The Queen's Secret

by Victoria Lamb

  ‘The rest of the show?’ she repeated, frowning.

  ‘The porter was only the beginning,’ the young man explained. ‘Through that gate is the tiltyard – yes, there’ll be jousting in a few days – and beyond that the outer courtyard, and then the old keep. At every stop, Lord Leicester has arranged a spectacle for the Queen, and fireworks to follow.’ He took her hand without waiting for permission. ‘If you wish to see the rest of tonight’s entertainments, I can get you through the gate and into the outer courtyard. You won’t be allowed through on your own.’

  She stared at his blue livery, belatedly remembering what it signified. ‘You’re one of Lord Leicester’s men?’

  ‘And you sing for the Queen?’

  Lucy caught her breath at that, taking a quick step backwards as though afraid of what was coming next. It was usually an insult of some kind. ‘How did you know I’m an entertainer?’ she demanded.

  ‘I have ears.’ When she continued to stare at him, the young man sighed and gestured to where she had been standing before. ‘That oaf who sent you back here asked what you did at court. I was listening.’

  Lucy’s flush deepened. ‘Oh.’

  He shrugged, perhaps seeing her embarrassment. ‘I work in my lord Leicester’s stables here at Kenilworth. There’s no shame in honest labour.’

  The crowd was beginning to thin as people jumped down from the grass bank and made their way across the Brays to where a makeshift camp had been erected, with tents and rough wooden dwellings and hammocks strung hastily between trees. Numerous small fires had already been lit and the sound of hammering – silenced during the Queen’s entry into the castle – had begun again in earnest. Lucy peered into the darkness, at the dozens of tiny flickering lights springing up within the earthwork defences as people set up their campsites for the next few weeks. Now that night had fallen, it seemed everyone wanted a corner to sleep in.

  She allowed the young man to lead her down from the bank, instinctively trusting him, even though she felt the touch of his hand was rather impudent considering they did not even know each other’s names.

  ‘So you’re a horseman,’ she said.

  She did not ride. It had never been necessary in London, where she had walked everywhere, and certainly not now she was at court.

  He jumped down first, then turned to support her as she climbed down more carefully, trying not to dirty her gown again. Until she found the other court entertainers who were sharing a trunk with her, she would not have another gown to wear.

  ‘A stableman,’ the young man corrected her. For a moment she thought he was laughing at her, then they passed under the crowded archway on to the tiltyard and out into the light, where his face looked serious again. ‘I clean out the stalls, I mend saddles and backcloths, I tend to his lordship’s horses and those of his guests.’ He paused. ‘We have over a hundred horses to feed, water and groom tonight, and that doesn’t even touch on the hundreds more running loose in the east pasture, all the horses and ponies that came in with the Queen’s household.’

  She stared. ‘But you should go, then. Won’t you get into trouble for not being there?’

  ‘I saw you.’ His voice was quiet, but the emphasis on you was unmistakable. ‘I couldn’t go back. I had to stay and speak to you.’

  Lucy was startled, aware that he must be risking a beating for his absence. But the young man was already leading her through the crowds, past the disapproving guards with a wave of his hand and a muttered word. Whatever she had meant to say in response was lost as she caught sight of the Queen’s party again, only a few hundred yards ahead.

  Seated on her white horse in a ring of flaming torches, her red hair glowing in coils, her stiff gold and ivory gown so fabulously embroidered and gathered in thick folds, decked with such enormous gemstones that glinted and flashed at her slightest movement, the Queen could almost have been a character from a London pageant, or one of the painted figures Lucy had seen carried through the streets at Easter or Christmastide, surrounded by lights.

  ‘Look!’ he whispered in her ear, and she turned reluctantly to see what everyone else was gazing at.

  Out across the dark waters of the lake, a floating torchlit island was drawing steadily closer. At its centre stood a woman in white. Nymph-like girls knelt about her as if posed in a tapestry. With their hair streaming loose down their backs, they cast armfuls of what appeared to be rose petals into the water.

  ‘I am the Lady of this pleasant lake,’ the woman began to recite, ‘who, since the time of great King Arthur’s reign, has led a lowering life in restless pain.’

  Straight-backed and regal on her white horse, the Queen turned to the Earl of Leicester, amusement clear in her beautiful face. ‘The Lady of the Lake?’

  ‘Do you not know, Your Majesty,’ Leicester replied, his deep voice echoing about the enclosed tiltyard, ‘you are no longer in the wilds of Warwickshire but at Camelot, the court of great King Arthur himself?’

  ‘Then must we resign our throne?’

  ‘Hush, you’ll spoil it,’ he said, and flicked her gloved hand irreverently as he spoke. ‘Be patient. There’s more to come.’

  Confused, Lucy turned to look at the young man beside her. He seemed curiously intent, his gaze moving from Leicester to the Queen. ‘What does he mean?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘The court of King Arthur?’

  ‘My master is only an earl,’ he muttered in her ear, ‘but he wishes to marry a queen. If this is Camelot, that makes him Arthur. And what woman would not wish to marry King Arthur?’

  ‘But I thought the Queen had refused him?’

  ‘Many times in private, it’s said. But my master does not give up so easily. This is his way of asking her in full view of the court. Everything will be perfect here for a match between them. The clock on the keep tower is to be stopped until the Queen’s departure. So we are outside time. Kenilworth becomes Camelot and he becomes Arthur.’

  She did not understand, but something in his voice made her wary of asking anything further.

  The Lady of the Lake stepped gracefully off her island as it came to land, its bobbing mass anchored on ropes by blue-liveried servants, and passed through a narrow gateway to kneel before the Queen. Her nymphs slipped easily into the water and played beneath the tiltyard mound, gambolling and calling out, their wet silks clinging to their bodies like a shimmering second skin, so that every man present stared and smiled. Now Lucy could see that the Lady was not young, as her nymphs were, but a much older woman, her face lined, grey hair concealed beneath a tight-swathed band of white silk.

  ‘I will attend while you lodge here, most peerless Queen, and as my love to Arthur did appear, so shall I to you.’

  Speaking these verses, the Lady sank even lower and gestured to the tower’s yawning entrance ahead, torchlight glinting off the rings on her fingers:

  ‘Pass on, madame, you need no longer stand. The lake, the lodge, the lord, are yours to command.’

  ‘Bravo!’ The Queen clapped her hands in applause, and the court hurriedly followed suit. ‘I thank you for this poetic welcome. But you say this place has been yours since the days of King Arthur, yet you grant me free access for the duration of my stay?’

  The Lady of the Lake seemed to glance uncertainly at Leicester. At his nod, she gave another deep curtsey, the silken folds of her costume shimmering in the torchlight. ‘Indeed, O peerless Queen.’

  ‘As Queen of England, we had thought this place was ours by right. And yet you say it’s yours? My lord Leicester would do well to remember the old adage that one country cannot suffer two rulers.’ The Queen raised her gloved hand and spoke loudly, her voice ringing about the narrow space. ‘We thank you for your most gracious welcome, Lady of the Lake, and suggest you return to your watery home, lest we fall out over this matter.’

  There was a ripple of uneasy laughter through the court, and Lucy glanced at Leicester, curious to see his reaction to this public snub. But the crowd about the royal party had sh
ifted again, and she could see only the tip of the feather in his cap.

  As the brilliant entourage moved on in flashes of gold under the torches, the crowd shuffled forward another few feet, eager to reach the last gate and enter the castle, almost crushing Lucy as they pressed up against her from behind.

  Anxiously, she glanced about for the young man but could no longer see him in the close-pressing crowd. The only way was forward, with hundreds of people behind them and a row of guards along the waterside, their pikes levelled. The smell of warm human flesh was overpowering. Lucy felt something push hard into her back, making her cry out in alarm, then somebody’s hand touched her, large male fingers fumbling under her cloak at the lacings of her gown.

  She tried to turn, to see who was behind her, but at that moment the crowd made a great push for the gate, and everyone staggered forward in the darkness.

  Trying not to fall, Lucy grabbed at the woman in front, who, cradling a baby against her exposed breast, dirty yellow hair loose under her cap, half turned to scream abuse at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy managed, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Here – come this way.’

  She felt someone seize her hand, and allowed herself to be jerked sideways out of the crowd and through the row of guards with their menacing pikes. To her relief, it was the young man who had rescued her before. He pulled her aside to a quiet space against the wall where a dying torch guttered in a bracket above them.

  ‘Are you well, mistress?’ he asked, watching her as though afraid she might faint.

  Too breathless to speak, she straightened her gown and nodded.

  ‘Follow me then,’ he instructed her, ‘and this time, let us try not to get separated. I must go back to the stables, but I can take you as far as the outer court at least. There’ll be fireworks over the lake soon, and musicians, and more of this mummery. Perhaps you’ll see one of your friends from the court there, and be able to discover where you’re to sleep tonight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, but the young man was already threading a path along the wall behind the guards.

  Lucy caught up with him as they entered the outer court, the last of the Queen’s entourage clattering through the archway on their horses. At least here the way was torchlit and the grumbling crowd from the tiltyard was being held back at pike-point. But she heard one of the guards shout that no one else would be allowed into the castle tonight, and for everyone without a bed to go back to the camp at the Brays. She wondered what would happen if she could not find any of the other entertainers, and tried not to consider the grim likelihood that she would have to sleep rough in that den of thieves beyond the outer walls, with no protection and none of her possessions.

  Lucy flattened herself against the wall to allow a body of guards through the gate, and the young man followed suit, though he was clearly impatient to be let through.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked, boldly enough, though she struggled to hold his gaze when the young man turned to look down at her.

  ‘Tom.’

  ‘A short name.’

  He smiled then, his teeth very white and strong. ‘Thomas Black. Yes, a Christian name, though my parents were both Moors. They were on a slave ship from Morocco that was captured by the English. They chose to convert on landing at Falmouth, and my father accepted the English name of Black.’ He studied her, through long black lashes that hid his expression. ‘It was either that or face execution.’

  ‘Are you …’ She hesitated, not wishing to offend him. ‘Are you a slave, then?’

  ‘I was born a slave,’ he agreed, calmly enough. ‘And sold as one when I grew old enough to work. But Lord Leicester gave me my freedom when I came into his service. He will have no slaves in his household. He is a great man.’

  ‘My parents were Africans too. At least, that is what I was told as a child. But I know nothing for sure.’

  He nodded, his face sombre again. ‘You are like me, little sister. Not meant to be here.’

  Lucy looked away, unsure how to respond to such a remark. Her mother had been a runaway slave, it was true, but Master Goodluck had always told Lucy to call herself ‘a free Englishwoman’, if anyone asked. She had been born in London, just as Goodluck had been. England was her home. She belonged nowhere else.

  Then Tom was pulling on her hand again and they were in the outer courtyard, lost at once in a riot of noise and chaos, smoke billowing from a fresh-lit fire to their left, people passing back and forth on foot and on horseback, stinking heaps of muck everywhere so that she had to pull up her skirts and walk with little hops to avoid soiling her gown.

  Tom was staring ahead with a frown in his eyes.

  ‘I will have to leave you here,’ he said reluctantly, turning to study her face. A lone firework cracked overhead in the darkness, probably set off by accident, and a great ‘Ahhh!’ went up from the crowd around them as everyone craned their necks to see the streamers of crackling red light. ‘They’ll be looking for me at the stables. Will you be safe on your own?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said doubtfully.

  But she did not want him to go. The fear she had felt when the guards grabbed her began to return, and she felt her lips go numb with it.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Tom said, touching her shoulder.

  ‘I’m not,’ she lied, and knew by his expression that she had not convinced him.

  She searched the crowds for a recognizable face, then caught a glimpse of little fair-haired Catherine from Norfolk, one of the Queen’s tumblers. She waved, relieved at the sight of her familiar white cap and gown. ‘Catherine! Over here!’

  As the girl began to head in her direction, Lucy dropped Tom a hurried curtsey.

  ‘My friend will show me where I am to sleep tonight. Thank you again for your help, sir.’

  ‘Tom,’ he reminded her, still frowning, but Lucy turned away with only the slightest nod of her head.

  Linking an arm about Catherine’s waist, she walked away, telling her friend all the things she had seen. She did not want Tom to know how much she was beginning to like him.

  Six

  AMID CHEERS FROM the crowd, and accompanied by a gang of fluting, green-hosed musicians on hautboys, shawms and cornets, Elizabeth had ridden through the narrow gateway and on to the long wooden bridge beyond. The air was thick with smoke from flaming torches. A series of paired posts awaited her at every few steps, each post crowned with rare and colourful birds in cages, luxurious flowers and fruits of the season – a cornucopia of natural and strange delights which Robert pointed out for her to admire.

  Yet always his eyes scanned the way ahead, sharp and watchful, as though something in the air alerted him to danger.

  Catching his mood, Elizabeth stared up at the shadowy rise of new buildings alongside Kenilworth’s ancient keep, stretching above the old walls with vast candlelit mullion windows and elegant stonework.

  Why would Robert be concerned for her safety here, in his own stronghold, his home territory of Warwickshire? Well, one jealous faction or another was always plotting against her crown; she would not shut herself away like a scared old woman. No, she would ride it out, as her father would have done, and see the perpetrators hung, drawn and quartered for their treason.

  Orders were called out hoarsely within the walls. The guards along the battlements crashed arms in a salute. Shadowy flags and pennants flew from the high towers, and the crowd cheered once more as she entered the final gate.

  The passage into the castle proper was short but gloomy, lit only by the guttering flames of torches set into the wall at intervals, and then she was out in the warm evening air again, surrounded by the crowd, their cheers almost deafening her, some pressing so close that her ladies-in-waiting found themselves hemmed in, one uttering a sharp cry of alarm at the crush.

  Everywhere inside the walls was chaos. Only a narrow path ahead had been kept clear for their procession by Robert’s men, the sight of their blue livery and gold badges reassuring i
n the gloom.

  When they finally reached the wooden drawbridge into the inner court, Robert threw her horse’s reins to a servant and came round to help her dismount. His dark gaze searched her face, then his hands lingered on her waist longer than was necessary as she slipped down from the saddle.

  ‘I can see you’re tired,’ Robert murmured, his words intended for her ears alone. ‘But I haven’t forgotten our arrangement. Midnight?’

  There was an intimacy to his smile that made Elizabeth itch to slap his handsome face as she remembered his whispered conversation with Lettice that afternoon.

  How far had it gone, this dalliance with her married cousin?

  ‘I am not tired,’ Elizabeth snapped. She waited until his arms had dropped away before addressing the surrounding courtiers, her voice coldly formal.

  ‘However, the hour is late,’ she announced, summoning her ladies with a turn of her head. ‘It is the Lord’s day tomorrow and we rise early for Mass. Bring torches, and show us and our ladies to the royal apartments.’

  ‘But you will miss the fireworks …’ Robert began, his voice perplexed and not a little irritated. Then he must have caught the unyielding expression on her face. He smiled and swept her an elegant bow instead. ‘I am yours to command, Your Majesty.’

  The torches were brought forward, illuminating the darkness of the inner court. To one side, the old keep glowered over them, and to the other, fantastically lit with candles, the large windows of Robert’s new building glittered out across the court, inviting them to enter. Lifting her skirts, conscious that the jewel-encrusted gown was overlong and more suited to riding than walking, Elizabeth made her way through the unruly crowd outside the tower.

  Strange faces pressed in on her in the torchlight, their cheers too loud, almost forced.

  Roses and lilies were thrown from the crowd. She had not taken more than a few steps when a cannon began to fire over the lake, the booming thud making Elizabeth jerk with its first explosion. Then the sky erupted with fireworks, vast streamers of fire high above the water, reds, oranges, yellows, blinding in their magnificence. The crowd cried out around them, and her ladies paused to look up, clapping their hands excitedly.