Quoted By:
[3/3]
<span class="mu-i">“I am authorised to brief you further directly in respect of the known situtation, contacts, protocol, and our main areas interest.”</span> Sir Cato de Ferros continues once you have finished reading the message. <span class="mu-i">“But this will be the nature of future correspondence between you and I as contacts going forward, for routine reports. Time sensitive material, on the other hand, will be frank and in the provided code.”</span>
You can see the appeal in the veiled, unsealed letters. Regular courier messages, in the hands of not entirely trusted middlemen, might be routinely inspected. Using this as an example the writer and the reader will know in rough terms what one refers to, but outsiders will see at best entirely innocent messages and at worse complete nonsense. Nothing that implicates you in anything untoward at all, provided you are careful with your language.
There is one small, and perhaps unjustified, wrinkle. Writing in code is one thing, you’ve been doing that with your siblings since before you were a squiring. But hiding your hidden messages in plain sight, ostensibly a merchant of some sort… is that effectively a lie in the written word?
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> “Routine reports? My promise to our friend was to warn him of anything that threatens our nation that I become aware of during my time there. This, in my view, is a little more involved.” Spywork sits ill with you in the first place. Posing as a common merchant, even moreso. But it is the extent of what Sir Gilbern is asking as a matter of course that grates on you. [Haughty]
>“Hah! So this shall be the nature of our discourse, two nameless burghers discussing goods, prices and other merchant tawdriness? How very droll.” This is all quite exciting, and not a little bit enjoyable. It is a game, a very deadly game. If you take this all too seriously, you’re bound to go mad. So why not have fun in the role you are to play? At Her Majesty’s service indeed. [Hearty]
>“I mislike the misleading nature of this proposed correspondence. It strays too close to a lie, a potential blemish on my code to speak only truth. I will receive your messages, but will respond only in code.” While not a lie per-se, it blurs the line in your eyes and you will have none of that. [Idealist]