care about. Himself.'
Which is perhaps why you would recognise it more easily than others, thought Gresham, as it describes the pair of you equally well. Gresham's hair and beard had returned to their normal black intensity, apart from an occasional flash of orange when the light caught it from a certain angle.
‘I could ask Jonson who you are,' said Tresham. He frequently changed the tack of a conversation, without warning. It followed the restless, ever-changing direction of his eyes, as if anything he gazed at for more than a few seconds became too hot for them to rest on. Perhaps it was a trick to catch the listener unawares; perhaps it was just his nature.
'You could ask,' said Gresham calmly. He knew Jonson was safe. If Tresham did not know that fact, he would find out easily enough without need of words from Henry Gresham.
'Tell me again what it is you offer me.'
'When we've amassed enough information to deal with this plotting, you'll receive travel documents to France, a thousand pounds in your purse and secret passage to a ship, out of the way of your friends or Cecil, whichever one is most hot to kill you.'
'How can you do that?'
Because, young man, I have had a plan waiting these years past to release Sir Walter Raleigh and get him to sanctuary in Europe, a plan he has refused to use, believing it would be taken as confession of his guilt were he so to escape.
'I can do it. That's all you need to know. You'll be taken to the south coast and there put on a boat, and delivered to France. The thousand pounds is in addition to any money you can raise yourself. You'll want to tidy your affairs, won't you, and leave as much as possible to your wife and family? You'll be given another name, and papers in that name that will pass any muster.'
'What about my family?'
'That's up to you. They can come later, when the hue and cry's died down, or you can leave them. You can tell me later.'
If Tresham had decided whether he would desert his family or not, he was not going to let Gresham see it.
'I think I'm to be inducted on Monday. I'm bid to another dinner, at Lord Stourton's, in Clerkenwell. The invitation came from Robin. Stourton's my kinsman.'
'I know,' said Gresham, whose mind by now carried an encyclopaedic list of the inter-relations between England's Catholic families. 'So is Lord Monteagle. It's no secret.'
'It's strange the invitation comes from Catesby, not from my relative. It makes me think there's a reason other than the pleasure of my company for my being invited.'
'Then you must go.'
'What freedom do I have?'
'Freedom to do what?'
'Can I speak as myself, or do I have to speak from a script that you've written?'
'There are only two conditions. Firstly, you must speak as keeps you on the inside of whatever is happening. If by staying there you can bring it to an end, then so much the better — but you must under no circumstances be so dismissive that you're excluded. You're no use to me in ignorance. The second is that you must report back to me immediately, and tell me everything that took place.'
'Here?'
'Usually, yes. On Monday, no. There's an inn, the sign of The Mermaid, at Clerkenwell. Ask to be shown to the room taken by Mr Cecil.' Tresham's eyes widened. 'Mr Robin Cecil. I'll meet you there.'
'Can he be trusted?' The question was Jane's. She had read Jonson's manuscript, liked it, and was now descending into restless boredom again. It was going to be called Volpone, or The Fox, his play. It had made her yearn to go to the playhouse again.
'We'll find out soon enough. While we're under this threat I don't want you out of my sight.'
'I know,' she said simply. 'But if we're found out then I'll be the least of your troubles. I can be secret, too, you know. When it really matters.'
A number of those Tresham had been at school with, and some of his adult friends, were now dead. Several had died of the plague, one thrown from a horse, others of illnesses that seemed to have no name and no cure. Another had been knifed in a brawl, and spoken gaily to Tresham as the life blood had ebbed from him. The death of his father had shattered him more than his so-called friends knew. Enemy that he had been, his father had offered a strange security and comfort. Sir Thomas Tresham had been an anchor point in his life. And now even that great certainty was gone.
He had felt so brave, when he was young. Now all he felt was fear.
Clerkenwell lay outside the City walls. Until recently a village to the north of the City, bounded by the Fleet on one side and Charterhouse on the other, the relentless march of London had swallowed it up, its residents claiming that the country winds blowing over it from Islington kept the plague at bay.
Stourton had married Frances, Tresham's sister, and though there was a twenty-year age gap between them he had become close friends with Catesby. Lady Frances Stourton had a permanently world-weary look to her, and conducted all her business distractedly, as if something terribly important was happening elsewhere.
'Francis, you're very welcome here, as ever.' She used the same tone of tired affection, as ever. She was in mourning, of course, and Lord Stourton all commiseration at the loss of his father-in-law. At the same time, he seemed distracted, removed from his usual self. Catesby was no different, seeking first to charm Frances and then turning his attention on to Stourton. Yet dinner was ended early, and Catesby asked leave to hold a few words with Tresham. Tresham felt his heart tighten.
Winter was drawing in, and a steady fire in the new hearth lapped at the edges of the cold. The room was square, with latticed glass looking out over the garden. The panelling was light, almost irritatingly so, being so new as to not have darkened or weathered properly. Family portraits glowered at Tresham. They were a proud crew, the Stourtons.
Catesby looked at Tresham, and felt, not for the first time, the stirrings of unease. For long simply a plaything, a stringed instrument on whose neck Catesby could play whatever tune he pleased, Francis Tresham would always be a risk. A risk of a different kind, Thomas Percy, had failed to deliver the rent money due on the
Westminster house whose cellar hid such a terrible secret. Fawkes had had to be sent to pay Henry Ferrers and Whynniard what they were owed, masquerading as 'John Johnson', Percy's servant. Just as pressingly, Fawkes was insisting on the money needed to hire the ship from Greenwich that would take him abroad after the explo- sipn. Fawkes had been hired for his skill with powder. It was not expected that he would remain on after the explosion, but nor had Catesby expected him to be quite so pressing with the money for his escape route. That great baby Everard Digby had provided some coin, but Tresham was now heir to a rent roll of Ј3,000 a year. Tresham was rich, was from one of the great Catholic families, wasn't he? Then it was time for him to be called on.
Francis Tresham could feel the blood leaving his face and hands as Catesby told him the bare bones of his plan. Rarely had he heard anything so mad. Could a man's heart stop and he still live on? How could he report this to the man in dark clothes? He drew a deep breath. He recognised the tactic from lesser conversations. Catesby had first of all delivered the shock, and now was winding up into full justification, a passionate torrent of words starting to flow from him, in contrast to the almost jerky rhythms with which he had described his plan to take most of England's nobility to Hell. Tresham stood up, held up his hand.
'Stop this, cousin, stop this. Will you be silent?' No-one told Robert Catesby to be silent. A flicker of yellow covered Catesby's eyes, and vanished as quickly. 'Are you mad? Would you damn us all?' Tresham started to pace the room, unconsciously wringing his hands together as if to squeeze the correct words out of them.
'This isn't damnation — it's salvation,' Catesby answered, urgent to make a speech.
'Forgive me. I hadn't realised God had taken a simple little word out of 'Thou shalt not murder'. How can it not be damnation to kill so many guilty and innocent alike? Why, to kill some of our greatest friends? Of a sudden you have a monopoly on Divine judgement, do you, cousin?'
'I don't, but, those who do have sanctified and approved the plan. You've heard Father Garnet speak of how a smaller evil is permissible in the pursuit of a greater good. Of how if the innocent in an evil city are besieged then
