His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  I do desperately wish to see you again, Lucy, and would do anything to return to court. Norfolk is such a desolate place for a poor widow. But while my mother ails so badly, I dare not leave her side.

  ‘I hope she is able to beg a place at court. But I cannot return there too,’ she told him, and folded the letter up again.

  ‘Why not?’ He frowned, watching her face intently. ‘I do not understand your hesitance. Walsingham has written twice now, cordially extending the Queen’s invitation to return, and even Lord Leicester himself has demanded that you should sing at Sir Philip Sidney’s funeral feast.’

  ‘But the Queen—’

  ‘Queen Elizabeth has forgiven you,’ he insisted, ‘and if she has forgiven you, it is time you forgave yourself.’

  Abruptly, he threw back her sheepskin covers to expose her legs. ‘Now out of bed before I tip you out. I do not wish to be cruel, Lucy, but I shall not humour you any longer in this sickness. Your bruised back has healed, it is time to get up.’

  Shivering in the sudden draught, Lucy tried to snatch her covers back, but he took her arm in a firm grasp.

  ‘You are neither diseased nor injured, the physician has said it himself,’ he told her sharply. ‘It is merely your mind that is sick and needs to be healed. And that can only be done by beginning to walk again, and going about your business like any other woman. You can start by putting your feet on the floor.’

  She looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears. ‘My baby is dead,’ she whispered. ‘I killed him.’

  Goodluck bent to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Your baby was dead before he was born, my love. You did not kill him, any more than you killed Jack Parker. Both those deaths were Master Twist’s doing, as were the deaths of poor Ned and Sos, and any other man or woman who stood in his way. John Twist has paid for his crimes and burns now in hell, where all murderers must come to punishment in the end. But you are still alive, and I wish to see my ward in a clean gown and not this dirty old nightshift you’ve been wearing ever since I brought you home.’

  He put an arm about her waist and swung her legs to the floor. ‘Come now, take a step.’

  As soon as her bare feet touched the floor, Lucy felt a shock run up her spine. She hung on to him and protested weakly that she could not walk.

  How could Goodluck expect such a thing of her? For weeks she had been in bed, barely able to eat or sleep, staring into the darkness every night like a tormented soul until he came to read to her by candlelight or sing a lullaby, something he had not done when she was a small child. The physician had prescribed various expensive remedies, and bled her several times a week; and an odd woman dressed as a boatman had come to the house a few times to burn herbs and rub stinking oils into her back and legs. But nothing had worked. Lucy had not been able to get out of bed since the night she had given birth to Will’s dead child, and seen his thin, slippery body wrapped in its winding-cloth straight from her womb.

  Goodluck paid no attention to her protests. He held her tight and encouraged her to lean on him. ‘One step, that’s all,’ he urged her, and as she obeyed, he smiled. ‘And another, that’s it. And one more.’

  Later that evening, seated on a stool with her feet in a basin of hot water and a roaring fire warming her legs, Lucy glanced across at Goodluck. He was stretched out on the settle opposite, his cap over his eyes.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly, not sure if he could hear her or if he was even awake.

  Pushing back the brim of his cap, Master Goodluck smiled at her with that old lopsided grin she remembered from her childhood. ‘My pleasure, Lucy. Though it was Sir Francis Walsingham’s idea to force you out of bed in that cruel manner, so you must blame him for it when you return to court. I spoke to him of your sickness a few days ago, and he told me of another case like yours, where it was only the woman’s mind that ailed and needed to be jolted back to life.’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘His daughter?’

  Goodluck sighed. ‘Yes, poor Lady Sidney. She too was brought to bed of a dead child after her husband’s death last year.’

  ‘I shall miss Sir Philip Sidney,’ Lucy murmured. She moved her bare feet cautiously in the hot water, enjoying the sensation more than she had expected. ‘He had such a merry smile, and a quick wit, too.’

  ‘Will you return to court and sing at his funeral? I’m told they plan to bury him at St Paul’s soon, now his debts have been cleared.’

  ‘I cannot,’ Lucy insisted, and felt a sudden hot rush of tears. Horrified, she hid her face in her hands, not wanting Goodluck to see her shame. ‘I have been such a fool. I lay with a man who was married and bore him a dead child. I had hopes, when I was young, to be a great singer at the Queen’s court, and then marry a gentleman, to be his wife, and mother to his children. But now I am ruined, utterly ruined. Even if I go back to court, I am a widow with no inheritance and a voice so rusty I shall likely be turned away at the door. I cannot even hope to dance yet, I am so weak.’ She rocked in her distress. ‘Who will have me now? Oh, Goodluck, what have I done?’

  Then his arms were about her shoulders, and Goodluck was holding her tight in his familiar bear-hug.

  ‘Hush, child,’ he murmured, letting her sob against his chest. ‘I will not force you to return to court if you do not wish it. But I cannot stay here all year round, or we will have nothing to eat. I must work, and work means I must travel, and that alone. Do you understand? That is why I pushed you to ask your friend Cathy to stay with you here. But if she cannot come, I cannot take the work Walsingham offers me, for it would mean leaving you here alone.’

  She listened carefully, then nodded and dried her eyes on her apron. ‘Walsingham has offered you work?’

  He crouched, looking up at her searchingly. ‘I know no details, but yes. I was to leave next week.’

  ‘Take me with you,’ she suggested, thinking how lovely it would be to travel with Goodluck again, as she had sometimes done as a child, just the two of them together again.

  ‘It is not possible,’ he said, and took her hand.

  She looked at him, and their eyes met. For a moment she could not breathe. Then she suddenly felt the fire was too hot and turned her face away to cool it.

  ‘Tell Walsingham you will take the work he’s offered you,’ she said. ‘I will pack my bags and go back to court. We can meet again at Christmas perhaps, if you are able to come to the palace.’

  ‘I may be travelling,’ he said roughly, and stood up.

  ‘Then whenever you make your way back to me, I shall see you,’ she told him, and managed a shaky smile. ‘That fire is so hot!’

  ‘It will soon burn out,’ he muttered, then stooped and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Enjoy life at court and don’t think of me. Only promise me you will take better care of yourself this time.’

  She touched his face. ‘I promise,’ she whispered, and watched him turn away.

  As long as Will Shakespeare keeps his distance, I promise …

  Seven

  Whitehall Palace, London, January 1587

  ‘I SHALL NOT sign,’ Elizabeth declared, and slammed her hand down on the table. Her councillors looked at her warily. She glanced at Robert, who had ridden hard from his home at Wanstead to attend this meeting of the Privy Council, and saw the frown on his face. Well, let him frown, Elizabeth thought, and looked away before he could catch her eye. She would not condemn her royal cousin to death, not on the say-so of this handful of English nobles and their glorified secretaries, who could bring her nothing more damning than a few muttered rumours of plots.

  ‘Nothing has changed,’ she insisted emphatically. ‘This is all nonsense.’

  Lord Howard exchanged looks with Lord Burghley, then stepped forward. So he had been chosen to talk her round, she thought, and met his nervous look with defiance. He would find this queen hard to shift!

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Lord Howard began, spreading out a map on the table, ‘if you will look at this map of the Low Countries, I can
show you here,’ he pointed to the map, at which she refused to look, ‘and here, strongholds formerly held by our forces but now held by the Spanish. Parma has taken both these fortresses from us, and will soon push forward with his plans for the invasion of England. Our spies in their camps talk of new canals being dug to allow greater ease of movement about the Low Countries, and larger vessels being commandeered by the Spanish to carry soldiers and provisions to the coast. We could be only months away, perhaps even weeks, from the sighting of a Spanish fleet off our south-east coast.’

  ‘And how is it that these strongholds of ours fell into Spanish hands in the first place?’ she demanded icily.

  There was an awkward silence while the councillors glanced at each other, and then at Robert.

  Robert looked furious. ‘By all reports, Your Majesty, they did not fall so much as opened their gates and invited the Spanish in. We cannot be sure how this surrender came about, for our reports are scanty. But my trust was clearly misplaced in the commanders I left behind in the Low Countries.’ He tore off his riding gloves and threw them down on the table, as though ready to issue a challenge to anyone there who accused him of collusion with the enemy. ‘If I had known Lord Stanley would fall back on his Catholic allegiances and invite the Spanish in, I should never have left him in charge of our territories there.’

  ‘So Spain moves ever closer to England,’ Elizabeth remarked, and shuddered. ‘I can see why this must indicate stronger and more urgent preparations to defend our shores. But how does it change our policy on my cousin’s long imprisonment?’

  Lord Howard looked apologetic. Rolling up the map, he tucked it under his arm. ‘While your royal cousin lives, she excites a vision in every Catholic man, woman and child of an England brought back under the yoke of Rome. Her very existence is a threat to yours, Your Majesty, and those who seek to protect her would think nothing of bringing about your death to achieve that end. You have had, I believe, recent proof of this determination in a letter from His Majesty the King of Scotland.’

  Elizabeth looked away uncomfortably. She knew the letter of which he spoke, an insolent and subtly threatening missive sent via Sir William Keith, no doubt in the hope that it would frighten her into obedience.

  ‘King James feels a son’s right and proper anxiety for his mother, that is all,’ she commented, though she saw from her councillors’ faces that none of them believed the lightness of her dismissal.

  She waved away a servant who had come to her side bearing a flagon of wine. ‘Bring me ale,’ she told the man impatiently, then turned her head to study the councillors about the table. ‘Gentlemen, my lords, I do not see that any of this brings forward a pressing need for my cousin’s execution. We have had threats, plots and assassination attempts enough these past twenty years to kill a dozen queens. Yet here I am, still alive, and will remain on the throne of England until forcibly dislodged.’

  Lord Howard bowed. ‘Yes indeed, Your Majesty. But consider this, if I may be so bold. With your cousin alive, the English Catholics have hope of a future where they may see Mary on the throne, and so will lend their hands to any invasion force which promises such a reward. But if Mary were to die, the only Catholic contender for the throne in the event of an invasion would be King Philip of Spain. He is a Catholic, yes. But also a foreigner, and one whose rule alongside your late sister was not popular with the people.’

  Elizabeth looked at him, then at her other councillors. ‘So you believe the Catholics among my people will encourage an invasion by Spain if my cousin is alive, but resist if she is dead?’

  ‘Precisely!’ Sir Christopher Hatton exclaimed, bringing his hands together loudly, then caught her eye and added, ‘Your Majesty has grasped the matter in a nutshell.’

  Lord Burghley leaned forward and gently pushed the warrant for Mary’s execution back in front of her. ‘Sign, Your Majesty, I implore you. There is no need for any further action to be taken at the present moment. But at least if you have signed the warrant, her execution can be carried out in the event of an invasion without any need to prepare the document or pass it under the Great Seal. Do you see?’

  Still Elizabeth hesitated, looking round the table at the solemn faces of her Privy Councillors. She saw Robert nod intently, his gaze fixed on her face as though imploring her to go ahead, and to his right-hand side Walsingham tapped the table as though in agreement. Even old Sir Francis Knollys was watching her with undisguised approbation. It seemed not one of them was prepared to argue against this terrible decision.

  As she debated whether or not to put her signature to the dreaded paper, a shadow seemed to pass over the small-paned window that faced the Greenwich gardens, as though someone had walked past in the icy weather, or a cloud had briefly obscured the sun. Her lips parted, and she remembered running through a rose garden as a small child, searching desperately for someone, with her nurse calling for her to come back, and then the tears of frustration when she was dragged away.

  ‘Not yet! Not yet!’ she exclaimed, no longer able to bear what was being asked of her.

  Rising from her seat, Elizabeth strode from the chamber, pausing in the doorway only to look back accusingly at her chief councillors.

  As the days passed, Elizabeth began to wonder about the wisdom of not signing her cousin’s death warrant. Perhaps there were some among them who secretly wished for Mary to depose her and seize the throne. She thought of each courtier in turn, and went through his smiles and flattering comments in her mind, suspecting them all, even her own beloved Robert at times. For he spent longer and longer at home with Lettice these days and not at her side, for all she had brought him safely home from war.

  Was it possible that Robert too, whose hatred for the Catholics was well-known, might desire a change of queen? What poison did Lettice drip into his ear at night when they lay together at Wanstead?

  Early one morning, Elizabeth walked out with her ladies in the sharp winter weather, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak and with her black velvet cap pulled down to cover her ears. She needed time and space to think, and she never thought more deeply than when walking and enjoying the beauty and order of nature.

  Rounding a magnificent holly-bush in the palace gardens, rich with red berries, Elizabeth came face to face with Lettice Knollys on Robert’s arm.

  She came to an abrupt standstill, her breath steaming on the cold air. Lettice lowered her horrified gaze at once and dropped into a deep curtsy, her head bent. Robert bowed, his own expression defiant, though Elizabeth noted how he let go of his wife’s arm, taking a quick step away from her.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he said heavily, as though bracing himself for the storm to come.

  So Lettice had come to court at last, and without seeking proper permission! Elizabeth took a moment to examine her cousin in silence. The extravagant folds of her broad-skirted red velvet gown, with its simple cloth-of-gold bodice, shimmered in the grey morning like an exotic bird’s plumage, her belt hung with gold and scarlet braided tassels, her cap feathered and slanted, her white ruff as broad as Elizabeth’s own. Several large jewelled rings adorned her white gloves, and the golden cross about her neck sparkled with rubies. At her back knelt a young black pageboy in livery, a quivering dog in his arms, its white fur preened and a diamond-studded collar about its neck.

  Lettice herself looked as vibrant as ever, as though the years had barely touched her, her face still smooth and unwrinkled as she glanced up at the Queen.

  Hateful woman! Elizabeth felt her temper begin to rise and did nothing to control it.

  ‘Red velvet, cloth-of-gold, and even diamonds about her dog’s neck? What, is your wife a queen to dress herself so lavishly?’ she demanded of Robert. ‘I had heard rumours of your wife’s excessive finery in the past, but dismissed them as malicious gossip. But now it seems your recent elevation to the governorship in the Low Countries has gone to Lady Leicester’s head. I only pray she can keep it long enough to enjoy her expensive wardrobe.’

  Lett
ice started at that threat, her lips parted, though she said nothing.

  Elizabeth enjoyed her rival’s discomfort as she raged on, glaring at Robert. ‘Nor do I recall inviting your wife to court. Though if I had, be sure I would have expected her to dress in more sombre colours, as befits one of my ladies. Explain yourself, if you please!’

  ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty. It was very wrong of me not to seek your permission for Lettice to visit me at court.’ Robert spoke slowly and with difficulty, though the flush in his cheeks told her of his anger, too. ‘Lady Leicester has come to pay her last respects to my nephew and to console his young widow in her grief. She and her servants will return to Wanstead as soon as we have buried Philip.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ Elizabeth said coldly, and regarded her favourite with warning. ‘There can be only one queen, Robert, and all other pretenders to that title should beware they do not lose their heads over it.’

  Returning to her state apartments in a high temper, Elizabeth called at once for a quill and ink, and also for William Davison, the new Junior Secretary of State. He came straight from the breakfast table, crumbs still in his beard, his expression alarmed.

  ‘Fetch the warrant for my cousin’s death that was given into your charge, sir,’ she told him curtly. ‘Before I change my mind.’

  William Davison returned a short while later with the royal warrant, more presentable and with his beard hurriedly combed through, several other men at his back as though to bear witness to the event.

  Elizabeth read through the wording several times, then took up the quill, dipped it in black ink and signed the death warrant with a flourish, Elizabeth R.

  ‘There,’ she said, and laid down the quill. ‘Master Davison, you may take this document away for safe keeping. But you are not to act upon it without further instruction from me.’

  Eight

  ILLUMINATED BY HUNDREDS of flickering candles, the ancient nave of St Paul’s stood silent as the doors at the far end, open to the thin February daylight only moments before, darkened now with a throng of men. The assembled nobles and gentry closest to the roodscreen turned to look as the funeral procession approached the door to St Paul’s. Led by a black-robed priest, carrying a plain cross before him, the pallbearers entered to the slow beat of a drum. On their shoulders lay the lead-lined coffin of Sir Philip Sidney, dead these past five months but not yet interred, the arguments over his debts having been so protracted. Behind the coffin walked his brother and heir, Sir Robert Sidney, his handsome face stony as he struggled to contain his grief.