know we're truly discovered, and plan accordingly. But before that, look at what this letter must mean.'
Wintour looked blankly at him.
'A traitor, Tom, a traitor! One of us must have written that letter. We've a snake in our little garden.'
The redness had begun to recede from Wintour's face, but it came back with a flood. 'Tresham! That bastard Tresham!' he roared.
'Possibly — but be cautious. Digby and Rookwood have more to lose than most of us, and wives who may fear they will lose their husbands and their livelihoods. Perhaps one of the other women… a priest who's heard too much in confession… a servant who's overheard his master… perhaps even your brother.'
'Robert! Never in a thousand years! He may be nervous, but if he isn't loyal then the Pope's not God's appointed.'
'We've to consider everyone, haven't we?' It was as if Catesby was discussing a game of cards.
'You'll call Tresham here? Now?' Wintour's face made it clear that Francis Tresham would be walking into his death when he came to White Webbs.
'Call him, yes. But not now. We're due to meet at Temple Bar on Wednesday. Tom, we must keep silent about this letter at least for a while. We must! You know the others. We can't let them think it's all over yet. Let's wait and see if a hue and cry starts. There were no names in the letter, were there? It will take time to examine, time in which we'll know if we're being followed or watched. Let's tell the others on Wednesday, and watch Tresham as a man has never been watched. Then let's decide.'
Wintour's face made it clear what his decision already was. As far as Tom Wintour was concerned, Francis Tresham was a dead man. The four conspirators ordered a bottle of wine. Catesby doubted there was more to discuss, yet there would be support in the wine and in the companionship of its drinking.
Francis Tresham, unaware of the plot being hatched on his life, and blissfully unaware of the Monteagle letter, lay in his rooms at Lincoln's Inn Walk. There was a knock on the door. He leapt as if for his life, grabbing the sword that lay by the bed. His servant, the learned but dilatory Vavasour, was out buying wine. There was another knock on the door, loud and urgent. Tresham held his sword poised, and wrenched it open. Something hit him, and he was suddenly on the floor with a ringing head, his sword held in the left hand of his visitor. It was the ox of a servant, Selkirk's servant.
'My master sends you the first down payment.' He tossed a package towards Tresham. 'And I wouldn't open doors suddenly, with a sword in your hand, if I were you.'
It was a passport, a travel warrant from the Government. It permitted him to travel abroad for two years, with horses, servants and other necessaries.
'The money, and the details of the ship, come when he's finished with you. Don't run out on him, will you? I'd hate to ruin that fine doublet you're wearing.'
'Why so long?' Gresham's scalp itched so that he longed to tear the skin off his head, his head was pounding as it had not done so since the river. 'Why is nothing happening?'
Gresham had revelled in the return to the House, and Jane had gone straight to her beloved library as if it were an old friend brought back from the grave. Yet as his impatience grew it was seeming more and more like a prison, more and more like the rooms in Alsatia.
There was the tedium of keeping up the pretence to cope with. The paste that kept his skin sickly-white needed to be re-applied twice a day, and Jane had to use a thin linen cloth rather than her hands, in case they too turned white. No lump in his side was necessary, the theoretical growth having been theoretically cut out, but it was necessary to keep a supply of fresh pig's blood to stain his shirts with, the amount decreasing every day very slightly, as well as suitably gory 'dressings' to be sent out with the servants. Gresham trusted the servants in the House more than he had let Jane know, but all it needed was for one to comment in the market or on the street about Gresham's miraculous recovery for unwanted attention to be directed on to him.
Yet the real worry was the lack of action on Cecil's part. It was as if the letter had never been received. The careful watch Gresham had placed on the cellar and house Percy had rented, as soon as Tresham had told him of it, had reported no untoward action or even interest in the place. The story of a plot being hatched in France was still current on the streets and gaining ground, but there was no hint to it of something closer to home, and no hint of gunpowder or mass murder or regicide. Tresham had been summoned to meet the conspirators again, but there was no sense of any special reason behind the summons. Sending the travel documents had been a gamble. They had cost him a small fortune, but as Jane had commented, quality never came cheap. In this instance, it was not quality he had paid for, but authenticity. The corrupt clerk who had charge of such matters had slipped the paper for signing into a heap so high that his master had yearned for it to come to an end with the intensity of a schoolboy wishing the end of school. Gresham needed his mole in the plotters' burrow to report. Had they noted men following them, questions being asked of the servants? Was the pressure on them to disband? Had the news of the letter reached them, through the servant, Ward, who was so close to the brothers Kit and Jack Wright, as Gresham had planned?
Gresham knew that impatience was his greatest weakness, yet the pressure of not knowing what was happening, coupled with the fear that nothing was happening, was near to destroying any peace of mind he might have. He called for music, and settled him-self to listen as the lute dropped jewelled notes in the way of the long walk of the strings and the nasal urgency of the wind instruments. It helped, but not enough. In public he was still bed-bound for most of the day, so it was on his bed that he lay back and tried to let the music soak into his veins, as the musicians assiduously played for him.
It was dangerous for so many to gather at one time in London, but Catesby deemed it necessary. They had planned it long ago, for a week before the explosion. To cancel it now would cause panic. The presence of the others would lull Tresham into a false sense of security. He would hardly expect a gathering in London to be kept if his comrades knew the plot had been exposed, reasoned Catesby.
The taciturn Fawkes was there, inscrutable as ever. Rookwood had come down to receive his instructions, and to be fortified by Catesby if necessary. Tom Wintour was there, trying to hide the murderous gleam in his eye, whilst Thomas Percy, wild-eyed and stained from travel, had finally broken from his rent-gathering in the north to make it to London.
Tresham looked nervous, tense, almost distracted. Catesby raised an eyebrow, and Tom Wintour's hand stiffened towards the dagger in his belt. Rookwood had been given the task of buying dinner, not sensing the patronising ease with which Catesby treated him at one and the same time as friend and servant.
'Is all well?' Rookwood enquired nervously. Wintour flicked a glance at Catesby. These well-born, idle rich were food for Court and fine lace and fancy manners, he thought, but no good when push came to shove. The rich had time for a conscience. Men such as Wintour had time for action. That was the difference. Wintour cursed the day they hatched a plot which needed the money of such as Ambrose Rookwood.
'All's well indeed,' said Catesby reassuringly. The wine Rook-. wood had provided and drunk of so liberally had not calmed him, but if anything made him more nervous. 'We're not discovered.
The King hasn't hurried back from his hunting. None of us have felt ourselves watched, have we?' Heads were shaken in the negative, around the table. 'Stout hearts and courage are what we need now.'
No response from Tresham, who was turning continually to look out on the street, as if hoping for someone to walk by and rescue him.
'None of our number would betray us!' said Wintour, in far too loud a voice. Tresham started, but whether through guilt or simply the explosive noise of Wintour's interjection was difficult to say.
'What say you, cousin?' said Catesby to Tresham. 'You're strangely silent.'
'I'm sorry;' said Tresham. 'I've things on my mind. I shouldn't trouble you with them.'
Catesby and Wintour exchanged glances.
'I must have some of your money, cousin,' said Catesby easily. 'You know how pressing the need is.'
'Are you still set on this? Can't we at least delay until we know what legislation Parliament will pass?'
'You know the answer. As I know you won't betray us.'
There was a decided flicker across Tresham's face, a sheen of sweat across it. This was too public a place to kill him, thought Catesby. It would panic Rookwood, and draw attention to them. Not here. Not now.
'If you still have reservations, cousin, now isn't the time to discuss them. White Webbs, Friday, two days from now. Come and dine with us there. And, I pray you, bring some of your gold with you. My purse has been deep, but it's drawn dry. Until Friday then. I hope you'll come ready for a reckoning!' laughed Catesby.
