Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  The Queen’s next words caught me up short. “The Crown is under siege, Meg. From those who wish to see me fail.”

  I froze, still staring at my hands. “Your Grace?”

  “These disturbances to the court began when I formally rejected King Philip’s marriage proposal, and not a moment before.” She paused, pursing her lips, and I attempted a sage nod. I knew the history well enough by now.

  King Philip of Spain had been married to Elizabeth’s half sister Mary, the former Queen of England. The two women had not been friends. For one, Elizabeth was Protestant, and Mary had been Catholic. For another, their father, King Henry VIII, had divorced Mary’s mother so he could wed Elizabeth’s mother. The fact that Henry had gone on to behead Elizabeth’s mother, so he could marry his third wife, hadn’t seemed to mollify anyone.

  But the third and perhaps most damning reason for the two royal sisters’ enmity was this: The devoutly Catholic Queen Mary had been very ill. She’d feared she would die before having the one thing that could keep the Protestant Elizabeth off the throne forever—a baby. All of the Catholics in Christendom had prayed for Mary to conceive, but it was not to be. Queen Mary had died childless, leaving the throne to Elizabeth.

  The staunchly Catholic King Philip had immediately proposed marriage to the new Queen, which had made perfect sense to everyone . . . except the new Queen. Instead, Elizabeth had ascended to the throne alone, had declared Protestantism the official religion of the land, and had dashed the hopes of Catholics everywhere.

  “First the disturbances were benign enough,” the Queen now said bitterly. “The ladies’ sodden gowns, the accursed rats. Soured milk in the evening’s ale. But it has gotten so much worse. Royal missives finding their way into the wrong hands. Brutal attacks on members of the court. The burning of Protestant vestments in the Lower Ward. It is not to be borne.”

  I looked up sharply. “Brutal attacks?”

  The Queen ignored me, her words dry and stony. “If I were a young and callow girl, I might think that I could not manage my own court. That I have need of a husband to help me rule. Such a course would be the safer choice, I am told; such a course would please the people.”

  She turned to me then, her eyes a hard green jade. “However, I am neither young nor callow, and the people need only a strong monarch to rule them, not a male one. And I need no one but myself to rule.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I breathed. I may as well have not been there, for all the notice she paid to my defense of her Queenship.

  “As an actress, you are a trained deceiver,” she stated instead.

  This was starting to not sound very good. “That is correct, ma’am.”

  “And you can discern the lie on another’s lips, I wager?”

  I began to find my own fingers fascinating again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you have no fast friends among the court.”

  I winced. “No, ma’am.” My fellow maids were not my enemies. But no one could truly call them my friends.

  “I thought not. Starting tonight, then, you will watch the Spanish delegation for Cecil,” the Queen commanded. “And you will watch the whole of the court for me. If you find the cause of the disturbances, you are to follow it to its core and root it out, quickly, quietly, and completely. And then report the transgressors to me, and me alone. Do you understand?”

  She waited until I’d nodded. “Do not tell Cecil of this,” she said. “Nor anyone else.” Her words were clipped. Certain. And I felt a chill roll down my spine. “Start by watching the women of the court. You will find, however, that any trail that begins with them will ultimately lead to a man.” She sighed. “It is always thus.”

  My ears pricked at that. “Is there any one man you believe is a particular threat?” I asked. The words “brutal attacks” kept swirling through my thoughts. Brutal attacks.

  A moment passed, then a second. I swallowed, finally daring another glance at the Queen. And what I saw . . . shocked me.

  In that moment, in the full blush of youth and strength, Queen Elizabeth Regnant looked as old as my grandfather had lying upon his deathbed. Weariness had drifted over her face like a pale sheet, and her eyes glittered with dark knowledge I could not hope to understand. She placed her hand on my shoulder, as if to sear her royal decree into me. “All men are a threat to women, Meg, no matter if she is maid or monarch,” she said. “Especially those men we most want to trust. Don’t ever forget that.”

  And just that quickly the moment passed, and she lifted her hand away. I felt the weight of sovereign command lift with it. Then the Queen turned, and our audience was at an end.

  I don’t know how I made it back to my group waiting at the garden’s edge. The rest of the Queen’s maids of honor and ladies-in-waiting had flooded the garden by then, a virtual sea of linen and lace rustling in the morning breeze. The Queen had set up court again near the central fountain, but I’d had enough of her company to last me a month.

  I drew up next to Beatrice and Anna, feeling suddenly out of place standing beside them. Unbidden, the beginning of a couplet sprang to mind: Two maids of quality, one but a thief.

  “Well?” Beatrice demanded, tossing her blond curls. “What is it the Queen thinks a rat can do that better-trained spies cannot? Or have they asked you to pick de Feria’s pocket?”

  Jane had decided to join the rest of us too, her interest plain. Sophia, her eyes luminous with distress, drew in close to Jane. The two of them made an even odder pairing, and the couplet completed itself: One maid of spirit, the other of grief.

  Shaking myself to attention, I sectioned off the Queen’s orders neatly in my mind. “No,” I said. “I’m to report on a conversation between the Spanish ambassador and one of his men. Nothing more.”

  “You?” Beatrice’s laugh laced the syllable with pretty disdain. “Why you?”

  It was Anna who replied. “Meg has not circulated through the court,” she said, as if it were obvious. “She can act like a lady of court, with de Feria not yet realizing her station. He may be freer with his words around her.”

  Jane nodded, even as Beatrice rolled her eyes.

  “But even after three months of training, Meg can barely speak Spanish,” Beatrice snipped. “Heavens, what am I saying? She can barely speak English.”

  I shrugged. “So you can look forward to my failure.”

  “But they have no reason to give you the honor of their trust,” Beatrice said, pouting, clearly not willing to let it go. Then her eyes went crafty and narrow. “Or maybe they’ve chosen you for this fool’s game precisely because they don’t trust you. They trusted Marie, after all, and look what that got them.”

  My brows shot up. That was a new name. “Marie?”

  “Beatrice,” Jane said at the same time, the word a quick rebuke.

  “Who is Marie?” I asked again, looking around the group. To my knowledge there were only the five of us who were spies. Brutal attacks, the breeze seemed to whisper, and I tried to shrug the words off.

  Beatrice sneered at me, ignoring Jane’s quelling hand on her sleeve. “So Sir William told the Queen you were ready to serve, and the Queen gave you an assignment, yet they haven’t told you yet about poor Marie?” She tsked in false dismay. “You’d think that would be the first item to share, given you were brought to court to replace the girl not a fortnight after the scandal.”

  “It is forbidden to discuss this,” Jane warned, glancing around.

  Anna hugged her arms to herself, rocking slightly. “Forbidden!” she agreed.

  “I don’t know anything about a scandal, or this Marie,” I said, staring at Beatrice. “I was brought here because—”

  “Oh, please,” Beatrice scoffed. “Tell me you are not that stupid. Did you really believe that all of us have been here since the Queen’s coronation and then, for no reason at all, she decided to add you? That your skills as an actress and cutpurse were so amazing that she couldn’t have found a dozen more like you in the five mo
nths before she stumbled across your little acting troupe?”

  “But I . . . ” My words trailed off as I was struck by the accuracy of Beatrice’s words. Of course I was not the only thief in London. So why had I been chosen?

  Beatrice’s smile was cold. “That’s right, Meg,” she said with exaggerated patience. “There must have been somebody in your position before you, don’t you think? And whyever would we be forbidden to speak of her, unless she had done something terribly wrong?”

  “Beatrice!” Jane’s voice was hard. “You go too far.”

  Beatrice shrugged. “Either you tell her or I will.”

  A long, terrible moment of silence stretched between them. Then Jane spoke at last. “There was another of our number, Meg, before you,” she said without looking at me, her voice like chipped stone. “Marie Claire could ingratiate herself into any group, and gain information from them. She was known as the Queen’s ears before Beatrice usurped that role.”

  “She was a thief, too.” Beatrice sniffed. “Not that she ever stole anything of value.”

  I stared at Beatrice, then Jane. “What happened to her?”

  Jane grimaced. “She died.”

  “She got herself murdered.” Beatrice’s gaze, as cold as a snake’s, flicked from me to Jane, then back again. “She’d—”

  “That’s enough, Beatrice,” Jane said.

  “But she was attacked. Her ears—her eyes—”

  Jane turned sharply toward Beatrice, lifting her hand in warning. “Say one more word, Beatrice. Just one, and you will regret it. You will not speak ill of the wrongfully dead.”

  Jane’s tone was lifeless, but her body was vibrating with dark energy, and I felt a cold certainty slide through me. No one knew how many men Jane had attacked that day in North Wales; no one knew precisely what had happened. But I no longer doubted that she’d done something terrible to them. And permanent.

  “Tell me what happened to Marie!” I protested now, looking from one to the other of them, desperate for the full story. What about her ears—her eyes? my mind demanded. Brutal attacks! came the response.

  Jane turned her glare from Beatrice to me. “You don’t need to know the details now. Just keep your wits about you tonight, and try not to do anything stupid.”

  The mother of the maids called us all to attention from across the garden, just as Beatrice scoffed, “Well, that’s going to be an impossibility for Meg.”

  And for the first time since I’d been brought to the Queen’s court, I agreed with Beatrice completely.

  The corridors that led us to the Presence Chamber were lit up like full day, and I clung to the back of the Queen’s retinue. I’d been to the Presence Chamber before, as had all her ladies, but as a maid of fairly modest (which is to say no) standing, I’d never been asked to do anything when I’d been called to the chamber, merely to look presentable. Which inevitably involved yet more uncomfortable clothing than any one person should ever be forced to wear.

  The attire for all of the Queen’s maids this afternoon was stiff white gowns with modest square-cut necklines and miniature neck ruffs that were apparently meant to mimic the Queen’s more elaborate court ensemble, only I suspected ours were made with far inferior cloth. These torture devices had been visited upon us as we’d been leaving our chambers—and thus we’d had no time to alter them. It was the height of summer! As pretty as the ruffs looked against bare skin, they would become unbearable in the heat and closeness of a crowded Presence Chamber. I tugged at mine, hard, and felt the lace begin to stretch. I noticed Jane tugging at hers, too, and I hung back with her.

  Jane eyed me with grim tolerance as we processed through the corridors to the Presence Chamber, two long lines of girls rendered silent by our mass discomfort. “What do you want of me, Rat?” she asked. Her fingers moved swiftly beneath the hard planes of her jaw, loosening her ruff a bit more every time we passed through shadows.

  “Breath, for one,” I said, ignoring the insult of my nickname—I’d earned it, after all. “And I want you to tell me about Marie.”

  Jane’s mouth tightened, but she stopped, dropping us both out of line. “Lift your chin up and away.” She narrowed her eyes at me even while she deftly pulled at the fine laces of my ruff. Her hands smelled of honeysuckle, heather, and sunlight, reminding me of open fields. “I’m telling you this not because you’ve asked, but because you need to know. For your own safety. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Agreed.” I would have agreed to anything at that point, as long as she kept loosening my ruff.

  “Marie Claire was the first spy chosen for our group. She considered herself above us before we ever set foot in the classroom. Her role as our chief ears allowed Marie access to every courtier in the castle, and we were at Whitehall then. With the Queen coming to power, there were too many courtiers to count. Marie did her job well. Soon she began slipping away at all hours of the day and night, on her ‘missions,’ as she called them. She didn’t share them with us, of course, but went straight to Walsingham.”

  “Walsingham?” The Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, was a man I’d heard of too much, and seen too little. Whispers of his ruthlessness swirled about him like smoke in a smithy, black and foul. I put that thought away. “When did she die?”

  “April. It was after the Saint George’s Day ball, sometime after midnight but before dawn. That morning, there I was coming up over the seawall from the Thames, and I saw her straight away, crumpled in her finest gown. She’d been killed by a professional. By someone who’d known what she was.”

  “By a professional?” I frowned at her. “How can you be certain?”

  Jane shook her head. “This was more than a jealous suitor, Rat. Marie’s clothes were torn, sliced to ribbons in places. As if her attacker thought she’d hidden something in her pleats.” I stiffened at that, thinking of my own picklocks and book, now carefully hidden away in our chambers, no longer sewn into my clothes. “But more to the point,” Jane continued, “both of Marie’s ears had been cut off.” She touched a fingertip to my own ear. “And her tongue as well.”

  I gasped. “Her tongue?”

  But Jane wasn’t finished. Her voice had taken on that curious flat tone again, and I steeled myself against her words. “Her tongue. And her eyes were nothing but empty sockets, completely hollowed out. It was the most gruesome thing I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen my share. There was blood all down her neck, and on the collar of her gown.” She frowned. “Now here you are, Elizabeth’s newest maid. Her newest ears. Be careful to keep yours.”

  She pushed me forward then, seeming suddenly angry. “They’re waiting for you.”

  I could only lift my own skirts and hasten forward, my mind churning, as the maids wound their way into the Queen’s Presence Chamber. Ears, tongue, and eyes. Everything a spy used in the course of any assignment.

  Everything that had been taken from maid Marie.

  What was going on here? What secrets were hiding from me in these castle walls?

  I was scarcely in place before Cecil glanced back to make sure we’d arrived. We’d all been given assignments by then. I was supposed to watch the ambassador and Count de Martine, but each of the girls in our band had similar tasks for the ball—to witness conversations and report. Not to do anything about the information we learned, of course. Not to draw conclusions and act upon those conclusions. Just to watch, memorize, and report. What had Marie seen that had ended her life so abruptly?

  “Don Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, le Conte de Feria,” the Queen’s steward proclaimed. And the procession of courtiers began.

  Even though the Queen made no secret of her disdain for the Spanish ambassador, as the highest-ranking foreigner in the procession, the much-maligned de Feria mounted the steps first and swooped a deep bow to her. The ambassador’s doublet, trunk hose, and cloak were black, his ruff simple, his belt an understated silver chain. I’d seen the Count de Feria before, of course, though never this close. He s
eemed practical and prudent, and looked far older than the twenty-five years I knew him to be. As much as Anna and Beatrice gossiped about his dreary temperament, he did not appear to me a bad sort, if a bit disapproving. He did strike me as shrewd. I’d always tried to stay well away from him.

  But I could no longer stay away from de Feria or his fellow Spaniards, I thought grimly. I was, for good or ill, officially now the Queen’s eyes and ears. The keeper of her secrets.

  After de Feria another Spanish courtier was announced, a laughing rogue dressed in peacock blue, with rich caramel-colored hair, golden eyes, an easy smile, and a smooth unshaven face. I noted more than a few sighs among the ladies-in-waiting as Nicolas Ortiz made his bows, and I fought to keep from rolling my eyes. Whenever there was a new man in the court, half the women fell in love. My lips twisted into a small smile. How Master James would have laughed to see them swoon.

  I felt a strange tightness in my chest as I realized I hadn’t thought of Master James—or the troupe—at all that day. Not with the excitement of my first assignment and the horror of Marie Claire’s killing. Was I forgetting them?

  Never! I thought, hastily calling up image after image. Fat, jolly Meredith, our finest cook; glowering Matthias, her husband. Geoffrey, the best bard in all of England; wool-headed Tommy Farrow, still a little boy. But three months was a long time in a little boy’s life. How much had he changed?

  Have they forgotten me?

  After what seemed like hours, Ortiz finally moved to the side, and the steward spoke once more. I attended him half-heartedly, then realized I recognized the name. “Rafe Luis Medina,” he’d proclaimed. “Le Conte de Martine.” I stood on tiptoes to get a better look at my mark.

  Then I blinked. Hard. Sweet mother of angels. They have to be jesting.

  Rafe Luis Medina was . . . astonishing.

  My heart seemed to stop working quite right as the young count approached the dais with the poise of a monarch himself, then spoke in a rich, flowing dialect while bowing elegantly to the Queen. The Count de Martine was tall, more than six feet, and his thick dark hair fell over his forehead in a graceful swale. His eyes were a vivid blue, the color of sunshine on water. His smile was quick and broad, his skin as golden bronze as a sailor’s. He carried himself with strength and poise, nearly but not quite overwhelming the dark seniority of de Feria—and completely eclipsing Ortiz.