The Queen's Secret (3 page)

‘And his mission to obtain funds?’

‘It may have been successful, but I cannot be sure. Before he left, Lorenzo took his guest into town with him, and did not return until the following day. I tried to track their movements all that day and evening, but they kept giving me the slip. With insulting ease, in fact. Either this man was an expert at espionage, or a year playing Eduardo the simpleton had slowed me up.’

Walsingham allowed himself a fleeting smile. ‘I should have liked to see you as a simpleton.’

‘And a hunchback, no less. From the Pisan countryside. I had to chew grass all day and roll my eyes like an idiot.’

‘And now you come to Kenilworth to play … what? The courtly hanger-on? The lovesick suitor? You have essayed those roles before, as I recall.’

Goodluck fingered his beard ruefully. ‘It took me the last few months to grow back my beard. Some judicious padding, false eyebrows, and I shall be Goodluck once more, master of a troupe of travelling players.’

‘In which guise I presume you plan to join the Queen’s progress.’

Walsingham began to walk back in the shelter of the yew hedge, and Goodluck fell in silently beside him. The dark gleam of the lake was just visible through the waterside gate. Their footsteps made only a little grating sound on the sandy path.

‘Her Majesty should be here in state within a few days. Leicester writes that the court will arrive on Saturday, and the Queen herself some time in the early evening.’ Walsingham hesitated, his tone thoughtful. ‘If you have brought a troupe, you will need lodgings for yourself and your men.’

‘A place to set up a tent near the castle walls, sir, that’s all we’ll require. It would be prudent not to draw attention to ourselves with any special treatment.’ Goodluck produced from his pouch a somewhat dog-eared piece of paper and unfolded it. Inside were a few lines in a distinctive, flowing hand, with a faded cloverleaf stamped underneath: Walsingham’s personal device. ‘As for introductions, this should see us right.’

Walsingham nodded, turning his head aside to cough. ‘Better speak to one of the castle steward’s men tomorrow, before it is too late to secure yourself a place close to the castle. And keep your eyes and ears open for the slightest hint of this new Catholic plot. Report back to me at intervals. Discreetly, of course. Your instincts are correct: if our codes have been compromised, we must commit nothing to writing until new ones are established. I shall set that in motion. Watch for the usual signal.’

Goodluck inclined his head. ‘Sir.’

They walked another moment in silence, listening to the far-off amorous bellow of a bull in the fields. Stopping just short of the
waterside
gate, where torchlight could be seen glinting off the helmet of a guard on patrol, Walsingham felt within his cloak and brought out a few gold coins.

‘Take them,’ he murmured, and pressed them into Goodluck’s hand. ‘Despite my letter, you will need to produce a bribe for the steward’s men, as is customary in these last-minute matters. Otherwise they will be less than helpful.’ He glanced at the sundial on the wall as though to check the time, but its gilt face was shrouded in darkness. ‘And now I must get myself to bed, for my health is no better this evening, despite the herbal remedies Leicester’s physician has prescribed. Ursula joins me tomorrow, and she always knows when I have been staying up too late. I don’t believe you ever took a wife, did you?’

‘No, sir.’ Goodluck laughed softly. ‘Nor am I ever likely to marry. I’ve never felt the need for such a shackle, however attractively disguised.’

They parted with a nod under the gnarled oak tree. Goodluck shinned back up the trunk and settled himself down for another few hours in its uncomfortable branches, arms folded, booted feet tucked up safe out of sight of any passing patrols. He resigned himself to boredom; he would have to wait until the guard was changed on the north gate at midnight before making his exit.

He watched as Walsingham slowly ascended the steps back into the Warwickshire stronghold that was Caesar’s Tower, heard the guards’ challenge at the entrance to the arcade and the great man’s quiet reply. The garden was empty once more. A warm breeze ruffled the oak leaves, wafting a delicious fragrance of thyme and rosemary from the knot garden across his hiding place.

I don’t believe you ever took a wife, did you
?

Unwillingly, Goodluck recalled bright fearful eyes in a dark face, a woman’s sweating body as she laboured to bring forth her child, and the long silence that had come after.

If he had ever considered taking a wife, it had been for only the shortest and cruellest of moments, and never again since.

Two

The forest at Long Itchington, Warwickshire

SHADOWS WAVERED AND
shrank outside the tent wall, human figures half glimpsed through a ripple of silk. Drowsy, in nothing but her underwear, Elizabeth lay curled on her daybed as though on her royal barge. One hand trailing in imaginary water below, she delighted in the whisper of beech trees above the roof of her tent, sweet country air masking the scent of sweat and unwashed bodies, enjoying the idle warmth of an English summer.

‘Is Her Majesty still asleep?’ A pause, then another hurried whisper. ‘We must move by five, or risk coming to Kenilworth after nightfall.’

Her eyelids flickered, then closed again stubbornly. Elizabeth knew that male voice, would have recognized it anywhere, even heard against the frustrated droning of a bee caught between two folds of the tent.

The guard at the entrance spoke again, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, made a reply, too low to be heard. But she thought there was a hint of impatience in his tone.

Minded to sit up and call for her favourite, Elizabeth forced herself to remain still on her cushioned daybed, to taste the sweet agony of this self-denial a few moments longer. An old hare tastes better left to stew, she reminded herself, and stretched her arms above her head.

Besides, she could not be private here with Robin, as she liked to call him when they were alone, still using his pet name from when they were young. Her ladies lay about her on the floor of the tent, wilting like caged birds in the heat, their black and white plumage bedraggled after several hours in the saddle. What a glorious hunt it had been! They had eventually brought the panting stag to bay on the wooded banks of a stream, trapped between a line of snarling hounds and Robert’s huntsmen armed with sticks and horns.

Turning on to her back, she stared up at the gently billowing tent roof. Robert had been at his most charming this past year, barely leaving her side, his lavish gifts and attentiveness so marked that everyone at court was once more predicting a royal marriage before Christmas. Poor wag-tongued fools, no doubt they thought the Queen would not get to hear their stable-yard gossip. But while darling Robert might be her ‘Eyes’, she had her ‘Ears’ at court as well, and those ears were very long indeed.

Despite this, their gossip was not far off the mark. There could be no mistaking the signs. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, intended to make her another proposal of marriage this summer.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. Nothing had changed. She would as soon relinquish her throne to her poisonous cousin Mary as marry and bow to her husband’s rule as every good wife must. By Christ, though, she was growing no younger, and the country knew it as well as she. Her chance to make an heir for England would soon be past and forgotten, her womb withered, unused as any prune-faced nun’s.

Surely now she must accept her fate and marry, as her own royal physicians had advised her, before it was too late to conceive a child?

But did she truly wish to marry a Dudley, one of her servants – however faithful and desirable – when at the snap of her fingers she could have any unmarried prince in Europe?

Still, the thought of lying with Robert all night in a legitimate bed, waking to him each morning as her sworn husband before God, their union sanctified by the tiresomely disapproving archbishop himself, brought another luxurious smile to her lips. Oh
yes,
there would be compensations for such an unsuitable match, and not before time.

Robert’s low voice came again, outside the tent entrance, enquiring if she was awake. He was right, of course. It was time for her to be out and about, ready for the ride to Kenilworth, although it seemed barely an hour since she had lain down to sleep, drowsy in the afternoon heat after half a day’s good hunting and a pavilion lunch under the trees.

Preparing to rise, Elizabeth stirred, but halted at the sight of one of her ladies already on her feet, shaking out a dark crumpled gown before tiptoeing on bare feet to the entrance.

The afternoon sun glinted off a tawny red head, the modest simplicity of her wifely cap removed while she slept, hair arranged in pretty ringlets looped about her ears, her hips swaying with the sharp sensuality of a woman determined to make the most of the man she has caught.

Lettice
.

Frozen in disbelief, Elizabeth watched as the two shadows – one graceful and full-skirted, the other tall and bowing gallantly at his lady’s approach – drew their heads close together outside the tent and conversed in whispers she could no more hope to catch than she could understand the birdsong fluting in the branches above. How many moments passed while she lay still as death and listened, Elizabeth could not be sure. Somewhere nearby a hound began to bark excitedly and was hushed. She could hear the jangle of horses’ bits, orders being given, the crack of hooves over the forest floor.

Soon, the other women were stirring, sitting up and talking among themselves. Lady Helena, the sweet girl, fetched a glass of wine, then knelt and held it to her lips.

Elizabeth drank, her face composed, and watched as Lettice, Countess of Essex, re-entered the tent. Lettice’s face was flushed, her eyes lively as a young girl’s fresh-come from her lover, and she took up her plain white cap with unsteady hands, setting it to cover that tawny tumble of hair as though concealing her shame.

Too late, too late
, Elizabeth jeered inwardly. But her lips did not form a single word. She allowed Helena to dab her mouth dry with a white damask cloth redolent of lavender water.

With her ladies gathered about her, she stood for the heavy gold-embroidered foreskirt to be fitted. Turning full circle, she raised her arms to allow them to fix and pin the magnificent cloth-of-gold bodice tight about her chest.

Let Robert and Lettice whisper and play at lovers. I am the Queen and I shall make a triumphal entry into Kenilworth
.

Yes, her people would fall to their knees before her unmatched splendour, and she would raise them up with her hand. She had no time for this courtly art of dalliance, for clandestine meetings and secret looks. She was a Tudor – blunt as a stone in love, but lion-hearted in a fight. As her enemies would soon witness, the Countess of Essex foremost among them.

She stretched out an arm for the heavy jewelled sleeve, releasing her breath very slowly as each ribbon fastened it to her bodice.
Gird me for battle. I shall neither fail nor faint
. Her ladies drew the laces tight, and slipped sturdy riding boots on to her feet. Her wigs were brought forward for her to choose from, her complexion gently rubbed and refreshed with scented oils before the smoothing white paint was applied.

‘On to Kenilworth, ladies!’

Her voice rang sharp through the crowded tent, heads turning in her direction, sleepy and surprised. Only her cousin Lettice, still gartering one of her stockings with bowed head and slow, deliberate hands, did not look up at the command.

The women hurriedly cleared a path as Elizabeth left the tent, only Lady Helena having the presence of mind to seize her stiff jewelled train and run behind with it, holding it up out of the dirt.

Outside the sun was beginning to dip into early evening, its thin reddish light burning through the trees. Someone had kicked over their camp fire to quench it, and the drifting smoke left her eyes smarting.

Robert stood waiting like Herne the Hunter under the leafy vastness of an ancient oak, as sturdy as that wood. Age had not diminished his physique, superb in dark red jerkin and doublet, slashed sleeves glinting with gold, his cap feathered and set at an angle. She still thought of him as a young man, so gloriously handsome, his dark eyes bright with ambition and unfulfilled promise. Nonetheless, she did not fail to notice how his face had
tightened
with the years, the smudges under his eyes gradually deepening, his mouth smiling more warily these days, watching her as much with frustration as desire.

Once, in his youthful pride and arrogance, Robert had only thought to ask her ‘When?’ Now he knew better than to ask at all, seeming to prefer silence to outright rejection, though even his customary reticence was wearing thin. Whatever would follow it, she was yet to discover.

Her tone was clipped. ‘My lord Leicester.’

‘Your Majesty,’ he replied, bowing low, and Elizabeth felt a stab of satisfaction, glad that he was uncertain of her, remembering perhaps that she was his queen, not some other man’s wife whom he must fumble in doorways or under cover of darkness.