The Desperate remedy hg-1

by Martin Stephen

  Gresham had witnessed Wintour issuing instructions, and then expected him to run for the stables where he kept his gelding. Instead Wintour had headed purposefully towards Westminster itself, the seat of the crime. Was it him escaping discovery by sheer bravado? Had he so much faith in Guy Fawkes resisting interrogation?

  He saw Wintour stop and listen to a group of excited men in the street, and then followed him as he headed down King Street. There a crude barrier had been erected across the road, and a soldier barred his way. Wintour showed immense control, his shrugging manner, his easy craning of his head to look down the street perfectly those of the idle man caught up in a flood of gossip, speculation and interest.

  Or was his gazing down the street simply the act of the vacuous onlooker? What was it that he so clearly wished to gain sight of? Whatever it was, he was unwilling to give it up. He walked round almost the whole perimeter of the Palace of Westminster, but there was a pattern to his ramblings, Gresham noticed, always returning to the one spot.

  Whynniard's house. The phrase came back to Gresham from something Tresham had said. The plotters had started by hiring a house in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, a house owned by John Whynniard. They had started a tunnel from there, Tresham had said, but given up the idea as beyond their physical and technical skills. That was when the cellar under the Lords had become vacant, allowing them to ditch the unfinished tunnel.

  There it was. Whynniard's house. Gresham had been sufficiently interested when Tresham had mentioned the house to walk past it himself, and keep a watcher on it for a week. It was shuttered, empty. Yet now the empty house seemed to be the common denominator in Tom Wintour's appallingly dangerous trek round Westminster, even though the cordon thrown round Westminster meant he was unable to get closer than a stone's throw to-it.

  A soldier was starting to look suspiciously at Wintour. He had stopped for the third time in the same spot, the one nearest the house. Without seeming to notice, Wintour began to melt towards the back of the crowd, breaking off from it and heading in the direction of the livery stables when Gresham knew he kept his horse. The house, thought Gresham, might repay some attention. But now his most urgent aim was to keep up with Tom Wintour. Had the plotters dispersed? Or had they run to some assembly point, from where they would try to rouse the nation? The game was still being played, and Gresham guessed the next rounds would be decided out of London.

  'You will leave us!' Cecil spoke with a fierce intensity, hating the dullness of the guards as they looked fearfully back at him. They were below ground level, the dismal, dark room set into the very foundations of the White Tower. He knew what the guards were thinking. Leave Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, alone with this blackguard, this Devil on earth, this Guy Fawkes… fear of what would happen to them if the Chief Secretary was attacked fought for a brief moment with fear of the Chief Secretary. Fear of Cecil won. They backed away, bowing. Cecil closed the door. The bottom of it grated on the filthy floor.

  Fawkes was huddled on the floor, rubbing his shoulder where the guards had hurled him to the ground. His head was badly gashed where he had been thrown down, the blood half-dried, fresh seeping through the caked residue. The cell was lit by the flames of a rough torch hung in an iron bracket. Even by its light the wetness on the walls glistened and sparkled on the five-hundred-year-old stone.

  'Why did you betray me?' Fawkes's voice was rough, but steady enough. Cecil was caught off guard. It should not be Fawkes, the prisoner, opening this conversation.

  'I did not betray you!' hissed Cecil through clenched teeth. The cold was penetrating even through the thickness of his rich cloak. 'You were betrayed by the fool who brought the orders for the search forward by an hour.'

  'My Lord, we had a bargain.' There was fear in Fawkes's voice, but also resolution, and a tone Cecil could not quite track down.

  'The terms and conditions appear to have changed very significantly!' he snapped.

  'You'll have to have me testify, my Lord,' said Fawkes. The blow to his head must have disorientated him. He spoke in starts, as if suffering from momentary losses of concentration. 'I think it wouldn't be in your Lordship's interest to have me testify the truth.'

  Fawkes's body was shaking now with the cold, Cecil noted with satisfaction.

  'Many better than you have died in this Tower, without word and without testimony,' said Cecil, looking with loathing at Fawkes. 'Many have screamed for weeks in this Tower before they welcomed the sweet release of death. Have a care what you threaten.'

  'No,' said Fawkes, 'have a care what you threaten.' His teeth were chattering now. 'If someone knows enough of your plans to bring the time of the search forward an hour, then someone knows enough of your perfidy to place you, my Lord the Earl of Salisbury, in this Tower, to die or to scream for your death alongside me. You need me, you need me to give a confession that will confirm your version of events, to name your other conspirators. If I stand firm, my Lord, many can challenge your honour's actions. None can prove them false.'

  How grating was that accent of Yorkshire, how ludicrous the Spanish lilt laid over it.

  'As you seem so much in control,' Cecil said as his eyes flicked over the manacles that chained Fawkes's feet to the wall, 'you will certainly be able to tell me what you wish me to do.'

  Fawkes was shivering heavily now, his arms clasped round himself in a feeble attempt to keep warm.

  'Move me to a secret chamber, a chamber with warmth and food. Many who have been tortured here have never been heard. Now may one be tortured who never was. Put out that I was steadfast, then that I was put to the torture. Write me a confession, what you will. I'll testify to your plot, as you'll have me do.'

  'And then?’

  'And then I shall die, weakened so far by the unspeakable pain you put me to that my constitution gave in. Here, in this Tower. Out of sight. And you will get me to France.'

  There was something of desperation in Fawkes's voice. As well there might be. Cecil's mind was racing.

  A live, testifying Fawkes would be an asset, if he testified correctly. The Keeper of the Tower, Waad, had incriminated Mary Queen of Scots. Hiding the nature of what was happening to Guy Fawkes was a mere biting-on compared to the meals that man had eaten. As for France, it was a long journey from London to Dover and across the Channel. A long and dangerous journey.

  'Guards!' Cecil shouted. 'This man is no good to us dead with cold. Take him to a chamber with fire in it — warming fire, not the torturer's brazier! And keep his legs in chains!' he said viciously, as he left to discuss matters with Sir William Waad.

  Robert Wintour had been having supper with Catesby's mother. Catesby had determined to tell his mother the truth before riding on to Dunchurch, but as he sat on his sweating horse outside his home he felt for the first time a chill wind blow through die heat of his self-belief. He could not face his mother, not now. He sent Tom Bates to summon Wintour to a field outside the house. Robert Wintour had always been a baleful recruit at best, unlike his firebrand younger brother. Now he was totally downcast.

  'We should surely throw ourselves on the King's mercy,' he said, 'and with God's grace some mercy might be shown.'

  Catesby hardly bothered to answer.

  'There will be no mercy. We must ride on to Dunchurch, to meet with the company. Only then can we decide.' He did not give a single backward glance to the house under whose roof his mother fretted.

  There were over a hundred people gathered in and around The Red Lion. Brothers, cousins, relations, younger sons of Catholic families, all had gathered. Catesby had hoped for more, at least a hundred and fifty. Yet even now it might be enough. A babble of voices greeted Catesby's arrival. His heart began to beat faster, as it always did when he stood in front of a crowd. The blood began to speed through his veins. He held his hand up to command silence.

  There was silence.

  Briefly, quickly, he told them of the plot, that the powder had been discovered, but that London was aflame
with rumour and suspicion.

  'Are we sheep or cattle, to troop gently to our slaughter? Or are we men, men with a faith to be fought for? We have horses, we have guns, we have powder. If we ride now, ride for our freedom and our Faith, hundreds will join us from the west, the west where the Faith has always lived and flourished. We must strike now, strike while confusion reigns. Are we men of faith, or are we cowards?'

  He was shouting now, standing up in his stirrups.

  There was silence. They looked at him in the feeble light of a few torches. Then one, then a second, then a third turned away from the light, edging their horses off into the darkness. There was a pause, then a fourth, a fifth and then a stream. A muttered, muted babble of conversation rose between those left. Just as it seemed the departures were ended, another two or three would turn and move away, like rows of infantry having remorseless gap after gap blown in their line by withering cannon fire as they waited for a charge.

  Robert Catesby had failed. For the first time in his life, he had spread the cloak of his character, the fire of his personality, out to a group, and seen it fall on stony ground. Soon, there were hardly forty left in the square outside the inn, making it seem almost deserted.

  The fire cooled in Catesby, leaving a solid, hard dark nugget of cold in its place. He would die now, he knew. Perhaps he had always known. In a strange way the realisation took a dread weight off him. He was certain now, certain in a different way. He owed himself a good death. Himself, and the others he had brought along for all these months and years. They would want, would need to die with him, he knew.

  He smiled, disconcerting even more those nearest to him. He allowed the runt of his rebellion, the rebellion that never hap-pened and never would happen, to eat and rest a while. The sulky landlord and servants were desperate to be rid of them, desperate to avoid the taint they knew their association would provide. Even now they were remembering the detail they would so willingly give to the King's men and the Sheriff's men when they arrived, as they most assuredly would arrive.

  And then, shortly after eleven o'clock at night, they began the ride. It should have been told of in some ancient saga, become a story to read out by the fireside on late, cold winter's nights, to frighten the young children. It was a ride of despair and desperation, of harsh and stupid courage. It was helpless and hopeless, madness in human form, a ride of the Valkyrie where only the horses had hope and their riders were dead men already.

  From Dunchurch to Warwick Castle; the stables there raided, ten fresh horses taken to relieve the mounts of those who had ridden from London. Robert Wintour wringing his hands — 'It will make an uproar in the country!' — Ambrose Rookwood disdainful, his supply of fine horseflesh inexhaustible. On, on to John Grant's house at Norbrook, to pick up the powder, shot and muskets hoarded there. Through Snitterfield, across the treacherous ford of the Alne, on to Alcester. Through Arrow, then out along the Worcester Road, and then on the back roads and by-ways to Huddington. Two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. Fifteen terror-driven, bone-crunching, muscle-wrenching hours. Sleep. Mass at three o'clock on the Thursday morning, then down to dress in armour, to pick arms and take ammunition from the long tables loaded with weaponry, the remainder hurled into carts. Six o'clock on a bleak morning, bodies crying out in agony at seating again on a saddle. To Hanbury, across Bentley Heath to Hewell Grange, Lord Windsor's house. The house empty, glum villagers standing by as they broke in, taking armour, more weapons, powder and money from a trunk containing over Ј1,000. Burcot. Lickey End. Catshill. Clent. Hagley. The names reeled off like so much flotsam passing a watcher by a riverbank, the names blurring into one another, increasingly meaningless. Sullen people, watchers, onlookers. 'We fight for the Faith!' No response. Occasional yells, muttered reply, 'We live for King James!' Onwards. Stourbridge. Heavy rain, drenching men, animals and powder, the ford racing, dangerous for fit men, perhaps lethal for tired men and horses. Holbeache House, the home of Stephen Littleton. Enough. They were exhausted. Sixteen hours to travel twenty-five miles. Rookwood had galloped thirty miles in two hours, earlier, on the one horse. Catesby had made over ten miles an hour, on his ride out from London. They were slowing, had stopped.

  They must have rest.

  They were pathetically fewer now. Servants had deserted, snapping off the road and away from the cavalcade when an opportunity arose. They had boxed in the party at front and back, but there were not enough of them to guard the sides and length as well.

  Catesby had withdrawn into himself, even Percy seemed to be quiet. Only Tom Wintour, who had joined them late, had energy, walking, talking, organising a defence. They needed more men, if they were to fight off the likely assault on Holbeache and live to ride again. An outrider had reported a party, probably the Sheriff of Worcestershire, trailing them. Not one Catholic had joined their progress, which had leached men like a sandbag leaching out in the rain. John Talbot lived ten miles distant, at Pepperhill. He was Robert Wintour's father-in-law. Would Robert go to ask for men and support? 'How may I go, when he'll guard my wife when I am dead?' Tom Wintour looked with contempt at his brother. Without a word, he put his aching body on his horse again, and rode out to John Talbot's house, seeking the help he knew in his heart would not be offered.

  Gresham rode harder even than he had ridden on that day from Cambridge to London. They had spirited Tresham out of his lodgings, placed him in a safe house. Dunchurch, he had said, repeating it as if it were a litany. They must go to Dunchurch. It is where they planned to gather, under cover of a hunting party, to raise the country up in rebellion. They will go to Dunchurch.

  Gresham arrived at The Red Lion as the rump of the party was leaving on its mad, foolish dash across the country.

  'Where are they heading?' he had hissed to an ostler, trying to thrust coin into the man's hand.

  'To Hell and beyond, as far as I cares!' the man had replied, thrusting the money aside and running back into the inn, distrust visible in his every gesture.

  Catesby's crew had rested, taken food. Gresham had no time. With an inward groan he remounted. At least following was not difficult, despite the driving rain. Servants and other riders peeled off from the party at regular intervals, to much shouting and yelling. At the start their leaders tried to give chase, but soon exhaustion crept in, and they simply tried to box in the cavalcade with their own horses. Still the leakage from the party continued, still the numbers, dimly visible sometimes, audible always, diminished. They were slowing down all the time, like a drowning man whose flapping at the water becomes more and more feeble as his strength leaves him.

  Gresham had never felt more tired. He was soaked through, shivering violently with the cold, his teeth chattering so that he could hardly bite on the hard-baked meat he had flung into his saddlebag as he had left London. Yet he had to keep on guard. The servants and gentlemen who. had escaped Catesby's party flew past him on the road, drawing their swords if they had them and fearing he was a pursuer. One had even taken a scything blow at Gresham's head with his sword as he had passed, Gresham blocking it only at the last second with a clang of steel. Finally, just as his horse was about to expire beneath him, the tattered, pathetic remnant of the party had come to rest at Holbeache. They could enter the house, with its warmth, its fires and its food. Gresham was examining the lay-out of the courtyard and steps up into the main house, wracked with icy cold, when his passport into Holbeache emerged from inside. The courtyard gate opened, revealing another horse and rider. The horse was a thoroughbred, a beautiful animal, but its rider was clearly a fleeing servant, whose riding experience was limited to sitting on the back of a cart on its way to market. The man was bouncing violently up and down on the back of the horse, clearly terrified. Gresham forced his own mount out into the roadway with perfect timing, taking his foot out of the stirrup and giving the rider a hefty boot as he was at the top of his bounce and halfway out of his saddle already. He fell with a yelp, escaping being dragged along only because his feet had never prop
erly found the stirrups of his own horse.

  Gresham took the rough jerkin and trews from the stunned man and sent him, half naked, bouncing along the road on his own exhausted mount. Liberally covering his disguise in mud, he walked into the house, or rather stumbled and gasped into it.

  'A bite of bread and ten minutes by a fire, I beg of you?' He did not have to feign exhaustion. T've ridden from Dunchurch, but my master, he took off without me just outside the house. Help me, please. I've no master, no home and like to have no head when all this comes out…' The harassed woman he had spoken to had hardly listened, glancing all the time nervously over his shoulder, pushing him in the direction of the kitchen.

  He was inside. The kitchen was a babble of noise. Servants shared their master's fate, and there was real terror in their ranks. Old campaigning instincts took over. Gresham grabbed a fistful of greasy, half-warm meat from a stone table and a mug of small beer that appeared somehow out of the chaos, and crammed both down his throat. The plotters were together in the Hall upstairs, he heard. They would not be leaving now, he thought, with night coming on. They were blown, exhausted. There was enough of the real Henry Gresham left to light a tiny smile in the corner of his mouth. He was inside the lions' den. It was about time he decided what use to make of his achievement.

  Thomas Percy looked at the sodden crowd of his fellow plotters and cursed the luck that had exposed Fawkes. Clearly, Cecil's plan had misfired. Or had Cecil betrayed them? He doubted it. If Cecil had wanted both of them out of the way Percy would not have been let to go with the others to end up in this dreadful hole of a house. Percy caught the tail of his fear, which was starting to fly up and away like a kite out of control, and brought it back down to earth again with an effort. He had to assume that his job remained what it had always been, to kill Catesby and as many of the other conspirators as possible. Cecil had always feared Catesby, recognising in him the capacity to lift and sway an audience. He had been willing to use him, the perfect unwitting foil for a plot that would bring Cecil nothing but credit, but yet he had always feared his power to incite. Cecil had been too much scarred by the ability of Sir Walter Raleigh at his trial to win hearts and minds by the power of his words and the attraction of his figure. He did not want Robert Catesby standing at the Bar, weaving the same spells with his audience that he had woven with the conspirators. Catesby had to die decently early, and that was Percy's role: