more enlightened rule. His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had after all been a devout Catholic. But within just a year the persecutions returned and it was the recent ill-fated attempt to put a stop to this reign of terror that caused Owen to be here now – a fugitive in a hide of his own handiwork.
It was the twenty-first day of January in the year of Our Lord sixteen hundred and six. Two months earlier, on a cold November night in London, Guido Fawkes had been discovered lurking within the cellars of the House of Lords in the company of dozens of barrels of gunpowder and a lighted lantern. The taking of Fawkes brought an end to what they were now calling the powder treason – a plot by disheartened Catholics to kill the king and as many members of parliament as were present in the house during the state opening. Other plotters, including their ringleader, Sir Robert Catesby, had been taken since, while others still were already dead. Owen was one of the few remaining at large and, despite his lowly ranking within the scheme, he had been tasked by its leaders with a heavy responsibility, and it was that which sat between his feet, confined within a leather sack – just as he was, between walls of timber and stone.
If failing anatomy and hard labour caused him some discomfort, this was nothing when compared to the agonies of torture. He knew all too well what the rack could do to a man, having before now been tied to the state’s favoured instrument of torture. His crime then had been to speak out against the arrest of a neighbour for attending a mass; but even under torture he refused to speak out against his fellow Catholics. In truth though, he had been on the verge of breaking when his freedom was purchased by a wealthy local family for whom he had built several holes in the past. This time though, if taken as a traitor and failed regicide, torture would merely be the first of many horrors to be faced.
As yet there had been only a little discomfort, though he was grateful for the blanket helping to shield him from the chilled air blowing in through a fissure in the exterior wall. But only half a day had passed since the hammering on the door. Now he would see how good his work had been.
*
“We have them,” said the first of the two horsemen to arrive in front of the red brick house. Tired but still restless, Noyce’s mount shifted on the carriage-way just inside the ornate gate posts. Removing his broad-brimmed hat he bent forward across his horse’s flank, studying the ground. The heavy wooden gates were slightly ajar and the gravel was scuffed and mounded – the legacy of a half-hearted attempt to drag them closed, but, with the house still a good distance away and their pursuers closing in behind them, their quarry had given it up as a bad job.
Hindlip Hall was a rambling pile with ivy-covered walls and towers, projecting wings, too many windows to count and spiralled chimney pots stacked high above the roof. Gathered behind the riders were foot soldiers, armed with half-pikes and muskets. Their easy posture and the patches of rust on their helmets and breastplates marked them out as something less than the king’s élite.
“Hiding like rats in the walls,” said Sir Henry Bromley, the well-dressed and even better fed local Justice, as he drew up alongside Noyce on a sweat-flecked bay.
Noyce’s horse threw back its head, stamped a hoof and through flared nostrils pushed smoky breath into the cold air. The sudden movement prompted the man standing closest to them to take a step back and almost drop the partizan he was carrying. He was the captain of militia, a gangly fellow with a thick grey beard in need of a trim and men in want of orders. “What a peculiar breed of coward they are, these Catholics. They dare try their hand at killing our king but then hide behind the wainscoting. You are correct Sir ’enry, vermin all of ’em.”
“That may be, captain, but they are clever vermin,” replied Noyce. “I have been hunting these people and their like for years. It will be a job of work to pull them from their holes, have no doubt of that.” He turned to look doubtfully at the slouching soldiers behind him. “We must hope that your