Andrew Swanston - The King's Spy

‘The college is full of soldiers and their families. Which of them would want to kill an elderly scholar, and why?’

‘Why, indeed? The motive is as yet unclear, but I have received information that Master Fletcher performed certain services for the king. Services important to the conduct of the war. If this became known to a traitor, he might have been in danger.’

And I know who you received it from, thought Thomas. Tobias Rush, a murderer and a traitor. ‘I know nothing of such matters.’

‘I have also been informed that you were recently found drunk in the street.’

‘Drunk in the street? Nonsense. I was knocked into a shit-filled drain by three boys. I was quite sober.’

‘Were there any witnesses to this?’

‘I expect so. There were people in the street. Someone must have seen it happen.’

‘I shall make inquiries. Meanwhile, Thomas Hill, a coroner’s jury will be summoned to examine the death of Abraham Fletcher. I have no doubt that the jury will reach a verdict of murder. I also have no doubt that you had the means, and probably the motive, to commit this awful crime, and that the jury will send you to the Court of Assizes to stand trial for murder. While I conduct further investigations, you will be held at Oxford Castle. Guard!’

Before Thomas could protest, two guards who must have been waiting outside threw open the door.

‘Bind the prisoner and take him immediately to the castle. He is to be held there until I order his release or transfer elsewhere.’

When his hands were tied and he was marched out of the house, the terrible truth hit Thomas. Rush had bribed the coroner, and he really was being taken to one of the most notorious gaols in England. He shouted for help, and was struck in the face for his trouble. Outside, he searched frantically for Simon. At first he could not see him, and was almost panicked into calling out again. Then Simon appeared briefly from behind a wall, signalled that he had seen Thomas and disappeared again. He must have feared that they were being watched.

At the castle, the coroner’s guards told the gatekeeper their business, and they were escorted through the castle yard to a thick oak door on the other side. The gatekeeper unlocked it, and Thomas was manhandled into a dingy guardroom, where a pox-scarred man with a huge belly sat eating a chicken leg. His guards handed their charge over to the fat gaoler. ‘Room for a small one? Shouldn’t be here long. He’ll be off to the Assizes for murder.’

‘We’ll fit ’im in somewhere,’ replied the gaoler, through a mouthful of chicken. ‘If ’e’s a murderer, we’d better chain ’im.’ He took an iron ring attached to a short chain from a row hanging on the wall, and locked it round Thomas’s neck. ‘That’ll keep ’im out of trouble.’

The guards left, and Thomas was led by the chain to a flight of stone steps which spiralled up the ancient tower of the castle. The steps were so narrow that the gaoler could only just squeeze himself up them. The iron ring was rusty and cut into Thomas’s neck, and his hands were still bound. His legs were shaking and his eyes refused to focus. From inside low doors leading off the steps at intervals came the sounds of human beings in pain. In this tower, prisoners-of-war, convicted criminals and men awaiting trial were all thrown in together. The prison made no distinctions. The stench of filth and misery was overpowering. At the fourth door, the gaoler stopped. He unlocked the door with a key from a bunch tied to his waist, pulled Thomas inside, kicked something out of the way and forced Thomas to his knees. He fastened the chain with a lock to another chain hanging from the wall, unbound Thomas’s hands and left. The door clanged shut, and Thomas was in darkness.

Even the blackest darkness could not hide the pool of shit and vomit in which Thomas was sitting, or the noxious slime that ran down the wall behind his back. His stomach heaved, and he added his own contribution to the pool. As his eyes adjusted to the meagre light from a tiny window high up on one wall, he began to make out the shapes around him. They sat, chained as he was, around all four walls of the cell and, unchained, back to back in the middle. In a space no more than twenty feet by fifteen, he counted forty bodies, including three that were so small they could only be children, not one of which could move a muscle without sloshing about in a sea of muck. No one spoke, or even raised a head to look at the new arrival. Some were moaning, a few weeping. Most were silent. Chained or unchained, every prisoner sat, knees up and head down, in whatever space he could get. There was scant room to stretch a leg, never mind lie down. Not that lying in six inches of piss and shit held much attraction. Thomas looked to his right, and, with a shock, saw that the thing the gaoler had kicked out of the way was a body. A dead one. And as the cell became clearer, he realized that it was not the only dead body. There were certainly four others, and might be more. It was hard to be sure. He rested his head on his knees and closed his eyes. Smell, sound and touch, he could not avoid. Taste and sight, he would try to. It was at least something to concentrate on.

After a while, the door was unlocked and the fat gaoler waddled in. He grabbed a boy by the hair and dragged him outside. The boy went without a sound. Again, no one showed the slightest interest. For all they cared, the boy might be going to the gallows or on his way home.

They cared when he was brought back, however. They heard his screams coming up the steps, and they saw him tossed like a doll into the cell. Holding his hands out in front of him, the boy sat and howled. For the first time, someone spoke.

‘Shut up, boy, or I’ll snap your neck.’

‘They burned my hands,’ wailed the child. ‘They tied leaves and twigs between my fingers and burned them.’

‘Piss on them. That’ll cool them down.’

Thomas had heard of this. The governor’s fire, it was called. Torture for pleasure, and on a boy of no more than ten. Gradually, the boy’s howls became sobs, then stopped altogether. He slumped to the floor and lay still. The first voice spoke again.

‘If I ’ad a knife, I’d eat the little bugger.’

‘Me, too.’

‘’e’s only a runt. Wouldn’t be enough on ’im to go round.’

God in heaven, thought Thomas, how in the name of everything holy did I get here? He knew, of course. It was the very unholy Rush. With the king away, he thought he could get away with anything. First Pole, then Abraham, now him. Whatever was in it, Rush wanted that message. It was more than a routine despatch, much more. Somewhere hidden in it was information of critical importance to the outcome of the war. A peace proposal, perhaps, or news of help from the Dutch? Or something more devious? Simon must keep it hidden until he got out of here and could work on it again.

Some time later the door to the cell was unlocked and the fat gaoler came in again, this time carrying a heavy-looking cudgel. A younger man, who might have been his son, followed with two loaves of bread, which he threw on the floor.

‘Dinner time,’ croaked the gaoler. ‘Eat up. Too skinny and you’ll go slow on the rope. And be grateful. Remember I ’ad to pay for it from me own pocket.’

Even before the gaolers had left, an unchained boy leapt on a loaf and sank his teeth into it. He had barely done so when he was knocked aside by a large, black-bearded man, whose arms were just long enough to reach the bread. No one else got a bite, and Thomas did not see where the other loaf went. It hardly mattered. He was not yet hungry enough to take a mouthful of stale, shit-covered bread.

He sat against the slimy wall, and tried to think of Margaret and the girls. But he could not. The walls of the gaol would not let him. He could see only gangs of men, serfs and slaves, digging out the foundations of this place, lowering down stone and bricks and timbers on ropes, clambering down rickety ladders to dig and build foundations, and watching a great castle slowly emerge. They had built well. The castle and its tower had stood for five hundred years. How many men had died in it? How many had died in this very cell? If it stood for another five hundred years, how many more would die here? He wondered who had designed the castle, where the stone had come from, where the iron had been forged. He wondered how long it had taken to build and how many men had toiled on it. Gazing at the stone walls, he wondered about the mason who had built it. Was he tall, short, fat, thin? How did he speak? Did he have a family? How old was he when he worked here? What tools had he used?