The Queen's Secret (38 page)

Young Philip Sidney answered her questions with studied seriousness, launching into an intellectual debate on the comparison of virtue with beauty. Yet although Elizabeth smiled and nodded in all the right places, her attention was busy elsewhere. Her gaze followed the stiff back of her favourite as he stepped down from the dais and strode away into the castle.

She was incredulous, then suddenly furious again. How dare her host walk away before being dismissed? Robert had left the royal presence without asking permission, without so much as
the
respectful bow due to his queen. Was this to punish her for calling Massetti and young Pip Sidney to her side instead of him? She would grant him a peevish dislike of the smooth-cheeked Italian newcomer, but to become enraged that she had favoured his own nephew …

Oh, such boyish jealousy did not become an earl.

Pleased and piqued at the same time by his arrogant behaviour, Elizabeth considered sending after him to return to the dais, to humiliate him in revenge for this travesty of a bridal. But then she caught Cecil’s eye.

No, her cautious-minded secretary was right. Better to chastise Robert in private, where heated words could be more easily exchanged without fear of being overheard. Besides, to call further attention to their quarrel now might be to suggest some odious comparison between herself and that ancient, toothless bride – a comparison she wished to avoid.

As Robert was about to pass through the shaded gateway into Kenilworth’s outer court, she saw him halt, suddenly bending to speak to the young Moorish girl, Lucy. It was only the briefest of exchanges, just long enough to whisper a few words in her ear. Then he was gone, striding away beneath the shadowy arch of the gate.

‘No, don’t stop,’ Elizabeth insisted, turning to smile flatteringly at Pip Sidney. He had paused in his speech, looking hurt that she had not replied to a question. ‘I am all ears, my young Socrates.’

Thirty-nine

LUCY SHIELDED HER
eyes to look up at the Queen, seated under her gold canopy high on the wooden dais. She felt ridiculously hot in the stiff ruff and heavy-skirted gown they had given her to dance in, the thick row of stitches itchy where it had been altered to fit her broader shoulders. The court gown might be expensively embroidered, with a fine lace trim fit for a proper lady, but it was not as comfortable as the simple gowns she had brought from London. If it had not been so warm when she rose that morning, she would have worn a shift dress underneath. But after yesterday’s thunderstorms, this fresh heat was almost unbearable, the wide blue sky above the tiltyard dazzling, and her gown was so tight at the waist she could hardly breathe. To have put more layers on underneath would have been to invite the embarrassment of a fainting fit, and she could tell from the Queen’s sharp stare that such weakness would not go unnoticed.

The tilt games finally came to an end, with the victor being crowned with laurels by the Queen herself, and after a short pause a simple country dance began.

Lucy watched the dancers with a thundering heart, constantly dwelling on her own trial to come, her palms moist with sweat as she clapped to the beat. She had been told to change her gown and attend the Queen after Mass. The thought of having to dance before so many courtiers and commoners made her stomach knot with terror. Even though she had foolishly hoped to be called up
on
to the dais to perform again before the Queen and court, she feared it almost as much as death itself.

Glancing about her, she caught a glimpse of Tom’s dark head and leather-clad back near the gateway into the outer court. He was leading a bay horse slowly back towards the stables; it appeared to be lame. As she stared, desperate for him to turn round and see her, Tom glanced back over his shoulder for a brief moment, as though he had felt the touch of her gaze. But the crowd was dense about the Queen’s dais and she knew herself to be invisible. Then Tom turned away into the outer court. He could not have seen her. Nonetheless, Lucy felt a new confidence at the sight of him and straightened, shaking out her gown.

The dance finished, and the Queen called her name.

Stepping lightly out of the crowd, Lucy climbed the steps on to the covered royal dais, not entirely displeased by the way the courtiers parted to let her through, some of them whispering about her, staring greedily at this strange new favourite of the Queen.

‘Your Majesty?’

She sank into a low curtsey under the cool of the shaded canopy, listening to the click and rustle of the courtiers’ feathered fans, and remained there until the Queen told her to rise. Indeed, she did not wish to look Her Majesty in the eye.

Her heart sickened, waiting for what she felt must be the inevitable question. If asked, she must either tell the truth and betray the charming Lord Leicester, or lie and betray her queen.
But which should it be
? His lordship had spoken to her as he left the tiltyard, and begged her not to tell the Queen of his secret meeting with Lettice.

‘I’m told you have prepared a new dance for us, child.’

The Queen was watching her closely, her cheeks flushed even under the white foundation she always wore, a slightly wild look to her face. Her red wig had been dressed simply with a single circlet of gold, echoed by a gold chain about her waist from which an elaborate gold and ruby pendant hung.

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘Show us then. We have had enough of country dancing today and would like to see something with a little more skill. And mind
you
do not mar your steps, Lucy Morgan, for I shall be watching closely and am accounted a good judge in such matters.’

Her voice was shrill; the Queen was angry about something, Lucy realized with a terrible thrill of fear. If she were to ask now …

But to Lucy’s immense relief she did not ask. Instead, the Queen sank back against her cushions as though exhausted and gestured heavily to someone out of sight. There was a series of staccato commands from the captain of the royal guard, the noise of shuffling feet, and Lucy saw that a space was being cleared for her on the dusty ground of the tiltyard.

A space in which to dance.

She descended from the platform and stood, waiting for the castle musicians to assemble before the Queen: drums, pipes, shawms, hautboys, and an ancient hurdy-gurdy with a wooden crank. One of the men spoke to her and she answered him without thinking, her lips numb and her eyes burning, her whole body on fire yet ice-cold at the same time, moving without awareness. She had chosen an old French lament for this dance, and had worked on the steps on her own in the mornings before anyone else was awake, humming the tune as well as she could recall it. Now she would have the musicians to guide her, but an audience too, and every opportunity to stumble or make a mistake. But it was too late to draw back now.

Someone rapped out the beat, slow and sombre against the wooden frame of a tambour, then the music began. Lucy turned in the dance, her body responding instinctively, sweeping her feet one way and then another across the dusty ground, bending her waist to the haunting lilt and surge of the hurdy-gurdy.

Here, she could be herself, without fear and with only the music for company.

Sunshine burned on her closed lids. Opening them, she danced on, dazzled but alive. Her hands strong, graceful. Her feet pointed thus. Immaculate. The ring of their faces blurred slowly. A tree, shaken: white petals, blossom drifting on the air. Lucy turned, arms wide and spinning, into the last movement.

After the music had finished, she dropped, trembling, into a curtsey below the Queen.

‘Rise.’

Lucy straightened, listening to the spontaneous applause and foot-stamping of her audience. She found courage in their approval, eager to hear it, taking it as her due. Was it sinful to seek applause for her work, for these public performances? She had been hidden at the back for so long, unseen and unheard, that listening to their applause was like coming alive again, being born of a new mother. Perhaps, returning to hot, dirty London at summer’s end, she would be forgotten, sent back to the chorus by a furious Mistress Hibbert, outraged at her presumption in dancing and singing for the Queen without her permission. Then Lucy might wish she had taken less pleasure in her own skill, finding herself invisible once more, stuck at the back in a coarse gown and cheap shoes.

The Queen had risen too, descending the steps from the dais. Her ladies hurried after her, catching and lifting her gold train so it would not be ruined in the dust. She paused before Lucy. At her back, Walsingham waited in silence.

Queen Elizabeth’s eyes glittered, searching her face, then she bent her head, her words meant only for Lucy’s ears.

‘That matter of which I spoke to you lately in the gardens,’ she whispered. ‘Have you any news?’

Lucy quaked inwardly. Her lips opened, trying to form an answer, but her mouth was too dry to make a sound.

This close, the cloying scent of the Queen’s rosewater mixed unpleasantly with the odours of overheated flesh under the vast, gilt-edged ruff and jewelled, golden gown. Lucy stared at the sheer intricacy of the ruff, and told herself not to faint.

The Queen frowned, drawing back slightly to look at her face, as though she already knew the truth and only needed Lucy to confirm it. Lucy tried but could not raise her eyes to meet the Queen’s. The desire to speak, to blurt out every tiny detail she knew and leave nothing unsaid, was almost overwhelming; it twisted and writhed in her gut, like a serpent about to bite its way out through her belly.

‘Speak,’ the Queen insisted, her impatience unmistakable. ‘What have you discovered?’ Her voice dropped to a hiss. ‘Have there been any
letters
?’

‘N-not yet, Your Majesty,’ Lucy managed, stammering. She could only curtsey again as the Queen swept past in a rustle of gold cloth, an overpowering smell of lavender wafting from the pomander hung about her neck.

Fumbling to cross herself and ward off any evil she might have invoked, Lucy waited in silence, head bent to hide the fear in her eyes. The rest of the court streamed past, following the Queen’s party back into the outer court.

No, she had not lied. Nor yet had she told the Queen the whole truth. It was a lie by omission. A lie of conscience. She had concealed what she knew in order to protect his lordship, who had been kind to her and given her this chance to perform before the court. But she did not know how much longer she could continue to tell these lies and half-truths to the Queen before her disobedience was found out and punished.

Master Goodluck might make his living by deception, and find it no great work to conceal his heart. Yet the truth had always been written clear in Lucy’s face for all to read. To unlearn honesty was the hardest thing in the world.

Forty

THE BENCHES IN
the great hall had been pushed back to allow more space for those wishing to be present at the knighting ceremony. With the courtiers standing about in their rich costumes and fancy hose, and two brightly plumaged birds perched in a hanging cage, and sunlight streaming in through the high arched windows, the place had the air of a holy day street pageant, a brilliant tableau of characters and strange, exotic creatures from a world beyond the everyday.

Lost in a wave of nostalgia, Goodluck remembered a certain player whose clear delivery and impressive strutting had thrilled him as a boy. The man had inspired him to make his living the same way – though fate had intervened, of course, prompting him into the greater thrill of espionage.

‘Make way there!’ someone called out, knocking against him in passing. A stiff-backed young man carrying a velvet brocade cushion before him, on which had been laid an ornamental sword, jolted Goodluck back to the moment, to the ceremony ahead, and the risk he ran by being here.

Still standing in the doorway at the rear of the hall, he shrank back into his hood and searched the faces of the courtiers for the man he had come to see. It was important that he was not too conspicuous. He had stolen this suit of blue livery so he might pass for one of Leicester’s men, but any of the earl’s officials would know him at once for an imposter.