Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

One of the men standing over Fawkes kicked him in the balls, hard. Fawkes writhed in pain.

Ned understood the impetus but stopped the violence. ‘We need him conscious and talking,’ he said. ‘He’s going to give us the names of all his collaborators.’

‘A pity,’ one of the men said. ‘I’d like to beat him to death.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Ned. ‘In a few hours’ time he’ll be stretched on the rack. He’ll suffer screaming agony before he betrays his friends. And when he’s done that he’ll be hung, drawn and quartered.’ He stared at the man on the floor for a long moment. ‘That’s probably punishment enough,’ he said.

Rollo Rode through the night, changing horses when he could, and reached New Castle on the morning of Tuesday, 5 November. There he and Earl Bartlet waited anxiously for the messenger from London who would bring them the joyous news of the death of the king.

In the chapel that was part of the castle complex were dozens of swords, guns and armour. As soon as he heard that the king was dead, Bartlet would summon loyal Catholics and arm them, and they would march on Kingsbridge, where Rollo would hold a Latin Mass in the cathedral.

If something went wrong, and the news from London was not what Rollo expected, he had an alternative plan. A fast horse was standing by, and a pair of saddlebags packed with a few essentials. He would ride to Combe Harbour and take the first ship to France. With luck he would escape before Ned Willard closed England’s ports in his hunt for the gunpowder plotters.

It was almost impossible that they would hear anything on the Tuesday, but all the same Rollo and Bartlet stayed up late just in case. Rollo spent a restless night and got up at first light on the Wednesday. Had the world changed? Was England in the midst of a revolution? They would surely know the answers before the sun went down today.

They found out earlier than that.

Rollo was at breakfast with Bartlet and the family when they heard hoofbeats pounding into the compound. They all jumped up from the table, rushed through the house and ran out of the main door, desperately eager to know what had happened.

A dozen men and horses milled around the courtyard. For a moment it was not clear who was in charge. Rollo scanned the faces, looking for someone familiar. All the men were heavily armed, some with swords and daggers, others with guns.

Then Rollo saw Ned Willard.

Rollo froze. What did that mean? Had the plan gone wrong? Or had the revolution begun, and was Ned part of a desperate rearguard action by the tattered remains of the Protestant government?

Ned gave the answer immediately. ‘I found your gunpowder,’ he said.

The words hit Rollo like bullets. He felt shot in the heart. The plot had failed. Rage boiled up in him as he thought how Ned had frustrated him again and again through the years. He wanted more than anything else to get his hands around Ned’s throat and squeeze the life out of him.

He tried to suppress his emotions and think straight. So Ned had found the gunpowder — but how had he known that Rollo had put it there? Rollo said: ‘Did my sister betray me?’

‘She kept your secret thirty years longer than she should have.’

Betrayed by a woman. He should never have trusted her.

He thought of the waiting horse. Did he have a slim chance of escaping from this crowd of strong young men, reaching the stable, and riding away?

Ned seemed to read his mind. He pointed at Rollo and said: ‘Watch him carefully. He’s been slipping through my hands for thirty years.’

One of the men lifted a long-barrelled arquebus and aimed it at Rollo’s nose. It was an old gun with a matchlock mechanism, and he could see the glowing match ready to be touched to the firing pan.

At that point Rollo knew it was all over.

Earl Bartlet began a blustering protest, but Rollo felt impatient for the end. He was seventy years old and he had nothing more to live for. He had spent his life trying to destroy England’s heretical monarchy, and he had failed. He would not get another chance.

Sheriff Matthewson, grandson of the sheriff Rollo remembered from his youth, spoke to Bartlet in a firm but calm voice. ‘Let’s have no trouble, please, my lord,’ he said. ‘It won’t do anyone any good.’

The sheriff’s reasonable tones and Bartlet’s ranting both seemed to Rollo like background noise. Feeling as if he was in a dream, or perhaps a play, he reached inside his doublet and drew his dagger.

The deputy holding a gun on him said in a panicky voice: ‘Drop that knife!’ The arquebus shook in his hands, but he managed to keep it pointing at Rollo’s face.

Silence fell and everyone looked at Rollo.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ Rollo said to the deputy.

He had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but he raised the knife high, careful not to move his head and spoil the deputy’s aim.

‘Prepare to die,’ he said.

Behind the deputy, Ned moved.

The deputy pulled the trigger and the lighted cord touched the gunpowder in the firing tray. Rollo saw a flash and heard a bang, and knew instantly that he had been cheated of an easy death. At the last split-second the barrel had been knocked aside by Ned. Rollo felt a sharp pain at the side of his head and sensed blood on his ear, and understood that the ball had grazed him.

Ned grabbed his arm and took away the knife. ‘I’m not finished with you,’ he said.

Margery was summoned to see the king.

It would not be the first time she had met him. In the two years of his reign so far she had attended several royal festivities with Ned: banquets and pageants and plays. Ned regarded James as a voluptuary, interested mainly in sensual pleasure; but Margery thought he had a cruel streak.

Her brother, Rollo, must have confessed everything under torture, and therefore he would have implicated her in the smuggling of priests into England. She would be accused and arrested and executed alongside him, she supposed.

She thought of Mary Stuart, a brave Catholic martyr. Margery wanted to die with dignity as Queen Mary had. But Mary was a queen, and had been mercifully beheaded. Female traitors were burned at the stake. Would Margery be able to retain her dignity, and pray for her tormentors as she died? Or would she scream and cry, curse the Pope and beg for mercy? She did not know.

Worse, for her, was the prospect that Bartlet and Roger would suffer the same fate.

She put on her best clothes and went to White Hall.

To her surprise Ned was waiting for her in the anteroom. ‘We’re going in together,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘You’ll see.’

He was tense, wound up tight, and she could not tell whether he was still angry with her. She said: ‘Am I to be executed?’

‘I don’t know.’

Margery felt dizzy and feared she was going to fall. Ned saw her stagger and grabbed her. For a moment she slumped in his arms, too relieved to hold herself upright. Then she pushed herself away. She had no right to his embrace. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said.

He held her arm a little longer, then released her, and she was able to support herself. But he still looked at her with an angry frown. What did it mean?

She did not have long to puzzle over this before a royal servant nodded to Ned to indicate that they should go in.

They entered the Long Gallery side by side. Margery had heard that King James liked to have meetings in this room because he could look at the pictures when he got bored.

Ned bowed and Margery curtsied, and James said: ‘The man who saved my life!’ When he spoke he drooled a little, a mild impediment that seemed to go with his sybaritic tastes.

‘Your majesty is very kind,’ Ned said. ‘And of course you know Lady Margery, the dowager countess of Shiring and my wife of fifteen years.’