Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

'Explain,' said Gresham.

'Monteagle. He'd make a good spy. He's an insider with the Papists, isn't he? An insider by birth, what's more, something you can't just buy. So if I'm Cecil, what do I do? Pay off his fine, or even simpler, write it off, provided he keeps me informed about what's happening with the Papists. That fine would've ruined Monteagle, ruined anybody. I'd be a bloody good spy with that fine hanging over me. Fits all round. Cecil hates common people. He'd far rather work with one of Monteagle's kind, all velvet-arsed and coach and horses.'

'That would explain why Catesby hasn't trusted Monteagle with the plot!' said Gresham. 'What a fool I am! Mannion — you're a genius. Of course Catesby must wonder why Monteagle wasn't ruined by an Ј8,000 fine! Of course he must look at all this preferment, and reach his own conclusions!'

'Well now,' said Mannion, 'I'm a genius now, am I? That's not a description I've had from you before. It's the tobacco, I believe, it grows the brain.'

'Grows the vomit, more like,' muttered Jane, who had banished Mannion from smoking his reeking pipe anywhere inside, but could not banish the smell of burnt sewage he carried on his clothes, his breath, his beard and seemingly his very skin.

'Monteagle has to be the man,' said Gresham, as if relieved of a great weight. 'He must already be one of Cecil's informers. If he's told of the plot, he'll have to run like a rabbit to Cecil. That fine won't be suspended for very long if one of Cecil's supposedly best inside men with the Papists doesn't know about something like this until too late. It'd be death for Monteagle.'.

'So how are you going to tell Lord Monteagle?' said Jane. She was out of sorts, her playful mood suddenly changed, sulking. 'Get me to dress up as a milkmaid and walk up to him in the street… "Forgive me, my Lord, but do you know that your Papist friends have put a ton of powder under the House of Lords and are planning to blow you to Heaven or to Hell when it's opened by the King?" Or write to him with a list of names? "Item: one raving idiot, named Robert Catesby. Talks a lot. Thinks he's God. Item: a second raving idiot, named Thomas Percy. White hair, sweats a lot. Item: various other conspirators, assorted. Item: one stack of gunpowder, fuse inserted… "'

'You're rarely boring,' said Gresham. 'Infuriating, yes, but boring, no. You're in danger of becoming really boring. Will I write him a letter, yes. Do I need your help with it, yes I most certainly do. And if it's the wrong letter, then hundreds of people might die unnecessarily and a civil war decimate this country.'

Jane's mood changed instantly. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It's an explanation, not an excuse, but I've found these past few weeks here some of the worst weeks in my life — or, at least, my life after I met you. I'll try.'

'Thank you,' said Gresham. The women he had known before Jane were strange, inward, mysterious creatures. Jane had that quality of mystery, of being a book with most of the pages still withheld from his eyes and understanding. Yet in her also there was a simplicity. He would not need to secure her apology with gifts, with cooing words, or be blackmailed later by her because she had given in to him. She had said. It was done. It was also a change of mood that would test the patience of a saint.

'So what form must this letter take?'

'It must seem to come from a Catholic, to stop this business spreading out to affect Raleigh or any other innocents for that matter. Bad enough if it's seen as the Pope's business, but better that than it becomes all England's. It can't be seen to come from any one man, or woman for that matter, because it must make them mount a general search for powder, not a single search for one man.'

'You're missing the important thing,' said Jane.

'Which is?'

'The letter must seem to come from a plotter. One of their own. An insider. They must hear the letter's been delivered and read. They must know one of their own has written it. Only that way will they not know which way to turn. They'll feel betrayed. Their insecurity will make them break, and flee for cover.'

'You realise,' said Gresham, 'that if I do that I throw suspicion on to Tresham? He's the last to join, the least committed. Monteagle's his brother-in-law. He's the one with the most to gain, as far as they can see, from the plot fizzling out. Won't they kill him?'

'He has to take his chance, doesn't he, as we all do?' There was no venom in Jane's voice. She had been on the river that night, she had read Machiavelli. She knew now that power and survival were not easy bedfellows with any simple morality. And she had taken a strong dislike to Tresham. 'Anyway, it's not that simple. Rookwood and Digby have even more to lose than Tresham. Anyone who knows Percy seems to understand why people associate treason with the family. And Tresham won't know about the letter. He'll be genuinely surprised. And if he feels the pressure building up too much, we ship him abroad. In fact, why don't we do it now? We've no further need of him.'

Gresham shook his head as if to clear it of debris. He was not thinking tonight. He knew the plot. The date was decided by Parliament, not Catesby, so he could not argue that he needed Tresham in with the plotters. Indeed, if Tresham fled it might work up an even greater panic among the plotters, force them to cancel their plans even more readily.

Yet that could wait. The important thing was the letter.

It took them two days. Firstly, the text had to be worked on and devised, a task that burnt the candles down to the base of the candlesticks. Then Mannion had to be sent, in disguise, to St Paul's to buy clean, fresh paper. One seller had a consignment fresh delivered from the Spanish Netherlands. It amused Mannion to think of the letter written on Papist paper, so he purchased it. The letter itself was written by Jane. When she had been learning to write, Gresham had come across scraps of paper in various hands, all of which he learned were Jane's cast-offs. From very early on she had shown the natural forger's instinct. She had an inventory of writing styles she could call up from memory, as Gresham had a library. of accents he could use at will. The hand she chose was clear, flowing, large. It was the old-fashioned hand of a lawyer who had drawn up a draft will for Sir Thomas Gresham, years ago. In a house where paper was never thrown away, Jane had come upon it and practised her writing on its back, deciding to copy the hand on the reverse side halfway through.

When they drew back from the table it was with almost total exhaustion. The letter lay before them, a rectangle of new paper with the clear lines marching across the page. There was a word scratched out on the first line. Jane in her tiredness had written in 'your' too early and made to throw the paper away, but Gresham had stopped her. In some way the scratched-out word made the letter look authentic, as if written in some haste. The text read:

'My Lord, the love I have for some of your friends breeds in me a care for your preservation. Therefore 1 advise you, as you care for your life, to think of some excuse to be absent from this Parliament. God and man have come together to punish the wickedness of our times. Do not dismiss what is written here, but take yourself off to the country where you may await events in safety. Even though it appears no trouble threatens I tell you this Parliament shall receive a terrible blow, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. Do not condemn this warning. It can do you no harm, and it may do you some good. The danger is passed once you bum this letter, and 1 hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it. I commend you to His holy protection.'

It was perfect, thought Gresham. It would hand Monteagle a God-given opportunity to do a service to the State which would see him set up for life. If Cecil and the King had any sense they would check and clear the cellars in ample time, and another plot would have been dismembered before it could do harm.