Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  Could that be right? Those august ladies had been parted from us since the ball, but . . . a traitor in the Queen’s own bedchamber? Among her closest friends?

  “What is it?” Jane prodded me again. “You’ve seen something.”

  I nodded, still trying to puzzle it out. “I think I just found one of the letters Rafe gave to Count de Feria,” I said.

  Jane glanced at me sharply, a grin spreading over her face. “From courtier to ambassador to English lady? That’s a crooked path. Which one?”

  “Lady Amelia has it now. I couldn’t quite see who gave it to her.”

  “Makes you wonder what’s in these letters,” Jane said.

  “And who they’re really from,” I muttered. Was it the pope or the king of Spain? Or someone else entirely? And what did Rafe have to do with them?

  “Shall we see for ourselves? Tonight?”

  I felt excitement stir within me, and not just because the chase was on. In that statement, Jane and I had become partners, if only in so small a task as nicking a note out of a lady’s chamber.

  Perhaps the castle would not be so bad a place after all, with adventures such as this.

  “Tonight,” I agreed.

  We turned the corner to take another lap around the fragrant space, and were startled by a page waiting at the doorway to the garden. His eyes lit up when he saw me.

  “Miss Margaret Fellowes,” he said in that too thin, too-high voice that plagued some boys who’d not yet reached their manhood. “I present you with a summons from Sir William Cecil.”

  He proffered a salver bearing an ornate card. With my name on it.

  My eyes flew open wide, and I looked from him to Jane, then back down again. My hesitation must have seemed odd, because the boy’s hand began to tremble.

  But I knew that salver, and what it meant. I’d not been taking classes in court etiquette for more than three months now for no reason, after all. I just couldn’t believe it was meant . . . for me.

  “Take it!” Jane hissed, and I reached out for the card. The boy tucked the salver under his arm, pivoting to escort me.

  I turned the card over, and the words swam together. Jane was at my side, pressing close to translate, but I did not need her to read the card for me. My reading skills had progressed well enough for this.

  Cecil was summoning me to his office chambers. To discuss a betrothal.

  My betrothal, specifically.

  I looked at Jane. She blinked at me. Then a wry smile creased her lips.

  “Beatrice will lose her mind,” she said.

  I stared back down at the card. “She’s not the only one.”

  I don’t know how I even made it through the castle, stumbling blindly after the page. What had I done to merit this terrible turn of events? Why was I being punished? Had I not acted promptly enough in finding the source of the castle disruptions?

  And who was being considered as my husband?

  I barely glanced up as I passed into the Queen’s receiving room. Normally this space was reserved for visiting ambassadors as they waited to present their suits to the Queen. Of late it seemed like a second Spanish stateroom, filled to bursting with the newly arrived members of the Spanish delegation and their hangers-on.

  I’d tried to avoid this area of the castle since the ball, because it only served to remind me of Cecil’s terrible orders to spy on the Queen. But I knew my way to the advisor’s official chambers by heart nonetheless. It was a simple room meant to impress upon everyone that the Queen’s advisor was but a lowly servant to Her Majesty. Cecil had a certain reverse conceit in this fashion. He was powerful, yet strove to appear humble. It was the kind of falseness that seemed to assuage his piety.

  The room was boisterous and relaxed, proclaiming the camaraderie of men confident in their positions. Rafe was in the midst of a laughing group of courtiers, each more handsome than the last. I had a vague sense of capes and long silk-clad legs, and brightly colored embroidered doublets over short, paneled slops. Every one of the Spaniards wore a long, slender—and unsharpened—rapier, all part of the show, but at this moment the men were little more than a blur to me. I felt Rafe’s eyes upon me even as I trained my gaze forward, but I couldn’t look at him. I suddenly wished for Beatrice at my side. She would have provided an ample diversion, and left me free to gain my audience with Cecil.

  I’d barely made it halfway through the room, when Rafe stepped into my path.

  “An unexpected pleasure,” he said, reaching for my hand and bowing over it, the perfect gentleman. His touch still sent a thrill through my fingers, and I pulled my hand away just a bit too quickly. The page stopped in front of us, clearly annoyed at being forced to wait.

  “What brings you to our quarters this afternoon, sweet Meg?” Rafe asked.

  I clutched the card in my hand reflexively, but swallowed. I could not say that Cecil had summoned me, for no reason at all. Why would the Queen’s advisor have need of a maid? Unless it was to discuss her betrothal? A horrifying thought struck me. What if my intended was standing in the room beyond? How had it all come to this?

  Rafe’s eyes dropped to my hand with its damning contents, then darted to the servant, taking in the page’s salver. His gaze came up to mine with a snap, his eyes intent.

  “Are there congratulations in order, fair maid? If so, you don’t look entirely happy.”

  I smiled at him sweetly, my own eyes widening in a worthy approximation of girlish glee. “ ’Tis the most amazing surprise, my lord, and I am the luckiest of girls.”

  If anything he looked even more shocked. “In truth?” he spluttered. “Is this what I think it—”

  “Miss Fellowes?”

  I started, and it was Walsingham, not Cecil, who was smiling at me from Cecil’s chamber, that same odd half smile that he’d worn the night he’d escorted me along the North Terrace. He gestured for me to come to him, and my body seemed bound to do his bidding. Even now I felt it, urging me forward. I bobbed a curtsy to Rafe to give myself another precious moment of time to gather my thoughts.

  “I bid you good day, my lord,” I said, and he bowed in response.

  “Good day to you as well, Miss Fellowes.” Was that chagrin I heard in his voice? Was he truly dismayed that I was being summoned to discuss a betrothal? And if so . . . what did that mean?

  I moved with some reluctance past Walsingham and into the shadowy reserve of Cecil’s private domain. Walsingham shut the door behind him, cutting off the rolling noise of the Spaniards.

  I approached Cecil’s desk and dropped a curtsy. Because, truly, whyever stop curtsying when there’s another to be made?

  I rose, and Cecil looked at me with genuine worry in his gaze. “Whatever is the matter with you, Miss Fellowes? You look like you’re being sent to the gallows.”

  I frowned at him, mutely lifting the summoning card. He glanced at it, then looked at Walsingham in exasperation. “Was that really necessary?”

  Walsingham chuckled. “Miss Fellowes, how else would you have summoned a maid into a private conversation, through a gauntlet of Spaniards who need a reason not to pursue her farther than the door? Do you have a better suggestion?”

  I blinked at him, and Cecil shook his head. “She is a maid of honor, Walsingham. We can summon her whenever we like.”

  “She is an unmarried girl who’s going to find herself in close proximity to a knot of Spaniards too free with their time for their own good. And we may be summoning her quite frequently for the next fortnight, as well you know. Let it be thought that her marriage negotiations are under way. I know how much she’s looking forward to the wedded state.”

  “It’s excessive,” Cecil said, and rolled his eyes.

  Walsingham shrugged. “It’s done. Do you take issue with the subterfuge, Miss Fellowes?”

  “I— No, Sir Francis. I don’t.” Too surprised to be relieved, I struggled to catch up. “So this was a . . . misdirection? You’ve chosen no husband for me?”

  “Not ye
t, no,” Walsingham said. Wait . . . not yet? But he continued, oblivious to my thoughts. “We brought you here to discuss your assignment regarding the Queen and her possible paramour. What have you learned? You’ve had more than a week since the ball, and yet I see no progress.”

  So here it was. Hastily I reordered my thoughts. I’d been expecting this conversation—just not layered in such deceit. “The Queen has been traveling since just last night,” I said smoothly. “When at Windsor she rarely dines alone, and when she is not in her Presence or Privy Chamber, she’s taking her exercise, riding, or spending time in contemplation. Always she is accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting unless she seeks real privacy; in which case, Kat Ashley attends her.”

  They knew all this, of course. “Your point?” asked Walsingham.

  “The Queen’s chambers are protected by a rotating guard, and her royal bed by another layer of protection—her ladies of the bedchamber. For her to slip away in the dark of night and tarry in another set of rooms would be difficult, but not impossible. Guards, after all, can be bought. I suggest that rather than push me upon Her Grace within her bedchamber, you add a new man to the guard outside it—a man you trust to follow your orders over the Queen’s—and have him make the reports you seek. Not me.”

  I thought this had all been rather neatly done, but Walsingham seized on a portion of my speech I had not anticipated.

  “If the Queen were to tarry in another set of rooms, as you state it, Miss Fellowes,” he asked with genuine interest, “where would those rooms be?”

  Instantly Saint George’s Hall sprang to mind, with its moldering tapestries hanging from great stands and its dusty furniture and old rushes. It wasn’t a pleasant room, but it would be private. And I would never suggest it to these two, that much was certain.

  “There are several possibilities,” I said instead. “I am ruling them out as I go. However, it is unlikely that the Queen would journey very far afield from her own bedchamber. There is too much opportunity for her to be caught out.” I came to my second gambit. “So in addition to your bribing a guard, I also think I should simply narrow down the choices of rooms where she might visit, and then set a watch from a central vantage point.”

  “I see,” Walsingham said. “And this will take some time, I suspect?”

  I nodded gravely. “Indeed it will, to give the task its due. You would not want me to misstep in a matter of such vital importance.”

  “You’ve a fortnight, no more,” Cecil growled from behind Walsingham. Leave it to Cecil to bring a ray of sunshine into the conversation.

  “I will give you my report then.” Or come up with another excuse to delay you, most likely.

  Walsingham nodded, ready to dismiss me, but I could not let this opportunity pass me by. “Sir Francis, if I may, I have a question pursuant to my observation of the Spanish ambassador and his men.”

  Walsingham’s brows went up. “Your report was successfully delivered on that subject, Miss Fellowes. You have no further assignment.”

  I kept my tone even, my words light. As if I weren’t making up a wild accusation out of whole cloth. “Still, I must share this. I have reason to believe it was a Spaniard who killed Marie Claire. If I could prove that, would it not be of service to the Crown?”

  That stopped them both. Walsingham crossed his arms over his chest, and Cecil steepled his fingers on his desk, leaning forward. “Proceed,” Walsingham said.

  “If my theory is for naught, I will not waste your time with it. But to determine its merit I have a question.”

  Cecil growled from the darkness. “Just tell us your theory, Miss Fellowes. You waste our time already.”

  I twisted my lips in not quite a sneer. “You are training me to be a skillful spy. I would learn my craft, Sir William.”

  Another pause. They knew the truth of my words, especially Cecil. “Then what is your question?” he snapped.

  I started first with a question I knew the answer to, to get them conditioned to divulging information. Another ploy learned at my grandfather’s knee. “The evening Marie died was that of the Saint George’s Day ball, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she had attended that ball throughout the evening?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. “Did you send Marie out to gather information for you that night?”

  Walsingham’s eyes narrowed. “Marie moved freely throughout the court. She was our chief informant.”

  “But did you send her out for something specific that night?”

  He nodded. “I did. She was to follow de Feria through the eve. She was a friend of his wife’s, who still frequented the palace at that time. We suspected the Count de Feria to be passing letters through his wife and other ladies of the court, and wanted to identify who his contacts were, and what those letters entailed. Marie felt she was close to making a discovery.”

  Again with the letters! “And did Marie report to you, before she—ah—died?”

  He shook his head. “No, Miss Fellowes, she did not. We did not believe she had even a chance to learn anything new that night. De Feria and his wife were absent from the revel that evening, claiming illness. It was unusual, and poorly timed, with his negotiations with the Queen still at a premium, but there was nothing for it.”

  “You did not check to see if de Feria was in truth ill?” I thought of Jane and her poisoned flasks. Had she drugged the Spanish ambassador that night as well?

  “It was not his sickness that kept him away,” Walsingham said. “His wife was in the third month of her confinement and came down with fever. He was at her bedside. There was no reason to intrude.”

  I puzzled over this. I was sure Marie had seen someone—or heard something—that had made her move with excitement that evening. I was also sure she’d known her killer. And, finally, there had been suspicious letters changing hands back then—and now we had another set of letters, circulating anew. Had the first set of letters led to Marie’s murder? Were these new letters also worth killing for?

  “Thank you, Sir Francis,” I said, completely at a loss but smiling with confidence and secret knowing, as if he’d just handed me the key to solving the mystery of Marie’s death single-handedly. “That gives me everything I need to know to move forward.”

  Walsingham snorted. “Indeed. And when may we expect your report on this personal investigation?”

  “When I am—”

  “No.” He cut me off with a soft inflection of the word, raising his hand. “If you are to ‘learn your craft,’ Miss Fellowes, you must know the value of presenting timely information. A fortnight hence is the Harvest Ball. There will be a masque and a feast. In the days that follow that event, the largest contingent of the Spanish will leave England’s shores—including de Feria, as his work as ambassador will be at an end.”

  I blinked. “A fortnight?”

  He grinned wolfishly at me. “It’s well-timed, is it not? You can provide us your report on the Queen’s activities, should you uncover any details, as well as your findings about Marie.”

  Panic squeezed my throat. A fortnight. So little time to potentially betray my Queen. I felt the mantle of traitor settle around me like a heavy cloak, but I managed a graceful nod.

  “Of course, Sir Francis, Sir William. You will have your report by then.” I lifted my chin. “And what shall I receive in return?”

  Walsingham chuckled, enjoying the game. He had expected this as well. “What boon would you ask?”

  “My freedom,” I said crisply. You did not know what you might receive, if you did not ask.

  Cecil began to splutter, but Walsingham lifted a hand. “Your freedom?” he repeated. “Explain that.”

  “You said when last we spoke that if my work saved the Queen’s throne, you would let me return to my former life—with the Crown’s word that you will not harm anyone in connection to me, nor approach me again.”

  “You dare to make demands?” Cecil’s voice was rising in both volume
and tone, but it was Walsingham who held this particular key for me. And Walsingham was regarding me evenly, with no expression at all on his face.

  “You think so much of your former life, and so little of this, Miss Fellowes, that you would return to the squalor from which we plucked you? Surely you have wanted for nothing here.”

  “The hospitality of the Queen is more than one such as me would ever need,” I countered, not rising to the bait of his “squalor” reference. “I am a simple girl, with simple needs.” And I simply need to get out of here before I might betray my Queen.

  Walsingham appeared to consider the question seriously, which was more than I had expected he would. “If the caliber of your information is sufficient, Miss Fellowes, then you have the right to negotiate the terms of your departure.”

  That wasn’t clear enough. Who was to determine “sufficient”?

  “If I deliver you a Spanish murderer, Sir Francis, would you consider that sufficient enough?”

  He nodded to me. “If he threatened the Queen herself, yes,” he said, his mouth twisting a little around the words. “And if you deliver the villain to me no later than a fortnight hence.”

  I felt excitement catch at me, swelling me up, but before I could enjoy the moment too much, Walsingham continued. “And if you do not deliver the murderer, or you deliver him too late for us to be able to capitalize on his capture before the bulk of the Spaniards leave our shores, then you may not bring up the subject of your departure from the Queen’s court again for a full year, on penalty of imprisonment. Agreed?”

  All the breath died in my throat. A full year? A full rotation of seasons away from the Golden Rose. They would surely forget me then.

  “Agreed,” I managed with a confident shrug. “Sir William, Sir Francis. I bid you good day.” I executed the perfect curtsy, then took my leave of them. With eyes straight ahead I breezed back out through the receiving rooms. I might have heard Rafe say my name as I passed, but I could not afford to stop. Not yet. Not now.