Her Last Assassin (42 page)

‘God’s blood, are you all mad? My doctor? Is this your poisoning plot again, Robbie?’

‘Your Majesty—’ Essex began, but she refused to let him finish.

‘I told you not to pursue that nonsensical charge, my lord. I will not have an innocent man accused of treason.’ Elizabeth raised a hand, silencing his protest. ‘No, I will not be gainsaid. For a man accused of treason is always tortured, and it is my belief that most men will confess to any crime, however dreadful the punishment, if it will save them even a moment’s torment on the rack.’

‘Where your safety is at stake, Your Majesty,’ Lord Burghley said gravely, ‘there can be no mercy shown, no infirmity of purpose.’

‘You believe in this plot now, my lord? I thought you and Cecil were against it. When Lord Essex came to me again on this matter earlier in the autumn, you advised me to dismiss it from my mind. Now you too think my doctor guilty of plotting to poison me?’

‘I did indeed advise Your Majesty not to lend too much credence to Lord Essex over this particular conspiracy. But in recent weeks I have been brought to a new understanding of the problem, and there is some evidence now to support his claim.’

‘Evidence?’ She glanced at Robbie searchingly. Was he behind this change in Burghley’s position? ‘Out with it.’

‘I set a man to watch Lopez at his home,’ Essex told her, though she could see he was not happy that she had doubted his word, and in front of Cecil too, ‘and to follow whenever Lopez travelled about the country, which the doctor does with surprising frequency. This fellow sent me back reports on Lopez’s dealings and meetings with others, and even conversations where he was privy to them. Some of the men with whom he has met in recent days, other Portuguese exiles with links to Spain, are also suspected of conspiring against your throne.’

‘That is not evidence but hearsay,’ she muttered, still loath to hand her doctor over to these men.

‘There is a ring,’ Essex countered swiftly. ‘A gold and diamond ring, taken from the finger of King Philip himself, by all accounts, and sent as a bribe to Lopez. My man has seen Lopez wearing this ring at his house in Holborn, where no doubt he thought himself safe, that none would report him for it.’

‘A bribe?’ Her voice faltered.

She did not wish to think such evil of Dr Lopez. Was there no one at court she could trust?

Elizabeth walked to the leaded window and stared out, unseeing. ‘How can you be sure this ring came from King Philip?’

‘We have letters to prove it,’ Lord Burghley told her. He threw a bundle on to the table, tied with a red ribbon. She looked round at them, but did not move. ‘I took the liberty of having all such correspondence copied out, so you might study it at your leisure and draw your own conclusions. The most damning evidence is a letter which arrived only last week, from a Portuguese gentleman of the name of Tinoco. He is working as a diplomat in Brussels, and wrote begging us for safe passage to England so he might share state secrets with Your Majesty, secrets which he swears you will find vital to the health of your kingdom.’

‘And will I not?’

Essex replied for him, coming urgently to her side. ‘Your Majesty, a Portuguese spy we apprehended and tortured in October gave us this man’s name. He said a Senhor Tinoco from Brussels would write and beg safe passage for this very purpose. And that when he arrived, bearing no fewer than fifty thousand crowns from the King of Spain hidden secretly among his luggage, this would be the signal for Lopez to poison Your Majesty, accepting the crowns as his reward.’

She drew in her breath and held it. ‘And this letter from Tinoco has arrived, you say?’

‘And been replied to,’ Burghley agreed.

‘You have granted him safe passage?’

‘Indeed we have, Your Majesty,’ Cecil told her, and limped forward to stand at her other side, his gaze locking with Robbie’s. ‘As soon as Senhor Tinoco lands at Dover, he will be arrested and searched. If these fifty thousand crowns are in his possession, will you give us leave to arrest Dr Lopez and question him on the matter of this ring, and the bribe sent by the Spanish King?’

Elizabeth wished she was still dancing. She could forget her cares while the music played. Here was no respite.

Wearily, she sifted through what they had said, but could formulate no argument to set against their cold and brutal ‘evidence’. Even Lord Burghley, a councillor of eminent good sense and judgement, seemed determined that her servant should be arrested. Was it possible that a gentleman as close to her as Lopez, a respected doctor with frequent access to the royal bedchamber and to her person, could be in league with her greatest enemy?

Part of her suspected that Essex, in his struggle for power, would stop at nothing to best his rival Cecil. This latest plot might prove to be merely a wild attempt to make himself seem as powerful a spymaster as Walsingham had been.

But the gold and diamond ring from Philip himself … The letter written by this spy, Tinoco …

These seemed hard to refute, if they could be proved. Then she recalled how Lopez had feared for his life when interviewed about this business, as though he had some guilt to hide.

‘Robbie,’ she said, without turning to look at him, ‘your man who has been watching Lopez … Is he Master Goodluck, Lucy’s seducer whom I had committed to the Tower?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘When you asked permission to have him released so he could spy for you, I thought it was on some great state business. Not for this frippery.’

Robbie touched her and she stiffened. It was a daring gesture in front of the other two councillors, his fingers brushing her arm just below her shoulder. But she did not shake him off. Instead, she revelled in the warmth of his hand on the red velvet sleeve, and wished they could be alone together.

‘The safeguarding of your life is no trivial matter. Besides, Goodluck was the best man for the task. If Walsingham had been alive, he would have made the same decision.’

At her other side, Cecil coughed drily. ‘For once I must concur with his lordship. You should consider your safety as paramount, Your Majesty, and not allow your natural passions as a female to interfere with this business. Dr Lopez could feed you any poison he wished, disguised as some healing tonic or potion, and none of us would be any the wiser until you were found dead in your bed. If we could question him before this Tinoco arrives …’

‘I will not have my servant arrested before I am sure of his guilt,’ Elizabeth insisted shrilly, then forced herself to be calm again.

She must maintain control. Otherwise they would wrest it from her and claim her unfit to rule. Such things had happened to princes before, those who could not control themselves and their people.

Gazing out of the window, Elizabeth watched in silence as the sun hid behind a cloud and the November day grew suddenly dark. The bright morning and its promise of joy had gone. These late autumn days were so short. In only a few hours, dusk would begin to fall again. Then a river mist would creep in across the palace roofs, masking these whitewashed façades below and striking a chill into her bones.

Soon she would send one of her ladies for a warm shawl to set about her shoulders. Once night had fallen, her courtiers would drag themselves away to play cards or enjoy whores where they thought she would not hear of their sin. Then she herself would retire to the comfort of a book and a roaring fire in her Privy Chamber.

It was a horrible thought, but Robbie was right. She had grown old and fragile. It was only the presence of these men about her throne that prevented villains and traitors from taking her life away from her, reducing her to nothing.

And yet she could not admit how vulnerable she had become. Stare hard at one hand and ignore what the other is doing.

‘The trap has been baited,’ she remarked to the grey sky. ‘Now let us wait and see.’

Later that evening, when the business of the day had been concluded and her ladies sat quietly about the Privy Chamber at Whitehall, setting neat stitches into their embroidery frames or whispering among themselves in the firelight, Lord Burghley returned. As soon as Elizabeth saw his face, she dismissed Mary and Helena, who had been smoothing an emollient into her white hands, dried her fingers on a square of muslin and beckoned her chief councillor to approach.

‘My lord, what’s the matter? Are you unwell?’

‘No, Your Majesty, though I’m afraid I do come bearing news which may distress you. Not wishing to add to your burden earlier, I decided to wait until a later hour to bring this to your attention.’ Lord Burghley hesitated; she saw a letter in his hand. ‘Indeed, I received this some days ago from the Constable of the Tower. It was addressed to Your Majesty, but the constable is a sensible man and suggested I should read it first, then decide how best to deal with its contents.’

She stiffened. ‘It comes from the Tower?’

‘From Mistress Morgan.’

‘I do not wish to read her words. Tell me what this letter contains.’

‘Mistress Morgan writes that she is with child, and that the father is Lord Essex’s man, Master Goodluck.’

‘God’s blood!’

‘I know Your Majesty’s views on this, but Mistress Morgan has been in the Tower since spring, and her health has suffered of late.’ He hesitated. ‘I would suggest that Master Goodluck be summoned and permitted to wed her with all haste, which I believe from Lord Essex has been his intention all along. Otherwise the child will be born a bastard, and the mother’s reputation ruined beyond repair.’

‘Lucy ruined herself when she played the whore in my service.’ Elizabeth’s fists clenched. ‘If she did not wish to bring a bastard into the world, she ought to have kept herself chaste. My answer is no, my lord. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

Lord Burghley waited a moment, as though hoping she might relent and change her mind. Then he withdrew, leaving Elizabeth to stare at each of the unmarried ladies in the room, wondering which of them were chaste and which wanton.

Her lips tightened, her hands clasped fiercely in her lap. There they sat, innocent enough, heads bent over their stitchwork or their books, giving no outer indication of their inner thoughts. Lucy too had sat like that, pure on the surface, while inside must have been seething all manner of heated and wanton yearnings.

There was no way to tell, she thought feverishly, just as there was no way to tell which of her servants were true and which were traitors. All that could be done was to watch them carefully until they revealed themselves with a word, or a look, or a letter.

Towards the end of November, Elizabeth woke one frosty morning to aches, sweats and a fever. Her doctors were summoned, and among them came Master Lopez, modestly dressed in a black velvet gown and cap, his head bent.

There was some fuss as he tried to approach the bed. Word had got round, no doubt, that the physician was under suspicion. She stirred angrily, turning her head on her pillow. ‘Enough there! I wish Master Lopez to attend me.’

She knew only too well how it felt to be innocent, yet held under suspicion of treason. To have done no wrong, yet face the terrifying prospect of a cruel and unjust death.

Yet it would not hurt to be cautious.

Lopez soothed and attended her with his customary solicitude, fluttering about the bed like a black moth. ‘Your Majesty,’ he murmured, bowing low before placing a hand on her temple. ‘Your ladies tell me you have the ague. The danger of such a condition deteriorating should be heeded. We must endeavour to cool your body.’

‘Is that so?’

Elizabeth pulled herself up on her pillows and stared at his hands. No gold and diamond ring. No ring at all, in fact. His thin fingers were bare, like twigs in winter.

Sir Robert Cecil appeared, sidling in behind Lopez as though he had been set to watch him.

Cecil said nothing, but stood beside her bed, just out of sight behind the rich green and gold hangings that kept out the draughts in the winter months. She presumed he was there to watch that Lopez did not force some poison down her throat under the guise of a medicament.

But her Portuguese doctor merely suggested the application of cool cloths steeped in hyssop, which sounded pleasant, then outraged her by diagnosing an infection of the jaw and advocating the removal of several more teeth.

‘I have a fever,’ she told him flatly. ‘Not toothache.’

‘So your teeth do not hurt you at all, Your Majesty?’

‘No,’ she lied.

‘This swelling under the jawbone,’ Lopez remarked, daring to prod her where it hurt. ‘It does not pain you?’

‘There is discomfort. Nothing more.’

‘The swelling is caused by a rotten tooth. And the rot is gradually spreading to its neighbours.’ Her chief physician seemed oblivious to her grimaces, continuing blithely, ‘The best course of action would be to remove the bad tooth without delay. The swelling in your jaw would then subside, and the fever with it. If left untreated, your fever may climb even higher and the infection spread to your ears and throat. I have seen it happen before, and death is not infrequent.’

She stared. Was the man a fool to suggest such horrors, when he must know the suspicion of treachery hung about his head?

‘Shall I call for a surgeon to come with a bowl and his instruments, Your Majesty? There is a preparation which will ease the pain of its removal considerably.’

‘No,’ she roared, and knocked him away.

Her ladies had already fled the chamber, all except patient Helena and two or three of the younger girls, who were staring with horrified fascination from behind the ornate screen. The others knew better than to remain on hand when the subject of toothache came up.

Lopez knew how averse she was to the idea of losing another tooth. Yet like all physicians he did not worry unduly about distressing his patient. Indeed he was already opening his medicine chest and rummaging inside for something to ease her dread. Some sharp-tasting solution of poppy, she thought, or perhaps a poison to help her to sleep until the last trumpet.

‘I understand your distress, Your Majesty. But the pain of removal is only momentary, and fever can be very dangerous for a woman of your age,’ Lopez was saying, inspecting a phial of some cloudy fluid.