“There,” he says. “That’s where the border begins.”
I sit up straighter in my saddle and peer around. The border between England and Scotland is a no-man’s-land that’s been contested for years, yet nothing about this place looks like the center of war and struggle. I expected the dirt to be ripped by booted feet; I expected the swords of dead men wedged in the earth, marking their graves.
It looks…ordinary.
And it creeps unease up my spine.
“Right,” I say. “We go on?”
But Cecil shakes his head. His horse dances impatiently. “No. You continue alone. There are roads from here, but it’s best to stay off any paths and make your own way north. Draw as little attention as possible.”
There’s no active war right now between England and Scotland. Tensions are still sky-high though.
Cecil’s eyes flash to mine. His usual calm, stoic mask slips, and he looks at me only in distaste. “You remember everything I’ve said?”
I stare at him, as cold as the way he looks at me. “Aye. I’ve got it.”
Cecil’s droned on the whole trip, talking and talking as our horses carried us up paths and through forests that grew more barren, peeled down by the coming winter and the change in the geography. He told me about Mary’s court and the various players there, and it was easy enough to log what information his spies gleaned about each person. He’s thrown facts about marks in Southwark at me similarly through letters, so I treated it just the same, filing away this or that detail for later.
I’ll be posing as a secretary for Lord Latimer of Clan Maxwell. I’ve got an English mother; that’s my cover to explain my accent and any gaps in my knowledge, any slipups. The best cons play close to the truth after all, and Cecil knows that. So my English mother raised me in London, and I came up to be with my father on Latimer’s staff.
Latimer is due to attend the baptism of Mary’s son, followed by celebrations for Christmas, but he’s indisposed, Cecil said. I interpreted that as killed or imprisoned by Elizabeth, as the two men accompanying us shared a smirk when Cecil talked of him. My role is to travel to the gathering at Stirling Castle and offer to be Latimer’s proxy.
I’ve got a bag full of papers proving I’m Latimer’s man. Seals and correspondence and diaries, and Cecil drove so much information into me about Clan Maxwell and Latimer’s place there that my brain feels as swollen as the snow clouds that haven’t yet unleashed over us.
I survived on my own in the streets of Southwark. I can memorize anything in a snap and take on whatever front people need to see. I’ve pried an existence out of a stark and uninhabitable place, and I’ve been training for something like this my whole life whether I knew it or not, whether Cecillikesit or not, and if he means for me to die or be his obedient little assassin, he’ll be disappointed.
Cecil eyes me. Weighing me up.
He reaches into his saddlebag and pulls out an item wrapped in a silk cloth.
After a moment’s hesitation, he passes it over to me.
“One last tool,” he tells me.
I take it and unwrap the cloth. It’s a necklace of thin braided leather bearing an amulet the size of my thumb. The amulet is silver, an interlocking weave of knots. It ain’t glowing like magic items, but something about it makes the hairs on my neck rise.
“What is this?” I can’t keep my nose from curling.
“I told you,” says Cecil, “I have people at work for me, studying fae weapons. They have developed a protective shield.” He nods at the necklace. “Wear this, and it will keep you from being further affected by fae magic.”
I bite down on my tongue. The tang of iron floods my mouth.
How long’s he had access to a charm like this? How long’s he let me traipse around Southwark, hunting dangerous fae items, when I could’ve had some semblance of protection?
He sits impassively.
He doesn’t care. I’m a tool to him just as this necklace is to me.
I slip it on.
“The symbol is important as well,” he adds. “It will designate you to anyone else of Elizabeth’s that you may run into. A way of identifying other loyal Englishmen.” He glares at me, a tight, tense look. “You are never to take it off. Do you understand me? At the end of this, I will have it back, so don’t think of selling it either. It remains around your neck at all times.”
“What if someone in Mary’s court has learned what this amulet means?” I press.
Cecil’s smile is humorless. “We change our symbol regularly. No one will know. By your tone, Sammy, it is almost as though you do not trust me.”
Behind us, back about two paces, the mounted guards both chuckle.
