He saw Wintour stop and listen to a group of excited men in the street, and then followed him as he headed down King Street. There a crude barrier had been erected across the road, and a soldier barred his way. Wintour showed immense control, his shrugging manner, his easy craning of his head to look down the street perfectly those of the idle man caught up in a flood of gossip, speculation and interest.
Or was his gazing down the street simply the act of the vacuous onlooker? What was it that he so clearly wished to gain sight of? Whatever it was, he was unwilling to give it up. He walked round almost the whole perimeter of the Palace of Westminster, but there was a pattern to his ramblings, Gresham noticed, always returning to the one spot.
Whynniard's house. The phrase came back to Gresham from something Tresham had said. The plotters had started by hiring a house in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster, a house owned by John Whynniard. They had started a tunnel from there, Tresham had said, but given up the idea as beyond their physical and technical skills. That was when the cellar under the Lords had become vacant, allowing them to ditch the unfinished tunnel.
There it was. Whynniard's house. Gresham had been sufficiently interested when Tresham had mentioned the house to walk past it himself, and keep a watcher on it for a week. It was shuttered, empty. Yet now the empty house seemed to be the common denominator in Tom Wintour's appallingly dangerous trek round Westminster, even though the cordon thrown round Westminster meant he was unable to get closer than a stone's throw to-it.
A soldier was starting to look suspiciously at Wintour. He had stopped for the third time in the same spot, the one nearest the house. Without seeming to notice, Wintour began to melt towards the back of the crowd, breaking off from it and heading in the direction of the livery stables when Gresham knew he kept his horse. The house, thought Gresham, might repay some attention. But now his most urgent aim was to keep up with Tom Wintour. Had the plotters dispersed? Or had they run to some assembly point, from where they would try to rouse the nation? The game was still being played, and Gresham guessed the next rounds would be decided out of London.
'You will leave us!' Cecil spoke with a fierce intensity, hating the dullness of the guards as they looked fearfully back at him. They were below ground level, the dismal, dark room set into the very foundations of the White Tower. He knew what the guards were thinking. Leave Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, alone with this blackguard, this Devil on earth, this Guy Fawkes… fear of what would happen to them if the Chief Secretary was attacked fought for a brief moment with fear of the Chief Secretary. Fear of Cecil won. They backed away, bowing. Cecil closed the door. The bottom of it grated on the filthy floor.
Fawkes was huddled on the floor, rubbing his shoulder where the guards had hurled him to the ground. His head was badly gashed where he had been thrown down, the blood half-dried, fresh seeping through the caked residue. The cell was lit by the flames of a rough torch hung in an iron bracket. Even by its light the wetness on the walls glistened and sparkled on the five-hundred-year-old stone.
'Why did you betray me?' Fawkes's voice was rough, but steady enough. Cecil was caught off guard. It should not be Fawkes, the prisoner, opening this conversation.
'I did not betray you!' hissed Cecil through clenched teeth. The cold was penetrating even through the thickness of his rich cloak. 'You were betrayed by the fool who brought the orders for the search forward by an hour.'
'My Lord, we had a bargain.' There was fear in Fawkes's voice, but also resolution, and a tone Cecil could not quite track down.
'The terms and conditions appear to have changed very significantly!' he snapped.
'You'll have to have me testify, my Lord,' said Fawkes. The blow to his head must have disorientated him. He spoke in starts, as if suffering from momentary losses of concentration. 'I think it wouldn't be in your Lordship's interest to have me testify the truth.'
Fawkes's body was shaking now with the cold, Cecil noted with satisfaction.
'Many better than you have died in this Tower, without word and without testimony,' said Cecil, looking with loathing at Fawkes. 'Many have screamed for weeks in this Tower before they welcomed the sweet release of death. Have a care what you threaten.'
'No,' said Fawkes, 'have a care what you threaten.' His teeth were chattering now. 'If someone knows enough of your plans to bring the time of the search forward an hour, then someone knows enough of your perfidy to place you, my Lord the Earl of Salisbury, in this Tower, to die or to scream for your death alongside me. You need me, you need me to give a confession that will confirm your version of events, to name your other conspirators. If I stand firm, my Lord, many can challenge your honour's actions. None can prove them false.'
How grating was that accent of Yorkshire, how ludicrous the Spanish lilt laid over it.
'As you seem so much in control,' Cecil said as his eyes flicked over the manacles that chained Fawkes's feet to the wall, 'you will certainly be able to tell me what you wish me to do.'
Fawkes was shivering heavily now, his arms clasped round himself in a feeble attempt to keep warm.
'Move me to a secret chamber, a chamber with warmth and food. Many who have been tortured here have never been heard. Now may one be tortured who never was. Put out that I was steadfast, then that I was put to the torture. Write me a confession, what you will. I'll testify to your plot, as you'll have me do.'
'And then?’
'And then I shall die, weakened so far by the unspeakable pain you put me to that my constitution gave in. Here, in this Tower. Out of sight. And you will get me to France.'
There was something of desperation in Fawkes's voice. As well there might be. Cecil's mind was racing.
A live, testifying Fawkes would be an asset, if he testified correctly. The Keeper of the Tower, Waad, had incriminated Mary Queen of Scots. Hiding the nature of what was happening to Guy Fawkes was a mere biting-on compared to the meals that man had eaten. As for France, it was a long journey from London to Dover and across the Channel. A long and dangerous journey.
'Guards!' Cecil shouted. 'This man is no good to us dead with cold. Take him to a chamber with fire in it — warming fire, not the torturer's brazier! And keep his legs in chains!' he said viciously, as he left to discuss matters with Sir William Waad.
Robert Wintour had been having supper with Catesby's mother. Catesby had determined to tell his mother the truth before riding on to Dunchurch, but as he sat on his sweating horse outside his home he felt for the first time a chill wind blow through die heat of his self-belief. He could not face his mother, not now. He sent Tom Bates to summon Wintour to a field outside the house. Robert Wintour had always been a baleful recruit at best, unlike his firebrand younger brother. Now he was totally downcast.
'We should surely throw ourselves on the King's mercy,' he said, 'and with God's grace some mercy might be shown.'
Catesby hardly bothered to answer.
'There will be no mercy. We must ride on to Dunchurch, to meet with the company. Only then can we decide.' He did not give a single backward glance to the house under whose roof his mother fretted.
There were over a hundred people gathered in and around The Red Lion. Brothers, cousins, relations, younger sons of Catholic families, all had gathered. Catesby had hoped for more, at least a hundred and fifty. Yet even now it might be enough. A babble of voices greeted Catesby's arrival. His heart began to beat faster, as it always did when he stood in front of a crowd. The blood began to speed through his veins. He held his hand up to command silence.