His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  Hannah folded her long legs beneath her to kneel at his feet. She reached out to massage his groin with an expert hand.

  He stopped her. ‘That’s not necessary.’

  She looked up at him, surprised and perhaps a little hurt. ‘You don’t want me?’

  Goodluck smiled regretfully. ‘Of course I do, Hannah. But that pleasure will have to wait for another time. My errand tonight is too urgent.’

  Following Hannah’s directions, Goodluck swung himself over the green gate into the alleyway near the Saracen’s Head, and up the short flight of steps to the left. His back was hurting again, but he tried to ignore the pain. Jensen had said she thought it would improve with exercise, and so he must hope, too. The top stair rattled underfoot and he paused, remembering. It took only the blade of his dagger, twisted in the narrow gap between boards, to prise it loose. Beneath lay the key to Twist’s lodgings, which he removed gladly. The door was of surprisingly thick oak and would have been difficult to shoulder open; no doubt that was why Twist had chosen this place. Silently, Goodluck traced the mark on the door. Master Twist lives here, it announced. He listened, but there was no sound from within.

  The door unlocked, he crept inside, his dagger in hand. The room lay in darkness, an added danger as he tried not to collide with furniture on his way to the window. He fumbled with the shutters to let in the moonlight, then found a candle and tinderbox. To his relief, and as Hannah had rightly predicted, there was nobody home.

  By candlelight, he set about a careful search of Twist’s scanty belongings, trying not to make it too obvious that anyone had been there. If Twist was the traitor he had been looking for – and he felt pain at the very possibility – then it would not do to alert him that his betrayal had been discovered.

  Twist’s clothes and book chest revealed nothing out of the ordinary. But it did not take Goodluck long to find, by knocking along the wood and listening to the hollow reply, a false back to the alcove cupboard where Twist kept his candles and tinder. He reached into the dark space and drew out an oblong tin box hidden there. Even its intricate French-designed lock did not last long against the thinnest of Goodluck’s lock-pickers.

  Inside the tin box, he found various seals and lists of ciphers, an alphabet key, and a bundle of letters secured with a black ribbon.

  Goodluck unrolled one of the letters and took it to the candle flame. He stared down at the signature, but could not make it out. It had been marred soon after writing. The letter was more clearly addressed, however, to Philip, Earl of Arundel, a suspected Catholic and one of the Queen’s own courtiers. It was dated June twenty-seventh, and made some uncertain references to ‘faith’, ‘the need for secrecy’ and, once, to ‘Her captive Grace’.

  He frowned, studying it for a moment. Either the letter had not been sent to Arundel for some reason, or else this was a copy, made by Twist himself – or perhaps sent on to him by whoever had penned the original.

  Either way, the matter to which the letter referred would seem to be treasonous in the extreme. ‘Her captive Grace’, he read again with foreboding. That could only mean one person: Mary Stuart, the exiled Queen of Scots, who was being held as a royal prisoner by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth.

  Was it possible that John Twist had involved himself with the very Catholics they had been working together to uncover? That he was, in fact, one of their number himself, and sympathized with the cause of the Scottish Queen?

  Goodluck found an inkwell and quill on the table, tore out a page from one of Twist’s books, and copied the ciphers and the alphabet key as swiftly and accurately as he could. If still in use, they might unlock the secrets of other coded messages that fell into his hands. He also took a brief note of the seals, and of the names and substance of the letters he had found, suspecting they could be of interest in the future.

  Then he replaced the contents of the tin box exactly as he had found them, locked it and pushed it carefully back into its hiding place.

  Sir Francis Walsingham must know of this hoard. Goodluck had thought it too dangerous to visit Seething Lane before – though a coded note had informed Walsingham he was not dead, but in hiding. Now that he was sure of Twist’s complicity, to take news of these letters to his spymaster was his only possible move. He only hoped it would not be seen as a double bluff, intended to reveal Twist’s guilt while concealing his own.

  If Walsingham had ever suspected him of treachery, this find could help to clear his name. Either that or condemn him to a traitor’s death.

  Twenty

  Whitehall Palace, London, December 1584

  ELIZABETH SAT UP even straighter in her curtained bed and stared at her spymaster through the flickering firelight, not quite able to believe what he had just relayed to her.

  ‘Parry said what?’ she demanded stiffly.

  Walsingham looked apologetic. ‘That our new law against the Catholics and Jesuits was unjust and would prove injurious to England.’

  ‘And this insolent judgement was declared in the Houses of Parliament in which my generosity placed him only this year?’

  ‘I fear so, Your Majesty, yes.’

  ‘Then you must arrest this man at once.’

  Walsingham bowed, a little smile on his face. ‘It has already been done, Your Majesty. Sensing the ugly mood of the Commons, and fearing a riot if he was not taken straightaway into custody, Sir Christopher Hatton made the arrest himself, there and then. Even as he was being escorted out of the Commons under guard, Parry attempted to continue with his inflammatory speech to any who would listen.’

  Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief. ‘What was Parry thinking of, to be speaking so dangerously and against our express will? Was the man drunk?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty. I have examined him myself, and he genuinely considers himself to be in the right. He feels that we do Catholics an injustice by treating them as traitors and driving the old faith underground.’

  ‘Does he indeed?’

  ‘I begin to think he may be a madman.’

  ‘A madman?’ she repeated, staring at him rigidly. ‘This is the same Parry, is it not, who has spied for you in the past? Who has carried letters for me of a most private and delicate nature? Good God, man, this creature has been allowed access to my person on your own recommendation. Master Parry has come into my Privy Chamber late at night with tales of assassins and high treason and Catholics landing unseen on our shores – and now you tell me he is a traitor to the throne?’

  ‘An error of judgement on my part, Your Majesty. But one I am working to rectify.’

  She sniffed at this, unconvinced.

  Walsingham continued, ‘I have released Parry and set men to watch his house. We have little evidence at the moment, and a false accusation would merely lose us valuable information. If Parry attempts to make contact with anyone we know to be in league against you, he will be arrested again and tried for treason.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said, frowning impatiently as the door to her chamber opened. Helena stood blocking the doorway, as though to prevent someone from entering. ‘What is it, Helena?’

  ‘Lord Leicester wishes to speak with you, Your Majesty.’ Helena’s face was grave and unsmiling. She disapproved of Robert’s marriage to Lettice, and had never made any show of hiding her feelings. But then, her loyalty to Elizabeth was beyond question, and she objected to anything that might upset her queen. Her Swedish accent was most pronounced tonight. ‘I have told him it is very late and you will not wish to be disturbed, Your Majesty. But he would not listen and is insisting that I announce him.’

  Robert? Come to see her so late at night?

  Elizabeth experienced a flicker of girlish excitement she had not felt in a long time, and saw Walsingham’s dark, intelligent gaze narrow on her face.

  She steadied herself and tried to look unconcerned. Robert was a married man again now, just as he had been in the first years of her reign. It would not do to encourage the same vicious old gossip by allowing him free
access to her chamber late at night. But just this once would not do any harm.

  And if it should come to his wife’s ears that he was visiting the Queen at night again, so much the better.

  ‘Very well,’ she said coolly, and nodded to Helena. ‘You may invite his lordship to enter.’

  Robert strode to her bedside. His appearance was still as haggard as it had been ever since the death of his little son in July, she noted, and surprised a sympathy in herself for his loss. Yet it was six months since the boy had died. Was he never to recover from that blow? But then, Lettice must be too old to bear another heir to the earldom, and so his line would be broken. His grief must be bitter indeed.

  Robert went down on one knee, his cap in hand. When she gestured him to rise, he kissed her hand and muttered, ‘My queen!’

  Walsingham’s eyebrows rose. He cleared his throat, and Robert looked searchingly in his direction.

  ‘What, you here too?’

  With a slight bow, Walsingham nodded. ‘My business is almost concluded,’ he reassured Leicester, then turned to Elizabeth. ‘All that remains to be said to Your Majesty is that I have decided to bait a trap for our Catholic friends. It may take some time to lay the foundations for this trap, and it will be costly. There are men to be paid, and travel arrangements, and other sundry expenses. But if I could be assured of remuneration …’

  His voice tailed off meaningfully. She transferred her stare from Robert to Walsingham, suddenly realizing his true purpose in visiting her tonight. ‘You want more money?’ she demanded. ‘Already? What happened to the last expenses I granted you?’

  ‘I … erm … expended them, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I see.’ She sighed. ‘Well, who are these men that must be paid? I presume the execrable Parry is not among their number this time? For I am beginning to doubt your skill in knowing a loyal spy from a turncoat.’

  Walsingham’s smile was thinner than ever. ‘No, Your Majesty. This is a most trustworthy man whom I am sending abroad to find and follow your enemies. He is highly skilled and has worked for the good of England many times.’ His gaze slid to Robert’s face, his voice suddenly smooth and empty of all meaning. ‘Indeed, he is the self-same man whose skill and daring helped to foil the assassination attempt at Kenilworth almost ten years ago.’

  ‘Then he did not work alone,’ Robert pointed out. ‘As I recall, my own people also helped to foil that plot. Several gave their lives to protect the Queen that night.’

  ‘Indeed, I had forgotten the small part played by your own men.’

  ‘And by Lucy Morgan,’ Robert threw in for good measure, his frown very dark.

  Elizabeth watched the two men, amused by their sharp exchanges and posturing. ‘Come, sirs, let us not lose sight of the point. Exactly how much am I to lay out for this … what is the brave fellow’s name?’

  ‘Master Goodluck, Your Majesty,’ Walsingham supplied, turning back to her with a sombre smile.

  ‘Ah yes, I remember his name. How much am I to give you for Master Goodluck’s mission?’

  ‘I shall draw up a list of what is required, Your Majesty. I merely wished to be sure it would be agreeable to you if I sent spies back into France to discover these English Catholics who have made their homes there.’

  ‘It is most agreeable to me, and Leicester there will be your witness to that effect.’

  Walsingham bowed, his look very earnest. ‘Thank you, Your Majesty. It is by measures like these that we shall curb Catholic plots once and for all, and settle your throne in peace.’

  ‘Yes, and you had better do so quickly,’ Robert remarked, seating himself on the edge of the Queen’s bed with an impudent grin in her direction, ‘for now we have all signed the Bond of Association, there may be rich lands and goods up for grabs once certain English noblemen have been proven to be traitors.’

  ‘Robert!’ she reprimanded him, but could not help laughing as Walsingham took himself away with a hurried bow. ‘You are incorrigible.’

  ‘This latest suspicion, that the Arundels are involved in some plot to put your cousin Mary on the throne, seems to depend on a letter of dubious origin. More’s the pity, for I’d be glad to see them all executed, if they have indeed conspired against you.’ He looked at her with a wry smile, and she had a taste of the old Robert, the one before his unwise marriage to Lettice, before the tragic death of his young son. ‘I have no love for these great Catholic families who sit through our plain service with pained expressions, then rush off to their gilded family chapels for a less than secret High Mass.’

  ‘Nor I,’ she agreed.

  ‘Yet if treason could be proved, who would take their lands under the terms of the Bond of Association?’

  She smiled, and answered him as coolly as she could. ‘What, are you hungry for yet more wealth and status, Robert? For more land and the power it brings a man when he owns most of England?’ He sat up, stiff-backed, instantly on his guard. Her eyes warred with his, only half-joking. ‘Sometimes I fear you mean to become more powerful than your queen.’

  ‘If you believe that, Your Majesty, strip me at once of my lands and possessions, and send me begging on the streets of London.’ His face was passionate. ‘I am still your most loyal subject, and would be even then, as a filthy beggar at your feet.’

  ‘As a filthy beggar at my feet,’ she pointed out, ‘Walsingham or Lord Burghley or one of my guards would soon have you dragged away by force. Yes, and put in the stocks for daring to approach the Queen!’

  He seized her hand and kissed it again, this time more lingeringly, reminding her that they were alone together in her bedchamber at Hampton Court.

  Elizabeth sat there in her curtained bed, in a nightgown and lacy cap, and looked at Robert sitting next to her, as intimate with her as a husband, just as he might have done if she had agreed to marry him.

  ‘Stay with me tonight,’ she whispered daringly, and felt his lips still on her hand.

  Robert looked up at her searchingly, and she realized that he was still not himself. His eyes were dark with pain, with a desperate longing she had long since forgotten if she had ever experienced, and there was an anguish in his face that left her in no doubt of his suffering.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he began haltingly, then closed his eyes. His hand clenched on hers compulsively. ‘Your Majesty, you honour me too much. I … I regret that I cannot stay. I came to beg your permission to leave court for Christmas, to spend a few days at home and return for the New Year festivities as always.’

  She stared and could not seem to breathe. Robert had not come here tonight to make love to her, to tell her that everything was back to how it had been before his marriage to that she-wolf Lettice, the woman whose name she could hardly bring herself to speak. He had come instead to ask if he could return to his wife’s bed for Christmastide, and she, like a doting fool, had believed his smiles and kisses tonight were for her alone, for his beloved Elizabeth.

  ‘Get out,’ she managed hoarsely, and turned her face away so he would not see the tears. She heard Robert go quietly to the door and stop there, still hesitant, still waiting for her reply. She gave her permission wearily, closing her eyes to shut out the glare of the firelight. Her voice rang hollow in the great bedchamber. ‘Not a day later than New Year.’

  Twenty-one

  WALSINGHAM GLANCED UP from the letter he was writing and, seeing who was at the door, put down his pen. ‘Master Goodluck. Yes, do come in.’

  Goodluck bent his head to enter the low-ceilinged, dark-panelled study in Walsingham’s house, and stood waiting, his cloak and jacket still drawn tight against the chill January weather, his travelling bag slung over one shoulder. Below, he watched a groom saddling a horse in the small yard that backed on to Seething Lane.

  Walsingham got up stiffly to unlock a box on the table behind his desk. He took a small pouch out of the box, then closed and locked it again.

  ‘Thank you,’ he told his personal secretary, who was still hovering in the doorwa
y, ‘that will be all for tonight.’

  When they were alone, he gestured Goodluck to sit. ‘You’re ready to leave tonight?’

  Goodluck nodded. ‘I have everything with me that I’ll need.’ The fire in the study was still burning brightly, and the room was warm after the wintry chill of London’s streets. He stripped off his gloves and laid them carefully across his knee. ‘The ciphers and alphabet key I brought you in the summer, have they proved useful yet?’

  Pouring wine into two glasses that stood on the table by the window, Walsingham nodded thoughtfully. ‘Indeed they have. Wine?’

  Goodluck accepted his glass of wine gratefully, for he felt on edge tonight and needed something to steady his nerves. He was more used to ale these days, and to the stink of common taverns, but red wine was a pleasant alternative. The taste of expensive wine always reminded him of his long-gone youth, in the halcyon days before his father had been executed for treason, his family disgraced, and he himself disinherited and left to wander the country penniless and lost to good sense.

  Taking the other glass, Walsingham sat down behind his desk again and rummaged among his scattered papers. ‘Here,’ he said in the end, and handed over a sheet of strange scrawlings and symbols which would have meant little to most men, but to Goodluck meant a coded letter. He studied it while Walsingham continued, ‘Interesting, isn’t it? This was taken from a man landing at Dover three nights ago. Using the alphabet key you brought me, I was able to decode it with very little effort. And what do you suppose it is?’

  Goodluck raised his eyebrows, waiting.

  ‘It is a set of instructions,’ Walsingham told him coolly, ‘on how to separate the Queen from her guards in broad daylight and bundle her away to a private place of execution. It even includes details on which prayers should be said before and after that heinous act. Good Catholic prayers, one need hardly add.’

  Goodluck was deeply shocked. He looked at the coded sheet in his hand and felt his skin creep with horror. He knew how desperately some of these disenfranchised Catholics desired to regain England for the Roman faith, and how self-righteous would-be assassins of the Queen were when captured. Even so, he could not conceive of how such a letter could be sent in cold blood.