Free The Bloodless Boy by Robert J. Lloyd

pointed towards the sky, and his few books.
    Also on it, the enciphered letters that Hooke had passed to him on their journey from Oldenburg’s house.
    The Curator had been firm upon the need for secrecy. Harry was sure that the Justice, Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, would not be best pleased to find Hooke passing to him the matter. Hooke, though, was concerned with the business of the Secretaryship of the Royal Society, canvassing support from the Fellows to replace Oldenburg.
    Harry, nevertheless, felt pleased that Mr. Hooke trusted him and his skills so far.
    But what of the Justice of Peace?
    Harry distrusted Sir Edmund, but he had not yet determined why.
    Some fact worked against believing him. Something to do with the finding of the boy yesterday morning, or with the way that he had pressed for the boy’s preservation, or with the cipher he had later presented to Hooke.
    And then Mr. Hooke had received a second letter, looking as if it used the same system. Harry wondered whether the original letter left on the boy at the Fleet was written with the same regularity as the one he now held. The one Sir Edmund had showed them owned a similar seal in black wax, although Harry had not been close enough to see the image upon it.
    This one, sent to Mr. Hooke, had a design of a candle; a simple rectangle, its flame shaped like a symmetrical teardrop.
    The Curator had once described to him a catenary arch, the arch made by a chain suspended between two points, with only gravity and the forces pulling at the ends of the chain working upon it. It was Hooke’s belief that the eye perceived such an arch as flawlessly harmonic, as essentially true. No experience of architecture, or knowledge of mathematics, was required to appreciate the self-evident perfection of the shape.
    This was the feeling Harry had about Sir Edmund, as if the arch was distorted.
    Harry warned himself away from this insidious feeling, towards a healthier scepticism more worthy of the Royal Society: he had to concentrate on what he knew, he had to perceive the facts as they were , and not press his own feelings upon them. Otherwise he would warp and obscure the true way of things, becoming like a mildewed mirror, reflecting falsely the picture of Nature.
    He had been hurt by Sir Edmund’s insistence on speaking to Hooke alone, after his viewing of the boy stored at Gresham’s – perhaps this suspicion of him sprang only from his damaged pride.
    Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he sat down on the chair at his desk. He would study the cipher taken from the boy again. He had looked at Sir Edmund’s copy of it by the light of his taper when he first came in from Pall Mall; perhaps if he had not, a more restful sleep would have been easier to come by.
    He picked up the letter, and took off the outside paper, which wrapped around a sheaf of separate papers inside. He opened it up.
    He studied again Sir Edmund’s writing. The first page:
    57
78
58
55
84
78
27
47
86
95
73
79
27
56
86
95
96
67
57
97
106
55
62
98
27
50
56
56
84
56
56
96
114
113
123
65
67
70
94
84
66
55
27
80
66
85
63
98
46
89
67
75
95
87
64
48
88
75
75
89
46
69
87
86
74
89
37
46
76
55
66
55
27
80
66
85
75
88
58
58
88
86
74
87
34
70
86
56
103
67
26
58
65
76
66
88
25
50
64
84
66
55
27
70
56
74
85
89
34
68
97
82
86
88
58
50
86
65
86
87
58
89
76
95
103
87
45
49
75
95
94
59
54
86
88
52
96
78
57
56
77
76
84
55
    Harry peeled it from those beneath. The sheets continued, page after unintelligible page of grids twelve numbers by twelve.
    These pages may not conceal words at all, but rather alchemical signs, or mathematical workings. Or, Harry thought, they may hide anagrammatical texts, requiring further unravelling before their meaning was revealed.
    His shoulders sagged. Mr. Hooke expected too much of him. To whom could he turn for assistance? The mathematicians and cryptologists within the Royal Society’s Fellows? Sir Christopher Wren? Sir William Petty? Sir Jonas Moore, employed at the Board of