Read Chapter 27: The Queen's Ear

The privy garden at Whitehall was smaller than Thomas had imagined, a knot of clipped hedges and gravel walks designed for whispered conferences rather than pleasure. He had been waiting near the rosemary border for nearly an hour, pretending to study a Latin grammar while watching the comings and goings from the palace's side door.

The girl who emerged was not much older than he was, with straw-colored hair pinned beneath a simple coif and a freckled face that looked too honest for this place. She carried a basket of linens and walked with the practiced briskness of someone who knew the garden's every path. Thomas stepped into her way with his most harmless smile.

"Forgive me, mistress. I'm looking for the chapel entrance. The guard at the gate sent me the wrong way."

She stopped, studied him with open curiosity rather than suspicion. "You're with the print shop, aren't you? The one Master Cecil brought in last week."

Thomas's chest tightened, but he kept his expression mild. "Word travels."

"Everything travels here." She shifted the basket to her other hip. "I'm Anne. I serve Lady Margaret. The chapel's through that arch and to your left, but if you're wanting to pray for something particular, you'd do better at St. Paul's. The air is sweeter."

"Thomas." He offered his hand. "I was told the Queen often prays here in the afternoons. I hoped to see her."

Anne laughed, a sound like small bells. "You and every merchant in London. She's not a spectacle to be viewed on schedule. She prays when the spirit moves her, and it moves her at odd hours." She tilted her head. "What's your real business?"

The question caught him off guard. He had prepared three different stories and none of them had anticipated being asked directly.

"I'm looking for someone," he said, choosing partial truth. "A lady. I have a letter for her that I was asked to deliver by hand."

"From whom?"

"From someone who couldn't risk the ordinary post."

Anne's expression flickered—something cautious passing behind her eyes before she smoothed it away. "There are official channels for such things. The palace has clerks whose entire duty is correspondence."

"This letter is not for the ordinary clerks."

She studied him for a long moment. Then she set down her basket and drew a folded paper from her sleeve. "Is this what you're looking for?"

Thomas felt the ground shift beneath him. The paper bore no seal, but the handwriting on the fold was unmistakable—the same angular script he had seen in Cecil's documents, in his father's cipher fragments. The same hand that had written to Lady Jane Grey.

"Where did you get that?" He kept his voice low, though the garden was empty.

"Lord Howard gave it to me this morning. He said I was to deliver it to the French ambassador's residence and ask for his secretary by name. He gave me a coin and told me not to tell anyone."

"Anne, you cannot deliver this."

Her face clouded. "Why not? Lord Howard is a friend of the Queen's. He serves on her council. If he sends letters to the ambassador, it's matters of state, and it's not my place to question them."

"Lord Howard is not the Queen's friend." Thomas glanced around the garden, but the hedges offered only limited cover. The windows above them were dark, but he knew eyes could be anywhere. "He is the man who has been trying to destroy her. Those letters you've been carrying—do you know what's in them?"

Anne went very still. "Letters. How should I know what's in them? I can read a little, but I was told never to break a seal."

"You've carried others."

It was not a question. Her silence confirmed it.

"Tell me how many," Thomas pressed. "And to whom."

"Three before this one." She spoke slowly, as if the words were being dragged from her. "Two to the ambassador's residence. One to a merchant in Calais who deals in fine dyes—that one Lord Howard said was urgent, and I gave it to a rider at the stable myself."

Thomas's mind raced. Calais was a port. A merchant dealing in dyes could be moving anything beneath that cover—paper, ink, names. "Did Lord Howard tell you what would happen if you spoke of these errands?"

"He said it was a secret between us. That the Queen's enemies were everywhere and that a letter could be intercepted and misread by those who wished her harm."

"He lied to you." Thomas unfolded the paper carefully, holding it so Anne could see the dense columns of figures and letters that filled the page. To the untrained eye it would look like tradesman's accounts. Only someone who knew the cipher's pattern would see it for what it was: a message dressed in numbers, waiting to be stripped bare.

Anne stared at the paper, comprehension dawning slowly across her features. "This is not a letter. Not a normal one."

"It is a coded message. Lord Howard is not corresponding with the French ambassador as a friend of the Queen. He is negotiating with her enemies. He plans to place another on the throne—a woman who has no right to it. And you have been his messenger."

The girl's face went white. "I didn't know. I swear to you, I didn't know."

"I believe you." Thomas folded the letter again and tucked it into his doublet. "But you must do something for me now. You must go to Lord Howard and tell him the letter was delivered. Tell him the ambassador's secretary received it personally and sent word that a reply will come within the day."

"He'll know I'm lying when the ambassador says he received nothing."

"He'll know something is wrong, yes. But by the time he discovers it, I will have the evidence I need." Thomas took a breath. "And Anne—if anyone asks you about a young man in the garden who spoke to you, say I was only a servant asking directions to the chapel. Do not mention the letter. Do not mention me."

She nodded quickly, her earlier composure shattered. Then a new thought seemed to strike her. "But you said you had a letter for a lady. Who were you truly seeking?"

Thomas hesitated. The rules Cecil had given him pressed against his tongue—tell no one, trust no one. But Anne's face had lost its naive openness and was now sharp with the knowledge that she had been used.

"I don't know how to find her safely," he admitted. "The letter I bear is addressed to Lady Jane Grey."

Anne exhaled sharply. "Then you're too late. She was moved yesterday from Chelsea to Syon House, and Lord Howard himself arranged her escort. He said she was safer there, away from the city's sickness. But I heard one of the guards say the house was being prepared for a guest of honor—and that the guest was to be the Queen herself, for a private visit next week."

The pieces fell into place with terrible clarity. A house outside London. A lady with a claim to the throne. A coded correspondence with France. And now the Queen being lured into a place Lord Howard controlled.

"Anne," Thomas said, his voice barely above a whisper, "who else knows about this visit to Syon House?"

"No one yet. Lord Howard is to announce it to the council tomorrow."

Thomas looked down at the paper in his hand, then at the girl who had unknowingly carried treason in her sleeve. He had one day before Howard could move openly. One day to find Lady Jane Grey and warn her—or to find proof of what the man planned to do within Syon House's walls.

"Can you get me inside Lord Howard's chambers tonight?" he asked.

Anne's eyes went wide. "That's madness."

"Perhaps." Thomas smiled. "But I've been told I have a talent for cipher—and for finding what others hide."