Maid of Deception

by Jennifer McGowan

  We bounded into the trees as far as we dared, shouting and calling out into the green velvet wood. “Sophia!” I called, my voice urgent with fear. “Sophia! Where are you?”

  No one returned my cry.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rather than fight our way back through the brambles and logs and branches and the strange hidden space at the center of the labyrinth, Alasdair and I forged our way back to Marion Hall through the heavy wood of Salcey Forest. My feet were about to fall off my body by the time we returned, and it was now well past midday, with the Hall appearing more or less put back together and a few bleary-eyed courtiers stumbling about, still looking a bit worse for the wear from their late-night debauch.

  I held my head high and sailed past servants and guests alike, not even drawing a frown at my disheveled appearance. It was always thus, I’d found. People saw what they expected to see. In me, they expected to see a prim and perfect English rose, haughty and cold and always in control. The idea that my heart was pounding and dread coiled in my stomach would never occur to them, and the speculation that the tall, broad, hot-blooded young Scot by my side was the cause of more than a little of my disquiet wouldn’t either.

  Alasdair, for his part, was blessedly silent while he guided me through the corridors of my ancestral home. He bowed to me as I curtsied at the chamber where I’d housed my fellow maids, an unassuming room at first glance that got larger the deeper it went, ending in a lovely view of the back lawn of Marion Hall.

  “I will see if she has returned by much the same route as we did,” he said quietly as we both rose again. “Though, I canna think we would have missed her.”

  “Do that.” I nodded. “Anything you learn—anything at all, please let me know.” I frowned, thinking furiously. “And locate Thomas Clark, the head gardener. He may be able to offer ideas of where we might find Sophia.”

  Alasdair nodded and was off.

  “Beatrice, well met!” Anna looked up as I entered the room, surrounded by books from Marion’s library, such as it was. Her manner instantly tensed. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Some help, please?” I asked, not stopping. Anna uncurled herself, and Meg and Jane got to their feet in an instant.

  “What happened?” Meg asked. They followed me as I went at once to the tall windows of our chamber, and they helped me open the casement wide to give us a full view. “What is it we’re looking for?”

  There was no hint of lavender in the midst of all that green, of course, and I sagged back.

  “You’ve been in the wood,” observed Jane, reaching out her hand to not quite touch me, as if she could scent the coolness of that green mystery on my skin, and feel the heat still roiling off me. “And you’re deeply troubled as well.” She glanced around the room and came to the same conclusion as the rest of the small group.

  “Sophia!” Meg’s eyes bulged, and she put her hand to her mouth, turning again to the spectacular view of Marion Hall’s labyrinth. “Say she did not go into that thing alone.”

  “Well, not quite alone,” I said grimly. “Alasdair and I gave chase, but she seemed to know where she was going—which is impossible, frankly.” I looked over to Anna. “She complained of a headache. I thought you had found something that could help those.”

  “I ran out of my tonic!” Anna fluttered a hand. “It’s not like I have my herb garden here. I had to use what was close at hand.”

  I gaped at her. “ ‘Close at hand’? You gave her something you created here?”

  “Of course!” Anna frowned at me. “But it was nothing exotic, in truth. I was chatting with your cook and told her about Sophia’s discomfort. She gave me a steeping bag and a cup of mulled wine. Sophia said she felt better just by inhaling the fumes, and it did smell potent—though neither Cook nor I could puzzle out just what was in the concoction. She said she’d found the bags in the cupboard when she’d first arrived, and couldn’t tell me what was in them. They were marked only with the letters D and T, and the other servants had thought them a remedy for all sorts of maladies. I couldn’t identify any of the herbs in it except motherwort, they were all crushed and dry. But I tried it first.”

  “You didn’t!” Meg’s eyes flew wide. “Anna, that could have been poison!”

  Anna shrugged. “Cook has been doling it out to the children and servants for the past five years that she’s been here, so it seemed safe enough. She swore she’d never seen better for easing the mind.” Here Anna blushed a little. “I didn’t ask her about it, but she said your mother refused to try the bags, not knowing their provenance. I can’t say as I blame her, but—”

  “At least it would be better than laudanum,” I said, finishing her thoughts for her. “I think I might agree with you there, Anna. But did Sophia drink this potion? And it had no effect on you?”

  “She merely inhaled it while I was with her.” Anna made a face. “I actually didn’t drink much of the stuff. The taste had some mint to it, but overall it was far too bitter, even in the sweet wine. Sophia claimed she would lie down for a bit to sleep the headache off, and when I returned here, she was gone, and so was the mug.”

  “She wasn’t carrying it out on the lawn,” I mused. “She said she’d had visions—dreams—and that she had to get into the labyrinth.”

  “And she’s not there anymore,” Jane finished for me.

  “She’s not, and I don’t know how she got out without assistance.” I bit my lip, thinking of the precious time Alasdair and I had wasted in the center of the labyrinth. What a debacle!

  “Well, the wood is large and well stocked with game, or so your servants say,” Jane said, her flat words drawing me back. “We’ll need to find her soon.”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking again of the other inhabitants who still roamed unchecked through the Salcey Forest. I resolutely put those thoughts out of my mind. I’d been at court for a decade with no one breathing a word to me of any indiscretion about Marion Hall, and my father was not a fool. Even if he had found ways to trade with all and sundry to feed the Queen and her court these several days past, he would have kept his forest free of any vagabonds and scoundrels.

  “Very well.” Jane’s gaze searched the forested land beyond the labyrinth as if it were territory she was well used to exploring. “We’ll need any able servant who can be spared without causing notice and who can sit a horse. Sophia weighs but nothing, so she can easily be carted out of that wood, as long as she’s found without injury.”

  “Oh, don’t even say it,” Anna said, her face beginning to look a little white. “You don’t think that potion—that draught I gave her—you don’t think it caused her harm!”

  “We think no such thing,” Meg said firmly. “Sophia is Sophia. She doesn’t need potions or draughts to do unexplainable things. Her visions have been growing more intense; we all know that. Just this morning Cecil also had her cornered in the dining room, Beatrice, demanding of her this question and that, as if she were a court fool who could spout prognostications at his demand.”

  I frowned at that. “Cecil! That is rich, given his own disappearing act last night. Maybe Sophia could scry where he and Walsingham were spirited off to.” And Alasdair too, for that matter. “What was he asking?” It couldn’t have been an interrogation of anything that might have put Sophia at risk—that would have triggered the rules of the “Queen’s Grace,” as symbolized by the plain gold band on the middle fingers of our right hands.

  “Oh, he was trying to be coy,” Meg said. “I drifted close enough to hear them, but Cecil knows me too well. He switched to asking her about her wedding plans the moment he thought I could eavesdrop. Before that, however, he was asking her to reveal threats to the Crown.”

  “Threats,” I said. “That seems a little vague, wouldn’t you say?” I shifted uncomfortably. Given what I’d had to suffer at the Queen’s hands, I could verily be considered a threat to the Crown of late.

  Meg nodded. “Sophia thought so too. She parried his request with a
sweet smile, then told Cecil that his wife would have another child in but a few years, who would grow up to make him even prouder than those children who had come before. Cecil was so puzzled by this news that he quite didn’t know what to say, and then he noticed me standing there and couldn’t say more in any event. But his face was alight with planning when he strode out of the room, and I think Sophia must have known that her time as the quietest of our group was coming to an end.”

  “How difficult for her,” said Anna, her fingers tightening on the book she’d carried with her from the bed. “There could literally be no end to the questions she might be asked, yet she cannot govern what she sees.”

  “Not as far as we know, anyway. But we do not even know the full extent of her abilities, which is perhaps the greater danger,” Jane said grimly. At my questioning look, she shrugged. “Think on it. The girl sees visions, which is impressive enough, if she can control them. But what if she can do other things of equal value to the Crown? What if she can determine the future worth of a man, or his character, or decide whether he is guilty or innocent of some past or future crime? What if she can puzzle out his secrets without his saying a word, no need for torture or threats?” She nodded into our stunned silence. “Aye. Her skill would be worth a king’s ransom then, and I wouldn’t trade places with her for any amount of gold.”

  “Do you think she knows all of that?” Meg asked, her gaze returning to the labyrinth. “Do you think she fled?”

  “No,” I said resolutely. “I think she is quite out of her mind with delirium, chasing after ghosts that only she can see. But that doesn’t mean she’s not in danger, just not from anyone but herself at this exact moment.”

  A knock on the door startled us, the world conspiring once more against me.

  One of the servants stood there, hesitant, a young boy I did not recognize. He must have been added to the staff since the last time I’d been at Marion Hall.

  “Yes?” I prompted when he would not speak.

  “Lady Beatrice!” he cried, his thin voice too loud for the room. “I have been asked to summon one of your company to the Queen’s presence. A lady—I mean a maid—I mean Sophia Dee!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Well.

  Royal command or no, we certainly couldn’t produce Sophia Dee anytime soon. Still, we were forced to spend precious time organizing the most trusted of the servants to search for Sophia—quietly. Then we worked out our own plan on the walk to Elizabeth’s suite of rooms.

  With the Queen already in high dudgeon, we needed to lie carefully and well to keep her from storming through Marion Hall, determined to find a missing spy. I would do the lying. It was, after all, my greatest skill, and it was also my house. Jane and Anna would bolster my account of Sophia falling ill and being quite unable to speak to anyone for any length of time, without quite possibly causing them to contract a horrible ague. Meg would feign a coughing spell at that moment, and with any luck we’d be banished from the Queen’s presence.

  As a backup distraction Meg would also pocket one of the Queen’s jeweled cuffs or pins or brooches—something she had worn the night before at the revel, large enough to be immediately missed. Of course my own staff of servants would be blamed, and the house would be in an uproar for hours over the questioning and the outrage of it all. Then the piece would be found in some little cubby where it would have been perfectly reasonable for the Queen to dally. The Queen would not be able to say with certainty that she had not lost it there, and there would be ample forgiveness all around. The whole folly would take up a half dozen hours if executed well, and then it would be nightfall and hopefully Sophia would have been recovered.

  It was indeed a sensible plan. Pity it all went to ruin almost immediately.

  We knew that something was amiss the moment we reached the upper landing. Cecil was standing there alongside Walsingham, looking as fell as a winter’s storm.

  “Where is Sophia?” he demanded, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Sick again, my lord. Wherever else did you expect her to be? I swear I had to spend most of the day apologizing to Lord Farley of Hampton Mews for her spewing her dinner on him in such a violent manner.”

  He blinked at me. “Who?”

  “Lord Farley,” I said, continuing to walk resolutely toward the Queen’s chambers. “You don’t know him. He’s of the local gentry, but the man has a mouth on him like a braying mule. It would be best for him to not noise about that the Queen’s company is infected with a virulent ague, I should think. Meg herself developed a cough and I’ve done nothing but ply her with spirits since she awoke this morning.” Beside me Meg grinned toothily at Cecil, then sniffled, and I could see him flinch back in revulsion. God love the man, he did truly hate to be sick. I patted him on the arm. “If we can’t beat this thing, we’ll simply have to drown it out, don’t you think?”

  “This is nonsense,” Cecil blustered, but he hastened ahead of Meg, Jane, and Anna into the Queen’s quarters, and I heard them all acknowledge her royal presence. I had picked up my skirts to join them, when Walsingham laid a hand on my arm. It was all I could do not to jump out of my skin.

  “A moment, if you would, Lady Beatrice?” Walsingham’s words were silken with intensity. I paused, and looked up at him, not bothering to hide my surprise.

  “But the Queen?”

  “The Queen can make do with the rest of her maids. She wanted Sophia, but any of you would have done, as long as all of you came trotting along.” He sniffed. “She has become obsessed with the idea that Cecil and I are not being fully forthcoming with her about the activities surrounding the Scottish rebellion. We have already given her our report, of course, but she insists that somehow you might be able to add to our findings, whether by skill or, in Sophia’s case, by Sight. It’s quite—charming, in its way, how much she’s come to depend on you in such a short time.” He tilted his head. “Or at least upon the idea of you.”

  Staring at him, I was caught by the strange subtlety of the man. Here was the Queen’s most trusted spymaster, but what did we know of Walsingham, truly? Did his loyalty remain with the Queen, or with England? Surely those were one and the same, were they not?

  “Exactly as you say, Sir Francis,” I said demurely, though my heart had begun to beat again in a strange, erratic rhythm. “How may I serve you?”

  He gestured for me to walk with him. “You did not appear to be overly distraught at the destruction of your carefully laid plans for your wedding to Lord Cavanaugh,” he said, slanting a glance at me. But if he was going to talk of court, then this was ground I knew well. I’d been trained from the cradle in the art of dissembling, and the rapid change of subject merited no more than a half lift of my brows. He would have to do better than that to trip me up.

  “I was certain that the Queen acted for the good of the Crown, Sir Francis, when she postponed my wedding. When I later observed that Lord Cavanaugh’s affections lay elsewhere, I was grateful that I’d learned of it in time. He is a good man, and will make someone a good husband, even if it is not my fortune to be wedded to him.”

  “It could still be, you know,” Walsingham said idly. Our long strides were taking us to where the eastern and western wings joined in a narrow gallery, but he showed no sign of stopping. “The Queen could yet decide to marry you off to Lord Cavanaugh, or really any other man of her choosing.”

  “That is true enough, Sir Francis,” I said, smiling easily. “My fate has always been in her hands; and verily if it would serve her needs, I would not argue to being affianced anew to Lord Cavanaugh.” This of course was a patent lie. I would argue through every means possible, and call in every marker I’d ever granted throughout the whole of the court, to avoid such a marriage. I suspected Walsingham knew this as well, and as we approached the western wing, I felt him gathering himself round to the true meat of this conversation.

  “You know she does not like you,” he observed, and I granted him a quick grin.

  “I do so know
it, yes.”

  “And yet, of all her well-placed noble ladies, she chose you to be her spy. Do you not find that odd?”

  Walsingham did not know what I had done to earn the Queen’s grudging patronage. He knew only that she hated me, yet still kept me close. He may have suspected where our unholy alliance had begun, of course. But I alone knew what had transpired between the fourteen-year-old Elizabeth and the doomed Thomas Seymour, all those years ago at Sudeley Castle. Something more than what she’d admitted, certainly—and something less than what her detractors had suspected. But I had not spilled my secrets in the face of questioning, even as a frightened seven-year-old girl. I certainly was not going to spill them now.

  “The Queen, though she has no reason to do so, considers me a sort of lesser rival.” I shrugged. “She thinks to keeps her friends close, and her enemies closer.”

  He nodded, but his eyes glittered in the half-light. “That is part of it, true enough. She also, however, seeks full dominion over you as a woman, not just as your Queen. Or have you not noticed how sharp her tone has turned when she addresses you, and how pointed her stare?”

  Uneasiness threaded through me. Walsingham could not question me without the Queen’s presence, but that did not mean he could not fill my ears with lies. Or, perhaps worse, truths.

  “I am afraid I do not understand your meaning, Sir Francis,” I said as we turned the final corner on the western corridor. “The Queen has ever treated me with grace.”