The Queen's Secret

by Victoria Lamb

  Will looked sulky at this suggestion and glanced at Tom over her shoulder, as though suspicious that he was behind this request. ‘Leave you? But what if you are attacked? You may need me.’ Stoutly, the boy stuck out his chest. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’

  ‘I know, and I do need you, Will. But someone has to fetch Master Twist and his friends.’ She added a hint of urgency. ‘Find them as quickly as you can and bring them to us here, below the royal apartments.’

  ‘You’ll wait for me to return?’

  She shook her head, though wishing secretly that they could wait for the others to arrive. The thought of what might lie in store for them was terrifying.

  ‘We must go on. The Queen may be in danger.’

  Once the boy had gone, scampering away across the outer court with the effortless speed of the young, Lucy turned and began to follow Tom up the steep bank. She slipped a little on the loose soil, holding up her white and gold skirts. It was growing colder now and the tall trees around them, their branches heavy with summer green, rustled menacingly in the dark. ‘Maybe Will’s right,’ she called out after him as they climbed. ‘We could wait here until Goodluck’s men come to help us. What good can we do, after all, just the two of us?’

  But Tom was not listening. A cry of ‘Fire! Fire!’ had risen above them at the base of the Queen’s apartments. A muffled alarm bell began to clang somewhere inside the castle. Soon after, two men came running with sloshing buckets from Mortimer’s Tower, the nearest waterside defences. The guard must have unlocked the gate to allow them entry, for they passed through unchallenged; now the gate stood wide open, and the guard too had disappeared, leaving his post unattended.

  ‘Tom!’ she cried, clutching at his arm.

  ‘I see them,’ he said grimly, for as they had paused in their steep ascent to the wall, three dark figures had slipped through the undefended gate, the largest of the three shambling along on all fours, beast-like, a chain about its neck.

  ‘The bear and his tamer!’

  Suddenly, Lucy came to a halt. She leaned forward from the waist, out of breath, not wanting to go on.

  ‘Those men …’ For the love of God, she could barely speak. ‘They are the assassins, I know it for sure now. Tom, we must fetch help. Master Goodluck—’

  ‘May be dead for all we know.’ Tom shook his head and motioned her to keep climbing. After a moment, she followed him up the rough slope towards the open gate, protesting urgently, but Tom did not seem to hear her. He turned near the top, a light in his eyes. ‘It’s too late now to fetch help. Besides, young Will has gone to tell Master Twist where we are. We must follow those men and stop them before they reach the Queen.’

  ‘You and I alone?’

  ‘Yes, but with God on our side,’ he reminded her, reaching for her hand. His fingers found hers in the darkness and squeezed them gently. ‘Whatever name you give your God, Lucy, pray to him now for the strength and courage to go on. What, would you leave your duty undone out of fear?’

  Struck by his words, she shook her head slowly.

  ‘Then come through the gate with me,’ he urged her, and helped Lucy up the last few feet. Hand in hand, they came to the high wall that stood between the inner and outer courts, and hurried through the unguarded gate. ‘We may be the only ones who saw them, who know the assassins are inside the castle. They may already have found their way to the Queen. You think any of those will help us?’

  He pointed at the wide-open door to the storeroom from which a thick, stinking smoke was already pouring. Through the livid red glow from the flames inside, she could make out the silhouettes of men running back and forth, no doubt attempting to move the most precious of the Queen’s belongings before they caught fire. A shout for ‘Water!’ had gone up along the wall defences and the alarm bell was now tolling in earnest, waking those who had already retired for the night.

  She knew what Tom meant, watching that chaotic scene. Which of those guards, frightened out of their wits by the consequences of a fire in Her Majesty’s storeroom, would spare a few minutes to search along the base of the castle for … what? A wandering bear and his tamer? An assassin whose face no one had ever seen?

  ‘No,’ she whispered in agreement, and turned to climb higher into darkness.

  One hand resting on the knife at his belt, Tom pushed his way through the bushes with Lucy struggling along behind him, vicious holly branches snagging on her embroidered sleeves and skirts. A gust of wind made the foliage shake and rustle ominously, and for a moment she feared that someone was in there, watching from behind the thick, impenetrable branches.

  Tom uttered a strong oath, staring through the windy dark. He lifted his arm and pointed ahead to a low, rectangular blackness outlined against the red sandstone of the castle walls.

  ‘Look!’

  ‘What is it?’ She came level with him, frowning as she tried to make out what he had seen. ‘Is that a door?’

  He grabbed her arm as she went to pass him, and shook his head. ‘Wait, there may be someone on the other side.’

  ‘Now who’s afraid?’

  He stood a moment, as though trying to balance different paths in his head, then drew the dagger from his belt.

  ‘I want you to stay here until the others arrive,’ he said, his voice firm. ‘I’m going through that door to see where it leads.’

  ‘What, stay here and get my throat cut too?’

  ‘Come with me then,’ he agreed reluctantly, weighing the brutal-looking dagger on his palm. ‘Keep close behind me, and if I shout, run.’

  He pushed at the thick, black-studded door in the castle wall and it opened easily, left unlocked by whoever had entered earlier. Over his shoulder, Lucy could see nothing at first but darkness, then a faint glimmer of light at the far end of the chamber. Bending as low as she could manage, she slipped after Tom through the narrow doorway and into the room beyond. A small lantern had been set in an alcove, by whose light she could just make out an opening in the ceiling high above them, and the ghostly glimmer of a rope dangling from its dark hole.

  Jumping down from the threshold, which was set higher than the chamber itself, she bumped up against Tom’s rigid form.

  Caught off balance, Lucy stumbled sideways and almost fell over a heap of empty storage chests lying scattered across the earthen floor; the wood was so rotten, she put her foot straight through one of them, crying aloud at the pain in her ankle.

  A furious roar from the shadows made her straighten.

  ‘Lucy, get out of here!’

  At Tom’s warning shout, she jerked her foot free in sudden alarm and staggered backwards into the damp, lichened wall. Ahead of them in the chamber was a roaring black mass which blocked out the meagre light thrown by the lantern. For a moment she stared up at the monster, wide-eyed, so terrified she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Holy Mother, defend us!’ she whispered under her breath, and crossed herself.

  It was only as the demon moved, rearing up and extending dangerously claw-tipped paws, that she realized what it was – no creature of childhood nightmares, but the Italian’s performing bear.

  Tom ran forward with a shout, feinting with his dagger and whirling about the bear’s bulky figure, no doubt trying to draw the animal away from her. The black bear turned, swiping at Tom and giving another infuriated roar.

  Suddenly, a swarthy face appeared at the opening in the ceiling. Staring up, she recognized the bear-tamer. Without hesitation, the bearded man swung down the rope and landed with a thud on the earthen floor.

  With her back still against the wall, Lucy cried out a warning to Tom, who was engaged in a deadly game of tag with the bear. But before Tom could create any space between himself and the bear’s claws, the Italian drew a curved dagger from inside the folds of his cloak and leapt towards him.

  ‘Run for the guards!’ Tom shouted across at her as he lunged, making the bearded Italian dance swiftly backwards.

  Lucy glanced back at the narrow doorw
ay, a smoky glimmer of light just visible on the grassy bank outside. Then she looked up at the black opening in the ceiling with its sturdy rope still dangling just short of the ground. The bear-tamer must have stayed behind to guard the escape route. Which meant someone else was the assassin – and was already up there, in the royal apartments. No doubt undetected, thanks to the fire that had been deliberately set in the Queen’s storeroom.

  Not stopping to consider what she was about to do, Lucy ran forward and made a grab for the rope. She missed it and gave a despairing cry, stumbling and falling to her knees.

  Frowning, the swarthy Italian turned to stare at her.

  Tom instantly lunged again, catching the man off-guard and slashing through his cloak.

  Lucy backed up a few steps, tucked her skirts up under the belted waist of her gown, then leapt again, aiming higher than before. This time she caught the rope and dragged herself upwards, remembering how to pull her own weight, hand over hand, until her feet were gripping the rope too and she could shinny upwards. It hurt terribly, her palms stinging at the unaccustomed roughness of the rope, her shoulders almost wrenched out of their sockets at each pull, but she fixed her eyes on the dark opening above and kept climbing.

  From the darkness below, Lucy heard the bear roar in fury again and then Tom cry out, swearing violently.

  Her heart nearly burst at his cry. Had Tom been wounded?

  She dared not stop and look back. Reaching the hatch in the roof, Lucy angled one knee and wedged it inside the dusty frame. Swinging her other leg up with a terrible ripping sound as the gold-embroidered skirt tore, she dragged herself on to the wooden floor beyond and lay there a moment, panting with exertion.

  Forcing herself to sit up, Lucy stared breathlessly about the small, darkened room. It was another windowless storage chamber, containing what appeared to be chests and wooden barrels at floor level and stacks of woollen blankets on shelves. The door was only a few feet away, standing slightly ajar, and through it she could see torchlight.

  She leaned back over the opening and called Tom’s name, her voice oddly hoarse, echoing about the walls.

  There was no reply. She stared hard a moment longer, but could see only the faintest glimmer of movement in the heavy shadows below. Then she remembered her mission.

  The Queen! She must alert the guards!

  Lucy staggered to the door in her torn gown, heart pounding, arms and legs aching fiercely from the climb, and yanked it wide. A dark narrow corridor led away from the room, ending in a blank wall with one heavily studded door. She found it unlocked and opened it into another dark storage area, this time so cluttered with boxes and chests piled to the ceiling, she had to clamber about their teetering stacks to reach the curtained opening in the opposite wall. The curtain had been pulled slightly to one side, and through it she could see brighter torchlight, the gleaming polished wood of the Queen’s building.

  Hesitating behind the curtain, she heard shouts of ‘Fire!’ and ‘Water!’ in the distance, the voices too far off to be of any help. She must go on alone.

  Lucy drew a shaky breath, then forced herself to creep past the curtain and out into the light.

  On the landing outside the royal chambers, a few feet apart in the flickering torchlight, lay the bodies of two guards, one slumped against the wall with a great gash in his throat, the other with his head at an odd angle, his neck clearly broken.

  Beyond them, the double doors to the Presence Chamber stood wide open and undefended.

  Holding her breath, Lucy stooped to pluck the young man’s knife from his belt, ignoring the blood that dribbled over her fingers. Then, on silent feet, she stepped over the other body and entered the Queen’s apartments.

  Forty-nine

  THE LAST TORCH had guttered and been thrown into the stream beside him. The acrid taste of its smoky remains was still in his mouth as Goodluck emerged from the water, gasping like a landed fish. He was almost grateful for the searing pain in his lungs, the way his mouth sucked on the air like a crazed baby at the breast, unable to do anything but make this rasping sound. At least this way he had no time for thought, except the most basic: survival.

  Such a sharp focus brought complications of its own, however. The easiest thing would be to spill everything he knew, hoping for a quick death. But England demanded more loyalty from him than that, and he had his pride.

  ‘Why do you watch?’ The questions came in rapid, broken English, one after the other, hoping to confuse him. ‘What is your master? Your name, who is it?’

  Goodluck choked, still gargling in the back of his throat, and spat out a mouthful of water that wet the young Italian’s shirt.

  Alfonso – as the bear-tamer had called him – swore fiercely in his own tongue. With an iron hand, he pushed Goodluck head first back into the chill stream and held him there.

  Goodluck struggled to remain calm, not to fight the water that swirled about him, coldly filling every orifice and threatening to overwhelm him. Soon, he would no longer be able to refuse to answer. Everyone had their limits and his were fast approaching. Blotting out the truth, he concentrated on the questions he could most innocently answer, reciting them in his mind, knowing that soon he would have to speak.

  ‘Your name, who is it?’

  Goodluck, my name is Goodluck.

  Once a person yields to torture and begins to speak, giving his name and his barest details, that is when the one interrogating him should press the hardest, for it is then that a man is most likely to betray himself and his friends.

  ‘Your master?’

  Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

  Mentally, he shied away from the name of his true master. Walsingham. He must not even think of it. He was from Warwickshire, not London. He was one of Leicester’s men, a simple soldier from a quiet Warwickshire village. A son of the soil. His parents had worked all their lives in the fields. This was all a terrible mistake. He was no spy.

  ‘Why do you watch?’

  I came into the forest to relieve myself and heard a strange beast. I was curious. Then I saw—

  The hand gripped his hair, dragging him back into a thick, lung-scraping darkness, and the relentless battering of questions.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Goodluck,’ he managed, through a mouthful of weed-infested stream water, resisting the urge to retch. ‘Goodluck.’

  Again, a throaty voice cried out, ‘It is the same answer. Put him back in!’

  Oh, she was not stupid either, the woman who had stayed behind to help Alfonso with the interrogation. She was nothing like the one with the knife. But just as vicious, an older, round-hipped creature nearing her thirtieth year whose stony eyes and uncouth tongue made her feminine curves uninviting.

  Thrusting her foot down on the back of his head, the hoarse-voiced woman shoved Goodluck into the dark water almost up to his chest.

  He thrashed about, too tired to act the hero, becoming readier to talk. But he could not betray his friends. Better to let them drown him first. Though the two of them would have their fill of pleasure before killing him.

  His eyes bulged. He felt pressure mount behind them, as though they were being pushed out from inside his skull. His throat was tight, his lungs burning. He longed to open his mouth, to let the water rush in. He could not resist any longer. He had no name, no mind, only this need to breathe. His jaw flew open like a released spring and he gulped, sucking in death, drinking the cold stream, even while his chest popped and his limbs jangled, his body violent in its reaction.

  The woman removed her foot and he bobbed back up beneath her, like a cork on a piece of netting. Thankful to be alive, he gasped at the air and immediately vomited into the stream – no holding it back this time. The woman laughed, moved away, made a few disparaging remarks in Italian about Goodluck’s virility.

  ‘Why do your people watch us?’ she demanded. ‘Speak, and save yourself!’

  He fought with the sweet, alluring impulse to tell these two eve
rything he knew, to void himself of all those secret, hidden facts they sought – his true name, his master’s name, the places where he had spied that year, the names of all the men he had ever worked with.

  ‘I came into the forest … when I heard—’

  ‘Lies, mere stories!’ the woman hissed. ‘Do not trust him, look at his eyes. He knows more than he is saying, this one. It’s time to cut him, Alfonso. Cut him until he talks.’

  Goodluck received a violent kick from behind and would have tumbled again, hands still bound behind his back, head first into the stream – except that his shoulder caught the bank and flipped him sideways on to a sharp rock. He fell awkwardly, half turned on his back to stare up at the stars through the leafy branches overhead.

  Then he heard a splash.

  Alfonso swore under his breath and knelt beside him on the muddy bank, reaching out awkwardly into the water.

  The clumsy young fool had dropped something.

  With an effort, Goodluck lowered his gaze to examine the curl of the young man’s beard, the paleness of his skin emphasized by dark eyes and hair. For a moment, he found himself thinking of Lucy, her coarse black hair always tucked inside a demure hood these days, and remembered her as a young girl, running free in his sister’s garden, her unbound hair wild as a holly bush about her head. How she had laughed as he chased her.

  Regret filled him, swelling his chest with unshed tears. He had hoped to see Lucy married to a good man and know her happy and content, to do a father’s duty by the girl. Instead, he would die tonight at this young fool’s hands, and never meet her children.

  His wrists, playing the rope against the sharp rock beneath him, seemed a little wider apart now, no longer bound so tightly.

  Then Alfonso was leaning back on his knees, turning towards him again, lips curved in a cold smile. In his hand, a treacherous-looking knife dripped, gleaming in the starlight.