Martin Stephen - The Desperate remedy

In Walsingham's day the spies and agents had used a small, private door, just off one of the jetties that served the Palace. Its use had lapsed, with Cecil preferring to work with ambassadors and the gentry abroad who came in through the front door, rather than the lowlife Walsingham acquired in such large (and effective) numbers. Gresham called out to Mannion, and reined in as the glow of Whitehall appeared before him, the flaring torches still lighting the main drive to its gate. Some inner voice spoke to him, and he dismounted, handing the reins to Mannion, asking him quietly to wait where they stood. A tavern with some sign of life still in it was nearby. Normally Mannion would have jumped at the chance. This evening, he seemed uneasy.

'Don't you need me there, with you?'

'He'd never grant you admittance. And I might need to leave in a hurry.' Mannion nodded, reluctant, undecided but as always obedient.

Instead of the main path, Gresham broke off to the left, by the river. The vast expense of the Royal Household did not spread to employing enough gardeners, Gresham noticed in the dim light that spun off from the Palace. A handful of weeds, drooping from the winter but still virulent, were invading the edge of the path.

A gate barred his way, with two guards standing by it. They were cold, stamping their feet, and they let Gresham through with only a cursory question. He was finely dressed, and not for the first time

Gresham realised how much stress his age placed on dress and outward appearance. He gave his name as 'Sir Alexander Selkirk', with a grin of memory. The path kinked round out of sight of the guards, and there was the side gate. It was unguarded. He approached it, noting the signs of neglect, the wild grass lapping the bottom of the door. He looked round. A household of thousands was here each going about their particular business, but none looking out at this particular spot at this particular time. He tried the door. It was locked. He had not thought of entering secretly before that moment, but the slight give on the door put the idea into his head. His inner voice, that very calm commentator who seemed to live in his brain and talk to him only at moments of high drama, whispered to try the door again.

The frame on the outside was covered in mildew, probably the result of the proximity of the river. Gresham took his dagger and poked it into the wood. It sank in a great way, meeting almost no resistance from the spongy, rotted timber. He looked round again. Nothing. There were a series of narrow, unlit windows running off on either side of the door. Storehouses, if Gresham remembered correctly. Iron bars had been placed over them, too small for even a monkey to climb through. He examined the nearest window. The mortar was crumbling, the workmanship old, and shoddy. He picked at the base of the nearest bar with his dagger, and a chunk of mortar fell away, revealing the red, rusting base of the bar. A few minutes' more work and it was completely exposed. He eased it from its setting, leaving a neat, round hole in the better-textured mortar at the top where the bar had lain. The bar was heavy, perhaps a finger's thickness. He eased it into the gap between the door and its frame. The door's timbers were still relatively sound, but the rotten frame allowed him to push the bar, half an inch, then a whole inch in. Gently he forced the bar back. He could feel it bending, just as he could visualise the screws on the inside of the doorframe coming loose from the wet timber, the screws that held the iron box into which the lock fitted. He stopped, reinserting the bar into the even larger gap that now existed, and forced it away from his hand. There was a gentle tearing noise, and the door gave, shrieking on its rusted hinges. He slipped inside, pushing the door to. There were bolts top and bottom, he noticed, the topmost bolt seated in what looked like firm timber. They had not been pushed in.

He knew his way up the stairs, which had a layer of dust on them with only a few footmarks. He stumbled in the almost complete blackness, feeling his way with a hand on the walls. The chamber where Cecil met spies was at the top of the stairs, with three corridors branching off it. One led up to the main and State apartments, one was the access route that Gresham had used and the other he had never trodden. In addition there was a door in the panelling, leading to not so much a secret as rather a private passageway, part above ground and part tunnel, to Westminster.

Torches burnt in the passage, throwing a garish light on the unadorned walls. This was a business area of the Palace, shorn of frippery. Gresham advanced to the door, expecting to feel silence and emptiness at this hour of night, and that he would need to go up a floor to the State rooms where, no doubt, Cecil was still ensconced.

He froze as he heard low voices from within the chamber, inaudible and no more than a dull rumble. There was a scraping as of stools being pushed back. Gresham dipped back into the doorway from where he had emerged, wrapping its shadow round him. The door ahead of him opened. A blaze of light splashed out into the corridor. Cecil himself emerged, gave a brief glance along the corridor, and stood aside. Two figures followed him, glanced themselves up and down the corridor, and moved over to the door in the panelling, opening it and vanishing.

The figures were unmistakable. Gresham had seen them only the night before. Both were so tall as to have to duck under the lintel of the door as they entered the private passageway.

Guy Fawkes. Thomas Percy.

Gresham leant back, his head resting on the cool brickwork in darkness, controlling his breathing.

Guy Fawkes and Thomas Percy. Discoursing in the room the King's Chief Secretary used for his spies and agents. Discoursing with that same Chief Minister. Two of the leading agents in this powder plot.

And allies of Robert Cecil.

"Fool! Fool! What a complete fool I’ve been!' Gresham's anger was uncontainable. It surged through the House, seeming to shake the very walls, threatening to tear him and all it came into contact with apart. The candles had been out, and hurriedly relit. They guttered, smoking from where there had been no time to trim the wicks.

'Do be quiet, will you?' Jane seemed angered by his anger. 'It's not foolishness I hear, it's self-pity! If you're a fool then we're all fools! Who could've dreamt of the King's Chief Minister wishing to blow up the King and Parliament?' She was scared. The rampaging thing that was Gresham was like a wild creature. She felt her world falling apart, torn by forces beyond her control.

The accusation of self-pity stung him like a slap across the face, because it was correct.

'That's where we've all been fools. How could I not have seen it? He doesn't want to blow up Parliament. He wants the credit for discovering the plot to blow up the King and Parliament! Can't you see? He's been in control of this from the start. The only people who benefit from this are the King and his chief henchman.

'It all makes sense now,' he continued. 'Unpopularity — I said that was the key. The King's increasingly unpopular, and Cecil's never been popular. The Raleigh business gives them a permanent thorn in their side, which they can't remove, and the Treaty with Spain's laughed at. Everyone knows the Court's awash with Spanish pensions and bribes. When this so-called plot is exposed, at the last minute, Cecil will go down in history as the saviour of the nation and the Protestant faith, and James receive a huge backlash of sympathy. They'll ride on the back of this for years to come. It's all too easy for them.'

'But I'm still not clear,' said Jane, her brow furrowed in thought. 'Did Cecil start the plot off?'

‘I doubt it. Catesby probably gave it to him on a plate. A God-given hothead, on whom Cecil placed a saddle without him even realising he was being ridden. Catesby must have walked straight into the arms of one of their agents overseas when they were looking for someone to deal with the powder.'