James Forrester - The Roots of Betrayal

“Someone must be able to decipher it, Francis. If it is meaningful, there has to be a way to extract that meaning.” Cecil looked at the DCC and tried the usual first step of substituting the most common element in the message with the most common word in the language. But the most common four-letter words with a double letter in the middle used vowels-EE and OO-and those did not fit the other appearances of CC in the code. Even separating out the numerical equivalents-500, 200, and a dash-did not simplify things. If that was a common three-letter word like “and,” for example, then 200 was an N and the first word had to begin with a double N. If 200 was “the,” then the first word began with a double H.

“I see what you mean,” Cecil acknowledged. “This is nothing like a straightforward Caesar cipher.”

“There seems to be a pattern of variation on numbers. Two hundred appears regularly, in the form of ‘CC.’ But does ‘IICCV’ relate to two, three, or four numbers? It is difficult to know where the breaks are, where a word begins and ends.”

“The messenger riding through the rain-do we know who he is? Where he comes from?”

Walsingham walked to the small table by the window and poured himself a goblet of wine. “No. I have asked for the body to be embalmed and brought to the city as quickly as possible. It will take some days. No one locally knows him. Latham says that he took fright immediately when accosted. Also, he was riding hard through very heavy rain when they noticed him. This message, whatever it means, was urgent. Given that fact and its originality, it must be important.”

“How many men do you have working on it?”

“Two. I had three copies made last night. The original is safely stored in my house.”

“Good.” Cecil paused. “The more men, the greater the danger of information leaking out. Work your clerks around the clock. Offer them every incentive to keep going. Decipher it quickly, but don’t make any more copies-and don’t let the existing copies out of your house. Until we know what this means, treat it as dangerous.”

Clarenceux closed the heavy volume of the Skinners’ Company accounts. He had been checking them in his capacity as one of the Wardens but had not been able to concentrate. His mind had been elsewhere. Seven or eight times he had realized his additions had not tallied with the written entry, and almost every time a second check had revealed that he was at fault, the written entry was correct. Only one correction was marked-one correction to show for an hour sitting in blurred contemplation.

He got up and set the account book back in its place on a shelf and left the chamber. He waved good-bye to the porter and stepped out into the mild air of the street. It was a short walk to the Machyn house in Little Trinity Lane. Every so often a quarrel of glass in an upstairs window would catch the sun and reflect a brilliant ray of light into his eyes. The mud had dried and was firm to walk on-except at intervals where a cellar or drain had leaked and the ground was still wet, churned by cartwheels and hooves. He breathed deeply of the summer air, tinged with the familiar and not dislikable aroma of the clay, mud, and horse dung of the streets, and a slight whiff of seawater. It was a good day to be out of doors. It would be even better if he were already riding down to Chislehurst, to see his friend Julius.

Perhaps Rebecca would accompany him?

Immediately he put the thought out of his mind. Although she had gone to Summerhill with him last December, that had been when they were fleeing for their lives. The moral code that permitted them to be together then now stipulated that he, a married man, should keep a respectful distance from Widow Machyn. There was no doubt what people would say if he were to be seen riding out of the city with her. He had witnessed too many otherwise respectable people clothed in white at the church door repenting of their sins to have any doubt in the matter.

Outside Rebecca Machyn’s home, he paused and looked up at Mrs. Barker’s elegant house on the other side of Little Trinity Lane, with its high glazed windows and its carved jetties supporting the upper floor. He recalled the horror of last December, when he had killed a man in this street and fled through the backyards behind that house, desperate beyond belief. He made the cross over his chest and closed his eyes in prayer. Oh Lord, may such fear and doubt never enter my heart and mind again .

He knocked on the oak door of the Machyn house with the hilt of his eating knife and waited. After a short while he heard a woman’s voice and footsteps. Rebecca opened the door.

Instantly his heart felt glad. He saw her long dark hair, her brown eyes, the large mole on the side of her face. He saw the tragic beauty of her countenance. He saw the woman with whom he had shared so many dangers. He felt purposeful. He smiled.

“Good day, Rebecca. Thomas told me you called.”

She did not respond. Just as he had been instantly gladdened by the sight of her face, now he was just as swiftly alarmed by her lack of welcome.

“You did call at my house?”

“Yes, I did. It was…nothing.” She looked at him, almost tearful.

“May I come in?”

She nodded, left the door open for him, and turned and walked along the corridor to the hall. Clarenceux shut the door behind him. It was dim and chilly inside, especially standing here alone. This was not the reception he had expected.

Henry Machyn’s old workshop was at the front, on the right. This used to be filled with his rolls of black cloth and heraldic paintings; now it was almost empty. Looking through the open door Clarenceux could see four large chests in the center. The rest of the room was bare, the walls stripped of their decoration, the work table gone.

He walked down the corridor, past the staircase, and into the hall. Opposite was a large fireplace of stone with a bread oven built into its side. Tallow candles lit the room; there were no windows in here. Two chambers above, the storeroom at the rear and the workshop at the front blocked out any light. A series of cloths painted by Henry Machyn hung on the walls. In one or two places they had started to fray. The floor was covered in straw and there was a smell of stale ale and urine. Two chests were the only storage. A wooden table stood in the center.

“Oh, fie! What brings you here, Mr. Clarenshoo?” asked a red-faced man of about twenty-five. He was sitting on a small bench beside the table, with his legs splayed, wearing a loose, dirty linen shirt and a sleeveless mariner’s leather jerkin. He was drunk. His blond hair was a mess. “No coats of arms here. None at all.”

“Good day, John. I’ve come to talk with your stepmother.”

“Talk? No, you want to do more than that. Lots of men like you want to do more with her. You’re not the first…”

“John!” snapped Rebecca. “Enough.”

“I have a right to speak. This was my father’s house and now it is mine.” John Machyn lifted an earthenware flagon to his lips. “And a man can say what he likes in his own home.”

“Shall we talk in the other room?” asked Clarenceux, glancing at Rebecca.

She tried a weak smile and led the way out of the hall and through into the workshop. “He’s impossible,” she muttered when Clarenceux drew close. “All he does is drink, swear, and complain. He has no manners. He pisses in the corner of the hall at night rather than go outside. I wish he would go back to sea.”

“You would be welcome to stay at my house.”

“You know I cannot. Nor would I want to.” She still did not look at him.

“What is the matter, Rebecca? You are out of keeping with yourself. Tell me.”