I wanted to see.
Why did she make me stand opposite her? Likely because my masklessness and my eye patch would deter passersby.
The longer she painted, the more shoppers stopped to watch her. Some stood for a long while, watching and not asking questions. Finally, the cordwainer himself left his humming and his cobble work and glanced at her painting.
His humming stopped.
His smile faded.
And then he began to weep.
Emma stopped. She set down her paints and detached the canvas. When she handed it to him, he took it gingerly. He sniffed once, then muttered something to her and she shook her head, holding a palm up in refusal—of payment, likely.
The crowd hovered to ask her a few questions I couldn’t catch from my post. Emma packed up her paints, gave me a nod, and then we left the Exchange.
Not a word was spoken on our walk back to Hoxton. Her painting had brought that man to tears. How could simple colors and canvas do that? What had she painted that held such power over him?
I picked at the edge of my eye patch, the sealant now dry and crusty.
“Here, let me fix that for you.” Emma stepped into the shadow of a house and reached for my patch. I lurched back and her hand stilled. “I’ve already seen your plague. I’m not bothered. Now take off your patch.”
I barely touched it and the thing came off. Whether I wanted her help or not, I needed it. My stiff, stone skin welcomed the breeze. Even though the infected skin felt nothing, it sensed the freedom of sun and wind. Someday I wouldn’t need the patch.
Someday soon—after King James lay dead—I wouldn’t need to fear the plague any longer.
Emma sent the now-dried sealing paste off the patch with a few color words. They slipped through her lips so easily and the grey-green crumbles obeyed almost before she finished speaking.
Once the patch sat clean in her palm, she held it up to her lips and whispered so low I couldn’t catch any words. She continued like this for a full minute, but the patch didn’t move. Was she having trouble controlling it?
Her hand dipped lower and lower, as though the patch equaled the weight of a brick. Her back bowed, but she kept whispering. The patch dragged her hand down. She used her free hand to hold up the other—to resist the earthward pull.
This wasn’t normal. “Emma?”
“Go,” she said at last to the patch and it flew from her hand, fixing itself around my eye. It sealed to my skin perfectly. No itching. No tugging. And no paste. Just color power.
“How did you . . . ?” I looked at Emma. She sagged against the wall of the house. I hurried to catch her elbow before she fell. “Emma?”
“I’m . . . fine.” She got her feet, but not her strength. Her entire body trembled.
“What did you do?”
She sucked in a breath and gripped my shoulder. I held her firmly so she knew I wouldn’t let her fall. “A color Compulsion.”
“You mean . . . you mean this patch won’t come off unless you die?” That wasn’t what I wanted. That was the last thing I wanted. How would I get rid of the blasted leather once I was cured of the plague?
“Or unless you remove it.”
I breathed again.
“I told it to obey no one but you.” She braced herself with her other hand against the house wall. “Now you don’t have to worry about it falling off.”
No matter how badly she wanted to support herself, I could see her struggling even to keep her head up. So I willed my measly muscles to work and I lifted her into my arms. The basket handle cut into my forearm, but I took a breath and straightened.
“Oh. No, Thomas . . .”
“I didn’t want the patch in exchange for your health.”
She squirmed weakly. “This is normal repercussions for a Compulsion.”
“I’m taking you home.”
“Not carrying me, you’re not!” She struggled again and I let her down—both because I wasn’t sure I could physically carry her the entire way and because I certainly didn’t want to if she was determined to resist me.
Her knees buckled as her shoes hit the dirt, but I kept a strong hand under her arm. She regained her footing. It was odd seeing her weakened, especially knowing how strong her mind and will were.
But she was weak because of setting a color Compulsion to my patch—a strong action that took a lot of training and practice. And she did it for me—to help me keep my secret.
“So what did you hear?” Emma picked her way up the road back home. At least she hadn’t argued with me on that.
I kept my hand on her arm. “At the Exchange? Nothing—you were too far away for me to catch speech.”
“No.” A smile lined her response. “I mean, what did you hear of the Baron’s conversation with Henry this morning?”
Oh. Blast. A lie leapt to the tip of my tongue, but we had agreed not to lie. And I intended to be a man of my word. “They were talking about Parliament.”
“Oh, that’s all?” What had she thought they were talking about? She shook her head. “That meeting can’t come soon enough. Henry and the Baron have been arguing about it since the summons.”
I forced a dry swallow before delivering my best neutral and mildly curious tone. “When is the meeting?”
Her face turned my way ever so slightly, as though eyeing me. I pretended not to notice.
“The seventh of July.” Whether she suspected or not, she’d answered.
Dare I press my luck? “That’s soon. How often do these meetings happen?”
She shrugged. “Who knows what King James will want?”
I smiled to release the tension in my chest. I’d gotten what I needed. “Of course. Forgive my curiosity. I am intrigued by the king’s doings.”
“Curiosity causes us to seek truth. I can’t fault you for that.”
Hadn’t I said the same to Father once?
I’d need to be more careful in the future. As much as I wanted to hope in Emma’s ignorance, she was too bright. She suspected something already, but chose not to comment on it.
On the day she did choose to comment or ask about my secrets . . . That’s when I’d leave.
Fifteen
“Thomas Fawkes, you are the very oar to this plot’s dory.” Catesby clapped me on the back so hard, my lungs smarted.
We occupied the common room in his Lambeth house on the edge of the Thames. Father, Wintour, and Percy looked upon my congratulations with different expressions. Father’s the same as always—masked. Wintour’s round face provided a smile but with a logical contemplation.
Percy cracked his knuckles and didn’t even seem to notice what a stroke of success my discovering the date was. “July is too soon for us to do anything.” He fingered his Red mask. “And the mounted guards are not privy to the meetings. We’ll have to wait for the official report to know what was said.” His dark eyes lifted to mine. “Thomas will likely have to unearth the date of the next meeting as well. It could be as soon as a month or as distant as a year.”
“He can do it.” Catesby beamed. “I’ve no doubt. For now, let’s get Guido and Thomas settled in the Whynniard house. Is everything in order?”
“They can move in upon the morrow.”
It would be nice to leave the tiny rat hole of a room at the Bear. Though the Whynniard house wasn’t much bigger, it just so happened to be connected to the House of Lords—our target.
Catesby, Percy, and Wintour shuffled through some papers on the table by the fire. I remained basking in my praise, for I knew that once the feeling faded it would take another several weeks of eavesdropping and conflicted thoughts of Emma before I received another extolment.
As I stepped toward the table, Father moved to my side. Beneath his mask, barely hovering above a whisper, I caught the words, “Well done, Thomas.”
7 July 1604
“He likened himself to a god.” Percy threw a torn piece of paper onto the table—the Parliament report. Likely ripped from the market pos
t boards. The new Whynniard house had barely enough room for Father and me, let alone Percy and his rage. One room, two cots, and a small stair down to the cellar that smelled of earth and roots and Thames water.
The Whynniard house sat so near the Thames, I didn’t doubt the cellar had flooded with the putrid liquid more than once. What remained within the earthen walls once the water receded was most likely the feces of all London—rich or poor, it all smelled the same.
“A god, sir?” Father’s tone remained low. Angry.
When Percy grew incensed, his tone spiked. But when Father grew incensed, his voice dropped until it rumbled the bones of the earth.
The use of Percy’s title, sir, was our code to warn that others were about. Not only did the Scots—faithful followers of King James—currently reside a few walls down, but scattered market stalls lined the street beyond our door. The area of Westminster was a mishmash of homes, politics, hawking, and business. No spoken word was guaranteed privacy.
Eavesdropping and gossip were free, and shoppers scooped up all they could to fill the shelves of their minds when they didn’t have food to fill the shelves of their cupboards.
I picked up the report, written so common Londoners would know about King James’s comments. But it sounded as though Percy had memorized it.
“He said kings resemble God’s divine power on earth. He called his own Parliament members fools and they still bow to him! Those wretched Igniters!” Percy hurled his wide-brimmed hat across the room. It knocked over a candlestick.
Surely this absurd Parliament meeting would reveal to King James’s members—to the Baron Monteagle—that he was a wild and paranoid man. Could they not see? Calling himself a god? Perhaps his Parliament would start questioning his reign.
This could work in our favor.
“This is no different from the meeting a few months back when he referred to Keepers as outlaws,” Father said.
Percy paced, his sword swinging with every turn. “If the Igniters believe his foolish words, they will hunt Keepers with more vigilance. They will be relentless! Is there any hope for us?” He turned his wild eyes upon Father and me.
I stepped back; Father stepped forward. “Let it fuel your passion for our cause.”
“I have to serve this man, Johnson.” Even in his anger Percy remembered to keep up with Father’s pseudonym. But he didn’t seem to remember we were inside because he spat on the wood floor. I’d be the one cleaning that up later. “I have to protect him until our plans come to fruition. After he promised me—to my face—lenience for Keepers and then broke his word upon receiving the crown. On this day . . . it is too much for me.”
A loud laugh and scrape of boots from the other side of the wall silenced us all. The northern-stenched Scottish commissioners.
Percy’s chest still heaved and with each breath he seemed to boil nearer and nearer to an eruption. Even his shirt clung to his skin, wetted by his sweat. I retrieved his hat from the floor and thrust it into his hands. “You’d best get back to Gray’s Inn, sir.” Before he released his fury on the Scots and condemned us all.
He needed to sleep this off.
Percy never looked at me. He was somewhere else. But as he swept from the house, I spied his left hand slipping his Red mask from his belt.
I did not envy the men at the taverns who were unlucky enough to bet against him tonight. “Ought one of us to accompany him?” I asked Father with reluctance. “Drink might loosen his lips and he could reveal us.”
“He won’t return intoxicated. Percy is not one to drown his anger in ale.” The way Father said the words hinted toward something more sinister than a night of grog and gambling.
“You don’t think he’d . . . hurt anyone, do you?”
Father faced our single window and barely seemed to breathe, let alone move. Then, in a careful voice, “His past is not without its bloodstains.”
I joined him at the window. The grime rested too thickly for us to see out into the night. Another thing for me to clean upon the morrow. “Should we do something?”
“Our fists are no match for a rabid mutt’s teeth. We must leave a man’s actions to his own conscience.”
So we waited.
Father stood at the window as unmoving as one of the steeples above London’s bells. I watched him, barely able to see the rise and fall of his breaths. He always stayed so calm, yet I knew a fire burned in his chest.
I slipped off my boots and prepared for bed when he spoke. “I was fifteen when I decided to be a Keeper.” My hand stilled halfway to the bedcovers.
“Not far off of your age.”
I was half a year to seventeen. The age gap seemed wider to me, but I suppose looking at it from his thirties changed Father’s perspective. “I had a friend at St. Peter’s—Robert Middleton. We talked often about the Igniter and Keeper war—both raised among Igniters, but unsure whether we wanted to be one or not. The White Light had spoken to both of us by this time, but neither of us responded. Not yet.
“Then the authorities discovered that Robert’s aunt—Margaret—had converted her home into a secret refuge for Keepers. They took her to prison. And then, a few days later, they stoned her to death.”
Not even hung, but stoned. A brutal, prolonged death at the hands of countless other people. And a woman at that. I’d never heard of a woman dying for the Keeper way.
“Margaret was killed for protecting people. That was her only crime. I saw Margaret die—with stone after stone against her small skull—and I craved her level of courage, of loyalty. So that day I became a Keeper. And I have silenced the White Light since that moment.”
I tried to imagine witnessing the death of a woman like that—the aunt of a friend. I couldn’t. I’d had no friends that dear to me at St. Peter’s. “What happened to Robert?”
“He was caught and hung four years ago.” So matter of fact.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because you don’t know who you are.” He turned from the window, and though I couldn’t see his expression, I could feel it. Sad and strained and . . . disappointed. “These moments—these deaths—shaped my decision to become a Keeper. They stick in my mind like honey to a comb. I cannot shake them loose and they define me. You have none of that yet.”
His response sounded like an accusation—as though I should feel guilt for not having witnessed the brutal deaths of friends. “I am a Keeper, Father.” But the words tasted bitter as the memory of White Light’s rescue from the prison cart reentered my head. “This plot is my conviction, and with each day I grow more loyal . . . in my head at least. My heart is catching up.” I thought of the Keepers hung in the square. Just because I didn’t show my conviction the same way Father did, didn’t mean I was without conviction at all.
“I believe you, Thomas. It will come.” He returned to the window, silent and still once again.
I woke to a shout. I rubbed my good eye. Blink. Rub. Blink again. Grey light. It was not yet dawn. Father no longer stood as the window sentinel. The shout had come from outside, toward the Cotton Garden at the back of the house. Too early for market or even wharfmen. It could’ve been a drunk, but something told me otherwise.
Across the room and past the cellar I strode, keeping myself from a run.
I burst through the door and out onto the green lawn that sloped down to the banks of the Thames in time to see Father throw a very muddy and bloody Percy into the putrid waters.
I stumbled to his side as Percy emerged with a gasp. “Fawkes, you—”
“Scrub yourself clean, Percy.” Father squatted by the bank. “Before you oust us all. You’ve been a fool this night.”
I drew up short, the dark morning barely illuminating the men. Blood caked the side of Percy’s face and around his eyes . . . as though it had splashed him with his mask on.
Then I saw the mask on the bank. Covered in red splatters and strings. Most terrifying of all was the smeared shining White blood that flowed only in the ve
ins of Igniters.
Father threw the mask to Percy. “Clean this too. Then get yourself to your duties. I’ll not be back to check if your careless hide drowned. Hurry up. The shipmen will be waking. Even they won’t miss the king’s guard bathing in the Thames.”
Percy glared at Father, gripping the raised bank with one hand and his mask with the other. The current pushed against him, but he maintained his spot. As Father stomped back up to the house, I joined him. “Is he not injured? The blood . . .”
“He’s well enough.”
I wanted Percy to be hurt. I wanted the blood on his face and clothes to be his. Because if not his, I dreaded knowing whom it came from. Unless . . . unless he killed the king. I drew up short, a few strides from the house.
Was King James dead?
No noise on the streets, no bells ringing. Surely there’d be chaos if the king were dead.
“Thomas, come inside.”
I did as Father asked, not wanting to be seen in the same vicinity as Percy. “Should we leave here?” What if men came for Percy and he exposed us?
“Nay. Leaving would heighten suspicion. We continue with our duties as normal.”
So I set to scrubbing the floor of the Whynniard house and then polishing the window.
A quarter bell later, Percy walked past me with nary a word, wearing his underclothes and carrying his mask—now washed clean. He dropped the clothes on the doorstep and disappeared up the road. While Father sent them for laundering, I set to polishing Percy’s boots.
My hand swept across the leather, almost frantic. Waiting for church bells or king’s men or news. Finally, as the sun rose, the market awoke with life and chatter far louder than the morning birds and bells.
I ventured among the booths, glancing at the loaves of bread but shopping for gossip. The timber-covered market stalls left no room for breath. Traders hoarded the oxygen, casting their carefully threaded words like bait to the merchants’ wives.
“Good morn.” I nodded to a woman weaving sticks for a basket.
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