The Queen's Secret (48 page)

Lucy slipped unnoticed between the muttering courtiers, yet she did not take the stairs down to the next floor as she had been
ordered.
Instead she found herself following her route back along the narrow corridor to the darkened storeroom, whose door still stood ajar, and the gaping hole in the floor. That was where she had last seen Tom, holding back the bear and his tamer while she climbed the rope.

Kneeling on the lip of the hole, she leaned forward and stared down into terrifying blackness.

‘Tom?’ she whispered. The sound of his name echoed about the damp walls below.

Lucy knew what she must do, but did not want to do it. She was wounded, her head ached fit to burst, and she was scared. What would she find down there? The dead body of her friend? The black bear with its lethal claws and teeth? Or perhaps a handful of the assassin’s countrymen, waiting for their friend to make her escape?

Lucy tucked up her skirts, groped for the rope that she knew must still hang there, swung both legs over the edge of the hole and let herself down into darkness.

The bear lay on its back just below the castle wall, stiffening already into death with wounds to its throat and belly, black blood seeping into the soil. She stared at its vast corpse a moment, then swallowed her sickness and stumbled on, fearing what lay ahead. She found Tom about a hundred yards further down the rough slope, half hidden behind an ancient oak stump. She knew he was dead as soon as she saw him, his dark mass spreadeagled in the starlit grasses, yet allowed herself to hope for a moment that she was mistaken.

‘Oh Tom,’ she managed under her breath, gently lifting his head into her lap to cradle it.

Leaning closer, she saw the blood congealed on his shirt, and the deep, ragged gashes to his chest which had drained his life away. He must have tried to crawl on after killing the bear, brave to the end, perhaps thinking to raise the alarm at the gate below. He had died in the attempt.

Tears choked her and for a while she could only repeat his name, rocking back and forth. ‘Tom, Tom.’

There was a shout from below. One of the guards must have
seen
her. With hoarse cries, a line of bobbing torches began to ascend the slope, then she was surrounded, the smoky light illuminating Tom’s face, the proud jut of his chin, his eyes closed. Were it not for the blood smeared across one cheek, he might have been sleeping. There were mutters of recognition from some of Leicester’s men, and one tried to lay his jacket over Tom’s face, hiding him for ever.

She wept then, bitterly, fearing they might handle his body roughly, just as the guards had handled the assassin in the Queen’s chamber. She refused to let them cover him.

‘Leave me,’ she told them. ‘I will look after him.’

One of the men bent to drag her away and she resisted fiercely. ‘No! I must stay with him. This is my fault. Tom would still be alive if I had not asked him to come with me tonight.’

Fresh cries brought new men up the slope to where she knelt, protecting Tom with her body.

Through the stinking smoke from the torches, she recognized one of Goodluck’s men among the newcomers, and called out to him in relief. ‘Master Twist! Tell them to leave him. This is all my doing. I must be allowed to … to clean his wounds before … before …’

Master Twist knelt beside her and looked carefully from her face to Tom’s, then shook his head. ‘You must leave him to these men now, Lucy. He is one of theirs. They know what to do.’

‘I will not let them touch him!’

‘You must,’ he insisted, then lifted her away from Tom, pulling her damp face into his shoulder. ‘Hush. Come now, there is someone here who has been most anxious to see you safe. And then you must have your own hurts tended.’

She saw Will standing behind him, his face pinched and white in the torchlight, more like a wraith than a living boy, and her heart flooded with guilt. In her grief and pain, she had forgotten about the child.

He was staring down at Tom’s body in a kind of trance, his eyes wide and fixed.

‘Don’t look,’ she whispered, hugging him. ‘You should not be here. Where is your father?’

‘Below at the gate. He is waiting for me.’

‘Then you must go to him at once. He will be worried. Come, I’ll walk down with you. The castle is not safe tonight. There … there are murderers walking free here.’

‘Not for long,’ Twist muttered, his face grim.

With one arm about her waist, Twist led her and Will down the dark slope, away from the man who had helped to save the Queen’s life, his body stiffening on the cold ground. Bitterly, Lucy wondered if the Queen would ever know his name or be told of his fate. She must ensure that the Queen was informed, even if that meant braving the royal presence again, knowing how much she had displeased Her Majesty. Better to face punishment and disgrace for failing to obey the Queen than allow Tom’s sacrifice to go unspoken.

‘Where is Goodluck? Did you find him?’ she asked Twist quietly, not wishing to alarm the boy any further. Young Will seemed to have fallen into a reverie, his face distracted.

‘No one seems to know,’ Twist replied. He said nothing more for a moment, then added in her ear, ‘Best to prepare yourself for the worst. If Goodluck was still alive, he would surely be here with us now. This has been a dark night’s work.’

Lucy nodded, though her heart bled at the news.

First Tom, then Goodluck.

She did not want Will to see her distress. Kneeling hurriedly at his side, she kissed him on the cheek. ‘Farewell,’ she said, and put the boy into the hands of his waiting father.

‘Farewell, Lucy Morgan!’ Will called back over his shoulder. ‘Until we meet again!’

Once they were both safely out of sight, Lucy turned away and hid her face in her hands.

Epilogue

Richmond Palace, south-west of London, autumn 1575

THE CROWD BEGAN
to cheer and wave flags as the procession rounded the bend and the gold and white vision of the Queen once more approached the vast gates of Richmond Palace. It was still warm for early autumn but a cooling breeze from the river kept the courtiers from overheating in their stiffened silks, brocades and jewel-studded velvet jackets. Somewhere behind the high palace walls a chorus of trumpets sounded, startling birds to rise from the banks of the River Thames. The familiar stench of the river mud was dulled now that high summer was long past and the court had not been in residence for many months.

Two well-scrubbed small children ran out of the crowd with bunches of wild flowers and presented them to the Queen.

As she bent to receive them, exchanging a few words with the children, voices on both sides of the crowd-lined thoroughfare called out, ‘Welcome back, Your Majesty!’ and ‘God bless Your Majesty!’ and ‘God save our Good Queen Bess!’

Lucy, riding a short distance behind the Queen’s party, no longer had to remember Tom’s advice to keep her hands low and the reins short whenever the crowd pressed too near, for it came naturally to her now.

Faces from the crowd stared up at her, some mean-eyed and
suspicious,
others openly admiring of her skin, so black against the white of her cloak. ‘Look at the Moor!’ one intrepid woman shouted, and the crowd there took up the cry, swelling forward to see ‘the Moorish girl!’

Within a few minutes, the guards had to ride close and drive back the people with their pikes, while flowers and insults alike rained down on Lucy’s head. The crowd’s attention was terrifying, their faces lifting and rolling like a wave of the sea. Once, she would have died of fright, listening to their shouts. Now, all she could think of was how the guards at Kenilworth had dragged her to the back, out of sight of the entry procession, for fear the colour of her skin would frighten the Queen.

Just ahead, Lord Robert turned to glance at her, his dark eyes restless, a stormy look about his face. It was common knowledge that the Queen had forbidden the Countess of Essex to follow the progress back to London. It was said that Lettice had been ordered to spend time at home with her children and her husband, recently returned from Ireland, and his lordship was in a fine temper over that.

Of course, nobody was talking about their affair. Yet everybody knew. Lucy was still unsure how two contraries could be true at the same time, though it was not the only instance of such doubleness. It was an open secret at court that the Queen was no ‘virgin’, yet to speak such a treasonous thought aloud would be to ask for an agonizing death.

Nonetheless, she risked a brief smile for his lordship’s benefit, then discreetly lowered her gaze to her horse’s plaited mane. Falling into a kind of daydream, she had a sudden memory of a gentle afternoon on the woodland paths at Kenilworth, riding under the trees with Tom, his hand clutching at her bridle – she could not remember if it was because she had nearly fallen, or whether the horse had startled at something and tried to bolt – and this simple realization left her half in tears, biting at her lip. Already her memory of those long sultry days at Kenilworth was fading, his beautiful smile, his lithe black body, the grace with which he had held himself.

Tom
.

Coming level with the gates, Lucy found herself caught in a
melee.
The crowd pressed in hard, shoving this way and that. The reason was simple enough. The road narrowed here, with double guards on either side to prevent the commoners from entering the palace, and the courtiers on horseback could only pass through the gates two or three abreast.

Falling in beside two older courtiers, their lined faces showing their exhaustion, Lucy sat waiting her turn in silence.

She felt a sudden tug on her reins, and glanced down.

‘Penny for a sick beggar?’ the man cried in a hoarse, cracked voice. His face was blackened with dirt, his eyes bloodshot. ‘Save you, mistress, have you a penny to spare for your old father here?’

One of the courtiers in front turned round, his face wrinkled in disgust at the smell, and lifted his whip. ‘Get away from the lady, sirrah!’

‘No, please,’ Lucy said at once, horrified by the threat of brutality. ‘Forgive me, sir, but I do have a penny for him. He is old and almost blind, do you see?’

‘He is not a day older than I am,’ the courtier spat, but spurred his horse forward, leaving her beside the palace gates with the beggar clutching at her gown.

She fumbled for her purse, hidden among the folds of her skirts, and extracted several coins.

‘Just one, Lucy,’ the beggar hissed. ‘Are you trying to make them suspicious?’

Lucy’s whole body jerked in shock as she stared down into the dark, watchful eyes of Master Goodluck. She nearly cried his name aloud but Goodluck laid a warning finger on his lips.

‘Goodluck,’ she breathed, but said no more at his furious shake of the head. He was in disguise, for some reason she could only guess at, and she might endanger his life by betraying that she knew him.

Correcting her mistake, Lucy made a great show of dropping one slightly bent penny into his trembling, outstretched palm.

‘One penny, old father,’ she said clearly. Then she bent further towards him with a little cry of disgust, pretending to brush her gown clean where he had touched it. Her voice dropped almost to nothing. ‘I thought you were dead!’

‘It takes more than that to dispatch me.’

Some men in the crowd jostled past him and Goodluck made a noisy show of dropping the coin into his belt pouch, hoarsely crying aloud his thanks.

‘I leave for the coast tonight, but I had to see you first.’

Anxious at once, Lucy searched Goodluck’s face for signs of trouble. ‘Why?’

Under the grime, his blackened mouth cracked into a smile that revealed strong white teeth. ‘Because you are my sweet Lucy Morgan and I wish to take the memory of your face on the road with me.’

‘Oh, you fool!’

‘Hush!’ he cautioned her. He was still smiling, but she could hear disappointment in his voice, and a little disapproval too. ‘I hadn’t expected to find you such a great lady. With rings on your fingers and bells on your toes. This gown alone must have cost the Queen’s coffers dearly.’ He glanced at the fading scar on her cheek, where the assassin’s knife had gashed her. ‘I thought that business at Kenilworth would have scarred you for ever. Yet you are as beautiful as ever you were. And you ride close to Her Majesty.’

‘I have to ride close at hand,’ she whispered defensively. ‘The Queen likes me to sing to her sometimes on the road.’

‘My little songbird.’ His mouth twisted in a brief smile. ‘Listen quickly now, Lucy. If I don’t come back to see you within a year, never mention me again. Pretend not to know my name. It will be safer that way.’

She stared, aghast. ‘Why would you not come back?’

‘Just remember what I’ve said.’

‘How could I ever pretend not to know you? You are my guardian.’

‘Not any more. Besides, a dead spy is an embarrassment to his country and best forgotten. Look what happened to young Massetti. Buried in an unmarked pit somewhere, and not a word home to say how he met his end. Even your friend Tom.’ He paused. ‘He was a brave lad.’