Alice savored her role as the keeper of the information and waited a few moments before responding. “They haven’t arrested anyone yet. But they captured a monk who was carrying one of the spy’s missives. It is only a matter of time before he is identified.”

Joan’s heart dropped. She tried to recall the exact wording of her latest message. Was there any way of identifying her? Would someone be able to trace it back to her? She was careful, but never before had one of her messages been intercepted.

Was that why she’d had this strange feeling of being watched of late? Did they suspect her? None of her fear and anxiousness showed as she tied a knot on the piece of thread she’d been working with before asking, “What did the missive say?”

Alice shrugged as if the details were unimportant. “I don’t know. But there must be something incriminating, don’t you think? Henry said your knight”—she waved her hand toward Joan—“insisted on taking it with him to examine.”

Alex? Her heart dropped even lower. Good God, did he suspect something? Had he seen something in the note to identify its writer? Is that why he’d been so attentive of late? Was it all a ploy?

Nay, she refused to believe it. But the fact that he had the note did not sit well with her. Actually, nothing about this sat well with her.

And what of the monk? She assumed the mercer’s wife had passed it on to him, but had he seen anything? She prayed the woman had been careful, and that the monk couldn’t identify her. And what would the English do to him to find out?

Joan shuddered.

Margaret must have been having similar thoughts. “What has happened to the monk?” she asked with genuine concern.

Alice frowned. “He was questioned.”

Joan winced inwardly. When her eyes caught Margaret’s a few minutes later, she could see that her cousin realized what that meant as well.

“They did not hurt him?” Margaret said with more hope than belief.

“How would I know?” Alice said with obvious impatience. “But it is no more than he deserves for aiding the rebels. He cannot act like a traitor and then seek to avoid punishment by pointing to his holy robes.”

Margaret looked as ill as Joan felt.

Although Joan and anyone else who dared to work for Bruce knew what they risked when they started, it was different somehow when confronted with reality. Her heart went out to the monk, and she prayed the English were not treating him harshly. But she hadn’t been that naive since she’d seen her mother forced into a cage. There was nothing of which they weren’t capable.