And, all the while, the news filtering in of the war was not good. Oliver Cromwell’s cavalry, supported by the Earl of Manchester and Sir Thomas Fairfax, had sent a Royalist army running for their lives through the Lincolnshire countryside, and, in Scotland, the Earl of Leven was gathering his forces for an advance towards Newcastle. Nottingham and Manchester were in Parliament’s hands, and Chester was under threat. In the south and the west, bands of clubmen had become serious obstacles to the occupation of towns and villages, with the result that the king’s soldiers were going hungry. It would not be long before they started deserting in droves — just what the clubmen wanted.
Thomas heard nothing of Romsey, still in Royalist-held territory, but the forces of Parliament now held both Southampton and Portsmouth. If Romsey’s merchants were unable to send their cloth to the ports, trade would dry up and everyone in the town would suffer. Simon had brought plenty of money for Margaret, and they had a decent amount under the stairs, so Thomas had no fears on that score; even in times of scarcity, food could always be bought by anyone with the price for it. For her safety, however, and that of the girls, he feared greatly. He had experienced soldiers from both sides in the town, and he knew what they could do. They could drink, fight, steal, rape and kill. He wondered, too, if there had been any more threatening letters. The chances were that they were nothing, albeit a frightening nothing. And if they were something, especially something devised by Tobias Rush, God alone knew what might have happened.
On the third day, Thomas awoke desperate to escape the confinement of his room and the oppression of the king’s mood. He walked round Christ Church Meadow, heaving again with artillery pieces, mortars and stores of small arms, up St Aldate’s and Cornmarket, and back towards Merton by Broad Street and Catte Street. In Broad Street, John Porter’s bookshop was closed, having run out of either books or customers. Everywhere there were even more beggars and whores, and more filth and decay, than when he had first arrived in Oxford. Refugees from villages burned down to prevent their falling into enemy hands had poured into the town, as had the maimed and wounded from each new engagement, while the reinforcements the king had demanded from the Shires were arriving in their hundreds. Barely a house or a college room remained un occupied by soldiers or members of the royal households. All around, Thomas saw disease, poverty and degradation. Oxford had long since ceased to be a university town; it was a military encampment.
A military encampment with a difference. In Catte Street, a line of revellers, the men in the red uniforms of the king’s Lifeguards, their masked ladies in flowing gowns, danced down the street to the music of flutes and pipes. They were led by a young man in blue whom Thomas recognized as Prince Rupert, a lady on either arm, singing lustily and trying vainly to keep time with the tune. Thomas stepped aside to let them pass. The dancers took no notice of the limbless beggars lining either side of the street, or of the abuse shouted at them by watching towns people. A woman in an old straw bonnet and a torn dress, who tried to join the dance, was shoved roughly aside. It was a spectacle that Thomas had not before encountered. Starving beggars and dancing soldiers. What a war.
Before Merton, he went to the Physic Garden, where Jane had shown him daisy fleabane and they had walked together between stands of lavender and beds of violets. The violets were over, but the lavender still flowered. He twisted a head from its stem and rolled it between his fingers. Its scent was the scent of Jane. He had never had the chance to learn about flowers and to impress her with his know ledge, to invite her to Romsey, to woo her properly. Now there never would be a chance.
At Merton, he found Simon sitting on a bench in the little quadrangle behind the chapel, a quiet spot away from the comings and goings in the front quadrangle. Thomas sat down beside him. ‘Has there been any news?’ he asked yet again.
‘None that I know of. The second message changed everything and the queen still awaits instructions from the king as to her day of departure, and her destination. Her mood, as ever, reflects his — black, sullen and ominous. And she still grieves for Jane.’
‘As do I.’
‘Have you heard from the king?’
‘Nothing. I still hope for an escort home, but his majesty will have other and more pressing affairs to attend to.’
‘Among them, the capture of Tobias Rush, I hope.’
‘I doubt he’ll be caught now. He could be in Manchester or London or Cambridge. Somewhere he can’t be reached.’
For an hour they sat together, sometimes talking, sometimes sitting in silence. When Thomas rose to go, he had made up his mind to seek an audience with the king and to ask for permission to go home. Surely his majesty would not refuse such a request. He would ask him at once.
That evening, however, his request for an audience was refused. The king was too busy to see him. Frustrated and furious, Thomas stormed out of Christ Church, hoping to cool his temper by the river. He had come here under sufferance, he had done what was asked of him and he wanted to go home. Perhaps, rather than waiting for the king to provide an escort, he would take his chances and go anyway. Tomorrow morning, he would just walk out of Oxford, find a horse and make his way to Romsey. If he had to, he would hide in woods and live on toadstools. He had lost a dear old friend and a lady he loved. He missed his sister and his nieces. He had been away far too long.
Much cheered by his decision, Thomas returned to Christ Church, going over in his mind the practicalities of the journey. He had enough money, he could buy a horse, he knew the route. Once he had gone, the king would forget him. He’d be quite safe in Romsey. Three days on the road and he would be home. At last.
The blow that knocked him cold came from behind the door as he entered his rooms. He saw and heard nothing. It was a blow from a heavy object, delivered by someone who knew what he was about. A blow to render his victim unconscious, not to kill him. When Thomas came to, he was on his back, ankles bound together and wrists tied to the frame of the bed. His movements were restricted to raising his throbbing head and wriggling his backside. Through eyes that refused to focus, he thought he saw a black-clad, crow-like figure approach the bed. The figure stooped to examine its prey. In its hand it held a cane with a silver top. It spoke.
‘Master Hill, we meet again.’
CHAPTER 16
Rush pulled up a chair and sat by the bed. He pushed one strip of shirt into Thomas’s mouth and secured it with a second, tied around his head. Then he held up the silver-topped cane where Thomas could see it, and drew out of it a very thin blade.
‘The finest Spanish steel, Thomas, made especially for me by the best swordsmith in Toledo. Its point is as sharp as one of your sister’s sewing needles. As you can see.’ Holding the sword by its silver handle, his eyes never leaving Thomas’s, he touched Thomas’s arm with the point. A trickle of blood appeared. ‘The secret is in the mix of metals. That and the exact heat of the forge and the length of time the sword is in it. The smiths measure the time by reciting prayers. Then the blade is cooled with oil. A fine Toledo sword is every bit as much a masterpiece as a Michelangelo sculpture.’
A slow smile crept across the narrow face. ‘I can see that you’re surprised to find me here, Thomas. I quite understand. I could have been in London by now, yet somehow the idea of our meeting again proved irresistible. I am unaccustomed to defeat — a poor loser, you might say — and unwilling to concede victory, especially to so unworthy an adversary. Tobias Rush bested by a Romsey bookseller? I think not. With a little help from some friends, it was not difficult to return unnoticed to Oxford, or to enter Christ Church and wait for your return. You’d be surprised just how many of us there are in the town, and we are more each week. Dis enchantment with the king grows with his every extravagance, and those of the queen, and it does not take a military eye to see which way the war is going. I believe I may claim, in all modesty, to have been instrumental in recruiting a good many to our cause.