‘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.’
Thomas 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.