It probably wasn’t my place to say anything, but I did anyway. “With respect, sire… if we found it, couldn’t anyone?”

Walsingham nodded at me, barely a shift of the head. He approved. Before the others could respond, he said, “Who is sending you these letters?”

The change of subject caught me off guard, confused me for a moment. I wondered if that was his intention.

The Templars, I thought. I almost said it. But this was a secret I’d promised to keep. I had to lie. Sort of.

“I don’t know,” I said. Which wasn’t, technically, a lie. I didn’t know. I just believed.

“Who do you think?” Walsingham said.

His voice remained quiet, even as he pressed me. He knows, I thought. He already knows.

And then I thought: What if he’s a Templar?

Egerton’s confession had claimed the Templars kept agents of their own close to the king. It was hard to get closer than spymaster. Unless you considered…

No. Couldn’t be.

I glanced over at Lord Ashcombe. He, too, waited for my response.

My mind was running away with theories. I had to answer the question. I couldn’t tell the literal truth this time, so I settled for half of it.

“Whoever’s sending the letters,” I said carefully, “knows far too much about the king’s enemies to be an outsider. He must have infiltrated their group. A loyalist, maybe?”

Walsingham’s gaze was inscrutable. He’s going to keep pressing me, I thought.

To my surprise, he didn’t. Instead, he asked me something else.

CHAPTER 37

“WHO, THEN,” WALSINGHAM SAID, “ARE His Majesty’s enemies?”

I let out a breath. This I could answer. “I think they’re Covenanters.”

The king scowled at the name. He looked to his spymaster, whose eyes lingered on me a moment more.

“I agree,” Walsingham said.

“Let them scheme,” Charles spat, all humor gone. “I will never fulfill that oath. I’ll burn Scotland to the ground before I submit.”

“The Covenanters are aware of that. Which is why they are coming for you.”

“Our armies will crush them.”

“They’re not fighting our armies,” Lord Ashcombe pointed out. “They’re attacking us from inside.”

Speaking of which… “My lord?” I said.

Lord Ashcombe turned to me.

“Do you remember when we arrived at the palace yesterday?” I said. “A man shouted at you?”

“Niall Ramsay, Earl of Fife. What of him?”

“The man who was with him. The one wearing gold spectacles. Do you know who he is?”

“Domhnall Ardrey. He’s the Baron of Oxton. Why?”

“He was in the Banqueting House yesterday.”

Lord Ashcombe’s eye bored into me. “Doing what?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He came in with a letter of his own, already opened. It looked like he was planning to meet someone. But he got spooked and left.”

“What happened to the letter?” Walsingham asked.

“He burned it.”

Lord Ashcombe turned to His Majesty. “Arrest him.”

“For what?” the spymaster asked quietly.

“Being Scottish.”

The king laughed.

“It would be a mistake, sire,” Walsingham said.