Love's Alchemy

by Bryan Crockett

There was silence for a few pulse-beats until the man hovering above Jack said in a deep, velvety voice, “Well, there’s Catholics and then there’s Catholics. And you’re not the sort we can trust.” It was the voice of a leopard at the moment a purr begins to slide into an echoing snarl.

  “Trust,” Jack said. “You mean I cannot be trusted to blow a hole in England.”

  “That’s just what I mean,” the dark man said. “And a big enough hole and a big enough blast to hoist the tyrant back to Scotland. I’m the munitions man, so I should know. On the field of battle I can plant a petard that will land a Protestant’s parts wheresoever I wish to watch them fall.”

  “Protestants at war, yes,” Jack said. “But those barrels of powder are not under a battlefield. It’s a new Parliament. Both princes will sit with the King at the opening. They’re only boys. And what of the Catholics? Will you blow up the Catholic nobles with the King? Think of the Wizard Earl. Monteagle. Northampton. Worcester. Stourton. The list goes on. And in the Commons: both houses have Catholics in them. Do they all know about the powder?”

  The stranger scoffed. “Of course they don’t. D’ye think we could risk that? None of ’em know. They’ll be martyrs to the cause, is what they’ll be. If they knew what they died for, they’d embrace it like a bride.”

  “But Father Garnet won’t let you do this.”

  “Well, now. There’s a hard one; I’ll give you that. He won’t and he will. His words say no, but his eyes say blast away. And I side with his eyes. There’ll be time enough to repent hereafter.”

  Catesby said, “Fawkes, we need to get to the undercroft. This meddler here pulled half the billets and coal away from the barrels.”

  Fawkes rubbed his beard. “Aye. We should have made him stack the wood again, and then we should have tied him to a rock and dropped him in the Thames.” Fawkes stood. “Well, he might yet find time for a swim to the bottom. Burr, if he gives you any trouble, just say the word and we’ll tell Father we dropped him in the deep by mistake.”

  Catesby laughed. “Well, Guido, you were ever loose-fingered. But let’s go cover that powder. It’s just as well we let him live awhile. If he tells us how he knew to find something by picking a lock and digging through a wood-pile, it may hap he’ll ’scape a drowning.”

  “Catesby!” Jack said with as much authority as he could muster. “You freed me from a dungeon, and now you sty me with a shackle?”

  Catesby strode into view. Looking down at Jack, he said, “I had my doubts about you from the start. I told you plain enough at Harrowden when first we met: for intelligencers and spies, I said, things will go hard. Well, they’re going hard. And they’re like to go harder.”

  Jack did not reply, but looked at Catesby as steadily as he could. Sometimes there seemed to be two of him, sometimes three ghostly Catesbys swimming, weaving, combining back into one before his eyes. Jack’s vision played these tricks but, he thought, his mind and speech were clear.

  Catesby continued, “Yet I did as I was bid. Father Garnet told me to carry a sealed message to you in the dungeon at Warwick Castle, so I carried it. But he never told me I couldn’t follow you. And where do you go? Straight to Coombe Abbey, where the Princess lies. And what do they do? They let you in. And what comes next? Messengers scatter along the roads, the house bristles with guards, soldiers pound the way to Coombe Abbey.”

  “What were you going to do, capture the Princess? Carry her to Spain? Kill her?”

  Catesby said, “Never mind what we were going to do. Here’s the question: what did Garnet tell you to do? For it seems you betrayed him in going to Coombe Abbey. Or he betrayed us all in telling you to go there. One of the two. So you were best out with it. What was in that note?”

  “Have you asked Father Garnet, Robin?”

  “Oh, I will, be sure of it. But first I mean to learn all I can from you. Give some thought to what you’d like to say, and it had best match the tale Garnet tells. It’ll be the truth from you, or you’ll find yourself lying here still when Guido here touches off the fuse. If you lie to us, then in a twinkling you’ll lie in a thousand places at once.” With the look of a man accustomed to speaking but not attending to his own words, Catesby appeared to register an epiphany. “Ha! If you lie to us, then you lie here in chains, and then you lie everywhere! That were nimbly spoken, eh, Guido? Look, Jack, I’m a poet too.”

  Fawkes smiled, but in a way that made him look at once canny, smug, and cruel. He stood. As they walked out together, Catesby clapped him on the shoulder. “What cheer, Guido? The day of liberty is at hand.” Fawkes did not react, but looked straight before him and strode through the door ahead of Catesby.

  CHAPTER 18

  When the men had left, Jack said to Burr, “So that’s Guido.”

  “That’s Guido.”

  “Well, Cecil and I agree on one thing: we’ve no great love for the man. Guido Fawkes, is it?”

  “Aye, Guy Fawkes. He travelled to Spain to tell the king there of our intent, and since then the man has styled himself a Spanish Guido and not an English Guy.”

  “But Tim, do you really wish to serve a Spanish king?”

  “Better an honest Spaniard than a Janus-faced Scot.”

  “An honest Spaniard? I think a feather will tip the balance between them. Tim, thousands will die in the blast and the bloodshed to follow. Thousands. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Believe me, Master Jack, I have thought the thing through and have settled my mind that this is the nearest way. Spain will invade, whatever we do. If the English nobles live to fight, then you will see war indeed. No, my conscience is clear. As Guido says, the nature of the disease requires a sharpish remedy.” Burr put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Just think, Master Jack: Robert Cecil’s bulging head will soon explode. You need not turn a finger to kill him yourself, and you may live still thereafter.”

  “Tim, none of this sounds like you. When did you fall in with this faction?”

  “Oh, long ago, when you were but a pup. It was Lord Burleigh, this same Cecil’s father in the bastard-queen’s reign, that dispatched my own father to his grave. I have but bided my time.”

  Jack managed to turn his head without much pain as the door opened again, and someone entered with a large armful of firewood. The man said, “Burr, Father Garnet says we’re to keep this wretch warm. I’ll watch him; Father wants to see you.”

  “Then watch him close,” Burr replied. “This miscreant knows how to pick a lock.” Burr rose, and a few seconds later the door closed again. Jack heard the new man loading the wood into the fireplace, then walking to the bedside. The man sat on the stool Fawkes had put there. Jack looked up into a face with a thin-whiskered chin and a watery, furtive look. Jack had seen him somewhere before, but he could not call to mind the time or place. Nor could he remember the man’s name. Even before the sparse-bearded man had said a word to him, Jack could see he lacked the hearty resolve of Catesby or Fawkes. Here was a man with doubts. “So,” Jack said, “you’ve conspired with these desperate men. I thought you were smarter than the rest.”

  The man eyed Jack suspiciously. “And when would you have done any thinking of any sort about me? I don’t know you.”

  “Jack Donne, if you’ve forgotten. Or if you like, John Donne. Did Father Garnet not commend me to you?”

  “Father Garnet said nothing of you but that I’m to watch you close and keep you warm. If the good father is such a friend to you, why do you lie here chained to a machine, with a lump the size of a chamber-pot on the side of your head?”

  “Why, there’s little enough to that. I but ran afoul of Catesby and Fawkes for trying to talk sense to them.”

  The man barked out a scornful laugh. “Ye’d as well try to talk sense to a brace of oxen next time, and then go home and hit yourself on the head. I warrant you’d give yourself a lesser knot.”

  Jack risked a guess: “You fought at Cadiz under Essex, did you not?”

  “Ah. Would that I had. But this same R
obin Catesby and I were cast in the Tower in ’96. The bitch-queen Elizabeth had taken sick, and Cecil gathered up some of us Catholics. Said we’d poisoned her.”

  “Did you?”

  “Didn’t have the chance, or we’d have jumped to it. But no, it was all one of Cecil’s tales. I did rise with Essex in ’01, but you know what happened there.”

  “So that’s where I remember you.”

  “You were of the Essex party?”

  “Do you not remember?” In fact Jack had been of the opposite party. In 1601 he had not yet married Anne, had still worked with the Lord Keeper. Maybe he remembered the watery-eyed conspirator from one of the Essex rebels’ trials. “I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Tresham.”

  Now the name came back: “Francis Tresham?”

  “The same.”

  Jack tried to think what he knew of the Treshams. “You’re a cousin to Lord Monteagle, are you not?”

  “Brother-in-law.”

  “Ah. A good man, Monteagle, and a good Catholic. A shame he has to go up in flames with the rest.” Jack slowly shook his head despite the pain it caused him. “Think how he’ll cry out for help, and none will arrive.”

  Tresham pulled the stool an inch or two closer, leaned forward, and spoke in a low voice: “There you have it. There’s no cause for him to die. None.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have to. You could warn him.”

  “Ah, Catesby won’t hear of it, and if Guido found out he would gut me like a fish.”

  “Does Catesby have to know? Does Fawkes?”

  Tresham narrowed his eyes in thought. After a time he said, “Monteagle’s house is in Hoxton. I can’t risk being away to warn him; Catesby and Fawkes would suspect me. And there’s this: I love Monteagle, but I owe him money. He waxes wroth in my presence. What if he holds me at Hoxton until I name others of our number? No, I cannot risk warning him. Yet I love him well, if only for my sister’s sake.”

  “Pen a message, then, and send a courier. Do not sign your name.” Tresham eyed Jack warily but did not immediately dismiss the idea. Jack pressed his advantage. “Get pen and paper,” he said. “I’ll help you with the words. You must say enough to warn him away from Parliament but not so much as to cast suspicion on yourself or any of our friends.”

  Tresham hesitated. “But how can you—”

  Jack tried not to give him time to think. “Father Garnet wouldn’t want to see Monteagle die.”

  “That much is true.”

  “Is there pen and ink hereabout?”

  “Aye.” Tresham disappeared from the room and soon came back with quill-pen, knife, ink, and paper. He said, “I promise nothing. Only to write the letter. Then I’ll let Father decide.”

  Jack said, “Of course. Now: no names on the paper. Disguise your hand, and we’ll keep the style strange. No man among us must appear suspect.” He dictated:

  My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends I have a care of your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this Parliament. For God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country where you may expect the event in safety. For though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be contemned, because it may do you good and can do you no harm. For the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the letter. And I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.

  When he had finished writing, Tresham asked, “That will keep him away? I would not for the wide world see my sister lose her husband.”

  Jack said, “It will keep him away. And we could warn other good Catholics: the Wizard Earl, Northampton, Stourton. . . .”

  Tresham pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and let out an agonized groan. He said, “Do you not think I would spare all of them if I could? But some one or other of them would betray us to Cecil, and then all our enterprise were lost. The tyrant would rule still. No, we must hold with the plan. Monteagle only. He will keep his peace. And Guido must not know of this letter. Nor Catesby.”

  Jack said, “Of course they won’t know. Ah, Monteagle: a good man and a good Catholic. That’s one be spared, at least. And think of it: there’s a godly deed you’ll carry with you all your days, and may they be long and full of plenty. But we have a little time before Parliament begins. Until then, do one thing more: pray to discern God’s will in sparing the others. That’s all I ask: only pray.”

  Tresham nodded his agreement. Jack said, “Leave the paper here, and let me talk with Father.”

  Looking stunned, relieved, and frightened all at once, Tresham laid the letter on the joint-stool. Then he left the room.

  Perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes passed before Father Garnet entered. During the interim Jack forced himself to stretch his neck and try to massage the stiffness away. The side of his head was too sore to touch, so he tried to ignore the pain there. His left eye was swollen almost shut. Garnet looked taken aback when he entered the room, as if a grotesque stranger lay where the priest had expected a friend. He crossed himself and said, “I am sorry to see you like this. Your chains are needful but for a time.”

  “Father, you know I am a godly man. These chains are not needful at all.”

  “I know. I know. But others don’t.”

  “Who? Guido? Catesby?”

  “Aye.”

  “And when did you start letting them rule a priest of the Holy Church, and a Jesuit at that?”

  Garnet looked about him as if someone would make his answer for him. Then he said, “You speak true. I will take them to task, but for a little time I must proceed with care. You of all men know how hot-blooded they can be.”

  “In other words, you fear for your own safety.”

  Garnet looked at him through pale eyes cold with accusation. “You seem to forget the depth of my steadfastness. It was I who was ripped through the bowels of that garderobe at Baddesley Clinton.”

  “And are you forgetting that an ill wind blew my way too?”

  Garnet’s glare softened a bit. “No.”

  “Well. I thank you for my release from Warwick dungeon.”

  Garnet nodded his acknowledgment, then said, “I will not deny that my safety, if not my life, hangs in the balance of late with Catesby and Fawkes. Yet that life I will turn over as frankly as a pin if the Lord so directs me. The question is not what I am willing to sacrifice but how best to manage these men. There I but exercise prudence.”

  Jack could not disagree. These Jesuits were ever artful in sifting together the mysteries of the faith and the demands of the moment.

  As if he wanted to change the subject, the priest said, “Eleanor Vaux was here last month. She brought us a powerful blessing, and she told me of all your good service when the pursuivants came. She thought you were dead, as did we all. For weeks after the pursuivants’ attack she sent parties into the wood and beyond to search for you. All they found was a shallow grave, unoccupied, but stained with much blood. We thought the worst until I learned, some fortnight past, where you lay. Within the hour I sent Catesby to work your release. Jack, you thanked me for setting you free. I thank you most humbly for all you have done.”

  “One might desire better thanks, Father, than to be knocked about the sconce and chained to a . . . what is this? A printing press?”

  “Aye. If we are to print answers to the Protestants’ published lies, if the people are to know the truth, we must have our presses. And we must move them from house to house before they are discovered.”

  “This thing must weigh as much as three or four men. And you move it?”

  “In pieces.”

  “Well. The truth, you say. Why have you seen fit to chain me to the truth?”

  “Catesby is right when he says these a
re parlous times. He thinks we must detain you for a little while. I will do what I can to mollify him and the rest, but I cannot promise much. They will be guided by me in some things but no longer, it would seem, in all.”

  Jack decided there was little to be gained in chastising the priest. “That Fawkes looks like a hard man.”

  “None harder. Yet so far he has done all as Catesby has directed. He will not listen to the orders, though, or even the counsel, of any other.”

  “Well, it is Catesby who enfetters me here. Did you know that he followed me to Coombe Abbey where the Princess lay?”

  The priest closed his eyes and let out a little groan. “So that is why he was late in returning. But why does he suspect you and not me in aiding the Princess?”

  “He suspects us both.”

  “Ah. Since his return he has stood aloof from me. Now I understand why.”

  “Well,” Jack said, “to the point. Tresham means this paper on the stool to go to Lord Monteagle, and I think it should.”

  Garnet picked up the letter and read it. “Tresham wrote this?”

  “The manner of composition is altered so no man among us will be suspected, should the letter miscarry. I am to deliver it.”

  “Tresham speaks here of a terrible blow, come Parliament. What does he mean?”

  Jack stared at the priest. “Are you telling me you do not know?”

  “I know there are foul doings afoot. I know Catesby and the rest mean some hurt to Cecil and some few of his men, but they will not confess to me how it will come. Pistols, I would guess. They have purchased several of late, and you are enchained here because he does not want you spoiling the plan.”

  “Pistols? Father, they mean to blow Parliament halfway to the moon: king, princes, nobles, commons, all. I counted thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the undercroft.”

  The priest’s eyes widened, and he crossed himself tentatively, as if he had forgotten how to do it. He said in a whisper, “No.”

  “I tell you it is so. I discovered the powder, and so Catesby and Fawkes have chained me to this machine. Set me free and I will deliver the letter to Monteagle.”