Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

'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 they must take their chance with the rest? I can show you the texts that…'

'Faith! Damn your stupid texts! And damn the stupid priests who read them! Hold off that, will you? I'm no scholar of theology. Yet if you really do believe that the Bible sanctifies such an act, let Francis Tresham for the first time take on the robes of a saint. The Bible be damned. I tell you this act is an act of madness, as well as an act of murder! It'll kill us all!'

'Are you then willing to be the only Catholic in England too much of a coward to take up the cause? Are you willing…"

'Hold off again!' Tresham had never before interrupted Catesby, never mind doing it twice in quick succession. Few had, when he was in full force, or seeking to get there. A force of nature, his father had once described him, not entirely approvingly as he had seen every servant girl go weak at the knees in his presence. 'You can forget the old cowardice trick.. It's been used once before, and it doesn't work. Remember poor Tom in the orchard?'

Years ago at Harrowden three of them had planned a raid on a neighbour's orchard, seeking the sweet apples that were his pride and joy. When they had seen the neighbour working in a far corner of the orchard the other two, one of whom was Tresham, had argued for strategic retreat. Catesby had roundly accused them of being cowards, at which the other boy, Tom, had leapt the wall and crept towards the trees. His howls as the neighbour had laid a springy branch with far more force than was necessary across his buttocks had kept Catesby and Tresham company as they huddled on the other side of the wall. 'I hear Tom speaking to me,' an angry Tresham had whispered harshly to Catesby, 'telling me how much pleasure he takes in being a hero!'

Back in the present, Tresham was too angry to be diverted from his point. 'This isn't about cowardice. Have you thought, man, that the nation will be appalled to think such an act could be undertaken in the name of religion — a religion that preaches peace to one's neighbour! Every act of repression, every crippling penalty, will be justified by reference to this act of evil. Common folk will rise up against us! More than common folk! Every decent person in the kingdom will want our blood in revenge! This won't save Catholicism! It'll ruin it for ever! Axe you mad?'

If any of Tresham's passion was penetrating Catesby's self-belief, it was not clear to Tresham.