Arthur could hear his own heartbeat. It carried a rhythmical slow and steady beat, a deluding, dull lull in the back of his mind.
This stable reassurance was vastly different from the brash, crude licking flames that engulfed his thoughts. It was an almost overpowering sensation; such powerful, hellish…
These emotions made him gnash and grind his teeth. They made him dig his nails into his palms. They made him feel heated – they made him feel this encompassing, blazing rage.
While he infused himself in his anger, he sneered at the letter which rested so innocuously on his desk.
"Atrocious scum," Arthur barked.
He slammed a hand onto the table surface, clenching his fingers.
"He dared to," He inhaled heavily, the air hissing through his teeth, "He had the insolence to…"
Gasping ferociously the man slammed his palm against the wooden desk again – then again.
The feelings he were experiencing could equate to a continuous sequence of whiplashes. More and more people heard of the news and it spread like wildfire through the streets of London.
"Traitor…" His clenched his teeth before breathing out shakily, "He deceived himself," He seethed, speaking so quietly to himself that the words seemed to amplify themselves in the room, "But he will never deceive England."
Arthur turned swiftly and faced the study's single window.
Light slanted across walls, floors and people. It highlighted each figure, singling them out as admirers of its rays. As the sun diluted across the city, the civilians bustled along the streets, meeting each other and pausing to pass on the seeds of gossip.
This sunlight shone through Arthur's window too.
It was a quiet day.
"John Johnson," He whispered, "You do not have England duped."
The letter had been removed from his possession.
Its contents were thoroughly examined; anything which could have alluded to any scrap of honest evidence was catalogued by hired professionals. It was men hired by the king that had been left to solve this riddle – trusted confidants, like Arthur himself. These men spent the early morning ploughing through the short script, picking it apart and restlessly scrutinizing the document.
In Arthur's opinion it seemed that this puzzle was missing a piece.
He was balefully glaring at all that surrounded him and his hands gripped tenaciously at the armchair's arms.
Apparently, this letter was a hoax.
Arthur didn't believe this. He easily (so simply) could have been deceived, but he was too old to be able to guiltlessly delude himself.
As it so happened there was a prickling feeling in his mind, a dull twinge which seemed suspiciously like the emotion apprehension. Arthur had long ago decided that apprehension was not an entirely awful thing to experience, but he also knew that nothing was entirely good – or, he often thought to himself, entirely bad.
Arthur considered apprehension to be a warning.
Boots hit the floor. They slapped against the ground.
Sir Thomas Knyvet kept pace with his men. Arthur walked by his side. Lips were thin, eyes scanning the cellars. The men's expressions were mutually alike, faces disbelieving but cautious. Nobody spoke – it wouldn't have been proper.
Situations such as these were cause for a…sort of silence.
Arthur lifted his head a little higher and began to count his steps.
There was a man with his back to them.
The man had been taken to the Tower of London. His hoard of gunpowder had been uprooted and investigations (torture) began immediately.
Parliament had commenced, and Arthur had recovered the letter, if only for a short time.
It still lay on his desk.
Inclining his body away from the window, Arthur looked back towards the document, and despite the urge to snatch the letter off of the polished surface, he took a brief moment to bask in the energy thrumming through him.
Physically he shook; his body quivered as if a match was striking him – as if he was trying to resist conjuring the flame. Mentally his thoughts were colliding with each other, every one of them seeking to batter its companions into surrender.
Arthur's fingers reached towards the parchment, his hand quaking like falling autumn leaves, as he breathed, "It's inevitable; those who deserve punishment will receive it."
He lifted it towards his face.
"…They shall receive a terrible blow this parliament," He read before pausing, the muscles in his arm tightening, "What a useful letter." He flipped it over again, identically to the way both he and others had already done, just incase, "I wonder who it was that wrote it."
His eyes scanned the page.
There was nothing. The bluntness of the warning made the disappointed over this…nothing particularly tangible.
Setting the letter back onto the desk, Arthur traipsed to the other side of the room, over to where the coat hanger stood, and selected an evergreen coat. Pulling it on the man glanced back to the sole window. For a short moment, he stood still, just keeping a steady gaze on the outside of the glass panes, peering though them before he opened the study's door and slipped outside.
The flames had begun to climb again, yet this time they were different.
The word on the street was passing from lips to lips.
It was…something to know that his people felt just as strongly about this – and he knew that they did. He could feel their outrage, their 'yeses', their 'its true's' and their eager nodding, their primal desire to inform their family and friends of what had almost occurred.
They felt paroxysms of incredulity, indignation, relief and victory.
England's people were celebrating.
Through the window, Arthur could see small fires bursting into life. Small hills which symbolised and relished this success were being constructed by every person.
They hailed their king, for he had escaped unscathed.
Arthur went outside to join them.
The firelight slanted across faces, highlighting them. Arthur could feel it hitting his skin too.
"Oi, England! What comes after the gunpowder and treason bit?" America shouted over the heads of people crowding around the giant, burning mass of a bonfire.
Arthur thought that they had done rather well this year: it was a busy, cheery evening with children dashing between the adults, everybody's voices melting together and everyone huddled together by the fire for warmth. Naturally the stuffed, crudely made 'body' of Guy Fawkes sat in the pride of place on top of the inferno.
Arthur smiled into his scarf, "It's 'gunpowder, treason and plot' you idiot."
"Oh yeah!" The younger man laughed, sticking his hands into his pockets, and tilting his head back to shout the words to the stars, "Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot..."
From his place beside the bonfire, Arthur looked around at all of the people who had hurried out on the cold and dreary autumn night to celebrate this day, as they did annually, every year. Hundreds of people were packed together in the field, united as they laughed and basked in the glow cast by the bonfire.
The flames looked like they reached the sky…
"I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot," Arthur whispered to himself.
He stood among the people of England, hundreds of years after that day, and warmed his heart by the fire. It still beat, slowly and steadily, as a dull lull, in the back of his mind.
Arthur welcomed it, just as he did the fire.