Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  I had fourteen days to solve a murder. Fourteen days to prove my worth. Fourteen days to gain my freedom.

  Fourteen days to fail.

  As if the weather were in grim accord with the hopelessness of my cause, it rained for six solid days after that. And I don’t mean the kind of rain that resulted in what my grandfather referred to as “soft days”—light showers drifting down from glowering skies to dampen the countryside, the sun peeking out, only to be nudged back behind the clouds. No, this rain was a torrent, bitter and unseasonably cold, chasing us indoors and keeping us there, musty, sodden, and foul-tempered.

  Especially the Queen.

  “I did not imagine I could hate this heap of stones any more than I already did,” grumbled Jane, scowling out over the quadrangle of the Upper Ward from the archways of our training room. “Clearly, I need to work on my imagination.”

  We had not had the chance to search for Lady Amelia’s letter that first night, nor any night thereafter. We had not had the chance to learn more about the Spaniards, sequestered as they were in their own section of the castle. Even our fighting classes had been temporarily halted, as it was just too oppressive in the castle for that much effort. While Windsor was one of the grandest homes in all of England, it still proved to be too small in a torrential storm, particularly when livestock was herded into the lowest quarters, their combined reek and bleating cries adding another layer of misery to the nobility and servants trapped above.

  I blew out a frustrated breath. Another unexpected downside of the storm had been the impossible press of people roaming the castle’s halls. Spying proved difficult when there was no place to hide. Even worse, the Queen had demanded that all of her ladies put forth their best efforts to entertain her. This meant endless hours of dancing, music, and acting in front of Her Grace, all of us tucked away in her Privy Chamber. These were command performances, which meant all five of her spies had to be there too, no matter that this was a colossal waste of time. My complaints to Cecil and Walsingham had gone unheeded. Indeed, I think the two advisors relished the rain, as it allowed them long days to sit and rifle through their papers and books, creating entirely theoretical conspiracies, only to devise ways to rout them out.

  Finally, however, the Queen had claimed a headache, and we’d been set free to scatter as far as the rain would allow. Which, it should be noted, was not far.

  “There you are!”

  Jane and I turned to see Anna bustling up to us, carrying what looked to be a heavy stack of blankets, her eyes bright with excitement, her mouth stretched into a wide smile. She stumbled just as she reached us, and both Jane and I leaped for her, all of us laughing as she shoved her bundle into our arms. “I did not think I’d have a chance to try these out before the rain let up, but it looks like we still have time!”

  I looked from her to the sheeting rain outside. We could barely see three feet in front of our faces. “I don’t think that will be an issue.”

  “What are these things?” Jane lifted the garments in her hands. “Cloaks?”

  “Not just any cloaks.” Anna beamed. “I got the idea when they herded all of the sheep into the lower halls after the first great storm broke. They weren’t wet.”

  Jane frowned at her. “Of course they were wet. They’re the wettest, smelliest sheep I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to call my neighbors.”

  Anna shook her head. “Their wool was wet, but not their skin,” she said. “I got the idea that if I could curry the lanolin from their skin and apply it to the proper cloth, we’d have waterproof cloaks—lighter than leather and cheaper besides, easier to pack and clean. I’ve tried a few different formulas, working with different tonics, and, well—here we are.”

  We stared at her, then back at the cloaks. “You have been experimenting with sheep sweat?” Jane asked.

  “And it works?” I chimed in after.

  Anna shook out a cloak and held it up high. “You want to wait here, or go out and see for yourselves?”

  She didn’t have to ask us twice. As one we donned the cloaks and lashed them to our bodies. They were lightweight, as Anna had promised, and only a little bit stiff. But the moment we ventured out into the Upper Ward, we gasped. Water bounced off the surface of our cloaks as if they were made of iron. “You’re a genius!” Jane shouted from deep within her cowl. “I can’t believe this!”

  “Quickly! And keep to the walls!” Anna shouted back. “We don’t want anyone to look out and catch us actually having fun.”

  We ducked and ran flush against the walls, down past the quadrangle and through the Norman Gate. The sodden guards stared at us, bemused, but let us pass when Anna announced our names and claimed we were on an errand for the Queen. Used to Elizabeth’s foibles, they didn’t even blink, and if they noticed our miraculous cloaks, they were themselves too wet to care.

  We ran around the Round Tower, and I felt my feet yearn to take flight, the whole of the Lower Ward yet to be explored. But beside us in the rain, Anna skidded to a stop, and Jane crashed into her. “What!” Jane groused, bouncing back. “What is it?”

  “Look!” Anna pointed up to the rim of the Round Tower, and we squinted in the rain.

  The heavily painted English roses were long gone, the cheap paints that had been used to craft them no match for the days upon days of downpour. But a closer look revealed what those heavy images had left behind.

  There, etched into the stone, where one of the roses had been, was a symbol I had never seen before. An inverted triangle surmounting a cross. It was small, no more than a hand span in height, and looked like it had been pounded into the rock quickly. It was neither deep nor well defined. But it was definitely there. “Here’s another one!” Jane announced, another quarter turn around the tower. We darted back through the Norman Gate and around the far side of the tower, and found four of the symbols in all—four symbols hidden behind what had been nearly two dozen painted English roses.

  “Are they religious marks?” I asked as Anna stared hard at the symbol, committing it to memory.

  “Possibly. The cross makes sense for that, but not the triangle. Either way, they do not serve the crown of England.” She shook her head. “We’ll need to tell the Queen. And Cecil.” She peered through the pouring rain, her face upturned and surprisingly pretty beneath the cowl of her own creation. “They’ll want these carvings gone before the rain lifts, whatever they are.”

  “You have the right of that.”

  We turned and fled into the castle, shedding our cloaks as we went. We agreed by common consent that Anna would get the role of telling the Queen, and Cecil after. Jane might have been the most ruthless of us, and I might have had the lightest touch . . . but Anna had seen these carvings in a driving rainstorm and had immediately recognized them as a potential problem. One day, I had no doubt, her sharp mind and quick wits would save us all.

  The rain fell for fully six more hours, and by the time the sun peeked out at last and we ventured back outside, the work on the Round Tower was complete. Nothing remained of the four strange symbols cut into the stone. Instead Elizabeth’s own shields had been carved over them, looking as if they had always rested there, high upon the walls.

  Night fell hard that same evening, the moon partially hidden behind a drifting fog. By midnight the castle would be as dark as a shroud. It was barely ten o’clock, but we were all fast abed.

  Good little spies that we were.

  I sat up on my sleeping mat. Jane sat up on hers. Both of our gazes turned to the tinkling sound of bells as they shivered in a light fall of water that rained down from an intricate series of tilted flagons set up on a ledge between us. Over the past few weeks we’d observed the length of time that various flagons full of water took to drip out enough water to send it cascading downward over the string of bells, making a sound only discernible to us, as we slept closest to the apparatus. This eve we’d carefully set the musical timepiece with specific deliberation, and it had worked perfectly. “We go now?
” Jane whispered.

  I nodded. With the skies finally clear the ladies-in-waiting were to practice their night-goddess dance for the upcoming masque on the cobbled stones of the Queen’s Privy Garden this night, so we’d have easily an hour to search. “Just one thing.” I moved over to our community chest and opened it as quietly as I could. Rooting around beneath the dozens of wraps and boxes and packets of possessions that we each stored there, I finally found what I was seeking. I pulled out the waxed cloth packet and undid the intricate knotwork while Jane watched. She chuckled softly as she saw what the package held.

  “Picklocks?” she asked. “Why didn’t you bring these out when we covered that section in class? Those look better than anything they gave us to practice on.”

  “Because I wanted to learn on an inferior set.” I held the picklocks up to the window, the thin shaft of moonlight making them seem like otherworldly creatures, at once delicate and strong. “My grandfather gave them to me, right before he died. Why, I’ll never know.” I shook my head. “We didn’t have much occasion to pick locks on the stage.”

  Jane reached out and touched the tools almost reverently. “Maybe he knew you’d end up here?” Then her gaze dropped to the remaining item in the packet. “What’s in the book?”

  “Nothing,” I said curtly. I slid the picklocks into my waistband and wrapped the cloth packet with the book up tightly, then picked up the binding strings. I didn’t expect my paltry belongings would have excited the curiosity of the other maids in our small troupe, but I had nothing else that was mine alone. I reset the lock knot carefully.

  “Anna could read it for you, you know,” Jane said, and I tensed for a moment before shoving the wrapped book back into the chest.

  “I know,” I muttered. “But I want to read it myself.” My grandfather’s book remained an enigma to me. Ostensibly a book of verse, its words had yet to make any sense, despite my improving skill with the English language. I’d decided to stop looking at it until I could read an ordinary book straight through, but even though I’d achieved that feat, I still couldn’t understand the little leather tome. It was infuriating.

  We made our way to the sleeping chambers of the ladies-in-waiting. Luckily, there were no guards at their door. I’d been worried about this but had considered it a risk worth taking, since the room would be empty and the women doubtlessly needed protection from every available guard while they practiced in the garden. The doors are locked, they would have assured the guards. Attend to us instead. I shook my head. Locked doors made people lax.

  Jane’s laughter was soft as I put my left hand on the door, fishing for my picklocks with my right. They slid easily into my hand, as if coming home. “No one would believe you are using those for the first time,” she said.

  “As long as they get us where we want to go,” I whispered back, working the delicate tools into the lock. The door gave far more easily than it should have, and I whistled low. “I don’t think this lock would offer much resistance to anyone determined to get in.”

  Jane snorted. “I’m sure there have been many occasions for ladies-in-waiting needing to get in and out of their chambers with ease. There must be a passage out of here behind one of the panels in their chamber as well.”

  “You think?”

  “Has to be. I’m surprised we haven’t found one in ours. I’d wager the other chambers are riddled with them.”

  I thought about that as we slipped into the room, appreciating the warm fire burning low in the grate. Would the Queen know all of the passages within the castle? Could she find privacy anywhere within the very walls of Windsor?

  “What are we looking for?” Jane’s words were loud against my ear, causing me to jump.

  “Lady Amelia’s wardrobe. Particularly the dress she wore that day in the garden, or at least the skirts. She probably has a pocket sewn into them.” The day clothes of the ladies-in-waiting were not dissimilar to our own—laced together in separate pieces to increase the number of times we could wear the outfit between washings. Amelia’s soft green skirts would have been hung up and out of harm’s way as soon as she’d returned from walking in attendance on the Queen in the gardens.

  We found the garment easily, but a quick search of the pleats and hems therein was fruitless. So were our efforts to rummage through her collection of pouches, which would generally have been attached to a chain or sash around Amelia’s waist. None of them contained any letters.

  I stood, my head cocked. “Where would a woman hide a letter if not in her skirts or pouches?” Privacy was a virtually nonexistent luxury in the communal quarters we shared.

  “Under her wig?”

  I goggled at Jane. “Lady Amelia wears a wig?”

  Jane shrugged. “She’s not the only one. Her hair is as fine as corn silk and can’t bear the torture of the braiding and stiffening.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am.” She grinned at me. “I wore a wig, when I first came here.”

  “Whyever for?” I asked. “Your hair looks perfectly suitable as it is!”

  “Well, now it is, yes.” She bobbed her head. “But when I arrived, I’d shorn it close and tight. I looked more like a boy than a girl, they told me, so Cecil commissioned a wig to match my own hair—but appropriately long. I still have it,” she said. “But Amelia wouldn’t need her wig tonight. They’re going to dress in cowls and long robes if they’re practicing for the masque. No one will even see her hair.”

  I looked around the room, momentarily at a loss. The fire burned low in the grate, casting flickering shadows. Then my gaze lifted, and I saw what I was searching for, upon the high boarded chest. An elegantly poufed shock of white-blond hair.

  “It doesn’t look quite right, not sitting on a head,” I said, and Jane followed my gaze.

  “It doesn’t look quite right even when it is on her head,” she said. We dragged a stool over, and I stepped up on it, easily reaching the wig. I poked my hand underneath.

  Nothing.

  “This is beginning to annoy me,” I said. “Lady Amelia isn’t that smart!”

  “And mayhap neither are we,” Jane agreed, equally disgusted.

  Time was now growing short. We rummaged through the interior of the boarded chests, and looked under the beds, through the sheets. We found two small coffers, of which my picklocks made short work. We spread their contents out on the hearth, careful to keep the two boxes separate. One was filled almost to overflowing with scraps of silk, broken bits of jewelry, and shillings. Jane frowned, looking at it, then looked at the box as well. “This could be the right box, you know. The lady who owns it is a bit of a scavenger.”

  I glanced at it, seeing it in a new light. “No,” I said resolutely. “She may be a scavenger, but she is a poor one. Lady Amelia has a fine wig; I don’t think that was purchased by the Queen’s allowance.” I lifted the gold-inlaid chest I held. “If either of the boxes belongs to her, it’s this one.” I frowned at it in my hands, testing its weight. Something didn’t make sense. “There’s a false bottom here.”

  Jane leaned close, and together we carefully pried up the thin wooden base of the box.

  Beneath it was a packet of neatly folded letters, lovingly bound in a strip of lavender cloth. I pulled out the top one, the bold slashing script evoking a sense of passion and urgency. “This one’s written in Spanish,” I said. “These are the letters!”

  “Who are they from?”

  I peered at the letter in scant light. “Somebody named Dona Victoria. No last name.”

  Jane pulled one of the letters from the packet. “The tone of this one is familiar, like a friend or a cousin.” She shook her head. “This one isn’t even to Lady Amelia; it’s to her cousin.”

  “And this one—to an aunt maybe?” I held it up.

  Jane took the next. “And to Lady Knollys.”

  I froze. “Lady Knollys?” Why was a lady of the bedchamber receiving letters from Spain? “It’s much like the others?”
/>   “As boring as a box of sticks.”

  While Jane frowned at it, I turned to the next one. My pulse quickened. “Another one in Spanish.” I realized. “But dated more than three months ago.”

  Jane glanced over, then frowned. “Some of those words in that one don’t make sense to me. If it’s Spanish, it’s not very good.” She pointed to the word “muito.” “That should be ‘muy.’ Even I know that.”

  I smiled. Jane had been in the court for only seven months, but unlike me she’d picked up languages quickly, despite her humble birth. I turned to the second page, scanning further. “Why would Lady Amelia keep letters written in bad Spanish?”

  “Maybe she’s learning the language?”

  I bit my lip. “But it is a . . . love letter, I think,” I said. “To Lady Amelia herself. The writer uses the word ‘amor’ here, and here again. That’s some Spanish lesson.”

  Jane snorted. “I’d probably pay more attention that way.” Then her eyes widened. “Tell me that one’s not from Dona Victoria too!”

  “No!” I said. “It’s unsigned.”

  We burst into giggles, and it was odd to hear laughter on Jane’s lips. Odd . . . but good. I shuffled through the rest. They were packed tightly together. “More letters to members of court—but some of these are sealed. Never delivered, do you think?”

  “Or read and resealed. There are eight letters here, including the love letter.” She pointed. “The one to Lady Knollys I find interesting. I don’t know why Amelia would have that old bat’s letter. They don’t seem close.”

  I nodded. Could Lady Knollys be the traitor? Surely not! And another problem with that theory . . . “None of these are recent, either, from what I can tell. That means they aren’t from Rafe’s packet.” I glanced up at Jane. “Should we have Anna look at all of them? In case they’re . . . encoded?”

  “She will love that, and I don’t see why not.” Jane pursed her lips. “You think Lady Amelia will notice they’re gone?”

  “Not if we can get them back in place soon. The ladies have more practices scheduled, after all. The masque is now only days away.”