‘In all this fog I thought you a phantom.’ Fields wiped the blade between his fingers.
The Colonel was wrapped in a tattered campaign coat. His whole head was freshly shaved, with a few nicks on his scalp. It was a large head, covered with liver spots, like islands on a globe. A long scar curled around the back of it, starting above his right ear, whose top was missing.
He had evidently been a strongly-built man, although the muscle had melted with age. In the same way his clothes, once brightly coloured, were faded. Only an orange scarf relieved their drabness. His trousers were brown – Harry suspected that once they had been scarlet.
Beside Fields lay an edition of the Souldier’s Pocket Bible, as battered as he was, and an unlit candle – tallow, Harry observed – was stuck to the chair beside him in a pyramid of melted wax. A horseshoe of other chairs awaited his congregation.
Colonel Fields made no move to leave the sanctuary of his hammock. ‘So!’ he exclaimed, waving the razor. ‘Why do you come here, young man? I do not preach again until this evening.’
Harry, his eyes streaming, decided on a straightforward approach.
‘You came once to Gresham’s College, and spoke there with the Curator, Mr. Robert Hooke, and were helpful upon ciphers. A cipher you showed has returned again.’
‘Returned? Which of the ciphers is this?’ asked the old man incredulously.
‘One using numbers in a grid upon the page, their substitution altered by use of a keyword. Each row a dozen numbers along, and a dozen rows to a page.’
‘The Red Cipher,’ said Fields.
‘A red cipher?’ Harry repeated. ‘Why is it so called?’
‘From a soldiering past, Mr. Hunt; from long ago, in the time of the Civil Wars. I showed it at the College as a historical curiosity only. It was in the Red Regiment of the London Trained Bands that it was first employed. Also, you would shed all of your red blood before giving over the keyword. It was a promise we users of the cipher made to one another. Its sounds bluff, now, does it not, such sentiment? Yet such were the times. So! Used again?’
‘Yes,’ Harry confirmed. ‘If this is your cipher.’ He produced the bundle of papers from inside his coat.
‘It may, of course, be another system, but the use of twelve numbers along and twelve numbers across gives the appearance of the Red Cipher. You have found out its message?’ Fields looked pleased, glad that his lesson was learnt, and was evidently useful. His expression fell at Harry’s shake of the head. ‘Give it to me.’
The Colonel rested down his razor and bowl onto the chair, and spread the papers on his outstretched legs, spending some time sorting through them all. Harry stood by him, next to the hammock, the atmosphere attacking his eyes.
‘Well,’ Fields spoke at last. ‘A number of your substitutions may be correct, you know, but without its neighbour to guide you, it is knotty to hazard which of them sit prettily. You have no notion of the keyword?’
Harry shook his head.
‘Then you will not know its length. That is a way in, as the pattern repeats throughout. Longer messages, certainly, could be breached this way. De Vigenère, in the last century, employed a similar system.’
‘Mr. Hooke believes that a de Vigenère square is used in the making of this cipher.’
‘Then Mr. Hooke is fallible, for he is wrong!’
Fields sat up, making the hammock sway, wanting a better look at Harry. ‘We used just one alphabet to make the cipher, instead of twenty-six, which owns the advantage of speeding the method along. Concealment can be a tedious business. Reach me my pen. Over there. And I have some ink.’
Harry located the pen and ink for the old soldier, and Fields wrote out a grid on the back of one of the sheets that Harry had with him.
1
2
3
4
5
1
A
B
C
D
E
2
F
G
H
I
J
3
K
L
M
N
O
4
P
Q
R
S
T
5
UV
W
X
Y
Z
6
1
2
3
4
5
7
6
7
8
9
0
‘This is a simple system!’ Harry exclaimed.
‘I have not yet added the keyword to this alphabet, to mix the order of the letters.’ The Colonel thought for a while. ‘So! A suitable keyword, for example, might be Putney, where the debates were held.’ Fields saw Harry’s look of incomprehension. ‘A historical detail, Mr. Hunt; I would not expect you to know of them. But let us use this word, Putney, as our keyword.’ He wrote out a series of numbers.
41 51 45 34 15 54 41 51 45 34 15 54
‘These are the co-ordinates of the letters in the word Putney, which then repeat throughout the cipher. The co-ordinates of the keyword are then added to the co-ordinates of the letters of the message.’ He wrote out more numbers under those of the keyword, then added the numbers in the first row to the second:
41 51 45 34 15 54 41 51 45 34 15 54
13 43 35 33 52 15 32 32
54 94 80 67 67 69 73 83
‘The name Cromwell owns two Ls, each becoming a 32; these, in the Red Cipher – but only when using Putney as the keyword – become 73 and 83 respectively. Cromwell, who was Lord Protector –’
‘I know of Oliver Cromwell, Colonel.’
Fields looked at Harry anxiously, as if checking that he had all of his faculties, was mentally acute, and so could be trusted that he really knew of Oliver Cromwell. Something in Harry’s face convinced him, for his own face broke open in a blissful smile. ‘Good!’ he exclaimed. ‘Very good! Well, likewise, along this bottom line, we see two instances of the number 67, yet these denote, in the name of Cromwell, M and W respectively. Where did you find this? It brings things back, you know . . .’
Mindful of their promise to Sir Edmund, Harry said nothing of the boy found at the Fleet. ‘It was delivered to Mr. Hooke, having been left with a Solicitor named Creed, who was secretive upon its author.’
‘Creed, you say?’ the old Colonel muttered, stroking the dome of his head.
‘Moses Creed. You have heard the name?’
Fields rolled back his streaming eyes, as if the answer to Harry’s question would be found on the inside of his forehead. ‘I do not know Moses Creed. He is not part of my Congregation here. But then, few are. Not many interest themselves in our meetings presently. Would you, perhaps?’
‘We have a similar problem at the Society,’ Harry replied, avoiding his question.
The Colonel laughed a hollow laugh. ‘You can see, it is a simple system, but difficult to break unless you have the keyword. A war-time cipher, robust and worthy, not one to break the brains of the soldiers.’
‘I am obliged to you, Colonel Fields.’
‘And so am I to you, Mr. Hunt, for I enjoy this talk of ciphers. It is rejuvenating; it makes me mindful of the man I used to be.’
‘We have been asked to assist the Justice of Peace for Westminster, Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, with an investigation. He came across a similar communication, making use of the same cipher.’
The Colonel gave Harry an appraising look, as if inspecting his buckles for tarnish. ‘You know, you must take a care if you are dealing with Sir Edmund. Do you have now the time for an old soldier’s tale, to show why I urge caution against the Justice?’
Harry nodded hesitantly, aware that he had said too much. He had been anxious to impress; something about this old soldier made him so.
‘Then let me
tell you of an occurrence during the Wars . . .’
*
The Colonel gingerly descended from his hammock, and went to stand by his fire, almost disappearing into the smoke. ‘. . . the last of the Wars between Cromwell and this new King . . .’
The ‘new King’ had been on his throne for nearly eighteen years. The old man was about to go off into his reminiscences – Harry told himself to be patient.
‘This will seem as ancient history to you, but bear with me. Bear with me!’ He warmed himself for a while, and then returned, to sit on one of the chairs.
‘It was with Oliver Cromwell that I travelled to Ireland, attending to the tumults there. We afterwards went together to Scotland, to fight the Charles Stuart who is now our King. He had made agreement with the Scots, as did his father before him, promising to root out Episcopacy and implant Presbytery. You see how expediency rather than Revelation dictates our ways of worship! This Charles decided to move his Scots into England. We fought him at Worcester. Here, in September of ’fifty-one, was to be the last battle of all the Civil Wars.’
‘But what of Sir Edmund?’ Harry asked. ‘Where does he fit into your narrative?’
Fields stared at him for a long moment, and Harry saw the force of the man, and could imagine him as a young officer exhorting his troops into battle.
‘As I say, bear with me . . . So! We were miserably distressed for want of meat, and by tiredness from all the marching. The Royalists set to with fortifying the town and ruining the bridges across the Teme and the Severn, leaving only the bridge closest to Worcester untouched. We were about thirty thousand – far more than those inside the place. At last, we attacked them. I, with Cromwell, stayed to the eastern side of the Severn. Lambert’s men crossed at Upton, to the south, using a plank across the hole in the bridge. Dragging great boats with them, up against the flow of the river, Fleetwood’s men advanced northwards, to build new bridges with the boats, to let us move freely from one side to the other.’
While the Colonel spoke, he looked steadily into Harry’s eyes, and used his hands in chopping motions to delineate where the opposing forces had mustered. The effect was to keep Harry listening, and to make him unwilling to interrupt again.
‘The Royalists disliked our plan,’ he continued, ‘and took against the men putting into place these bridges, and shot at them across the river. Cromwell sent three brigades across the Severn, over the bridge of boats. I went with these, and we met with some Highlanders. We pushed at them until they desisted. We moved into the town, the Royalists running before us. Bodies lay all around, fallen like leaves from an autumn bough. The noise from men and animals filled the air – a terrible keening hum coming from the men, quite unlike a voice sounding from a throat; more like the organs in their bellies crying out with fear and pain. We chased them as they ran; we overcame them, and cut them down.’
Colonel Fields’s voice became very grave, and quiet, so that Harry had to lean closer to catch his words. ‘It was a slaughter. We could not keep our feet in all the blood, and we were covered in it, looking as if we carried wounds ourselves. When our powder was out, we slashed at them, or cudgelled them, or stamped them with our feet, squashing out their brains from their skulls. We pushed survivors into the Cathedral, where the stench of their fright was foul.’
Fields produced a pipe from a pocket of his old orange coat, and Harry noticed that the Colonel’s hands were shaking.
‘An army is a harsh, self-seeking power. Many of our men lost their heads, and broke up the place. For myself, I would rather hack off my own arm than damage a church window, and I did not participate. Mostly, though, those inside, the Royalists, were not killed; they were marched instead to London. Most of the Scots we sent home to their own country. Many of the foreign mercenaries, and the English, were sent abroad as slaves, in the Barbadoes, put to work in the sugar mills there, or to cut the cane out in the fields. The King himself slipped away, eventually to reach France from Brighthelmstone.’
Fields carefully filled his pipe, and spent some time lighting it, inhaling deeply from the tube and blowing into the bowl to spark the tobacco.
‘Have you never asked yourself how it came to be that Charles Stuart escaped away so easily? Despite the rout of his men?’
Harry thought for a moment, recollecting his lessons. ‘He hid himself at Boscobel; he was helped by Catholics, who disguised him as a woodman.’
Fields let out a loud laugh, which ended in smoke-filled coughs. After he had gathered himself, he waggled his finger slowly at Harry, from side to side. ‘His disguise would not have hoodwinked a girl! He went by the name of William Jackson – that is the story Charles Stuart puts about; but it is only half of the story. Perchance you would do well to ask Sir Edmund how the King escaped . . . I surmise, though, that you would find him secretive about his war, and guard closely how he helped the King.’
‘Sir Edmund assisted the King in his escape?’ Harry looked wonderingly at the old man.
‘Charles Stuart left Worcester with about sixty men, including Buckingham, Wilmot, Lauderdale and Derby. And Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey. Sir Edmund was a Parliament man, ordered by Cromwell to lead the King away. There is history from above, Mr. Hunt, and history from below. You repeat the history you have heard, and that is to be expected. But, let me tell you, Oliver Cromwell settled that he would not kill a second King, but would instead escort him to France, where he would be out of the way, penniless, and unable to raise an army.’
He sucked at the pipe, and slowly exhaled, merging more smoke into the dense air.
‘You must be careful, Mr. Hunt. Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey was the conduit for the King’s escape. The Red Cipher was used to arrange it. You must ask yourself: why has it returned?’
Observation XIV
Of Civil War
Hearing the rasp of Harry’s key, the boy raced to the door, and his last jump from the staircase, missing the bottom three stairs, rattled Hooke’s door on its hinges. Harry tousled Tom’s hair as he entered, making it even messier than before.
In his drawing room, Robert Hooke wrote in his diary; his lines, thirty, forty words long, meandering across the full width of the page, the spaces between his letters so small that to Harry the page appeared only as a block of grey. At Harry’s approach, Hooke closed the book furtively, and pushed it away to the edge of the table.
Hooke cast his silver eyes over Harry, seeming uneasy, and dabbed at his nose with a large yellow handkerchief. ‘Sit, sit. Tom, are you able to prepare the tea as I demonstrated to you?’
Tom blushed with happiness at being given the task.
‘I must speak with you in seriousness, Harry, upon a tender matter.’ Hooke’s twisting of his pen between his fingers made Harry suspect that some reproach was about to follow. ‘And you must be entirely candid with me,’ Hooke continued. ‘I busied myself with surveys this afternoon, and have heard rumours about the town.’
Harry’s stomach lurched; the same sensation as when propelled across the quadrangle on Hooke’s glider.
The Curator cleared his throat, and looked displeased. ‘There is talk of a Devil-boy, found at the Fleet, without his blood, and owning the hooves of a goat; a fearful creature from Hell waiting to come alive again. It is fancied that King Charles himself keeps it, in his elaboratory at Whitehall, and makes his own dissection. They say he reveals Catholic sympathies and practises. The boy is one of his bastards, with the vices of the father visited upon it, his satanic form reflecting the corruptions of the Court –’
‘I assure you, Mr. Hooke – as I am certain you believe – I have made no mention of it, to anyone.’ Harry had red spots of anger in his cheeks. He held the edge of the table in front of him, his knuckles white from the pressure of his grip.
‘I am sorry, Harry. I am sure that you would not knowingly reveal anything of the dead boy.’
‘I have revealed nothing! Whether knowingly or unknowingly. Today I went to Colonel Fields in Whitechapel; our conversation
involved only the cipher, and Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey. I divulged nothing to him of the boy.’
‘It will be all about London by now,’ Hooke said dolefully. ‘They tell of sacrifice, of Catholic bloodletting, of drinking the blood and eating the flesh of him.’
‘Sir Edmund will be vexed that word escaped about the boy,’ Harry said charily, struggling to keep a level tone. ‘It may be the eel-fisher that let loose the word, as the Justice suspected he would. Or even the old Constable there. Or his man Welkin, who brought him here to Gresham’s.’
‘You are right – others know of this, and word was bound to escape in time.’
A long weighty silence ensued between the two men. They listened to the bangs and crashes of Tom’s scuttling about, setting kettle and stove and measuring out the tea.
‘You found Colonel Fields?’ Hooke said eventually, as a peace offering. ‘Was he able to assist you? Did he confirm the cipher’s reliance upon a keyword?’
‘I did. He was. He did.’ Harry began to calm, but still felt a vinegary resentment.
‘He was familiar with it?’
‘It was one employed during the campaigns of the Civil Wars. He calls it the Red Cipher.’
‘Do you have the message with you?’
‘The Colonel could not unravel the meaning. He said that a single keyword was usually employed, for ease of use in the field. There is nothing within the grids of numbers to indicate this word, or its length.’
‘Why then send it to me without its keyword?’
‘Perhaps it will be sent to you, Mr. Hooke,’ Harry replied. A thought struck him, one connected with the failing of Hooke’s memory. ‘Perhaps you already have it, Mr. Hooke, without realising that you do.’
Hooke made a dismissive sound, and pointed at all the books and papers in his drawing room. ‘I am surrounded by words. How would I find which of them unlocks this cipher? It will be clear if it comes, I am sure.’
‘Perhaps Sir Edmund already knows this word.’
‘But Sir Edmund sent the cipher to us,’ Hooke said testily. ‘Do you suggest that he works upon it, separately, without us?’
The Bloodless Boy Page 8