The twins work together

James suddenly noticed that Julien's attention was focused elsewhere.

"What is it?" He asked and Julien found himself explaining the peculiarities in the border decorations. After listening intently for a few minutes James slapped himself on the head.

"That crafty old sneak!" He left these all over the place and I never gave them a second look. As Julien looked in wonder James located over a dozen places where the fencing notation had been worked into the margins of grandpa's books. "Look at these, do any of them make sense?" Out of the dozen examples only one looked like a real routine, and that had been imbedded into the journal with a clear discussion of the drill and how it would correct for a common weakness in beginning students. The other notations made as little sense as the decorations on the map they were useless he told James in frustration.

"Don't you get it?" James cut him off in exasperation, "they aren't meant to be a drill, it's a cipher - a code!"

"I don't see how knowing it’s a code will help us, unless you found the key somewhere?" Julien ended hopefully.

"No, but with as much text as he left us it should be a matter of only a few hours at most to break the cipher." James put Julien to work immediately recording all the different variations in the dueling notation. There were over thirty distinct figures and possibly a few more, depending on how you interpreted the variation in the figures. For the rest of the afternoon the two brothers worked together counting and organizing the glyphs as James insisted on calling them. Despite his cheerful optimism, by the end of the predicted few hours the only progress that had been made was the elimination of several of the most basic encryption methods.

Rather than getting frustrated, with each failed attempt James renewed his attack on breaking the cipher. Grandpa Wilhielm had several books that included both examples of common ciphers and useful methods for breaking them as well. But neither the lists of most common letters, nor most common words led to any insight. By nightfall Julien took the books from his brother's grasp and closed them firmly.

"Sleep on it James, you'll get it. After all if this is a system worked out by Grandpa, you know it is more complicated than a simple substitution code."

"Cipher" corrected James out of reflex "but you're right as usual. A meal in my belly and a good night's sleep is as good a plan as anything that I have at the moment."

"Code, cipher. What difference does it make if we can't break it?" Rising from the table crowded with books Julien started towards the door. "Come-on James, food and sleep remember." To his frustration James had returned to his seat and was peering once again at the multiple examples left by their dead grandfather.

"I think that's why we were having a little difficulty." Only James could refer to over four hours of painstaking tabulation and analysis resulting in complete failure as 'a little difficulty' reflected Julien as he returned to the table. "Its at least partly a code, not a cipher at all." Seeing his brother's blank look James explained.

"In a cipher each glyph stands for a single letter, a code substitutes whole words or phrases for others." As James spoke he laid three messages side by side. "Look, they all start with this same glyph, what's it mean?"

"That's the enguard position in first." Julien answered "Just about every drill ever written starts with enguard-first"

"I thought I recognized it," James answered. Once for two weeks Julien tried to teach his brother the basics of swordplay, the results had been disastrous and the brothers had agreed that it would be easier and safer for everyone if James were never allowed to carry a sword. "OK, so maybe its a dummy glyph meant to disguise the message, but maybe grandpa used these glyphs as a shorthand some or all of them mean something. What's this one mean?" James asked pointing at a common figure.

"That's a hesitation mark." He told his brother and as he looked over the collection of drills his mind clearly saw how many of the symbols separated into distinctive groups that looked much more like words than a random jumble of random positions. With that discovery the two twins rededicated their efforts. for each glyph James made Julien show the actual stance and movement involved. By midnight the text had been copied over several more times with groups of symbols separated more and more into word like clumps.

Finally the two were too exhausted to do any more. Not a single word had been translated but the basic structure of grandpa's notation was becoming clearer.

"It's just a matter of time now Julien." His brother told him "I can feel how close we are." The two brothers stumbled back to their rooms, and as Julien lay in bed his mind raced in excitement.

He had all the faith in the world in James, if he said they were close, he believed him.