The Bloodless Boy

by Robert J. Lloyd

  ‘So! There was the King on the Isle of Wight, and the meanwhile we met at Putney, to debate the future of the country, and the Kingship. Do you remember my mention of Putney at our first meeting? I used it as a keyword to show the working of the Red Cipher.’

  ‘You demonstrated how it changed the name of Cromwell into numbers.’

  ‘Just so!’ The Colonel looked gratified. ‘Having won the War, no one knew what to do in our victory. The death of the King came soon after. I saw his head held aloft – and still I believe it was just to see him off so violently; it showed our resolve to move from the old ways of despotism, and cheered us after our years of fighting.’

  ‘Yet the Wars did not end,’ Harry observed.

  ‘No, they did not. The execution of the King solved little, for, unlike me, most opposed it, and we had more foes to fight outside our borders. We went to Ireland with Cromwell, to stop their rebellion. The Irish fought savagely, being a barbarous people, and also, we stood on their soil. Think how hard we had worked to protect London, building defences around the whole of the City. In Ireland we met with resistance as stiff. At Wexford, Reuben, upon the scout for us inside the town, disguised and passing himself off as Irish, unfastened the gates for us. Once inside, we were unrestrained, and we put them to the sword. At Clonmel, the Irish defended themselves well and cleverly, building a trench into which we fell when their wall was breached. They killed about a thousand of us, slashing at us with scythes and poking at us with their pikes and partizans. The three of us took a care to escape that hole.’

  Fields faltered; an extraordinary twitch working through him. ‘Do you surmise that Mrs. Hannam has more of this tart?’ he asked, once the spasm had passed. ‘For I believe it to be the finest I have tasted. Some more beer, too, for I am out, and this talking brings a thirst with it.’

  Dutifully, Harry went out to look for Mrs. Hannam, and she was happy to return to the Colonel, who thanked her for the provisions.

  ‘A handsome woman, is she not?’ he remarked when she was safely out of earshot, having returned to her kitchen singing to herself. ‘Narrow in the flanks, but handsome. Where was I?’

  ‘In Ireland, Colonel,’ Harry answered gently, seeing the Colonel’s continued distress. His memories had made him blanch, and his hands shook agitatedly.

  ‘You may imagine how happy we were to return from there. We went then to Scotland. On the way we lost many through sickness and shortness of rations, about a quarter of our force. All the while Thomas applied himself, saving many, with Reuben assisting him. By the time of the great battle at Dunbar we were wearied, but their discipline was poor, and so we beat them. Cromwell had little time to relish his win, however, for he succumbed to the curious Scottish air, which pulls a man down into his misery. Thomas Whitcombe came then to his notice, for Thomas it was who tended to him.

  ‘When we returned to England, we were happy to do so, for Scotland is a dismal place. It was then that Thomas and Reuben were taken from me, on Oliver Cromwell’s orders.’

  The Colonel chewed ruminatively at his slice of Mrs. Hannam’s tart. ‘You see, Thomas had got to know Cromwell well, and impressed all by his chirurgy. Reuben had killed the commander at Alton, and opened the gate at Wexford, and impressed all by his bravery. He assisted Thomas, more and more becoming a healer, seeing his dexterity as God-given. God seemed to cover their heads. That is why they were selected for covert work, naturally enough.’

  ‘Both he and Reuben were employed to convey the King to France,’ Harry said.

  ‘Cromwell thought them the best of men to safeguard him.’

  ‘What happened to them? Their mission was accomplished.’

  ‘One stretched from the branch of an oak tree, by the meeting of the Severn and the Teme rivers, after the battle of Worcester. The other, I know, was taken to be Royalist, captured at Brighthelmstone, and sent to the Barbadoes as a slave.’

  ‘It was Reuben Creed who died, and Thomas Whitcombe who survived.’

  ‘A long time ago . . . After Reuben died I loved his wife, Abigail, who shared my admiration of the Levellers. She would never have me, though, loving the memory of her dead husband too much – I never sought another, loving her too much.’

  ‘Reuben was killed because he knew of the way of the King’s escape?’

  Fields nodded, and stroked the bristles over the dome of his head. ‘A brutish act. He was killed, but someone decided that Thomas should live, and that he should continue with the King on his journey to France. At Brighthelmstone, though, he was captured by Parliament forces, thought to be a turncoat, and taken to the Barbadoes.’

  ‘You heard nothing of him since?’

  ‘I made my own investigation. I was warned away. I heard of his use in the reaping of cane and the making of sugar, on the Earl of Shaftesbury’s plantations. I thought I saw him, once, years ago, at the place of the old Charing Cross, by the pillory there. It was rumoured that he performed the trepanning upon Prince Rupert, to alleviate the hurt from a wound to his brain.’

  ‘Where has Whitcombe carried out his experimental and philosophical trials? Who paid for him to do so?’

  ‘These questions I cannot answer,’ the Colonel replied. ‘If the body upon the Morice waterwheel was not that of the Justice, then you can ask him.’

  ‘In truth, I cannot ask him, Colonel.’

  The Colonel barely paused at Harry’s tacit admission. ‘Did Sir Edmund tell you of the keyword before he died?’

  ‘It was revealed at the autopsy of his body. He had swallowed it, written onto a piece of paper.’

  ‘So he supposed that he would meet his death.’

  ‘Did Thomas Whitcombe have reason to kill Sir Edmund?’

  Fields shrugged. ‘Why now, if he has been in London for so long?’

  ‘Colonel, do you think that Thomas Whitcombe is now dead, also, as his letter to Sir Edmund says?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I thought him dead before, Mr. Hunt. He returned.’

  Observation XXXIX

  Of the Observations

  The daytime merged seamlessly into evening, the gloom of one replaced by the gloom of the other. The rain still fell outside. He could hear it spattering the roof with a sleepy sighing sound.

  Other than the rain, and the occasional crack of a beam as the warmth from the fires left the house, all was quiet. Harry, after his visit from Colonel Fields, had gone early to his bed, in the late afternoon, but the throb in his tailbone and the tenderness of his shin and ankle, becoming ever blacker, made sleep impossible. He also had a sickening headache, which felt as if it opened the bone above his eyebrows.

  Accepting defeat, he lit a candle and went to his table, and the package he had found with Secretary Oldenburg’s correspondences. He carefully unwrapped the sailcloth from its contents.

  There were four piles of papers, each tied neatly with thread. He spread them out on the floor of his room.

  Each of the piles had a title page, uniform in colour and size, bought from the same paper seller. Their titles swam in front of him, but he made himself focus them sharply. He would attempt the work, and perhaps the excruciating aches would subside.

  Using the keyword CORPUS, he revealed the title of each pile:

  Observations Historical

  Observations Philosophical

  Observations Habitual

  Observations Propagational

  They contrasted with the various sheets beneath, whose edges rippled, a mixture of weights, hues, and sizes. It appeared that Thomas Whitcombe’s researches were brought together by theme, like a commonplace book, noted on papers bought on different occasions and from various makers. The writing on them was small, with extraordinarily regular lettering – the hand of a chirurgeon, Harry thought.

  Threads further divided each of the piles. Harry untied Observations Historical. It was some effort to unpick the knots, and eventually he tired of trying to loosen them, and took a small knife to them. He released ten sheaves of notes, and, from und
er the main title page, a short explanatory letter.

  With the help of the brass cipher disk given to him by Colonel Fields, he revealed the hidden message.

  History describes mankind’s rules or institutes, concerning Duties, Sins, or Indifference in matters of Religion, or things that are commanded, forbidden or permitted by their Municipal Laws. It describes the opinions or traditions to be found amongst mankind, concerning God, Creation, Revelation, Prophecies, and Miracles.

  The ten bundles beneath this sheet were headed Observations of Religions; Observations of Institutions; Observations of Sin; Observations of Indifference; Observations of Divine Law; Observations of Civil Law; Observations of Offences against God; Observations of Miracles; Observations of Obligation; and Observations of Atonement.

  Harry did not open any of these. Instead he piled them up next to him on the floor and moved to the second, far larger, pile, Observations Philosophical. Again, when he cut it open, under the top page was another single sheet. Below that were eighteen more bundles, each with their title sheets of the same paper. Harry deciphered Whitcombe’s note on the contents of these bundles.

  The knowledge of Things; their Essence and Nature, properties, causes, and consequences of each Species, must be divided according to the several Orders and Species of Things. So far as we have the true notion of Things as really they are in their Being, so far we advance in Real and True Knowledge. Having a true, clear, and distinct Idea of the Nature of Anything, because we are ignorant of their Essence, takes in their Causes, Properties, and Effects, or as much of them as we can know.

  Harry read the top sheet of the first of the smaller bundles he had freed. It was titled Observations of The Light of Grace. The next was headed Observations of The Light of Nature, followed by Observations Concerning Experience; Observations Of Astronomical Magic; Observations Of Theological Cabala; Observations Of Medicinal Alchemy; Observations Of Water; Observations Of Fire; Observations Of Air; Observations Of Breath; Observations of the Soul; Observations of the Body; Observations of Animals; Observations of Minerals; Observations of Vegetables; Observations of the Heart and Blood; Observations Of Homunculii; and the last; Observations of Miscellaneous Species.

  The largest of the bundles was Observations of the Heart and Blood, easily a hundred sheets, followed in size by Observations of The Light of Grace, Observations of The Light of Nature, then Observations Of Air, Observations Of Fire, and Observations Of Water. The other bundles were far smaller, suggesting that these were subjects more peripheral to Whitcombe’s studies.

  Blood, the heart, Grace, nature, air, fire, and water. These would seem to be at the centre of his interests. Unless, rather, this was work Whitcombe had been directed to do, in his ‘employments’.

  What was Thomas Whitcombe’s design?

  All that Harry had was like the fragments of a shipwreck. He did not yet have enough to see the whole ship.

  He brought his attention back to the letter to Sir Edmund, to Whitcombe’s interest in the light of Nature and the light of Grace. Paracelsus, he remembered from one of Hooke’s lectures given at the Royal Society, discussed the two Lights, and Descartes wrote of them also. He looked at the biggest bundle left by Whitcombe, Observations of the Heart and Blood. Whitcombe’s interest in the circulation of blood showed his knowledge of William Harvey, the title of his notes upon the subject echoing the title of Harvey’s work, Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus, published some fifty years before.

  Harry piled the bundles up, again not opening them, and moved to the third section, Observations Habitual.

  Things we do find amongst other people fit for our imitation, whether politic or private wisdom. Any arts conducing to the conveniences of life.

  This third collection of notes had their top pages labelled Observations on Wisdom; Observations on Private Knowledge; Observations on Universal Languages; Observations on Substance; Observations on Nourishment; Observations on Medicines; Observations on Mechanical Motion; and the last was Observations on Perceiving. The largest pile of these under Observations Habitual was Observations on Mechanical Motion. Harry put all these aside also.

  The fourth pile, Observations Propagational, a thick gathering of bound papers, almost as large as Observations Philosophical, was divided by Whitcombe’s careful tying into just two sections.

  He cut open the parcel, and translated Whitcombe’s note.

  The propagation and transplantation of the natural products of the country, fit to be traded for some useful quality they have. Any advantageous commerce; and these notes concern practice or action.

  The two headings for each section were Observations on Production and Observations on Trade.

  Harry lay back on his bed, and tried to think of all these piles, pushed out around him over the floor in the dim light afforded by his flickering candle, and all of their titles, to make room in his mind for the receiving of them, so he could better retain their details when he resumed with the deciphering of the Observations. He pictured Whitcombe’s themes as objects in a room, jostling one another for space, leaning against one another untidily. He envisaged himself picking them up, moving them around, reorganising them into neat piles. All this helped his memory; a trick learnt from a reading of Cicero.

  The scope of Whitcombe’s miscellany made him question where to start. The thickest pile was the notes on Observations Philosophical. This coincided more closely with his own interests in the natural, the mechanical, and the philosophical.

  In his letters Whitcombe wrote of provoking God, of presuming to penetrate the depths of nature. He described his work as a natural philosopher, an experimentalist, a mechanic, an observator: yet much of the material in the package concerned history, trade, political intelligencing and religious moralising.

  Harry was not an antiquary, a merchant, or a clergyman. He would start with what he knew.

  He reached for the Observations Philosophical, and cut the threads around the pile’s uppermost bundle, Observations on The Light of Grace.

  It was eight o’clock in the evening. He had arranged to meet with Colonel Fields later, at Whitechapel. He would spend another hour on the deciphering, and then it would be time to go.

  Observation XXXX

  Of Temperature

  Tom Gyles crouched on the kitchen floor while Mary prepared a goose, carefully gathering up the freshly plucked feathers. He had amassed a great stock of feathers, to glue onto the wings of his next project, a machine with wings that flapped, powered by clockwork.

  Mr. Hooke had promised to assist him that evening with the completion of his model of the moon. Together, they were to suspend it over the quadrangle, working from the observatory.

  Hooke, though, had been waiting for the soldiers who had at last come to take Sir Edmund. A discreet cart was brought into the College, and they had loaded the body in the darkness.

  After days of excitement in the building of his moon, as the time of its readiness grew near, Tom felt a curious lack of elation.

  When Mary had plucked, he stood up stiffly, a film of sweat on his face. He moved away from the heat of the fire, the feathers in his arms.

  *

  It occurred to Hooke, preparing some spirit of sal ammoniac to take as a purgative, that Tom seemed subdued. Usually, he would be telling the boy to be more careful, stop annoying Mary, stop asking him questions when he was busy. Instead of the usual thump of him going up the stairs it was a slow trudge. The calm should be welcome; instead, Hooke discovered that it disturbed the stream of his thinking.

  When Tom returned down from his room, having deposited the feathers there, Hooke looked more closely at him. The boy’s face was still damp with sweat, and a flush on his cheeks made Hooke motion to him to sit down next to him. A pang of worry made him sound forced and over-cheerful.

  ‘Rest until Mary brings in dinner. A short sleep will refresh you.’

  Mary spoiled Hooke’s attempted air of unconcern by coming to inspect
Tom. Holding him firmly by the chin she studied his reddened, moist face.

  ‘I can feel the heat coming from him,’ she said directly. ‘Look at him, Mr. Hooke! The child cannot feel at all well, bless him. Bless the lamb.’

  Tom pulled himself away from her grasp. ‘My back aches. I am sore.’

  ‘Your joints, they are the same?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Stiff too.’ Tom stood sullen and miserable.

  ‘Then you must go straight to your bed, as Mr. Hooke tells you.’

  ‘I shall call upon Dr. Diodati presently,’ Hooke told the boy, ‘and he will make you better. Mary, will you prepare a broth for him? I have some Aldersgate cordial, which may refresh him. Continue with the goose later, when Tom is put to bed. Dr. Diodati will make his recommendations tonight. He is a capable man.’

  Observation XXXXI

  Of the Power of Words

  The crowd padded softly along Cable Street, their lamps and flambeaux mimicking the night sky, in which a million points of light shone, separated by the reaches of space. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had quickly cleared. With the star-shine came a pitiless cold, and Harry wished that he had come more wrapped. His teeth chattered, despite his leather coat and a thick felt cap loaned to him by Mrs. Hannam, whiffs of her husband still clinging to it.

  ‘This way!’ commanded Fields, his voice an authoritative whisper. They moved towards the meadows by Knock Fergus. The lights flowed around them on either side. There was no talk amongst the people, only the noise of walking feet and the occasional slap of a freezing hand against another.

  Harry, with Robert Hooke’s improved lamp sending a powerful light around them, saw Moses Creed waiting for them, and Fields welcomed him with a tight embrace. Moses Creed gave Harry a perfunctory handshake. Harry, likewise, was not delighted to meet the Solicitor. The Colonel took them on, rejoining the stream of people.