What would Cecil's reaction be when this plot was exposed? If it was done quickly and quietly, if the credit could be given to Cecil, who knows? He might save Gresham all the fuss and pretence and have Tresham declared dead in the Tower. If, that is, his gratitude to Gresham outweighed his hatred. Well, time would tell. With good fortune they would have these madmen cured of their plot and dispersed before Francis Tresham found himself a prisoner.
'Why not let him get himself arrested and then just leave him to die in the Tower?' Jane had asked sourly.
'Because I don't particularly want him implicating me in this business, and there's always the risk that he's seen and knows enough to find out that Alexander Selkirk is actually Sir Henry Gresham. But more important, I made an agreement with him. In exchange for his services I agreed his survival, as well as his wealth.'
'With scum? With people who make a rat look civilised?' said Jane.
'His personality is one thing. An agreement is another. It's a matter of honour. It wouldn't matter if the agreement was with Satan. Agreements must be honoured.'
If the truth be known he was more worried about the letter. Francis Tresham should have been able to be up and gone by now, the plot vanishing like smoke in the air. So the letter had been received and reported. Yet no action had sprung from those facts. What had happened? Had his letter been simply too vague to ring the right alarum bells? Had the King dismissed it? Had Cecil dismissed it as a forgery, a ploy to distract attention away from a more real threat, such as a foreign invasion?
Back at the House the itching in his scalp was unbearable. He called for water and- a basin, dipped his head and scrubbed at his hair with the beautifully scented French soap. The first and the second buckets, drawn as he had insisted from the sweet water of the House's own well, had been brought by servants. The third was brought by Jane.
'Are we washing out the stains of the world?' she enquired, pouring the contents on a head still half full of suds. Her fingers massaged his scalp, moving slowly and firmly through the tangled hair, easing the froth down and into the basin. A reddish tinge was still occasionally visible amidst the white suds.
'I must go to Cecil,' he said quietly.
There was no gasp of breath, no exclamation, only a slight faltering in the pressure of her fingers on his scalp, before the smooth, fluid motion recommenced.
'The letter's failed,' he said. 'I'd thought to spare bloodshed by naming no names, thought to spare Raleigh, thought to be honourable to Tresham, thought to disperse a plot before it could act. Well, I've failed.' He sat back, feeling the cold droplets of water course down his neck and back before Jane placed the towel on his head. 'One man has visited the cellar, our watcher swears, a man answering Fawkes's description. No man else. That cellar must be identified, emptied. Without the powder there's no plot.'
'How will you do it? Empty it yourself?'
'And have them fill it up again? Or be arrested as chief plotter? No thank you! I'll simply tell Cecil that on my sickbed I received notice that a certain cellar below the House of Lords is crammed full of gunpowder. I'll make it impossible for him not to search it. And you, Jane, will make sure it's searched, should I not return.
Searched and exposed. With the powder gone there's no powder plot.'
‘And Raleigh?'
'He once told me that honour was the difference between a man and an animal. Is it more honourable to preserve my old master against a harm that might not come to him, or to preserve the nation from another blood bath that certainly will come unless I can stop it? I must take a gamble with the man I'd least willingly put at risk. How long have we been meddling with this plot? In all that time we've found not a whisper, not a syllable that could link it to Raleigh. Oh, I know, they can fabricate what evidence they wish, but I've been thinking.'
At times it felt as if he had been doing nothing else, lying awake for most of the night, the thoughts churning through his head.
'Raleigh has had one trial where there was no true evidence, and what there was consisted of lies. It was unpopular, hugely unpopular. I think it surprised Cecil, shocked him even, as only a threat to his own power would shock him. There's no real evidence to link Raleigh to any of this. I have to gamble Cecil won't risk another false trial with false evidence so soon after the last.'
'You're a stupid man, Henry Gresham.'
'Why so? Am I putting Raleigh at too much risk?'
'No, it's not Raleigh. It's you. You're never content, are you?' She knelt at his feet, wiping the shreds of soap off his shirt and hose. 'You say that survival is all a man can hope for, yet you put your own strange form of honour far beyond mere survival. You say you can influence nothing, yet you seek all the time to exert just such an influence. You think yourself ruthless, and you are ruthless with those who let you down or stand in your way, yet you'll risk your own life in the name of honour.'
He drew her hands gently off him, and stood up. 'Today, I ceased to be ill. Life is for living, isn't it? And when I see Cecil tonight, I'll at least know I'm alive, in every pore of my body, even until that life's extinguished. And after, I doubt my corpse will care.'
'No,' said Jane, 'but my living body will care. And the mind it contains.' They looked at each other in silence.
The letter is confirmed,' said Catesby. It was Sunday, November 3rd. It was the last planned meeting of the conspirators, or such as could be mustered in one place. The news of the letter had shattered the peace of mind of those who had heard, as if there had not been tension enough already.
'Are we lost, then? Do I ride to Dunchurch?' It was Everard Digby, ever the dandy, leaning nonchalantly on the table in a doublet double-slashed in yellow and purple. In the morning he was due to ride to Dunchurch, where a 'hunting party' was to gather at The Red Lion. This party was a crucial element in Catesby's plotting. It was from here that Digby would move to Coombe House, a mere eight miles away, and capture the Princess Elizabeth, and this gathering was to be the base of the three hundred horsemen Catesby believed he could muster.
'I urge delay.' It was Tresham who spoke, causing an uneasy stir and a poisonous glance from Tom Wintour. 'Here, see these.' There was a slap as the package containing his travel papers landed on the trestle. 'I'll pay for some of the same, for all of you. Let's wait out this Parliament, see what comes to pass both with the law and the letter, take ourselves to France for some month or two. We can come to no harm in France, and we preserve ourselves to act when we think fit, when there's no cloud of suspicion over us.'
'Your cloud of suspicion will easily be dispelled with a cloud of smoke, smoke shot through with fire! Is it conscience that makes you speak, or fear?' Tom Wintour spat the words out.
Tresham rose to his feet, as did Wintour. Tresham felt a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down on to his stool.
'Peace? If we fight ourselves how can we fight others! You ride, as we planned!' It was Thomas Percy, his vehemence startling the others. 'Yet we're cautious as well. We've two days to wait, and to watch. We've a ship moored on the Thames, ready and waiting our presence. We can be there as quickly as it takes to hail a wherry, and drop down the river before any hue and cry can catch us. You, Guido, you can keep an eye on the powder, report back any mischief there. Granted, we can't be rash. But nor should we waste years of planning before we have to.'
A heated discussion followed, but Tresham could see that Percy's passion had won the day.
Percy knew he had dominance. Yet it seemed he wished to cap it all:
‘I've the means to test whether we're discovered. I'll use it.' 'What means?' It was Digby.
'The Earl of Northumberland's a member of the Privy Council, isn't he?' said Percy. 'I'll go to see him, at Syon House, tomorrow, on the excuse of needing a loan.' He barked out a laugh. 'It's not a new thing for me to do. If the letter's caused any serious problems, I must hear it. They'll detain me, for certain.'
'You'll take that risk?' Catesby seemed genuinely moved.
'It's a
lesser risk than many we've taken,' said Percy, 'and yes, I'll take it.'
There was actual applause round the table. Yes, thought Percy, smiling through clenched teeth at his easy victory. I shall go to see my Lord the Earl of Northumberland at Syon House, and make sure that every servant at Syon House sees and hears me there, and that we talk in the Hall alone, out of earshot of all others. And then I shall go to my nephew Josceline Percy, in the employ of my Lord the Earl of Northumberland, and similarly make it known that I have been there. And then, he thought with a warm glow of vicious satisfaction in his heart, then see if my Lord the Earl of Northumberland can escape being implicated in what is to happen. Then, having steadied the plotters and unbeknown to them signed the death warrant of his kinsman, he left them. He had business, he said, to attend to in town.
Had Percy and Catesby worked it all out before the meeting? thought Tresham. There was no way of knowing. If only they had taken his bait and gone, now, there and then.
It was dark as Gresham rode to Whitehall, the lantern Mannion bore before him giving out a pitiful light as it swung back and forth with the rhythm of the horse. Cecil must be getting tired of late-night interruptions, thought Gresham, though at nine o'clock he must at least by now have finished his supper. Prime fillet of baby, perhaps, with a snake's venom sauce. He felt a strange inner calm, as he always did immediately before an action of great risk.
In Walsingham's day the spies and agents had used a small, private door, just off one of the jetties that served the Palace. Its use had lapsed, with Cecil preferring to work with ambassadors and the gentry abroad who came in through the front door, rather than the lowlife Walsingham acquired in such large (and effective) numbers. Gresham called out to Mannion, and reined in as the glow of Whitehall appeared before him, the flaring torches still lighting the main drive to its gate. Some inner voice spoke to him, and he dismounted, handing the reins to Mannion, asking him quietly to wait where they stood. A tavern with some sign of life still in it was nearby. Normally Mannion would have jumped at the chance. This evening, he seemed uneasy.
'Don't you need me there, with you?'
'He'd never grant you admittance. And I might need to leave in a hurry.' Mannion nodded, reluctant, undecided but as always obedient.
Instead of the main path, Gresham broke off to the left, by the river. The vast expense of the Royal Household did not spread to employing enough gardeners, Gresham noticed in the dim light that spun off from the Palace. A handful of weeds, drooping from the winter but still virulent, were invading the edge of the path.
A gate barred his way, with two guards standing by it. They were cold, stamping their feet, and they let Gresham through with only a cursory question. He was finely dressed, and not for the first time
Gresham realised how much stress his age placed on dress and outward appearance. He gave his name as 'Sir Alexander Selkirk', with a grin of memory. The path kinked round out of sight of the guards, and there was the side gate. It was unguarded. He approached it, noting the signs of neglect, the wild grass lapping the bottom of the door. He looked round. A household of thousands was here each going about their particular business, but none looking out at this particular spot at this particular time. He tried the door. It was locked. He had not thought of entering secretly before that moment, but the slight give on the door put the idea into his head. His inner voice, that very calm commentator who seemed to live in his brain and talk to him only at moments of high drama, whispered to try the door again.
The frame on the outside was covered in mildew, probably the result of the proximity of the river. Gresham took his dagger and poked it into the wood. It sank in a great way, meeting almost no resistance from the spongy, rotted timber. He looked round again. Nothing. There were a series of narrow, unlit windows running off on either side of the door. Storehouses, if Gresham remembered correctly. Iron bars had been placed over them, too small for even a monkey to climb through. He examined the nearest window. The mortar was crumbling, the workmanship old, and shoddy. He picked at the base of the nearest bar with his dagger, and a chunk of mortar fell away, revealing the red, rusting base of the bar. A few minutes' more work and it was completely exposed. He eased it from its setting, leaving a neat, round hole in the better-textured mortar at the top where the bar had lain. The bar was heavy, perhaps a finger's thickness. He eased it into the gap between the door and its frame. The door's timbers were still relatively sound, but the rotten frame allowed him to push the bar, half an inch, then a whole inch in. Gently he forced the bar back. He could feel it bending, just as he could visualise the screws on the inside of the doorframe coming loose from the wet timber, the screws that held the iron box into which the lock fitted. He stopped, reinserting the bar into the even larger gap that now existed, and forced it away from his hand. There was a gentle tearing noise, and the door gave, shrieking on its rusted hinges. He slipped inside, pushing the door to. There were bolts top and bottom, he noticed, the topmost bolt seated in what looked like firm timber. They had not been pushed in.
He knew his way up the stairs, which had a layer of dust on them with only a few footmarks. He stumbled in the almost complete blackness, feeling his way with a hand on the walls. The chamber where Cecil met spies was at the top of the stairs, with three corridors branching off it. One led up to the main and State apartments, one was the access route that Gresham had used and the other he had never trodden. In addition there was a door in the panelling, leading to not so much a secret as rather a private passageway, part above ground and part tunnel, to Westminster.
Torches burnt in the passage, throwing a garish light on the unadorned walls. This was a business area of the Palace, shorn of frippery. Gresham advanced to the door, expecting to feel silence and emptiness at this hour of night, and that he would need to go up a floor to the State rooms where, no doubt, Cecil was still ensconced.
He froze as he heard low voices from within the chamber, inaudible and no more than a dull rumble. There was a scraping as of stools being pushed back. Gresham dipped back into the doorway from where he had emerged, wrapping its shadow round him. The door ahead of him opened. A blaze of light splashed out into the corridor. Cecil himself emerged, gave a brief glance along the corridor, and stood aside. Two figures followed him, glanced themselves up and down the corridor, and moved over to the door in the panelling, opening it and vanishing.
The figures were unmistakable. Gresham had seen them only the night before. Both were so tall as to have to duck under the lintel of the door as they entered the private passageway.
Guy Fawkes. Thomas Percy.
Gresham leant back, his head resting on the cool brickwork in darkness, controlling his breathing.
Guy Fawkes and Thomas Percy. Discoursing in the room the King's Chief Secretary used for his spies and agents. Discoursing with that same Chief Minister. Two of the leading agents in this powder plot.
And allies of Robert Cecil.
Chapter 11
"Fool! Fool! What a complete fool I’ve been!' Gresham's anger was uncontainable. It surged through the House, seeming to shake the very walls, threatening to tear him and all it came into contact with apart. The candles had been out, and hurriedly relit. They guttered, smoking from where there had been no time to trim the wicks.
'Do be quiet, will you?' Jane seemed angered by his anger. 'It's not foolishness I hear, it's self-pity! If you're a fool then we're all fools! Who could've dreamt of the King's Chief Minister wishing to blow up the King and Parliament?' She was scared. The rampaging thing that was Gresham was like a wild creature. She felt her world falling apart, torn by forces beyond her control.
The accusation of self-pity stung him like a slap across the face, because it was correct.
'That's where we've all been fools. How could I not have seen it? He doesn't want to blow up Parliament. He wants the credit for discovering the plot to blow up the King and Parliament! Can't you see? He's been in control of this from the start. The only people who ben
efit from this are the King and his chief henchman.
'It all makes sense now,' he continued. 'Unpopularity — I said that was the key. The King's increasingly unpopular, and Cecil's never been popular. The Raleigh business gives them a permanent thorn in their side, which they can't remove, and the Treaty with Spain's laughed at. Everyone knows the Court's awash with Spanish pensions and bribes. When this so-called plot is exposed, at the last minute, Cecil will go down in history as the saviour of the nation and the Protestant faith, and James receive a huge backlash of sympathy. They'll ride on the back of this for years to come. It's all too easy for them.'
'But I'm still not clear,' said Jane, her brow furrowed in thought. 'Did Cecil start the plot off?'
‘I doubt it. Catesby probably gave it to him on a plate. A God-given hothead, on whom Cecil placed a saddle without him even realising he was being ridden. Catesby must have walked straight into the arms of one of their agents overseas when they were looking for someone to deal with the powder.'
'And Fawkes?'
Gresham started to rampage among the vast pile of papers he had hurled on to the table when he returned. They were the reports of the spies and informers they had engaged at the start of this business, page after page of painstaking notes.
'The agent he walked into, of course. Either turned years ago, or suborned latterly. Look at his record! Born to a fine Protestant family, sells up his inheritance to go and fight in the Netherlands. All right, when he gets there he chooses to fight for Spain. So? Who has the money and the gold in the Netherlands? Who's paying a pension to nearly every one of James's courtiers at this very moment? The Spaniards. To Catesby and Wintour he's been a soldier of conscience. What if he's only ever been a soldier of convenience? A mercenary, fighting for the side that gives him most and pretending a religion to win promotion? Whilst taking a fat purse from Cecil to spy on the Spaniards, his employers, in the meantime!'
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