Following the cartomantic associations that I've seen, Spades in the Lenormand playing-card insets represent Swords, which in playing-card reading show negativity and all manner of difficulties. But it's interesting that all of the truly negative Lenormand cards have a "Clubs" inset, which Caitlin Matthews considers a definite "no" to the Spades "maybe no." This despite the fact that the cartomantic Clubs are associated with Wands and reflect mostly positive qualities like enterprise, ambition, resourcefulness, activity, practicality. However, the Spades-associated cards are almost all "neutral" in effect while the Clubs cards - with one or two exceptions - are all challenging. I'm a beginner with reading playing-card suits, but this strikes me as an anomaly when mated with the Lenormand card meanings.