The Tudor Vendetta Read Free

of poison, it was my most persistent challenge, the decoding of ciphers, and he knew it. He told me that educated men like me had a much harder time training their eye to see past the haphazard randomness of a cipher to the inevitable structure underneath.
    “Every code has a flaw,” he said. “None is invincible. But we allow its chaos to confuse and overwhelm us, just as its creator intended. We forget that if one man devised it, so can another man undo it.”
    I found it hardly reassuring, not when I faced a page that looked as if a rat had scampered over it with ink-stained paws, but I had nothing else to do and resigned myself to this next task, at which I would labor all day until supper, followed by—
    My heart leapt. Walsingham held a paper with a broken seal. “A letter,” he said. “From my lord Cecil.” When he saw my frozen stance, his lips twitched as if he found himself on the verge of a rare smile. “I thought to wait until we finished for the day. Evidently, we have.”
    He extended the paper. Snatching it from him, I devoured its contents with my eyes, then, realizing it was composed in Cecil’s habitual cipher, made myself slow down and read again, carefully unpicking the code that I had by now committed to memory.
    I looked up. “This says…” My voice turned harsh with incredulity. “You’ve waited all this time to tell me?”
    “I hardly see how it makes a difference. We can’t leave at a moment’s notice.”
    “But, Elizabeth—this letter says she’s already establishing her court at Whitehall!” Indignation exploded from me. “Queen Mary has been dead over a week!”
    He shrugged. “I obey Cecil’s instructions. He wrote first to advise me of the queen’s illness, after it was discovered that her pregnancy was actually a malignant tumor in her belly. He relayed he would make the necessary arrangements when the time came. Passage had to be booked, passports obtained; I had to oversee the closure of this safe house and transfer of its contents. There are papist spies here, watching for us as surely as we watch for them. We must leave without rousing notice, part of the crowd of English Protestants who went into exile and now return at Elizabeth’s behest. Secrecy remains of the utmost importance.” He flipped the lid of his box shut. “We’ll depart the day after tomorrow at first light. You can start packing.”
    I glared at him. I had nothing to pack, save for my clothes and a few books. “I can be ready in under an hour,” I said through my teeth.
    His brow lifted. “Then I suggest you cultivate patience. The very fact that I have to remind you of it proves you’re far from ready.” He turned to the doorway, his coffer tucked under his arm. “We’ll take an hour and then go over that cipher you couldn’t break last night.” His tone hardened as I began to lift protest. “Until we are back at court, Master Prescott, you remain under my charge. Is that understood?”
    I gave terse assent, the letter announcing Elizabeth Tudor’s accession crunched in my fist. If I could have, I would have swum back to England that very hour, my fear of deep water and his charge over me be damned.
    Walsingham’s snort as he walked out indicated he knew it, too.

 
    LONDON
    Chapter Two
    By the time we landed in Dover four days later, waited for our luggage to be unloaded from the hold, and shoved our way through hordes of travelers to find the inn where the mounts Cecil had arranged for us were waiting, I almost wished I’d opted to swim instead. Crossing the Channel at any time of year was arduous enough, its currents and sudden tempests unpredictable as a vicious child, but in mid-November, with winter clamping down, the journey had been a purgatory that emptied my very guts.
    I must have looked as terrible as I felt, for Walsingham arched his brow at me. “I trust you can ride? We’ve still a long journey ahead to reach the city and I’d rather not pay an exorbitant price