He bent to touch her forehead. ‘That lump on her neck – are there others?’
‘I can find none.’
‘What does it signify?’
‘I do not know.’
‘I shall send for a physician.’
‘No, Joseph. No physicians, please. Thomas and I will nurse her. She is better off with us.’
Joseph looked doubtful. ‘One more day, then. You’ll call for me if there’s any change?’ He stooped to kiss Madeleine.
‘Be sure of it.’
At the door, Joseph peered at Thomas with his good eye and said, ‘I have told Mottershead that if such a thing happens again he will be out on his ear. Kindly do not lead him astray.’
‘I won’t. Has there been anything else?’
‘No. We got nothing from the Fox, not that I thought we would. Our enemies are clever. Each link in their chain operates independently, as you found out with the Dutchman. He was hired to murder Smith, Winter and Copestick, but did not know by whom. And the king is losing patience. If I don’t tell him exactly what this plot is and who the ringleaders are very soon, I am likely to find myself in the Tower.’
‘So what’s to be done?’
‘I shall call again tomorrow. If Madeleine is able to speak, I shall ask her some questions. She may know something.’
Thomas went back up to Madeleine, where he found Mary still sitting beside the bed. ‘Has she woken?’ he asked, stroking Madeleine’s hair.
‘She has briefly. I managed to get a little broth into her. As you can see, the abscess is still there, but no larger, and I can find no others. The fever is also much the same.’
‘Joseph will be back tomorrow. He wants to ask her some questions.’
Mary sighed. ‘I suppose I can hardly stop him. He is Madeleine’s cousin.’
Thomas had to get out of the house. Fear for Madeleine, Mary’s anger and, above all, fury at himself were eating away at his mind. The walls were his prison and he must escape them. Although it was past seven o’clock, he put on a coat and left.
From Piccadilly he walked down Haymarket to Charing Cross and past Whitehall Palace to Westminster Stairs. The fresh air revived him. At the top of the stairs he stood and gazed out over the river. Even at that hour it was teeming with boats – wherries, barges, painted galleys – as the watermen went about their work. On a warm May evening it was difficult to imagine the river frozen so hard that during the winter Frost Fairs games were played and carriages driven on the ice.
Two wherrymen were hurling good-natured abuse at each other. That was the way of wherrymen, as it was the way of the thousands of men and women doing their best to earn a living from the river. From Oxford to Tilbury, whole communities depended upon it. There might be longer, wider rivers than the Thames, but could there be one upon which a nation depended more for its prosperity? The river had carried Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. Had it not been for the weather and that fearless brigand Francis Drake, it might have carried Spaniards. Was it now to carry the Dutch and the French? God preserve England if it did.
For more than an hour Thomas stood and watched the river go by, his mind wandering from Madeleine to Aurum and Argentum, to Romsey and back to Madeleine. Then he walked briskly up King Street to Charing Cross and from there to Piccadilly. As he entered the house the clock struck nine. He could hear Charles and Mary talking in the sitting room, but passed the door quietly and went up the stairs.
Madeleine was asleep. He took her hand. It was cold and limp. If only he could make her well simply by thinking her well. If only he could banish the sickness by the force of his will.
If she recovered, would she still want him? Should he stay in London while she regained her strength in the hope that she would? Or should he go home? His work for Williamson was done and there were matters to deal with at the school – books to be purchased, a new teacher to be found, repairs to be made. Madeleine would need time to recover. She would need rest, not Thomas Hill. And there was Lucy, about whom he realized guiltily he had thought not at all since Madeleine had disappeared. It was clear. He should go home and take Lucy with him, just as he had planned to before Madeleine’s abduction.
Joseph arrived early the next morning. Madeleine was still asleep and Thomas was back at her bedside. He came quietly into the room, nodded to Thomas and bent to kiss her. Blunt, even charmless, he might be, thought Thomas, but of his cousin he is very fond.
‘Madeleine, my dear, it’s Joseph,’ he whispered. ‘I need to speak to you. It’s important. If you can hear me, raise your hand a little.’ There was no response.
‘Allow me to try, Joseph. She might hear a different voice.’
Williamson stood back.
‘Madeleine, it’s Thomas. Your cousin is here and must speak to you. Raise your hand if you can hear me.’ Nothing.
He tried again. ‘Can you hear me, Madeleine? It’s Thomas. Raise your hand if you can.’ This time, her right hand moved a fraction.
‘Good. Now Joseph is going to ask you some questions. Can you try to answer them?’ The hand signalled yes. Joseph took the seat by the bed and bent his head very close to Madeleine. Her eyes were closed. He spoke clearly and quietly.
‘Madeleine, did they harm you?’ A shake of the head. No.
‘Did you hear any names?’ No.
‘Did anyone mention Aurum or Argentum?’ She raised her hand. Yes.
‘Alchemist?’ No.
‘Did you hear any talk of a plan?’ Yes.
‘Did they say what the plan was?’ No.
‘Did they ask if you knew about the letter?’ Yes.
‘Did you tell them anything?’ No.
Madeleine was visibly tiring. ‘Enough, Joseph, don’t you think?’ asked Thomas.
‘Just a few more questions.’
‘No, Joseph, she’s exhausted. Leave her.’ Thomas spoke sharply.
‘Very well.’ Joseph kissed her again. ‘Rest now, my dear. I shall return tomorrow.’
Thomas sat in his room. No names except Aurum and Argentum. There had been talk of a plan and they had asked her about the letter. The disfigured Dutchman had known who he and Charles were, so they had been watched. They must fear that the letter had been decrypted, although very few people knew that it had been. Madeleine had told them nothing. Instead of killing her, they had tried to ransom her. That would be why they had not harmed her. Even if the letter had been decrypted, their plan was intact. Only its existence would be known.
When he went down to the sitting room, Thomas knew something was wrong the moment he saw Charles’s face. His eyes were red and his face was drawn tight. ‘Charles, is something troubling you? Apart from Madeleine, that is?’
‘How is she?’
‘Much the same. But what about you? You look as if you have been awake all night.’
A thin smile. ‘I have. No sleep for the fool.’
‘Fool? Why the fool?’ Thomas took a seat opposite Charles and waited.
‘Losing money is one thing, being made to look an idiot is another. And I shall have to tell Mary.’
‘Tell Mary what?’
Charles let out a long sigh. ‘I met Chandle Stoner yesterday. There have been problems at the new silver mine. Heavy rain and flooding. The shaft collapsed. He plans to travel there himself, but thinks it will have to be abandoned.’
‘Does that mean you will lose your money?’
‘I fear that it does. I should have been more sensible. I know nothing of mining and did not understand the risks. I trusted Chandle’s judgement.’
‘I am sorry, Charles. I daresay it’s the embarrassment as much as the money.’
‘It is. I should never have invested in Quicksilver.’
‘So that was its name. Quicksilver. How appropriate.’
‘More like Nosilver now.’
‘Where is Mary?’
‘Resting. She’s worn out from nursing Madeleine.’
‘Then I’ll go up to Madeleine. When Mary wakes, please tell h
er I am with her.’
Thomas spent the rest of the day with Madeleine. She opened her eyes briefly when he held a cup of beef broth to her lips, but otherwise she slept. There was no lightening of the fever and no improvement to her colour. She had whispered that she was not dying. By the evening, it was hard to believe that she was right. When Mary took over the vigil, Thomas went to bed hoping for no more than that she would survive the night.
He heard the long-case clock strike midnight, one, two and three o’clock, before drifting into a restless sleep. He awoke before it was light, arose, and went quietly to Madeleine’s room. A candle had been lit and placed on a small table by the window. By its meagre light he could just make out Mary’s face. She was smiling. He stepped forward. Then he saw Madeleine. Her head was propped up on a pillow and she was sipping from a glass. He saw immediately that the heat had left her face.
Madeleine smiled weakly and held out a hand. ‘Thomas. Did you imagine I’d die?’
‘Not for a moment.’
Madeleine poked out her tongue. ‘Liar. I heard you all talking about me. It made me determined to live.’ The voice was as weak as the smile. ‘How are you?’
‘Typical. She returns from the dead and enquires after my health. I am quite well, thank you. How is your neck?’
Madeleine felt the lump. ‘Greatly reduced. We are at a loss as to what it was. An infection of the blood, perhaps.’
‘I shall send word to Joseph. He will want to see you.’
‘Tell him he may do so as long as he brings oranges and grapes, and asks me no more questions.’
‘I shall do exactly that.’ Thomas stooped to kiss her forehead. ‘Now rest. I will sit here to see that you do.’
‘Thank you, Thomas,’ said Mary. ‘I too could do with a little rest. Wake me if the patient gives you any trouble.’
The patient, however, did not want to rest. She wanted Thomas to know what had happened. She paused frequently for sips of water and morsels of bread, but an hour later she had told her story.
She had barely left her house on the morning she was due to meet Thomas in Piccadilly when a heavy sack was thrown over her head from behind and her arms were pinned at her sides and tied with rope. She did not see her attackers, but had the impression that there were two of them. They marched her up the lane and bundled her into a waiting coach. When she tried to cry for help, a hand was clamped over her mouth. Even through the sack she could tell that it was dark inside the coach and guessed that curtains had been drawn across the windows. Not a word was spoken.
She knew when they crossed London Bridge by the rattle of the wheels and the shouts of the tradesmen. She tried again to call for help and again was silenced by a rough hand. Frightened as she was, she decided to keep quiet until they arrived at wherever they were going. She assumed her abduction was something to do with Joseph’s work and tried to steel herself for what was coming.
When they had crossed the bridge the coach turned left. She lost track of their direction and tried to concentrate on sounds and smells. The only smell she recognized, however, was straw. Bits of it inside the sack rubbed against her face and made her sneeze.
She thought they travelled for about three hours before stopping. When they did, she was dragged out of the coach and, with her arms still tied at her sides, was led off on foot. Still nothing was said. She smelt salt in the air and heard curlews and thought they were in marshland. After about an hour, they reached their destination. Her arms were untied and the sack removed. She was inside a small cottage with a low ceiling and shutters across the windows.
The first face she saw was that of the disfigured Dutchman. He told her quietly that she would come to no harm as long as she obeyed his instructions and did not try to escape. If she did, she would be killed. She was told to sit down and was given food. Then the interrogation began.
The Dutchman wanted to know if a letter encrypted with numbers had been intercepted and copied at the Post Office. She told him that she knew nothing of such matters. He said that he knew about her relationship with Thomas and that he did not believe her. He asked if she had heard the words aurum or argentum. When she replied that they were Latin for gold and silver she thought he was going to strike her. He raised his hand, then apparently thought better of it.
The questioning went on for hours. The same questions over and over again, sometimes with new ones added. He asked about Joseph, about the work Thomas had done at the Post Office, about Henry Bishop, Samuel Morland and Lemuel Squire. He even asked about Josiah Mottershead. And he kept going back to the letter. She knew he was trying to catch her out and said as little as possible. He did not stop until it was getting dark. Then he told her that he would have more questions the next day, and left. Two guards came in from outside and locked her in a tiny, windowless room with only a straw mattress on the floor. In the morning one of the guards brought her food and she was locked in again.
The Dutchman did not return until the afternoon, when the questions began again. This time he threatened to give her a face like his own if she did not tell him what he wanted to know. He said that he knew she had the answers and would get them out of her sooner or later. She was expecting the torture to start, when he abruptly left again.
The fever began that night and by the morning it was raging. She could not stand and she could not eat the food she was given. She craved water, but there was none. She lay on the mattress, one minute burning, the next shivering, until the Dutchman arrived. He took one look at her and ordered the guards to give her water.
‘She’s no use to us dead until she’s talked,’ she heard him say in his strange voice. ‘Keep her alive until I say so.’
‘These marshes are full of plague, and if it’s plague nothing will keep her alive,’ grumbled a guard. ‘And if this is a plague house, I’m not staying here.’
‘We’ll move her to the other place,’ said the Dutchman. ‘Do it now.’
The guards did not want to touch her, but they were more afraid of the Dutchman. They put the sack over her head, carried her to the cottage where she had been found and left her on a narrow bed. She did not know how long she had been there when the Dutchman came in with paper and ink. He made her sit up and handed her a quill.
‘Your cousin will want to know that you are well. Write him a letter,’ he ordered.
While she was wondering what to write, the idea came to her. Her hand was shaking and it took all her concentration. What was more, she did not know for certain that they were in Dartford. It was only a guess. She was confident that Thomas would see the hidden message as long as the Dutchman did not. Fortunately, he barely glanced at it.
Madeleine had finished her story. ‘You know the rest, Thomas,’ she said. ‘Oddly enough, the sickness may have saved me. The slightest injury could have killed me and the Dutchman knew it.’
‘Yes, and rather than kill you, he demanded a ransom for you.’
‘Did he? How much?’
‘Far too much.’
‘How much?’
‘Ten thousand pounds.’
‘Pitiful. You’d have paid twenty, Thomas, would you not?’
Thomas smiled. ‘You’ll never know.’
‘Find him, Thomas. Find him and bring him to justice. I want the man dead.’
Madeleine’s eyes closed. Thomas sat and watched her sleep. A beautiful lady and a brave one. Was he really going to go back to Romsey without her? He thought of their lovemaking. The first time she had surprised him by speaking French. It was a form of intimacy. The language of love, was it not?
Language, words, meanings. Thomas had always seen mathematics as a language – a way of communicating a fact or an idea. Perhaps that was what had led him to cryptography, which called for skill with both words and numbers. Aurum and Argentum – gold and silver – and in French, or and argent. Thomas Col, Henry Evêque, Lemuel Propriétaire, John Hiver, Chandle Pierre, well, almost Pierre. What would Quicksilver be? Mercure? No, Argent Vive, that was i
t. Argent Vive – named by the French alchemists for its appearance. Living silver. Argent Vive.
Thomas sat bolt upright. French alchemists. Argent Vive, which could be abbreviated to AV. AV was the enterprise Sir Montford Babb had despaired of in his journal. Quicksilver was the name of the enterprise Charles and Mary had been persuaded to invest in by Chandle Stoner. He knew there was a connection between Babb’s murder and the other three. AV was Babb’s shorthand for Quicksilver. They were one and the same. And that meant Stoner had persuaded Babb to invest. If he had lied about knowing Babb, what else had he lied about? Quicksilver? Himself? What’s more, the intercepted letter had been addressed to A. Silver Esq. Aurum and Argentum, A. Silver, AV and Quicksilver, all connected and all run by the Alchemist. And Chandle Stoner was involved. More than involved. He might be Argentum – the financier – and he might well have arranged Babb’s murder. Thomas ran down the stairs and into the sitting room. Charles was there alone. ‘Has Joseph been sent for?’ he blurted out.
‘He should be here soon,’ replied Charles, clearly alarmed. ‘Why? Is Madeleine worse?’
Thomas realized with a shock that Charles did not know that Madeleine’s fever had broken. Mary must have fallen asleep without telling him. ‘Madeleine is recovering, thank God. And I know who Argentum is.’
Before Charles could ask who, there was a loud knock on the door. Without waiting for Smythe, Thomas went to open it. It was Joseph.
‘How is she?’ he asked without preamble.
‘The fever has broken. She is asleep. Go up and see her, then come straight down. I have important news.’
Joseph was in the house only as long as it took to see for himself that Madeleine was recovering, and to hear Thomas’s explanation of how he connected AV with Quicksilver, and thus with Stoner. At first Joseph was disbelieving, then astonished, then furious. ‘I shall order the arrest of the man immediately,’ he thundered on his way out. ‘We will question him and if he is guilty, he will hang. Not only a traitor but one acting for personal gain. The vilest of creatures who will pay the price for his greed.’
The King's Return: (Thomas Hill 3) (Thomas Hill Novels) Page 20