Tresham's heart was racing, his whole body pounding. He sat down heavily, drank deeply.
'We can try and warn some of them,' said Catesby. 'In dangerous times all men face grave dangers.'
'Money. I'll give you money.'
Catesby got to his feet, ready to embrace Tresham.
'No, not money to further this idiocy. Money to go away.' Catesby frowned. 'At least let this Parliament sit itself out, let's see what it does, what acts it passes. Who knows if the rumours are nothing but noise? Take a hundred pounds, take more. Take yourself and your hot-headed friends off to the Spanish Netherlands. Take time to think, and watch.'
'And leave thirty or more barrels of powder sitting under the Lords' chamber? Risk removing it, being discovered? To be hung, drawn and quartered on a public scaffold for not having blown our enemies to Hell? Surely not, cousin, surely not.'
Catesby was chiding him, as he might a child who had made a wrong translation.
'So, are you on our side, or a traitor to it?'
The irony of being called a traitor by a man who was about to blow up England's Government was not lost on Tresham. The heart of him wanted to cut and run, to leave the whole damned business behind him. Yet his head told him it was of no use. He had been so close to these men that he would be swept up and hung when news of it leaked out, as it surely would. This meeting with Catesby had sealed his fate, he realised. If they could condemn Walter Raleigh, what chance had he? Besides, he thought as caution tugged at the heels of his flying imagination, his only way out might be his interrogator, the gentleman with the piercing eyes and beautiful… whore? Consort? Even wife? From now on, whatever he did, he would be seen as one of the conspirators. He looked into Catesby's eyes, and realised that he had never truly known him. If he denied the conspiracy he could not even be certain that Catesby would not kill him. His calm was more terrifying than his anger would ever have been.
'You've made me a part of your confounded plot. I supped with you last week, and now I'm dined here. Laying a trail, are you, one even the stupidest hound could follow? I've known you all my life. If your plot fails, do you think any of us will escape? You've hooked me to your line, cousin, without me even knowing there was metal in the water.'
'So are you on our side, or a traitor to it?' Catesby's tone was mild, but relentless.
'I'm a coward in your cause, Robin. Nothing but a bad cause can make me a coward.'
It was starting to get dark when he flung out of Lord Stourton's house and struggled through the streets of Clerkenwell. The summer's dust and two-foot-deep iron ruts had been replaced with clinging mud and filth that threatened to go over the top of even long boots, or suck them off the feet that wore them. He found the sign of The Mermaid and doing as he had been bidden asked for the room kept by Mr Robin Cecil. The innkeeper, a surly figure, called out a tap boy and sent him to guide Tresham. He left him outside a first-floor room. Tresham knocked. There was silence. He looked around him. The wooden balcony which ran round the three sides of the inn, facing inwards into the yard, was empty. The inn seemed near deserted. Those who had colonised Clerkenwell had enough money to keep a full table at home, without need of the inn. He knocked again. Silence. He tried the door. It was open. The room inside was bare, cold. No lights, no sign of anyone having been there in days. Leaving the door swinging on its hinges, he went down the rickety steps, and out into the increasingly gloomy late afternoon. 'Your news?'
He jumped and had his sword half out of the scabbard before he recognised the figure in black.
‘Not here, surely?' Tresham stuttered. Something like a grin flickered across the face of his interrogator. He led Tresham to another room on the other side of the yard. Inside there were the remnants of a meal, a good meal as far as Tresham could see. And the woman, together with the huge man Tresham had seen before. Without a word the ox of a servant began to clear, assisted by the woman. There was an extraordinary relationship between the three of them. Master, servant and whore? Man, wife and servant? Friends? Coconspirators themselves in some plot he could only imagine? There was an ease between them that dismissed hierarchy, an intuitive understanding so at times they hardly needed to speak to each other to understand.
Tresham sat down on a stool, took the offered wine.
'I know what it is they plan.'
Without a word being spoken Tresham heard the other two draw near.
'Speak,' the dark man said.
Tresham took a deep breath. 'My cousin has stacked thirty-six barrels of prime gunpowder beneath the Lords' Chamber at Westminster. It's in a cellar, hired by Thomas Percy, hidden under firewood. They plan to blow up Parliament, at the State opening, killing the King, the Prince, Lords, Commons and all. Three weeks. Three weeks from now. November the fifth.'
There was a gasp from Jane, and even from the normally stalwart Mannion., Gresham sat like stone in his chair.
'Is this… serious? Will they do this thing?' he asked, after a long pause.
'It's serious. They'll do it.' Tresham was warming to his theme, feeling strangely more at home with this man and his woman and his servant than he had with his brother-in-law and with Catesby. 'The powder's there, placed by a man they brought over from Europe on Stanley's recommendation, one Guido or Guy Fawkes. My cousin Percy's a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The house is hired in his name, with this Fawkes masquerading as his servant. John or Jack Johnson, I think they call him. They mean to do it. The plan is to kidnap the Princess Elizabeth from Coombe House, and put her on the throne.'
'They're mad!' Gresham spoke almost in a whisper.
'I said as much, but to no avail. There's no reason in my cousin.'
'Who else is involved?'
'Those you know of. Some others you don't know. Is it necessary I give their names?'
'I doubt very much that I'm the one who will do them the greatest harm.'
'Over and above the ones you know? Ambrose Rookwood. Everard Digby. Tom Bates, Catesby's servant. That's all I know.'
"No nobility?' Gresham asked, with sudden interest. 'Who is to be the Protector if this succeeds? Who's driving it? What about Northumberland?'
'He was mentioned through Thomas Percy. Apparently Tom has given Robin his word that Northumberland's hordes will come streaming down once the Parliament is blown to Hell and backwards. Yet it could be bombast, from that man of all men. None others of true quality were mentioned by Robin. For God's sake, man, Stourton's married to one of my sisters, as is Monteagle! These are my family.’
Family has never meant very much to you before, thought Gresham.
'May I speak?' It was Jane. Gresham nodded.
'What good will come of it? Why can they think your religion will be helped by this… this slaughter?'
In a tired voice Tresham explained the Spanish troops, the English Regiment and again the hoped-for involvement of the Earl of Northumberland.
Gresham got up and paced the room. His tension was clear.
'It makes no sense. Northumberland hardly knows his northern lands, never mind commanding enough loyalty from his minions up there to let them come down and put their heads on a block.'
'It don't always need blue blood to shed plenty of the red kind. Commoners can kill as well.' Mannion spoke, and Gresham swung round to him.
'But commoners need a leader. Even the Peasants had Wat Tyler,' responded Gresham.
'Is Catesby such a leader?' It was Jane who spoke the words. They hung in the air.
'Could it be so? That Robin sees himself hailed as Protector? Surely no…' Tresham was aghast, unwilling to be convinced of what his heart told him.
'Lucifer thought he could defeat God and be hailed in Heaven,' said Jane. 'Why should his works on earth have any less pride to them?'