Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  And this was how I was getting it.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” I said smoothly. “I implored him to see reason, that I could not know anything about you that would be of interest to him, but he refused to believe me. He said if I did not provide him the information, another of your attendants—this time a maid—would be harmed. I urged him to give me time—in truth to come up with some falsehood that would satisfy him until I could seek the counsel of Sir William or Sir Francis.” And here I favored them again with the sunniest smile I could muster. Walsingham watched me once more without expression, but Cecil’s eyes looked like they might burst forth from his head. “And he agreed. Alas, I then, ah, fell terribly ill and cannot say what happened next, for I was next roused by Cecil, to bring me to Your Grace this evening—this morning . . . whatever time it may be.”

  “But you did not give him information about the Queen,” Walsingham said, his doubt plain. “How can we believe that?”

  I folded my hands over my skirts. “By the mere fact that I had no information to give. So he is, by all rights, forced to remain unsatisfied.”

  The Queen upon her throne straightened righteously.

  “Then we are at an impasse?” Walsingham asked, the words a question, not a statement.

  “Nay, Sir Francis, we are not. For I have a plan,” I said.

  Cecil made a rude noise, and the Queen snapped her fingers. “Leave off, Sir William. You have trained the girl, have you not?”

  “Yes,” he began. “But—”

  The Queen cut him off. “Then let her speak.”

  I nodded. “First, in all truth, you must protect your attendants.” I waved a hand to my team of spies. “Not us; you have taught us well enough. But your other maids should be cloistered, protected during this evening’s performance. The only girls available as target should be the five of us.”

  The Queen looked at me sharply, and then at the four maids at her side. “You would use yourselves as bait?”

  “There is no better way to ensure the safety of your other maids and ladies, Your Grace, and your safety as well.”

  She took a long pause, regarding me. Then she nodded once. “Agreed. And what will you do to capture this traitor?”

  And there it was. I felt Cecil and Walsingham bristling, but I could not allow them to poke holes into a plan so recently hatched in my mind, particularly as it had been conceived under such duress. I could use the presentation of the Golden Rose to catch a murderer. In the midst of their amazing performance, the shadowy Spaniard would not be able to resist making an attack at the heart of the Queen’s court. If he could take down a maid of honor with so many eyes watching—and get away with it—he would strike fear into the very heart of England.

  I would give him that chance.

  “Permission to speak to you in confidence, Your Grace?” I asked. The Queen’s eyebrows shot up, but she beckoned me forward.

  I reached her side, and bent to whisper into her ear. Whether the Queen could see evidence of my time in the dungeon, whether she knew that Walsingham and Cecil had been the agents of my downfall, I could not tell. But she listened as I spoke to her, in low and urgent tones, lengthening out my speech to an acceptable piece to give her time and space to nod, smile, and meet my eyes directly. The Queen did not interrupt me, nor did she ask for clarifications. She only had one request, in fact.

  “Make sure you succeed,” she ordered.

  The silence that remained in the Queen’s Privy Chamber after the Queen, Cecil, Walsingham, and all the guards swept out . . . was deafening. It seemed like so much time had passed since I’d been pulled out of that dungeon, and yet it had only been—what? Days? Hours?

  “What is today?” I asked to the wall behind the now empty throne.

  “It’s Wednesday, Meg.” And the voice gave me courage to move. To act. And to begin again.

  Slowly I turned to see them, as if for the first time. Otherworldly, sensitive Sophia; brilliant, loyal Anna; beautiful, shrewd Beatrice; and brave, broken Jane. I found myself amazed that I had ever called them by such limiting nicknames as Seer, Scholar, Belle, and Blade.

  Now they were so much more than that.

  Now they were . . . my friends.

  “Hello again,” I whispered.

  And just like that the space between us disappeared, and I felt Anna’s warm arms encircle me, then Beatrice’s surprisingly sturdy embrace. Then I sensed the fluttering warmth of Sophia. And finally, the last but not the least of us, Jane put her hand on my shoulder. Powerful, lost Jane. Her touch grounded me. For just a moment, I sagged against them all, exhausted.

  “I can’t . . . thank you enough for setting me free,” I said, my words little more than a murmur, and wet with tears I dare not shed. “You don’t . . . You can’t know what it means to me, that you would do such a thing, take such a risk.”

  “Oh, pish.”

  Anna broke free first. “I have something for you. Something you look like you need, if your face is any indication.”

  She began rooting about in her skirts, and I shook my head, hard. I had no time for tonics or tinctures. We needed to prepare for the Golden Rose’s performance. We needed to plan something—anything. And quickly.

  “We can’t— I mean, we must talk,” I said.

  Sophia reached out for me again, her gaze somehow much stronger than the last time I’d seen her. “I saw too many things when you were taken from us,” she said, her voice strangely resonant. “Some that I could speak of . . . some I prayed were only my own fears.”

  I grasped her hand. Held it. “I am well, Sophia,” I said. “You need not fear for me.” I glanced at Jane, who shook her head slightly. She still had not told Sophia about her father. We could not find the words yet to share such life-changing news with her. We would. When we were all safe.

  Safe.

  I needed to think!

  I turned to them, my heart beginning to hammer. “The killer will be here this night, at the presentation—the performance of the Golden Rose. He will be here, and he will be hunting us. We have . . . ” I stopped. Swallowed. The gravity of it all struck me anew, and my throat suddenly felt as if it were closing up. Fatigue swept over me again. I grimaced, steeling myself to continue, but Anna gave a relieved “Finally!” and held up her prize. “Here it is!”

  I frowned at her, recognizing the thin volume immediately. “My grandfather’s book?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking pleased as she handed over the little tome. “It turns out you come by your spying skills honestly, Meg Fellowes. And here in Windsor, you are but coming home.”

  I snorted, opening the book and paging through its stiff pages, filled with garbled words I still could not understand. “My grandfather was a bard, Anna. And an actor. And, perhaps best, a thief,” I acknowledged, trying to smile a little. “But he didn’t know anything about spying.”

  “He may not have.” Anna shrugged, but she couldn’t quell her grin. The other girls were beaming too now. “But your parents did.”

  That stopped me. “What?”

  “Those picklocks of yours, pure gold?” Jane asked. “Rafe told us they bear King Henry’s seal.”

  “Well, he said that, but—”

  “And your grandfather would never let your troop perform in major cities?”

  “Well, no, but— What is this about?”

  Beatrice clasped her hands together. “It’s almost—but not quite—as exciting as my betrothal.”

  “Your what?” Had the whole world gone mad?

  Anna laughed, then reached forward and tapped the book. “This, Meg, is one very long letter. A letter from your parents. Written in code. About their work with the king.”

  “The king.”

  “King Henry. Elizabeth’s father. It’s all in there. They wanted you to know their story, but they had to flee.” Anna hugged herself, in love with her own tale. “They knew they could not keep you safe, in the end, and you were just a babe. They left you with your grandfather a
nd asked him to give you the book when it was safe.”

  “Safe?” It had never been safe enough for Grandfather, apparently. Another thought struck me, hard and fell. “Are they dead?”

  It was Jane who spoke into the sudden quiet. Jane, who knew more of death than any of us. “Don’t think of it as death. They are travelers to a distant land is all,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact. “You will meet them again, when your journey here is done.”

  I nodded, but I suddenly couldn’t see. My eyes were covered with a dull grey film. “A distant land,” I whispered. And I knew her to be right. They had passed from this world to the next. An emptiness opened up within me. I think it had always been there, but now it had a name. A distant land.

  I folded my hands over the book. There would be time to read it later.

  There would be time for everything.

  After.

  I blinked, hard, surprised to find my face was wet. “Marie’s killer will be there tonight,” I said. “He won’t stop at just harming Lady Amelia. It’s not enough for him. He demands another death.”

  Jane snorted. “He should be careful what he wishes for.”

  “We have to find a way to capture him.”

  Anna pointed to the book. “And so we shall. It’s in your blood.” My fingers tightened on the book, and I looked down at it again. My parents . . . A recent memory tugged at me, an old woman at the edge of the Presence Chamber, startled to see me at court again. “Again,” as if she remembered me, from a long, long time ago. Had she known my mother? Could I seek her out? The thought was almost too much to bear.

  “How did you know I was imprisoned?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “How did you free me?”

  Jane answered. “On any other occasion,” she said wryly, “Cecil would have been proud. For Sophia found you with her visions, Anna thought of the plan to use the Golden Rose as an excuse to get you out of that hole, and Beatrice put the plan into motion. Well, Beatrice, Anna, and Anna’s young man.”

  “Her young man?” I blinked at them both. “And you’re betrothed?” I asked Beatrice. “Lord Cavanaugh, I presume?”

  Beatrice fluttered her right hand at me. It was sporting a heavy gold ring with a ruby the size of a robin’s egg. Though not every man pledged his suit with a betrothal ring, Lord Cavanaugh apparently wanted to claim his prize for all to see. “The Queen needed some good news to counter Lady Amelia’s sudden . . . indisposition,” she said. “I was handy.”

  “It helped that you’d badgered the good lord into a frenzy with your flirtation with Alasdair MacLeod,” Jane observed dryly.

  “Alasdair MacLeod?” I remembered the roguish Scot, with his thick beard and broad shoulders and hungry eyes. “But he’s so unkempt!”

  “And big,” Anna sighed.

  “And foul-tempered,” Beatrice agreed grimly. “But at least he has the manners of a pig.”

  “And the tentacles of an octopus,” Jane gibed back. “Lord Cavanaugh took one look at MacLeod monopolizing your time at the masque, and he made sure he was first in line to the Queen when she was looking for a distraction, with a ring for you and a coffer of gold for her.”

  Beatrice held out her hand, admiring it, all thoughts of the offending Scotsman gone. “My Lord Cavanaugh did do well, didn’t he?” She sighed. “It was almost as exciting as finding Meg’s old sweetheart.”

  That brought me up short and I fought to focus. “My what?” Ever since I’d crawled out of that pit, I’d had the feeling that the world was working at a pace far faster than I could manage. I looked from her to Anna. “My what?” I asked again.

  Anna beamed at her role in the plot. “Chris Riley helped too—the vicar’s son? He lives in Windsor proper, near the center of town. When Beatrice determined to find your acting troupe, I asked him first!”

  “As if she needed an excuse to talk to the boy,” Beatrice teased, and Anna blushed.

  “He not only knew of your acting troupe, he knew where they performed!” she said excitedly. “His father is friends with the owner of the Fox and Hound, who’d been crowing about the Golden Rose for weeks by the time we asked about them. He took us to meet them! At an inn!”

  I laughed at her excitement. How bold a walk to an inn must have seemed for a member of the court. “But what did you say?” I asked. “How in the world did you get this arranged?”

  “Beatrice handled everything,” Anna gushed. “She spoke with Master James and told him you’d begged her to come fetch him to Windsor, to perform for the Queen. And then she told the Queen that it would be such a terrible shame for you to miss the performance, that surely she could bid you to appear. And so she did!”

  I’d stopped well before the end of Anna’s tale. “You told Master James what?”

  “Well, he is quite handsome, Meg,” Anna said, her eyes wide and filled with romance, her favorite subject. “And he seemed quite taken with the idea. I don’t think Rafe will be as pleased.”

  “He won’t,” Sophia chimed in. I looked at her in alarm, and she giggled. “A joke.”

  I rolled my eyes, but it didn’t change the issue. “You told Master James that I’d begged for him to come?”

  Beatrice shrugged. “I could hardly say you were a spy being interrogated in the dungeon. I wanted him to be excited about coming here, and to flatter the Queen outrageously, not accuse her of torturing one of her Maids of Honor.”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Beatrice had a point, and she continued to press it home. “And I needed Master James to have a reason to ask for you specifically to watch the performance, so that it would seem the height of awkwardness if Cecil and Walsingham didn’t produce you.” She shook her head. “I think the Queen was looking for an excuse, honestly. She agreed before I’d even gotten out the words. I don’t think she believed Cecil’s explanation that you were merely . . . indisposed.”

  I frowned. “And Master James agreed to this . . . production. He didn’t question it?”

  “On the contrary, he was quite accommodating!” Anna enthused as Beatrice regarded me with amusement. “Beatrice was very convincing.”

  “I’m sure,” I said dryly, and Beatrice grinned.

  “Master James is actually an enigma unto himself,” Beatrice said archly. “I would swear I’ve seen him before—or if not him then a relative of his. And I can assure you it wasn’t in the open streets of Windsor.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked. “How can you know him?”

  Jane chuckled. “Beatrice is convinced that your Master James is the by-blow of one of the highest families in the land. Don’t get her started, or she’ll begin hauling out enough family trees to seed a forest.”

  “Mark my words, I’m right,” Beatrice insisted. “I know I’ve seen that bone structure before. He is not just some dockmaster’s whelp, I am telling you plain.”

  “That’s impossible,” I said firmly, and Beatrice just laughed.

  “Everyone comes from somewhere, Meg,” she said. “Even you.” She pointed to the book. “As we have all learned.”

  Who am I, truly? I tightened my hands on my grandfather’s—no, my parents’ book.

  I shook my head to clear it. It was too much for me to take in—the Queen knowing why I’d been held prisoner, my fellow maids gaining my freedom, Master James thinking I’d begged for him to do anything, Beatrice convinced that James was some aristocrat’s unclaimed son. Beatrice’s betrothal. Rafe . . . That thought jogged another memory in my dungeon-addled mind. “Speaking of family histories, what of you?” I asked. “Did you talk to Rafe about his ring?”

  Beatrice blinked at me. “His what? What ring?”

  I grimaced. “The ring I gave you last . . . the other . . . whenever it was I saw you. What is today again?”

  “Wednesday,” Sophia said helpfully. “But what ring?”

  Beatrice shook her head. “You gave me no ring—”

  “I put it in the slashed lining of your sleeve, when I embraced you that night.
When you came in and I was with Cecil.”

  She frowned. “You did?”

  And suddenly I knew. I almost laughed at Rafe’s audacity. “What happened, exactly, after you left me?” I asked.

  “I returned to the Queen and told her you were being attended to by Cecil.”

  “And you saw no one?”

  “No!” Beatrice said too quickly, then she paused. “I mean, not really.”

  I shook my head. Damn you, Rafe. “You saw Rafe.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.

  “Only for a moment!” Beatrice protested. “He came up to me just outside the antechamber where you were being held. I just turned and—he was there.”

  “He has a skill with that,” I said dryly. “And then what happened?”

  “That seems hardly the question—”

  “God’s teeth.” I looked up at the ceiling. “He lifted the ring from your sleeve.”

  “What ring?” Beatrice demanded.

  “Why would he do that?” Jane asked from the side of the room. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

  I shook my head. “Because he could.” I looked at Beatrice. “He had a ring that I nicked from him, Beatrice, because it looked like your family’s jewelry, same stone, same odd robin’s nest gold setting. I wanted to show it to you.” He’d wanted me to take it. “Apparently he saw me giving it to you, though I can’t imagine how.” And now he has it back. Insufferable Spaniard.

  “But I don’t understand,” Beatrice said. “How did he come by a ring with that stone? They’ve been in my family for generations.”

  “He claims his mother received it when she was serving as a maid of honor to Queen Catherine of Aragon,” I said. “So . . . maybe your mother must have given it to his mother?”

  Beatrice shot me a look. “Have you met my mother? She wouldn’t give another woman the time of day, let alone an heirloom.”