The Desperate remedy hg-1 Read online

  'And you're a fool. You've chased every fashion and innovation the world could offer, without thought, without sensitivity and without feeling. You've lived your life as if life itself was created only for you, and for your enjoyment.'

  Tresham looked up, startled.

  'Granted, you seem to love your wife as much as you love anyone except yourself, but even that's not much. I believe you're one of nature's traitors. A spy. A double agent…'

  'My father was a pompous old fool.' There was defiance, a cruel arrogance in Tresham's eyes. As well as a capacity for a very quick recovery. 'He spent thousands on vainglorious buildings. What matter if some of that money was diverted to my vainglory? At least I was a living thing, not a thing of cold brick and stone! For him I feel no guilt.'

  'I'm sure you don't,' said Gresham. 'But now you'll turn traitor for me.'

  'And why should I do that?'

  'For self-interest, as you've done everything in your life. Because if I know that your friends are about to behave most dangerously, so will others know, and you're too selfish to wish to be dragged down with them. Because I'll give you a great deal of money. And because I'll kill you if you don't.'

  'How much money?'

  Gresham told him. His eyes opened wide.

  'Can you prove to me you have that much money?'

  Gresham tossed a purse on to the table. It shivered under the weight. Tresham pulled it open, let the gold coins run through his fingers. Gresham felt rather than heard Jane's disapproval from behind him.

  'Do you have to give good money to such a… stench of a man?' Jane had asked. She had never quite got used to, and never quite brought herself to believe, how much Gresham was worth. He saw money as a tool. She saw it as security.

  Tresham's mind had been focussed by the gold. Perhaps here there was real profit, as well as mere survival.

  'If my… friends are as indiscreet as you say, what if their ship breaks up and they're cast on the shore while I'm still inside it?'

  'If needs be, you'll be spirited out of the Tower and sent off to France.'

  'You can do that?' Disbelief mingled with wonder caught Tresham's voice. The sheer weight of gold had shocked him.

  'Yes. Enough bargaining. How much do you already know of what your friends are planning?'

  There are moments in life when huge crossroads come to bear in one time and in one place, not just on the life of one human, but on the life of countless thousands. A decision taken one way, and history spins instantly down one road, making that road seem the inevitable, the only choice. Yet there are countless other roads, and but for one decision, one moment frozen in time, the inevitable might never have happened. Without realisation, without seeing a tiny fraction of all the roads that might have been, in a filthy hovel, Francis Tresham chose his road, and in so doing chose the road for countless other souls. There was no priest there to sanctify or bless the act, no ritual to clothe and comfort the deed, no scribe ready to record a laundered version for later generations. There was only a man dressed in black with a neat white ruff and piercing eyes.

  Tresham sat back, reached forward for wine as if daring Gresham to deny him.

  'I know Robin Catesby has some idea to remove the Government and to bring in Catholic rule to England. He and the others have been talking for years. We've all been talking. Yet we've done nothing. Until now. Those names you mentioned. They've been meeting, all of them, more even than normal. There's talk, gossip. Whatever this plan is, it has the women all a-twitter, and the priests looking like a woman had been elected Pope. I know no details. Catesby's sworn me to secrecy. He told me it was safer if I knew nothing that could be tortured out of me, but that my time would come. He told me that he must keep me warm for the fire that would break out later. I think he's nervous of me.'

  'You mean your friends don't think you're trustworthy?'

  Tresham shrugged, carelessly.

  An interesting young man, Gresham thought. Not without courage — the trick with the table would have worked with someone of less experience and speed. The crack on the head and the kick to the prospects of the next Tresham heir must still be causing him considerable pain, as would the shock of realising that his secret was in the hands of a potential enemy, yet he had recovered quickly, was thinking on his feet. He was offering no emotional pleading, no excuses. He was scum, thought Gresham. Will Shadwell with money and some breeding. An adventurer, a wanton.

  'How do I know you'll pay me the rest?'

  'I will,' said Gresham. 'It's as certain that I'll pay you if you spy for me as it's certain I'll kill you if you don't. Anyway, in the gospel, even Judas was paid.'

  How would he take that hit?

  Tresham blinked, but recovered. 'Without Judas, Christ might have lived. And if that had been true, we would have been deprived of all the bishops and prelates the world has ever seen. How could we have lived deprived of such comfort? Perhaps even Judas was sent from Heaven.'

  Witty, too, thought Gresham, in a clumsy sort of way. His victim was speaking again.

  'Who are you? For whom or for what do you work? Are you one of Cecil's men?'

  'Be careful,' said Jane from her corner, 'unless you want the other side of your head broken, and more besides!'

  'No,' said Gresham, 'I'm not one of Cecil's men. I'm someone who sees a torrent of blood falling on the heads of innocent and guilty alike. I can't stop that blood. I can, perhaps, limit it.'

  'How can I know that? You're asking me to trust my life to you, without even a name I can call out should I die doing your will.'

  'Then best make sure you don't die. And best make sure not to betray me. It's not good for those who seek to do so.'

  'That I do believe. What do you want from me, if I'm asked to join whatever is planned? Just to betray my friends? Or to kill someone?' Neither prospect seemed to alarm Francis Tresham.

  'Your friends have betrayed themselves already. I suspect they're like you, dead men merely waiting the fall of the executioner's axe. As for the rest of it, I want information.' Gresham felt like adding that whatever he asked for and received, its aim would be to get as few killed as possible. That might make it less attractive for Tresham. He kept silent.

  'There's something I've not told you,' Tresham said, reaching another decision. He had adapted to the new circumstances with ferocious speed, thought Gresham. 'I'm bidden to dinner with Robin Catesby next week. At William Patrick's ordinary, The Irish Boy, on the Strand.'

  'Who else goes?'

  Tresham reeled off some names. One of them was Ben Jonson, the playwright, another the Catholic peer Lord Mordaunt.

  'There'll be another guest. Myself.'

  'How so? Do you want me to ask for another invitation?'

  'No. How I get there is my concern. All that's required of you is to give no sign of recognition at the dinner. This Catesby,' said Gresham, 'describe him to me.'

  Mannion escorted Tresham back to his lodgings, following a few paces behind. Francis Tresham had suddenly become a very valuable commodity. Gresham stayed with his other valuable commodity.

  'I was right,' said Jane, 'I didn't like him at all.' He had leered at Jane as he left. 'I'd hate to be a woman in his power.'

  Gresham needed to meet Catesby face to face. The man described by the informers and the man described by Francis Tresham was a larger-than-life figure, a maniac preacher with the capacity to lift people off their seats and brand them to his cause. Yet Gresham had known such people who were pure charlatans, whose bravado vanished at the first hint of reality. Was Catesby such a person, weaving a huge web of intrigue to feed a massive pride, a vessel of much noise and no substance? Or did he have the power to mount an uprising, to knock settled government off its perch and into the raging seas of rebellion and unrest?

  Gresham had to see this Catesby, had to meet him, had to taste the flavour of the man in the flesh.

  So it was that there was an extra guest at dinner in The Irish Boy.

  Robert Catesby
waited outside Harrowden, his horse restless, shaking its head and pawing the ground. It was as if the animal picked up the unease of its master. Tom Bates looked questioningly at his master, to ask if he wished Bates to take the horse walking round the yard. Catesby shook his head.

  Everard Digby was taking an unconscionably long time to say farewell to his wife and children, he thought. It was not as if they were riding to the ends of the world. It was only some fifteen miles from Harrowden to Gayhurst. They had all gathered at Harrowden, both the Vaux women, the new Lord Vaux, the other women and the priests and all the other band of wittering folk. They thought, him hot-headed and rash, but he had the sense to realise how dangerous these gatherings were so soon after the pilgrimage to Flintshire had wound its very public way through the marches.

  Digby — Sir Everard Digby — had also been one of the company at Harrowden, which was why Catesby had invited himself to attend. Yet the moment to get Digby on his own, to broach the plot and the vital part Digby had to play in it, never seemed to present itself. In desperation, Catesby had hinted at how much the party would enjoy a stay at Gayhurst, Digby's home, after the dilapidated state of Harrowden. When the ever-innocent Digby had agreed with his usual enthusiasm, it had been easy for Catesby to suggest that the two old friends might ride on ahead, to check that all was ready to receive the new guests at Gayhurst, or Gothurst as it was sometimes known.

  Catesby saw all people through the mirror of his own soul. He had seen for years how the power and the charm he could direct on to his fellow men and women would eat away at their reserve and caution, however hard they tried to resist it, and make them as clay in his hands. For most of his life luring people into the web of his personality had been a game, a pleasure to put alongside hunting, gambling and, latterly, bedding a pretty woman.

  Yet he felt uneasy over his final recruits. Francis Tresham was a wild and an angry thing, a man with no real belief that Catesby could anchor on to. Yet Catesby had always known that Tresham would also acquire a great deal of wealth on the death of his father, something which all along had made him an attractive proposition. Well, he would clinch it in London and then at Clerkenwell. The need for money was too pressing to allow for any delay, and once sworn in Tresham, like all the others, would have too much to lose by betrayal.

  Everard Digby was a different proposition. Catesby needed him not only for his money, but for his personality as well. One of Digby's attractions was his innocence. Another was his staunch Protestant background. He had been converted by the priest Gerard, who not only behaved and dressed like a gentleman but, thought Catesby, actually believed he was one. Father Gerard had caught Digby somehow when he was ill, and used his panic to show him the true path. Amusingly, he had converted Mary, Digby's wife, entirely separately, with neither of the pair knowing of the other's conversion. It was typical of Gerard to keep the news from them and enjoy their consternation at the discovery.

  It was that radiant innocence, that wholesomeness that Catesby needed. Everard was not only known at Court. He was feted as one of its rising stars. He looked like a God, and he rode a horse as if he had been sewn to it in the womb. He was an excellent swordsman and, by all accounts, a brilliant musician, though the latter was something Catesby had never acquired the taste for. Someone had to invest Coombe Abbey and take away the Princess Elizabeth. If it was a rat-arsed Tom Wintour, John Grant with a face that looked like it had come from Hell or a drunken Thomas Percy who broke in to Coombe House to take the Princess Elizabeth, the ser-vants would as like fight to the death as do the decent thing and surrender before anyone got hurt, reckoning they were dead already. The Princess Elizabeth was only a girl after all, and too much fear could cause God knew what complications with her. Didn't girls who thought their virtue was threatened throw them' selves off high walls? Any girl with half her wits about her seeing Wintour, Grant or Percy coming towards her would know she was going to get more than a handshake. Yet if Digby was the attacker there might well be no fight at all. He was a Court favourite, a knight and one of the new King's Gentlemen Pensioners, known as a family man through and through, and with a visage that could calm a raging bull. Princess Elizabeth was no use to Catesby or to Catholicism skewered on a blade or cast down into a ditch. Why, Digby's charm might even keep the truth away from her about what had happened to her mother and father for some crucial hours. All the more likely if Digby himself did not know the truth — or at least, not the whole truth.

  Why should Digby throw away a beautiful wife, a beautiful family and some of the best prospects in the country to join a wild plot? Catesby smiled to himself as Digby came pelting down the steps to his waiting horse, full of apologies and orders to his men. Beneath the sweet innocence the world saw in Sir Everard Digby, Catesby saw a mulish determination and stubbornness where it came to religion.

  They set off along the deserted road, Tom Bates riding behind and carefully out of earshot. For a while they let the horses have their heads. It was as if they could not wait to shed the inactivity of the night in the stables, the pounding of their hooves driving the stable dust out of their bones and the remnants of the night out of their riders' bodies.

  'Digby, old friend, will you do something to please me?'

  They had reined in by the side of a brook that was almost a trickle, but which in a month would be roaring like a mini-torrent.

  'I'd give my life to please you, Robin. You know that.'

  'Will you swear an oath of secrecy to me? An oath that on all that's holy, and on all that you hold holy, you'll never reveal what I say to any living soul on earth?'

  The ever-present smile on the youthful face of Everard Digby had gone now. There was still the flush of outrageous good health to his face, a face that had been full of happiness and contentment at his fine mount, the fine October morning and the excitement of riding with his friend. A frown of uncertainty caused little-used lines to crinkle in his face.

  'I do so swear. You have my word as a gentleman. But why…'

  ‘I’ve asked you to swear a simple corporal oath, old friend. The others, the others who're sworn to secrecy, they've had to swear and seal the oath with the blessed sacrament. It's a measure of the faith I have in you, you who've always been special to me, that I need no more than your word as a gentleman. Here…' Catesby produced his dagger from his belt. A fine silver inlay, its hilt formed the sign of the Cross, 'swear, here on this dagger. Swear you'll be secret. Swear you'll be silent.'

  They made a strange tableau that fine October morning, two finely horsed gentlemen etched against the skyline, the luxury of their lives a mystery to any peasant who might have seen them, imagining some joke or jest to be passing between them as they rested their horses by water.

  'I swear,' said Digby, nervous now, but laying hand on the hilt. How cold it felt.

  The pair moved on, the ever-present Bates behind them.

  'Do you believe in me? Do you believe that I see things others don't see, understand things others don't understand? Do you?'

  'Why, yes, of course…' Digby was nervous, unsettled. 'You know I've always looked up to you above all others, Robin. Wasn't I one of the first to recognise and tell you that you were special?'

  Catesby put out a hand and stopped Digby's horse. It snorted, pushing its head up and down, irritated to be halted.

  'Digby, I'm God's messenger. I have known it for years. God is working through me. Do you understand? Do you believe in me?'

  He had stopped so the sun was directly behind him, and perhaps the threatening summer shower and the humidity was responsible for the faint aura that seemed to glow round Catesby's head and shoulders.

  Everard Digby felt the hot tears scorch his eyelids, and a mixture of embarrassment, fear and awe caused him to stumble in his words.

  'I… I do believe in you, Robin. You've always been so certain, always known best… yes, perhaps it is God I hear speaking through your mouth… I… I…' The hot tears broke their confine and flooded down his
face.

  'Sssh,' said Catesby, taking his hand and laying it gently across Digby's mouth, as if he were a kind father soothing a baby. 'And listen to me. We plan to destroy the King and his minions. We've powder stacked beneath the Lords, primed and ready. On the day when Parliament is opened, when the King and his heir, when Cecil and his crew, when all those who've oppressed the True Faith are gathered under the one roof, we'll light a fire that won't be extinguished until God's rule is again dominant in England. We'll blow them all to Hell. Even as the blast is happening we'll seize the Princess Elizabeth, and ride through the Midlands and west, raising thousands to add to the three hundred we've assembled. Percy will bring his men down from the north, the Spanish troops in Dover will throw off" their idleness and march to Rochester, strangling the Thames and London's life blood. From the south will come the Catholics of Europe…'

  It is doubtful if Digby heard beyond the first half of Catesby's words. The colour drained from his face. His hands clutched at the horse's reins so hard as to make the animal jump and slither in protest. It was not the movement of his horse that made him put a hand on his pommel, but the sudden wave of sickness and fear that came over him. He stumbled into words.

  'This is… strange beyond belief. It's a terrible thing, a terrible thing. You ask for my support…'. 'I demand your support.' Catesby leant over to his friend, driving hard with his voice as his chin jutted forward and his voice rose. 'This is no fancy, no boy's play. This is God's work, I know it, a blast that will echo up to Heaven and down to Hell! There can be no-one on the sidelines in this. You're in, or you're a coward. Are you a coward?'

  Digby was too young and too spoilt to see that he was being goaded by the accusation of cowardice, goaded into not thinking.

  'I'm no coward!' The cry was drawn out of him, as if from a drowning man at the bottom of a deep well. Catesby gave him no time to relent.

  'You'll join us then? You'll risk your life for your faith? The faith you've so newly found? Or will you give it up as easily as it came to you? Are you a Christian, or do you simply worship at the altar of ease arid comfort, saying the words but denying the duty of faith? Is your belief real, or is it false coin?'