Maid of Secrets (6 page)

“Of course,” the Queen said dryly. “And her flaw? What is her greatest flaw?” The Queen was walking more swiftly, and I was forced to keep pace, my heart now beginning to beat a little faster. I tried to choose my words carefully, and the Queen’s lips pursed. “Don’t try my patience, Meg,” she said, the words a slap.

“Her pride,” I bit out, cringing at the betrayal, even though it was just Beatrice and she richly deserved it.

Rather than ask me to explain, the Queen moved on. “Anna, then,” she prompted.

“Anna’s best skill is her discernment—she can see hidden patterns in events, encoded letters, or even in mechanical things,” I said, thinking of Anna’s fascination with the puzzle boxes. I swallowed, knowing the next question. “Her flaw is her innocence. She believes the best in everyone, even when there is naught but evil there.”

It was only the truth, but I still felt wrong in saying it. Before the Queen could speak again, I hurried on. “Sophia’s
gift is the Sight, of course, or at least the promise of the Sight. Her flaw is her lack of confidence.” I blinked at that, surprised at my own assessment. “Jane knows what it is to take a man’s life without remorse, and it has turned her heart to stone.” My words sounded curiously sad to my own ears. “And that is both her gift and her curse.”

Time seemed to hold its breath as we stood there, and I saw my fellow maids line up before me in my mind’s eye: Sophia and Anna, Beatrice and Jane. The Seer and the Scholar, the Belle and the Blade.

And as for me? I had a nickname too, of course. As the Maid whose job it was to ferret out secrets, I’d received my nickname the very first day I’d arrived, when the others had not realized I could hear them whispering. Now they didn’t even bother to hide it from me. My esteemed partners in the Queen’s service called me . . .

The Rat. And I had just proven their case.

But what should I care? They’d done nothing to help me, either.

Other than Anna, of course, who’d tried to help me with naming herbs, and who
would
gladly teach me to read, if only I could admit more fully that I needed help . . . . And Jane, whose words before she’d bludgeoned me had at least given me hope . . . . And Sophia, who’d truly seemed distraught even as she’d identified me to the Queen’s guard.

Of course, Beatrice deserved my harsh words without sanction. But then, Beatrice cared even less for me than I did for her.

The Queen’s next words jolted me back to attention. “And you, Meg? Do you know your greatest skill?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the Queen raised her hand, effectively silencing me.

“No.” She shook her head. “We cannot assess ourselves as easily as we might think, so I will tell
you
the answer. Your best skill is not your thieving, though you consider it so, or even your stealth. It’s your ability to play whatever role you must, for however long you must, to live a life of secrets and lies.” She grimaced. “I know that skill very well. It serves me more faithfully with each passing year.”

Then she flicked a sharp glance at me. “But unlike me, Meg, you have not learned to master those roles and rise above them. To know that they are
roles
alone. Your flaw is that you have spent so long being who you are not that you have no idea who you are.” She shook her head, her judgment swift and complete. “And until you do know who you really are, you will
always
be someone else’s servant.”

That isn’t true!
The words sprang hotly to my lips, but I knew better than to give them voice.
I know myself, of course I know myself. I am seventeen years old. How could I
not
know myself? You are completely wrong,
I wanted to say, right to her face.
Completely.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” I said instead, my voice as flat as the Thames in full summer. “I will think carefully on your words.”

She nodded, taking my agreement as her due. “Now,” she said, glancing back to where Cecil stood in the middle of the Privy Garden. “We do not have much time, so I will be plain. Sir William believes I am telling you about your assignment for this evening, and to give truth to that lie, here it is: Tonight we will dine in the Presence Chamber,
and a ball shall follow to honor our guests. There will be a new young courtier with the Spanish delegation, whose conversation we wish to know. Rafe Luis Medina, the Count de Martine. I am told he is attending as a nobleman and a flatterer, but I suspect he is something more—possibly an agent of King Philip, possibly an agent of the pope. He will be dining with Ambassador de Feria as they prepare for the rest of the Spanish delegation to arrive. You are to listen to their conversation and report it.”

She stretched out her fingers then, studying them with impressive interest. “You have been chosen for this assignment because with your acting skills, you can comport yourself like an established lady of the court, yet you are unknown to the delegation.” Now she flipped her hands over and regarded her palms. “Further, if Cecil is to be credited, your recall is exact, even if you don’t understand at all what you are hearing. Is this so?”

Cecil!
Annoyance rippled through me as I recalled all those days of translations, the endless books and languages. The old goat had known all along, and had still made me stumble through the lessons until I’d relied on my memory to save me. He’d been testing me from the first moment.

The Queen was waiting for a response, and I nodded hastily. “Of course, Your Gra—ma’am,” I said, remembering the next stage of honorifics in a conversation as long as ours.

She smiled faintly, and while I was certain she had to be bored with her hands by now, she continued to observe them with great solemnity. “Good. But now I will give you a second order to follow, one that is between us alone. A secret order. And one only you can complete.”

Yes.
My nerves tightened in anticipation, but I kept my voice steady. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

The Queen raised one of her hands to fuss delicately with her crown, and finally, I understood. She was hiding her mouth, ensuring that her words could not be deciphered by prying eyes.

“Look down at your hands,” she directed, and then continued once I did. “You have noticed, without question, the distractions of the court these past months,” she said. “The outbursts among the courtiers over some secret revealed or another, the petty thievery, and all of that.”

I nodded, biting my lip. In truth, it had been great fun to witness the frequent disruptions, to realize the court was not just made up of perfect little puppets.
And if I’d contributed to a few baubles being temporarily misplaced, well . . .

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.”