by M. J. Trow
Her Majesty had slept in. The journey had been gruelling, Henslowe explained, and the Queen’s ladies had much to do in preparing Her Majesty to look her best for her subjects. A trumpet fanfare announced, at shortly after eleven of the clock, that she was ready, and Leonard Lyttleburye stood in front of the great tent swirling the Semper Eadem over his head, the dragon and the greyhound shifting and snarling around the leopards and the lilies.
The handful of petitioners allowed in to the tent’s antechamber gasped collectively as the curtain was drawn back by Southampton’s people to reveal Elizabeth, in majesty, on her dais. They stared in awe, eyes wide, pulses racing. Here she was, in the flesh. Some of them had waited all their lives for this; others thought the great day would never come. It was difficult to know exactly where to look to take in the wonder of what they saw. Ropes of pearls hung over her stomacher, bows of pale pink festooned her farthingale and her wide sleeves. An ostrich-feather fan dangled from her left wrist and her ruff, of finest Nottingham lace, radiated from her exquisite neck. The petitioners’ eyes were drawn upward, from the oddly large feet to the face. Her Majesty’s eyes were a piercing blue, her nose narrow and hawkish. Her high forehead, a sign of intelligence as all men knew, was as white as the horse she often rode – they had heard – on her Progresses. The thin lips were smiling at them and huge pearls glowed with an underwater pallor from the vivid red of her hair, topped by a tiara that could have bought Southampton’s Titchfield three times over, the diamonds catching the light filtering through the canvas and returning it tenfold to the dazzled eyes of the petitioners.
Henslowe cleared his throat, puffing out his chest so that Christopher Hatton’s garter chain reimposed his presence. At the signal, the petitioners dropped to the ground, some on one knee, some on two, a couple of them lying face down with the emotion of it all, spread-eagled on the Turkey carpet brought down from the house to shield the foot of Gloriana from anything as common as grass. All of them, no matter what position they adopted, were agreed – she looked just like she did on her coins.
There was a pecking order of sorts, and the first to petition Her Majesty was Lady Alice Peake. The old girl, having dropped to her knees, had to be helped up, and she hobbled forward into the royal presence. Whatever complex legal issue she had to present went unheard, however, because there was a commotion outside. Marlowe and Faunt, behind the dais and watching carefully, both stiffened. Anything sudden, anything out of the ordinary, might be the signal. A young man burst through the still kneeling throng, batting old Alice aside and dropping to one knee. It was James Middleham.
‘A thousand pardons, Majesty,’ he said, jerking his head up to face his Queen, ‘for this untimely interruption, but your time has come. Loyaulté me lie,’ and he lunged forward, a dagger in his right hand. The Queen batted aside the blade with her fan and kicked Middleham in the chest. He reeled back, but the dagger was still in his hand and he tried again, the tip slicing through the Queen’s sleeve and flicking aside the pearls. Gloriana ducked sideways and her knee came up but Marlowe and Faunt were on the attacker, spinning him round to face the terrified petitioners and pinning him to the ground. There were screams from the women and a babble of voices all at once. Behind the struggling trio, as Faunt took the dagger from the boy and Marlowe wrenched his arm firmly behind his back, the Queen stood there, tight-lipped and furious. Her stomacher was hanging open to reveal a scrawny, finely haired chest and she tore off her tiara and wig in a burst of fury. The screaming and the hubbub stopped abruptly and an eerie silence descended on the Queen’s tent. They were all staring at the wronged monarch, standing in a state of undress before them.
‘Well?’ Tom Sledd snapped, dragging the stomacher back into place and holding it there with as much dignity as he could muster, ‘what are you all looking at?’
Before anyone had a chance to move or react, Jack Norfolk dashed across the space below the dais. He pushed past Marlowe and threw his right arm back slightly. There was a spurt of blood and a gurgling sound as Norfolk’s dagger blade severed Middleham’s artery. The boy’s eyes rolled in his head and he went down. Marlowe grabbed Norfolk’s arm. ‘Why did you do that?’ he asked.
‘The man’s an assassin, Kit,’ Norfolk said calmly. ‘I was merely saving the headsman a job.’
‘The Devil you say,’ Faunt snapped.
‘You’ve over-reached yourself, Norfolk.’ Marlowe had grabbed the man’s sleeve while keeping hold of the fallen boy.
Norfolk closed to him. ‘For all I knew,’ he hissed, ‘that was the Queen herself. I didn’t know it was Tom? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why didn’t either of you finish the job?’
Before he could answer, the noise and the screaming began again and Marlowe called over a couple of the Rose lads to drag the body of the dead Queen-killer behind the arras. ‘Nothing to see here.’ Henslowe was still in his Christopher Hatton persona, holding his head high and strutting like a peacock. ‘It’s a Lovelly day out there,’ he waved his staff of office towards the tent’s entrance. ‘Go and listen to some nice music. I’m afraid Her Majesty is rather indisposed.’
‘Indisposed?’ Sledd was incandescent. ‘Indisposed? Her Majesty is bloody furious!’ He rounded on Marlowe and Faunt. ‘Where the Hell were you two? “It’ll be all right, Tom” you said when you bludgeoned me into taking on this part. “There’s absolutely no danger. We’ll be by your side the whole time.”’
‘So we were,’ Faunt pointed out.
‘Yes.’ Sledd wouldn’t let it go. ‘You were by my side; but not in front, were you? Not in the direction that madman’s knife was coming from?’
‘All’s well that ends well, Tom,’ Marlowe said. ‘And he was masterly, wasn’t he, Nicholas?’ Marlowe had seen men who had stared death in the face before. Anger always came first. Then the euphoria of denial. Then, hopefully, acceptance, but just as often, a collapse so total they were never the same again. If he could get his friend to acceptance as quickly as possible and help him stay there, it would be a mercy.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Faunt nodded. ‘Her Majesty to the life.’
‘Really?’ Sledd asked. There were signs that his fury was abating.
‘You know Her Majesty, Nicholas.’ Marlowe looked at the man earnestly.
‘Perfect,’ Faunt said.
‘How?’ Sledd wanted to know, curiosity beginning to take precedence. ‘In what way “perfect”?’
‘Well,’ Faunt frowned. ‘It’s the little things. The costume was excellent of course, as it should be, coming straight from the Queen’s own wardrobe.’
Sledd’s eyes widened and he made more fruitless attempts to keep the stomacher in place. ‘Really? The Queen’s own wardrobe?’ The stage manager wouldn’t know a real pearl from his left tit.
Faunt nodded. ‘But then there was the way you tilt your head. The smile. Even … and this is remarkable … that little quiver of the nostrils. You must have seen Her Majesty to get that right.’
‘No,’ Sledd assured the ex-Projectioner. ‘No, I never have. I just felt, instinctively, that that’s what she’d do. You know, Kit,’ he turned, beaming to Marlowe, ‘I thought I was tired of playing women, that all that was behind me once my voice broke, but now, well, I’m not so sure. A thought suddenly occurred to him and he flashed his blackened teeth. ‘I wonder if old Henslowe might consider putting on a masque at the Rose – you could write it, Kit. The story of the attempted murder of the Queen. Sounds good, eh?’
‘Better than anything Robert Greene’s written, that’s for sure,’ Marlowe said, seeing euphoria sweep across the stage manager’s face.
‘Well, we’d have to change the ending a bit,’ Sledd said, embracing acceptance with both arms. He hauled up his farthingale and stomped off to find the man. ‘Master Henslowe … Master Henslowe …’
Sir Christopher Hatton ignored him.
Marlowe, Faunt and Norfolk slid behind the arras and looked down at the body of James Middleham.
�
��Well, that’s that,’ Norfolk said. ‘Clever ruse, to put Tom on the throne.’
‘I don’t think that’s that at all,’ Faunt said. ‘It’s too pat. In the end, too easily stopped.’
‘You expected something like this?’ Norfolk asked.
‘We did,’ Marlowe said. ‘What did he say, as he stabbed the Queen? Did either of you hear?’
‘Sounded like “loyalty” … something. I didn’t quite catch it,’ Faunt admitted.
‘I didn’t hear it at all,’ Norfolk said. ‘Look, gentlemen, I may have been a little precipitate there, with my dagger, I mean. I didn’t think … the heat of the moment …’ He looked down with regret at the still form at their feet. ‘Now, we’ll never know why he did it.’
There was a scream and a woman rushed through the tent, hauling the arras aside and throwing herself onto the body in the grass. They let her stay there for a moment, then Marlowe gently pulled her up. ‘Mistress Blanche,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry.’
Her face was deathly pale and her eyes red and brimming with tears that splashed onto her cheeks. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen,’ she said. ‘Not like this.’
‘Madam …’ Norfolk moved towards her.
‘Not now, Jack,’ Marlowe said. ‘Nicholas, find Southampton. We owe him an explanation. The rumours will be flying already out there and we’ve got to establish some sort of order.’
Faunt nodded and took Norfolk with him, clapping his hands and bringing the Rose people together. Petitioners, honoured guests, hangers-on without number were all numbed by the passage of events, if they had witnessed any of it, and agog to know exactly what had happened if they hadn’t. Many of them saw the weeping woman being led into the house by that dark-haired roisterer who had turned up a couple of days ago, but then, there were several women weeping that morning and several roisterers, too, most of them enjoying the Earl of Southampton’s wine and flirting with his ladies. But mainly, the talk was of the Queen – who would have thought the old dear would have a kick like a mule? And the hairy chest? That had surprised no one.
Marlowe found Southampton’s solar and settled Blanche Middleham down on the divan. He offered her the claret that was on the side table, but she shook her head. He gave her a moment, then said, ‘How was it supposed to happen?’
‘What?’ she sniffed, as though she didn’t understand the question, wasn’t even sure who Marlowe was.
‘Do you have a lady with you?’ Marlowe asked. ‘A maidservant?’
‘No,’ she told him. ‘No one.’
‘Why is that, Mistress Blanche?’ he asked her.
There was no answer.
‘Is it because the Middlehams aren’t from round here? That in fact, the Middlehams don’t exist?’
‘What are you talking about?’ she frowned. The sudden loss of her brother was one thing, but now the conversation was taking a sinister turn.
‘When Leonard Lyttleburye brought you my invitation,’ Marlowe said quietly, ‘he was surprised to find no servants at Farnham; just you and your brother. That struck him as odd.’
‘I would give no great moment to anything from that oaf,’ she said. ‘He attacked my poor James.’ But she had nothing else to say.
‘It was because you and your brother had merely moved in to Farnham temporarily, hadn’t you? Oh, yes, it was your grandfather’s home back in the day, but you live now in the north, don’t you, Lady Blanche? Barnard Castle? Richmond?’
‘Not any more,’ Blanche said sadly. ‘Once, but not now.’
‘And your name isn’t Blanche Middleham, is it?’
She looked levelly at him, her hopes fading in the gentle eyes of the man she had once taken for the Master of the Revels. ‘You’re the clever one,’ she said, her head held high. ‘You tell me.’
‘Well, I may be wrong of course, and tell me if I am, but my guess would be Ratcliffe,’ he said. ‘Middleham is a castle in Yorkshire. Blanche? Well, that means white, doesn’t it? As in a herald long years ago, Blanche Sanglier; the white boar.’
‘How did you find out?’ There was little now of her previous strength; somehow, in a matter of what was still only minutes, her brother was dead and now this man stood before her, seemingly knowing everything. She had known their plan had risks and she had made plans to hedge them about, to keep James safe, as a big sister should. But … he was dead. Every thought came back to that one fact. And James should not be dead.
‘That does not matter,’ he said. ‘When Sir Robert Cecil sent me to you, he knew that something was afoot, but he didn’t know what. I don’t know whether something about your invitation to the Queen piqued his interest, but something drew you to his attention. He – and I – assumed it was another outbreak of the Papist violence against the Jezebel of England. You told me yourself that that was it, didn’t you? That the Middlehams were of the old faith and you hoped that I could keep that to myself. You were the clever one there. You thought I’d look no further. There are a number of titled families who still follow Rome and they are no threat to the Queen or to England. But the Yorkist cause, something we all thought was dead and gone – that Cecil wasn’t expecting; and neither was I.’
She sat defiantly, her eyes dry now and smouldering. ‘Yes, she told him, ‘My name is Ratcliffe, Margaret Ratcliffe, the great-great-granddaughter of Sir Richard, who died fighting at Bosworth, when so many noble lords deserted their true King.’
‘After all this time?’ Marlowe shook his head in disbelief. ‘Bosworth was over a century ago. There has been so much blood since then. The world has moved on.’
‘So much blood,’ the woman agreed. ‘All of it on the hands of the Tudors, the descendants of a renegade outlaw and usurper who had no more rights to the Crown than that theatrical misfit playing the Queen this morning. Elizabeth is the Jezebel of England, all right; not merely the bastard daughter of Harry, but the bastard granddaughter of the first Tudor, may he rot in Hell.’
‘And your grandfather?’ he asked her.
Her face fell slightly, then she recovered herself. ‘He had to go,’ she said. ‘I realized that he was becoming a liability. As a Ratcliffe, he had sworn to uphold the family honour, but his mind was going. My elder brother died, shot by accident in the hunt, and it turned his brain; he had relied so much on him, you see, to bring the family back to where they should be. James and I scarcely counted with him. He rarely knew where he was or who he was talking to. He muttered nonsense about rats at the dinner table and gave that ludicrous toast to our friends in the North.’
Marlowe had not even thought that the rat comment had any significance; the hare was of very dubious origin and there couldn’t have been a soul around the table who had not had a similar thought. The toast he and others had noticed, however. ‘I took the toast to refer to the Rebellion of 1569, not the powerhouse of York. Tell me, do you have an army readying itself up there? Was the murder of the queen supposed to trigger a mass rising in the North?’
She spat in his face and he recoiled. ‘I’ll tell you nothing else, lackey,’ she said. ‘When the Day dawns, you’ll be the first to feel the headsman’s axe.’
Marlowe wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘Won’t you even tell me who killed the old man?’ he asked. ‘I can see that you had to shut him up, but was it you or James?’
‘Neither of us,’ she said, defiant. ‘We don’t kill our own kin, no matter how dangerous they might be.’
Marlowe smiled. ‘I thought not,’ he said. He stood up suddenly and gestured towards the door. ‘Leonard,’ he called to the man he knew would be waiting there, ‘Lady Margaret Ratcliffe here is guilty of treason and conspiracy to murder. Take charge of her, will you? I’m sure the Earl of Southampton has a lockable room somewhere where she can cool her heels. Then, I think, she has an appointment with Sir Robert Cecil.’
Lyttleburye nodded and lifted the woman as gently as he knew how. ‘And maybe Master Topcliffe,’ he said, a little sadly. He knew what Richard Topcliffe could do to women and it was never
pretty.
Marlowe paused on his way to the door, looking Margaret Ratcliffe in the face. ‘I hope not,’ he said softly. ‘For her sake, I hope not.’
Marlowe collected Nicholas Faunt as he crossed Southampton’s courtyard. The sun was at its height and Southampton’s people, not to mention the company of the Rose, were still buzzing with the events of the day. Tom Sledd, back in his working clothes, and with only a hint of dead white makeup clinging around the hairline, was a little disappointed not to get the odd plaudit. All right, a bouquet of flowers was unlikely, but the occasional ‘Astonishing’, ‘Brilliant’, and ‘Well done’ wouldn’t have come amiss. In the kitchens, Southampton’s cooks and servants milled around, uncertain what to do. The earl himself had ordered a halt to proceedings, waiting to see what Marlowe would do. An ox still rotated untended in the fireplace; as the cook had said to all and sundry, a half-cooked ox was good for nothing; a cooked one, even an overcooked one, could feed the estate for days. As it was, it was food for the heavy flies of summer, landing on the luscious juices that trickled slowly down its flanks to hiss unheeded into the fire.
What Marlowe would do would be to check outbuildings, stables, yards and pigpens. Faunt took the knot garden and jogged around the lake. Nothing. It was well over an hour later that they saw him, standing half hidden by the willows that trailed their pale branches in the river. And he was not alone.