His Dark Lady (14 page)

If he was taken, it could take days for Walsingham to give the order for his release. Assuming the Queen’s spymaster would even do so. Goodluck had not been received with much grace on his return from Italy, as though his story of capture and incarceration was considered suspect. It was a risk he did not wish to take, having only just escaped from a long stretch in an Italian prison.

To his frustration, there was an old man standing guard over the back door to the warehouse when he reached it. No doubt hearing the shouts and sounds of pursuit, the old fool had armed himself with an ancient pike. His grey beard swam up out of the gloom, his face pale but showing determination to do his duty.

‘Hold fast there!’ he called in a quavering voice, and shoved the pike in Goodluck’s face.

‘I’ve done you no harm, sir,’ Goodluck murmured, opening his hands to show that they were empty. ‘And I’m not here to steal. Just let me pass and there’ll be no trouble.’

Even in the dim light, Goodluck could see hesitancy in the old man’s face, and guessed he would prefer not to use the pike.

Then the damning cry went up behind him, ‘Murderer!’

‘He’s back here!’ the old man called out, then lunged at him with the rusty old pike, ripping Goodluck’s cloak and almost catching him in the shoulder.

Cursing, Goodluck felt for the long dagger at his belt. But he did not draw it. He knew the odds were against him succeeding if he made a fight of it. His pursuers would be upon him before he had a chance to use the dagger. Flight was his best option. Hurriedly, he took advantage of the old man fumbling to pick up the pike, and ran past him to the open doorway on to the river.

It was almost dusk, and rain was still falling heavily. There were
no
boats tied up to the entrance, nowhere to jump to as he had hoped. Again, he cursed under his breath. There was nothing for it but to go down into the water.

Standing on the lip of the waterside doorway, Goodluck glanced down for an instant, trying to judge the height of the drop. The river lay at his feet, a dark mass rolling sluggishly under the constant pelter of rain, maybe twenty feet or more below.

He looked up and out across the River Thames. He knew how to swim, thank God, but it was a daunting stretch between him and the nearest spars of the south bank. A few small craft bobbed at anchor in the distance. Rather closer to hand, drifting slowly under the nearside arch of the bridge, was an ancient river barge. Battered, and listing badly in the current, the barge looked as though it had seen service in old King Henry’s time. Through the dark haze of rain, Goodluck could just make out a squat figure, wrapped up and hunched over the tiller. There could be little hope of help there.

‘Murderer!’

Half-turning on the ledge at that cry, Goodluck felt something thrust between his shoulder blades with a terrible burning pain.

His knees crumbled as the cold metal twisted in the wound it had made, then was brutally withdrawn. Too late, he realized the old man was not as frail as he had looked.

With an agonized cry, Goodluck launched himself into mid-air and fell, quick as a stone, into the dark current below.

Eleven

Whitehall Palace, London, spring 1584

LUCY SANK TO
her knees before the throne and waited for the Queen to snap her fingers so she could rise. She enjoyed singing the English country songs best, for they suited her voice, but the old French ballad requested by the Queen for tonight’s masque was also one of her favourites.

‘Now for some dancing!’ the Queen announced. She straightened her gold-fringed mask and clapped her hands at the bemused courtiers, seeming to forget that Lucy was still on her knees before her. ‘Come, let us hear something livelier!’

Leicester bent to her ear, and Elizabeth made an angry gesture at his whisper, then rose to dance.

‘Sir Christopher, I wish to lead the revels tonight,’ the Queen said, and held out her hand to an elderly courtier in a stiff doublet of black and silver. Sir Christopher Hatton bowed low over it before guiding her down from the dais.

Hurriedly, the court musicians struck up a tune with horns and flutes, one single drum note keeping the beat, and the Queen began to dance. She raised her heavy skirts with one hand until a gold-encrusted slipper appeared, tapping to the beat of the drum. Hatton bowed slowly, turned, and lifted her hand between them in a high salute. She swayed back and forth in the dance, finally allowing Hatton to lead her round the circle of admiring courtiers,
rather
like a horse at market being shown off to prospective buyers.

Cautiously, her knees aching on the cold stone, Lucy raised her head and peered through the slanted eyeholes of her mask at Lord Leicester.

Leicester gave a shrug. She could not see his expression under the black mask, but his fist was clenched in anger on his sword hilt. He glared across at the Queen, who was apparently too busy dancing with Hatton to notice, and gestured Lucy to rise.

Staring at the dancers, Lucy wondered what she could have done now to incur the Queen’s displeasure. She tried to school her expression not to show her concern, but it was impossible. Her friend Catherine sidled up through the crowd and squeezed her arm.

‘Don’t pay it any mind,’ her friend whispered in her ear, leading Lucy away from the dancing. Reaching the back wall of the chamber, she stopped to adjust Lucy’s mask, which did not seem to fit properly and kept slipping off. ‘Gossip has it that it’s not just the toothache that irks her these days. Some say the Queen’s been bleeding for weeks and is in a foul temper. Soon she’ll be too old for childbearing, and that’ll bring an end to all the handsome young foreign princes coming to court her.’

‘Hush, Cathy,’ Lucy cautioned her, though she could not help smiling at her friend’s wicked gossip. ‘Someone might hear you.’

‘No one can hear us.’ Catherine pressed a cup of wine into Lucy’s hand. ‘Look, drink this and cheer up. You’ve been gloomy for ages. What is it? Still dreaming of poor dead Tom back in Warwickshire?’

Lucy drank some wine. It felt heavy and strong, tingling against her tongue. ‘No,’ she defended herself. ‘I was thinking of my guardian, Master Goodluck. I sent him a letter two weeks ago, asking his advice, and he has not written back.’

Guiltily, she realized that she had not thought of Tom Black for ages. Not since that strange night when she had seen Will Shakespeare in the Queen’s garden. It was as though seeing the boy again – a man now, and grown more handsome than she could have imagined – had erased Tom Black from her mind.

‘Good,’ Catherine said pointedly. ‘It’s about time you stopped mourning poor Tom. It’s been years since he died, and you’ve never even looked at another man since. As for Master Goodluck, he’ll be
in
some scrape or other, and will no doubt send you word once he’s out of it. Besides, I’ve something exciting to tell you.’

Lucy looked at her suspiciously. Her friend’s eyes were glittering oddly behind the mask.

‘What are you up to this time?’ she demanded, then lowered her voice at Catherine’s instinctive protest. It was always important not to be overheard at court. ‘Come on, what news is this? You’ve been planning something for weeks. I can always tell when you’ve some new mischief in hand.’

‘It’s Oswald.’

Lucy sighed at the name. She had never met Oswald, but had heard of him often enough from Catherine. He was the eldest son of one of her father’s neighbours back in Norfolk, and completely besotted with Catherine, by the sound of it. ‘Not Oswald again.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s no use trying to see him, you only just returned from Norfolk. You’ll need special permission to leave court again so soon, and you’ll never get it, not with the summer progress so close at hand.’

Catherine grabbed at Lucy’s hand and drew it to her belly, which felt curiously hard and rounded under the folds of her skirts. ‘I won’t need permission now,’ she hissed in her ear. ‘Feel that bump? Oswald wrote me yesterday. He knows about the baby and says we’re to be married at once. I’m leaving court tomorrow and going back to Norfolk to be with him.’

Lucy was aghast. ‘A child? Out of wedlock? But you’ll be punished once they find out.’

‘They won’t find out,’ Catherine said, and smirked from beneath her little white eye-mask. ‘I’ve told the steward my father is dying and I’ve to go home at once. Once there, I’ll be married straightaway and that’ll be that. I’m not like you. I’m not important. No one will miss me or care if I never come back to court.’

‘I’ll care,’ Lucy said thinly. ‘You’re my only friend here.’

Catherine hugged her. ‘I’ll write every month.’

‘It won’t be the same.’

‘It can’t be helped. Not now.’ Catherine kissed her on the lips. ‘You must see that I have to marry him.’

Lucy closed her eyes. ‘Oh, Cathy.’

‘You must come and visit me in Norfolk once the baby is born. I’ll
be
bored to death in the country. Promise me you’ll visit next year.’ Catherine gave a little cry, squeezing Lucy so hard she could hardly breathe. ‘I don’t know how I’ll survive not being at court. Not dancing every day. Not singing for the Queen. It feels like I’ve been here all my life.’

‘You belong here.’

There was some noise and commotion behind them. The horns and flutes had stopped. From the sudden burst of laughter and applause, Lucy guessed that the players had entered the chamber. She glanced over her shoulder and saw lithe men in striped yellow and green tumbling and jumping on each other’s shoulders. They reminded her of the young Italian acrobats she had seen at Kenilworth, she thought, and the memory was like a knife to her heart.

‘Who is it?’ Catherine asked, staring.

‘The Queen’s Men, I think,’ Lucy whispered back into Catherine’s ear. Her friend was holding her by the waist. ‘They’re to play a short comic piece before the Queen. Do you sing later?’

Catherine nodded. ‘With the others.’

The play started and the crowd about them thinned, moving to watch the players.

Catherine took another drink of wine and looked about the chamber. ‘Everyone is so stern these days,’ she whispered. ‘I heard the Spanish ambassador was escorted to the coast under guard in the New Year, and all his servants with him. Will there be war with Spain now, do you think?’

‘Yes.’

Catherine’s unbound fair hair shone in the torchlight as she shuddered. ‘I’m not sad I shall miss that. Though Oswald is so stupid sometimes. He talks of going to war at his father’s side if it comes. I’ve told him he can’t. Not once we are married, and he is a father himself. But he refuses to listen. Oh, Lucy, how shall I bear it if he is killed?’

‘He’s too young. They wouldn’t take him.’

‘Oswald’s not a boy any more. He’s almost twenty-five years of age.’ Catherine giggled at Lucy’s amazed expression. ‘He has a full beard!’

Lucy stared, then shook her head. ‘I forget, sometimes, how long we’ve been at court. The years fly so quickly.’

‘Then let that be a lesson to you to get yourself a man and marry before it is too late.’

‘It’s already too late.’

Catherine pinched her arm. ‘Don’t talk nonsense. You are still a young woman.’

‘Her Majesty would never give me permission to marry. She made me swear, years ago, to stay a virgin.’

‘She makes all her unmarried ladies swear that! It doesn’t mean you have to obey.’ There was a burst of laughter from the crowd as the fool slipped over, making some jest at his own expense. Catherine dragged Lucy nearer to the door before releasing her, and lowered her voice. ‘You want to grow old and wrinkled and barren like the Queen, is that it? You want to sleep alone every night and never know the pleasure of a man inside you?’

Lucy laughed, though she was in truth a little shocked by her friend’s directness, and shook her head. ‘Well, if that’s how it must be—’ she began, and looked up to meet the intense stare of Will Shakespeare.

The words dried in her throat and Lucy stumbled, putting out a hand to support herself against the wall. She glanced at him briefly, then away, suddenly unable to trust herself even to look at him without revealing her thoughts.

Will was bare-headed, his short dark hair slicked back. He was cloaked as though dressed for the street, where it had been raining most of the day. Underneath the cloak he was dressed in the green and yellow stripes of the company, his mask dangling unused in his hand.

‘What’s the matter?’ Catherine asked, then turned and saw Will herself. Her smile broadened as she gazed from Lucy’s averted face to Will Shakespeare’s, no doubt sensing some intrigue between them. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Madam, my name is Will Shakespeare and I bid you good evening.’ He looked directly past her at Lucy. ‘I do not wish to be uncivil, but may I have a word alone with Mistress Morgan?’

Catherine ignored Lucy’s urgent protest, and curtsied. ‘But of course you may,’ she said at once, annoying Lucy. ‘You are not uncivil, Master Shakespeare, though you are perhaps a little rough in your ways. My friend Lucy may not like such stableyard manners.’

‘I am from Warwickshire, madam. My countrymen are all like this, or worse.’