main prize. The main prize is to get that powder removed and the plotters dispersed.'
Monteagle knew nothing of this. He had steeled himself to present before the Chief Secretary, and now found himself facing a court consisting not just of one but four of the people in the strongest position to influence his life, career and prospects.
The slippery element in Monteagle that had let him survive as long as he had came to his rescue. He bowed low to all four men. Collecting himself, he asked if-it were possible for him to have a private word with his Lordship, with no disrespect, of course, intended to the other three noble Lords.
Cecil glanced at the other three, nodded briefly to them, and motioned Monteagle over to a side room. The servants had laid the wine there, before bringing it in to the supper, and one of them scuttled out as if branded as Cecil swept into the room.
Give me your damned message, Cecil was tempted to say, so that I can at least know where I stand in a business that is becoming too complicated for its own good. But, of course, he said nothing, merely enquiring politely about Lord Monteagle's health.
Lord Monteagle's health, he mused, would not stand many more rides such as he had clearly just made. He was having trouble catching his breath, the mud was caked up his waist and sweat dripping down his cheeks on to his beard. Monteagle was pouring out the story, offering Cecil the letter finally, after he had given a highly embossed version of its contents.
A slight shudder passed through Cecil as he saw the hand on Monteagle's letter, matching that on the paper turned over on his table.
'Thank you, my Lord,' said Cecil carefully, refolding the letter. 'It is good that you have brought this to my attention, whatever the consequences might be.' He nodded to Monteagle, ushering him out and back into the main chamber. The three Lords waited like gargoyles on a Cathedral wall, only their flickering eyes betraying their tension.
Without a word, Cecil handed the letter to Northampton. Northampton's ferocious ambition was widely known at Court, being born out of so many years in the wilderness during Elizabeth's reign. As a convert will cram a lifetime of passion into whatever years remain him, so Northampton was determined to make the best of what time remained to him by the political fireside. The letter was passed round to the other two, who read it in silence. Unknown to Monteagle, Northampton glanced down at the earlier letter, lying in the centre of the table, eyebrows raised. No, Cecil's eyes signalled, let that remain between us, not between ourselves and this young Lord.
'Government receives many such letters, my Lord Monteagle, as you may well know,' said Cecil finally, breaking the long silence.
Monteagle was visibly deflating in front of the harsh glare of power. His shoulders slumped. Had he made a complete fool of himself?
'Yet I have had word for some months past of scheming abroad, scheming, I fear, from those of your faith. We will show this to His Majesty, expose it to his wisdom and invite his view. Plots are as fruit, my Lord. They need time to ripen.'
Show it to His Majesty? Tonight? Tomorrow? Had he done the right thing to ride through the night and interrupt this supper? Or would his letter be placed in a pile of submissions or petitions, to be dealt with in due time and in due order?
'His Majesty…' stumbled Monteagle.
'Is in Royston,' answered Cecil, calmly, 'hunting. He remains there until the thirtieth, when he stays at Ware, returning to London and Whitehall the next day. There is no invisible blow waiting in the forest, I am sure,' said Cecil condescendingly, turning to the other, three Lords. He was rewarded by thin smiles from them.
'We are grateful to you for your care in this matter, my Lord. Be assured, it will not harm your credit with His Majesty. You may return to your supper with a heart and mind at rest.'
He was being dismissed. He bowed low and backed out, even as servants began to bring in the delayed meal to the chamber. It was a perplexed young Lord who rode more slowly than he had come through the dark streets, to a supper by now hopelessly spoilt.
'You didn't need to put me so close,' said Mannion, rubbing his hands by the fire. 'With the noise he made you'd have thought it was an army coming to Whitehall, not just three men.'
Gresham had stationed Mannion by the main gate of Whitehall, to check that Monteagle had gone where it was intended he go.
'What do we do now?' asked Jane.
Gresham gazed at her for a moment, then moving so quickly that she could not react he grasped her round the waist, pulled her towards him and placed a long and lingering kiss on her full lips.
'I'm not a meal to be picked up off the table when it pleases!' she exclaimed, pulling away. She had returned the kiss, though, he noticed.
'Don your serving-girl clothes!' cried Gresham. 'We go to the playhouse!'
'Can we afford to? What if we're seen?'
'After all this time in this hovel, I think we can't afford not to. We'll dress as servants and stand at the back of the Pit. And after that, we're back to the House and civilisation, I think.'
'Are we out of danger, then?'
'I'll limp back into town as if a growth has been carved out of my side and I'm only recently recovered. Wherever I go people will look at me and feel ill, though I shall of course keep to my bed for weeks on end. An invalid will present no threat to Cecil. And anyway, the plot is out — what has Cecil to fear from me?'
Robert Catesby had spent the morning trying to ease the worries of Anne Vaux at White Webbs. It did not matter if he succeeded in demolishing her fears. All that mattered was that he allayed them. Hardly a week to go, and then he could throw off this continual need to hide behind fabrication and deceit. A week from now, and the world would know the truth.
The letter arrived at midday, brought to table by Tom Bates. The messenger, a simple serving lad, had become hopelessly lost, as a result of riding through the night, and had nearly killed his mount. Catesby read the hasty scribble, expressionless, and care-fully folded it before slipping it into the large pocket sewn into his breeches. He finished his meal quietly, allowing Anne to chatter about the fate of various neighbours' experiences of childbirth and children in general. He rose from the table, thanked Anne politely and nodded to the others round the table. Tom Wintour needed no hint or secret signals to rise shortly afterwards, and join him. Not long after, the Wright brothers followed suit.
'We appear to have a slight problem,' said Catesby dryly, handing the note to Wintour, and on to the Wrights. The colour rose in Wintour's face as he read it. 'We owe a debt to your kinsman, Tom Ward, I think,' added Catesby, as first Kit and then Jack Wright took the letter. Both the Wrights had been in on the plot from its earliest days, and neither Kit nor Jack Wright would utter three words where none would do. Two strong, taciturn men, they grunted as the import of the letter sank in, and looked to Catesby.
'We're discovered!' For a brief moment, the hatred that drove Wintour to contemplate an act of mass murder showed clearly on his face. Stupidly, he turned to look over his shoulder, as if even then the troops of the King would be trampling across the lawns of Enfield to arrest them both.
'Peace, cousin,' said Catesby. 'We're safe as yet. Think. Think what it means.'
'It means Cecil and the King know about our plot!' Wintour's face was grotesque, distorted with the mix of anger and fear that coloured it dark red.
'It means no such thing!' Catesby's words were like a slap across Wintour's face. 'True, the letter sounds a warning over Parliament, but they'll look for an army to be the agent of harm, not one man in a cellar!'
'We're not named. Not any of us.' It was Kit Wright, who often spoke both for himself and for his brother.
In his haste to warn Catesby and the Wrights, Tom Ward had written only that Monteagle's letter had advised him not to attend Parliament and had warned him of a strike against Parliament. Would Catesby's relative calm have been shattered if Ward had told him of the phrase 'terrible blow', and the letter's emphasis on the invisibility of that blow? He was never to know, never to see the letter and destined only to hear about it from a frightened servant relying on memory. That particular estuary received no dam, and its water trickled along unhindered down the path Fate had set.
'We'll know soon enough if we're discovered. Do you think if any of us are suspected Cecil and the King will leave us to go about our business? Fawkes can keep a watch oh the cellar. If there's any interest in it, then we'll
