The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2)

by Andrew Swanston

  He got to his knees and pulled up her skirts. ‘Filthy whores get filthy treatment,’ he spat at her, unbuckling his belt, ‘and it’s time for yours. You’ll thank me later.’

  The moment Gibbes stepped inside the house, Thomas had run round to the front door. When he found that Gibbes had shut it violently enough to jam it, he ran back and through the kitchen. Patrick lay in a pool of blood on the floor, his hands clasped over his throat. Gibbes, his back to Thomas, had pinned Mary to the floor and was struggling to get out of his breeches. Mary was not moving.

  Thomas cast about for a weapon. He did not see the knife in the door but a silver candlestick stood on the dining table. He picked it up and smashed the heavy base down on Gibbes’s head, feeling the impact right up his arms. Gibbes fell to one side, stunned. Mary opened her eyes and tried to focus. Her cheek was livid and swollen and she was shaking. She held out a hand to Thomas. From the corner of his eye Thomas saw Gibbes beginning to stir. He would have to be quick. Gently disengaging from Mary, he reached down, pulled the pistol from the brute’s belt, aimed carefully at his eye and pulled the trigger.

  There was an empty click. Damp powder. Red brute staggered dimly to his feet and made a lunge for Thomas, catching enough of his shoulder to knock him down. Before he could roll away, Thomas found himself trapped under the weight of the man, his throat being squeezed and his face no more than inches from a fetid, black-toothed hole of a mouth.

  ‘Hill, you little runt. I might have guessed. Run away, would you? Now you’ll get what John Gibbes should have given you years ago.’

  Thomas felt the pressure on his throat increasing and the strength to fight draining away. His eyes closed and he was on the point of losing consciousness when the weight on his chest lifted, his windpipe opened and his lungs sucked in a gulp of air. Gasping painfully, he sat up. Gibbes lay beside him, felled for the second time by the heavy candlestick.

  ‘Be quick, Thomas. His knife. In the door,’ whispered Mary.

  His mind clearing, Thomas was on his feet and pulling the knife from the wood. ‘You or I?’ he asked, holding up the knife.

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘I can.’ He stepped over to the unconscious Gibbes. Mary turned away. When she turned back, red brute was impaled by the knife. It had gone through his throat and into the floorboards.

  Thomas knelt over Patrick, one hand under his head and desperately trying with the other to staunch the flow of blood from the awful wound. Patrick’s eyes were open but all colour had drained from his face. Mary grabbed a cloth from the table and held it over his throat. Blood still spurted out. Patrick smiled weakly and put his hands over Thomas’s. Then his eyes closed and his head slumped to one side. Thomas put two fingers to his neck. Patrick was dead.

  For a long time, Mary and Thomas sat together in silence.

  Eventually Mary asked quietly, ‘Thomas, who saved who this time, would you say?’

  ‘A little of each, perhaps? Would that we could have saved Patrick, too. This terrible thing should not have happened. I should have killed them years ago.’

  ‘And been hanged for it?’

  ‘Perhaps. Now you should rest. I will take care of Patrick.’

  In no state to argue, her cheek now so swollen that her left eye had closed, Mary did as she was told.

  Thomas left the house and ran to the slaves’ quarters. The commotion had been heard and the slaves were up and alert. He took two men back to the house. ‘There’s been trouble. Patrick has been murdered by an intruder. Take him to your quarters and we’ll bury him tomorrow. When you’ve done that, take this man’s body and burn it. There must be nothing left. Do it immediately.’

  ‘Miss Lyte? Is she hurt?’

  ‘She’s bruised but otherwise unharmed. I will take care of her. Now be quick.’ While the two men moved the bodies, Thomas picked up the bag and opened it. As the brute had said, it was full of gold sovereigns. He put it in a corner.

  Thomas did not sleep. Neither his mind nor his body could rest and he could just hear the low sounds of mourning coming from the slave quarters. As soon as it was light, he went to Mary’s bedroom and found her awake. Her face was like a pumpkin. ‘Tell me it was a nightmare, Thomas,’ she said.

  ‘Alas, it was not. But it’s over. May I bring you anything?’

  ‘Water, please, and a looking glass. I’d better see the damage for myself.’

  When he returned, Mary took a sip of water and held the glass up to her face. With a groan, she put it down again. ‘Is it done?’

  ‘It is. Gibbes’s body will not be seen again. Patrick will be buried this morning. Will you come?’

  ‘No, Thomas. I’ll visit him when I’m recovered and able to grieve as I should. He was an unusual man and a brave one. Do it well.’ Thomas turned to leave. ‘And Thomas, the bag. Is it full of gold?’

  ‘It is. Gold coins of various sorts.’

  ‘Where did it come from, do you think?’

  ‘I’m not certain, but I do have an idea about that. I will tell you when you are stronger.’

  ‘When you’ve buried Patrick, please send word to Charles. Without Patrick or Adam, we shall need his assistance.’

  With the help of the two slaves who had disposed of Gibbes’s body, Thomas buried Patrick within the hour. There had been no funeral and there was nothing to mark the grave. Those would come later. He stood alone, thinking of the man who had thought nothing of being born a slave, had nursed Thomas back to health and had given his life for Mary. He found that he could not weep. It would take time.

  When Adam arrived back from Bridgetown that afternoon, he had worked himself up into a rare fury. To have been summoned from an important meeting to discuss the crisis was not only most inconvenient but also, judging by what the messenger had told him, deeply alarming. Face the colour of a red pepper and shirt drenched in sweat, he leapt from his exhausted horse and stormed into the house. He found Mary sitting quietly with Charles and Thomas. Charles’s arm was in a sling.

  ‘What the devil’s been going on here?’ he demanded. ‘I leave my sister in the care of Thomas and Patrick and now I gather there’s been an intruder and Patrick’s dead. What have you to say for yourself, Thomas?’

  ‘Good afternoon, brother,’ said Mary. ‘My face is a little bruised, but I’m otherwise unharmed, thank you.’

  ‘I can see that and am much relieved for it, but why was an intruder allowed into the house? What happened? And what about Patrick? Is it true he’s dead?’

  ‘Calm yourself, my friend,’ said Charles, rising to greet him. ‘Alas, Patrick is dead. He died protecting Mary and so, nearly, did Thomas. No blame attaches to either. Now sit down and you shall hear the story.’

  An hour later, the story had been told and Adam had calmed down. ‘John Gibbes. I would never have left you if I’d known that creature was on the loose,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me what they’ve done with his body. I don’t want to know, just as long as he’s dead.’

  ‘He’s quite dead,’ Thomas assured him, ‘and I much regret not having done what I did long ago. I find, to my surprise, that taking a life in such circumstances troubles me not at all. In fact, I’m pleased to have done it.’

  ‘Patrick has been buried and we will have a proper funeral for him when I feel stronger,’ said Mary. ‘I wish to grieve properly and I am not yet ready to do so.’

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Thomas.

  Charles broke the silence. ‘Now, Adam, as you are here, tell us how matters stand in the south.’

  ‘There has been no further action since Alleyne’s landing. Willoughby still believes that Ayscue cannot hope to win while he is so clearly outnumbered and at the disadvantage of having been at sea for so long, but as long as his fleet is there we are blockaded and in some danger. However, there has been one development.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A message has been intercepted. The messenger came ashore alone; he was seen by sentries and shot. He died before he could be question
ed.’

  ‘What did the message say?’

  ‘We don’t know. It’s a cipher. Willoughby’s man hasn’t been able to break it.’

  ‘What sort of cipher is it?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘God knows. It looked like nonsense to me.’

  ‘Would Lord Willoughby like me to take a look at it, do you think?’

  ‘You, Thomas?’ Adam threw up his hands. ‘My God, of course. I’d quite forgotten. You broke the cipher at Oxford. You must indeed look at it. We’ll return to Bridgetown tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER 26

  LORD WILLOUGHBY OF Parham prided himself on never being less than immaculately attired, even in the heat of Barbados. His custom was to take breakfast before performing his ablutions and dressing meticulously. If the Assembly were sitting or if he had other official business, he would invariably select a satin jacket over a white ruffled shirt, silk breeches – blue or burgundy – and white silk stockings. He disliked long boots, preferring one of the dozen pairs of black leather shoes with silver or gold buckles made for him by the village cobbler in Parham. His lordship did not care to be rushed when preparing himself for the day ahead and was seldom ready before ten o’clock.

  Since the blockading fleet had arrived, he had dressed formally every day. It was a point of principle. When his elderly secretary bustled in with the news that Adam Lyte had returned and was asking to see him, he was still casting a critical eye over himself in a long mirror. ‘Well,’ he said, carefully adjusting his cuffs, ‘it must be something urgent to bring Adam back so soon. Ask him to come straight in.’

  When the secretary returned with Adam, Willoughby was quite composed and ready to greet him. ‘Adam, good morning. To what do I owe the pleasure at this time of the day?’

  ‘Your lordship, I have with me Thomas Hill who is presently a guest at our estate,’ replied Adam breathlessly. ‘He’s a cryptographer who was at Oxford with the king. He broke an enemy cipher which revealed a plot to capture the queen.’

  ‘Did he now? And how does he come to be your guest?’

  ‘Better I let him tell you that himself, your lordship. May I ask him to come in?’

  ‘Please do. I shall be pleased to meet such a clever man. Show him to the library.’

  Scrubbed up and finely turned out, Thomas was waiting nervously in an antechamber. A man who has met a king should not be nervous of a mere lord, he thought. As usual, he turned for support to Montaigne. ‘Au plus eslevé throne du monde, si ne sommes assis que sus nostre cul’ – ‘Upon the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arse.’ He would try to keep it in mind if his lordship summoned him. And when Adam, beaming broadly, came striding out of his lordship’s room, he knew that he had done so.

  They were shown by the secretary into the library. There Lord Willoughby was seated on his cul in a big library chair, a decanter of claret and three glasses on a small table beside him. He did not rise, but smiled amiably and invited them to sit. The secretary poured the wine and left.

  ‘Now, Master Hill,’ began Willoughby, ‘Adam tells me that you are something of a cryptographer, that you are his guest and that you served our late king at Oxford. What else is there that I should know about you?’

  Twenty minutes later, Lord Willoughby knew a great deal about Thomas Hill. He knew that he had studied mathematics and philosophy at Oxford, that he owned a bookshop in Romsey, that the king had summoned him to Oxford and that he had broken the Vigenère cipher. He knew about Tobias Rush and about Margaret and her daughters. To his astonishment, he also knew about Thomas’s arrest and indenture to the Gibbes brothers. He listened to the story without interrupting and when Thomas finished, his only comment was that Barbados was certainly a better place for being rid of such men as the Gibbes.

  ‘Very well, Master Hill,’ said Willoughby, ‘let us see what you can do. This message has defeated my advisers and may defeat you. But you shall try. Is there anything I can tell you that might help?’

  ‘Context is always helpful, my lord. And possible names, although military messages seldom carry names, as you will know. Could you tell me what the message might be about? That would help.’

  ‘The names Modyford or Hawley might appear. It might contain dates and place names. There again, it might not. Is there anything you will need to help you?’

  ‘Just paper, quills and ink, my lord. Plenty of them, if you please.’

  Willoughby summoned the secretary and told him to provide Master Hill with a quiet room in which to work, all the materials he needed, whatever refreshments he requested and the intercepted message. ‘Have you any idea how long this will take?’ he asked Thomas.

  ‘None, your lordship. It will depend upon the nature of the cipher. I may not be able to decipher it at all. I will be able to say more when I have seen it.’

  ‘In that case, kindly report to me this evening on your progress or immediately if the cipher begins to reveal itself. This could be a matter of the greatest importance.’

  Alone in his room, Thomas studied the message.

  So, 172 letters in four lines, with neither breaks nor numbers. He began as he always had, by trying to envisage the sender of the message. What kind of man was he? Was he fat or thin, short or tall? How old was he? Where might he have learned the science of encryption?

  Nothing much came to mind, probably because the message was short and there was nothing distinctive about the hand. He wondered if it contained misspellings or nulls. Probably not, due to the length. He studied it again, trying to work out a way into the cipher. He noted the two double F’s and three instances of JP, but little else. Time to count letters. He wrote out a chart and began.

  When he had finished, he had:

  Sixteen of S, thirteen of B, eleven of F and ten each of G and W made them good choices for E, A and T. As there were double FF’s, in a simple substitution cipher F could not be A, so it should be E or T. N, with no appearances, would be Z or X. He would work from there.

  By that evening, his head ached, he had cramp in his right hand from holding the quill and, having eaten nothing since breakfast, he was starving. He knew very little more about the message than he had eight hours earlier, except that it had not been encrypted with a simple cipher. None of the standard techniques had worked, but before trying a new approach he needed to rest.

  First, though, his lordship expected a report. Again the secretary showed him into the library. ‘Ah, Master Hill,’ said Willoughby, ‘what do you have to tell me?’

  ‘Other than that I have eliminated the most obvious cipher systems, very little, I fear, my lord. It is more complicated than I had expected. I suspect a double or triple substitution cipher. I will break it but it will take more time.’

  ‘Only to be expected, I suppose. Ayscue’s no fool. He won’t know about you but he’ll assume we have some expertise in these matters.’

  ‘Quite so, my lord. I shall resume first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. This could be vital, Master Hill. It might just tip the scales sufficiently for Ayscue to go home. We must read the message. I depend upon you.’

  After a frugal supper – he had always tried not to overindulge while working on a problem – Thomas went reluctantly to the bedroom prepared for him. He did not expect much sleep. A mind stimulated by eight hours of thinking and figuring does not readily submit to sleep and it was not until the early hours that he eventually nodded off.

  He was awoken at dawn by a knocking on the door. Squinting against the morning light, he managed a gruff ‘Enter’ and was rewarded by the sight of a plump girl bearing a tray.

  ‘Good morning, sir. I’m Annie. I’ve brought your breakfast. Shall I put it on the table?’

  ‘Thank you, Annie.’ Annie put the tray down, and came over to the bed. It was a large bed, equipped with cushions for the head and a light cotton sheet. In Barbados, no more was needed.

  ‘His lordship says I’m to ask if there’s anything else you might want,’ said Annie. Thomas
opened his eyes fully and looked at her. His lordship says that, does he? he thought. Whatever can he mean? She was pretty enough in her way. About twenty, blonde and buxom. Built for comfort rather than conversation.

  Annie smiled encouragingly. ‘Anything that might help with your work, he said.’

  Thomas hesitated. ‘I am, er, a little unpractised, Annie.’

  Annie giggled. ‘Don’t you worry about that, sir. Just you lie back and let Annie take care of things.’ And having slipped out of her smock, Annie joined Thomas on the bed.

  An hour later, breakfast forgotten, Annie had carried out his lordship’s instructions with the utmost diligence. ‘Well, Annie,’ said Thomas, stretching out while she dressed, ‘let’s hope your contribution to our efforts proves successful. I certainly feel better for it.’

  ‘That’s good, sir. If you need any more help with your work just send a message to the kitchen. Now better eat your breakfast. Goodbye, sir.’

  By the time he had eaten two cold cutlets, a chunk of bread and a piece of cheese, all washed down with good ale, Thomas was ready to return to the message. Something was nagging at his mind. What was it? He thought of Abraham Fletcher, cruelly murdered by Rush. Abraham and he used to amuse themselves by sending each other encrypted and coded messages and challenging the other to break them. Was this a cipher one of them had used? Or had he come across it elsewhere?

  He looked again at the text. He would begin on double substitutions, each letter being encrypted alternately with each substitution. A double substitution would render the double FF’s and the repetitions of JP irrelevant, and would be laborious to unravel. A shortcut would be useful. As he had told Lord Willoughby, military messages seldom carried names but if this one did, it would most probably be the name of the sender and would appear at the end. He should have thought of it earlier; it was worth a try. He would assume that the letters AORDTG were AYSCUE, and proceed from there. If he was wrong, he would soon find out and not much time would have been wasted.