Page 272 of A Column of Fire
Babington was at the grand London home of Robert Pooley with several fellow conspirators, sitting around a table laden with roasted chickens, bowls of hot buttered onions, loaves of new bread and jugs of sherry wine.
Rollo was disturbed by their levity. Men who were plotting to overthrow the monarch should not get drunk in the middle of the day. However, unlike Rollo, they were not hardened conspirators but idealistic amateurs embarked on a grand adventure. The supreme confidence of youth and nobility made them careless of their lives.
Rollo was breaking his own rule in coming to Pooley’s house. He normally stayed away from the Catholics’ regular haunts. Such places were watched by Ned Willard. But Rollo had not seen Babington for a week and he needed to know what was happening.
He looked into the room, caught Babington’s eye, and beckoned him. Uncomfortable in the home of a known Catholic, he led Babington out. Alongside the house was a spacious garden, shaded from the August sun by a small orchard of mulberry and fig trees. Even this was not secure enough for Rollo, for only a low wall separated it from the busy street, noisy with cartwheels and vendors and the banging and shouting of a building site on the other side of the road. He insisted they leave the garden and step into the shady porch of the church next door. Then at last he said: ‘What’s happening? Everything seems to have gone quiet.’
‘Wipe that frown away, Monsieur Langlais,’ said Babington gaily. ‘Here’s good news.’ He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed it over with a flourish.
It was a coded letter together with a decrypt written out by Babington. Rollo moved to the archway and read it in the sunlight. In French, it was from Mary Stuart to Babington. She approved all his plans and urged him to make more detailed arrangements.
Rollo’s anxiety melted away. The letter was everything he had hoped for, the final and decisive element in the plan. Rollo would take it to the duke of Guise, who would immediately muster his army of invasion. The godless twenty-eight-year tyranny of Elizabeth was almost over.
‘Well done,’ Rollo said. He pocketed the letter. ‘I leave for France tomorrow. When I return I will be with God’s army of liberation.’
Babington clapped him on the back. ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Now come and dine with us.’
Rollo was about to refuse but, before he could speak, his instincts sounded an alarm. He frowned. Something was wrong. The street had gone quiet. The cartwheels had stopped, the vendors were no longer crying their wares, and the building site was silent. What had happened?
He grabbed Babington’s elbow. ‘We have to get away from here,’ he said.
Babington laughed. ‘What on earth for? In Pooley’s dining room there’s a keg of the best wine only half drunk!’
‘Shut up, you fool, and follow me, if you value your life.’ Rollo stepped into the church, hushed and dim, and quickly crossed the nave to a small entrance in the far wall. He cracked the door: it opened on to the street. He peeped out.
As he had feared, Pooley’s house was being raided.
Men-at-arms were taking up positions along the street, watched in nervous silence by the builders and the vendors and the passers-by. A few yards from Rollo, two burly men with swords stood at the garden gate, clearly placed to catch anyone trying to flee. As Rollo looked, Ned Willard appeared and banged on Pooley’s front door.
‘Hell,’ said Rollo. One of the men-at-arms began to turn towards him and he quickly closed the door. ‘We’re discovered.’
Babington looked scared. ‘Who by?’
‘Willard. He’s Walsingham’s right-hand-man.’
‘We can hide here.’
‘Not for long. Willard is thorough. He’ll find us if we stay here.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ Rollo looked out again. Pooley’s front door now stood open, and Willard had vanished, presumably inside. The men-at-arms were tense, waiting for action, looking around them warily. Rollo closed the door again. ‘How fast can you run?’
Babington belched and looked green. ‘I shall stand and fight,’ he said unconvincingly. He felt for his sword, but he was not wearing one: Rollo guessed it was hanging on a hook in Pooley’s entrance hall.
Then Rollo heard a sheep.
He frowned. As he listened, he realized it was not one but a flock of sheep. He remembered that there was a slaughterhouse along the street. A farmer was driving the flock to be butchered, a daily occurrence in every town in the world.
The sound came nearer.
Rollo looked out a third time. He could see the flock now, and smell them. There were about a hundred, and they filled the street from side to side. Pedestrians cursed them and stepped into doorways to get out of their way. The leaders drew level with Pooley’s front door, and suddenly Rollo saw how the sheep might save him.
‘Get ready,’ he said to Babington.
The men-at-arms were angry about being shouldered aside by sheep, but they could do nothing. If humans had shoved them, they would have brandished their weapons, but already-terrified sheep could not be bullied into doing anything other than follow each other to their death. Rollo would have laughed if he had not been afraid for his own life.
When the leaders of the flock passed the two men standing by the garden gate, all the men-at-arms were trapped by sheep. At that point Rollo said: ‘Now!’ and flung open the door.
