Maid of Secrets (32 page)

I made my way through the laughing, too-intimate crowd. When I reached the North Terrace, I saw a group
of courtiers and ladies clustered together, their conversation light and animated. Rafe would not be near here, but in a place of greater silence. Winchester Tower? I was still wearing my dancing slippers, and rushed along the crumbling terrace with an odd feeling of repetition. When I’d come this way last under cover of darkness, my future had still been my own, or so I’d thought. Now the walls of Windsor closed around me like a tomb, but I could not think on that now. I had only to hasten forward, focus only on this one thing. That would save me, I thought. Not looking too far forward.

I came around the corner, and the sound of conversation reached me. I had to stop and place a hand over my heart, so loudly and coarsely was it beating. Still, I had to move closer until I got a fix on the voices. I would be in their line of sight, but there was nothing for it.

Affecting a slight stagger, I rambled down just a few steps more, until I had cleared the last jutting rock of the abutment. I wandered over to the short wall. The Thames lay far down the slope, the inky darkness pockmarked with dancing torchlight, beacons in the darkness. The castle was not the only host to revels this night.

I threw one leg over the stone wall and sat down, straddling it. The breeches and hose provided an almost shocking ability to move, and I could well see why Jane favored this costume above all others. I put my hands down mannishly upon my thighs, leaning my weight forward, as if I’d stumbled down here in an alcoholic haze. Instead of thinking of my task, though, my thoughts held fast on Jane.

Could I truly be like her in sensibility as well as actions? Could I cut someone—could I kill? I grimaced, thinking on it,
but the answer still was no. I’d not worked as hard as I had to become an expert at my craft, only to get into fistfights and knifing matches. I was not made to kill men—or to cut them. I was a thief, not a thug.

The voices had stopped when I’d lumbered upon the scene, but they started up again now, a full tear of Spanish, and I cursed my own lack of speed. How much had I missed?

I risked a peek at them. There were three Spaniards there. De Feria, a man I’d never seen, and another round man in long priest’s robes. The Bishop de Quadra. The three bent together, words flowing rapidly, and I memorized as quickly as I could. I was improving in my Spanish, but I could only memorize, not translate, at this speed. For that, I’d have to rely on Anna.

The third, unknown man continued to move and gesture, and I studied him more closely. He moved differently than Turnip Nose, the man Rafe had spoken to in the chapel. And he looked different too, his face as wide as a full moon, with big eyes, full lips, and a round, puffy nose. How many Spaniards were involved in this plot? And where was Rafe?

De Feria, de Quadra, and Moon Face continued speaking for a few minutes more, their conversation growing more heated, with finger-pointing and gestures of great emotion. If nothing else, the Spaniards would make wonderful actors, I thought. I swung back off the ledge, then tottered back to the castle wall, once more out of sight. Then I edged forward anew, focusing again on their voices.

And just as I did so, a hand slipped over my mouth.

“Ah, sweet Meg, what am I to do with you?”

I tried to jerk away, but Rafe held my face, pressing up against my back and pinning me to the wall. He laughed softly at my sudden alarm, his lips brushing my ear, setting off tiny whirls of heat. “I should have known it was you on the terrace. No man walks like that, no matter how drunk.” He sighed. “Though it is difficult to tell with you English what passes as manly posturing.”

I gave a small inward groan. I would need to work on my walk if I wanted to make a habit of wearing men’s clothes. I made again to move away.

“I don’t think so, sweet Meg. And I’ve decided I don’t like you very much in men’s clothing. But—” He looked past me, down the North Terrace. “Why are you spying on my countrymen? Do you know what they are saying?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll have to get it translated.”

“Can you tell me what they’ve said so far?”

He was still standing far too close, and at my nod he laid a finger on my lips. “Then tell me. But softly, softly. And not quite yet. They’re beginning again. Can you hear them?”

I started to speak, but he pressed his finger again against my lips, silencing me. “Just listen.”

I listened. The three men continued to argue, then de Quadra made a pronouncement and blessed the other two. Rafe stepped away from me as the men scattered, apparently to see if he could track their departure. Then I realized that not all of the men had left. De Quadra and de Feria were no longer on the terrace, but Moon Face had stayed. And another figure had joined him, a lean new shadow in the gloom. They began speaking, and one word they shared was instantly recognizable. I stiffened.
La muerte.

Death.

Rafe returned after all of the men had gone. Had he realized that the players had changed midscene? “What did they say before I came upon you?” he asked.

I scowled. “Why should I help you?”

“Because we can help each other,” he said, and tilted his head. “I will answer your questions and tell you what I know. But I am missing a critical piece to this puzzle, and I suspect it’s held within the words of the men whose conversation I missed.”

I stared at him skeptically, but I should have known he’d have another card to play. “And perhaps more important, neither de Feria nor de Quadra believes you maids are anything more than inquisitive girls with a penchant for finding yourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. You would not want them to think otherwise.”

I narrowed my eyes. “De Feria killed the maid Marie.”

“Not him, directly,” Rafe said, but he did not deny the accusation further. “De Feria’s goals have been only to create a distraction—not a death.”

I thought back to the mutilated face of Marie Claire. “I’m not sure I would agree with you.”

He looked at me steadily. “You will share information with me, or I will go to de Feria and the new ambassador besides. This is not your battle to fight.”

I let that one pass. “And what will I get besides your silence?”

He grinned, sensing he was wearing me down. “Why, Meg, you will get
me
. At your service, whene’er I am able.”

“Small lot of good that will be. When this comes out, you will need to leave England as hastily as they do.”

His grin only deepened. “Miss me already?”

I rolled my eyes, and he tapped my chin. “I will be an ally, Meg. And allies are hard to come by these days. I give you my word that I will do all I can to protect you, you and your small clan of spies. I will tell you what I learn, and find out whatever you wish.”

“Then, what is de Feria’s plan?” I asked baldly.

He nodded his understanding. He would have to give first, if he wished to receive. “Even more than de Feria is a man of Spain, he is a man of God, and the pope,” he said. “He is helping to set up a network of Catholic supporters, supporters to whom he can convey the special blessing of the pope.”

“The letters you carried when you first arrived,” I said. “Those were from the pope?”

Rafe hesitated. “After a fashion, yes, but written as if from dear friends. The pope is no friend of your Queen.”

“And what did these letters promise?” I asked, thinking
about the letters to Lady Amelia’s family. All of those letters had contained suggestions on how to disrupt the Queen’s court. Did Rafe’s packet of letters include similar requests? “Do you know what the pope is asking of his followers in the letters you just delivered?”

“To know that, sweet Meg, I would have had to read one myself, which in this case would not only have been a violation of my orders but an offense against God. How base do you think I am?”

“Base enough.”

He sighed. “You wound me. But if I
had
seen one of these letters, it
might
have said in coded terms that the recipients should be ready for a signal. I believe a Scottish thistle
might
have served as a choice for that code. Then and only then were those loyal to the pope supposed to carry out a simple task—nothing too dangerous. For now these requests are but to make small disturbances . . . but one day, perhaps, not so small.”

“A death is not small. The burning of Protestant vestments was not small either.”

A shadow passed over Rafe’s face. “As I said, those were disturbances de Feria neither planned nor approved. I believe him, and I’m not the only one.”

“And why are you telling me this?” I asked, suspicion blooming at his easy truths. But then I recalled Anna’s words—that two of the letters had been written by a different hand. Had those letters contained the harsher requests?

His eyes betrayed nothing. “Spain does not endorse the murder of innocent girls, Meg, no matter what you think. And my orders come from Spain first, the pope second.”

I pondered that for a moment, but another of Rafe’s words caught my attention. “A thistle,” I murmured, thinking of Anna and her ciphers. “But that means that—”

“That the trail of letters extends to Scotland, I should think, yes. Your neighbors to the north are more Catholic than England ever was.”

I took in a deep breath, considering this. “So the Catholic plot exists.” I thought again of Lady Knollys. Why would she be involved in any plot against the Queen—even a benign one?

“It exists, and will only grow stronger.” Rafe huffed out an impatient breath. “Time is growing short, Meg. What did you overhear?”

I told him, reciting the complete conversation in Spanish. I didn’t tell him that, after the men had seemed to depart initially, another man had arrived. I just continued the conversation as if it was all part of the same play and omitted the mention of death.

“You must translate for me what they said,” I said when I finished. “What they were arguing about. I’ll just get it from Anna later, if you do not.”

He nodded, paraphrasing the conversation in rapid words. The three men had disagreed violently about a plan already set in motion. One of them—de Quadra, he suspected—advocating continuity; and another man who he believed was de Feria was just anxious to be done with it all.

“Do you think their plan would include murder?”

Rafe just shook his head. “No. A death would be too risky. De Feria understands that. Even de Quadra understands that.” He frowned at me. “Why do you ask?”

I changed the subject hurriedly. “And the Spaniard I saw you speaking to in Saint George’s Hall? What was his crime?”

Rafe shrugged. “He’d grown too careless.”

“He had one of the letters.” I slanted him a glance. “He was the one who’d been acting without orders? Who’d burned the vestments?”
Who’d killed Marie?

Rafe’s response was a snort of derision. “I suspect he couldn’t drink a mug of ale without being told.” He glanced at me, deliberately changing the subject. “How long have you had this skill of memorization, Meg? Another in your long list of talents, I see.”

I hesitated, but in truth, I didn’t so much mind the subject being changed. Within these walls my life was spent learning others’ tales. It wasn’t often that I got to share my own history. “I have had it all my life,” I said simply. “Though it has been known by others only since I was three.”

“So young,” Rafe sighed. He settled against the wall, and despite the danger all around us, I thrilled to take this moment with him, talking in the darkness. “And how was this skill first discovered?”

I surprised myself again by wanting to answer. “I had wandered away from my grandfather’s cottage to find him, far down in the peat. When I came upon him, he was singing a song that made no sense to me at all, but had a magical rhythm to it that I could not help but remember. He was surprised and a little frightened to see me—I’d no idea how far I’d wandered. Later that evening I sang his song back to him, and the reaction was swift and loud. Outrage among the women, ribald laughter among the men. Apparently my grandfather’s song was not for a child’s ears.”

“And did he know right away the import of your gift?”

I nodded. “The next morning, as solemn and loving as always, he sat me down and explained to me that this was a skill that I’d best not share with anyone else but him.”

“He was wise to do so.” Rafe raised a hand to his face, and a ring on his finger caught my eye again.

“That’s . . . jade.”

He pulled it away, looked at it, and smiled. “It is at that.”

I’d seen it before, of course, that exact setting. A jade stone caught up in a net of gold threads, offset by winking sapphires. It was an exact match for Beatrice’s prized jewels. My throat suddenly went dry. “Where did you come by it?”

“A family bauble.” He shrugged. “My mother brought it back with her from her stay in England. She would never show it to my father; only gave it to me when I was leaving to make my own fortune, in fact. I rather fancied it had been given to her by a man who favored her here at court, when she was but a maid herself.”