The King's Spy (Thomas Hill Trilogy 1) (12 page)

‘Abraham has given me work to do. It keeps me busy.’

‘You told Francis Fayne that you are on the king’s business. May I enquire what business it is?’

Thomas sighed. ‘Jane, this is awkward. My work is known to very few – the king, Abraham, Simon de Pointz, Master Rush. I should not tell you.’

‘I have entrusted you with a secret, Thomas. Can you not entrust me with one?’

He hesitated. Abraham’s censure or Jane’s approval. He chose the middle ground. ‘I studied mathematics here, as well as philosophy, and have been asked to devise a new group of codes and ciphers.’

‘Somehow I knew you would be doing that kind of work. Scholarly and solitary. Is it difficult?’

‘Not really. Not too difficult, even a bit dull.’

‘No vital secrets?’

‘No, no, nothing like that. My role is very minor.’

‘I’m sure you underestimate the value of your work. You must be very good at it, or the king would not have given you the responsibility. You will take care, Thomas, won’t you? The queen says that Oxford is full of spies, and the king trusts almost no one. I imagine you would be in danger if your work were known.’

‘I shall certainly take care, Jane. As should you. I might not be at hand next time you start an unseemly brawl in the street.’

Arm in arm, they strolled around the garden, stopping occasionally to examine one plant or another. Jane told Thomas the Latin name for each one, which he repeated and then immediately forgot. He could not be expected to concentrate on herbs and flowers with this ravishing lady on his arm. He racked his brains for something suitable to contribute to the discussion, and, as usual, it was Montaigne who came to the rescue. ‘Gardens and philosophers are often friends,’ he said. ‘Michel de Montaigne said that he wanted to meet death when he was tending his cabbages.’

‘Did he? What did he mean by that?’

‘That he was happiest with his cabbages, I suppose, and hoped that was where he would be when he died.’

‘What a wise gentleman.’

‘Yes. I find him a great support in life. Would you care to borrow a book of his essays?’

‘Thank you, Thomas. If you find him a support, I’m sure I shall too.’

Back at Merton, Thomas took his leave outside the Warden’s lodgings. ‘Do call again soon, Thomas,’ said Jane, before disappearing inside. Thomas turned to go. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of a black-clad figure ducking into a doorway on the other side of the courtyard. He was sure it was Tobias Rush. But why would Rush not want to be seen? There must be times when he had reason to visit the queen. Had he seen Thomas with Jane? What if he had? Why hide? Thinking that he must have been mistaken, Thomas was about to return to Pembroke when Jane came running out. ‘Thomas, Thomas,’ she called, ‘the queen wishes to meet you again. Come. I will take you in.’ And before he could say anything, she took his hand and led him into the Warden’s house.

In the Warden’s receiving room, the queen was sitting on a crimson cushion set upon a large oak chair. Around her sat her spaniels and behind her stood two ladies-in-waiting. There was no sign of dwarves.
Thomas bowed and stood before her. In a long gown of cream silk, her auburn hair teased into ringlets around her face, and wearing pearls in her ears and at her throat, she looked every inch the Queen of England. When she spoke, however, it was with a hint of a French accent, which he had not noticed at the masque. ‘Master Hill. A pleasure to meet you again. Lady Jane tells me you are interested in gardens.’ Thomas glanced at Jane and saw the twinkle. Wicked woman.

‘Indeed, your majesty. And I have found her to be an excellent tutor. On matters philosophical as well as botanical.’

The queen looked at Jane in surprise. ‘Really, Jane? I was not aware that you took an interest in such matters.’

‘Oh yes, your majesty,’ replied Jane with a grin at Thomas. ‘I am particularly fond of Michel de Montaigne. I find him a great support in life.’

‘How sensible of you to rely upon a Frenchman, my dear. We are a most practical race.’ The queen turned to Thomas. ‘And what do you do in Oxford, Master Hill, when you are not walking with Lady Jane?’

‘I am his majesty’s cryptographer. I deal with messages and despatches coming in and going out.’

‘Indeed. I recall his majesty mentioning the matter. Was it your predecessor who was found in an alleyway?’

‘I fear so, your majesty. Erasmus Pole.’

‘I trust such a fate will not befall you, Master Hill.’

‘As do I.’

‘Alas, there are many in Oxford who do not share my faith or understand the king’s resolve to carry out his duty. The king is a most honourable man and a courageous one. He would rather die than surrender his throne and his right to rule the country. On this, he will not compromise.’

‘I believe the country understands this, your majesty.’

‘Does it?’ The queen sat for a moment in silence; then a broad smile lit up her face. ‘I brought three thousand men to Oxford, you know. They called me the Generalissima for it. I rather like the name, don’t you?’

‘I am sure it is meant as a compliment.’

‘So am I. Do take care in Oxford, Master Hill, and take care of Jane Romilly. She is very dear to me. Now, I must be about my affairs. Good day, Master Hill.’

‘Good day, your majesty.’ Thomas bowed again, took two steps backwards, then turned and left, hoping this was roughly what he was supposed to do. Jane escorted him to the door. Outside, he said, ‘A little more warning next time, if you please, madam. Unlike you, I am unaccustomed to being in the royal presence.’

‘Your conduct did you credit, Thomas. What did you make of the Generalissima?’

‘I would not care to cross her. Formidable, I believe, is the word for her in both English and French.’

‘She has a kind heart. And she is quite devoted to the king, as he is to her.’

‘Is she always accompanied by waiting ladies and plump spaniels?’

‘Always.’ Jane reached up and lightly kissed Thomas’s cheek. ‘
Au revoir
, Thomas.’ And she was gone before Thomas thought to mention Rush.

At Pembroke, any hope of reaching his room unimpeded was swiftly dashed by the sight of Fayne lounging in the courtyard with what looked like a group of fawning admirers. He stood half a head taller than any of them and was evidently holding court. His voice carried easily around the yard, bouncing off the wall of the chapel at the northern end. ‘She’s a pretty wench, and most accommodating. Knows a trick or two, I can tell you. I find it’s the high-born ones who do. The tavern girls could learn a lot from them.’ Fayne looked up and saw Thomas. If his audience were hoping to hear more about the high-born lady, they were dis appointed. Fayne pushed past them and strode up to Thomas, blocking the route to his room. Unless Thomas’s nose
betrayed him, the man had taken strong drink, and a good deal of it. He smelt like a brewery.

‘Well, well. The bookseller has returned to us. Just what we need in time of war, gentlemen, eh? A bookseller. Bound to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. Perhaps we should have a regiment of them.’ Fayne and his companions laughed loudly.

For a moment, Thomas was tempted to land a punch on the grinning face. What he lacked in height, he more than made up for in speed and skill, and he knew he could put Fayne on his back without undue difficulty. That, of course, was what the vile creature wanted – a reason to have him thrown out of the college – and his companions would swear to a man that the blow was unprovoked. Thomas stepped aside and carried on towards his room, ignoring the vulgar jeers that followed him.

He locked the door behind him and poured himself a glass from the bottle of good claret Silas had thoughtfully provided. Then he sat down at the table to tackle the rest of the pile. After two dreary messages, however, his mind wandered. Not long ago, he was a respectable and unremarkable bookseller and writer of minor papers on mathematics and philosophy. Now he had conversed with the king and the queen, been abused by a drunken oaf of a soldier, seen for himself what war could do to a
town as lovely as Oxford, met a beautiful lady with eyes of different colours, and been warned by almost everyone to beware of everyone else. Why in the name of God had he allowed himself to be caught up in this bloody war? Why had he not stayed in Romsey and taken care of Margaret and the girls? That was his proper place, not here among soldiers, beggars and spies. The harvest would be in, there would be the first touch of autumn in the air, and the stream would be alive with jumping trout. He loved early autumn in the countryside. In this benighted town there were no seasons, just noise, stench and death. With a sigh, he forced himself from his reverie and went back to work.

After three more days and nights, dozens of dreary reports and an almost total lack of contact with the world outside his room, Thomas could face no more. Despite his labours, the number of incoming reports had at least matched the number he had decrypted, and the pile on his table was no lower. After breakfast supplied by the kitchen, he locked his door, strode through the courtyard and left the college. It was time to pay a call he should already have paid.

The shop stood on the corner of Broad Street and Turl Street, not far from Balliol College. Braving the morning crowds in Market Street and the beggars and
whores in Turl Street, he walked briskly to it. The outside was as he remembered it – a narrow two-storey building with glazed windows and timber framing, the upper storey jutting out over the street. It was typical of the buildings that had sprung up all over Oxford sixty or seventy years earlier, and had probably been built for a local merchant. Now it was home to John Porter’s bookshop.

Thomas pushed open the door and stepped inside. Despite the windows, it was dark enough for candles to have been lit and placed on a table in the middle of the room. There were bookshelves around the walls and two uncomfortable-looking chairs by the table. Unlike Thomas’s shop, however, there were few books. No untidy piles on the table or the floor and not very many on the shelves. As Thomas looked around, an old man came bustling in from a back room. He was exactly as Thomas remembered him and exactly as a bookseller should be. Unkempt, shabby, down-at-heel, for as long as Thomas had known him John Porter had put him in mind of Chaucer’s clerk in his
Canterbury Tales –
spectacles perched on the end of his nose, unruly white hair which might not have been trimmed for a year, and hands stained with dirt and ink.

‘Good morning, sir,’ he croaked at Thomas. ‘Everything you can see is for sale, and I will make you
a good price. Are you in search of a particular book?’

Thomas stepped a little closer. ‘John, do you not recognize an old customer?’

The old man peered over his spectacles at Thomas, looked puzzled, and then smiled a toothless smile. ‘Good Lord, if it isn’t Thomas Hill. And what brings you to this benighted town at such a time?’

Thomas held out his hand and took the old man’s. His skin was as thin and dry as parchment. ‘Good morning, John. A pleasure to see you again. I have come to visit Abraham.’

John Porter nodded. ‘Of course. Your old tutor, as I recall. It must be more than a year since I last saw him. No more books for him, I fear. His eyes were getting very bad.’

‘He sees almost nothing now. Shapes and shadows only, he says, although his mind is still clear. And how do you fare, John?’

The old man spread his arms in a gesture of resignation. ‘As you can tell, Thomas, it is not the shop it used to be. The University Press has closed, it’s impossible to get books from London and I’m reduced to what you see. Not that it matters much. There are no scholars, and few soldiers care to spend their pay on books. I should have an inn or a bakery. Then I’d be a wealthy man.’

‘You’d be a hopeless innkeeper or baker, John. You’d drink the ale and eat the cakes. Much better to stick to your books.’

John Porter laughed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Is it any better in Romsey? It is Romsey, isn’t it?’

‘It is. I don’t sell many books either, and we have had trouble with soldiers, so I suppose it’s much the same. Let’s hope the war ends soon and we can get back to normal.’

‘Normal. I’ve forgotten what that is. I hardly dare go out after dark for fear of being robbed or worse, I go for days without seeing a customer, and the army takes everything there is. I couldn’t even buy an egg last week.’

‘Do their majesties’ households not read?’

‘They do not. I daresay the king’s lot are too busy having their portraits painted, and the queen’s being lectured on her faith. When she’s not throwing money away on her masques, that is. I heard the last one was her most extravagant yet.’

‘So I heard.’ Thomas thought it prudent not to mention that he had actually attended the masque. ‘This war is a terrible thing, is it not, John? What would Queen Elizabeth have said if she’d known what was going to happen to the country less than fifty years after she’d gone?’

‘I shudder to think. And what will men say fifty years from now? That we destroyed England or that we set her on a new road to peace and prosperity?’

‘I suppose that will depend upon the outcome. It’s hard to imagine an England without a king or without a parliament, yet one of them may not survive.’

‘If they can’t find a way to work together, one of them indeed may not. I’m a Royalist at heart, if only because, like every other man alive, I’ve never known an England without a monarch. Yet, in Oxford, for all the university’s traditional support for the king, most of the townspeople are against him. And the longer his court and his army are here, the more they’re against him. It doesn’t take much to understand why.’

Thinking of the Pembroke courtyard, Thomas could only agree. Filth and squalor among the beauty of the colleges, Francis Fayne and his like in place of books and scholars. The University’s support would soon be wavering, too. He was about to say so, when the door opened and in came two familiar figures. One was a tall, bald Franciscan friar, the other a slim, elegant lady in a long yellow coat and a wide-brimmed yellow bonnet.

‘Your luck has changed, John,’ cried Thomas. ‘Here are two enthusiastic customers, thirsting to spend their money. No need to offer them special prices. They’ll happily pay as much as you ask.’