“That was so thoughtful.”

“Yes… well. Good. Fine.”

Tom’s shoulders were shaking, which made my face grow even hotter. Sally didn’t appear to notice. She just curled up in one of the chairs, pulled out a couple of needles and yarn, and started knitting. She hummed a pleasant tune, smiling to herself.

Other than feeling the fool, all was well. As my embarrassment faded, I almost hoped for some sort of problem, because then at least I’d have something to do. Tom practiced his sword drills. Sally enjoyed her knitting; now that her injured hand had started to recover, she could manipulate the needles again, even if it was slow going.

That left me with nothing. I thought I might practice with my pistols, but both Tom and Sally pointed out—rather forcefully—that maybe firing guns around the palace was not the wisest thing to do at the moment. I was insulted; obviously I wasn’t going to shoot them in Whitehall. I figured I’d fire into the Thames. Tom told me if even one of my bullets went into the water, I was going in after it.

So the wait was killing me. I should have brought the chessboard. Both Lords Walsingham and Ashcombe were busy with their own preparations for the king’s departure to Hampton Court, and it wasn’t my place to stick my nose in, so I couldn’t learn anything from them. The spy master was kind enough to remember to send a note I’d been expecting, which was simple and unsigned.

C — The rat died.

In some way, that was a relief. On the one hand, the sugar had been poisoned, which was terrible. On the other, we’d saved everyone at the party, and I was spared from looking a complete idiot. Now I wished something would happen, already.

I should have wished for anything else.

The letter came after dark.

I didn’t see it arrive. I was looking out the window over the Thames, watching the torchlight and lanterns glow over the ripples in the water, when Sally suddenly stopped humming.

“Where did that come from?”

She’d paused in mid-yarn-loop. She stared, head cocked, at a small beige rectangle on the rug near the door.

I nearly fell off my chair scrambling to get it. Lord Walsingham was right. I’d got a letter. C. R. on the front, the back sealed with a circle in red wax. My heart skipped a beat as I cracked it open and read the message inside.

The name of the enemy. Leave it with the flowers.

Come alone.

CHAPTER 39

“NOT A CHANCE,” TOM SAID.

“This is what Lord Walsingham ordered me to wait for,” I said.

“I don’t care. No. A thousand times no.”

Sally agreed with him. “You can’t go alone, Christopher. You remember what happened the last time you were at Saint Paul’s.”

What the letter commanded was simple enough. Write down the name of the enemy and leave it with the flowers—that is, on the lid of Saint Erkenwald’s tomb, where we’d received the third puzzle.