Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

He looked thoughtful. He was at the delightful age where anything seemed possible.

But she wanted him to behave himself at New Castle. ‘Be polite,’ she said as they approached. ‘Don’t argue with Uncle Bartlet. You’re here to make friends, not enemies.’

‘Very well, grandmother.’

She was not sure he had taken her warning to heart, but she had done her best. A child will always be what he is, she thought, and not what you want him to be.

Her son, Earl Bartlet, welcomed them. In his forties now, he was freckled like Margery’s father, but he had modelled himself on Bart, who, he thought, was his father. The fact that Bartlet was in truth the result of rape by Earl Swithin had not completely poisoned the relationship between mother and son, miraculously. While Jack explored the castle, Margery sat in the hall with Bartlet and drank a glass of wine. She said: ‘I hope Swifty and Jack get to know one another better.’

‘I doubt they’ll be close,’ said Bartlet. ‘There’s a big age gap between twelve and twenty.’

‘I bumped into your Uncle Rollo in London. He’s staying in a tavern. I don’t know why he doesn’t use Shiring House.’

Bartlet shrugged. ‘I’d be delighted if he would. Make my lazy caretaker do some work for a change.’

A steward poured Margery more wine. ‘You’ll be heading up to London yourself later this year, for the opening of Parliament.’

‘Not necessarily.’

Margery was surprised. ‘Why not?’

‘I’ll say I’m ill.’ All earls were obliged to attend Parliament, and if they wanted to get out of it, they had to say they were too ill to travel.

‘But what’s the real reason?’

‘I’ve got too much to do here.’

That did not make sense to Margery. ‘You’ve never missed a Parliament, since you became earl. Nor did your father and grandfather. It’s the reason you have a house in London.’

‘The new king has no interest in the views of the earl of Shiring.’

This was uncharacteristic. Bartlet, like Bart and Swithin, would normally voice his opinion — loudly — without asking whether anyone cared to hear it. ‘Don’t you want to oppose any further anti-Catholic legislation?’

‘I think we’ve lost that battle.’

‘I’ve never known you to be so defeatist.’

‘It’s important to know when to fight on — and when to stop.’ Bartlet stood up. ‘You probably want to settle into your room before dinner. Have you got everything you need?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ She kissed him and went upstairs. She was intrigued. Maybe he was not like Bart and Swithin after all. Their pride would never have allowed them to say things like I think we’ve lost that battle. They would never admit that they might have been in the wrong.

Perhaps Bartlet was growing up.

The most difficult and dangerous part of Rollo’s plan came when he had to buy thirty-six barrels of gunpowder and bring them to Westminster.

With two of his younger conspirators he crossed the river and walked to Rotherhithe, a neighbourhood of docks and shipyards. There they went to a stable and told an ostler that they wanted to rent a sturdy flatbed cart and two horses to pull it. ‘We have to pick up a load of timbers from a demolished old ship,’ Rollo said. ‘I’m going to use them to build a barn.’ Ships’ timbers were often recycled this way.

The ostler was not interested in Rollo’s story. He showed Rollo a cart and two sturdy horses, and Rollo said: ‘Fine, that’s just what I need.’

Then the ostler said: ‘My man Weston will drive you.’

Rollo frowned. He could not accept this. A driver would witness everything. ‘I’d rather drive myself,’ he said, trying not to sound agitated. ‘I have two helpers.’

The ostler shook his head. ‘If Weston doesn’t go with you, you’ll have to pay a deposit, otherwise how do I know you’ll bring the cart back?’

‘How much?’ Rollo asked for the sake of appearances — he was willing to pay more or less anything.

‘Five pounds for each of the horses and a pound for the cart.’

‘You’ll have to give me a receipt.’

When the transaction was finalized, they drove out of the stable yard and went to a firewood supplier called Pearce. There Rollo bought faggots, irregular branches tied in bundles, and billets, which were more regular split logs, also roped together. They loaded all the wood onto the cart. Pearce was curious about Rollo’s insistence on meticulously stacking the bundles on the cart in the shape of a hollow square, leaving an empty space in the middle. ‘You must be picking up another load that you want to keep hidden,’ he said.

‘Nothing valuable,’ said Rollo, as if he was afraid of thieves.

Pearce tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘Enough said.’

They drove the cart to Greenwich, where Rollo had a rendezvous with Captain Radcliffe.

Guy Fawkes had calculated the amount of gunpowder required to be sure of completely destroying the House of Lords and killing everyone in it. A gentleman who owned a pistol or an arquebus might buy a box of gunpowder for his own use, and no one would ask any questions; but there was no legitimate way for Rollo to buy the quantity he needed without arousing suspicion.

His solution was to go to a criminal.

Radcliffe was a corrupt quartermaster who bought supplies for the royal navy. Half of what he purchased never went on board a ship, but was privately re-sold by him to line his own pockets. Radcliffe’s biggest problem was hiding how rich he was.

The good thing about him, from Rollo’s point of view, was that he could not babble about the sale of gunpowder, for if he did, he would be hanged for stealing from the king. He had to keep silent, for the sake of his own life.

Rollo met Radcliffe in the yard of a tavern. They loaded eight barrels onto the cart, stacking them two high in the middle of the square of firewood. A casual observer would assume the barrels contained ale.

‘You must be expecting a war,’ said Radcliffe.

Rollo had an answer ready. ‘We’re merchant sailors,’ he said. ‘We need to defend ourselves.’

‘Indeed, you do,’ said Radcliffe.

‘We’re not pirates.’

‘No,’ said Radcliffe. ‘Of course not.’

Like Pearce, Radcliffe was inclined to believe whatever Rollo denied.

When they were done they completed the square and added wood on top, so that the secret load could not be seen even from a high window.

Then Rollo drove the cart back to Westminster. He went carefully. Crashes between wheeled vehicles were commonplace, usually leading to fistfights between the drivers which sometimes escalated into street riots. The London crowd, never slow to seize an opportunity, would often rob the carts of their loads while the drivers were distracted. If that happened to him, the game would be up. He drove so cautiously, always allowing another cart to go first, that other drivers began to look suspiciously at him.

He made it back to Westminster Yard without incident.

Fawkes was waiting and opened the double doors as they approached, so that Rollo was able to drive the cart into the storeroom without stopping. Fawkes closed the doors behind the cart, and Rollo slumped with relief. He had got away with it.

He only had to do the same thing three more times.

Fawkes pointed to a new door in the wall, dimly visible by the light of a lamp. ‘I made a passage from here to the Wardrobe Keeper’s apartment,’ he said. ‘Now we can go from one to the other without stepping outside and risking being seen.’

‘Very good,’ said Rollo. ‘What about the cellar?’

‘I’ve bricked up the tunnel.’

‘Show me.’

The two men went through the new doorway into the apartment, then down the stairs to the cellar. Fawkes had filled in the hole they had made in the wall, but the repair was visible even by candlelight. ‘Get some mud or soot and dirty the new bricks,’ Rollo said. ‘And maybe hack at them a bit with a pickaxe, so that they look as if they’ve been damaged over the years.’