‘Aye, he said the same to me, telling me that he had it from a reliable source in Italy that something is brewing here in England. But we hear of plots and conspiracies being uncovered every day. Why this sudden alarm?’
‘Please, Father,’ Serena entreated. ‘I am no longer a child, so please do not treat me as such. Just this once be frank with me. I know something is about to happen, and I am deeply concerned as to the nature and seriousness of it. Considering your past record for insurrection you can hardly blame me. I know that much of what you do is for the good of the faith—but can’t you spare a thought for me…for Andrew and James? Must you persist in embroiling yourself in plotting and scheming? Must you always solve things so dramatically—so violently? Will you never trust to reason?’
‘Serena,’ Sir Henry said sharply, surprised and secretly alarmed that any action of his had brought about this unexpected outburst, ‘whatever I have done I have done because I considered it necessary and to advance the faith.’
‘I know that. But what does it all mean? Has everyone behind this gone mad?’
‘How much do you know?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all—only whispers…rumours, nothing more, but they are enough to frighten me. Everyone is so secretive.’
‘And that is how it must remain.’
‘Father, can you look me in the eye and tell me there is no conspiracy to bring down the king? Can you tell me in all honesty that the horses Robert Catesby bought from your own stable are to go towards raising a troop of horse intended for the Spanish Netherlands?’ She waited for the words that would dispel her fears, but they never came. Instead her father’s shoulders drooped and he seemed to age ten years before her eyes.
Sir Henry stared at his daughter, seeing the pleading in her eyes, and he felt strangely helpless and ashamed before it. Something of a dark and sinister nature was about to explode upon the nation, but he could not tell her what it was for he did not know the precise nature of it himself.
Despite being a prominent figure in the Catholic community in the Midlands, because he was not in robust health and was no longer a young Catesby or a Digby, when Catesby had come to purchase horses he had done his best to convince Sir Henry they were for the very purpose Serena had just mentioned. Catesby had even gone so far as to suggest that Henry’s son James might care to join his troop when he had finished his education at St Omer at Calais.
But Henry had sensed it was a useful piece of dissembling Catesby used with others, and that he and his contemporaries no longer considered him suitable for the engineering of a plot, which offended and pained him greatly. Henry had learned to keep his thoughts to himself over the years. To speak them aloud could lead to disaster, which was why, in this instance, he would keep his own counsel and wait for events to unfold. He had always spoken to Serena of truth and honesty, and of the respect one could earn if one always abided by this and was sincere, but at that moment he was unable to abide by this doctrine he preached to others. He shook his head slowly, avoiding her gaze.
‘Nay, lass. I cannot.’
‘That is as I thought,’ she said quietly. ‘Then it is damning indeed, Father.’
When news of the Gunpowder Plot broke—a plot to destroy the Parliament, the king, the royal family and the government—the spirit of vengeance and hatred it stirred within Protestants and those it was directed at made Catholics—both militant and innocent fearing a general massacre—tremble in its wake. A world which had been cruel to them before was about to become sadistic.
It was past midnight at Dunedin Hall and rain was falling heavily when news of it reached Sir Henry Carberry and his daughter. In the silence of the dark hours Serena strained her ears to listen, wondering what had disturbed her. Hearing the sound of thundering hooves heralding the approach of a large party of riders, immediately she was wide awake and out of bed.
Pulling back the heavy drapes, she peered anxiously out of the window, seeing the dark shapes of about thirty men and horses. Fear of unknown things seized her and, grabbing her robe, she wrapped it round her, dashing out of her room and down the stairs. As if expecting the arrival of these horsemen, Sir Henry was fully dressed. He went out to them, ordering Serena to remain indoors.
Obeying his unusually harsh command, Serena shivered with fear and cold as she listened to their voices over the noise of the beating rain. They were low and urgent, and she was unable to hear what was being said. Soon the horsemen were on the move again, leaving a few tired horses in exchange for fresh ones.
When Sir Henry returned indoors Serena went to him, swallowing hard, for a sudden dryness had almost stuck the sides of her throat together. There was a sudden death-like silence in the house, an absence of sound that was almost audible.
‘Father! What did they want?’
Shock and disbelief stared out of his eyes, and also a bleakness Serena had never seen before. She knew that her worst fears were justified and a chill of terror shivered through her.
‘Horses,’ Sir Henry said at length.
Serena caught his arm when he turned from her. ‘Father,’ she demanded in desperation, ‘tell me what has happened.’
He looked at her hard. ‘The plot has been discovered. We are all betrayed.’
‘Betrayed! Why—what do you mean?’
‘It’s a total shambles,’ Sir Henry muttered. ‘All is lost.’ His expression turned from shock and disbelief to one of resignation. ‘I speak the truth when I say that I knew nothing of this—but it would seem that I am to be ruined by it. I suspected there was to be a rising in the Midlands—but that was all. I knew nothing about the heart of the treason.’
‘And now you do?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, speaking in an even voice. ‘I have just been told that one of the conspirators, with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, has been found by searchers in a room beneath the House of Lords. The plan was to blow up Parliament House—along with the king, the royal family and the government.’
Serena stared at him in shocked disbelief. ‘But—but that is monstrous.’
‘The timing of the explosion was intended to be the first action of a greater scheme. It was to coincide with a rising in the Midlands and for all loyal Catholics to rally to the cause—to unite in armed rebellion and seize control.’
‘So my suspicions were correct. That was the true reason why the horses were needed,’ Serena whispered, understanding at last.
‘Yes, but the most important objective was to kidnap the young Princess Elizabeth, the king’s daughter housed at Coombe Abbey, near Coventry.’
Serena was puzzled. ‘But how would that further their cause? The Princess Elizabeth is a Protestant.’
‘It was their intention to install her as a puppet queen.’
‘But the king and queen have other children—the five-year-old Prince Charles and the baby, Princess Mary. What was to happen to them?’
‘If the plot had succeeded, Prince Henry and probably Prince Charles would have been with the king at the House of Lords.’
Serena felt sick with horror, deeply affected by this. ‘And those two small boys would have perished. Oh, Father,’ she whispered, ‘such violent methods cannot be justified.’
Sir Henry smiled cynically. ‘Catesby and his contemporaries long ago rejected passive endurance, Serena. They consider the necessity of the Catholics of such importance that the enterprise would be of sufficient worth to compensate for the innocent deaths.’
‘Nothing can justify that.’
‘I know. Such an act cannot be condoned. But it was on Elizabeth their attention focused. No baby or small child would suffice. Elizabeth would make a more viable figurehead, and she is ideally placed for the plotters’ purposes at Coombe Abbey. It was their intention that she would be raised as a Catholic and marry a Catholic.’
‘Then thank the Lord it failed. I assume those gentlemen just now were the fugitives.’
‘They were. Most of the leading conspirators, too. It appears that t
heir expectations of gathering support have come to nothing—and the company is shrinking fast as others leave. They came in the hope of acquiring fresh horses, which I gave them. They also took those I sold to Lord Brodie which he has not collected. He will have to be reimbursed, of course.’
A sadness came into his eyes and he placed an arm around Serena’s shoulders, leading her slowly back up the stairs, oblivious to the servants who had been woken by the unexpected and unwelcome guests. ‘I’m afraid my stables are almost empty now, Serena. It will take a long time to make them what they once were.’
A lump rose in Serena’s throat, knowing how dearly her father had loved his horses. Suddenly she turned and looked at him in alarm as a thought occurred to her. ‘Polly! They have not taken my horse?’
‘No, my dear. In anticipation of just such an event, I instructed John to have both Polly and Monarch stabled separately.’
‘Father, did those men ask you to join them?’
‘They did—but I’m too old and too battle-scarred to go gallivanting around the countryside in support of a lost cause. And anyway,’ he murmured in a voice filled with so much bitterness that it prompted Serena to turn and look at him, making her realise that her father’s enthusiasm for the concerted efforts over the years to further the Catholic cause and bring about toleration was beginning to wane, ‘I wouldn’t have had the stomach for it in the first place, had I been given prior knowledge of the inner workings of this particular plot.’
Serena was relieved and comforted to hear this, but later, when she learned that warrants had been issued for the arrest of those privy to one of the most horrible treasons ever contrived, all her old terrors came back to haunt her.
A hue and cry ensued, having spread from London to the surrounding counties, when government officials suspected that any conspirators in London would have flown. But they had one of the conspirators caught at the scene of the intended crime—John Johnson, an alias assumed by Guy Fawkes—who would be put to the torture to divulge the names of his comrades.
Searches were to be concentrated on the Midlands, where a solid belt of opulent and obstinate followers of the Catholic religion lived. Serena knew it would not be long before attention became focused on Dunedin Hall.
Since leaving Carberry Hall, Kit had been in a dilemma, for no matter how hard he struggled to concentrate on the sweet face of his betrothed, it was no easy matter dismissing Serena from his mind. He saw her as she had been when he had first seen her, courageous and beautiful and filled with innocent, angry passion. He remembered the sensual grace of her body as it had moved as one with her horse when they had ridden together, and how she had told him of her concern for her father with such tender pride.
Kit also remembered how she had looked when she had sought him out in his room, of the sexual aura that surrounded her, and he remembered other things about her, things a man already betrothed to a maid of incredible sweetness should not. But he was like a man on the dizzying edge of an abyss, about to plunge downward.
When news of the inner workings of the Gunpowder Plot reached him at Thurlow, he was as shocked and horrified as the next man, but he was also filled with dread because of the danger it posed not only to himself but also to Sir Henry Carberry and Serena. His concern deepened when he learned that, a few days after the plot had been uncovered, several of its principal members had been killed when the Sheriff of Worcestershire and a force of men had surrounded and stormed Holbeach House in Staffordshire, where the plotters had sought refuge.
Robert Catesby, who was suspected of being at the centre of the plot, and Thomas Percy, a charming, dangerous knave according to some, were among the four killed. Those captured had been conveyed to the Tower.
Uneasily aware of his known connection to the plotters, Kit knew it would be difficult for him to discount any association with the traitors—and, he thought with cynicism, after this there would be many gentlemen in England less likely to profess to the Catholic religion than before the plot was uncovered.
Not yet having brought the horses he had purchased from Sir Henry to Thurlow, Kit dispatched Robin to Dunedin Hall to arrange for their delivery, and also to assess the situation there. But, unbeknown to him, Robin never reached Dunedin Hall. Nearing Ripley, the unfortunate young man encountered Thomas Blackwell, who had been in London since before the uncovering of the plot and had only returned to Ashcombe Manor late the previous day.
Thomas was accompanied by three government officials—just a few of many who were sweeping the county with a zealous fervency. They were investigating and searching Catholic houses for fugitives of the plot and eminent Jesuit priests who, it was assumed, indoctrinated the English Catholics with the belief that they should defend the supremacy of the Pope to that of King James. So far their search had yielded nothing but a few terrified Catholics.
Thomas remembered Kit Brodie’s servant—in fact, he remembered every humiliating detail about the day his pride had been savagely mauled. No matter how fervently Robin protested, Thomas told his companions that this young man’s noble master was known to have Catholic sympathies, and that he belonged to a family which had branches of that faith. He also told them that a good many obstinate Catholic noblemen could be counted among his friends—among them Catesby and Digby.
Knowing this, Thomas’s companions were easily persuaded. Deciding that the marquess of Thurlow was worth further investigation, young Robin was dispatched to London and the Tower, where he would undergo interrogation.
Thomas’s smile was one of evil, murderous satisfaction as he watched Robin go. From the moment he had heard of the Gunpowder Plot, he knew it was the leverage he needed to topple the illustrious marquess of Thurlow from the elevated height of his pedestal. His ploy was to discredit one of Their Majesties’ favourite lords, to tarnish his whiter-than-white reputation, and he was not above telling lies to do so, however farfetched. And yet they might not be lies, he thought, in the light of Brodie’s cavorting with Catesby and his compatriots.
And, he thought, a ruthless gleam entering his eyes as he unconsciously fingered his cheek, he had not forgotten that he had a score to settle with that she-cat Serena Carberry. Nor was he in any doubt that Sir Henry had been involved in the conspiracy. Their time would come and he would await it with a good deal of pleasure.
Chapter Six
With the authorities searching houses for information of those involved in the conspiracy, an atmosphere of crisis prevailed.
‘Father! I’m so afraid,’ Serena said when she found him wandering disconsolately in his now-empty stables. ‘You cannot passively wait to be taken. It is inevitable that you will become suspect.’
Sir Henry’s eyes filled with remorse at the suffering his actions had brought to Serena. Life had not robbed him of his ambition, but age had distanced him from the young hotheads of this new age. He felt used and betrayed by those he had called his friends—and in particular by Robert Catesby. What Catesby had done was a vile and wicked thing and he had done the cause no good by it.
‘What would you have me do?’
‘You must go to Flanders. You have friends there, and you will be close to James.’
Sir Henry became thoughtful, and Serena knew precisely what was going through his mind. She was painfully aware of the friend he would seek out on reaching Flanders’s shores, but she withheld her comments and kept her feelings on his close association with Mrs Davis to herself.
‘I have considered this, but if I go I insist on you going to Carberry Hall to stay with William. Under my brother’s protection the authorities will not touch you if they should come looking for me. Being a woman, you will be spared—and I would be easier knowing you to be safe.’
The split from her father would be intolerable for Serena and her heart was full to breaking point. But she agreed.
Kit became uneasy and concerned when Robin failed to return from Dunedin Hall, and just when he was considering going himself to find out what had happened to his s
ervant, government officials came to search Thurlow under the supervision of Sir Arthur Throckmorton, the Sheriff of Northamptonshire.
Kit was informed that on hearing of Lord Brodie’s suspected part in the conspiracy from his chief minister, the earl of Salisbury, the king, feeling disappointed and betrayed by one of his most favoured lords, had ordered his immediate arrest. His Majesty was determined to mete out swift punishment to the traitors who had been set on murdering himself and other members of his family and his government.
Sir Arthur’s expression was grim. ‘I apologise for disturbing you, Lord Brodie, but I have received information to the effect that you have some connection to the dastardly plot. Accusations have been made against you and I have been instructed by Salisbury to search Thurlow and convey you to London under guard. Have you anything to say?’
‘I would say it is ridiculous were it not so serious or so damning. Are you certain that your information is correct?’ Kit asked, his voice courteous, while inside he felt that the horrifying menace, which had hung over him since that fateful moment when the plot had been uncovered, had come home to roost.
Puzzled by the order that he must search Thurlow and arrest this illustrious lord, who was a known Protestant and fiercely loyal in his allegiance to the king, a man he himself held in the highest regard and respected for his good sense and integrity, Sir Arthur found this whole business distasteful and was hesitant to believe Lord Brodie guilty of the accusations against him.
‘I regret to tell you that the information was so definite and so serious that I was ordered not to hesitate to act.’
‘And is it proved that I am an accessory to this crime against the king?’
‘No. That is why I must take you to London for interrogation.’
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