The Queen's Secret (34 page)

‘Where is Lady Essex?’ Elizabeth remembered to ask a while later.

She had sat up at Mary’s insistence, strangely restless, with a dull ache in her belly, to take half a cup of the physician’s foul-tasting herbal infusion. The curtains had been drawn about her bed to block out the light, and she had to remind herself that it must be nearing the middle of the day, though the continuing rain made the room dark and chill.

‘Is she in the Privy Chamber with the other women?’

She disliked not knowing what was happening beyond the closed doors of her bedchamber. Now that Robert had removed himself from her apartments, his repeated demands for admittance ignored, she could not help but worry that he and Lettice must now be closeted somewhere privately.

Mary tilted the infusion to her lips once more, her face unreadable in the dim light. ‘Lady Lettice is unwell, Your Majesty.’

‘Unwell?’

‘She too did not rise from her bed this morning, I am told, and cannot keep anything down.’

Elizabeth stared, her heart tightening with an inexorable agony.
Cannot keep anything down
? The terrible possibility that Lettice was with child by Robert came back to haunt her.

Abruptly, she remembered a brief private letter sent to her from Ireland: Lord Essex’s terse request had been that his wife should be sent home from court to tend his younger children in his absence. Elizabeth had ignored his letter, for she disliked being told how to order her own ladies, however much she might relish the thought of banishing Lettice to the depths of the country. Besides, it had seemed politic to keep her red-haired cousin close by, where her spies might more easily watch both her and Robert. It was not beyond the bounds of belief, after all, that Lettice could make a play for the throne, given the right allies about her.

But now she wondered if it was not too late, if her favourite had not already visited Lettice’s bed – and carelessly made a child on the vile woman.

‘Send her to me at once,’ she told Mary.

‘But, Your Majesty—’

‘Do as I bid you.’ Elizabeth knocked aside the cup with its few remaining drops of herbal infusion. ‘And get this stinking privy water away from me. I will see the Countess of Essex this very day, even if she must be carried to my chambers on a litter.’

Thirty-five

THE OLD WINE
store had not been used in some years. ‘eight, at least,’ the steward’s assistant, Caradoc, had told Goodluck, no doubt hoping it would make him less interested to see inside the old place. Instead, Goodluck’s curiosity had grown and he nodded for the Welshman to show it to him. At the door, Caradoc fumbled for the correct key on his belt, muttering under his breath, shoving one after another aside with a jangle before coming to an ancient-looking copper key with a lozenge-shaped head and a flattened shaft. It reminded Goodluck of one he had seen for an old church crypt in London, the lock dating back several centuries.

‘How long since this cellar was built?’ Goodluck asked, looking at the squat, heavily studded door. ‘Is it one of the oldest parts of the castle?’

‘Not this, no,’ the Welshman replied, his tone contemptuous. ‘Though you’d have to ask the master steward for the dates. He’d know.’

Caradoc fitted the key in the lock and attempted to turn it. It would not budge. He removed the key, spat on it several times, then pushed it back into the lock.

Goodluck stepped back, angled his neck and peered up the sheer stone face of the castle proper. Small wonder Leicester had not expressed too much concern over this latest conspiracy. He could see from here how difficult it would be to effect an entry
into
the state apartments: the stones fitted so smoothly together, there were no gaps left for foot- or handholds, nor were the windows on this side wide enough to admit a man, even if a rope could be let down.

But if the conspirators were to enter the castle by some other means …

The door to the old wine store sat low in the wall, midway between the old building and the new. The old part of the wall was lichened and crumbling in places, and the fresher sandstone of Leicester’s new construction stood gleaming in the sunlight, still bearing scoremarks from the builders’ instruments. Someone’s initials had been chiselled into the soft stone above a doorway and, rather higher up, a rude message about one of the labourers’ wives.

‘Ah, that’s it now,’ the Welshman grunted and, putting his shoulder to the door, got it open at last.

A waft of dank air blew out past their faces. They both stood and stared into the unpromising darkness.

Caradoc looked at Goodluck. ‘What is it you think you’re looking for, anyway?’

‘I don’t know.’

Caradoc gave a shrug and a shake of his head, as if to indicate that if Goodluck didn’t know, he didn’t know either.

‘You’d best go in, then. Take a look around.’

Goodluck ducked his head and entered the chamber. There was a step down to a floor that was part stone, part sand and mud. The place leaked, clearly. Several stacks of old crates stood to the left of the doorway. He did not see them in the darkness, his eyes not yet adjusted after the bright sunshine outside, and he knocked some over with a clatter. Caradoc said nothing, but stepped over the fallen crates and pointed significantly up at the ceiling.

In the dim light from the open doorway, Goodluck could just make out a wooden hatch of some kind in the roof. There were no windows in the store, and he wondered if it had been intended for ventilation.

He asked Caradoc if he knew the reason, but the Welshman shook his head.

‘Though I did hear that in the old steward’s day,’ he offered up
as
an afterthought, ‘barrels were sometimes hoist up on a pulley into the room above, to save the men rolling them round to the back of the great hall. It’s a steep slope out there, as you’ll have seen. But that stopped about eight years back. They sealed up this old place and used the stores by the kitchens instead for keeping the lord’s wine cool. Though why the hatch was put there in the first place, I couldn’t say.’

‘How would it have been opened?’

‘From above, though there’d be nothing to stop it being pushed open from this side.’

‘And is there any direct access to the state apartments through that hatch?’

Caradoc scratched his head, considering the matter. ‘There’s another storage room right above us, though it’s just full of clutter these days. There’s a corridor, then another storage room. And that leads into the new apartments. So yes, I suppose it would be possible to reach the state rooms from here.’

‘Is the hatch kept locked?’

‘I don’t think so. But this door is.’

With his eye, Goodluck measured the distance between the ground and the unlocked hatch. It was not a high-ceilinged room, but was not low enough for the hatch to be reached without the aid of a ladder.

‘The gate in the mereside wall,’ he asked. ‘Is it always guarded?’

‘Only now, while the court is in residence,’ Caradoc replied. ‘The Queen’s storeroom is in the base of the new building, holding all manner of precious goods and furniture, and must be guarded night and day. We passed the entrance on the way up here.’

His deep voice echoed in the empty wine store, rumbling about the walls. So the gate in the wall was kept guarded, to protect the Queen’s storeroom just beyond it. This whole business was giving Goodluck a headache. It was one mystery after another, and none of the pieces fitted together. There was something he wasn’t seeing, some piece of the puzzle he had missed. He thought of the odd loop of metal in Massetti’s room, which he now took out of his pocket and showed to the steward.

‘What do you make of this?’

The man frowned, taking a closer look. ‘Could be a belt-ring. For attaching keys to a belt, like the one I’m wearing.’

He loosened the sturdy leather belt from around his middle. Hanging down from an iron ring was a thick, stubby chain, at the end of which dangled various keys to the castle. He held the broken piece of iron next to his own belt-ring. It seemed a likely match – or likely enough to satisfy Goodluck that the odd twist of metal was linked to Master Drury’s missing keys. Caradoc seemed struck by this discovery, and a little suspicious too. He handed back the broken ring reluctantly.

‘I’d lay a wager that’s come from Malcolm’s key-belt. Where did you find it?’

‘Nowhere in particular.’

Caradoc looked at him sideways, bleary eyes narrowed. ‘What’s all this about, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I do mind you asking,’ Goodluck replied tersely, as he stooped through the low opening again into the sunlight. He had seen enough of that dank hole.

Goodluck stood a moment on the steep grassy slope under the castle wall, staring over the bright waters of the mere towards the encampment at the Brays. Behind him, Caradoc swore and wrestled again with the recalcitrant lock.

Another dead end, or so it seemed to him. Even if they had murdered one of the steward’s men to obtain the key to this door, the conspirators would soon find themselves out of luck if they tried to use it. For a start, they would need a ladder to reach the hatch. Then, there was a constant guard on the wall-gate down yonder, a gate designed to block folk from penetrating the inner defences of the castle where the Queen’s most precious possessions were kept under lock and key. And while the newly rebuilt wall between the courts might be just about scaleable, the idea of an assassin struggling over a fifteen-foot wall with a ladder in his hand was laughable.

‘Is that all you need to see?’ Caradoc demanded, no longer bothering to be polite.

Goodluck followed him down the slope, unable to enjoy the feel of the warm sun on his face. For all he knew, time was running out, and yet he seemed no nearer solving this puzzle. Nor
did
he have any inkling which nobles at Queen Elizabeth’s court might have instigated this latest plot, though he felt sure one or two at least must be involved.

‘A good day to you then,’ Caradoc grunted, letting him out of the narrow wall-gate. He gave the guard there a significant look, as though to indicate that Goodluck was not entirely to be trusted.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Goodluck murmured in polite reply. He doffed his cap and wandered off in search of some refreshing ale, the Welshman’s suspicious gaze burning a hole in his back.

Thirty-six

A MILE OR
so further on from the chase, the broad path through the woodland began to narrow, and soon the horses had to trot close together under the fresh damp green of the trees. Lucy kept her reins light, as Tom had shown her, and was glad when he stopped pointing out her faults, riding stiff-backed beside her instead. The breeze shook the branches above them, sending raindrops scattering across the woodland track.

The first wild flowers of the summer had begun to wilt, Lucy noted with a touch of sadness, and a few tattered beech leaves lay on the grassy path, brought down by the sudden wind and rain of the past night. It was the first sign she had seen that the summer was more than halfway through. Soon they would be moving on to Chartley, the Countess of Essex’s stately residence – a beautiful mansion by all accounts, though nothing like the vast expanses of Kenilworth Castle. Not long after that, the progress would turn and begin to make its way back to London, stopping at other great houses along the way. Lucy did not think they were due to return until September, by which time half these green leaves would be sere and fallen.

Every few moments, Tom’s knee knocked against hers on the narrow track, though his face remained averted, his surly apologies barely audible.

Her soft-mouthed mare, good-natured but greedy, nudged her way towards a clump of rain-dewed grasses and yellow-flowered
plants
at the side of the track. It was becoming warm again this deep into the forest, and they had been drilling outside the stables a good hour before setting off. No doubt her mare was tired and thirsty, as indeed she was too.

Out of sympathy, Lucy dropped her hands and let her mount bend to tear off a good mouthful of the damp yellow-topped stems and grasses.