The Traitor's Blade, Kevin Sands [fiction novels to read txt] 📗

Because, Master Benedict said, in the back of your mind, you think it’s from the Raven.

The Raven’s dead, I replied.

Wasn’t he?

Tom was looking at me strangely. This was stupid. Just open the thing.

With a deep breath, I cracked the wax seal. Then, with growing amazement, I read the message inside.

CHAPTER

8

“WHAT IS IT?” TOM SAID nervously.

“I… don’t know.”

I showed him the letter.

An oath was made, a promise sworn,

To those who wished to bind him.

But he returned, and offered scorn,

And so they come to find him.

You will know the key when you see

the truth. Remember Paris.

M O I U R H J B X A M G X B H B L L

Tom looked at me, worried. “What does this mean?”

I had no idea. I read the whole thing again, mind racing.

And so they come to find him, it said. Find whom?

Me?

I’d returned. And someone had said they’d come for me. The Raven. Dead or not.

But as I read the letter over, I couldn’t make the rest of the rhyme match. Had I sworn an oath to anyone? And then “offered scorn,” whatever that was supposed to mean?

I couldn’t recall anything like that. So far, I’d kept every promise I’d made.

So if the riddle wasn’t meant for me… then for whom?

“Simon, maybe?” Tom said.

Someone had attacked him. But I wasn’t sure he fit the “returned” part. “I don’t think Simon’s ever been to London,” I said.

Tom thought about it. “What about the king? Charles returned to the throne, almost six years ago. And he gets threatened a lot.”

That was a definite possibility. I mulled it over.

You’re missing something in the message, Master Benedict said.

He was right; once again, my brain was a jumble. I’d got so hung up on the riddle, I’d forgotten the even more curious part.

“We should solve the cipher,” I said. “There might be more of a clue in there.”

“Do you know how?”

“Well… the line above the code says we need a key. And that we should remember Paris. So…”

“Use the Vigenère’s square cipher!” Tom said.

“You remembered,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

“It’s the hat. Makes me smarter.”

That made me laugh. “All right, monsieur. What’s the key that’ll solve the code?”

“Er…”

This was always the tricky part. “Let’s write out the square to start.”

I had a quill and ink in my sash, but there was no paper in our room, other than the letter itself, which I didn’t want to write on. So, taking Bridget with us, we went to find some.

And quickly got lost.

All the corridors looked the same to me, with their paintings and curios and carpets. Twice we were shuffled out of what was clearly someone’s private chambers, the second time by a lady shouting, “Out! How dare you! Ruffians!”

“This place is a maze,” Tom said, flustered. Fortunately, a passing servant, an elderly gentleman with a dignified bearing and ponderous speech, took pity on us.

“May I be of assistance, sirs?”

“Could you send some paper to our room, please? And… um…” I looked up and down the hall. “Could you maybe also tell us where our room is?”

“Certainly, sir.” The man, whose name was Dobson, already seemed to know where we’d been housed, which impressed me. Keeping track of the ever-changing guests living in the palace couldn’t be easy.

“I don’t suppose you have a map,” I joked, after he’d led us back.

“Of course, sir. Would you like a copy?”

I blinked. “Really?”

“His Majesty had a floor plan commissioned. Helps sort things out, you see. I’ll bring it at once.”

We waited, me thinking about ciphers and Tom admiring his hat, until the man returned. He handed us a broad sheaf of blank paper and, as promised, a map of the palace.

“It only shows the ground floor, sir,” Dobson said, “but perhaps it will be of use.”

“What do all these numbers mean?” Tom asked.

“An indication of who is lodged where.”

He used my quill to mark our quarters for us. We were on the east side, beside the Thames, in a little room numbered 40. “Who’s that?” I asked.

“Sir William Killigrew,” Dobson said. “The Queen’s Vice-Chamberlain and member of Parliament for Richmond in Yorkshire. Bit of a playwright as well, I understand.”

“I’ll have to thank him for allowing us to use his parlor.”

“Hm… perhaps not.”

In other words, Sir William Killigrew was furious that we’d taken some of his space. “I see… In that case, we’ll avoid him at all costs.”

Dobson nodded sagely. “Wisdom is a blessing, sir.”

I needed a desk. Tom and I pulled a table from the pile of furniture in our room and righted it. Bridget marched in front of the window as I wrote out Vigenère’s square.

“Now we need to figure out what the key is,” I said. “The message says it’s about the truth of what happened in Paris. So what is that?”

“Finding the Templars?” Tom suggested.

As good a place as any to start. I wrote out the cipher, then repeated the key above it.

T E M P L A R S T E M P L A R S T E

M O I U R H J B X A M G X B H B L L

“I don’t remember how the rest of this works,” Tom said.

“To decipher something,” I reminded him, “we start on the row with the first letter of the key: T. Then we search to the right, until we find the letter of the code: M. Then we go up to the top of the column… and that should be the first letter of the message.”

“T,” Tom said.

“Yes. And we write that down.”

T E M P L A R S T E M P L A R S T E

M O I U R H J B X A M G X B H B L L

T

“Now we just keep doing that for each letter. Next in the key is E… go across to find the O… and up to get…”

“K,”  Tom said.

T