Maid of Secrets (39 page)

So I didn’t think about it.

“Miss Fellowes, thank you for joining us,” Walsingham said from beside the Queen. On the other side of her, my four fellow maids stood and stared at me. I struggled not to cry. “We are grateful that your illness has lightened sufficiently for this brief visit.”

He smiled earnestly at me, as if he hadn’t threatened to destroy my life in six different ways over the past—how long? I didn’t even know how many days I had been in that hole.

I curtsied briefly to him on shaking legs, then turned to the Queen with another curtsy, this one full and deep. “I am honored to be requested into your presence,” I said to her, “and gladdened beyond all measure to see you.”

Something in my voice must have given more away than I’d intended, for as I straightened, the Queen regarded me curiously. She watched me with her steady jade eyes, and my first and most powerful thought was:
She knows.

“You are quite recovered, Meg?” she asked carefully, and I could only nod. She knew.

Knew that I had seen her, that night in her bedchamber. Knew that I knew her secrets. Knew that I had been punished for keeping my silence. Knew that I had protected her.

“I have never felt stronger, Your Grace,” I said. I was
not
going back down into that hole. They’d have to kill me cleanly this time.

She nodded in return. “Walsingham tells me you have been confined to seclusion since Lady Amelia’s . . . injury.” Her eyes were watchful, questioning. The eyes of a monarch who’d dared risk her very kingdom for the pursuit of love. Had that been only a few days ago? It seemed like a lifetime. “Is that true?”

“No one could speak more clearly to my whereabouts of the past few days than Sir Francis, Your Grace,” I said, my words unintentionally sharp. I felt Cecil’s slightest movement behind me, the faintest warning breath. “But I am quite recovered. You can be assured of that.”

“Good,” she said, sitting back. “I am well glad to hear it. And to celebrate your recovery, I am pleased to share with you that the court will be graced with a very special production this evening. It will be just the thing to restore your spirits.” Now she beamed at me, and I blinked at her in surprise. I noted Walsingham’s and Cecil’s stares upon her. This was a surprise to them as well.

“Your Grace?” I managed.

She smiled regally. “The pall that lingers over us with Lady Amelia’s injury, even in the wake of the successful masque, is too dour to be endured. I have already granted some joy to
the court, and now we shall have more, with the pleasure of your friends among the Golden Rose acting troupe.”

My what?
It was all I could do not to gape. The other maids just stood there, grinning at me. Even Jane, whose eyes were sharp and clear, and whose gaze was fixed upon me like she thought I would break at any moment, smiled.

The Queen was obviously waiting for me to say something, and I jumped into the breach. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear it,” I said, my mind scrambling for purchase. The Golden Rose acting troupe—here in Windsor? For a command performance? “The Golden Rose are renowned throughout all of England. You will not be disappointed.”

“I am sure you are correct.” The Queen sat back with satisfaction. “You will watch them as well,” she decreed, “from a position of honor by my side.”

No!
My thoughts flew to Jane and the shadowy Spaniard. I had to proceed as if Jane—as if all of them—were still at risk. “Your Grace is far too kind. But I could not allow myself to rest in your company, when I should be serving you completely.”

All eyes in the small room turned to me. The Queen’s in sudden, curious expectation; Cecil’s and Walsingham’s in patent suspicion; and those of my fellow Maids of Honor in stunned surprise.

“What are you talking about, Meg?” the Queen asked.

“While I was . . . confined for my protection, I had the occasion to learn of a plot against the Crown—foiled once in the affair of Lady Amelia, but not yet put to rest.”

The silence in the room was rich and filled with possibility, and I took the tiniest moment to revel in it. Cecil and
Walsingham had no idea what I was talking about, and the thought gave me far more pleasure than anything should have.

Perhaps I could excel at this game of spying after all. But only if I could stay ahead of my enemies. All of them.

“What are you talking about?” Walsingham finally demanded. His skin had gone faintly red around the edges of his mouth and eyes, as if his incredible fortitude was the only thing keeping a rush of anger from suffusing his face. It was quite . . . wonderful, actually, and I favored him with a gentle smile, which seemed to render him even more apoplectic. “I say, explain yourself,” he blustered.

“Sir Francis.” The Queen waved an airy hand, but her tone was more amused than disapproving. “We can but let Meg speak. You and Cecil have not brought a name to me for consideration, and Lady Amelia cannot name her attacker or her fellow conspirators in her current state. We have handpicked this maid for exactly this purpose, have we not? Perhaps we can be enlightened.” She flicked her gaze to me, imperious and expectant.
I don’t know what you are doing,
her green eyes seemed to say.
But I know what you have already done.

I straightened. “I was visited in my . . . confinement,” I said, not able to resist the hesitation before the word, “by a man dressed all in black, whose voice and manner were completely muffled, both by his heavy clothing and, I confess, by my— How did you refer to it, Sir Francis?” I glanced to him but raised a hand at the same time. “Ah, yes, my delicate condition. However, I was not so ill as to not understand his purpose. My night visitor believed—quite wrongly, I should say—that I had gathered intelligence on you, Your Grace.”

“On me!” The Queen’s eyes flashed, and I held my chin
high. This was the ultimate gamble, and if Jane’s life had not hung in the balance, I’m not sure I would have tried it. But Lady Amelia’s injury had not been enough, and the next step for the Spaniard could be only death. It had to stop—and it could not stop if I was kept under lock and chain in a prison of Walsingham’s and Cecil’s devising. I needed freedom to move—to think—and to act.

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.”