Andrew Swanston - The King's Spy

‘Come down at once, you two. What are you doing up there? We were worried. Didn’t you hear us calling?’

The girls climbed out of the tree. ‘Of course we heard,’ said Lucy. ‘You were asleep, so we climbed the tree.’

‘Yes,’ said Polly, ‘we wanted to be arboreal.’

Margaret did her best to be cross. ‘Arboreal, indeed. That’s the last time you play your uncle’s games, if they give you ideas like that.’

He winked at them. ‘I’ll think of a better word next time. Something safer. Terrestrial, perhaps.’

‘That’s enough, Thomas. Gather up the things, girls, and we’ll go home.’

Thomas woke and called for Margaret. His room had been changed. His bed was against the wrong wall, and the window had been covered. Why had she covered his window? He struggled off the bed and stumbled to the window. It was not there. He looked about. Where was the window? He saw a door. It was locked. He rattled the handle and called again for Margaret. There was no answer. He fell to the cold stone floor and passed out.

When he woke again he was on the bed, a thin blanket over him. He was hot. He threw off the blanket and immediately started shivering. He retrieved the blanket and lay on his side with his eyes open. The shivering stopped, and he was hot again. His mind registered a fever. Images of the castle and the cell came back to him. Gaol fever. Where was he now, and how did he get here? Why was he alone? He reached out a hand to a small table beside the bed and lifted a cup to his mouth. Cold water dribbled between his cracked lips and down his chin. He held on to the cup and managed a few more sips. Then his eyes closed.

While Thomas slept, Simon de Pointz came quietly into the room, carrying a wooden chair. He felt Thomas’s forehead, wiped it with a damp cloth and sat down on the chair. He smiled and said a short prayer of thanks. Boyish but for his lack of hair, Thomas Hill, at no more than five and a half feet tall, philosopher, cryptographer and pacifist, was not a man to be taken lightly. By the grace of God, he was going to survive.

Simon was still sitting by his bedside when Thomas awoke again. He handed Thomas the cup of water and helped him to drink. ‘There you are, Thomas,’ he said quietly, ‘and looking a little better. Best stay on the bed, though. I found you on the floor yesterday.’

Thomas had no recollection of the floor, or of anything much else. ‘Simon? Where am I?’

‘You’re in a safe place. A Benedictine abbey near Botley. Another of the few that survived. The abbot is an old friend. The monks know they have a visitor, but none of them knows who you are. They won’t trouble you.’

‘How long have I been here?’

‘This is your third day. Are you hungry?’

Thomas realized that he was. ‘Ravenous.’

‘Then I’ll fetch something for you. Stay on the bed unless you need the bucket. It’s in the corner. I don’t want to have to scrape layers of shit off you again.’

Simon was back in a few minutes with soup and bread. With a little help, Thomas managed to swallow some of each, and immediately felt stronger. His arrest and the castle gaol came back to him. ‘When did I last eat?’ he asked.

‘I can’t be sure,’ replied Simon, ‘but at least four days ago.’

‘What was it? Gaol fever?’

‘Probably. We got you out just in time.’

‘How?’

‘Jane Romilly persuaded the queen to sign a paper ordering your release. It might or might not have been lawful but it impressed the gaoler, and he had little choice but to obey.’

‘Is Jane safe?’

‘Quite safe. Rush won’t risk the queen’s anger.’

‘And Rush?’

‘Furious. He’s got half of Oxford looking for you, but he won’t find you. Even the queen doesn’t know where you are.’

Thomas hoped that Simon was not just saying that for his sake. Rush would indeed be furious that Thomas had been released and was not likely to give up the search easily. ‘And what now?’

‘Now you stay here until you’re fully recovered. The message is safely hidden, as are your papers. Tell me when you’re ready to resume work on them.’

The message. The Vigenère cipher. Abraham. The cell. Stones in the wall. An idea. What was it? Thomas could not remember. It would come to him later. ‘Simon, is there any way I can send a message to my sister? The letter I entrusted to Rush will have got no further than his fire. After he’d read it, of course.’

Simon looked doubtful. ‘It won’t be easy. Since Newbury, it’s hard to know which side is where. And bands of clubmen are attacking them both. The roads are much more dangerous than when we came here. Still, I’ll try to think of something. Now rest again, Thomas. I’ll come back this afternoon.’

The pattern of Simon’s visits continued for two days. Morning and afternoon, he came bearing food and news, and to observe the patient’s progress. He brought a copy of a new Oxford newsbook, Mercurius Rusticus . ‘There you are, Thomas,’ he laughed, ‘you’ll enjoy that. Full of careful scholarship and excellent writing.’ Of course, it was nothing of the kind, being little more than satirical attacks on high-minded Puritans and their ill-disciplined soldiers. It could just as well have been written by high-minded Puritans about ill-disciplined Royalists, as most of the London newsbooks were. Verborum bellum . A war of words. John Hampden and ‘King’ Pym were vilified for their treachery, and there was an article on the so-called ‘Rules of War’, an expression that had always struck Thomas as absurd. There were no rules, or, if there were, neither side took any notice of them unless it suited them to do so. A town was sacked and burned. One man killed another. A woman was raped and her child slaughtered. At Bristol, Captain Brooke and his men had acknowledged no rules. War was not a game of tennis. The loser could not protest that the winner had broken a rule, nor did the winner have to play a point again. His opponent was dead. C’était tout .

And so was dear Abraham. His old tutor and friend, nearly blind, scholarly, gracious — tortured and murdered, and almost certainly by a man whom the king trusted unquestioningly. Rush. A monster capable of inflicting indescribable pain on an old man. And worse, there had been something about that awful scene in Abraham’s chamber that suggested the torturer had enjoyed it. Otherwise why take his eyes? Thomas screwed up his own eyes and tried to make the picture of that room go away. He knew Rush was the murderer. All he lacked was proof.

He was desperate for news of Margaret and the girls. With Simon’s money, they should want for nothing as long as the farmers and merchants could still bring their wares to market. But he had been away for six weeks. Had the war come to Romsey, had there been fighting in the streets and the fields, or was there still peace? Had there been more unwelcome visits by men of either side? Perhaps Margaret had closed up the shop and gone to stay with her sister-in-law in Winchester. If she had, no letter would reach her. He could only hope Simon would come up with something.

When he was not thinking about home, Thomas thought about the senseless war which had brought him here. A war started by a stubborn king, who was distrusted by his people and had proved himself capable of serious lapses of judgement, and an equally stubborn Parliament which craved power and demanded the reform of government. A war which should never have happened, but which had now taken on a momentum of its own. Politics, religion, greed, fear — all were now contributing to the bloodshed. God alone knew how long it would go on and what would remain of England when at last it ended. Would brother still fight brother? Would Catholic still hate Puritan? And who would rule the country — king or Parliament, both or neither? Might the Dutch or the French grasp the opportunity to overpower a weakened foe and send their ships across the Channel? Would we have to face another Armada, and if we did, where was Drake to lead the way?