Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

The tunnellers were discreet, but not invisible. Even in the dark, they were sometimes seen coming and going by people carrying lanterns. To divert suspicion, Fawkes had let it be known that he had builders in, making some alterations that his master’s wife had demanded. Rollo hoped no one would notice the improbably large quantity of earth being displaced by mere alterations.

Then they ran into a difficulty so serious that Rollo was afraid it might ruin the whole plan. When they had tunnelled into the earth for several feet, they came up against a solid stone wall. Naturally, Rollo realized, the two-storey building above had proper foundations: he should have anticipated this. The work became harder and slower, but they had to go on, for they were not yet far enough under the debating chamber to be sure that the explosion would kill everyone there.

The stone foundations turned out to be several feet thick. Rollo feared they would not finish the job before the opening ceremony. Then Parliament was postponed, because of an outbreak of plague in London; and the tunnellers had a new deadline.

Even so, Rollo fretted. Progress was terribly slow. The longer they took, the more risk there was that they would be discovered. And there was another hazard. As they went farther, undermining the foundations, Rollo feared a collapse. Fawkes made stout timber props to support the roof — as he said he had done when digging under city walls in Netherlands sieges — but Rollo was not sure how much this fighting man really knew about mining. The tunnel might just fall in and kill them all. It could even bring down the entire building — which would achieve nothing if the king were not inside.

Taking a break one day, they talked about who would be in the chamber when the gunpowder went off. King James had three children. Prince Henry, who was eleven, and Prince Charles, four, would probably accompany their parents to the ceremony. ‘Assuming they both die, Princess Elizabeth will be the heir,’ said Percy. ‘She will be nine.’

Rollo had already thought about the princess. ‘We must be prepared to seize her,’ he said. ‘Whoever has her, has the throne.’

Percy said: ‘She lives at Coombe Abbey, in Warwickshire.’

‘She will need a Lord Protector, who will, of course, be the actual ruler of England.’

‘I propose my kinsman the earl of Northumberland.’

Rollo nodded. It was a good suggestion. Northumberland was one of the great peers of the realm and a Catholic sympathizer. But Rollo had a better idea. ‘I suggest the earl of Shiring.’

The others were not enthusiastic. Rollo knew what they were thinking: Bartlet Shiring was a good Catholic but did not have Northumberland’s stature.

Too polite to denigrate Rollo’s nephew, Percy said: ‘We must plan uprisings in all parts of the country where Catholic peers are strong. There must be no opportunity for the Protestants to promote a rival for the throne.’

‘I can guarantee that in the county of Shiring,’ said Rollo.

Someone said: ‘A lot of people will die.’

Rollo was impatient with men who worried about killing. A civil war would be a cleansing. ‘The Protestants deserve death,’ he said. ‘And the Catholics will go straight to heaven.’

Just then there was a strange noise. At first it sounded like a rush of water overhead. Then it turned into a rumble as of shifting rocks. Rollo immediately feared a collapse. The other men clearly had the same instinctive reaction, for they all rushed, as if to save their lives, up the narrow stone staircase that led from the cellar to the apartment at ground level.

There they stopped and listened. The noise continued, intermittently, but the floor was not shaking, and Rollo realized they had overreacted. The building was not about to fall down. But what was happening?

Rollo pointed at Fawkes. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘We’ll investigate. The rest of you, stay quiet.’

He led Fawkes outside and around the building. The noise had stopped, but Rollo thought it must have come from roughly where their tunnel ran.

At the back of the building, a row of windows ran along the upper storey, lighting the debating chamber. In the middle of the row was a small door opening on to a wooden exterior staircase: it was not much used, for the grand entrance was on the other side. Under the staircase, at ground level, was a double wooden door that Rollo had hardly noticed before. If he had thought about it, he would have assumed that it gave access to the kind of storeroom where gardeners kept spades. Now for the first time he saw both doors wide open. A carthorse stood patiently outside.

Rollo and Fawkes stepped through the doorway.

It was a store, but it was huge. In fact, Rollo guessed, it was probably the same length and width as the debating chamber directly above. He was not quite sure because the windowless vault was dark, illuminated mainly by the light coming through the doorway. From what he could see, it looked like the crypt of a church, with massive pillars curving up to a low wooden ceiling that must form the floor of the room above. Rollo realized with dismay that the tunnellers had probably been hacking through the base of one of those pillars. They were in even more danger of collapse than he had feared.

The room was mostly empty, with odd pieces of timber and sacking lying around, and a square table with a hole broken through its top. Rollo immediately saw the explanation for the noise: A man whose face was black with dust was shovelling coal from a pile onto a cart. That was the cause of the noise.

Rollo glanced at Fawkes and knew they were both thinking the same thing. If they could get control of this room, they could place their gunpowder even nearer to the king — and they could stop tunnelling.

A woman of middle age was watching the carter work. When his vehicle was loaded, he counted coins with his sooty hands and gave them to her, evidently paying her for the coal. She took the coins to the doorway to examine them in the light before thanking the man. Then, as the carter backed his horse into the shafts of the cart, the woman turned to Rollo and Fawkes and said politely: ‘Good day to you, gentlemen. Is there something I can do for you?’

‘What is this room?’ Rollo asked.

‘I believe it used to be the kitchen, in the days when banquets were served in the grand chamber above. Now it’s my coal store. Or it was: spring is coming and I’m getting rid of my stocks. You may like to buy some: it’s the best hard coal from the banks of the river Tyne, burns really hot—’

Fawkes interrupted her. ‘We don’t want coal, but we’re looking for somewhere to store a large quantity of wood. My name is John Johnson, I’m caretaker of the Wardrobe Keeper’s apartment.’

‘I’m Ellen Skinner, widow and coal merchant.’

‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs Skinner. Is this place available to rent?’

‘I’ve got it leased for the rest of the year.’

‘But you’re getting rid of your stock, you say, because spring is coming. Few people buy coal in warm weather.’

She looked crafty. ‘I may have another use for the place.’

She was feigning reluctance, but Rollo could see the light of greed in her eyes. Her arguments were no more than negotiating tactics. He began to feel hopeful.

Fawkes said: ‘My master would pay well.’

‘I’d give up my lease for three pounds,’ she said. ‘And you’d have to pay the landlord on top of that — four pounds a year, he charges me.’

Rollo suppressed the impulse to say eagerly: It’s a bargain. The price did not matter, but if they were seen to be throwing money around, they would attract attention and, perhaps, suspicion.

Fawkes haggled for the sake of appearance. ‘Oh, madam, that seems too much,’ he said. ‘A pound for your lease at most, surely.’