Her Last Assassin (17 page)

Elizabeth wrenched herself free, strengthening her resolve. She was too old to be got with child and her sin paraded before all the courts of Europe, it was true. But it would be lustful incontinence that drove her to seek pleasure in his arms. The same lust she condemned in her unmarried ladies.

‘You must leave, my lord.’

‘How can I leave?’ he said huskily, following as she hurried towards the door. ‘I can be patient, Elizabeth.’

‘You will address me as Your Majesty.’

‘I see.’ His smile was lopsided. ‘Now that I have tasted your lips, I am to be dismissed like all the rest.’

‘How dare you!’

‘I dare because I must.’ Essex seized her hand as she attempted to draw her loosened bodice together. ‘You want me too, Elizabeth, do not lie to yourself. Another minute and we would have been on that bed together. I know that I am married and you are my queen, but we cannot tell the heart not to love, nor force the body not to feel.’

‘Release me!’

His face tightened but Essex let go of her hand, taking a step back. His eyes duelled with hers though, his wayward emotions all too plain to see.

‘You came to me for a place on the Privy Council,’ she reminded him. Anger made her indiscreet, though she remembered to keep her voice low, fearing they might be overheard. ‘Have you abandoned that ambition now, in hope of a place in my heart instead? I must counsel you against such a plan, for it will not be successful.’

He reached for her again.

She shook her head. ‘I am not yours to hold, nor any man’s. Did you not risk my displeasure in marrying Sir Philip Sidney’s widow without my consent, in much the same way that you have accused Sir Walter Raleigh of having loved Mistress Throckmorton in secrecy?’

‘He
has
seduced her,’ he muttered savagely.

‘The truth of your accusation is yet to be seen. Indeed, I have heard no word against Mistress Throckmorton’s virtue before, though I agree she is a comely girl, and much admired at court for her beauty. Perhaps you admire her too?’

When he did not answer, Elizabeth began to suspect she had hit upon his true reason for accusing the sailor of such a heinous misdemeanour.

‘It is widely known, however, that you dislike Raleigh and consider him your enemy. Many say you would be glad to see him at the bottom of the seas he crosses so readily.’

‘Do not believe me, then.’ He shrugged, sullen as a boy again. ‘The truth will out.’

‘You claim to have lost your heart to me, my lord, but you had best be content with keeping your head on your shoulders. You shall not get another if you lose
that
.’

‘And this is all I gain by my love? Distrust and threats?’

Elizabeth heard the bitterness in his voice, and saw rebellion in his face. Essex would turn against her throne if she could not handle him more delicately. With no elder statesman except Lord Burghley to keep the ambitious young earl in check, she feared a split within the court that could precipitate a civil war.

‘I do not distrust you, Robbie. Indeed, I have always favoured you above all the other young men of your generation, for your own sake as much as your stepfather’s. And I know you wish to serve me and England, but I cannot grant you a place on the Privy Council. Not yet. You have not gained the experience necessary for governance, nor do you possess a cool head for diplomacy. You have boasted instead that you are a soldier, though a scholarly one. Why not see where such talents take you before casting my favour aside in such despair?’

His eyes warred with hers. ‘I am to return to France?’

‘You were given a duty which is as yet unfulfilled. You will return to France on the next turn of the tide, and see Rouen besieged and the Spanish Catholics who hold it put down like rabid dogs.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Be assured, Robbie, I shall not receive you at court again until our aim is achieved and Rouen has fallen.’

Sulkily he looked away. ‘As you wish.’

‘You will not be in France for ever,’ she reminded him. ‘On your return to England, there is another post which has fallen vacant and might suit your disposition better. It requires a man both subtle and valiant, one who is not afraid to draw sword in my service. A man who can be trusted with this country’s greatest secrets.’

His eyes flashed to her face, suddenly intent. ‘I am that man, Your Majesty. Name the post.’

‘Walsingham’s.’

Five

T
HE STREETS OF
Coventry were quiet after the revelry in the hall. Will and the rest of the Earl of Pembroke’s company had played there all that afternoon, though in truth they could have played out of doors, the autumn weather was still so fine. The summer had been dry; too dry, some said, with food scarce for lack of rain and even the Thames shrunk to a turgid stream in places.

But a dry spell was good for players, for everyone loved to watch a play when the sun shone.

Will walked slowly along the narrow cobbled street, looking out for his father’s cart. It was late, and the sun had not yet set in the west, though the walls of the houses and taverns opposite were gently reddening as the hour grew later. He turned a corner and found himself in the shadow of the ancient church, its walls of dusky red sandstone high and imposing, its spire visible from many miles away.

The bells in St Michael’s tower rang out to mark the hour – seven o’clock – and from inside one of its side chapels Will could hear chanting in Latin, no doubt the holy fathers at their devotions. He had visited the old church a few times as a child, and still remembered the pageants and plays he had seen enacted in the shady square before the tower, with jugglers and miracle workers, and once several men dressed as a highly credible fire-breathing dragon, which St George had most enthusiastically killed. But then it had been deemed unhealthy for the people of Coventry to see such spectacles, and for a while only Morris dancers had been permitted to perform on feast days.

His father’s cart trundled round the corner ahead of him, the old cart set behind a new young horse, a replacement for old Hector who had died the year before.

His younger brother Dick was perched in the back of the cart, his long legs dangling off the open end. ‘Will! Over here!’

Will climbed aboard and shook first his brother’s hand, then his father’s, grinning. ‘It’s good to see you, sir. Did you arrive in time to watch the play?’

‘Only the last part of it,’ his father admitted, not meeting his eye, and slapped the reins. ‘Get up!’

The cart jerked forward, his father awkwardly turning the horse in the narrow lane to face the way they had come. In the back, his brother sat down again with a thud, holding on to the wooden sides so he would not fall out as the cartwheels lurched violently over the cobblestones.

‘I had to buy some new skins to make the journey into Coventry worthwhile,’ his father said, his tone uncompromising, ‘though business was poor this summer. It’s all this fine weather, no one needs new gloves against the cold, and trade is suffering. So you’ll forgive us if we didn’t have time to sit and watch a play today, but some of us have work to do.’

Will was disappointed but said nothing. There was no point getting angry; this slight was nothing new. His father had never taken much of an interest in his theatrical work, so he would hardly care that the company had been acting one of his son’s own plays that afternoon, the Roman tragedy
Titus Andronicus
.

‘I cannot stay long, I am afraid, but must rejoin the company in a week’s time and travel to Leicester with them on their journey east,’ Will told him briefly, not bothering to explain how hard it had been to be excused from work even for a sennight. But he could not resist adding pointedly, ‘The Earl of Pembroke is a hard taskmaster; every day is a working day on this tour, and we are already a man short.’

He slung his pack behind him on the floor of the cart, which smelt bad and was piled high with sheepskins ready to be soaked and stripped of the remnants of their wool.

‘I am glad you got my letter though, and were able to come and pick me up. How is Anne? And the children?’

‘They are well, though Hamnet has been ill again.’ His father shrugged. ‘A fever, that is all. The boy is prone to these lightning sicknesses that come and go in a few days. I daresay he will grow out of them in time.’

Will nodded, though such news always made him uneasy. Partly it was guilt, for he was hardly ever home in Stratford to see his children grow up. His son would be six years of age now. Would Hamnet even recognize his own father?

Always assuming I
am
his father, he thought grimly.

He thought of the son he had conceived on Lucy, and who had died at birth, brought into the world too soon after her fall down the stairs. It had been a boy, Lucy had told him. She had named the dead baby William, but had him buried with her husband under his name of Parker. So he had one dead son thought to be another man’s, and one living who might not be his.

He frowned, wishing he knew why Lucy had not answered his letters of late, nor come to see him since before the summer.

Had he displeased her in some way?

When he returned to London, he would seek Lucy out as soon as Pembroke’s Men were commissioned to play at court, and discover how he had wronged her. He could not bear this long absence from her bed, though it was true that his poetry seemed to grow better the longer they were apart.

The three Shakespeares rode the cart in silence, leaving the city walls behind and following the track towards Stratford as the sun dropped lower, staining the land blood red. Now Will could see that his father had not been exaggerating about the dry weather that year; the track was a mess of dried mud-ruts at every crossroads, their cartwheels thumping about drunkenly, the fields on either side bone dry and even the river barely ankle deep at its heart. But where the marshland was still damp, the tiny marsh flies still whined and danced over the skins piled up in the back of the cart. There was no wind, and the evening sky seemed clear for miles, signalling yet more dry weather to come.

It had been a long and tiring day. Will soon fell asleep, lulled by the swaying motion of the cart and the darkening skies. He woke to the rumble of voices, and opened his eyes to find that they had reached Stratford and were passing the Green Man tavern, closing for the night. He shivered and drew his cloak tighter about him. Glancing back, he saw that Dick was asleep, one of the sheepskins pulled up over him to keep out the chill.

‘Awake now, are you?’ his father said, glancing at Will as he sat up. ‘The children will be abed by now, but your mother may still be sitting up for us – and your wife.’

His father hesitated, staring ahead at the track which led to Henley Street. No one was about in the town, and although a few of the houses along the way showed candlelight through their windows, most doors and shutters were closed, the decent folk of Stratford having retired to bed or the fireside once the sun went down.

‘Anne’s missed you badly this past year,’ he said in the end, not looking at Will. ‘It’s been hard for her, particularly now the twins are older and running about, always underfoot. I know Anne would like a house of her own, and although your mother would miss the children, I think it would do your wife good to be mistress of her own home.’

‘I cannot afford to buy a house for her yet,’ Will said, frowning.

‘Will you ever be able to, on a player’s fee?’

‘Yes!’ Will could not resist showing his father that he was no longer a poor player, but a writer whose work had grown popular in London. ‘I am writing plays now, don’t you remember? And I have a patron, a wealthy nobleman to whom I dedicate my longer poems.’

His father grunted, seemingly unimpressed. ‘And when will you pass on this nobleman’s patronage to your wife and children?’

The house was in sight now, smoke curling thinly into the night from the central chimney. So his mother was still up, and most likely Anne too, waiting for him to return. Will thought guiltily of the money he had kept aside for the day when he could buy a share in the company, not sending it home to Anne with the rest of his pay.

But a second epic poem, on the rape of Lucrece, would follow his long poem about Venus and Adonis, and for that the Earl of Southampton had promised him another heavy purse.

‘Soon,’ he promised, reaching for his pack as the cart rumbled to a halt outside their house.

The house on Henley Street looked smaller and more ramshackle than he had remembered. Since gaining the Earl of Southampton’s patronage, he had moved to better lodgings and grown accustomed to visiting much grander houses than this. Even so, he was surprised by how much repair it seemed to need, the thatch scarce and patchy in places, mud splashed up the walls where paint was peeling, one of the upper window shutters hanging loose from its hinge. But to comment would have been a discourtesy to his father.

‘Perhaps this winter. It will not be enough to buy us a house yet. But eventually we should be able to buy our own house here in Stratford, as she always dreamed.’

The door opened and Anne stood in the doorway, neat as ever in her housewifely cap and apron, her face half hidden in shadow.