Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  “God’s eyes!” Momentarily forgetting everything except that this girl was a child with no one to care for her, I dropped my basket with a thunk and dove toward her, barely catching her in time before she went facedown into the mud. As it was, I yanked the girl back so heavily that she crashed into me, her hands grasping for mine as her eyes fluttered back open.

  The moment our fingers touched, I knew.

  Somehow I’d just been marked.

  Oblivious to my sudden panic, the girl caught my gaze and held it, her face quivering in distress. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice broken with tears.

  “Sorry for what? Who is doing this to you?” I jerked the girl to her feet, then shook her thin shoulders roughly, my lye-burned fingers looking painful and cracked against the fine fabric of her gown. “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “Sophia!” she breathed. “But you must flee! I’d thought it was just a dream, but it’s coming true! I would never— Please know that I would never have done this had I known what they would do!”

  It was already too late to ask her what in the bloody bones she was talking about, because steps were even now sounding around me. The fleeting soft strides of someone else slipping away, and then the thunking crunch of authority.

  “Unhand the girl,” came the terse command behind me, puffed with the weight of nobility. That’d be Sir William, sure as I was born.

  Damn my eyes.

  I carefully made sure Sophia, if that was truly her name, was steady on her feet, then turned to face Sir William, ready to spin myself out of whatever trouble I’d stumbled into. I could play the role of a rollicking washerwoman as well as any other part I’d learned. It was something of a specialty of mine.

  I opened up my mouth to let fly a string of expletives, but Sir William raised his hand abruptly, cutting me off. “Your presence is demanded by the Queen,” he said.

  Hadn’t expected that.

  “The Queen!” I burst out, masking my alarm with a roughneck London cackle. I raised my brows and thrust my hip out, eyeing Sir William up one side and down the other. “The Queen ’erself, ’e says. Well, I doubt that, I surely do. Wot would the Queen want with me, eh, bonny?”

  I beamed at Sir William with a gape-mouthed grin, wishing for all the world that I’d lost a few of my teeth already. “But what a fine man you are, my lord. Do I know you? Might you simply ’ave a fancy to buy me an ale—is that what this is about?”

  Sir William took a step back. “I beg your pardon?”

  The guards that were with him tried to remain unperturbed, but I caught a stifled laugh, a nervous shuffle. I bore my gaze down on Sir William and took a long step forward, jamming my fists onto my padded hips, amply stuffed with rags.

  “It is, isn’t it!” I crowed. “You ’ad but to ask, my lord. Ol’ Sally is always thirsty.” I grinned back at Sophia, only to find that she was also staring at me, stupefied.

  This might actually work.

  I returned my attention to Sir William, advancing on him with a wide smile, making a show of adjusting my apron over my round belly before I reached out to squeeze his arm. “What a right strong man you are.” I grinned. “I’m happy to spend an hour chattin’ with you.”

  Sir William was looking at me with growing alarm. “I am ordering you to come with me to the Queen’s court,” he intoned harshly. “Or failing that, to her Tower. It is your choice.”

  “The Tower!” I threw up my arms at that, thrusting my padded belly forward like I was going to dissolve into a puddle of jollity. This was going to be one devil of a costume to flee in, but one did what one had to do. “There’s no need for any of that. You can tell me everythin’ right ’ere. What is it then, eh?” I winked broadly, reaching up to chuck him under the chin. “What stories do you want to whisper in my ear?”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “You won’t be the first, love, an’ you won’t be the last.” I fluttered my hands at him with an indulgent chuckle. “But carry on! We can talk where’er you like. Just be sure there’s a pint of ale for ol’ Sally when we get there, will you, my lor’?” I stooped to pick up my wash.

  “Leave that.”

  “Leave it! Leave it, ’e says,” I protested, to mask my growing alarm. “Then you’ll be ’avin’ both ale and shillin’s for me, you better believe. Orderin’ a good, honest woman to leave her clothes in the middle of the road where any sort of unnatural people might come across them. As I live and breathe, the Queen ’e says. As if the Queen would ’ave anything to do with the likes of ol’ Sally—”

  I kept up my grumbling as Sir William turned, scowling, to lead us through the courtyard. The guards fell into a loose phalanx around me, but not so close that I couldn’t make a dash for it when the opportunity arose. I felt like I was being watched, but the panic-stricken Sophia had fled, and there were only the stares of the curious passersby.

  We turned into the rough-and-tumble New Fyshe Street just where the lane widened into a town square of sorts, and I made a slightly wider arc than the rest of them did, so that the structure of our group got even looser. And that’s when I saw him.

  Troupe Master James McDonald was leaning up against a market stall, looking for all the world like he was the proprietor of a cart of trenchers, pots, and wooden spoons. He glanced over at our group lazily, apparently not even registering my presence. But I knew better, of course. When I hadn’t arrived at my appointed place for our ploy against the Whitechurch Arms, Master James had doubtless come looking for me. That was just his way. He took care of his own.

  And even though I hated for him to step in to help get me out of this mess, I couldn’t deny my pleasure at seeing him there. Together, we’d beat this snare. Together, we’d find a way out. And together—

  Then the stall next to Master James suddenly went up with a blazing whoosh of fire and the ratatat of fireworks, setting the horses in the square to madness and the stall-keepers to screaming hysteria.

  It took only a second for me to realize what had happened. And then I was running too.

  “Fire!” I screamed, diving through the guards, loosening my girdle beneath my skirts as I galloped in huge, lurching strides. I whipped around a corner and tossed my padded false stomach into a doorway. I rued the loss of the disguise, but there was nothing for it. I had to move.

  I heard the guards behind me, and knew I’d never beat them in a race of sheer speed. My skirts were too long without the padding to billow them out, and my legs were too short. But while I was new-come to London, I wasn’t without resources. I already knew places nobody wanted to go.

  I pounded down another passageway and out onto a narrow street that backed up to the Thames. Gutted, rotting fish carcasses pooled in narrow ditches, waiting for a good rain to carry away what the street cleaners always missed, and I rushed along the foul-smelling passage without a moment’s hesitation.

  Where had I gone wrong? My costume had been perfect and my manner carefully honed. Out of all the Golden Rose actors, I’d been the one Troupe Master James had chosen to approach the innkeeper, after all. So how had that chit of a girl known who I was?

  I didn’t stop until I reached the Thames proper, my long dark hair flying freely now, my wig and cap long gone. Then I heard a sound rife with wrongness. It was naught more than a whisper of movement, but enough to cause me to immediately shift away—

  And then I was facedown against the stone ledge of the river wall, a wickedly sharp blade a bare inch from my eyes. My neck was locked down so tightly, I feared it would snap like a chicken’s.

  “Sorry, but I canna chase you all day.” It was a girl who held me down, her voice as plain and flat as a board. She came from Wales, from her accent, and she sounded younger than I would have expected, for hands so strong and cruel. Perhaps eighteen, but no older.

  “Who are you?” I gasped, my body tensing to flee at the first opportunity. Could I bribe the woman? Somehow break away? Would Master James find m
e in time?

  She grunted as she positioned her knee more squarely into my back. “They’ll be angry enough that you gave them the slip, especially one Sir William Cecil. I don’t need him mad at me, too. You would have made it, though, if I hadn’t been watching.” She sighed, a soft whisper of regret in the sound. “I didn’t have the sense to run when they came for me.”

  “Let me go!” I tried again, but the girl just clamped harder on my neck, cutting off my breath.

  “I canna do that,” she said, reasonably enough, as my sight dimmed to a pinprick. “You sealed your own fate when you lifted Cecil’s purse a fortnight past. He might not want anything to do with you, but the Queen does. And she’s what counts.” She hesitated, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded like linen washed too often over the rocks: thin, cold, and resolute. “And I’m Jane, by the way. Beggin’ your pardon again, but this is the only way.”

  I heard the whoosh of something slicing through the air, ending in a curiously loud thunk! against my temple.

  And then there was nothing.

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  WINDSOR CASTLE, WINDSOR, ENGLAND

  I’d never hated words before I’d been brought to Windsor Castle.

  Here, they’d become a plague.

  “Again, Miss Fellowes,” Sir William Cecil snapped, his voice striking out at all angles into the cramped room. He shoved the book at me, and I leaned over it dutifully, dread balling in my stomach. Bahrrrr . . . barrruuss . . .

  I’d never really hated Mondays before Windsor Castle either.

  On Mondays, the most loathsome day of the week, we studied and translated texts in Latin, French, Dutch, and Spanish. Tuesday, the subject was politics. Wednesday, social graces. Thursday, observation skills.

  On Fridays, we learned about poisons. Strangleholds. And less dignified ways to die.

  It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I’d first been hauled to the Tower and charged with stealing royal gold. That first day, I still thought I could escape. That first day, I’d been astonished, then furious with myself at my own stupidity for being captured in the first place.

  Sir William had marked me with ridiculous ease, as it turned out. Using a trick so old and tired that I’d stopped looking for it in any village with more than two goats to its name.

  Apparently assuming that his riches would be lifted the moment he stepped outside, Sir William had etched a secret symbol into his coins before leaving the safety of the castle. He was a skulking coward, I’d decided, a panic-stricken fool.

  Well . . . perhaps not a complete fool. Because before night had fallen on that accursed day, Sir William had found me out. After waiting the shortest of whiles, he had sent men to follow Tommy, and they’d trailed the boy to the pasty stand. After that, it had been a simple thing to ask the stand’s keeper to hand over the coin Tommy had just used to buy his treat. The shilling had borne Sir William’s mark, of course.

  I secretly prided myself that it had taken the Crown nearly a full fortnight to lay hands on me after that, and in the end they’d needed two maids to achieve it.

  Or had they? Was that a lie too? In the long days of my captivity, I’d had ample time to learn the depths of Sir William’s cunning. After three wretched months in his questionable care, my life with the Golden Rose was naught but memory, a freedom I feared I would never fully grasp again.

  Gone were the days of shouting lines back and forth over the morning fires, of sewing late into the night to stitch back together costumes that had become more thread than cloth. Gone was the unfettered joy of sleeping under the summer stars, or bundled together in pitch tents while a child exclaimed over the first snowfall. Gone was little towheaded Tommy Farrow.

  Gone was Master James.

  Acting, thievery, and deception, however, were still very much a part of my life.

  I’d carried nothing with me to the Tower but the much-mended clothes on my back and my two precious gifts from my grandfather, hidden in my shift. On his deathbed, sick and pale with fever, my grandfather had given me a slim book of verse and a set of golden picklocks—without ever explaining why. For luck, I’d sewn those gifts into my shift just hours before I’d been arrested. And as luck would have it, they now were the only possessions I still owned in the world.

  That first day, as I’d woken up in my cell deep in the bowels of the Tower with a lump on my temple and my ears still ringing with pain, I’d prayed they wouldn’t take my clothes from me. But I’d been prepared for it.

  In fact, I’d thought I was prepared for anything. As a first-time offender and a woman, I knew I would not be killed or visibly maimed. But I’d expected their questioning to be painful—perhaps involving thumbscrews or white-hot tongs. And when they’d yanked me from my cell and marched me into to the foul-smelling heart of the Tower of London, my hands and feet bound with chains, I’d fully believed I would be humiliated, reviled, and left heartily wishing I was dead.

  What they’d actually done was much worse.

  In a dank and barren corner of the Queen’s dungeon, they’d . . . sat me at a table. Served me spiced wine. And explained my new life to me in clear and simple terms.

  If I did not do exactly what they told me to do, exactly how they told me to do it, it would not be merely me who suffered.

  True, I’d be imprisoned for the rest of my life. But more to the point, Master James and the other principal actors of the Golden Rose would be hunted down with whips and blades, paraded through the city as thieves, and then left trapped in the stocks for five whole days, at the mercy of any Londoner with a stone to throw.

  The news of their arrest would be spread throughout England as fast as a horse could ride. The troupe would be ruined.

  They would all starve.

  Alternatively, if I performed my duties well and honorably, if I completed my assignments and served the Queen as a loyal subject and spy, then perhaps—just perhaps—I would be allowed to go free, eventually. I could return to the Golden Rose to live out my days, with a small purse of coin besides, a token of the Queen’s thanks. So my options were these: imprisonment, ruin, and the starvation of my troupe . . . or service to my Queen as a spy.

  I knew I was missing some hidden deception in their words, but what choice did I have? After that miserable morning, I’d done everything they’d asked.

  I’d learned to eat with silver utensils without palming (nearly) a single one. To laugh at every courtier’s joke. To find the Queen’s bracelet in the far corners of Saint George’s Hall and slip it back into her hand with no one the wiser. Just three months in, and I also already knew how to kill a person six different ways. Which, despite my colorful upbringing, was six more ways than I ever planned to use. I would never kill anyone. I would never even cut anyone. I was a thief, not a common thug.

  As it happened, the art of thuggery was the specialty of another maid in our less-than-merry troupe: the plain-voiced girl from Wales who’d walloped me with her dagger hilt the day I’d been caught. Jane wasn’t stuck in the room with us this day, at least. Cecil had sent her away on some errand. Now, she was probably out somewhere sharpening her knives. I’d nicknamed her “the Blade.”

  “Miss Fellowes,” Sir William prompted. “Repeat the passage Miss Knowles just completed. Only with better form.”

  I sighed and looked down dejectedly at the book before me. Despite all my newfound abilities, there was one skill that I could not seem to master, no matter how I tried. It was the one skill I most craved to possess too, since I could then read for myself the words of bards and playwrights. And yet . . .

  “Say the words, Miss Fellowes.” Sir William—or Cecil, to those who knew him well—jabbed his thin finger at a passage of finely wrought letters that mocked me from the page. I tried to sound them out in my head: Bahrrrr . . . barrruus . . . hick . . .

  I could not read.

  It was the one indulgence Grandfather had never allowed me, though he’d taught me how to speak all the words in the worl
d, with the richness of speech favored by the noblest of men. We doona have the time to read, lass, he’d tell me when I’d ask and beg and plead. I doona have the energy. So it was all the more ironic when, on his deathbed, Grandfather’s first of two gifts to me had been . . . a book.

  A book I could not read.

  “Sometime before I grow old and die, Meg,” came the irritated whisper behind me.

  Beatrice Knowles, dressed in a spectacular gown of dawn-pink silk, sighed dramatically to underscore her taunt. With her shining blond hair and sky-blue eyes, her gorgeous clothes and flawless skin, I’d been tempted to hate Beatrice on sight. Then she’d opened her mouth, and I’d given in to the temptation. Proud, haughty, and mean-spirited, her head filled with court gossip and very little else, Beatrice would have made a grand character in a play . . . as long as she ended up dead by the third act. Or at the very least married off to some pompous old fool.

  But of course, Beatrice the Belle had not been chosen to join our group because of her sweet and sunny disposition. She’d been chosen because she possessed an uncanny ability to convince any of the male species to do her bidding, whether he was a six-year-old stable boy or a sixty-year-old lord. She cooed and fluttered, simpered and preened, and flirted outrageously at every turn.

  Beside her, the quiet Anna Burgher shifted her feet. Currently clad in a sturdy overdress of soft yellow wool, with a high collar and heavy sleeves that tidily covered her plain white smock, the green-eyed, ginger-haired Anna the Scholar could be excused for having no patience for idiots. And sure enough, as I hesitated, I could hear her grinding her teeth.

  The more I tried to actually read the words before me, the longer we’d be forced to stay in class. So I alone was causing their discontent. Though usually only reasonably tolerant of each other, Anna and Beatrice were now clearly united in their desire to escape this airless room. Even with my eyes trained on the page, I could feel them both from the side. Glaring at me.