And so was dear Abraham. His old tutor and friend, nearly blind, scholarly, gracious — tortured and murdered, and almost certainly by a man whom the king trusted unquestioningly. Rush. A monster capable of inflicting indescribable pain on an old man. And worse, there had been something about that awful scene in Abraham’s chamber that suggested the torturer had enjoyed it. Otherwise why take his eyes? Thomas screwed up his own eyes and tried to make the picture of that room go away. He knew Rush was the murderer. All he lacked was proof.
He was desperate for news of Margaret and the girls. With Simon’s money, they should want for nothing as long as the farmers and merchants could still bring their wares to market. But he had been away for six weeks. Had the war come to Romsey, had there been fighting in the streets and the fields, or was there still peace? Had there been more unwelcome visits by men of either side? Perhaps Margaret had closed up the shop and gone to stay with her sister-in-law in Winchester. If she had, no letter would reach her. He could only hope Simon would come up with something.
When he was not thinking about home, Thomas thought about the senseless war which had brought him here. A war started by a stubborn king, who was distrusted by his people and had proved himself capable of serious lapses of judgement, and an equally stubborn Parliament which craved power and demanded the reform of government. A war which should never have happened, but which had now taken on a momentum of its own. Politics, religion, greed, fear — all were now contributing to the bloodshed. God alone knew how long it would go on and what would remain of England when at last it ended. Would brother still fight brother? Would Catholic still hate Puritan? And who would rule the country — king or Parliament, both or neither? Might the Dutch or the French grasp the opportunity to overpower a weakened foe and send their ships across the Channel? Would we have to face another Armada, and if we did, where was Drake to lead the way?
It was a war, too, which found Thomas Hill, peaceful bookseller of Romsey, alone in an abbey room outside Oxford, having witnessed a brutal battle, having himself resorted to the violence he so hated, and having been thrown into the foulest imaginable gaol, in which he had nearly died. And having seen the body of his old friend mutilated by a vicious traitor. It was a war which affected every man, woman and child in England, and which might yet make brutes of all of them.
On each visit, Simon also brought a cup of water into which he had mixed equal amounts of chamomile, sage and garlic, claiming that this was an ancient cure for all manner of diseases, including Morbus Campestris. Complaining that the brew tasted revolting and would do him no good at all, Thomas dutifully forced it down, and by the morning of the third day was strong enough to accompany Simon around the abbey garden. Dressed once again in a plain brown Franciscan habit and leather sandals, he carried an elm branch as a walking stick. Hooded monks worked away in the garden, carefully tending beds of herbs and flowers. They took no notice of Simon and Thomas.
‘Is this where that noxious brew of yours comes from, Simon?’ asked Thomas as they walked.
‘It is. And, noxious or not, it has got you back on your feet. We friars may seem unworldly but we know a thing or two. Which reminds me, I have found a way to get a letter to your sister. Write it today and it will go tomorrow with a troop of the queen’s guard, who are riding to Exeter. Her majesty will be travelling there to embark for France. The guard are preparing the route for her, so that she will be inconvenienced as little as possible on her journey. One of them will make a short detour to Romsey to deliver the letter. If there’s a reply, he will bring it back to Oxford. But be careful what you say. Confine yourself to telling her about your excellent health and the splendid company you keep. Messages can always be intercepted.’
Intercepted messages, thought Thomas. Yes. ‘Thank you, Simon. If you can provide paper and ink, I’ll write a letter this evening.’ They walked slowly around the garden, which was enclosed by a high wall. The wall was old, its bricks and mortar brown and moss-covered. Near the gate, however, a short section had recently been repaired. It stood out against the rest of the wall, and caught Thomas’s eye. The bricks were new, and had been correctly laid so that the vertical lines of mortar between them did not meet. One row began with a whole brick, the next with a half, so that after two bricks in each row one could make out four vertical patterns. Thomas’s memory stirred.
‘You’d better bring plenty of paper and ink, Simon,’ he said. ‘And please bring the message and my working papers. I may need them.’
As instructed, Thomas confined his letter to Margaret to assurances about his own welfare, and to earnest enquiries about her health and that of the girls. He promised to return home soon. The town, the castle, the message and the abbey would have to wait until he did so. Abraham’s murder he might never tell her about. Having finished his letter, he turned to the message. It had not, unfortunately, magically decrypted itself, and there it lay before him, challenging him to reveal its secrets. Forty-five digits — he guessed fifteen numbers of three digits each — four hundred and fifty-six letters, separated by one hundred and thirty-eight spaces, occupying ten lines on one sheet of paper. And possibly hiding something of grave importance to the outcome of the war.
He looked again at his own text:
O N E E Y E I S B R O W N Y E T T H E O T H E R I S B L U E
and its encryption, using THOMAS as the keyword, as
H U S Q Y W B Z P D O O G F S F T Z X V H T E J B Z P X U W
There were the repetitions of BZP, coinciding with ISB in the plain text, and there was the interval of eighteen letters between the start of the first sequence and the start of the second.
He turned back to the encrypted message. The numbers would have to wait. He would gamble on their being codewords, and therefore outside the encryption of the rest of the text. There were the seven repeated three-letter sequences — RFU, WHT, QFV, RVV, IFS, AAD, WWJ — and one four-letter sequence — WZTD, which he had marked by putting a line under them. The letter distances between all repeating sequences were divisible by five, one and themselves, but by no other number. One letter only would have meant a single shift and could be discounted. But there might be more repetitions. Finding them was laborious work, and he could have missed some. If his theory was right, however, and his simple test suggested that it was, the distances between any unnoticed repetitions would also be divisible by five, and would be repeated in the plain text, albeit with different letters. He was almost certain that the keyword had five letters.
That evening, Simon came to collect the letter to Margaret. As usual, he brought food from the abbey’s kitchen, which they shared, and grim news from Oxford. New taxes were being levied on the townspeople, and the colleges were being forced to supply new regiments to defend the town. Even the college servants were not exempt.
The mention of college servants reminded Thomas of Silas Merkin. He must try to contact Silas. ‘Not actions likely to endear the king and his court to the people.’
‘Indeed not. The queen, too, is despondent. Her mood, as ever, reflects that of the king.’
‘And Jane? Have you seen her?’