The King's Spy (Thomas Hill Trilogy 1)

by Swanston, Andrew

  ‘Thomas, I swear I did not. I had no idea that Rush intended to murder Master Fletcher, or that that was where you were when I came to Pembroke.’

  ‘And he took the old man’s eyes first. Eyes that could not see.’

  Jane looked away. ‘The man’s a monster. When I heard about it, I confronted him. He laughed and told me that in time of war such things are necessary, and worse happens on the battlefield. He told me to keep quiet or it would go badly for me and my family.’

  ‘And did he tell you to befriend me and to keep him informed of anything I said?’

  ‘After he saw us at the masque, yes. You had been watched from the moment you rode into the city with Simon. Rush saw me as a way of getting even closer to you. He told me that you were not to be trusted. It did not take me long to realize that it was he who could not be trusted.’

  Thomas thought about it. Tobias Rush had kept a close watch on him, had him knocked over in the street, had stolen his key, had tortured and murdered poor Abraham, and had him thrown into the gaol. Jane Romilly had deceived him, searched his room and played him for a fool. But she had visited him in the gaol and persuaded the queen to authorize his release. Why?

  ‘And what, may I ask, has prompted you to tell me this now?’

  ‘Thomas, please believe me. I was horrified at Abraham’s death, and could not bear the thought of your dying in that awful place. I daren’t tell the queen about Rush for fear of his influence with the king, but with Simon’s help I was able to persuade her of your innocence.’

  ‘Does Simon know everything?’

  ‘He does. He heard my confession and told me to come here and to tell you the truth.’

  ‘And did he tell you to seduce me first?’ Thomas’s voice was bitter.

  ‘Oh Thomas, of course not.’

  ‘Rush told me he had his suspicions about you. Why would he do that?’

  ‘To divert attention from himself, and perhaps to find out if I had kept anything from him. Deceit and subterfuge are as natural to that man as breathing. He told me to keep your key. He didn’t want to be found with it himself, and would cheerfully have sacrificed me if necessary.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  There was a knock on the door. Thomas unlocked it and Simon entered. He looked quizzically at Jane, who nodded.

  ‘The king wishes to see Thomas immediately,’ he said. ‘We must leave at once. There are horses waiting.’

  ‘What does he make of the decryption?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘He fears for the queen. Other than that, he said little.’

  ‘What about Rush?’

  ‘I did not see Rush.’

  ‘Shall we tell the king what we know about Rush?’

  ‘No. We still do not have proof. It would be too dangerous.’

  Thomas gathered up his papers, carefully rolling up the original message, his copy of it and his copy of the decryption, and tucked them inside his shirt. Within two minutes they had left the abbey and were on their way.

  They rode in silence to Merton, where Simon escorted Jane, still in her friar’s habit, to her rooms, and returned at once to take Thomas to Christ Church, where the king awaited them. They were shown into a receiving room in the Deanery, where they waited for the king to appear from his private apartments. ‘I take it Jane has told you everything, Thomas?’ enquired Simon quietly.

  ‘She says that she has.’

  ‘Then she has.’

  When the king entered, they bowed their heads. Thomas looked up and flinched. An unmistakable figure, all in black – his face hidden in shadow – stood behind the king.

  ‘So, Master Hill,’ his majesty said quietly. Thomas had noticed that the king’s voice was never raised. Perhaps it had to do with his stammer. ‘And where have you been hiding, since I returned from seeing loyal friends die in a just cause? We have been most exercised by your disappearance, and the good Master Rush has had to make other arrangements for the security of our messages.’

  Thomas glanced at Simon. ‘I have been at the abbey near Botley, your majesty. Father de Pointz ensured that neither the abbot nor the monks knew who I am or why I was there.’

  ‘And why, pray, did you choose to hide in an abbey?’

  Before Thomas could reply, Simon spoke for him. ‘If I may, your majesty, Master Hill was near death when he left the gaol, and had to be nursed back to health. The monks have a number of excellent remedies, which proved efficacious. He also needed solitude in order to work on the intercepted message. Happily, in that, too, he was successful.’

  ‘So it seems,’ said the king, stretching out his hand to take a paper handed to him by Rush. ‘And a most alarming message it is. If true, my dear queen is in grave danger. I have already ordered that her guard be doubled, and that she stay within the walls of Merton at all times. If false, it must have been designed to cover up some devious plot. Be sure that, if that is the case, we shall uncover its nature, and punish the traitors behind it.’

  ‘Your majesty,’ said Thomas, ‘the message was given to me to decrypt by Master Fletcher. As you are aware, until he was foully murdered, all intercepted messages were passed to him. If it is false, its contents must have been intended to be revealed. Yet it was encrypted by means of a cipher that is seldom used, and which, until now, neither Master Fletcher nor I believed had ever been broken. It was also hidden. Its writer did not want it found or decrypted.’

  ‘It may or may not have been hidden. Master Rush will trace its source. He will find the man who brought it to Oxford, and any others through whose hands it may have passed. I have no doubt that his interrogations will reveal their guilt or innocence in the matter. However, you too, Master Hill, as Master Rush has pointed out, are not above suspicion. We trusted Master Fletcher, but we can all be deceived. He may have been deceived by you. What have you to say to that?’

  ‘Your majesty, Abraham Fletcher was a good man and your loyal servant. As am I. I make no pretence of liking this or any other war, and I wish to see it over. If I can hasten the day when it ends justly, I shall be content. I have no reason, no reason what ever, to act against your majesty’s interests.’

  ‘I note that you have not decrypted the numerical codes in this message. Why is that, Master Hill?’

  ‘I can only guess at some of them in the light of the context of the message. I cannot guess at the names of the Parliamentary commanders, nor at the identity of the man to whom the number 775 refers.’

  ‘It is exactly that man, Master Hill, whose identity we need to know. Whoever he is, he is the man behind this cowardly plot to use the queen as if she were a pawn in a game of chess. Or could it be that this whole thing has been fabricated to cast suspicion on one of our loyal servants?’

  ‘There has been no fabrication, your majesty. I have de crypted the message exactly as it was given to me.’

  Rush stepped forward. ‘With your majesty’s permission. Master Hill, the coroner had grounds for suspecting you of the murder of Abraham Fletcher. As you rightly say, a foul murder. When I visited you in gaol, you spurned my offer of help. I wonder why. And when, through the kindness of her majesty, misplaced kindness in my opinion, you were released, you hid. Furthermore, you now ask his majesty to believe that you have broken a cipher which has remained unbroken for nearly a hundred years. A trifle far-fetched, is it not?’

  ‘All ciphers can be broken. This one was no different. It needed but a stroke of fortune to set me on the right road. Would your majesty care for me to show you how?’

  The king was growing impatient. ‘Not now. The queen is safe under guard at Merton. For the present, that is what matters. Father de Pointz will return to the queen’s service, and you, Master Hill, will be confined here in Christ Church. Master Rush does not believe your story; the queen plainly does. We will think presently on what more is to be done. You will not leave the college grounds for any purpose. If you do so, you will be branded a traitor and treated accordingly. Now leave us.’

  Tho
mas and Simon bowed, turned and left the room. Thomas was immediately flanked by two of the king’s Lifeguards. ‘You know where I am, Simon,’ he said. ‘His majesty said nothing about visitors.’

  ‘I shall come soon. And send word if you need me urgently.’

  The guards led Thomas through an arch into a small courtyard behind the hall. They entered one of the doorways that opened on to the courtyard, and climbed two flights of stairs. There a door was opened with a key produced by one of the guards, and Thomas was ushered in. The guards left without locking the door. Thomas inspected the room. The king must have ordered it prepared for him. It was spacious and comfortable, with a writing table, chairs, bookshelves, a fire laid in the grate and a window which looked out on to the courtyard. A bed stood against the wall furthest from the door. One stinking cell, one abbey and two college rooms. Four places so far to rest his head. He wondered if there would be a fifth.

  The papers went under the bed. When he left the room, they would go with him so that no intruder would find them. He had nothing else but the miserable clothes he stood in. The monks had done their best to clean them, but four days in Oxford Castle had taken their toll. His precious copy of Montaigne and the small bag of money were long gone. He would ask Simon for clothes. Until then, he could do little but read, think and walk in the college grounds.

  Not that the grounds were at all alluring. The main courtyard had not only been turned into a parade ground but now also housed a cattle pen, and two other yards acted as stables. As well as overblown army officers and obsequious courtiers, he would have humble grooms and cowmen for company. And Rush. He would be here, lurking like a hungry black crow with its eye on a nest of fledglings. Prenez garde, Thomas, this crow won’t let you fly away again.

  And Jane Romilly. Had she told him the truth or was her ‘confession’ just another deception? Could someone who had behaved as she had ever be trusted? Had Rush really threatened to harm her parents or had she concocted that story? Was there more to his rescue from the gaol and her coming to the abbey? If there was, even Simon de Pointz was not above suspicion. God’s wounds, that would be an unholy trinity if ever there was one – a murdering confidant of the king, a traitorous lady-in-waiting to the queen, and a Franciscan friar who professed to dislike religious dogma. Romsey seemed a long way away.

  On the other hand, threats to Jane’s parents were consistent with the letters to Margaret – both carried the evil mark of Rush. Attack an enemy’s weakest spot; that would be his instinct. And Jane did seem genuinely devoted to the queen, as did Simon. If they had told the truth, both might now be in danger themselves. Rush would not tolerate disloyalty.

  Jane Romilly. One eye was blue yet the other was brown. A lady to whom he had made love that very day. A lady whom, despite their different stations in life, he had dared to think of marrying. A lady who had admitted deceiving him and betraying the king and queen. Should he see her again or should he not? Head or heart, Thomas? Reason or sentiment?

  For an hour and another hour, Thomas sat and thought. Over and over again he replayed their conversations in his mind, trying to remember her exact words. It got him nowhere. Perhaps Jane had told him everything, perhaps not. He’d find out soon enough. For now, however, he would keep his distance. It would hurt, but it was necessary.

  Eventually, his thoughts moved on. Margaret must have been much alarmed by the threatening letters even to have mentioned them. An untutored hand, she had said. Untutored hand or not, it reeked of Rush. Threats to two innocent children. Monstrous. And almost certainly just to get rid of Thomas. Yet, with Rush, one could not be sure. The threats might be carried out just for the pleasure of it. This was a man who was plotting to have the queen taken prisoner and used as a bargaining tool in this cruel, needless war. And, worst of all, he had the ear and trust of the king. Without undeniable proof of the man’s guilt, Thomas could say nothing. The king would simply assume that he was trying to divert attention from himself, and have him hanged as a traitor. Thomas Hill against Tobias Rush. Not much of a contest.

  The king’s summons came the next morning. Master Hill was to attend his majesty in the Great Hall at once. Thomas made ready, the papers again inside his shirt, and left immediately. The king sat in his customary place at the far end of the hall, and Thomas approached in the manner in which he had been instructed. The king clearly enjoyed observing his subjects like this, otherwise he would meet them in his apartments. He sat quite still, and waited. As before, he was surrounded by courtiers, including Rush, and, as before, he spoke quietly.

  ‘Master Hill, I am persuaded by Master Rush that it would be wise to demand from you a description of the cipher you claim has never before been broken, and an explanation of the manner in which you broke it.’

  Thomas had been half expecting this. ‘That I will certainly do, your majesty, if you wish it. However, since I do not believe that there is anyone else in England who has the means to break the cipher, I suggest, with respect, that an understanding of the decryption technique would be best kept to as few as possible. It may yet prove as great an asset as a loyal army.’

  The king took a moment to consider this. ‘Very well. You will demonstrate the cipher only to Master Rush and to me. We will begin at once.’ While servants brought paper and ink, and all the courtiers but Rush left the hall, Thomas took out his papers and laid the square he had written out and the original message on a table beside the king’s seat. He began with the square.

  ‘This is a Vigenère square, your majesty. The letters of the alphabet form the top row, and the first column. A message is encrypted by use of a keyword, which dictates the encrypted letter which will replace each letter of the text. The intercepted message I decrypted used the keyword PARIS. Thus, the first letter of the message, F, was replaced by U.’ He traced with a quill the column headed by F to where it intersected the row starting with P. ‘The second letter of the message, R, was replaced by itself, because the second letter of the keyword is A.’ He pointed to the first letter of the final row.

  ‘What is the purpose in encrypting a letter as itself?’

  ‘Unless the receiver of the message knows the keyword, your majesty, it is as good an encryption as any. Without the keyword, he cannot know, or even guess, that the letter A appears in it.’

  ‘And how did you discover that the keyword used in this message was PARIS?’ asked Rush.

  Thomas explained how he had realized that the square created a number of single alphabetic ciphers rather than one poly-alphabetic one, and that he had found the length of the keyword, and thus the number of ciphers, by analysing the frequency of repeated letter sequences.

  The king did not immediately grasp the importance of this. ‘And in what way did this lead you to a successful outcome?’ he asked suspiciously. Thomas explained the theories of frequency analysis, and how he had applied them, once he had identified the five ciphers in use.

  ‘I was fortunate, your majesty, in that, in a text of this length, there were sufficient letters in each cipher to make analysis by letter frequency viable. Even then, it was not entirely straightforward.’

  ‘Master Rush, do you understand this?’ asked the king.

  ‘I do, your majesty. Master Hill’s explanation seems to me to be plausible, although one wonders why, if he was able to decrypt the message with comparative ease, the cipher has remained unbroken for so long.’

  ‘Prison walls, Master Rush,’ replied Thomas sharply. ‘Prison walls led me to the solution. When one has nothing to do but sit on an excrement-covered floor and stare at a stone wall, it helps to con centrate the mind. I recommend it to you.’

  Rush ignored the remark. ‘This is the original message, is it not? Did you make a copy?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then perhaps we may have it. We should keep both original and copy in a safe place.’

  Thomas handed the copy to Rush, who examined it closely, as if looking for differences. With a smile, he placed it on the tabl
e beside the original. ‘Your majesty will see that both original and copy were written by the same hand.’

  The king peered at the papers. ‘It would seem so. How do you account for this, Master Hill?’

  ‘When decrypting a message, it is my habit to put myself, as far as I can, in the shoes of the encrypter. Thus, I try to copy his hand.’

  ‘Then you have done it as well as any forger,’ said Rush. ‘His majesty might find it difficult to believe this claim.’

  ‘By your leave, your majesty,’ Thomas replied, ‘if Master Rush would write a sentence or two in his own hand, I will reproduce it so that you are unable to tell the two apart.’

  ‘What would you like me to write?’ asked Rush.

  ‘Let us try “One eye is brown yet the other is blue”. That should be sufficient.’

  Rush wrote the sentence and passed the quill to Thomas. With a quick glance at Rush’s script, he wrote a copy underneath. It was an exact match.

  ‘This proves only that, in addition to being a traitor and a murderer, this man may be a forger, your majesty.’ Rush spat out the words. The king looked thoughtful.

  ‘You are a man of many talents, Master Hill. I would not want you for an enemy, and I would like to be convinced, as the queen is, that you are our friend. Until I am, however, you will remain in Christ Church. Master Rush will conduct further inquiries.’

  And how exactly will Master Rush do that? wondered Thomas, on his way back to his rooms. Threats? Torture? An accident? All three?

  CHAPTER 13

  EVEN IN TIME of war, the king and his household did not believe in stinting themselves, and for two days Thomas enjoyed the offerings of the king’s own cooks, who laboured day and night to keep his majesty happy. Breakfasts of buttered eggs and lamb cutlets and dinners of roasted venison and beef, washed down with excellent wines purloined from the college cellars, did their best to keep his spirits up. The meals were brought to him in his rooms by a young kitchen boy, who must have been told to say nothing to the gentleman he was serving. Even Thomas’s polite enquiry as to the boy’s name was met with blank silence. They were a strange two days. Imprisoned in the college, suspected of treason and murder, yet dining on royal food and drinking royal wine, both served by a silent boy. Luckily, his predecessor must have been a scholarly man, with an interest in ancient history. At least he had Plutarch and Tacitus for company.