Her Last Assassin (12 page)

He fell to one knee before her, all at once chastened, his handsome face gazing up at her. ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty. My temper is so strong, even my own mother cannot …’ He hesitated. ‘It was wrong of me to address you so churlishly. But do you not see, madam, how I would lay my life at your feet to uphold your throne? Yet you keep me at court like a boy and do not allow me to prove myself worthy of …’

Coldly, she raised her eyebrows and saw his proud gaze fall away. ‘Worthy of …?’

‘You must know that I …’ He stammered, suddenly a boy again. ‘That you and I …’

‘Speak.’

‘That I hold you very high in my affections, Your Majesty!’

She stared, astonished by such an admission, and then amused, hiding her smile before he was wounded by it, her heart secretly flattered.

Foolish boy! Dear sweet child!

He gazed up at her earnestly, his eyes burning with passion. ‘Say you hold me in affection too, Elizabeth. Do not kill me with a refusal or I shall not be answerable for my actions.’

‘I have not given you permission to use my name,’ she reminded him icily. An instant’s easing of the rein and this wild colt would bolt with her again.

‘Not yet,’ Essex conceded proudly, ‘but soon. Your royal favour must come to me in the end, as it came to Leicester.’

‘Must it indeed?’

Essex rose from his knee, dusting it down with his glove. She watched him thoughtfully. Leicester would have stayed kneeling until she bade him rise. His handsome stepson did not worship her in the same way; he had the temerity to dream himself her equal. It was a charming arrogance. But a dangerous one too, if left unchecked. She did not have the heart to crush him though, for he was still a boy to her, for all he had accompanied Leicester and Sidney to war.

If she broke this young man’s spirit, he would never serve her as well nor as faithfully as Robert had done.

‘You think me a lesser man than my stepfather, perhaps, and that is why you test me with these blocks and trials,’ Essex continued sharply, as though reading her thoughts. ‘But I am a greater man, and shall prove my worth or die in the attempt!’

She suppressed her smile. ‘I am glad to hear you wish to surpass Lord Leicester in my service, Robbie. But you must content yourself to do so here at court, and not against our enemy Spain. I do not, and indeed never shall, grant you permission to sail with Sir Francis Drake and his fleet. Is that clearly understood?’

He looked at her broodingly, then sketched a careless bow before retreating to the door. ‘Your Majesty.’

She had not given the earl leave to go, but said nothing, merely signalling her ladies to attend her as they gathered in the doorway, their expressions sly and curious. No doubt they had heard something of what Essex had been saying to her, the love he had declared so vehemently. Well, there was no harm in reminding the sillier girls in her service that even a comely young nobleman like Essex could be brought to his knees by her queenly presence.

Elizabeth smiled, wandering to the sunlit windowsill where he had stood, and looking down on the barges bobbing at anchor along the river. No doubt it was hard for him to accept her refusal when so many other young men were preparing for war. But she would not lose Essex as she had lost Leicester, even if it meant making his lordship resent and fear her a little.

No, better the impetuous youth should find some corner of the court to sulk in than remain with her a moment longer in that temper. They would soon be at loggerheads again if Essex could not clear his brow of that dark frown.

Walsingham came to her later, limping heavily, coughing behind his hand. She thought she had never seen the statesman look so old. ‘Your Majesty,’ he began, and handed her a rolled-up letter, ‘more bad news, I am afraid. His Majesty King Henry of France is dead.’

She did not open the letter, laying it aside with a shudder. She had taken her fill of bad news in recent years, and the death of fellow princes was not a matter she wished to pursue in too close detail.

‘Sickness?’ she demanded, half praying that it had been.

‘Murder.’

Her stomach churned with an old fear. ‘Poison, then?’

‘A monk with a knife. They are saying it was in revenge for the Duke of Guise’s death.’

Elizabeth closed her eyes. ‘Barbarians.’

‘Be easy in your mind, Your Majesty. Thanks to your royal father, England is rather short on fanatical monks, armed or otherwise.’

‘Poor Henry.’ Her eyes narrowed on Walsingham’s face, sensing something more in his stillness. Her spymaster had served her for too many years for her not to be able to read the signs that some plot was afoot. ‘What else? This is not your only news, is it?’

His smile was wry. ‘Forgive me.’

‘I pray you do not spare me, old friend. We know each other too well for subterfuge. Who has my death in hand tonight?’

‘You remember last year I told you of some possible scheme against your life, hatched by one already in your service at court?’ She nodded grimly. ‘Well, my man has been back to the Low Countries in search of a name. He has not been as successful as I had hoped, for those who plotted against your life have moved deeper into enemy territory where he was not able to approach them without arousing suspicion. I fear he is now too well known to them, so I shall recall him to England and send another of my men in his place. He is younger, and his face is unknown to their spies. Indeed, I have high hopes that he will bring us back a name.’

‘But?’

Sir Francis coughed again, more violently this time, reaching for a handkerchief as he turned his head away. She waited impatiently while he recovered, knowing there would be more to say on this matter. ‘But there is some suspicion that poison is to be the method used, Your Majesty. Accordingly, I will ensure your cooks and their assistants are all loyal men, and from now on would suggest two tasters instead of one. For safety’s sake.’

For safety’s sake?

She fixed her spymaster with a cold eye. ‘If you recall, you and Cecil promised that once my cousin Mary Stuart was dead, there would be no more of these attempts on my person. Well, Mary is dead these past two years. You even showed me a lock of her hair to prove it. Yet still I must fence myself about with these precautions. I am a queen besieged, sir. What do you say to that?’

‘I most humbly apologize, Your Majesty. We did indeed believe that the Scots Queen’s death would bring an end to these conspiracies, for then there could be no question of a Catholic queen succeeding you on the throne. But it seems we bargained without the strength of feeling among those Englishmen whose personal loyalties are to Rome and who have chosen to make their beds with the enemy.’

She experienced a profound feeling of distaste. ‘These disloyal dogs. Do not call them sons of England, it besmirches the good name of true Englishmen. Send out your man, find me this poisoner. And when we have run the traitor to ground, we will cut his belly open in the street, so all may see the colour of his cowardice.’

Walsingham bowed, taking back the letter she had not opened. Frowning, she noticed a yellowish tinge to his skin, and a slight tremor to his hands.

‘Are you unwell?’ she asked him suspiciously.

‘I find that malady touches me more these days than it used to,’ he agreed, then glanced at her, clearly hesitant. ‘Perhaps I could once again mention my retirement, Your Majesty? My health grows ever more uncertain—’

‘As does my throne,’ she pointed out sharply, a little panicked at the thought of losing Walsingham as well as Leicester, interrupting before he could ask for the impossible. ‘I cannot spare you yet, old friend. Not with Drake planning these assaults on Spanish-held towns. I shall be glad if they bring back heaps of Spanish gold and treasure for our coffers, but not if all we achieve is to poke Philip with a sharp stick and force him to launch a second Armada to defend his shores.’

‘I believe the Spanish fleet is not yet up to strength again, Your Majesty. That may be why the King tries other avenues to shake your hold on the English throne, such as this unknown poisoner of ours.’

‘Well then, you see my predicament more clearly than most. One more year of service to my crown, with Spain put to rout once and for all, and you may retire to spend more time with your daughter.’

‘I thank you, Your Majesty.’

‘But take some rest now,’ she advised him kindly, ‘then get back to work. I cannot have you unwell, sir. We are still at war. The Privy Council needs your guidance on foreign affairs more than ever now, we cannot spare you to a sickbed.’

As Sir Francis bowed his consent, a good servant, always ready to bend to her will, Elizabeth threw out her jewelled hand for him to kiss. Since Robert’s loss, she could not bear to think of herself alone and undefended by the men who had guarded her since she had come to the throne.

‘Just as I need young hotheads like the Earl of Essex, to rally his fellow countrymen against invasion should that evil day ever come, so I need men like you, Walsingham, to watch for the secret knife in my back and the poison in my food.’ She smiled at him, at her most charming, and saw pleasure lighten his dour face. ‘I know you will not fail me.’

Part Two

One

Seething Lane, London, May 1590

R
AIN HAD BEEN
falling in a steady drizzle ever since his entry into English waters, welcoming him back to his homeland.

Goodluck trudged uphill from the stinking wash of the Thames towards the corner of Seething Lane, his leather hat pulled down and collar turned up against the wet. Another mission completed, another damp, unpromising homecoming. His clothes were patched and threadbare, his boots were beginning to let in water and he was bone-weary. It had been nine months since he had slept in his own bed.

Perhaps it was time he thought about securing a new line of work. Yet he knew no other trade. What else could he do but spy for England?

Besides, if he was free to idle about, what would he do all day but watch the barges sail up and down the Thames? Or sit in a tavern corner, slumped over his ale or puffing on a clay pipe, telling stories of his life in return for a pinch of tobacco.

Goodluck waited in the shadows until nightfall, unsure whether he had been followed from the docks, then knocked at the back door to Walsingham’s house in Seething Lane. The front of the house had been in darkness for hours. But there was a fire burning in the servants’ quarters; he smelt woodsmoke drifting from the chimneys into damp air, and heard the crackle of burning logs from within as he waited.

A boy appeared in response to his knock, peering through the door grille at him, a puzzled expression on his face.

‘I am here to see Sir Francis Walsingham,’ he told the boy, then gave the password to prove he was a friend.

Without a word, the boy disappeared.

Goodluck stood under the persistent rain, listening to shouts and footsteps within the house, and wondered if his master had left London and was residing at court. Yet the note he had received a month ago via a contact in Flushing had told him to wind up his investigations in the Low Countries, and to present himself at Seething Lane on his arrival back in England.

No doubt Walsingham wished to convey his disappointment at the lack of information gathered over the past nine months abroad, posing as a travelling dentist. It was not a conversation he had been looking forward to, for he was acutely aware of having failed his master on this mission.

‘I need the name of this traitor in the Queen’s service,’ Sir Francis had told him at their last meeting, handing him a pass for the ports and a small purse of silver coins. ‘Nothing else, just the name.’

Yet although Goodluck had talked in disguise to many exiled Catholics in the Low Countries, painstakingly following Sir William Stanley’s trail from Nieuwpoort, he had been unable to discover the name of the traitor hired to poison the Queen. And now he had been recalled to England, like a cur with its tail between its legs, presumably to account for his lack of success.

A grey-haired woman in apron and cap appeared in place of the boy, holding a candle lantern. She squinted out at him through the grille, then opened the door, gesturing him to step into the smoky hallway. He recognized her from a previous visit to Seething Lane. It was Walsingham’s housekeeper, though he did not know her name.