Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

Thomas Percy was a powerful man, thought Catesby, and a useful one, but flawed to his very centre. The anger that seemed to flare continually at the core of his being, anger against his tenants, against the invidious Cecil, against his lot in life, fuelled him but at the same time clouded his judgement. Was he noble-born? Percy's claim to be a member of Northumberland's family was at best tenuous. Yet the real problem was that of all the five original conspirators, Percy was the only one fighting for himself.

Catesby knew he was not fighting for himself. He was fighting for God. From as early as he could remember he had fallen in love with the Mass. The flickering candlelight, the language that resounded to the pit of one's brain, the transcendental union with a spirit higher and greater than that of man — even as a child his soul had risen to the Mass as a flower reaches towards the sun. He had recognised the joy of that faith, but seen the savage surgery it had caused on the body and mind of his father and mother. When he was a mere eight years of age he had seen his father tried in the Star Chamber for housing a Jesuit Father. Robert had known that Father, a foul-smelling man who had smiled all over the young Robert until the evening when he had plunged his hand down the boy's front and fondled his private parts. We do this for Jesus, the Father had said, his thumb and fingers working away. And there is more we can do for Jesus. And for this man my father is facing imprisonment and execution, thought the young Robert. He screamed and punched, even then strong for his age, and bloodied the priest's nose.

The priest had gone soon thereafter, spirited away as they always were. The humiliation, the fierce and burning bitterness, had lasted for years. Catesby had been driven to be the best at everything he had done, driven by the memory of a lost father whose suffering had soured his soul, a father whose suffering was betrayed by those for whom he suffered. Yet the meeting with his Catherine had shown him his true course. He had worshipped her from the first moment they met. When on his wedding night he had joined with her, her giggling turning first to a panting and then to a gasping and then to a scream of pleasure, he had known true salvation. She was the most beautiful, the most lovely, the most heavenly thing that had ever happened to him. Despite his dashing good looks and his charm, it was his virginity that he lost to Catherine on that night. As did so many men, he gave his soul as well to the first woman who opened her legs for him.

He had been lulled by the love of the flesh, human flesh, not the flesh of Christ Our Lord. He had gone as far as to flout the true religion, seduced by his new, human love into denying Divine love. True, he had continued to hide and to host a succession of Jesuit priests, part in honour of his parents, part in honour of many of those priests who truly placed the souls of their parishioners above all worldly concerns. He appeared less and less at Mass, and had his first son Robert baptised as an Anglican, to the scandal of the Catholic community and his father's friends.

'And do I have to settle the score for this as for everything else?'

Percy was being truculent over the bill, and his tone penetrated Catesby's inward pattern of thought.

'No fear of that, Thomas,' said Catesby. 'Here — take it from my purse, and my thanks for your company along with it.' He tossed the smaller of the two purses he carried so that it landed with a solid thump on the trestle. Percy could have picked it up, but he sniffed and turned away, returning to talk at Jack Wright, who nodded every few sentences but said nothing. It was left to Tom Wintour, reliable and ever-restless, to take it, unbar the door and go to find the landlord.

Then his world had collapsed, Catesby remembered, only half deflected by Percy's intrusion. Robert his son, on whom he and his wife doted, died suddenly, to be followed by Catesby's father and then by his lovely, his adorable Catherine herself. He had worn mourning on his body, yet it was his soul that was truly black in shock. It was a punishment from God, retribution for his turning away from the True Faith.

They did not realise it, any of the others, but in seeking to destroy the Government of England, the dashing and charismatic Robert Catesby was saying sorry to God and the True Faith.

Percy was droning on still, petulant, like a spoilt child denied a sweetmeat. In a month or two he would probably be dead, as they all would be dead. Yet by their death they would have become martyrs to the Faith, opening the floodgates that would allow Christ to reign again in England. A faint smile played on the face of Robert Catesby as he contemplated the thought. Christ had died so that all of humankind could be saved. What did a few lives matter if by their death England was allowed to live again?

They were in the library of the House, the room where Gresham knew he was most likely to find Jane once her domestic duties were over.

'What new people have you taken on in these past three months?' Gresham asked.

'Two, I think — a kitchen maid and a porter. Why do you ask, sir?'

'Someone must have been watching Will Shadwell. There must be a chance, therefore, that someone is watching his master. The best place to keep watch on a man is from inside his own house… Walsingham had a bribed servant in every nobleman's house in London.'

'Sir!' Jane exploded. 'I'd trust every man and woman of them with my life!'

'Jane, they worship you, God knows why — but there's never any servant on God's earth who's free from sin! You must learn. I'm truly sorry. It's a hard lesson. Trust no-one. Wasn't Judas Jesus's most favoured disciple, and what's a disciple but a servant? In any event, they probably risk too much by trying for someone already in employment. No, the easiest way would be to plant a rotten flower in this garden of rest. What of the two new people?'

'One's a distant cousin of Martha's. She's a lovely girl, about whom I’ve had to have strong words with your body-servant.' She gazed darkly at Mannion, who shrugged his shoulders as if to ask what a venerable innocent such as he should have to do with a young girl. 'He may pay his dues to your body, my Lord, but he'll keep away from those bodies over which I've charge and care. In any event, she's no spy. She lacks the brains, poor thing, apart from anything else.

'The other's a Northumbrian. He says he's seen service at sea. He comes with an excellent testimonial from my Earl of Northumberland's houses. He's a strong worker. I hired him above the others because he plays the lute.'

Gresham had the extravagant number of five musicians in his permanent employ, who played for him every evening he was in the House. Though Gresham hated public entertaining it was politic for him to drag himself to lay on five or six events a year, the taste and expense of which made them highlights of London's social calendar. For such events his band would be augmented by other musicians. It made for better music if there were such already in the employ of the House, if only through it allowing more of the practice which Gresham knew was essential for any good musician. The Cook played a merry flute, if a little too merry for Gresham's private ear of an evening, but more than good enough for a raucous evening where the finer points of intonation would never be heard by the guests.

'Was he with us when my room was gone through?' The room Gresham used as a study had been carefully searched one night some months ago. Only someone with an intimate knowledge of his papers would have spotted that a search had ever taken place.

'It happened on the first night he was with us,' Jane responded, with a frown.

'Didn't that make you suspicious?'

'Three houses had windows broken that night, on top storeys, including our own. There was a roofwalker about that night, for certain. It never crossed my mind to think that your intruder was anything other than such a man, on the look-out for whatever he might find.'