Stanleys, through his mother. He fought with Essex in Ireland, even mounted d madcap rescue of him. He was at the siege in Essex House, and managed a pardon somehow. Tom Wintour acts as his secretary. He's married to Tresham's sister Elizabeth. He must have dined with every Catholic sympathiser in the country this past year or so…' Gresham's hand swept over the papers where they had tried to record the whisperings and reports of the spies they had sent out. 'And, to cap it all, he's a bosom friend of Catesby, so much so that he declares in public that when Catesby goes from him a light goes out in his life. Good God. If someone said that of me, I'd vomit.'

  'Sir Henry,' said Jane, fluttering her eyelashes, 'when you leave my presence the sun goes out of my day, the moon goes out of my night and the liquid goes out from my…'

  'Shut up!' said Gresham. 'You're a disgrace to your sex.'

  'Surely Monteagle must be a conspirator, then?' said Jane, unabashed. 'Isn't he a prime contender for your blue blood, waiting behind the scenes and pulling all the strings? Catesby might have his own good reasons for not letting Tresham know Monteagle is involved. If you ask me, it's Tresham's money Catesby needs more than anything else. If Catesby had really wanted Tresham in he'd have recruited him much earlier. If he's suspicious of Tresham, wouldn't he hide Monteagle's involvement from him?'

  'It works as a theory, but only to a degree. Why hold back on Monteagle, when he's told Tresham that the Earl of Northumberland is involved through Thomas Percy? Northumberland's a far bigger fish than Monteagle. And then there's the other side… look at all this. Monteagle gets given a massive fine after the Essex business — but there's no sign it was ever paid. Then look what happens. No sooner is he let out of jail and a new King on the throne than he gets his estates in Essex restored, and his right to sit in the House of Lords. Suddenly, everyone wants to know Lord Monteagle. James asks the French King to let his brother out of jail, he's made the Lord Commissioner who prorogues Parliament, wins a nice job in Queen Anne's court, gets his name on the charter when Prince Henry gets made Duke of York. My, my! Our Lord Monteagle is very popular all of a sudden, don't you think?'

  'Everyone knows James favours those in the Essex rebellion,' said Jane, 'not just you.'

  'I'm one of the few who knows James helped organise it,' said Gresham, 'however much others might suspect it. But there's more in it than that. This man's had good fortune positively poured all over him.'

  'Good spy,' said Mannion.

  He had seated himself on a stool, gazing out on the narrow, foetid street as night closed in. He had given the appearance of not listening, but it was always a mistake to assume that Mannion was not listening.

  'Explain,' said Gresham.

  'Monteagle. He'd make a good spy. He's an insider with the Papists, isn't he? An insider by birth, what's more, something you can't just buy. So if I'm Cecil, what do I do? Pay off his fine, or even simpler, write it off, provided he keeps me informed about what's happening with the Papists. That fine would've ruined Monteagle, ruined anybody. I'd be a bloody good spy with that fine hanging over me. Fits all round. Cecil hates common people. He'd far rather work with one of Monteagle's kind, all velvet-arsed and coach and horses.'

  'That would explain why Catesby hasn't trusted Monteagle with the plot!' said Gresham. 'What a fool I am! Mannion — you're a genius. Of course Catesby must wonder why Monteagle wasn't ruined by an Ј8,000 fine! Of course he must look at all this preferment, and reach his own conclusions!'

  'Well now,' said Mannion, 'I'm a genius now, am I? That's not a description I've had from you before. It's the tobacco, I believe, it grows the brain.'

  'Grows the vomit, more like,' muttered Jane, who had banished Mannion from smoking his reeking pipe anywhere inside, but could not banish the smell of burnt sewage he carried on his clothes, his breath, his beard and seemingly his very skin.

  'Monteagle has to be the man,' said Gresham, as if relieved of a great weight. 'He must already be one of Cecil's informers. If he's told of the plot, he'll have to run like a rabbit to Cecil. That fine won't be suspended for very long if one of Cecil's supposedly best inside men with the Papists doesn't know about something like this until too late. It'd be death for Monteagle.'.

  'So how are you going to tell Lord Monteagle?' said Jane. She was out of sorts, her playful mood suddenly changed, sulking. 'Get me to dress up as a milkmaid and walk up to him in the street… "Forgive me, my Lord, but do you know that your Papist friends have put a ton of powder under the House of Lords and are planning to blow you to Heaven or to Hell when it's opened by the King?" Or write to him with a list of names? "Item: one raving idiot, named Robert Catesby. Talks a lot. Thinks he's God. Item: a second raving idiot, named Thomas Percy. White hair, sweats a lot. Item: various other conspirators, assorted. Item: one stack of gunpowder, fuse inserted… "'

  'You're rarely boring,' said Gresham. 'Infuriating, yes, but boring, no. You're in danger of becoming really boring. Will I write him a letter, yes. Do I need your help with it, yes I most certainly do. And if it's the wrong letter, then hundreds of people might die unnecessarily and a civil war decimate this country.'

  Jane's mood changed instantly. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It's an explanation, not an excuse, but I've found these past few weeks here some of the worst weeks in my life — or, at least, my life after I met you. I'll try.'

  'Thank you,' said Gresham. The women he had known before Jane were strange, inward, mysterious creatures. Jane had that quality of mystery, of being a book with most of the pages still withheld from his eyes and understanding. Yet in her also there was a simplicity. He would not need to secure her apology with gifts, with cooing words, or be blackmailed later by her because she had given in to him. She had said. It was done. It was also a change of mood that would test the patience of a saint.

  'So what form must this letter take?'

  'It must seem to come from a Catholic, to stop this business spreading out to affect Raleigh or any other innocents for that matter. Bad enough if it's seen as the Pope's business, but better that than it becomes all England's. It can't be seen to come from any one man, or woman for that matter, because it must make them mount a general search for powder, not a single search for one man.'

  'You're missing the important thing,' said Jane.

  'Which is?'

  'The letter must seem to come from a plotter. One of their own. An insider. They must hear the letter's been delivered and read. They must know one of their own has written it. Only that way will they not know which way to turn. They'll feel betrayed. Their insecurity will make them break, and flee for cover.'

  'You realise,' said Gresham, 'that if I do that I throw suspicion on to Tresham? He's the last to join, the least committed. Monteagle's his brother-in-law. He's the one with the most to gain, as far as they can see, from the plot fizzling out. Won't they kill him?'

  'He has to take his chance, doesn't he, as we all do?' There was no venom in Jane's voice. She had been on the river that night, she had read Machiavelli. She knew now that power and survival were not easy bedfellows with any simple morality. And she had taken a strong dislike to Tresham. 'Anyway, it's not that simple. Rookwood and Digby have even more to lose than Tresham. Anyone who knows Percy seems to understand why people associate treason with the family. And Tresham won't know about the letter. He'll be genuinely surprised. And if he feels the pressure building up too much, we ship him abroad. In fact, why don't we do it now? We've no further need of him.'

  Gresham shook his head as if to clear it of debris. He was not thinking tonight. He knew the plot. The date was decided by Parliament, not Catesby, so he could not argue that he needed Tresham in with the plotters. Indeed, if Tresham fled it might work up an even greater panic among the plotters, force them to cancel their plans e
ven more readily.

  Yet that could wait. The important thing was the letter.

  It took them two days. Firstly, the text had to be worked on and devised, a task that burnt the candles down to the base of the candlesticks. Then Mannion had to be sent, in disguise, to St Paul's to buy clean, fresh paper. One seller had a consignment fresh delivered from the Spanish Netherlands. It amused Mannion to think of the letter written on Papist paper, so he purchased it. The letter itself was written by Jane. When she had been learning to write, Gresham had come across scraps of paper in various hands, all of which he learned were Jane's cast-offs. From very early on she had shown the natural forger's instinct. She had an inventory of writing styles she could call up from memory, as Gresham had a library. of accents he could use at will. The hand she chose was clear, flowing, large. It was the old-fashioned hand of a lawyer who had drawn up a draft will for Sir Thomas Gresham, years ago. In a house where paper was never thrown away, Jane had come upon it and practised her writing on its back, deciding to copy the hand on the reverse side halfway through.

  When they drew back from the table it was with almost total exhaustion. The letter lay before them, a rectangle of new paper with the clear lines marching across the page. There was a word scratched out on the first line. Jane in her tiredness had written in 'your' too early and made to throw the paper away, but Gresham had stopped her. In some way the scratched-out word made the letter look authentic, as if written in some haste. The text read:

  'My Lord, the love I have for some of your friends breeds in me a care for your preservation. Therefore 1 advise you, as you care for your life, to think of some excuse to be absent from this Parliament. God and man have come together to punish the wickedness of our times. Do not dismiss what is written here, but take yourself off to the country where you may await events in safety. Even though it appears no trouble threatens I tell you this Parliament shall receive a terrible blow, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. Do not condemn this warning. It can do you no harm, and it may do you some good. The danger is passed once you bum this letter, and 1 hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it. I commend you to His holy protection.'

  It was perfect, thought Gresham. It would hand Monteagle a God-given opportunity to do a service to the State which would see him set up for life. If Cecil and the King had any sense they would check and clear the cellars in ample time, and another plot would have been dismembered before it could do harm.

  'Will it do?' said Jane anxiously, rubbing at her aching wrist.

  Yes, thought Gresham, it will do. It has the certainty of a man convinced he is right, and just the right element of lip-smacking at the thought of evil being punished. It flatters Monteagle by singling him out. Is 'a terrible blow' explicit enough? Not for a man wanting to warn the Government, but explicit enough for a man simply wanting to warn off Monteagle. Would it work when it was shown to the King, as it had to be? Yes, thought Gresham. It would appeal to King James's sense of his own cleverness. It was a riddle a child could solve, but which a King would think had required Divine intelligence to work out. If it got to the King, and to Cecil.

  If it did, and it was believed, there would be no explosion, no tangle of twisted limbs, stone and beams at Westminster, no smell of fresh blood on the morning air, no weeping and mourning, no terrifying purges and counter-purges, no executions and trials. A Catholic Lord would have exposed a plot by Catholic madmen well in time for it to be defused, literally and figuratively. In doing so the essential loyalty of the Catholics of England would have been proven, Catholic families would rally round to condemn the planned act of madness and many who would otherwise die would live on, to do with their lives as they wished.

  If it failed to reach Cecil and the King, if its message was not deciphered, then that was another story.

  'It's magnificent. When I tire of you, you can work as a lawyer's clerk, and make eyes at all the handsome men of law.'

  The eyes that glared back at him looked as if they would put to best use a barrel of powder under Gresham. She was not to be teased out of her worry.

  'This is no joke!'

  'What's no joke is that the job's only half done,' said Gresham. 'What if Monteagle is the man behind the plot? What if he's the puppeteer? I don't believe it, but I can't discount it. If he is, he'll read it and burn it. He might not even tell the other plotters. We must make sure as well it's placed in his hand. What if Tom Wintour as his secretary opens it, and decides to mount a witchhunt and still keep the plot alive?'

  'Is nothing ever simple, in this world in which you live?' asked Jane.

  'Tom Ward,' said Mannion. 'He's your answer. He runs Monteagle's house for him.'

  Lord Monteagle was dining at his house in Hoxton, north of London. It was originally a Tresham house, and it had come to him when he had married Tresham's daughter. Tom Ward had just seen his master in to supper, and was checking to see that the main courses — salt beef and mustard, a leg of mutton stuffed with garlic, a capon boiled with leeks and a pike in a rich sauce — were ready to serve. It was unusual to eat so well at seven o' clock in the evening, but Lord Monteagle had been at Court, and asked for a fine supper to be served in place of the dinner he had missed. Ward felt a tugging at his sleeve.

  'There's a genl'man outside says he has a most urgent message for you, sir, 'bout your sister.'

  Then why the Devil can't the man come inside and give it, cursed Ward. Yet a lifetime of being a Catholic, of never knowing when he might have to hide his faith, of a religion conducted in secret, made an assignation in a dark street just another fact of life, and no rarity. He went out into the street, lit only by the light spilling over from the still unshuttered windows of the house. A man in a long riding cloak, with hood drawn about his head, was waiting in the shadows. He stepped forward, not enough to reveal his face, and proffered Ward a letter.

  'This is from Robert Catesby to your master. It's a matter of life and death — true life and death, your own, your master's and those of your faith. Your master must see it now, read it now. If there's delay in this, you'll have more blood on your hands than Pontius Pilate!'

  The figure turned and moved away, leaving a stunned Ward holding the letter in his hand.

  He went back into the house, his mind made up. His master fawned over Catesby, and if this letter was from him then there was no reason for Ward to deny it his master, nor reason to think its origins were suspect. Ward knew, as all the Catholic servants knew, there was a stir about, wild talk everywhere. All the more reason to get the letter to his master.

  Monteagle was in good form. His table was groaning with the best of food and wine, his company gathered around him, his future secure. What man would not be happy who only a few years before had been banished from London, and now found himself done honour in Parliament and made a favourite of the King? The wheel of fortune had indeed turned in his favour, from his being cast down to his heading for the topmost heights.

  Ward leant over and whispered in his ear.

  'What? What?' he asked, irritated at the interruption. Ward was still trying to keep his voice low. Monteagle was near to bellowing back at him. 'A letter? What letter? Oh, away with you, man, give it to me here.'

  He took the letter without looking to see if there was a decipherable seal on the wax, and broke it open with a grin to the others that bespoke a man so burdened with office that he could not keep importunate messengers away even at a time when all decent men were in their house and home. His eyes were blurring with the smoke that had blown back from the fire, and he only dimly saw the large, almost child-like handwriting, beginning, 'My Lord, the love I have for some of your friends…' Oh God, he thought, another begging letter for money or preferment. What it was to have influence in the Court! There was food on his fingers, and in any event it was impolite to read letters in company at table.

  'Here, Tom, read it out, will you? My eyes are furred with this damned smoke. Whoever swept that chimney deserves a thrash
ing, not my good coin!' It would be amusing for his family and friends to hear the type of letter famous men such as he received.

  Ward stepped up, took the letter, and squeezed his eyes as if to help him concentrate. He was not a fluent reader. Nor, he was thinking, am I an actor in the playhouse, to be set up in front of all the company to give a public reading. He stumbled as he tried to come to terms with the unfamiliar handwriting.

  'My Lord, the love 1 have for some of your… friends breeds in me a care for your…'

  'Enough, enough!' cried Monteagle, laughing and making the company laugh. 'We don't have all evening, Tom. Here, you, you can read. Take it and enlighten us.'

  Bad enough to be asked to stand up and perform, thought Tom Ward, but worse to be humiliated by having the task removed. He gritted his teeth. Another footman, unusually able to read, took the letter nervously and began to speak it out.

  'My Lord, the… love I have for some of your… friends breeds in me a care for your preservation. Therefore I advise you, as you care for your life, to think of some excuse to be absent from this Parliament.'

  The laughter and the small talk faded into silence.

  'God and man have come together to punish the wickedness of our times. Do not… dismiss what is written here, but take yourself off to the country where you may await events in safety. Even though it appears no trouble threatens 1 tell you this… Parliament shall receive a terrible blow, and yet they shall not see who hurts them.'

  There was total silence now, the noise of clattering pans in the kitchen coming through into the room. The faces of Monteagle's family and guests were upturned and glistening in the light of the candles, looking towards the footman. The servant looked down at Monteagle, seeking his permission to carry on or to stop, his throat dry, his heart pounding through his head. Monteagle gazed like a stone ahead of him, eyes fixed on something invisible on the wall. The servant waited, then carried on.

  ' Do not condemn this warning. It can do you no harm, and it may do you some good. The… danger is passed once you burn this letter, and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it. I… commend you to His holy protection.'