Read Chapter 35: The Traitor's End

The bolt was thick oak, the lock a mass of black iron that would have laughed at any key Thomas owned. He had not come with keys. He had come with certainty, and the certain were reckless.

Two of Weston’s men had followed him from the docks. He had let them. He had walked slowly through the crowded lanes of Southwark, let them see him pause at the printer’s stall, touch the fresh broadsheets, breathe the ink. Let them think him a boy playing at spy.

Now he stood at the side door of Weston’s townhouse and put his shoulder to the wood. It did not move.

The third time he hit it, the door gave with a groan and a spray of splinters. He stumbled into a scullery that smelled of boiled cabbage and cold grease. No one came. The house was too quiet, too patient.

“You took your time.”

Weston stood at the end of the corridor, a candlestick in his hand, the flame making his narrow face a mask of shadows. Behind him, six men in leather and steel filled the passage. Thomas counted them, counted the exits, counted the steps to the nearest window. All the numbers were bad.

“I knew you would come,” Weston said. “You have your father’s stubbornness. He never knew when to stop either.” He set the candlestick down on a side table and spread his hands. “The ruby. Give it to me, and I will make your end quick. It is more than I offered your father.”

“You never offered my father anything.” Thomas kept his voice steady. “You were never even there. You hide behind other men’s names and other men’s shadows. The Cypher’s deputy. You are not even a shadow—you are a smudge.”

Weston’s smile did not waver, but something behind his eyes went hard. “Bold words for a boy standing in a dead man’s house.”

“I am not standing in a dead man’s house. I am standing in yours. And I did not come alone.”

Weston laughed, a dry rasp. “Your little printer’s boy and the woman? They are watching the front door. I have men there too. You brought nothing but your own corpse, Thomas Finch. Sir Thomas. How the Queen must weep for her new knight.”

“I brought a message,” Thomas said.

“To the Queen? Cecil’s cipher? I broke Cecil’s ciphers before you were born. You think your little coded notes frighten me?”

“I did not send it to Cecil.” Thomas reached into his doublet and pulled out a folded sheet. “I sent it to the woman who guards the Queen’s own chamber. Anne. You know her—she served Lady Jane once. She knows what Jane is, what you are making her into. The letter was in plain English, not cipher. Any maid could read it. Every guard at the palace has read it by now.”

Weston’s smile faltered. He took a step forward. “You lie.”

“The Queen knows about the lead in the wine. She knows about the forged letters against Cecil. She knows your name, Weston. Not the Cypher’s—yours. The man who would crown a puppet and call it mercy.” Thomas held the sheet up. The ink was still wet at the edges; he had written it in the alley behind the printer’s shop before coming. “I walked past the palace gates and handed it to a groom. I told him it was a love letter. He winked at me. He was very young.”

Weston stared at the paper. His jaw worked. Then he laughed again, but it was thinner now, higher. “Even if the Queen knows, she cannot move while Cecil rots in the Tower. The Council is mine. The guard at the gates is mine.”

“The guard at the gates is the Queen’s,” Thomas said. “You only think it is yours.”

Behind Weston, one of the men shifted. A murmur ran through the line. Weston felt it—Thomas saw it in the small twitch of his shoulders—but he did not turn. He kept his eyes on Thomas.

“Kill him,” Weston said.

No one moved.

Weston turned. The six men stood in the passage, but their eyes were no longer on Thomas. They were on the window behind them, where torchlight flickered in the street. There was the sound of boots on cobblestones, many boots, a rhythm that was not a mob but a march. The Queen’s guard.

“She moves fast,” Thomas said softly.

The men looked at each other. One—a gray-bearded brute with a scarred knuckle—dropped his sword arm. “He said the Queen knew,” the man muttered. “He said her name. We were promised we would never be named.”

“You will hang,” Thomas said. “All of you. Unless you serve the Queen now. Take Weston. Bind him. It is your only chance to die in bed.”

The gray-bearded man looked at Weston. Weston’s mouth opened, but no words came. He reached for the candlestick, but the scarred man was faster. He caught Weston’s wrist and twisted it behind his back. The others fell on him like wolves on a lame stag.

Weston screamed once, a thin sound, as they dragged him down the corridor. Thomas stepped aside to let them pass. The front door burst open, and the Queen’s guard flooded in, steel glittering in the torchlight. Weston was thrown at their feet. He looked up at Thomas, face white, and his lips shaped the words: *The Cypher knows your name.*

Then he was gone, hauled away into the night.

Thomas stood in the empty corridor. The house was quiet again. He picked the folded sheet of paper off the floor where it had fallen—the letter was blank, the ink smeared by his own palm. He had written nothing on it.

He walked out the front door, past the guards, past the torches, through the smoky London air. The Tower loomed ahead, black against the gray dawn. Cecil’s cell would be cold. It had been cold for too long.

Thomas broke into a run.