The Desperate remedy hg-1

by Martin Stephen

  'So Catesby walked unbeknowingly into a trap set by Cecil?'

  'Catesby triggered a series of thoughts in Cecil's mind, more like. The idiot goes blundering through Europe, looking for someone to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and latches on to one of Cecil's double agents. What a stroke of luck for Cecil — he has a real, a genuine conspirator to make the plot look real, and all the while he's paying the man with his hand on the fuse. It can't go wrong for him, provided he keeps a sufficient distance. No wonder he wanted me somewhere else.'

  'What about Percy?' asked Jane.

  Gresham threshed around among the papers again.

  'Just look at his record. As wild as they come. Where is it…' he pounced on a piece of paper,'… thirty-four charges of dishonesty proven against him by Northumberland's tenants. He's nothing more than a bully boy, and then all of a sudden he marries a woman and converts to Catholicism — what a miraculous conversion! I'll bet anything you care to put down that was when he was grabbed to spy on the Catholics. What a bargain — he could tell them about the grand Earl of Northumberland, as well as the lesser kind. If you think about it, a Percy must have seemed like God's gift. Being a traitor is poured into them at birth, and what better guard against a northern rising than to have one of Northumberland's kinsmen on the inside!'

  'I… I just can't take this in,' said Jane. 'Is everyone in the spy or a double agent in this world? Is there no-one… normal?’

  'Oh, yes,' said Gresham, 'there're plenty of normal people. They die young.'

  'Well,' said Mannion. 'That's all fine and well. A bit of philosophy always helps at a bad time, as I'm first to admit. But now that's over, can we decide what we're going to do?'

  'What indeed,' said Gresham.

  He looked almost devilish, his face receiving the light flung up from the lamps on the table. Jane felt a shiver of fear run through her body. How well did she know this man?

  'I'm sorry,' she said, 'forgive me for being a stupid woman.' She glared at Gresham. Wisely, he said nothing. 'But how do Fawkes and Percy get out of this? The plot has to be discovered for James and Cecil to get the benefit, but if it's discovered it's death for Fawkes and Percy.'

  'Fawkes just makes sure nothing does actually blow up, and then he's off on the nearest ship on the Thames. New identity, new life and a great deal richer than ever he was before. As for Percy… how do you think a knighthood and some fat manors would do him? The brave discoverer of the infamous Gunpowder Plot! The man who risked life and limb to ensure that every man involved in this blasphemous endeavour was brought to justice. Or he could simply take a fat purse and a different name… but I doubt it, somehow.'

  'So what do we do now? Expose Cecil's involvement? Or just let the plotters walk into Cecil's trap, and pretend we never knew?'

  'There you have it. it's Machiavelli's choice, isn't it?'

  'Machiavelli died some years ago. We're still alive, in case you hadn't noticed. So, for that matter, are the plotters, King James and Robert Cecil,' said Jane acidly. 'I think we can keep Machiavelli out of it. After all, he played the wrong game and ended up being tortured and put out to grass, didn't he?'

  'But the basic quandary he posed lives on, as it lived before he was born and as it will live on whilst humans seek and abuse power.' Gresham was lecturing her, unconsciously adopting the pose of a Fellow of his College talking to a young student. 'You see, Machiavelli said that truth wasn't necessarily worth very much, if it meant thousands of people dying. Good rulers put the welfare of their people above such minor things as truth and morality.'

  'You're not a ruler,' said Jane, practically.

  'No, but I could bring down Cecil and King James, I think.'

  'Do you have evidence?'

  'I could gain it easily enough. Men like Fawkes and Percy were paid to be traitors to their kind once. Pay them enough and they'll turn on Cecil as easily as they turned on their supposed friends.'

  'So what will you do?' asked Jane, the anxiety cracking her voice.

  'What will I do?' mused Gresham. The fire had smoked badly on being re-lit. In their panic to reawaken the household some wet timber had been placed on it. Now it had caught, and the cheery red flicker of the flames reflected in Gresham's eyes.

  'What will I do?' he repeated. He turned towards Jane, with a thin, broad smile on his face. 'I shall be Machiavelli.'

  The instructions to Fawkes had been clear. The frightened messenger was the same ambitious little rabbit Fawkes had showed the powder to an age ago. Fawkes was Cecil's safety catch, his half-cock on the pistol. Fawkes had to remain on guard until the last possible moment before the discovery of the powder, in case one of the other plotters decided to take matters into their own hands and light the fuse. Also, Cecil could not appear to know too much. A search party could not simply go directly to the cellar and find the powder. There had to be two searches, the first of the whole area. It would be told simply to observe and to report, to take no precipitate action that might trigger off the plotters. As such there would be no risk to Fawkes, particularly if the barrels were well buried under the faggots and firewood. If questioned he could claim quite truthfully to be servant to Thomas Percy, the tenant of the house. Who would distrust the servant to someone so recently appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber?

  Suffolk would do to lead the search party. And Suffolk would be told to arrest no-one, to take no. action that might start a panic, thought Cecil. He would summon that fool Monteagle to go with Suffolk in the first search party. Let Monteagle report that the pile of brushwood really was very large for the size of house above it, so they could go back to it later. It would all add credibility.

  The second search, the one that would go back to the cellar, would take place at one o'clock in the morning.

  'One o'clock!' whispered the frightened rabbit, though there was no-one nearby to hear or to see. 'The time is most important! My

  Lord says you may leave after midnight, but not before! If a hothead such as Catesby were to hear the plot exposed he could still seek to blow up the building and so provoke rebellion.'

  My Lord may go and fuck himself, thought Fawkes, if he has enough red blood in him to fuck anything, which I doubt. An hour was cutting it too fine, but he did not doubt that my Lord would have a watcher in the vicinity. Cecil was right, of course. With a gaping hole where Parliament had been the rumours could fly, and who knows what might catch seed in the confusion.

  The rabbit scuttled out of the cheap lodgings, and did not notice the figure in expensive doublet, hose and short cloak detach him-self, after a decent interval, from the wall and tuck in behind him on his route back to Whitehall. The figure could not fail to notice that two other men, in rough jerkins and with pockmarked faces, were also following the courtier, ahead. Typical of his type, the courtier stuck his chin in the air and barged his way through the common people, a testy 'Make way! Make way!' issuing from his lips. Suddenly he came upon two working men who, instead of moving aside in the busy, narrow street, put shoulder together to shoulder. He cannoned into them. Did one flick his heels to help him down into the mud? It was difficult to see, but certainly one of the men caught him a heavy blow on the head with his foot as he walked past the figure he had just helped knock over. Almost instantly, the two other men came up to the prostrate figure, and knelt down as if to offer help. There was a momentary flash of steel, so fast that no-one watching could be certain they had seen it, and the two men stood up and moved on, becoming lost immediately in the crowd.

  The courtier's throat was cut, his life-blood ebbing away into the mud and staining the fashionable yellow starch of his ruff. Cecil had closed off one possible leakage of information in advance of the final act of his great play. The courtier gaped up at the figure in doublet and hose, gasping, terror in his eyes.

  'They… they have stabbed me!' he croaked, unnecessarily.

  'On your master Cecil's orders, be sure. If you wish a surgeon,' said Henry Gresham, bending down and whispering i
nto the courtier's ear, 'you must first tell me what you said to Master Fawkes.'

  The search party had seemed as inept as the rabbit had promised. Lurking outside, Fawkes had given his name as Johnson and told the leader he was Thomas Percy's servant and this Thomas Percy's rented house. The senior Lord in all his finery had seemed to be in a hurry to be anywhere except where he was, and the other young popinjay had tried to ask more questions but been hauled away by the other.

  At eleven o'clock he took a simple lantern and materials to make the fire and light the fuse. The rabbit had been insistent that these were left by the powder, as if to suggest that everything was ready to ignite it at a moment's notice. He dressed carefully for the cold night, the spurs jangling as he walked for the last time to the cellar and opened the ancient door. Keyes had given him a watch, to time the fuse, as he thought. He had little realised that it would time Fawkes's escape. He sat on the stool he had lugged down into the cellar, not lighting the lantern, just letting the darkness and the silence enfold him. The dust, the ancient smell of decay, had become almost a comfort to him. So much danger in these barrels, so much threat, yet so much silence and peace here, underground. A broad grin lit his face in the dark as he thought on his master, Cecil. He wished he could see the expression on Cecil's face when the surprise was delivered. A pity he would be long gone.

  He dimly heard the church bells strike midnight, and rose stiffly to his feet. He needed no light to walk to the door, the path learnt off by heart. He stopped, suddenly. A noise? From outside? He waited. Silence. A dog, or the wind. Nevertheless, he was careful in drawing back the door. Silence. He poked his head round the door for one final inspection. There was the tiniest flicker of light…

  A roaring yell, and the full weight of the door was flung against his unsuspecting body, hurling him back into the cellar. He was down, and three, four, five men were on top of him…

  'Leave off!' he screamed. 'I am under the orders of…' A sixth sense made him close his mouth. Something had gone wrong, horribly wrong. Yet these men — King's men, he saw by the uniform — were clearly not going to kill him or it would have been done by now. My Lord Cecil could not bear to have his part in this exposed… No, while he was alive he had power. This must, must be a mistake. He could surely stave off the truth until Cecil found a way of releasing him…

  As the bound figure of Fawkes was bundled away by his men, Sir Thomas Knyvett mopped his brow, despite the cold of the night.

  'A dreadful business, Sir Henry, dreadful business. You note the man was booted and spurred for flight? Cloak and hat and all! Had you not come in all haste with the message to commence our search early I fear he would have escaped! A dreadful business, dreadful…'

  'It was, Sir Thomas, a pleasure to be of service to you, to my Lord the Earl of Salisbury and to His Majesty the King,' replied Sir Henry Gresham.

  Kit Wright could not sleep. He envied any man who could do so, on this night of all nights. He was uneasy at being parted from his brother. As children the others had always joked that they hunted in pairs, and without his brother he felt strangely incomplete. Essentially a pious and a decent man, Wright prayed with his bare knees against the splintered boards for half the night. He failed to find his usual consolation. The same deep anger was there still in his soul for the seeming death of the religion he loved in the country he loved, the anger that Catesby had seen and tapped into. Until now that anger had killed any qualms of conscience he might have, but now, with the terrible thing so near, he could not rid his mind of screaming, the screaming of those buried under the rubble of Fawkes's powder.

  He gave up sleep, dressed, and lay on his cot, fully clothed. There was a noise, surely? He got up, and opened the shutter. His heart stopped. A tide of torchlight was coming up the Strand, twenty, thirty, maybe even forty men. For him! For him! They must be coming for him! He turned and grabbed a cloak, buckling his sword as he flung open the door of his room. Even in his haste, he was not the first. The landlord, ludicrous in long nightshirt with offensive stains round its middle, had already unlocked the door and was standing, barefoot, gaping at the outside. Wright pushed past him, and halted as a dazed and half-dressed Lord Monteagle thrust past him, to be hailed from horseback by a finely dressed noble. 'My Lord! My Lord!' the noble was saying, as Monteagle's servants tried to put him in contact with his horse in the increasing melee of people. 'We must call up Northumberland! Now! With haste!'

  There could be only one reason for every noble's house on the Strand to be being woken up this long after midnight. The plot had been discovered. How long did he have? Keeping as close to the sides of the houses as he could, Wright ran to Wintour's lodging, at The Duck and Drake. Breathlessly he gasped out the news. Wintour, as ever, kept control, pulling his clothes on as he spoke.

  'Go to Essex House,' he commanded. 'Listen; they'll have the true story there, if they have it anywhere. If it's as we fear, go to Percy's lodging. Tell him to leave, now. It's his name on the cellar lease. He'll be the first warrant they issue — and find out if Fawkes is taken!’

  'He's a calm one, my Lord!' The first questions were being asked of John Johnson, the man found in the cellar. 'He tells us nothing except his name, and that he's a servant of Thomas Percy. I didn't expect to see such calm in one so evil.'

  Why had that fool Knyvett gone so early? Why?

  He was here now, bustling in his own importance.

  'Your messenger came most timely, my Lord.'

  Messenger?

  'He did?' replied Cecil.

  'Sir Henry Gresham made fine speed to inform me of the change in plan.'

  A great darkness opened up in front of the Chief Secretary.

  One by one the plotters were roused, and, bleary-eyed, headed for the stables where their horses kicked and rose, sensing their owners' nervousness. From over London, they drove their mounts furiously, heading north, following the route Catesby, Bates and Jack Wright had taken the day before, the route to The Red Lion at Dunchurch. It was there they had planned to meet, to rally the band of armed, mounted Catholics who would sweep through the West Country raising a fire of rebellion as red as that burning at Westminster. Fear made them flee, some homing instinct sending them to where they had planned to go all along. No-one raised the alarm with Francis Tresham, and not only because he was a newcomer. The further away he was, the more belief in his guilt spread like a cloud of smoke among the plotters.

  Meet at Dunchurch.

  It was the only security they had left.

  If there were legends to be told about this affair, thought Ambrose Rookwood, his ride would be the greatest legend of all. He had left London last, except for Tom Wintour. He had supplied the horses for the others, but kept the best for himself. Thirty miles in two hours, on one horse! His head was aflame with the power and the exhaustion of it. His every limb ached, and he could hardly distinguish between his own sweat and lather and that of his present horse. He had overtaken Robert Keyes just beyond Highgate, then Percy and Kit Wright. Catesby, John Wright and Bates he saw on the horizon just beyond Brickhill.

  They reined in. Catesby looked calm, but his eyes noted the state of Rookwood and Keyes.

  'Well, Ambrose, your horses have done you proud to stand the pace! But why so fast?'

  Rookwood had no other words. He blurted out, 'We're discovered! Fawkes is taken…'

  Catesby. Bates. Jack Wright. Kit Wright. Keyes. Percy. Rookwood. The seven men stood in silence, the loudest noise the breathing of the horses, its steam stretching out in the cold air. The six scarves the men wore fluttered gently in the morning breeze. They were fine work. Rookwood had provided them. The weaving contained representations not only of the cross, but of items used in the Mass. Tom Bates had none, of course. He was a servant.

  Silence. It was broken first by Jack Wright. His reaction was to start to curse, slowly at first, but with a rising voice of fear. The others looked, instinctively, to Catesby.

  'Hold your noise, Jack!' Catesby's v
oice was like a whiplash.

  'All is lost only when we all lose heart! There's chaos in London, isn't there? Confusion? Signal enough for all good Catholics to rise up on our side. We have horses, we have armour, we have weapons, don't we? We have men gathered at Dunchurch, don't we? All we need is stout hearts!'

  Despite themselves, the men felt the warmth of his magic work its way back into the freezing bones. They rode, the Devil behind them and the Devil in front. Percy and Jack Wright tore at their cloaks, hurled them off into the hedgerow, as if by that small loss of weight they could drive their horses even faster.

  Catesby yelled something back at them, in a delirium of speed and pounding hooves. They grinned insanely back through the blinding sweat and muscles that ached as if it was the men's feet driving them forward.

  The furore outside seemed to bend the timbers of the house. Francis Tresham waited for the door to be flung inwards, to feel the hands round his throat, the blows to his body and head or even the stinging slash or probe of a blade. He waited. Why had they not come for him?

  'Are you wishing to go the way of Lord Walsingham?' Mannion asked Gresham, glumly. Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster, had nearly bankrupted himself keeping a web of agents up and running. Gresham had placed one, two men on each of the plotters, one to watch, one to report wherever possible. The cost was appalling.

  What was Tom Wintour playing at? The plotters were running now, running as he had hoped they would do when the letter was delivered to Monteagle. Gresham had nearly followed Catesby out of London, but to follow a man on those lonely, deserted roads without being discovered was almost impossible, and Gresham's instinct was to stay in London at least for a while to keep track of the anarchy he had unleashed. He had tracked Tom Wintour, choosing him instead of Thomas Percy because Wintour was the closest of all the conspirators to Catesby and, Gresham suspected, the born leader among them.