Chaloner tugged his thoughts back to Metje and her other lover. ‘I almost caught you with Evett – twice. The first time was when he and his men tried to entice me down an alley. And the second time was when he came half-dressed to the door when I called on him unexpectedly. I should have known you would not walk all the way to White Hall to buy a poultice for North’s nose. You waved the apothecary’s receipt …’
She winced. ‘It was a shopping list. Please do not talk about this any more.’
‘Evett gave you a lamp,’ said Chaloner, as more facts became clear in his mind. ‘Do you know why? So it would illuminate my room and make it easier for him to kill me with his grenade.’
There were other clues, too. He recalled singing her praises to Evett, comparing her to a painting by Rubens, and she had cited the compliment back to him when he had given her presents – Evett had reported the conversation. Then there was her vivid account of the masque: Evett had taken her to watch it through the holes in the corridors – and it was the night she had arrived cold and unusually late in Chaloner’s rooms. She had also taken to speaking English instead of Dutch when she was half asleep, and she had visited the Tower menagerie, suggesting Evett swallowed his distaste for its furred inhabitants and escorted her there.
‘Philip is a gentle man,’ she said quietly. ‘The apprentices threw the bomb – they lobbed one at the chapel too, although it did not ignite.’
‘That is what you were supposed to think.’ Chaloner felt sick as he watched her work with deft fingers. She had made such devices before. Hill pressed something into his side, making him wince. He tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go. He reverted to Dutch. ‘I do not know what these people think they are doing, but it will end in disaster. Leave them, while you can.’
North stepped forward, club raised. ‘I told you to speak English. Do you want to die?’
‘Father!’ cried Temperance, jumping towards him. ‘You promised!’
Hill jabbed again, urgently and hard enough to hurt. When Chaloner put his hand to the spot, he felt metal. The preacher was trying to pass him his gun. He took the weapon and held it behind his back, although he barely registered what he was doing. There was a lurching sensation in his stomach when he considered the implications of Metje’s relationship with Evett.
‘But this means you killed Clarke! I said the killer was unfamiliar with White Hall and its customs, and I was right. You lured him to that corridor and killed him.’
‘You do not need to answer, Metje,’ said North, wielding the cudgel menacingly.
‘It does not matter,’ said Metje. She looked Chaloner in the eyes. ‘Yes, I killed Clarke. Mr North needed to know what he had learned about the Seven, but he refused to tell me. We were lucky: the Earl assigned Philip to investigate his death, and you were told to look for Barkstead’s treasure. We were able to provide Mr North with details of both cases.’
‘I am weary of talk,’ said Faith. She came to loom over Chaloner. Hill cringed away, but she ignored him. ‘We shall have silence now, if you please.’
‘Do not speak, Tom,’ said Metje softly in Dutch. ‘She wants you dead because of Temperance’s condition, and you should not give her an excuse.’
‘What do you intend to do?’ asked Chaloner, unwilling to sit still while they manufactured the devices that would hurl his country into another maelstrom of civil war.
‘I warned you,’ said Faith, taking aim.
‘Stop,’ ordered a stern voice from the doorway. It was Thurloe, with Leybourn behind him, and both carried firearms. ‘Your nasty games are over, madam.’
Faith moved faster than anyone would have expected of such a thickset woman, and screwed the barrel of her gun against Chaloner’s temple before he could stop her. She forced him so firmly against the wall that the hand with Hill’s pistol was trapped uselessly behind him.
‘Put it down, Thurloe,’ she said calmly. ‘Or I will blow away your agent’s head.’
‘Do not do it, sir,’ warned Chaloner. ‘They intend to kill the King.’
‘We do not,’ said Faith, leaning even more heavily against him, to squash him to silence.
‘You do,’ said Chaloner in a gasp. ‘Evett said–’
‘Evett is not party to all our secrets – not because he is disloyal, but because he is apt to make stupidly careless remarks, as he seems to have done to you, since you are here challenging us. However, our real plan is to leave these grenades in a place associated with Thurloe and Ingoldsby, and Downing will see to it that they hang. Downing believed my letter purporting to be from Livesay, just as he did my missive in March, which told him where Barkstead might be found on a certain night in Holland. Now, put down the weapon, Thurloe.’
‘No!’ shouted Chaloner in despair, when Thurloe placed his gun on the floor and Leybourn followed suit. North hurried forward to collect them, and Temperance’s sobs became louder and more distraught. ‘Now they will kill you, too.’
Thurloe did not reply, and Faith’s eyes glittered. ‘It is not pleasant, is it, Thurloe? To see those you love in danger? Remember that when you face the King’s mercy at Tyburn.’
A shadow appeared at the window. ‘Kelyng is outside with Thurloe’s porters,’ said Chaloner, glancing at it. ‘Put down the gun, Faith.’
North looked alarmed, but Faith was made of sterner stuff. ‘Kelyng? Helping the man he hates above all others? Do not be ridiculous!’
Chaloner glanced at Thurloe and was shocked to see defeat. ‘Kelyng came to you–’
‘We thought he was trying to trick us,’ explained Leybourn in a voice filled with self-disgust. ‘So we locked him in a cupboard and came to investigate on our own.’
‘Sit down,’ said Faith, abruptly releasing Chaloner and waving her pistol at Thurloe. Chaloner flexed his fingers and leaned forward, hoping he would be fast enough to put his own weapon to good use – and that it was loaded. Faith was the most dangerous person in the room, so she would be the first to die. ‘All of you in a row. No, not you, Temperance.’
Defiantly, Temperance sat next to Chaloner. ‘I do not know what you are doing, but I want no part of it.’
Faith hauled her daughter to her feet, then held her across her own chest in an awkward hug. Chaloner cursed silently. He could not be sure of hitting Faith when Temperance was pinned in front of her.
‘You will understand in time, child,’ said North kindly, keeping Thurloe’s gun for himself and passing Leybourn’s to Henry. ‘Our revenge is a holy, just thing.’
Chaloner frowned in confusion. ‘Revenge for what, Livesay?’
Thurloe glanced at Chaloner as he sat. ‘He is not Livesay, Tom. There is a fleeting likeness in their shape and manner of dress, but that is all.’
Faith laughed harshly. ‘Livesay is dead, burned in the ship he thought would carry him to safety, although I have borrowed his name to write notes to men like Downing and Dalton. We might never have learned about any of this, were it not for Livesay. He turned to religion in his guilt and confessed everything to his preacher.’
‘Not me,’ said Hill in a squeak. ‘I know nothing about any of this.’
‘Another minister,’ said North. ‘He was an old friend, and he wrote to me about it – in exchange for a donation to his favourite charitable concern, of course. Even men of God have their price.’
Chaloner looked at the burn on North’s face. ‘Did you ignite Livesay’s ship?’ He thought about what he had heard, and answered his own question. ‘Yes, of course you did. You said someone had put gunpowder in the ship’s forward hold. How would you have known such a detail, unless you had placed it there yourself? You have an affinity for explosions – there are grenades here, and you set Dalton’s house alight. I saw you running away with his gunpowder under your cloak. Snow did not see you, but that is because you used the back door – barring the front one first, to make sure no one would be able to go in and extinguish the fire. You wanted Dalton’s body burned, to conceal the fact that he had been stabbed. I suppose Hewson’s corpse gave you that idea?’