Read Chapter 6: The Interrogation

The ledger lay open on Cecil’s desk between them, its pages scarred by smoke and water, the ink bleeding in places where Robert’s attempt at destruction had failed. Thomas stood before it, hands loose at his sides, trying not to shiver. Two guards flanked the door. Cecil had not offered him a seat.

“You were found in my clerk’s office,” Cecil said, his voice quiet and precise. “Holding this.” He touched the charred edge of a page. “Moments after Robert’s death was reported. You understand how this appears.”

“I understand, my lord.” Thomas kept his eyes on the desk, not out of deference but because the ledger’s exposed pages called to him—patterns, numbers, the familiar architecture of his master’s hand. Even burned, the book felt like home. “But I came to warn you. Robert was the leak. I saw him pay a French agent myself.”

“Robert is dead in the Thames,” Cecil said. “And yet you claim he conducted espionage before his drowning. Convenient, for a dead man.” He leaned forward. “You also claim my ledger was stolen from your master’s shop. Yet you are here, in my offices, in the dead of night, holding it. Tell me why I should not hang you by morning.”

Thomas’s throat tightened. The word *hang* landed like a physical weight. But he had decoded enough letters to know that panic was a cipher of its own—it always revealed the truth beneath. He forced calm.

“Because, my lord, the ledger is not what it appears.” He reached into his doublet and drew out the folded note, the one he’d taken from Robert’s purse at the Blind Goat. “This was on Robert’s person tonight. He paid it to a foreign agent as proof of his good standing.”

Cecil took the note, unfolded it, read it. His expression did not change, but something behind his eyes shifted—a door closing, or opening.

“‘The debt is due,’” Cecil repeated. “That is all? No name, no date, no agreement.”

“It matches a phrase in the coded letter inside the ledger,” Thomas said. “A letter from an agent called L.D., written to someone in this household.” He swallowed. “It says an ‘eagle’ has been placed within your service. Robert wore a signet ring with a tower emblem. The same emblem that appears in the coded letter’s margin. The same emblem on the hidden paper I found in my mother’s necklace.”

Cecil was silent for a long moment. Then he drew a fresh sheet of paper toward him and dipped a quill. “Show me.”

Thomas blinked. “Show you what?”

“The coded letter. Decode it. Now.” Cecil slid the paper across the desk and held out the quill. “If you are telling the truth, you can reproduce it from memory. Robert burned most of the ledger, but you claim you hold the key in your head.”

Thomas’s mind raced. He had the cipher key—the pagination of his master’s *Ars Memorativa*, the alphabet shifts, the word breaks. He had decoded the Emmendingen letter in his master’s back room just hours ago. It was all there, burned into memory like a plate into a press.

He took the quill. His hand shook once, then steadied. He wrote from memory, line by line, the strange cadence of the French agent’s coded message. When he reached the key phrase, he paused.

“The White Tower,” he said, letting the quill rest. “It appears twice. In the margin of the first letter, and again in the body of the second. I assumed it was a reference to the Tower of London itself.” He looked up at Cecil. “But that doesn’t make sense. The letter is about coin, debt, and a spy within your household. Why would a French agent refer to the Tower of London?”

Cecil studied him, then took the decoded page and read it himself. His jaw tightened.

“Because it is not a place,” Cecil said slowly. “It is a man.”

Thomas’s pulse quickened. “A man?”

“The White Tower. The man who holds the keys to the Queen’s prisoners. The man who knows who enters and leaves the Tower’s walls without question.” Cecil set the page down. “My brother-in-law’s cousin. John Markham.”

The name struck Thomas like a bell. He had heard it before—not in connection to court or prison, but in his master’s shop, spoken in a low voice over a batch of ink orders, a delivery for a “Master John.”

“My lord,” Thomas said, his voice catching. “I believe you. But I need you to believe me in return. I am not the spy.” He placed both hands flat on the desk, steadying himself. “My father disappeared after being cleared of a five-hundred-pound debt to the Crown. The same day he vanished, Robert began carrying payments to foreign agents. The same ledger that names an ‘eagle’ in your household also has my father’s name in its margins.”

Cecil looked at him for a long time. The candle guttered. Somewhere in the house, a clock struck the hour.

“Three days,” Cecil said.

Thomas’s breath caught. “My lord?”

“Three days to prove the leaks come from someone other than you. Three days to find John Markham and bring me proof of his dealings.” Cecil stood, and his presence filled the room. “You will have my protection until then. You will have access to the ledger’s remaining pages. You will have the run of my household.” He paused. “But if you fail, or if you run, I will find you. And you will hang.”

Thomas nodded. He did not trust his voice.

“Then begin,” Cecil said, and turned away.