After they had eaten, Thomas entertained the girls with a game he had invented for them. He spelt out a new word, and they had to find its meaning. They could ask him ten questions and then had to make a guess. That day, the first word had been arboreal. It was a difficult one, they did not guess it, and he had to explain it to them. The afternoon was warm and they dozed under the oak tree. The girls were old enough to play by themselves for a while, and he and Margaret would be woken if they were needed.
It was cooler when Thomas managed to open his eyes. He could not see the girls, so he called for them. There was no reply. Margaret immediately awoke. They called again and again, and walked up and down the bank of the stream. Surely it was too shallow for either of the girls to have been in danger, even if they had somehow slipped in? They walked back and forth calling the girls’ names. Still there was no reply. Margaret began to panic.
‘Thomas, where are they? They wouldn’t run off. Someone must have taken them. Please God, no. Who would have taken them? Thomas, who would have taken them?’
‘Hush now, Margaret. They haven’t been taken. They’ve wandered off and will be back soon. We’ll wait here a while.’ But he too was worried. This had never happened before.
They stood together under the oak tree, taking it in turns to call out, and scanning the meadow and hedgerows for a glimpse of the girls. There was neither sight nor sound of them. Suddenly, a shower of twigs landed on their heads. They looked up expecting to see red squirrels in the tree. There were indeed squirrels — two of them — but they were blonde, not red, with brown eyes, dimpled chins and big grins. Margaret was furious.
‘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.