Chapter 63: The Bedchamber’s Reckoning

The morning light crept through the leaded glass of Walsingham’s study like a thief, pale and tentative. Edmund Ashworth, Earl of Morland, had not slept. He had not even attempted the dignity of a nap, which he considered the day already ruined beyond repair.

“Ask her,” he repeated, his voice flat with exhaustion. “You make it sound so simple. As if the woman who sleeps beside the Queen—who has conspired with the Falcon, who has fed information to Spain—will simply confess when we knock upon her door.”

Walsingham did not look up from the letter he was sealing. “I did not say we would ask her politely.”

Edmund rubbed his eyes. “Then what are we to do? Break into the royal apartments and demand she reveal her true name?”

“We are to do something far more dangerous.” The spymaster set down his wax and pressed his ring into the crimson seal. “We are to attend a progress.”

The word hung in the air like a bad odour.

“A progress,” Edmund said slowly. “The Queen is going on progress.”

“To Theobalds. Lord Burghley’s estate. She leaves within the fortnight, and she will take her household with her—including her maids of the bedchamber. The woman we seek will be there, surrounded by the chaos of a hundred servants, a dozen courtiers, and the distractions of a royal visit.”

“And you wish me to attend?”

“I wish you to do what you do best, my lord.” Walsingham’s mouth twitched. “Appear to do nothing at all. Laze in the gardens. Play your lute. Engage in idle chatter with the ladies of the court. And while you are so magnificently occupied, you will watch. You will listen. You will find the woman who sleeps beside the Queen.”

Edmund felt the familiar weight settle upon his shoulders—the weight of a task he had not asked for, a duty he had never wanted. “And Cecily?”

“Lady Thorne will accompany you as your guest. She has become a familiar figure at court, and her presence will raise no questions.” Walsingham’s eyes sharpened. “But be warned, Edmund. The Queen has granted her trust to Cecily, but she has not granted it to you. Not entirely. Elizabeth watches everything. If you are seen to be hunting among her maids, she will want to know why.”

“Then I shall have to be subtle.”

“You?” The spymaster’s laugh was dry as old parchment. “The man who fell asleep during the Privy Council’s discussion of the Scottish succession?”

“I was not asleep. I was meditating on the nature of kingship.”

“You were snoring.”

Edmund sighed. “Loudly?”

“Like a bear with a head cold.”

There was a knock at the door, and a servant entered with a folded note. Walsingham read it in silence, his face betraying nothing. When he looked up, his eyes were cold.

“The Falcon has been seen in London. Not a ghost, not a rumour—a positive sighting, three days ago, near the river stairs at Whitehall.”

Edmund felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning air. “He is bold.”

“He is desperate. The Armada sails within weeks, and his master’s plans are unravelling. He will strike soon, and he will strike hard.” Walsingham folded the note and tucked it into his sleeve. “You must find the woman before he does. If he reaches her first, she will vanish, and we will lose our only thread to the heart of the conspiracy.”

“And if she is loyal?”

“Then we have made a terrible mistake and insulted an innocent woman.” Walsingham’s gaze was unyielding. “But I have been in this business long enough to know that the innocent do not change their names and hide their pasts. She is guilty of something, Edmund. We must discover what.”

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The road to Theobalds was thick with summer dust and the noise of an entire court in motion. Edmund rode beside Cecily, who had greeted him with a raised eyebrow and a pointed comment about the state of his doublet.

“You look as though you have been sleeping in a haystack,” she said.

“I have been sleeping in a saddle. It is not the same thing, though it is equally uncomfortable.”

“And yet you are to be the Queen’s most diligent courtier for the next fortnight.”

“I am to be the Queen’s most *visible* courtier,” Edmund corrected. “There is a difference. I shall be seen everywhere, doing nothing of consequence, while my eyes do all the work.”

Cecily’s lips curved. “And what will your eyes be looking for?”

“A woman who is not what she seems. A maid of the bedchamber who carries a secret name like a hidden knife.” He glanced at her. “You know the household better than I. Who among the Queen’s women might have cause to betray her?”

Cecily was silent for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the road ahead. “There is one name that has troubled me since Cambridge. Lady Margaret Howard. She is a distant cousin of the Duke of Norfolk—the one who lost his head for Mary’s sake. She has served the Queen for six years, and she is above reproach.”

“Above reproach?”

“Entirely. She is pious, quiet, and utterly forgettable. The sort of woman one passes in a corridor without a second thought.” Cecily’s eyes narrowed. “Which is precisely why she has always unsettled me. No one is that forgettable without effort.”

Edmund considered this. “Then she is either the most loyal servant in England, or she has spent six years building a mask so perfect that no one has thought to look beneath it.”

“Those are the only two possibilities?”

“In my experience, they are the same possibility wearing different clothes.”

The gates of Theobalds rose before them, a magnificent sprawl of brick and glass that Burghley had built to impress his sovereign. Edmund straightened in his saddle, summoning the lazy smile that had served him so well.

“Well,” he said, “let us go and be magnificently idle.”

Cecily’s hand brushed his arm, brief and warm. “Be careful, Edmund. The Falcon is not the only predator in this garden.”

He looked at her, and for a moment the mask slipped. “I know. And I have no intention of becoming anyone’s prey.”

But as they passed beneath the gatehouse arch, Edmund could not shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap of his own making—and that somewhere within these walls, a woman who had slept beside the Queen for six years was waiting for him with a smile that had learned to lie.