Andrew Swanston - The King's Spy

In between mouthfuls, Thomas told her the news of Bristol. He left out the worst bits, and Margaret knew that he had. She had heard it all before, and she too was sickened by it. ‘God forbid that Polly and Lucy should grow up in such a country. They’ve lost their father and, if it goes on much longer, they’ll lose their childhood. Polly asked me today what happened to the farmer’s face. We saw him in the market. What am I to tell her? That he tripped over a plough, or that it was hacked off by a man with an axe? One’s a lie, the other would give her nightmares. She’s only five, for the love of God.’

Thomas sighed. ‘I have no answers, my dear. A war that was supposed to be about the principles of government is nothing of the kind. Men change sides as it suits them, and mercenaries fight for whoever offers them most. It’s a war driven by fear. Fear of a king with a Catholic queen, fear of Puritanism, fear of the Irish, fear of losing. Perhaps all wars are the same. We all fear something.’

Margaret smiled. ‘Philosophical as ever, Thomas. Does your great Montaigne have anything helpful to say on the matter?’

‘Probably. I offered the captain of dragoons a little something to send him on his way.’

‘Something from Montaigne, Thomas? You’re lucky he didn’t run you through on the spot.’

‘Am I?’ he asked thoughtfully, but told her nothing of his brush with the fat one.

When Margaret was five, Thomas’s mother had died giving birth to him. Their father, a Romsey schoolteacher, had brought them both up to love learning for its own sake, and, from an early age, to think for themselves. ‘It is the duty of a father to teach his children how to think, not what to think,’ the old man had been fond of saying. ‘If only more fathers understood that, there would be fewer wars and less poverty.’ Thus encouraged, Thomas had learned to read and write by the age of five, and to read Latin and French by eight. Much as he loved words, however, he loved numbers better. Numbers fascinated him, especially the ways in which a simple symbol could reveal the truth about something. Pythagoras and Euclid had led him to Plato and Aristotle. While Margaret had stayed at home to run the household, at fifteen Thomas had gone to Oxford. A scholar of Pembroke College, he had studied mathematics and natural philosophy, had excelled at tennis on the court at Merton, had been much in demand as a dance partner for his boyish good looks, nimbleness of foot and grace of movement, had first bedded a girl, and had learned to make up for his lack of height and weight with speed of hand and quickness of eye. More than one fellow student had come to regret a drunken insult or unwise challenge to Thomas Hill.

Yet for all this, Thomas had always found it difficult to conform. He avoided societies and associations, attended chapel only because he had to, moved in small circles, and preferred the company of teachers to that of students. He had intended to stay in Oxford to continue his studies but after three years, when his father became ill, he had returned to Romsey to help care for him. After the old man died ten years ago, Thomas had stayed in the town, bought the house and shop in Love Lane, and settled down to the quiet life of a writer, bookseller and occasional publisher of pamphlets on matters philosophical and mathematical. And when Margaret had married Andrew Taylor and moved to Winchester, he had been content with his books and his writing for company. But the war had changed that. Andrew had left Margaret and their two daughters to join the king’s army and within six months had been killed in a skirmish near Marlborough. Margaret had sold their house and returned with the girls to Romsey. Now they all lived together. Thomas had many friends in Romsey and Winchester, including the unmarried sister of an old Oxford colleague whom he visited every month, and had never seriously considered marriage. At twenty-eight, an age when some men were still searching for their path through life, Thomas was settled and content.

His was only a small shop, made smaller still by crowded shelves and tables overflowing with books and pamphlets. As well as Thomas’s writing table and chair, there were two more chairs for the use of customers and visitors. The latter being more frequent than the former, the shop barely provided them with a living, but Thomas’s inheritance and Margaret’s money from the sale of her house kept them comfortable. While in Oxford and London both sides in this war burned books they found offensive — how an inanimate object could give offence was a mystery to Thomas — he lived his life happily surrounded by them, appreciated the scholarship even of the self-regarding John Milton, with whose opinions he largely disagreed, and waited for peace to return. He knew it might be a long wait.

Ten days after his brush with the fat dragoon, Thomas and Margaret made their regular trip to the market with the girls. Ever since the charter had been granted three hundred years earlier, market day had been by far the most important day in Romsey. Farmers sold eggs, poultry, meat, vegetables and fruit; clothiers and haberdashers set up stalls to show off their finery, and everyone from the mayor and aldermen down came to meet friends and exchange news. The town population seemed to double on market days. Polly and Lucy wore their best bonnets, Margaret her shawl and her string of pearls. She insisted on them when out with Thomas, wanting him to be proud of her.

‘You’re a respected man in this town, Thomas,’ she had said more than once. ‘You’re educated, you write important pamphlets, and you’re looked up to by everyone. It wouldn’t do to let you down.’

‘Thank you, sister,’ he would reply, thinking privately that Margaret could never let him down, and that she always exaggerated a little for the girls’ benefit.

She was a very good-looking woman. Few in Romsey could match her long brown hair, brown eyes and flawless skin, and Thomas reckoned it was only a matter of time before one of the town worthies asked for her hand. He would allow whatever she wished, although he dreaded the day. Margaret and her daughters were his family. He adored them and they him.

Since the visit by the dragoons the town had been quiet, and little news had arrived with the merchants who came from all over the county to buy the wool finished and dyed there. Hoping that market day would prove more informative, Thomas and Margaret shut the bookshop and walked hand in hand with the girls down Love Lane and Market Street to the square between the Romsey Arms and the old abbey.

While Margaret took the girls to buy flour and eggs, Thomas wandered through the market. Stopping briefly to talk with the Court Recorder and a town burgess, he made his way through the crowd to the inn, where six women were paid two shillings each to keep every mug topped up from the big jugs they carried in and out. Chosen by the innkeeper for their speed with the jug, the size of their bosom and their ability to keep his customers coming back for more, not one of the women would go home that evening without having made at least one visit to the little copse behind the inn. The innkeeper allowed them to keep whatever rewards they received for these absences, as long as they were no more than ten minutes each. He reckoned ten minutes was good for business.

‘Morning, Master ’ill. Pot of ale, or a little walk by the river first?’ One of the girls had seen him coming. She was a large, blonde girl with a notable bosom, and she knew what his answer would be.

‘Neither, thank you, Sarah. Next time, perhaps. Have you heard any news today?’

‘Not much. Unless you count Rose. ’er belly’s full again, silly bitch.’ Unlike Sarah, Rose was small, dark and often pregnant.

‘Does she know whose it is?’