Page 310 of A Column of Fire

Rollo knew she was lying. ‘Spying on Catholics, I assume. That’s his work, as everyone knows.’

‘Come on, Rollo, it’s your fault for trying to murder his queen. Don’t pretend to be indignant.’

‘Are you happy with Ned?’

‘Yes. God in his wisdom has given me a strange life, but for the last fifteen years I have been truly happy.’ She noticed that his shoes and stockings were covered with mud. ‘How on earth did you get so dirty?’

‘I had to walk along the foreshore.’

‘Why?’

‘Long story. And I have an appointment.’ Rollo stood up.

Margery realized she was being dismissed. She kissed her brother’s cheek and left. She had not asked him what his appointment was about, and as she walked away from the tavern she asked herself why. The answer came immediately: she did not think he would tell her the truth.

*

ROLLO IMPOSED STRICTsecurity at the Wardrobe Keeper’s apartment. Everyone arrived before dawn, so that they would not be seen entering. Each man brought his own food, and they did not go outside in daylight. They left again after dark.

Rollo was almost seventy, so he left the harder work to younger men such as Fawkes and Percy, but even they struggled. All were the sons of noble and wealthy families, and none of them had previously done much digging.

They had first to demolish the brick wall of the cellar, then scoop out the earth behind it. The tunnel needed to be large enough for a number of thirty-two-gallon barrels of gunpowder to be dragged inside. They saved time by making it no larger, but the disadvantage of that was that they had to work bent double, or lying down; and the confined space grew hot.

During the day they lived on salted fish, dried meat and raisins. Rollo would not let them send out for the kind of meal they were used to, fearing that they would draw attention to themselves.

It was muddy work, which was why Rollo had been embarrassingly dirty when he unexpectedly ran into Margery. The soil they removed from the tunnel had to be lugged up to ground level, then taken outside after dark and carried along Parliament Passage and down Parliament Stairs, from where it could be thrown into the river. Rollo had been unnerved when Margery asked about his filthy stockings, but she had seemed to accept his explanation.

The tunnellers were discreet, but not invisible. Even in the dark, they were sometimes seen coming and going by people carrying lanterns. To divert suspicion, Fawkes had let it be known that he had builders in, making some alterations that his master’s wife had demanded. Rollo hoped no one would notice the improbably large quantity of earth being displaced by mere alterations.

Then they ran into a difficulty so serious that Rollo was afraid it might ruin the whole plan. When they had tunnelled into the earth for several feet, they came up against a solid stone wall. Naturally, Rollo realized, the two-storey building above had proper foundations: he should have anticipated this. The work became harder and slower, but they had to go on, for they were not yet far enough under the debating chamber to be sure that the explosion would kill everyone there.

The stone foundations turned out to be several feet thick. Rollo feared they would not finish the job before the opening ceremony. Then Parliament was postponed, because of an outbreak of plague in London; and the tunnellers had a new deadline.

Even so, Rollo fretted. Progress was terribly slow. The longer they took, the more risk there was that they would be discovered. And there was another hazard. As they went farther, undermining the foundations, Rollo feared a collapse. Fawkes made stout timber props to support the roof – as he said he had done when digging under city walls in Netherlands sieges – but Rollo was not sure how much this fighting man really knew about mining. The tunnel might just fall in and kill them all. It could even bring down the entire building – which would achieve nothing if the king were not inside.

Taking a break one day, they talked about who would be in the chamber when the gunpowder went off. King James had three children. Prince Henry, who was eleven, and Prince Charles, four, would probably accompany their parents to the ceremony. ‘Assuming they both die, Princess Elizabeth will be the heir,’ said Percy. ‘She will be nine.’

Rollo had already thought about the princess. ‘We must be prepared to seize her,’ he said. ‘Whoever has her, has the throne.’

Percy said: ‘She lives at Coombe Abbey, in Warwickshire.’

‘She will need a Lord Protector, who will, of course, be the actual ruler of England.’

‘I propose my kinsman the earl of Northumberland.’

Rollo nodded. It was a good suggestion. Northumberland was one of the great peers of the realm and a Catholic sympathizer. But Rollo had a better idea. ‘I suggest the earl of Shiring.’

The others were not enthusiastic. Rollo knew what they were thinking: Bartlet Shiring was a good Catholic but did not have Northumberland’s stature.

Too polite to denigrate Rollo’s nephew, Percy said: ‘We must plan uprisings in all parts of the country where Catholic peers are strong. There must be no opportunity for the Protestants to promote a rival for the throne.’

‘I can guarantee that in the county of Shiring,’ said Rollo.

Someone said: ‘A lot of people will die.’

Rollo was impatient with men who worried about killing. A civil war would be a cleansing. ‘The Protestants deserve death,’ he said. ‘And the Catholics will go straight to heaven.’

Just then there was a strange noise. At first it sounded like a rush of water overhead. Then it turned into a rumble as of shifting rocks. Rollo immediately feared a collapse. The other men clearly had the same instinctive reaction, for they all rushed, as if to save their lives, up the narrow stone staircase that led from the cellar to the apartment at ground level.