Andrew Swanston - The King's Spy

He locked the door behind him and poured himself a glass from the bottle of good claret Silas had thoughtfully provided. Then he sat down at the table to tackle the rest of the pile. After two dreary messages, however, his mind wandered. Not long ago, he was a respectable and unremarkable bookseller and writer of minor papers on mathematics and philosophy. Now he had conversed with the king and the queen, been abused by a drunken oaf of a soldier, seen for himself what war could do to a town as lovely as Oxford, met a beautiful lady with eyes of different colours, and been warned by almost everyone to beware of everyone else. Why in the name of God had he allowed himself to be caught up in this bloody war? Why had he not stayed in Romsey and taken care of Margaret and the girls? That was his proper place, not here among soldiers, beggars and spies. The harvest would be in, there would be the first touch of autumn in the air, and the stream would be alive with jumping trout. He loved early autumn in the countryside. In this benighted town there were no seasons, just noise, stench and death. With a sigh, he forced himself from his reverie and went back to work.

After three more days and nights, dozens of dreary reports and an almost total lack of contact with the world outside his room, Thomas could face no more. Despite his labours, the number of incoming reports had at least matched the number he had decrypted, and the pile on his table was no lower. After breakfast supplied by the kitchen, he locked his door, strode through the courtyard and left the college. It was time to pay a call he should already have paid.

The shop stood on the corner of Broad Street and Turl Street, not far from Balliol College. Braving the morning crowds in Market Street and the beggars and whores in Turl Street, he walked briskly to it. The outside was as he remembered it — a narrow two-storey building with glazed windows and timber framing, the upper storey jutting out over the street. It was typical of the buildings that had sprung up all over Oxford sixty or seventy years earlier, and had probably been built for a local merchant. Now it was home to John Porter’s bookshop.

Thomas pushed open the door and stepped inside. Despite the windows, it was dark enough for candles to have been lit and placed on a table in the middle of the room. There were bookshelves around the walls and two uncomfortable-looking chairs by the table. Unlike Thomas’s shop, however, there were few books. No untidy piles on the table or the floor and not very many on the shelves. As Thomas looked around, an old man came bustling in from a back room. He was exactly as Thomas remembered him and exactly as a bookseller should be. Unkempt, shabby, down-at-heel, for as long as Thomas had known him John Porter had put him in mind of Chaucer’s clerk in his Canterbury Tales — spectacles perched on the end of his nose, unruly white hair which might not have been trimmed for a year, and hands stained with dirt and ink.

‘Good morning, sir,’ he croaked at Thomas. ‘Everything you can see is for sale, and I will make you a good price. Are you in search of a particular book?’

Thomas stepped a little closer. ‘John, do you not recognize an old customer?’

The old man peered over his spectacles at Thomas, looked puzzled, and then smiled a toothless smile. ‘Good Lord, if it isn’t Thomas Hill. And what brings you to this benighted town at such a time?’

Thomas held out his hand and took the old man’s. His skin was as thin and dry as parchment. ‘Good morning, John. A pleasure to see you again. I have come to visit Abraham.’

John Porter nodded. ‘Of course. Your old tutor, as I recall. It must be more than a year since I last saw him. No more books for him, I fear. His eyes were getting very bad.’

‘He sees almost nothing now. Shapes and shadows only, he says, although his mind is still clear. And how do you fare, John?’

The old man spread his arms in a gesture of resignation. ‘As you can tell, Thomas, it is not the shop it used to be. The University Press has closed, it’s impossible to get books from London and I’m reduced to what you see. Not that it matters much. There are no scholars, and few soldiers care to spend their pay on books. I should have an inn or a bakery. Then I’d be a wealthy man.’

‘You’d be a hopeless innkeeper or baker, John. You’d drink the ale and eat the cakes. Much better to stick to your books.’

John Porter laughed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Is it any better in Romsey? It is Romsey, isn’t it?’

‘It is. I don’t sell many books either, and we have had trouble with soldiers, so I suppose it’s much the same. Let’s hope the war ends soon and we can get back to normal.’

‘Normal. I’ve forgotten what that is. I hardly dare go out after dark for fear of being robbed or worse, I go for days without seeing a customer, and the army takes everything there is. I couldn’t even buy an egg last week.’

‘Do their majesties’ households not read?’

‘They do not. I daresay the king’s lot are too busy having their portraits painted, and the queen’s being lectured on her faith. When she’s not throwing money away on her masques, that is. I heard the last one was her most extravagant yet.’

‘So I heard.’ Thomas thought it prudent not to mention that he had actually attended the masque. ‘This war is a terrible thing, is it not, John? What would Queen Elizabeth have said if she’d known what was going to happen to the country less than fifty years after she’d gone?’

‘I shudder to think. And what will men say fifty years from now? That we destroyed England or that we set her on a new road to peace and prosperity?’

‘I suppose that will depend upon the outcome. It’s hard to imagine an England without a king or without a parliament, yet one of them may not survive.’

‘If they can’t find a way to work together, one of them indeed may not. I’m a Royalist at heart, if only because, like every other man alive, I’ve never known an England without a monarch. Yet, in Oxford, for all the university’s traditional support for the king, most of the townspeople are against him. And the longer his court and his army are here, the more they’re against him. It doesn’t take much to understand why.’

Thinking of the Pembroke courtyard, Thomas could only agree. Filth and squalor among the beauty of the colleges, Francis Fayne and his like in place of books and scholars. The University’s support would soon be wavering, too. He was about to say so, when the door opened and in came two familiar figures. One was a tall, bald Franciscan friar, the other a slim, elegant lady in a long yellow coat and a wide-brimmed yellow bonnet.

‘Your luck has changed, John,’ cried Thomas. ‘Here are two enthusiastic customers, thirsting to spend their money. No need to offer them special prices. They’ll happily pay as much as you ask.’

‘Thomas,’ said Simon sternly, ‘you know perfectly well that Franciscans eschew worldly possessions. I have no money, even for books. I am merely escorting Lady Romilly, who wishes to purchase a present for a friend.’

‘He is not a close friend,’ added Jane, pointedly ignoring Thomas, ‘so a small present will suffice. Can you suggest anything, Master Porter?’

‘Do you know anything of his tastes, madam?’ enquired Porter.

‘His knowledge of plants and flowers is pitifully slight. Have you anything of that sort?’

‘I fear not, madam. Is he perhaps of an artistic turn of mind?’

‘Literary, I think, rather than artistic.’

‘Then may I suggest a volume of poetry?’

‘You may. If you have concluded your business with this gentleman, of course.’

Porter glanced at Thomas, who was thoroughly confused. ‘While Master Hill is considering the matter, madam, allow me to show you what I have,’ he replied, leading Jane to a corner of the shop where a few dusty volumes sat on a shelf.