The Queen's Secret (27 page)

Sos had swung down out of the branches and was helping Lucy down too. Landing light on her feet as always, the girl trod softly into their little circle, her dancer’s grace attracting all their gazes. No longer smiling, she accepted the jug of ale from Ned and drank a long draught.

‘This man with the bear,’ Lucy ventured, wiping her wet mouth with her hand. ‘You think he may be the Italian you’ve been chasing all summer?’

Goodluck glanced carefully about, checking nobody was close enough to overhear their conversation. But although the path through the field was filling up with people again after the damp start to the day, nobody seemed interested enough in their motley gang to stop and listen. Even the troupe of acrobats in the far corner of the field seemed to have finished their rehearsal and were talking together earnestly, head to head.

‘There’s a chance this is the man himself, yes,’ he admitted reluctantly, not keen to draw Lucy any further into this business than she already was. ‘Though if he is indeed the Italian I’ve been seeking, he is bolder than I gave him credit for. He has paraded himself and his men before us ever since the night he arrived, almost daring us to make our move.’

Ned, who had turned silent, leaning against the oak with his
arms
folded, stirred again at this. ‘But why would he take such a risk?’

‘Why indeed?’

‘Perhaps,’ Sos speculated slowly, ‘this man is a distraction, a game to make us look the wrong way. Perhaps we are supposed to notice the shiny coin in this hand, while the other hand wields a long knife.’

Lucy stared at Sos with widened eyes and lips pressed tightly together.

Wishing to reassure his young charge, Goodluck added lightly, ‘That’s a possibility. But let us not forget that all this is guesswork, nothing more. The man may be what he appears. An Italian bear-tamer with a bad temper.’

‘And a beard to rival your own,’ Twist murmured.

Twenty-eight

THE CURTAIN ABOVE
her mattress rattled on its pole and Lucy sat up in shock, roused from a sleep so deep her dreams still possessed her. It was dark in the corridor, but the man who was leaning over her makeshift bed was carrying a lantern, as though he had come from outside. Lucy thought she recognized him; one of the Queen’s aides, a stocky man with greying hair. The flame flickered dimly inside the lantern, illuminating the man’s face.

‘You’re to get up at once. The Queen wants you.’

Lucy stared, still groggy with sleep, not quite understanding the order. ‘The Queen? But … But it is not yet dawn.’

‘You have three minutes to make yourself ready and follow me,’ he told her sourly. He hoisted up his lantern to illuminate her cloak, hanging beside her cap on a hook above her bed. ‘Don’t bother to dress. You must come without delay.’

The man stood discreetly aside while Lucy swung herself out of bed, sought for her shoes and pulled her cloak around her. There was not time to dress her hair properly; instead, she dampened it with a splash of water from her bedside bowl, dragged a long-toothed comb through its unruly length, and tried to press it down under the collar of her cloak. The Queen’s aide coughed, clearly impatient.

‘I’m ready,’ Lucy announced, pulling the curtain shut behind her. She followed the eerie swinging glow of his lantern along the corridor and down one of the narrow stone stairways of the keep.
There
were window slits at every turn of the stairs. Lucy shivered in the draught, and dragged her cloak closer at the throat. Outside, a ragged light along the horizon signalled that day was breaking. No other souls appeared to be stirring in this part of the keep.

The low wooden door at the base of the stairs led out into the keep’s arcade, a paved area decorated with white fluted columns and miniature citrus trees in large wooden planters. The man gestured her to keep up, quickening his pace through the arcade, the air fragrant at this early hour, everything still fresh from last night’s dewfall. His lantern was barely necessary now, a ghostly flicker as the sky began to flush with light above them. He led her down a short flight of steps and through a rose-covered archway on to a narrow walkway. Lucy recognized the neat herb beds and clipped hedges of the Privy Garden reserved for the Queen and her ladies, the great marble fountain at its centre spilling an endless cascade of water, the only sound to break the silence.

The Queen was waiting at the end of the lime-tree walk, pacing back and forth as though unable to keep still. Her ladies, wrapped in cloaks, their heads close together, stood huddled by the gated entrance, within sight of their mistress but evidently forbidden to approach any closer. One or two of the women raised pale, resentful faces as Lucy entered the garden, surveying her undressed hair and shabby cloak with disdain.

‘Lucy Morgan!’ the Queen exclaimed, seeing her approach, her eyes keen and bright. ‘Well done, Fenlon. You will wait with my ladies and escort Mistress Morgan back once I am finished with her. No, take the lantern. We shall not need it, it is almost dawn.’

Once the man had retired to the gate with the others, the Queen signalled Lucy to walk alongside her.

Clad in a floor-length hooded cloak that hid an intricately embroidered nightgown, its hem peeping out from beneath the dark woollen folds, the Queen walked in silence along the path under the lime trees again, shooting occasional glances over her shoulder at her women.

Her face was more flushed and agitated than Lucy had seen it before, except perhaps when she had been screaming for the lord Leicester the evening of their barge ride. But her voice was low and urgent this time, almost a whisper.

‘I cannot trust them, you understand, not a single one of my women, or I should never have summoned you like this. When my dearest Kat was alive … but now, I cannot be sure. Times have changed since I was first queen. You, though, can have no secrets to conceal, Lucy Morgan, my blackbird, my lovely song thrush.’

Unexpectedly the Queen halted, and whirled in a rich rustle of material to fix Lucy with a sudden, terrifying stare.

‘Has anyone come at you these past few weeks? Asked questions about me? Given you gold or jewellery, perhaps, to carry them word of what I do or say?’

‘No, Your Majesty,’ Lucy replied, though to her dismay she heard her voice shake – more from fear of what such questions might mean than from any hidden guilt. She tried to suppress the memory of Leicester throwing his gold chain about her neck and asking her to report back to him whatever Her Majesty said or did, for she was sure his motive was love, not intrigue. Luckily the Queen did not appear to have noticed.

‘I had to ask.’ The Queen began to walk again, biting her lip. ‘Even after all these years, there are still those in this country who would seek to harm me, to topple me from my throne. It is imperative that I keep my private affairs secret and give such men no weapon to be used against me. You understand? Not a word of what I say here must pass your lips. Not even on your deathbed, though it might cost you your life under torture to stay silent. You understand?’

Lucy nodded, feeling a rush of pride at the Queen’s faith in her discretion, even as her knees weakened at the word ‘torture’.

‘You must know that I have a special place in my heart for Lord Leicester. It is no great secret.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘Then you will understand why I must ask you to spy on him for me. And on Lady Essex too.’ The Queen jerked to a halt again, her eyes flashing under the shadowy hood. Her tone became accusing. ‘Tell me truthfully now, has Leicester asked you to carry messages to the Countess of Essex?’

Lucy did not dare to lie. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘I …’ She twisted her hands, then let them fall to her sides,
knowing
that any attempt to protect the Earl of Leicester would be futile. The Queen had her own spies, she must want only confirmation of her own part in the deception. ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty. I cannot say what was in that message.’

‘I thought you could read.’

‘I can, Your Majesty. My guardian saw to my tutoring as a child. But the letter the Lord Leicester gave me was sealed.’

The Queen stared. ‘You did not think to open it?’

‘I am no spy, Your Majesty. I would not open any letter not directed to me.’

‘Highly commendable.’ But the sharp flicker of her gaze over Lucy’s face showed how unconvinced the Queen was by this explanation. ‘But you think they met?’

Struggling against her desire to stay silent, Lucy glanced beyond the Queen to the small knot of women huddled near the gate. To betray a trust would be an unspeakable act of treachery. Yet to refuse to answer the Queen would be treason, surely?

‘The Earl of Leicester asked me to carry a letter to the countess, Your Majesty, and that is all. I do not know what was in it. I took no letter back to his lordship from the countess, and I never saw them together.’

‘Not once?’

‘Never, Your Majesty.’

‘You swear this on your life?’

‘I … I swear it on my life,’ she managed, nodding, and at last the Queen seemed satisfied, turning away and so not seeing how Lucy’s hands wrenched at each other in anguish.

It was not a lie, she told herself feverishly. But she had not admitted the whole affair to the Queen. She knew, after all, even if she had not seen it with her own eyes, that the two must be lovers. There could be no other explanation for their secretive behaviour.

Elizabeth sat on a bench at the end of the walk, and gestured Lucy to join her. Although her cheeks were still pale under the hooded cloak, she seemed calmer now. The light was growing stronger, and the early mist that had swirled about her ankles on entering the garden had begun to melt away.

‘I had the most horrible dream this morning, just before first
light.
It was only a dream but it felt like truth, like a premonition. Do you believe in such mysteries?’ Staring down at her hands, lying still and white in her lap, the Queen did not wait for an answer but continued, speaking almost to herself. ‘In the dream, I was in prison again, back in the Tower – I was imprisoned there as a girl, did you know? I had been deposed and my throne seized. I lay on the floor, face down on the filthy stone, too weak even to stand and confront my accusers. I had no champion left, no one to fight for my cause. They had all turned their faces away from me. I had to lie there and await my execution as the false Queen of England.’

‘It could not happen!’ Lucy burst out, forgetting for a moment to be quiet and respectful. ‘You are the rightful heir. Who would dare seize the throne from the lawful daughter of King Henry?’

Queen Elizabeth’s gaze lifted, a flash of anger in those eyes, and Lucy realized that she was looking directly at the Countess of Essex, a tall, cloaked figure waiting with the other ladies. ‘There are some,’ she explained slowly, ‘who feel the legality of my birth to be still in doubt and their own claim to the throne as strong as mine. You are too young and innocent, my songbird, to understand the greed and envy of the court, and how swiftly a prince may lose his crown through courtly guile and trickery. Yet trust me when I say that it can happen overnight – especially if that prince is deaf to the whispers and manoeuvres of the ambitious.’

‘Your Majesty, there is no one at your court who does not love and honour you as their true queen. You have many loyal followers who would never allow such a calamity to happen,’ Lucy declared hotly.

‘And my dream? This premonition?’

‘Don’t listen to it, I beg you. I’ve had nightmares too, when I’ve eaten too much or the moon is full, and they mean nothing.’ She cast about for some comfort to offer the Queen, whose face seemed so downcast. ‘Master Goodluck says a bad dream is nothing but a bad dinner that returns to haunt the eater.’

The Queen laughed at that and pinched her cheek. ‘In truth, your guardian seems a very wise and learned man.’

Lucy blushed, and looked away as she remembered her earlier lie. What would Master Goodluck say if he knew what she had
just
done, how she had protected his lordship rather than tell the Queen the truth? She felt sure he would be very angry, and consider her a traitor to the throne.

‘Come now,’ the Queen said, rising to her feet and shaking out her cloak with a wry smile, ‘it is dawn. The cock is crowing. The castle will soon be awake and here I am, still in my nightgown and cloak, like a child caught out of bed. You too had better return and dress yourself. For we have another busy day of entertainments ahead, and the delight of your voice may be required again once I have breakfasted. But promise me one thing before you go, Lucy Morgan. For I felt a kinship with you as soon as you spoke before the court of your mother’s death and your lonely upbringing, and I know you will want to help me because of this. Next time his lordship hands you a letter to bear to the Countess of Essex, or indeed to any other lady of the court, you must bring it to me instead.’

Lucy stared, unable to speak properly. ‘Your Majesty?’

‘And you shall be well rewarded. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘yes, Your Majesty.’