When he awoke twelve hours later, his head still ached, his throat was still sore and he was still filthy. He held out his hands; they at least were steady. Rising with difficulty from the bed, he stripped off his clothes, retrieved the Vigenère message which fell from under his shirt on to the floor, and did his best to wash off the worst of the dirt and powder. In his bag he had the change of clothes provided by Silas. He put them on. Then he went to see what news there was.
Downstairs, Tobias Rush was in the entrance hall, busily supervising the two coachmen who were carrying his chest outside. ‘Master Rush,’ said Thomas hoarsely, ‘what news is there?’
Rush looked up sharply. ‘Master Hill, good morning. The king leaves within the hour for Oxford, and I am to travel with him. You may have my coach. Prince Rupert will stay in Newbury until Essex leaves. If he marches towards London, the prince will pursue him. Our troops will follow us to Oxford.’ Rush’s voice seemed unaffected by the gunpowder.
‘What of the battle?’
‘There is little to report, other than heavy casualties on both sides.’
‘Can we claim victory?’
The thin smile. ‘Alas, no. Even I would be hard put to write an account of a victory, even Pyrrhic. If Essex does reach London, however, he might very well claim one.’
‘Master Rush, may I ask another question?’
‘You may, of course.’
‘How did we allow the enemy to occupy the high ground on both wings? Shouldn’t we have taken it before they arrived?’
For a moment, Rush was silent. ‘I too have pondered that. One does not care to comment on military matters, but one does wonder about some form of deception.’
‘What sort of deception?’
‘False intelligence, perhaps, or an intercepted message. Either might have led the prince to believe that we held the ridges, until it was too late to act.’
‘Surely that would be unlikely.’
‘Who knows? But enough, Master Hill. I must join the king. My carriage is at your disposal. We will expect you in Oxford within a day or two.’
Well, I suppose it’s possible the prince was misled, thought Thomas when Rush had gone, although drunk and incapable seemed more likely.
CHAPTER 8
Thomas intended to cover the thirty-odd miles to Oxford in a single day. He did not care to stop overnight, and urged the coachmen to make all speed. After the horror of Newbury, he wanted solitude and he wanted to get back to work on the message. If he could break the cipher, he might shorten the war. A shorter war would mean fewer Newburys, fewer widows and orphans, fewer lives pointlessly wrecked. The battle had given him new purpose.
Having settled as best he could into the cushioned seats of Rush’s carriage, he shut his eyes and tried again to concentrate on the problem. Was there a way to break the Vigenère square? Twenty-six possible encryptions for each of twenty-six letters, and, in this message, numerical codes added for good measure. Instinctively, his hand went to the paper hidden under his shirt, and a thought struck him. Was it safe there? What if the carriage broke a wheel and he was tossed out on to the road? Might a helping hand not happen upon it while he was unconscious, and, with the best intentions, remove it? Feeling only a little foolish, he took the paper out, rolled down his left stocking, carefully folded the paper up as tightly as he could, slipped it under his foot and adjusted the stocking. There. Surely even the most helpful hand would not want to examine his left foot.
They made good time to the hamlet of Chilton, rattling along even over the roughest stretches of road. At Chilton they stopped at a coaching inn to give the horses a rest and to refresh themselves. Thomas had made not a jot of progress on the cipher but he had been reasonably comfortable, Rush’s cushions having absorbed the worst of the bumps and lurches. In a wooded area two miles beyond Chilton, however, just as Thomas was becoming drowsy, there were two loud cracks, and the carriage shot forward so violently that he was thrown from his seat. Unsure what had happened and unable to get to his feet to look out of the window, Thomas lay on the floor, rolling from side to side with the swaying of the carriage. If the noise had frightened the horses, the coachmen should have reined them in. A carriage pulled by four bolting horses would not stay upright on a road such as this for very long. He offered a silent prayer to the God he chose to believe in on such occasions, and hung on to a seat as best he could.
It seemed that his prayer had been answered. The horses slowed and the carriage soon came to rest. He got shakily to his feet, stumbled out and went to speak to the coachmen. At once it was clear why they had not reined the horses in. Both were sprawled across their seat, one on top of the other, blood pouring from their heads. He did not need to look more closely to know that they were dead. And the two men who had shot them were holding the leading horses’ bridles. They must have galloped after the carriage and caught it. Each man was hooded and masked, and had a pistol in his belt and another in his hand, pointing at a spot between Thomas’s eyes. Thomas stood motionless and stared at them.
‘Lie down with your face to the ground,’ ordered one of them. Thomas obeyed. ‘Keep the pistol on him, and I’ll search inside.’
He heard the man dismount and climb into the carriage, thinking that a couple of murderous highwaymen would not be best pleased to find nothing but his bag containing paper, quills and a few clothes, and a handful of coins in his pocket. He heard the seats being ripped up, and his bag being emptied on the ground.
‘Nothing,’ said the leader. ‘Just paper and rags. Empty your pockets, little man.’ Thomas sat up, fished out three shillings and threw them on the ground. ‘Is that all? Three shillings from a man in a carriage like this? There must be more.’ He walked towards Thomas, his pistol held unwaveringly in front of him.
‘There’s no more,’ said Thomas. ‘The carriage is borrowed from Tobias Rush, adviser to his majesty the king. I advise you to do it no more damage and to be off while you can. Master Rush is not far behind, and he is not a man who will take kindly to his coachmen being murdered and his carriage destroyed.’
The man laughed. ‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take. Stand up and take off your shirt, boots and breeches and roll down your stockings.’
When Thomas stood in just his drawers and rolled-down stockings, the highwayman walked around him, patted his backside and groin to make sure nothing was hidden there, and then swore loudly. ‘The devil’s balls. You really are a pauper, aren’t you? I haven’t even the heart to shoot you.’ He walked to his horse and took from a leather bag hanging from the saddle a short-handled axe, with which he split the spokes of one wheel. While he did so, his companion kept his pistol aimed at Thomas. ‘You’re a lucky man, my friend,’ said the man with the axe, ‘and you can tell your Master Rush so from us.’ And with that, they wheeled their horses and galloped off towards Chilton, leaving Thomas staring after them. They had not even taken the three shillings.
This was not the time to wonder why he was still alive. He must get away from there at once, and back to Oxford. He pulled up his stockings, thanking providence that he had changed the hiding place of the message, and put his shirt and breeches back on. The carriage was unusable, the horses unsaddled and possibly unused to being ridden. Still, he was a good rider and there was nothing else for it. Not even stopping to heave the dead men off the carriage, he unhitched the leading horses, holding grimly on to one of them by the long reins. Before the horse could bolt, he grabbed it by the mane and sprang on to its back. It was a trick he had used to impress young ladies — an advantage of being light and agile. He pulled hard on the bit to gauge the horse’s reaction, and was relieved when it stood still. This one had certainly been ridden before.