Mary smiled, but Lettice knew she was annoyed at the rejection of her offer. Not that she cared a straw if Mary Sidney’s nose was pushed out of joint. Mary had no influence whatsoever over her brother, and Robert was all Lettice cared about.
Those at the Queen’s table had risen, and Lettice realized belatedly that music for dancing had begun. All eyes had turned once more to the Queen as Robert led her with slow ceremony to the newly cleared space before the unlit fireplace. Massetti, the charming young Italian, scraped back his chair to make room for the Queen’s jewelled gown, bowing low as she brushed past him with a laugh and a rapid exchange in his own language. Servants had hurriedly pushed back emptied tables and benches, and were now sweeping away the rushes soiled by grease and spilt food. The local gentry of Warwickshire stood about the torchlit walls to watch their queen and Leicester, clapping and laughing as though they had never seen a dance before, their faces bright with wine and heat.
Then the Queen said something and Robert half turned to glance over his shoulder. The rhythm of his footsteps faltered.
What had they seen?
A bearded and barrel-chested man appeared at the side of the dancers, the gold chain and other badges of office proclaiming him a man of some standing in the County of Warwickshire. It was clear from his bearing and the amused glances of those about him that he had taken too much drink and was making a nuisance of himself.
Staggering forward, the local drunkard watched the Queen and Robert dance for a few minutes more, a look almost of disgust on his red-cheeked face.
Then he seemed to throw off his restraint, unable to contain his impatience any longer, and called out slurringly to Robert, ‘My lord Leicester!’
Heads turned across the hall, astonished at the man’s insolence.
The man ignored their gasps, continuing loudly, ‘You summoned me here tonight, my lord, and I must come as a good servant of the crown. But I shall not wear the suit of blue livery you so kindly sent me, my lord. No, not even if it means a spell in the Tower of London!’
The music had come to an abrupt halt, Robert waving the pipers to silence with an angry gesture.
‘Arden,’ he addressed the man stiffly, ‘you may be Sheriff of Warwickshire, but you hold that office only through the good grace of the Queen, your sovereign. How dare you interrupt her entertainments in this manner?’ Robert took a step away from the Queen, whom he had been protecting with his body. His question echoed Lettice’s thought. ‘Have you run mad?’
‘No, my lord,’ the sheriff replied ebulliently, his hand moving to his sword-hilt in response, ‘I have come to my good senses. I will not accept the blue livery you sent over for me to wear tonight, nor will any of the men serving under me in Warwick.’
‘What’s wrong, Arden?’ one of the courtiers called out lazily from a side table. ‘Is blue not your colour? Would green suit you better, perchance?’
The great hall, held silent and astonished by the exchange so far, burst into ripples of nervous laughter. One of Arden’s young followers stepped hurriedly forward and whispered in his ear, knocking the drunkard’s hand away from his sword-hilt. If the fool had drawn, he would have found himself under sentence to lose his head, for to draw a sword in the Queen’s presence except in her protection was an act of treason and punishable by death.
Elizabeth ignored Robert and came around him to face the man. She looked down at him with disdain as he bent his head. ‘What is the meaning of this outburst, Sheriff? Speak up at once and make your grievance plain, or I shall have you removed from this castle and thrown into your own prison.’
‘Your Majesty,’ Arden responded, bowing so low that his bloated doublet seemed almost to creak, ‘my grievance is that I cannot wear the livery of a man without honour and not lose my own. I shall not submit to it, Your Majesty. Nor should any man here.’
The silence that followed this unexpected statement nearly undid Lettice. She could not breathe properly. She felt like a bird trapped in a cage, her gaze moving distractedly from the sheriff to the Queen’s face.
Without honour. She repeated his words feverishly in her mind, trying to understand them. Without honour.
What did this vile, outspoken man know?
‘And what,’ Elizabeth asked clearly into the silence, ‘would force a man of your standing into making such a dangerous accusation against the Earl of Leicester?’
The man swallowed. His fear was suddenly apparent. A sheen of sweat formed on his forehead and his hands shook. But he was not ready to back down, even if he could not quite bring himself to make his accusation specific.
‘There is a lady at this court who is married, Your Majesty, and yet who has become too … who is known to his lordship …’
The sheriff stumbled over his tale as the whispers grew again, then he came to an uncertain halt. His eyes flickered nervously to Leicester, no doubt realizing that the lady in question was not without a male protector here. Nonetheless, he managed to draw breath to deliver his final indictment.
‘I shall not wear the livery of a whoremaster, begging Your Majesty’s pardon. That’s all I’ve come to say tonight.’
‘And you will die for it!’ Robert swore.
Elizabeth snapped a hasty command. Robert, his eyes burning, had lunged forward with his sword half drawn before the Queen’s guards stopped him. The sheriff also swayed forward as though keen to fight and was held back by half a dozen of his own guards, the two men glaring at each other across the narrow space, their chests heaving, each one utterly furious and ready to kill.
Lettice sat and bore this public humiliation in silence, her eyes fixed on the high candlelit windows, determined not to utter a single word that might shame her family.
‘This lady’s name?’
The sheriff stared at the Queen for a moment without replying. Again, his gaze shifted to Robert’s outraged face and his half-drawn sword. He wiped his damp brow with the back of his hand. ‘I have forgotten, Your Majesty.’
‘Forgotten?’
‘No, I … I never knew it. I heard the story from … from …’
The man faltered, looking about the silent hall as though seeing it properly for the first time, his gaze slipping hurriedly over the bench where Lettice sat, her face unmoved. There was panic in his voice now, a trembling note of fear, but Lettice knew it was too late. He could not put the cat back into the bag.
‘Perhaps I was mistaken, Your Majesty. I most humbly and reverently beg your pardon.’
‘You deserve a public whipping, sir. But I must take your rank and your drunkenness into account.’ Elizabeth looked at him a long moment, then nodded to her guards. ‘Release my lord Leicester, who is under pain of death not to unsheathe his sword in this hall, and escort the Sheriff of Warwickshire to some room set apart for prisoners. Let him remain there under guard until he sees the arrant folly of publicly accusing one of the greatest men in England of nothing and makes due recompense to the Earl of Leicester for these drunken slurs.’
At the Queen’s command, the music began again and the sheriff was dragged away, bellowing his apologies. Elizabeth retired to her seat, not even glancing in Robert’s direction. Dancers took to the floor, the swell of conversation rose again in the hall, and the moment of danger seemed to be past. Yet it was another half-hour before Lettice found an excuse to slip away from the Queen’s party and fumble her way to a low door at the back of the great hall, from where she knew a staircase would lead her to the state apartments.
Head bowed, Lettice hurried back towards the cramped room that she shared with the other ladies-in-waiting when the Queen did not require their presence in her bedchamber. She tried not to show any fear at what had been said out loud in the great hall, nor consider how her hot-headed husband would react when he heard the scandalous tale, but her heart was beating so loud it sounded like a tambour in her head.
‘My lady!’
A hoarse whisper drew her to a standstill. Lettice turned, unsure what to expect.
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It was Lucy Morgan. The Queen’s new singer stood behind her in the shadowy corridor, out of breath. She must have run from the great hall in order to catch her.
‘What is it, girl?’ Lettice demanded, unnerved by this meeting. Had the Queen sent her? ‘Speak.’
Hurriedly, Lucy thrust a sealed letter into her hands and backed away, her eyes very wide.
‘From Lord Leicester,’ she whispered, then turned and was quickly swallowed up by the shadows.
Lettice hid the letter cautiously in the folds of her gown. Her hands were shaking but she was exhilarated, nonetheless. A message from Robert? He must have given it to Lucy before the feast began. She could not open it here but would wait until she was safely alone in the ladies’ chamber.
Reaching the base of the new building where the Queen and her ladies were housed, Lettice was surprised to find the stairs unguarded. She stumbled upstairs in a daze, wishing she had not drunk quite so much wine at table tonight.
She met one of the young guards hurrying down the stairs. ‘Why were you not at the door below?’ she demanded.
‘Her Majesty’s at the feast—’ he began, but Lettice interrupted him.
‘That is no good reason to desert your post,’ she replied sharply. ‘What if a thief had entered? Or an assassin, wishing to hide himself before the Queen’s return?’
The man glanced nervously back over his shoulder, and Lettice thought she caught a movement on the stairs above them, a black-eyed girl wrapped in a dark cloak whisking out of sight as she looked up. So that was his ‘reason’ for deserting his post, taking a sly moment to tumble some serving girl in the Queen’s apartments.
‘It won’t happen again, my lady. I swear it.’
‘And where is the other guard?’
‘He needed …’ The man swallowed, not meeting her eyes. ‘The privy, my lady.’
Lettice dismissed the young fool with a stern warning for his negligence and continued up to the room reserved for the Queen’s ladies, concentrating hard on each step. She guessed the girl must be one of Leicester’s own staff, for she had never noticed that dark, slant-eyed face at court before. She prepared a stern reprimand for her too. Yet when she reached the first landing, she found the maids’ room empty, as was the ladies’ cramped and dark bedchamber, and the door to the Queen’s apartments was still shut, just as it had been when they left it.
All she could think of was the scene she had witnessed in the great hall, the whispering courtiers, the suspicious glances of the Queen.
She had come so close to the Tower tonight, she could almost taste the filth and darkness of it on her wine-stained lips. She had a stitch in her side from running up the stairs. Breathless, she clutched at it, only allowing herself the luxury of a few tears now that she was alone.
This courtly game was too dangerous, she dared not play it much longer. Not while her husband still lived.
In the darkness of the ladies’ chamber, Lettice fumbled with the laces to her French gown, kicking off her shoes. She lit a candle and read Robert’s letter. It contained nothing of interest beyond another time and place for them to meet. Lettice bared her teeth in frustration. Robert would have written this letter before Arden destroyed everything tonight with his drunken accusations. Now he was unlikely to meet her privately again while they were at Kenilworth, for the Queen’s eye would be upon them constantly.
Lettice held Robert’s letter to the candle flame and waited until it was nothing but ashes.
She was sure now that she had imagined that face on the stairs. For the dark-eyed girl had not been here when she reached the top, and there was no other way out – unless she was able to fly.
Twenty-seven
‘UP, YOU LAZY lot!’
If there was one thing folk would find suspicious, it was a troupe of travelling players who never rehearsed their pieces. Bearing this in mind, Goodluck roused his team early on Saturday and, ignoring their sleepy protests, forced them out of the tent for a few hours’ rehearsal. It had rained during the night, and the grass was slippery and wet. The wind still blustered from time to time, slapping the tent walls and catching violently at their cloaks, but a patch of blue sky eventually appeared and the sun came out. Such weather did not bring a halt to their rehearsal though. Most of Goodluck’s agents were veterans of stage and street pageant, so it was not long before they had gathered a respectable audience and were playing it for laughs, keen to make the odd copper when the hat was passed round.
‘Whoops!’ cried John Twist, as Goodluck, playing King Canute, tripped over his outstretched foot. ‘Allow me to help you up, sire. Heading for the seaside, Your Majesty? Hope you don’t get your feet wet.’
A roar of appreciative laughter greeted this sally as Goodluck, righting himself with Twist’s help, strode about the circle of spectators with his arms flung wide, a long grey beard stuck over his real one and a painted wooden crown perched on his head. He slipped several times on the damp grass, which made his frown grow even more ferocious.
‘Argh!’ he roared, and the children in the audience shrank back, giggling but uncertain. ‘The sea shall obey me for I am Canute, lord of this isle, and of its waves too.’
‘So where’s your trident?’ a heckler demanded from the back. ‘Did it get swept away in all that rain last night?’
Goodluck roared again, shaking his fist at the man, and the crowd applauded his bravado. Swaggering, he made another noisy circuit.
But his attention was only half on the play, for a few hundred feet away he had seen the bearded Italian with his bear, chained and now muzzled. The man, apparently entertaining those who had gathered to watch, used his long stick to coax the vast black bear up on to its hind legs and made it take a few staggering steps forward.
Finishing his foot-stamping circuit, Goodluck feigned exhaustion and sank down on to his ‘throne’, tossing aside his crown and hiding his face beneath his cloak. As Twist took up the slack with his usual cautionary speech about the arrogance of kings, Goodluck watched the man and his performing bear from beneath the folds of his cloak, frowning in puzzlement.
If this was the skilled assassin he had heard about in Italy, the man they called the ‘Bear’, how did he plan to get close enough to the Queen to kill her? And what role, if any, would the great lumbering beast play in it?
The bear-tamer had a long face and an oddly mournful expression, though even at that distance his black eyes gleamed with intensity. The intensity of the assassin, perhaps. A dangerous man, then. And a cautious one too. Goodluck trusted his instinct that this man was one of the conspirators they sought, if not their leader.
But where did the smooth-tongued Massetti fit in? He was a clever young man, well educated and accustomed to the workings of foreign embassies. Had he forged their travel documents, perhaps, allowing this man and his fellows to move freely between countries? Goodluck was now convinced that more than one or two people must be involved in this plot. Even with Massetti’s help on the inside, this bear-tamer – however talented an assassin – could not hope to extinguish the Queen’s life on his own. Elizabeth was too well guarded at Kenilworth, too protected on all sides for any lone assassin to reach her and perform his deadly task unchecked.
But perhaps on the open road …
‘Goodluck, that’s your cue!’
Sos, the little Greek, kicked his ‘throne’ from behind, and Goodluck sprang up with a cry as though roused from a deep sleep. He staggered about groggily, shouting for his crown and a fresh pair of boots, ‘for these are soaked through!’
The spectators roared with laughter at these antics. Ned took up his battered lute and began to pluck out a country dance at double speed, while Goodluck attempted to keep up with the steps. He jerked wildly about the circle like a madman, with his wooden crown – handed to him by a small boy from the crowd – slipped down over one eye, giving him an even more crazed look.
Meanwhile, John Twist strolled about the circle with his hand held out for offerin
gs, flirting with all the women, regardless of their looks or the menacing stares of their husbands and brothers, and bowed low as each coin chinked into the hat.
Stumbling in and out of the crowd, Goodluck reeled about with mock-drunkenness, pretending to fall over and swearing ‘God’s holy cockles!’ each time at the top of his voice, much to everyone’s amusement. At his next tumble, a pair of strong hands steadied him and he looked up, expecting to see a man, but found a thin, unsmiling girl with painted eyebrows, dark aslant eyes staring into his, black-kohled as an Egyptian queen’s.
‘Take care,’ she warned him in slow, deliberate English, ‘that you do not hurt yourself in this, master.’
By way of reply, Goodluck whirled his old cloak about and roared back into the centre of the circle like a madman. When he turned, the girl with the strong hands was gone, as were the Italian and his black bear.
The crowd slowly dispersed once their rehearsal – or improvised performance, in truth – was over. Still in costume, Ned knelt to make up a fire between their tent and the oak tree. Once the flames were high enough, he put a stewpot on to boil and slung in a skinned and jointed rabbit. Goodluck smiled, sitting with his back to the oak trunk, whittling a rough new pipe – the old one was cracked across, all but unplayable. So that was where Ned had got to early that morning, leaving their tent even before first light. Goodluck, who had spent a sleepless night, had seen him go through one half-open eye. He had been wondering whether to doubt Ned’s loyalty, a question he disliked having to ponder, but the rabbit was explanation enough.
‘Did I miss the play?’
It was about an hour later when Lucy Morgan came stealing up behind them, peeping round the oak trunk at him as though she were still a child, a mischievous look on her face. Grinning broadly, Goodluck rose from the grass and tucked the half-finished pipe into his belt pouch.
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