Her Last Assassin (33 page)

Frustrated by the vicious tangle of deceit with which he had to struggle, Goodluck walked back to his horse and led it to a freshwater creek, waiting until the animal had drunk its fill. Then he tied up his horse in the shade and wandered back along the lane. Within a few doors of the widow Bull’s house, he sat down in the shade of an old ash tree gnarled and stunted by the salt winds. There was nothing more to do but wait for Marlowe to come out, then either follow him again or risk death by demanding straight out if he was planning the Queen’s assassination.

No more after this. He would seek his release from service, take Lucy back to his brother’s farm and marry her as he had promised. There had to be something honest in his life before he died. Else why had God brought him into this world in the first place?

It was late afternoon when he stirred for the third time, walking a little way down towards the river again to rouse his blood and keep his limbs from stiffening. He was just on his way back when he heard a woman screaming, and started to run. He leapt up the steps into the dimly lit house to find the widow Bull standing in his way, screaming and rocking, her hands over her face.

‘Dead! Dead!’

The hairs crept on the back of his neck. Goodluck shouldered past her and ran to the stairs. There, stumbling down into darkness from the room above, his hands outstretched and stained with blood, was the weasel-faced man called Ingram Frizer.

‘It was not my fault,’ he kept repeating, his voice dull. ‘He attacked me first. I had to defend myself, as God is my witness.’

Someone in the lower room had thrown open a shutter, letting in the dying rays of the sun. A large ring on Frizer’s hand flashed red and gold. Diamonds? On the hand of a killer?

Ingram Frizer stared down at it, as though only just remembering its existence, then dragged the ring from his finger and stuffed it into the leather pouch at his belt.

‘Who is dead?’ Goodluck demanded from him, then ran urgently up the stairs, not waiting for a reply.

He stopped in the doorway and almost recoiled. Every instinct was shrieking at him to turn around and leave. To get as far away from this house of death as possible.

Marlowe lay sprawled backwards across the table, as though dragged there from behind. His once handsome face was a mass of blood. A dagger protruded from one eye socket, pushed in with such force that it had penetrated almost to the hilt. One arm dangled down from the table as though pointing to the letter that had been knocked to the floor, spattered now with blood.

He did not need to go any further to discover what he already knew. If Marlowe was not dead, he soon would be.

The two other men, who had been bending over the body in fierce discussion, straightened and looked round at him intently.

Goodluck descended the stairs two at a time, ignoring Frizer’s shout from the lower room, stumbled from the house and ran back along the lane. Out of breath, his chest heaving, he dragged the horse’s reins free and clambered into the saddle.

‘Hie! Hie!’ he gasped, and kicked the startled animal into a trot, then into a canter. Moments later he was fleeing Deptford at an ungainly gallop, men staring as he passed, clods of turf flying up in his dusty wake, his horse’s head turned towards Richmond and the court.

Marlowe was dead. Horribly dead. And given the secret nature of their meeting, he had every reason to fear the Queen would be next.

It was dark before Goodluck reached Richmond, his horse exhausted and trembling as he slid from its sweat-slick back. The guards had only let him through the gate when he invoked the powerful name of Essex, a talisman against questions and delays. But now that he was here, Goodluck was suddenly unsure what to tell him, still trying to weigh up his master’s allegiance to the Queen.

With Walsingham, it had been more clear-cut. A villain had been a villain, even if sometimes it had been necessary for Goodluck to play that part himself, in the hope of bringing light to a dark situation.

With Essex though, he often suspected the earl knew more than he did about the plots they were constantly attempting to thwart. It was almost as though some of these villains were also in his employ. Which was not a thought he could ever voice, Goodluck thought grimly, unless he too wished for an early death.

Had Marlowe been reckless enough to suspect or question his master’s loyalty?

Lord Essex, he was told, was dining late that evening with the Queen and the rest of the court. He stopped only to wash his face and brush the worst of the dirt from his clothes, then stumbled into the banqueting hall. His first thought was for Lucy, but she was not in the crowd of ladies milling about behind the Queen’s table. Reluctantly, he put his beloved out of his head, and made his way up the hall towards the dais where Essex was dining at the right hand of the Queen.

Essex saw him at once, beckoning him over with a frown. He must have known Goodluck would never approach him so openly if it were not vital.

‘Goodluck?’ He wiped his lips with a napkin, then looked him up and down. ‘What is it, man? Quietly now, what’s the matter?’

Goodluck bent forward and whispered in his ear. ‘Marlowe is dead, my lord. Murdered in Deptford this very afternoon, at the house of a widow named Eleanor Bull.’

‘You were with him?’

‘I was outside. I … I heard a commotion, then ran inside and saw …’ He paused, not wishing to recount the rest of what he had seen. ‘My lord, there were two agents of the crown present. Maybe three.’

‘Names?’

‘Nicholas Skeres, Robert Pooley, and one Ingram Frizer.’

Essex did not blink. He sat back instead, waving him away as though what he had said held no special significance. ‘Very well, I see. Go now, change your clothes. Take some wine and get some sleep. I will send for you in the morning.’

‘My lord,’ Goodluck said urgently, ‘I fear Master Marlowe may have discovered a plot against the Queen’s life by these men and was silenced for his knowledge.’

A serving man was approaching the high dais, a vast platter of glazed fruits balanced most unsteadily before him.

Essex stared at Goodluck, his eyes cold. ‘You have spoken out of turn, Master Goodluck. I regret Marlowe’s death, but I can assure you that it was in no way connected to any plot against Her Majesty.’

Goodluck’s belly tightened with fear. Lord Essex had known that Marlowe was dead, even before he had whispered the cold fact in his ear. He might even have ordered the playwright’s execution himself. That could be the only explanation for his words, his calm dismissal of Marlowe’s death. Today’s meeting at the widow’s quiet house in Deptford had been an assassination disguised as a secret rendezvous between spies. Though why had the killers not struck in the morning when Marlowe arrived? Why wait until the sun was almost ready to set before striking the vicious blow that would deprive the playwright of his life?

Because Marlowe held some information they had to extract first.

A confession, he wondered feverishly? Or perhaps the identity of the assassin hired by Philip of Spain?

The serving man was lowering the platter of glazed fruits before the Queen, wobbling slightly as he knelt at her side. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said hoarsely, ‘my master sends you this with his compliments.’

‘You must thank him for me,’ the Queen replied graciously, then gave a sudden horrified gasp, for the man had pulled a long sharp blade from under the platter of fruits. Her pale fingers clutched Essex’s sleeve as she recoiled in her seat. ‘Robbie!’

‘Die, you Protestant whore, in the name of King Philip of Spain and the Holy Roman Church!’ the assassin yelled at the top of his voice. His hand drew back to stab her in the throat, his face twisted with triumphant rage.

The room seemed frozen, like a brightly coloured tableau at a pageant, as every courtier and servant turned to stare at the high dais. Then, with miraculous speed, before his knife had descended, three of the Queen’s bodyguards seized the assassin, sent the blade spinning from his hand and forced him to the floor. The man lay there grotesquely, arms twisted behind his back, face pressed into the greasy rushes of the banqueting hall, still yelling obscenities.

Above his head, the Queen’s ladies screamed and stared and fluttered their painted fans, pressing close to see the would-be killer.

The Queen herself shrank back in her chair, staring first at the floored assassin and then at Lord Essex.

‘You swore I would be safe, Robert,’ she whispered accusingly, her face stiff and white as a mask. ‘You promised me.’

Six

L
UCY STOOD IN
the centre of the gilt-ceilinged ladies’ chamber, staring about in despair. The room lay in utter chaos, mostly made by the other women with whom she shared this chamber when Her Majesty was in residence at Richmond. Everyone had squeezed into the narrow room to change their gowns for tonight’s dinner, given in honour of Sir John Puckering who had lately entertained the Queen at his house in nearby Kew, and then left the place in disarray. A bolt of white lace was veiling the mirror, petticoats and hoops lay abandoned on the floor where women had simply stepped out of them, velvet hoods and court slippers were strewn higgledy-piggledy across the numerous mattresses.

‘Where did I put my pearl earrings?’ she muttered to herself. The earrings Sir John had given her at New Year. She had looked everywhere and could not find them.

Lucy blew out her cheeks, suddenly fearful that she would miss the end of the banquet and be reprimanded for not starting the dances. The Queen had noticed she was not wearing them and sent her back to find them.

I shall be scolded so badly if I have lost Sir John’s gift, she thought, and bent to rummage in a chest under the window. At last her hand fell on a small rose-coloured silk bag.

‘Are they not in here?’

She loosened the drawstring and peered inside, then drew out the exquisite pearl earrings with a smile. Slowly, she fed the thin gold wire through the holes in her ear lobes. It was an uncomfortable sensation, and she was not yet accustomed to the weight of jewellery there. But Queen Elizabeth liked her ladies to keep up with the fashions, and the Lord knew she needed to remain in the Queen’s good graces these days, for there was always some whisper against her at court.

Once again, she regretted that Cathy was not there to help her. But ever since her friend had so inexplicably betrayed her to the Earl of Southampton, Cathy had chosen to serve the other ladies of the court, and had never once spoken to her about that night. Lucy had passed her a few times in the corridors and in the ladies’ chambers, but Cathy had always lowered her eyes and hurried away, her cheeks flushed.

Why had Cathy betrayed her?

It was a mystery, and one which still pained her. She had never treated Cathy as a servant but as a friend. Though perhaps such distinctions were not enough when their very different duties at court had kept them so often apart.

Lucy hurried alone through the corridors, her broad skirts brushing the stone walls, for Richmond Palace had been constructed long before this new rage for hooped skirts. She wondered where Goodluck was tonight. His last note had been terse, promising that he would return to court in a sennight, unless his business called him elsewhere.

Business. He meant spying, of course.

Her body tingled with excitement at the thought of how often they had made love since that first night in his chamber, skin against skin, taking risks which had terrified her with Shakespeare, yet which felt so natural and right with Goodluck.

As she reached the base of the west tower and turned to descend the winding staircase towards the banqueting hall, she gazed out across the Thames through the leaded windows as she always did, admiring the glitter and flash of torchlight on the current as it flowed past the west front of the palace.

A burst of deep male laughter from one of the rooms off the staircase caught her attention; she paused on the stair in surprise, glancing into the candlelit room.

Two men, standing close together, almost in each other’s arms.

One was Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, who hated her with such a passion.

Then her heart clenched in sudden dread as she recognized the second man. The voice first, once so beloved, then the dark head, the slim figure in a plain white shirt and leather jerkin, the traditional garb of a player.

William Shakespeare.

She stared, her heartbeat galloping, and cursed herself as a fool, thrown into confusion just by his presence. Yet what was he doing here at court? He must be here for some theatrical performance, though she had not heard that any company would be performing before the Queen tonight.

She lifted her heavy skirts to continue down the stairs, determined to leave her love for Shakespeare behind, and then it happened. Her gaze still locked on Shakespeare, she suddenly saw what she had missed before – the closeness of their bodies, the earl’s arm draped so possessively about Will’s shoulders, their hips pushed oddly together – and could not miss the moment when Henry Wriothesley leaned forward and touched his lips to Shakespeare’s.