Free Maid of Deception by Jennifer McGowan Page A

Anna said from the doorway, where she’d drifted.
    And it was true. We could hear the long strides of Her Royal Unbearableness sounding down the corridor, and were barely in our places before she swept into the room.
    We sank into our dutiful curtsies as she surveyed us all, not speaking. As ever, I found myself counting out the long seconds in my mind until we could rise.
    The Queen lasted only five counts. “Up with you. We don’t have time for that,” she barked, and we popped back up like corks on the open sea. She surveyed us with grim approval.
    “You all have conducted yourselves well in my service, and by your troth you are pledged first to me,” she said. She gave a glittering wave, flashing the jewels that adorned her sleeve and wrist, and I suddenly felt the weight of the ring on the second finger of my own right hand. The Queen had extended her protection of us, ensuring that Cecil and Walsingham—though they could order us about at will—could not accuse us of any crime or put us to questioning that might result in our own harm, unless the Queen herself was present. It was a neat solution to a problem that had already presented itself. Meg had known a secret of the Queen’s, and she hadn’t shared it with Cecil and Walsingham. To express their displeasure, they’d imprisoned her.
    Given the secrets I myself knew of the Queen, of which Cecil and Walsingham had no idea . . . I could appreciate Elizabeth’s decision to ensure that her Maids of Honor need only answer to her, and not to her advisors.
    I slanted a glance at Meg without appearing to do so, and saw her straighten ever so slightly under the Queen’s regard.
    Meg had suffered more than any of the rest of us at the hands of the Queen’s advisors. I hadn’t liked the girl much when she’d arrived at our door, a dirt-smudged thief of no appreciable merit other than her light fingers and quick mind. But she’d done the best she could, I supposed, and for reasons quite beyond me, she seemed in awe of our Elizabeth. Even now her eyes shone with a curious light, as if the Queen filled her whole world. I didn’t know the secret Meg had learned about the Queen, though I could guess. That Meg remained loyal to the woman was the important part, however.
    Our resident thief thought Elizabeth would set her free one day, but as God was my witness, if Meg didn’t stop adoring the woman, the Queen would never let her go.
    “And so now I will give you a commission that is to me alone. You are to tell no one of this, neither guard nor lord nor”—her lips curled slightly—“advisor. Do you understand?”
    We murmured our careful assents, and the Queen nodded imperiously. “Good. This night marks the first of a three-day revel culminating my birthday festivities.” And it’s about time too. The Queen will be rapidly coming up on her next birthday if she doesn’t leave off celebrating this one soon. “As you know, there are several new nobles from Scotland in our midst who do not know the castle and its people well. I need you to circulate among them and learn just what is being discussed when I am not present in the Visitors Apartments.”
    “The Visitors Apartments?” interjected Anna, perturbed. “You believe you are not being fully briefed on the negotiations with the Lords of the Congregation?”
    “It is not a matter of belief; I know I am not,” Elizabeth snapped. “I cannot spend the whole of my day closeted with those jabberers. But neither do I imagine that it takes hours upon hours of Cecil’s time to result in the scant updates he is providing me. I want to know what they are asking him that they are not asking me , and what he is granting in return.”
    Even I was shocked by that. Cecil could not grant the Queen’s grace without her knowledge. It was career suicide for him and potentially treasonable as well.
    “But he will serve you long and well,” said Sophia, in that curiously dead voice of hers. “All your policies