By Royal Command (19 page)

‘Well,’ said my companion, after we’d watched the courtiers and guests come and go about us for several moments. ‘It doesn’t look as if I shall see Dr Dee’s demonstration after all.’

‘It does not,’ I said, adding that I was somewhat relieved.

‘Are you going to stay longer?’ she asked then, but I hardly replied to her question, so intent was I on watching Mistress Pryor. She was helped down from the platform in a gracious manner by Tomas, then made her way across the crowded room, concealed from me now and again by the groups of people between us. All was well until she reached the far wall, when she neatly – and very suddenly – disappeared behind a silk hanging. So smoothly did this move occur that if I hadn’t been watching at that precise moment, I might have supposed her to have been magicked into thin air.

I paused only to say a brief farewell to my companion, then hurried across the room, slipped behind the same hanging and found myself facing an open doorway. Steps descended here and without hesitation I went down, hearing below me the tip-tapping of Mistress Pryor’s shoes on the stone. At the bottom of the steps I found myself outside in a courtyard full of carts and coaches and, swiftly surveying them, saw Mistress Pryor slip into a dark-painted carriage with the driver already atop.

I gave my first thought then to Dr Dee and wondered if he’d look for me in order to go home. I decided he would not, for if he gave me any thought at all he’d surely expect me to make my own way there. Deciding this, hearing the door close behind Mistress Pryor and her voice calling to the driver to whip up the horse, I quickly climbed on to the luggage rack at the back of the carriage and made ready to hang on for as long as the journey took.

As the carriage rocked and swayed through Richmond I began to wonder if I’d done a foolish thing, and by the time the horse was stumbling through Barnes on a rutted road and I was being jolted from one side of the rack to the other, I was sure of it, for the continual movement was making me feel unwell. I was greatly relieved, therefore, when in another five minutes we came to a better road – the turnpike road to Hammersmith, I thought – and my journey became somewhat smoother.

We seemed to be somewhere in Putney when we slowed down. We were near to the river – for I could smell it in the air – and there must also have been a glue-maker’s shop nearby, for I could detect the stink of boiled animal bones. Feeling the coach easing up, I braced myself to jump. I was not worried about hurting myself so much as spoiling – perhaps tearing – my beautiful gown, so I gathered as much material as possible in my arms and waited until the coach had almost stopped before I half-rolled, half-scrambled off the back and then hastily brushed myself down and smoothed out my skirts.

Dusk was falling and it was easy to conceal myself in the shadows of a doorway and from here peer out and see Mistress Pryor, most of her pale hair concealed under a hood, climb out and speak to the driver. I studied her then, and again as she walked away from the carriage, and perceived that there was something different about her manner now that she was away from the confines of the palace. Perhaps I felt this because of what Isabelle called my Sight, or perhaps I was just imagining it, but Mistress Pryor, for some reason, seemed eager, lighter in her step – and her mind, too. As if – the thought occurred to me – she was only now being her true self.

There were a few people around in the lane: boys on errands, housewives late with their shopping, a peddler selling ribbands, and as Mistress Pryor moved off I sauntered amongst these, pretending interest in a nearby shop window. She turned into a long passageway which sloped up and away from the river and appeared to have several alleyways going off it, and I followed, finding the way getting narrower and darker as it ran between tall, beamed houses, their jutting bays making them almost meet in the middle. A window opened above me and a bowl of washing water was thrown out, which splashed my gown and shoes. Stopping to shake my skirts, I saw, in the distance, Mistress Pryor go up some steps, cross a small bridge over a stream, then disappear.

It was at this point I realised that someone was following
me
, for I heard a man’s heavy footfalls behind me and the panting of someone out of breath, as if they’d been running to catch me up. Frightened, I went through a gate that was standing ajar and entered a small courtyard, hoping that whoever had been following me would presume I’d reached home, and turn away.

I concealed myself behind the gate as the heavy footfalls came closer, and the thought occurred to me that anyone involved in a plan to kill a queen would not hesitate to kill a nursemaid. I don’t know why I should have thought this, for there was nothing to link my pursuer with the woman I pursued and any dire plot. Somehow, though, I felt there was a connection.

I held my breath – if I could have remembered a prayer at this time, I would have said it – and kept completely still, fearing that my pursuer might hear my heart thumping. After hesitating on the other side of the gate for some moments, however, he went on.

I tried to steady myself, for my legs were shaking and I feared they wouldn’t bear my weight. I would not, I decided, come out of the courtyard until I’d counted to fifty, in case the man was still lurking nearby. I’d only got halfway through my numbers, though, when looking about me in the near-gloom I saw that a notice had been nailed to the back door of the house whose yard I sheltered in. I was immensely grateful then that I could read, or I might have halted there longer, for on this paper was marked a large red cross, and the words,
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON US
.

Seeing this, I ran out of the courtyard as if the hounds of hell were after me, for whoever had been following me was surely not as terrifying a prospect as the plague.

‘I ran off straight,’ I said to Tomas later, ‘and when I reached a little open square at the top of the passageway I found that Mistress Pryor – and whoever had been following me – had both disappeared. I think they may have been together . . .’

‘Perhaps,’ he nodded. ‘There are bound to be several other people involved.’

‘I’m sorry I lost her again.’

‘But this time we know where she went: to somewhere close to a plague-ridden house in Putney. She won’t be so difficult to find.’

‘I could show you where I last saw her,’ I offered.

Tomas nodded. He was not wearing the Harlequin outfit now, but was all in black, with a cloak, hat and silk hood pulled low across his face. In the darkness, he might have passed for anyone, but I knew him by his grey eyes, which reflected almost silver in the light from the candle lantern he was carrying.

‘But do you think it’s safe to go so near to a dwelling with plague?’ I asked, realising that I’d probably found the house that Mistress Midge had told me about.

He nodded. ‘Quite safe. There hasn’t been a new case for six weeks or so. And you didn’t go inside the house, did you?’

‘I did not! I hardly breathed at all when I was near it, and when I found Mistress Pryor had escaped me, I used some of your money for a hackney coach here.’
Here
was back at Richmond Palace, where I’d given a penny to a boy to take Tomas a message requesting that he come out and speak to me.

‘All is well, then.’ He smiled at me and, longing to see him more clearly, I tried to peep under his hood. He was too quick for me, however, and moved his head so that a fold of dark silk fell across his cheek.

‘What of the plot that was discovered today at the palace?’ I asked. ‘Is Her Grace perfectly safe?’

Tomas nodded. ‘She is. But the Queen of Scots has surely incriminated herself, for correspondence in her own handwriting calling for the death of the queen has been discovered between her and a gentleman named Babington. They were corresponding by means of coded messages conveyed inside a barrel of beer, and ‘tis most fortunate that Walsingham’s agents managed to decode them in time.’

We were silent a moment, thinking of the consequences if they had not.

‘All is well, however, by the Grace of God! And now we look close to finding whatever it is that Mistress Pryor is concerned in, too.’ He glanced up at the torchlit windows of the palace. ‘I must go back inside, for there is still much to talk about. Can you meet me in Putney tomorrow and show me the last place you saw Mistress Pryor?’

I nodded eagerly.

‘And the Dee family won’t think it odd that you’re missing?’

I shook my head. ‘They won’t know. They’re going to Greenwich tomorrow and staying there until Twelfth Night.’

‘Are you able to meet me in Putney at midday?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then wait near to the wharf. Try not to be too visible,’ he said, and lifted my hand and kissed it.

I knew well – for I’d seen him do it often enough – that the kiss was merely a courtesy he extended to all ladies, but I was content to be one of them.

As I reached home, I remembered that I hadn’t told him about the man at Court who’d looked so much like Mr Sylvester. But there was surely nothing to that . . .

Chapter Fifteen

H
ad the Dee family not been going away I would have been in some difficulties. I might even – in order to go to Putney and meet Tomas – have had to leave my job. Some time ago, however, the family had arranged to collect little Arthur from his wet nurse and go to stay for a few days with the children’s grandmamma in Greenwich in order to celebrate the season.

That just left Mistress Midge for me to deal with, so, finding it difficult enough to sleep anyway, I rose very early and went through my work in double-quick time. This meant that by the time our cook rose, all my chores, and some of hers, were completed. She was thus in a very good mood, and I capitalised on this by asking for permission to spend the day ‘with Isabelle’.

By eleven o’clock the Dee family had gone downriver in a hired wherry to Greenwich, and I was walking in their wake along the riverbank towards Putney. The day was fresh and bright and I was enjoying my walk, for there was a light breeze blowing, the sun was sparkling on the Thames and a dotting of yellow and white at the sides of the path showed where a few snowdrops and celandines had already pushed their way through the damp earth. Life had been very exciting for me lately and I was trying to reconcile myself to the fact that it might soon become rather dull, for I knew that when the queen and Court were absent from Richmond, all the life would go out of it.

In the meantime, however, what might Tomas and I discover today? Would we be instrumental in saving Her Grace from another foul plot? Thinking along these lines, my imagination was such that, there being a very quiet stretch of the river where there was no one around, I dawdled and indulged in some pretence in which I was received by the queen and thanked mightily for my brave work on her behalf.

I understand you wear my image around your neck,
Her Grace would say.
Then let me reward you by replacing
that tarnished silver with a medal of solid gold, which
will be some small recompense for discovering this fearsome
plot against me and saving my life.

I thank you kindly, Your Grace,
I’d reply, bowing low so that the medal could be slipped over my head.
But I
merely did what any man or woman would do in order to
preserve the life of our glorious monarch.

And possibly
. . . One more thing. I wish to ennoble
you, my child, to give you the title of Lady Lucy, and this is
how you will be known for ever after.

I then went through this scenario again, but as well as the title I received a great sum of money from the queen, enough to enable me to leave the employ of the Dee family and buy a small cottage where my ma could come to live with me in safety and happiness for the rest of her life.

Coming close to Hammersmith, there were many more people about and ferryboats plying their trade, so I ceased my play-acting. Hearing a horse coming at a gallop behind me, I stood to one side to allow it free passage, but to my surprise the horse was reined in and stopped.

‘Am I on the right path for Mortlake?’ the rider called to me.