‘I am the only man in the world who can save you from the gallows.’
‘Oh, God help me.’
‘He may, if you help me.’
‘What must I do?’
‘Tell me who comes to collect the bottles from Chartley, and brings you new ones to send there.’
‘I don’t know his name – honestly! I swear it!’
‘When will he next be here?’
‘I don’t know – he never gives warning, and his visits are irregular.’
They would be, Ned thought. The man is careful.
Hal moaned: ‘Oh, God, I’ve been such a fool.’
‘You certainly have. Why did you do it? Are you Catholic?’
‘I’m whatever religion I’m told to be.’
‘Greed for money, then.’
‘God forgive me.’
‘He has forgiven worse. Now listen to me. All you have to do is continue as you are. Give the courier the bottles, accept the new ones he brings, send them to Chartley, and bring back the replies, as you have been doing. Say nothing about me to anyone, anywhere.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t need to understand. Just forget that you ever met me. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, and thank you for being merciful.’
You don’t deserve it, you money-grubbing traitor, Ned thought. He said: ‘I’m going to stay here until the courier comes, whenever that may be.’
He arrived two days later. Ned recognized him instantly.
It was Gilbert Gifford.
*
IT WAS Adangerous business, recruiting men to join a conspiracy to kill the queen. Rollo had to be very careful. If he picked the wrong man he could be in the deepest kind of trouble.
He had learned to watch for a certain look in the eyes. The look combined noble purpose with a high-minded disregard for consequences. It was not madness, but it was a kind of irrationality. Rollo sometimes wondered whether he had that look himself. He thought not: he was cautious to the point of obsession. Perhaps he had had it when young, but he must surely have lost it, for otherwise he would by now have been hung, drawn and quartered like Francis Throckmorton and all the other idealistic young Catholics Ned Willard had caught. In which case, he would by now have gone to heaven, like them; but a man was not permitted to choose the moment he made that journey.
Rollo thought that Anthony Babington had the look.
Rollo had been observing Babington for three weeks, but from a distance. He had not yet spoken. He had not even gone into the houses and taverns that Babington frequented, for he knew they would be watched by Ned Willard’s spies. He got close to Babington only in places that were not Catholic haunts, and among groups of people so large that one extra was not noticeable: in bowling alleys, at cockfights and bear-baiting, and in the audience at public executions. But he could not carry on taking precautions for ever. The time had come when he had to risk his neck.
Babington was a young man from a wealthy Derbyshire Catholic family that harboured one of Rollo’s secret priests. He had met Mary Stuart: as a boy Babington had been a page in the household of the earl of Shrewsbury, at the time when the earl was her jailer; and the boy had been captivated by the charm of the imprisoned queen. Was all that enough? There was only one way to find out for sure.
Rollo finally spoke to him at a bullfight.
It took place at Paris Gardens in Southwark, on the south side of the river. Entrance was a penny, but Babington paid twopence for a place in the gallery, removed from the jostling and smell of ordinary folk in the stalls.
The bull was tethered in a ring but otherwise unconstrained. Six big hunting dogs were led in and immediately flew at the bull, trying to bite its legs. The big bull was remarkably agile, turning its head on the muscular neck, fighting back with its horns. The dogs dodged, not always successfully. The lucky ones were simply thrown through the air; the unlucky ones impaled on a horn until shaken off. The smell of blood filled the atmosphere.
