His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  She threw back her hood.

  Gifford stared at the sight of his queen, then painfully lowered his gaze to the stone flags, as though the true extent of his treason had only just been brought home to him.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Topcliffe murmured, pushing the long iron back into the brazier. He sank to one knee before her. There were flecks of fresh blood on his stained apron, still brightly scarlet. His ruddy face, sweating from the intense heat of the brazier, was flecked with blood, too. He wore a simple skullcap, and this he removed to reveal only a little hair, his forehead gleaming. ‘You honour me with your presence here.’

  ‘No doubt,’ she said drily, and gestured him to rise. ‘You seem to have gone hard about it, Topcliffe. Has the priest spoken yet? Does he confess his sins against our throne?’

  ‘Not yet, Your Majesty, but he will.’

  ‘Stand aside,’ she ordered him, and Topcliffe, his gaze shifting to Walsingham’s expressionless face, bowed.

  Topcliffe stood against the cell wall, his hands behind his back, his gaze fixed on the prisoner as she examined him. Elizabeth guessed that he had expected more praise for his efforts with these Catholics. But to own the truth, just being in the same room with him made her flesh creep. The way his narrow eyes had burned on her face … If her cousin ever succeeded in stealing the English throne from her, and employed Topcliffe as her chief torturer, he would put the hot irons to Elizabeth with the same vicious zeal he used on all his prisoners, and give no greater thought to her agonies. It was pain he loved; that was his only loyalty.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked Gifford.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ he answered, without looking at her, and she caught a hint of shame in his hoarse whisper.

  ‘My spies tell me you came from France and brought letters with you for my cousin Mary. Are you aware of the content of those letters?’

  His gaze lifted now and he glanced in obvious terror at Topcliffe. ‘I … I do not know.’

  ‘Look at me, sir. Not at your torturer. Those letters were from men who seek to put my cousin on the throne of England, and have me executed as a heretic.’ She met his gaze directly now, challenging him to think about his actions, urging him with her eyes to regret them. ‘I am your queen and such matters concern me closely. So I ask again, were you aware of the content of the letters you were carrying?’

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Gifford replied, his voice shaking, ‘I had no knowledge of any such treason or plot against you. I bore those letters into England in good faith, I swear it. They were written by men I admire greatly and to whom I owe my allegiance.’

  ‘Do you not owe me greater allegiance, as you are an Englishman and I am your rightful queen?’

  Gifford closed his eyes. A tear began to roll down his cheek. Yet he did not answer her question.

  Behind her, Walsingham shifted his feet and gently cleared his throat. He did not think much of her interrogation, clearly.

  If only she could leave this filthy hellhole and allow Topcliffe to get on with his work where she did not have to see the evidence of his cruelty! But she was no coward and she knew what was at stake. Walsingham would never have brought her to this vile place unless he thought her intervention absolutely necessary.

  She pressed on. ‘Are you a Catholic?’

  Again Gifford blenched and looked at Topcliffe, as though these were questions that had already been put to him. ‘I … forgive me, forgive me. Yes, I am a Catholic.’

  ‘And a priest?’

  ‘Your Majesty, yes.’

  He was gabbling now, eager to confess. Perhaps he thought death would come quicker if he gave up the struggle to be brave and just confessed.

  ‘Gilbert,’ she said softly, looking up into his strained face as she used his Christian name. ‘Do you wish to be tortured at the hands of Master Topcliffe, and then be hanged, drawn and quartered for your treason while you are still alive?’

  He broke down, weeping openly. ‘No, Your Majesty. No, I do not. I beg you …’

  ‘Then you will serve me faithfully from now on, and perform whatever you are bidden to do in my service?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Whatever letters might be put into your hands by my cousin or her agents, you will ensure they are conveyed to Sir Francis before they reach those to whom they have been addressed?’

  His hands jangled against his manacles, and he cried out. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Swear by Almighty God.’

  ‘I swear by Almighty God and his son Jesus Christ that I shall be a faithful servant unto Your Majesty from now on.’ Gifford sobbed, and there was a kind of relief on his face, as though the poor boy had been playing a part all this while, a part for which his nature had been ill-suited.

  ‘Release him,’ she ordered Topcliffe, turning away, ‘and do not touch him again. His clothes and possessions are to be returned, and he is to be conveyed to Sir Francis for his recovery. Whatever treason he has committed before this hour, it shall be forgotten. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Topcliffe muttered, outwardly obedient, his small leather skullcap in his hand, but she could tell that he was angry at having his victim snatched away before he had finished with him.

  She swept from the cell with Walsingham behind her, and left Topcliffe climbing on a stool to release Gifford from his manacles.

  Vile man!

  The air was chilly, the ground hard with frost. Above their heads, stars lay tangled against the sky like diamonds scattered and sewn willy-nilly on to black velvet. She stared bleakly up at them. How many men like Gilbert Gifford had been caught up in Mary’s perfidious net, or Walsingham’s net of spies, or, God help her, the net she herself had cast when she became Queen and asked men for their hearts and souls?

  ‘Gifford will make an excellent spy for England,’ Walsingham murmured, and bowed. ‘I thank you, Your Majesty, and I beg your forgiveness for having brought you to this place. But that young man would not have turned his coat for anyone less than the Queen herself.’

  Taking deep breaths of air, Elizabeth tried to clear her lungs of the foul stench of the Tower dungeons. Restlessly, she walked a few feet to the wall and looked down at the glint of the dark river as it rolled past below them.

  She wished Robert could be here with her, to advise her and lend a friendly ear to her troubles. But he was still in the Low Countries, enjoying his first taste of power rather more than he should. God send that Robert should return safely from that conflict, and with no dangerous, over-reaching ambitions for her crown!

  ‘Never ask this of me again,’ she told Walsingham, pulling her hood forward to hide her face. ‘Nor involve me in your work. From now on, I wish to hear only what treasons you have uncovered. Not what methods you used to uncover them.’

  Four

  Greenwich Palace, London, spring 1586

  Summer is a-coming in,

  Loudly sing, Cuckoo!

  Groweth seed and bloweth mead,

  And springs the wood anew.

  Sing, Cuckoo!

  WHEN LUCY FINISHED the traditional country round, accompanied by the other girls from the chorus, she hung her head, waiting for the hautboys and tabors to finish sounding.

  In the silence that followed, she sank into a curtsy, and heard Queen Elizabeth clap her hands, followed by the rest of the court.

  ‘You still have the sweetest voice, Lucy, a true cuckoo for our spring,’ the Queen murmured as the applause died away.

  She looked down at Lucy from her throne in the vast, echoing hall at Greenwich and for a moment there was silence. There was an oddly intent look on the Queen’s face, an expression she only wore when about to enact some terrible cruelty on one of her courtiers. It worried Lucy to see it.

  ‘But the time has come for us to hear new voices at court,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘and new dancers too, and acrobats, and players to liven up the hall at night. With so many of our courtiers and young men away at the war, I fear we are in need of great
er comfort than one entertainer can bestow, however skilled.’

  Lucy kept her expression carefully neutral. But she was shocked by the Queen’s remarks. She was no longer a child, it was true. Yet she was only five and twenty years of age. Was this deemed too old to sing before the court?

  Lucy had now been among the Queen’s favourite entertainers for more than ten years, and it was regularly said that ten years was a long time to hold the royal favour. Yet she had not lost her talent. Her voice had mellowed and her dancing had become more graceful as she matured. But perhaps she was no longer fresh and beautiful enough to turn the heads of foreign ambassadors, and send them hurrying off to write home of the exotic delights of the English court. Nor to hold the attention of a queen whose favourite, the Earl of Leicester, was even now supporting the fight against the Spanish in the Low Countries.

  Queen Elizabeth was looking down at her, smiling. ‘Do you not agree, Lucy?’

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  Lucy gazed up at her tormentor on the high dais, oddly lightheaded. The hall was stuffy and overcrowded, and the day had been unseasonably hot. She felt like a criminal about to be sentenced to death. And by a judge with a cruel, gloating smile.

  The Queen had chosen cloth-of-gold for tonight’s feast, which had been given in honour of the spring equinox, on the orders of her astrologer John Dee, who was claiming that this would be an auspicious year for Elizabeth. Her gown was embroidered with gold thread, and thousands of tiny seed pearls had been sewn on to her lavish sleeves and hem, her thin waist pinched in even more to make her narrow chest seem bountiful.

  At her side stood Sir Walter Raleigh in a plain nut-brown jacket and doublet, freshly returned from the Low Countries with news and dispatches from the conflict there. The Queen appeared much taken with Sir Walter’s blunt tongue, and had spoken privately with him that morning, keeping her Privy Councillors waiting in the antechamber for over an hour while they talked.

  ‘You look unwell, Lucy,’ Queen Elizabeth was saying, leaning forward on her throne. ‘Does she not look unwell, Sir Walter?’

  Sir Walter Raleigh considered Lucy, a frown on his weatherbeaten face. ‘She looks tired, Your Majesty,’ he pronounced at last, in a thick country accent that had half the court smiling behind their hands. ‘As though she has not been sleeping at night. But perhaps she is missing some young man who has gone to war.’

  Queen Elizabeth’s gaze narrowed on Lucy’s face. ‘Do you have a suitor?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty.’

  ‘For you know I will tolerate nothing but the strictest chastity among those of my ladies who remain, like me, unmarried.’ The Queen sat in angry silence, staring at her. Suspicion rang in her voice, turning heads about the hall and quietening whispers. ‘Tell me truthfully now, are you still a maid?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  One of the younger women standing behind the Queen stifled a giggle, and Queen Elizabeth looked at her sharply. ‘You have some evidence to the contrary, Bess?’

  The girl blushed, and pretended to look embarrassed, casting down her eyes. ‘No, Your Majesty. Only that we heard something about Lucy Morgan and a man last year. Only idle gossip, Your Majesty. You know how girls can be.’

  ‘I do, indeed,’ the Queen agreed grimly. ‘And what did this idle gossip say, Bess?’

  Bess glanced at Lucy, who saw the spite on her thin, sallow face and knew herself to be hated among the younger court ladies. ‘That Lucy Morgan bribed a guard so she could be alone with a man last year. Or perhaps the year before. I forget when. But it’s said the guard found the two of them together later,’ Bess dropped her voice conspiratorially, ‘in flagrante delicto.’

  A sudden shocked silence thrummed through the hall. So this was about Will Shakespeare! Lucy thought. Would it make any difference to admit the charge and insist that nothing had happened between them, that she was still a virgin? Or should she throw herself at the Queen’s feet and plead a conspiracy against her?

  Queen Elizabeth shifted on her throne, looking directly at Lucy. Her eyes held an accusation. ‘Do not look so amazed, girl. It is not the first time I have heard this sordid tale. But I dismissed it before as spiteful nonsense. Indeed, Lady Helena argued most fervently for your innocence, and you have never shown yourself by any of your actions to be frequenting with men. Yet several letters have come to my hand in recent weeks, addressed to you and containing love poetry intended to seduce and corrupt. How do you answer that, Mistress Morgan?’

  Lucy stared and did not know how to reply. Will Shakespeare must have started sending her poems again – except he had clearly not bribed the servants well enough to ensure the letters reached her, and not her mistress. What was this now, any excuse to get rid of her? Too late she remembered Goodluck congratulating her on trusting no one, not even those in whom she had to put her trust.

  She looked at the ladies gathered about the Queen, their eyes alight with malice. Only Lady Helena watched her with sympathy.

  ‘I must beg your pardon, Your Majesty. I know nothing of any letters. Or … Or any poetry.’

  ‘So you have not ruined yourself with a man?’ Queen Elizabeth demanded, but did not wait for an answer. ‘No, do not sigh and shake your head at me. I have taken my fill of your weary face and do not wish to look on it again. I have heard many tales of your overly forward and loose behaviour since you came to court, and now I am told you were in attendance at the marriage of Lord Leicester to Lettice Knollys, even though you must have known such a marriage was held without my permission. Do you deny that charge also?’

  Lucy was dismayed. Who could have told her? Few people had known of the couple’s secret marriage at the time, and even fewer would have risked the Queen’s displeasure by mentioning it. Then she saw Lady Mary Herbert watching nervously from behind the Queen, and guessed that Leicester’s clever young niece had been her source. She could not find it in herself to be angry with Lady Mary though, for she knew her marriage to the ageing Earl of Pembroke had not always been a happy one, his chief purpose in marrying her being to provide himself with sons. Indeed her waist seemed thicker again now, as though she would soon be due to leave for another confinement. Perhaps the tale had slipped out unawares.

  ‘Your Majesty, please.’ Lucy fell to her knees, pleading in earnest now as she sensed the danger ahead. ‘I cannot deny it. His lordship asked me to attend his bride and I … I did not know how to refuse his request. Lord Leicester had been such a generous patron to me in my first years at court. Forgive my stupidity, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I have not forgiven Leicester for his disobedience in marrying that woman. What makes you think I would forgive you?’ The Queen’s voice rose in her temper, shrill in her fury, carrying the full length of the silent hall. ‘You will leave court tomorrow, Mistress Morgan, and you will not return until I have been satisfied of your virtue. I will not have a woman in my court who is neither maid nor married. And I wish you well in Lord Leicester’s patronage, for you will find his lordship a hard man to reach these days.’

  ‘There now.’ Queen Elizabeth looked about herself as Lucy rose from her knees, seemingly satisfied by this pronouncement. ‘It is no tragedy. This is a merry court and we shall not miss Lucy Morgan’s dark stare. One of the younger women can sing in her place. And Sir Walter Raleigh shall dance with me.’

  ‘You honour a rough sailor, Your Majesty,’ Sir Walter Raleigh murmured, bowing jerkily as though not accustomed to making his obeisance, and kissed Queen Elizabeth’s proffered hand as she rose from the throne. Nonetheless, his eyes met the Queen’s in a curiously intimate smile, as though they were already bedfellows.

  A shocked whisper ran through the court, noting the Queen’s answering smile, and Lucy could not help but wonder if this countrified adventurer had already supplanted the absent Lord Leicester. Though, knowing how the Queen loved to play one courtier against another, it was more likely her looks and smiles were for show. Perhaps she hoped such rumours would reach Lord Leicester
abroad and sow fear in his heart that his days as her favourite were over.

  Left to stand there alone, Lucy smarted at the injustice of her treatment. She had been summarily dismissed from the royal presence in favour of some younger girl from the chorus. And why? Because the Queen, it seemed, was tired of her face and ready to listen to gossip from those who wished her ill.

  Pushing her way through the crowds at the far end of the hall, Lucy caught a brief glimpse of a face she had never expected to see again.

  Will!

  Then he was gone, lost in a maze of faces. She stared about the place, meeting nothing but the curious gazes of the courtiers and their hangers-on. Lucy gave herself a little shake. She must have imagined seeing the young Warwickshire player, that was all. She was distressed and her mind was playing tricks on her.

  One of the old jugglers stopped her at the door, asking what had happened. Lucy explained, her head down, her face averted, and the old man advised steering clear of the Queen for a few weeks.

  ‘She will have forgotten this fit of temper soon, then you can return and sing for her again,’ he murmured kindly in her ear. ‘The Queen has always been capricious in her favours. Though no doubt this latest news from the Low Countries, that Lord Leicester has been crowned Supreme Governor and is to set up his own court there, cannot have helped her mood!’

  But she saw his troubled look as the old juggler kissed her farewell. And that was when she knew herself to be in danger. It seemed everyone but Lucy herself had guessed that her disgrace would be permanent.

  Where would she go? There was no one left for her now, with Master Goodluck dead and the whole court hardened against her. She would have no choice but to open up Goodluck’s house, standing empty at Cheapside, and live there alone. Though how she would survive, she had no idea. She had no family now, no husband, no protector.