Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  I could tell Beatrice did not. As rigid as Sophia had been before, now it was Beatrice’s turn to be caught in a thrall. She leaned forward slightly, clearly memorizing the features of the men young and old, as we had been carefully taught. But unlike her reaction to every other delegation, Beatrice did not slip easily into a flirtatious manner with the Scots. In fact, for one long moment she couldn’t seem to do anything but stare. Then, at last she smiled—with coy and perfect grace, her eyes bright, her manner lively and feminine. And in that moment I realized that Beatrice’s assignment from Cecil involved this crass, unlikely bunch. No wonder she’d been so quiet on the subject. The Scottish nobles were an entirely different breed of man from the English—barely civilized, and proud of that fact. If Beatrice’s job was to beguile and bedevil this lot, she would have her hands full.

  Even now the game was beginning, I could see. The light that arced in from the high windows caught the fairness of Beatrice’s skin, and the Scots at once noticed the pretty young woman eyeing them so keenly. One of their number, a tall, powerfully built young man of perhaps twenty years, flashed a large, knowing grin in her direction. He was handsome in the way of a warrior, with sharp eyes and broad shoulders, but it was difficult to see what he truly looked like under his unruly hair and thick, braided beard. While I watched, he elbowed his mate. Both of them leered back at Beatrice and waggled their eyebrows. Beatrice stiffened, but kept her smile winsome and pretty. All of this happened while the Scots made barely deferential bows to the Queen, then proceeded to sneer at the Frenchmen who had come before them.

  It was, in all, a hopeless mob, and a sudden thought struck me.

  If ever England’s enemies wanted to strike a blow to disrupt the Queen’s court, it would be seven days hence, when the dignitaries from several foreign lands and the far reaches of the English court all gathered under one roof for the Crown’s rollicking late summer masque.

  Sworn enemies.

  Desperate conspirators.

  Fawning opportunists.

  Cunning traitors.

  And every one of them in disguise.

  God save the Queen.

  Finally released from the Presence Chamber, all I craved was the open air of the Lower Ward. I fled toward the outer doors, not even bothering to return to the maids’ chambers to doff my gown. Beatrice wouldn’t miss it. She’d been collared by Walsingham the moment the audience had ended and had been carted off to be introduced to a dozen dignitaries. I’m sure the Scotsmen would be in that group.

  How she’d ever keep one overstuffed nobleman straight from another, I would never know. Still, that was part of her talents—her capacity to remember everyone, and everyone’s position, and use them to her own advantage. That was a gift I would not want.

  “A moment, dear?” The words jolted me out of my reverie, and I half-turned, sinking into a curtsy before I could stop myself. Then I realized it wasn’t a member of the court addressing me but a small, wizened woman in a faded but well-made gown, her eyes rheumy with age. She might have been a gentlewoman or a highly placed servant, but I had no way of telling. I completed my curtsy anyway. There was never any harm in being polite.

  “Ma’am?” I asked as she stared at me. “Is aught amiss?”

  “No—no.” The old woman clasped her trembling hands together. “I came up for the presentation to the Queen and saw you standing again with the Crown—I couldn’t believe it.”

  I frowned at her. “Do I know you?”

  She cackled at some joke only she could recall. “You don’t, my dear, you don’t. I have not been here since King Henry died. I make my home in Bath now, near the old abbey. I did want to see his daughter, though. She makes a glorious Queen, a glorious Queen.”

  I smiled and reached for the crone’s fluttering hands, cradling their frailness in my own. “She is blessed to have loyal subjects such as you to welcome her to the throne,” I said.

  “Me!” harrumphed the woman, shaking her head. “Far more blessed she is to have you, my dear. As was her father before.” I frowned at that. Clearly the old woman was confused. She squeezed my hands then, her gaze now wandering as much as her mind, and I looked around for help. It came in the form of what must have been the woman’s granddaughter, bustling up with rapid apologies to claim her errant elder.

  I watched the two move off, feeling suddenly, oddly alone; then I turned back toward the Lower Ward. As I walked, my mind turned over the events of the morning like a churning waterwheel.

  Who had the old woman thought I was? And how many in the crowd today were proud of their new Queen, like she had been, while others angled for the Queen’s downfall? How many were heaping their treasures upon Elizabeth with one hand and aiming a knife at her heart with the other? Who could she really trust?

  And what of Robert Dudley? The look he’d given Elizabeth had been mild, even banal, but his spirit had imparted something different entirely. He was both the figure of propriety and the soul of desire, like a man acting a play without words. To an untrained eye Dudley was just another flatterer. But to anyone who knew the Queen and could read her reaction truly . . . he was a threat. Why would the Queen choose Robert Dudley, though? Why did any woman choose any man? I thought of the men I knew, all so very different—Grandfather. Troupe Master James. Walsingham and Cecil. Rafe. Especially Rafe.

  Rafe was a Spaniard, and I suspected he was a spy. In truth, more than suspected. And he was quite possibly a killer. He had bartered with Turnip Nose for the letter at the very least, and then he’d incapacitated him. According to Anna’s translation of their conversation, the contents of the letter pointed to a disruption, but I didn’t have the letter, so I knew no details. What was going on?

  I looked to either side as I entered the boisterous Lower Ward. I’d been here dozens of times in the last few months, in full day and at night. Tonight it seemed more crowded than usual, the air richer with spices, the laughter louder. A large group of onlookers had gathered south of the King’s Gate, out in the open space of the ward. The energy of the crowd was up, and I felt a tingle of recognition. I smiled to myself, a faint thread of excitement curling within me. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the Golden Rose was playing here this day. The crowd had that kind of feel, an undercurrent of anticipation. A smell of money.

  A familiar heat pulsed through my hands, and I suddenly yearned to be among the crowd, back in my old role—with my patchwork gown and my hair caught up with broken pins, my “jewelry” of glass beads, and my careful makeup. The role I played now was so much deeper than anything I had attempted with the Golden Rose, however. Could I ever go back?

  I smoothed my hands down my ugly borrowed gown. The silks and linens I wore now were far finer than anything I had pieced together as an actress. The jewels around my neck were simple—almost austere—yet they were of the highest quality, given to me out of the royal coffers that I might carry off the illusion of being a daughter of noble parentage.

  An odd tug caught at my heart. My parents had not been noble, but that was all I knew of them. Grandfather had never spoken of them, no matter how I’d pestered him. He’d said they had been struck down when they were young, losing their lives in their prime, and leaving him with the “joy,” as he put it, of raising me. He had never once complained, I remembered now. But he had never once explained, either.

  Who had my parents been?

  Again I thought of the old woman and her odd comments. Had she mistaken me for my mother? Had my parents ever performed before King Henry, just as I now performed for his daughter?

  The Queen’s accusation surfaced again. You do not know who you are.

  Who am I, truly?

  The thought made me unaccountably sad, and I turned away from the crowd. I was seeking passage along the outskirts of the throng to Knight’s Gate, when I saw him.

  Little Tommy Farrow.

  Unbidden hot tears sprang to my eyes, and I lifted my hand to my mouth, stifling a cry. I stood stone still as I
watched the small tow-headed figure march resolutely through the crowd, his breeches seeming a little shorter now on his pumping legs, his cheeks just the slightest bit leaner. Surely the boy could not have aged so much in just four months. I must have remembered him being younger.

  I watched him another thirty seconds before the reality of his presence was brought home to me.

  Tommy Farrow was here, in the Lower Ward of Windsor Castle.

  And where he roamed, so roamed the Golden Rose players.

  I whirled, scanning the crowd. Could it be? Were they here? Despite my height, I could not see through the crowd that thronged in the bustling ward, but the men gave obligingly when I pushed through them, willing enough to let a young woman enter their midst. By the time I’d pressed through the horde and into the small empty space of the makeshift courtyard, the play was just beginning. And I had the best view in the yard of act 1, scene 1 of The Queen’s Promise.

  I couldn’t believe it. There was Marcus, and Thom Barrister, too. And George, Henry, and Leo, all dressed like high lords of the land. They were shouting through words I’d learned at my grandfather’s knee, back when there had been no Queen of England but only a king—Henry VIII’s son, Edward.

  The pageant looked like it had been revised to reflect a Queen in command, and to the troupe’s credit, I could see that the changes to the play had been thorough. So many of the lines were the same (which would please the actors, I knew) but there were new words around them, bracketing the phrases with additional story, now that all of London had become fascinated with the details of every move the Queen made. The cadence and flow of their dialogue were still richly detailed, redolent of the northern England brogue, but the words now spoke of a Queen who ruled king and country with her own fierce hand, and who loved England more than she even loved herself.

  I thought of the Queen I’d seen today in the Presence Chamber. The Golden Rose had gotten that much right. This Queen loved England to the core. More than she could ever love any man. The Queen will never marry, Sophia had said. Could that be possible?

  Then I saw Troupe Master James, his back to me, and my heart surged. How easy it would be for me to cross the line and fade back into the crush of players. They would hide me, smuggle me out of this place. And if we fled this night, we could retreat to the far reaches of England for a few months, until the Queen’s advisors had tired of looking for me.

  Another thought kindled inside my mind. Perhaps the troupe had come to Windsor with the express idea of freeing me? I’d gotten no word, but even that was not surprising. If the Golden Rose had levied this adventure into the castle grounds to get an initial feel of the Lower Ward and all her entries and exits, then they wouldn’t even have tried to get a message to me. It would have been too soon. Hope suddenly bloomed within me, but it felt strange. More like a stomach upset than the elation I would have expected. What was wrong with me?

  I felt the swish of skirts beside me, the lightest touch against my girdled pouch. Without hesitation I reacted, snaking my hand out and catching a small wrist in my iron clutch.

  “What ’o, now!” Tommy Farrow staggered back, going up on his toes as I pulled him high. “Begging yer pardon, ma’am. I didna mean to run inta—Meg!”

  His eyes goggled, and I laughed outright as I set him gently down. Clearly Tommy still had his talent for picking the wrong mark.

  “Hello, Tommy,” I said, crouching down to his level that he might not have to look up so high. “What brings you to Windsor today? Did you not expect to see me?”

  “Not ’ere, no!” Tommy said. “Master James said ye’d been taken to Whitehall to serve the Queen. We assumed ye’d be inside that castle, not this one.” He eyed me then, his gaze somewhat dubious. “Ye don’t look like a maid, though. Ye look like a proper lady. Sort of.”

  My heart deflated. So the Golden Rose had not come to save me, had not even known I was here. Had they any idea how much I’d given up to save them?

  I shook off the feeling of sudden despair that stole through me. Poor, sweet Meg, all alone in the world, Rafe had said. Once more, I felt like crying.

  “Well, then,” I said briskly. “You’re playing here just to bring a show to the poor deprived townspeople of Windsor?”

  “We tried to attract the crowds in the city proper, but everyone was up ’ere,” Tommy said. His eyes brightened. “Ye want to talk to Master James? ’E’ll have missed you! The day you were taken was a grim day for us all, I tell you that plain. ’E wanted to storm the castle for weeks after!”

  I rather doubted that, but I grinned at Tommy’s defense, and some of my dismay lightened. Still, Cecil and Walsingham had been quite clear. If my advisors so much as suspected my defection back to the Golden Rose, the punishment would be the troupe’s imprisonment.

  I straightened, ruefully rustling the boy’s hair. “I don’t think that is a wise decision, but I thank you for thinking of me, Tommy. Give Master James my love, will you? And tell him that I miss you all terribly.”

  “Why not tell him yourself?”

  At the achingly familiar voice, it took every ounce of my spy training not to leap aside like a startled goat. Instead, I let my grin widen, and I turned to my right. “Master James!”

  “At your service, madame.” He executed a bow as courtly as any I’d seen inside the castle. “Or is it ‘my lady’ now?” He straightened and eyed me with a keen intensity. “You are well?”

  Too many words rushed to be spoken, and I nearly choked on them. “Yes—yes, I am well,” I said, tasting the faint lie on my lips, and realizing it was not such an untruth as it should have been.

  “They are not harming you, or keeping you against your will?”

  I blinked at him. How much did he know? “N-no,” I said too hastily, and his eyes narrowed. I had the uncomfortable sensation that he was looking through me, not at me. “I am well, I tell you. They treat me like one of their own.”

  “They dress you like one, too. You cannot tell me that is a comfortable gown, but you do look like quite the lady.”

  My cheeks burned and I dropped my eyes, surveying my wreck of a dress. Could Beatrice not have found a more attractive gown for me? I felt deeply ashamed of the costume, though why, I couldn’t say. “It—it was a gift from a friend,” I managed.

  “I’d consider cultivating more enemies, if these are the gifts your friends choose,” he teased.

  I twisted my hands in my accursed skirts. “It is not as though I came to the castle with a dowry, Master James,” I snapped. “I’m grateful for what they give me.”

  “And what is the price for the castle’s generosity, I wonder?”

  “That is none of your concern!”

  “Then perhaps it should be.” He shrugged. “You were in my care until a few short months ago, Meg. Don’t think I have forgotten it.”

  “I’d been in your care only six months prior to that,” I countered. “I should not have been so difficult to forget.”

  “If that’s what you think, then you’ve changed far more than in your appearance, and believe me, that’s changed a great deal.”

  The words hung between us, awkward, and James paused another minute more, regarding me with his piercing eyes. I stared back at him, matching him scowl for scowl, and felt a curious shift in my chest.

  There’d been only one other young man who had ever glared at me with such annoyance, and that had been Rafe. Who’d kissed me as well. Could Master James also . . . Did he actually . . . Was that possible?

  “What is it, Meg?” Tommy interrupted my spinning thoughts with real alarm in his voice. “Ye’ve gone white as snow.”

  I shook myself hard. Master James looked equally ill at ease. “I’m well, Tommy,” I said, and lifted my chin, addressing James again. Master James, that is. “How goes the troupe? You seem to be drawing a crowd.”

  He smiled noncommittally. “When we go to where the crowds are, aye.” He nodded into the throng. “We don’t have your hands to help, but we draw
the people to our cause well enough in more ways than one.”

  “Is Mary stepping up?” I asked, referring to a girl not even past fifteen who’d begun to show some aptitude at thieving.

  Master James shrugged. “She’ll do. I have to split my time between the actors and the street troupe. She’s not quite good enough to take your place, I’m afraid, but she tries. So far, it hasn’t cost us.”

  Tommy swiveled his head between us. “When are you coming back, Meg?” he piped up. “The harvest will come on soon, and with it farmers flush with coin and ale. We’ll have all the money we can carry!”

  “I don’t know, Tommy,” I said, looking down at him, if only to avoid James’s—Master James’s—eyes. “I have work here to do as yet.”

  “What sort of work?” Master James asked quietly. “What sort of work would the Crown need with a thief as good as any I’ve seen, and an actress better than half the men in our troupe? Work like that cannot help but be dangerous.” He dropped his voice to an even lower tone. “Are you in danger, Meg?”

  I lifted my head quickly, and met his gaze. Something jumped between us like arcing fire. Then a cheer went up in the crowd, signaling the end of the first act of the play.

  “Master James!” Tommy said, tugging his arm. “We must go! The second act is barely ten minutes hence, and I haven’t changed!”

  I blinked at Tommy, confused. “You haven’t changed?”