Her Last Assassin

by Victoria Lamb

  Goodluck rested his cheek against hers, breathing hard, and she knew he was fighting for control.

  In that instant she could not conceive what she had ever seen in William Shakespeare. For Will was nothing to this man. He was a shadow compared to Goodluck’s warmth, light, solidity, love.

  ‘I am lodged at the top of the old west tower,’ he murmured in her ear, his arm about her waist. ‘Come to my chamber late on Sunday evening, my love, if you have not changed your mind by then. We shall be private there.’

  Two

  DAWN BROKE DARK and bitter cold to the ringing of bells at Greenwich Palace. Soon the whole place was awake, courtiers being dressed for Mass by firelight in their tapestry-hung chambers, servants running to and fro in the narrow corridors, intent on their tasks. Outside, a wind from the north-east whistled through the icy courtyards and open spaces of the palace, bringing snow with it. Serving men in livery stamped their feet and blew on their cupped hands as they went about their duties, the women wrapped in shawls and thick woollen cloaks, only their red noses and chapped lips visible.

  Goodluck heaved the empty barrel on to his shoulder, trudging up the cellar steps and along the towpath to a narrow jetty where two rivermen were loading their skiff.

  ‘Is that the last?’ one of the rivermen demanded, his leather cap tied under his chin to prevent the wind from whisking it away.

  When Goodluck assented, the man threw the barrel aboard as though it weighed nothing. He turned to his raw-faced fellow on the bank, calling, ‘That’s us done, Master Penn. Cast her off!’

  The river was partially frozen at that point, and the heavily laden boat, sitting low in the water now, would not budge. To break free of the bank, the two men were forced to smash the ice with long sticks, showering themselves with flecks of slush. The thin ice gave way easily, and so they made their way across to the other bank, white with snow and swathed in early mists, shouting and smashing as they went.

  Goodluck watched them for a moment, then returned to the small courtyard that housed the cellar steps and adjoined the kitchen. The icy path was treacherous, pitted with footprints, and he had to take care with his footing.

  As he entered the courtyard, it began to snow again.

  Goodluck shivered, clapping his gloved hands together for warmth. Despite the heavy snowfall, he was not permitted to wear a cloak over his livery. His boots were stout enough, but afforded little protection against the cold. Yet he had not heard any of those who laboured in the palaces complain about their treatment. Indeed they seemed proud to do it, and often spoke of the Queen with simple reverence, as though she were more saint than woman.

  Apart from the rigours of the snow, Goodluck himself had found no hardship in the duties he was expected to perform while posing as a member of the palace staff. It was good work, decently paid, and there was honour in serving the Queen and her household.

  One day I shall be too old to work, he reminded himself. Then what?

  In his youth, when he had chosen the dubious trade of spy, foolishly welcoming death in the service of his country, he had not thought to last so long. But the honour of an early death had not been his. Now he looked ahead to his later years with some trepidation, for work was thin for an old spy, and those who lived too long found themselves on the streets, begging for alms with the other dregs and drifters. He could work in the theatres, it was true, but when so many had remained closed for months after the riots and the scourge of the plague, it seemed a precarious trade for a man who needed daily bread and shelter to survive.

  Now that he had been given a breathing space to reconsider, Goodluck knew he must put Lucy off with some lie when she came to him today. He loved her more than his own life, and once that would have seemed enough to him. For he was nothing. A shadow set to watch other shadows. What could he offer her except old age and poverty?

  Goodluck stopped dead, seeing a cloaked figure ahead of him in the snowy courtyard.

  He ducked out of sight behind a cart as the man turned, glancing over his shoulder, perhaps to check that he was not observed. He crouched and peered through the iced wheel spokes, then saw the man’s face and drew a sharp breath.

  It was Kit Marlowe, whom he had thought abroad.

  Goodluck watched as Kit descended the short flight of steps into the palace kitchens, then followed hurriedly after. His heart had begun to thud, his senses suddenly alert.

  What would young Kit Marlowe be doing at Greenwich Palace on a frozen Sunday, except visiting a fellow spy and conspirator while most decent folk were in church?

  He had always had his doubts about this young man, instinctively distrusting him. Marlowe had lied to him on board ship from the Low Countries, certainly, and then had spoken to someone at one of the treacherous Stanley’s houses on arrival in London. His lordship the Earl of Essex trusted him, but Essex was young too, and nowhere near as canny as Walsingham had been. It was easy for a man to play both sides in this game, but more difficult for any to be sure where his true allegiances lay.

  Following Marlowe through the dim-lit maze of corridors, Goodluck kept as close as he dared. He waited impatiently at each corner to avoid being seen, shivering in the bitter wind that whistled through the narrow stone-walled hallways. Perhaps Marlowe’s contact at court would turn out to be the very man they sought, the traitor at the heart of the Queen’s household?

  Marlowe stopped before a low door and knocked three times quickly, then twice slowly.

  The door was jerked open to reveal Essex himself, the fashionable earl at odds with such dingy surroundings, even clad in sober black and silver for Sunday. He did not appear surprised to see Kit Marlowe, but stood aside with an abrupt gesture, beckoning the young man inside.

  Marlowe slipped past him, and the door closed.

  The corridor was dark and empty. Goodluck edged nearer the door, listening hard for the sound of voices within. But all he could hear was a muffled exchange between the two men. They were speaking quietly, as though afraid of being overheard. Then the earl suddenly exclaimed, ‘No!’ and Marlowe’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  The scraping of a chair indicated that the interview was at an end. Goodluck hurried into a shadowy doorway further along the hall and waited, his cap drawn down.

  A moment later, the door opened and Marlowe emerged. Bowing briefly, the young man returned the way he had come, once more wrapped in his cloak, a huddled figure unlikely to excite comment among the hurrying palace servants.

  Essex turned and came slowly towards Goodluck’s hiding place, his head bent in thought, a hand resting on the jewelled hilt of his sword.

  ‘My lord,’ Goodluck muttered, and the earl’s head came up, frowning.

  He stared at Goodluck through the gloom, then a wry smile twisted his mouth. ‘I should have known nothing would escape your attention, Master Goodluck.’ He glanced over his shoulder but the corridor was still empty. ‘You recognized my visitor?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘And now you are wondering at our business together?’ Essex shrugged. ‘I keep many irons in the fire. Some are hotter to the touch than others. Not that it concerns you, but to lay your mind at rest, I have spoken with young Marlowe about his presence in the Low Countries at the time of the Spanish Armada’s launch, and his visit to Stanley’s house. I am convinced by what he has told me that he plays the villain for our benefit, and at his late master Walsingham’s express command.’

  ‘He spies for both sides, then?’

  ‘But is loyal to England, yes.’ Essex was clearly impatient. ‘I must attend the Queen for Sunday Mass. What of you, Goodluck? Marlowe tells me that our man may be a foreigner, not English as we originally suspected. But nothing is certain, and he fears this could be another false lead, thrown out by our conspirators themselves to send us off the track. So still we search.’

  Essex hesitated, looking hard at him. ‘Have you anything new for me? Are you any closer to discovering the identity of the traitor we seek?’r />
  Goodluck had to admit that he was not. The earl swept on, leaving him alone in the corridor.

  Contemplating the earl’s disappearing back, his thoughts were bitter. But what use to complain that he was hunting for a thimble in the dark, when he had willingly accepted this task, knowing success to be unlikely?

  He made his way back to the kitchens, for further tasks would await him there to be completed before the servants were called to Mass. There were several men he was watching within the Queen’s household, but so far he had been unable to find evidence of any conspiracy or wrongdoing there. It seemed to him that this trail had indeed gone cold, as he had warned Essex before.

  Yet Marlowe appeared to have brought the earl credible intelligence that some threat to Her Majesty was still afoot.

  How was that possible? What leads had young Marlowe pursued that had been denied to Goodluck?

  I am jealous, he thought ironically, and had to laugh. Fool that I am. Jealous of a young man for possessing more information than he had been able to glean. And yet they were both working for the Queen’s safety. Or so Essex would have him believe. Perhaps the ambitious earl was more trusting of Marlowe than he should be, this hunt for a non-existent traitor merely a desperate bid to impress the Queen.

  I must tread carefully, he told himself. If things run foul, it will be my neck that swings, not his lordship’s.

  Voices ahead, muttering together as though in some secret conversation, brought him up short. Suddenly alert, he flattened himself behind a stack of crates and peered round. The corridor was dark here, no torches nor openings to weather that might afford light. But he recognized one of the men’s voices.

  It was Marlowe, his back towards him, speaking softly to a hooded and cloaked figure whose face he could not see.

  ‘Come, I must give them a date.’

  The other man replied, his voice low and harried, accented. Possibly Spanish? ‘Forgive me, but to give a date … It must be the work of a seized moment. She is too closely guarded.’

  ‘The King grows impatient with your delays. He demands a date. This month? Next? He will not wait for ever, and then …’

  The man sounded terrified. ‘Yes, yes, I understand. But please … you must give us more time.’

  ‘Your master has had years to prepare for this.’

  ‘It is not an easy thing,’ the man muttered. ‘To take such a life …’

  A serving man came puffing down the corridor under the weight of a tray of flagons, and both conspirators moved aside to let him pass, their faces hidden. The man glanced at both, his round face frowning, but continued on without comment. Goodluck drew closer into the wall, and was relieved when the serving man turned aside into another corridor leading up to the ground floor. It would not have done to be discovered down here, not when Marlowe knew him by sight.

  The two men seemed to have been unsettled by this interruption; nothing more was said as they stood, listening to the man’s receding footsteps.

  ‘It will be done soon. That is all my master can promise.’ The man turned and hurried away into the darkness.

  If Marlowe knew the identity of the traitor, and was speaking to him or his servant here, why would he not have communicated this information to his master, Essex? The only explanation was that Kit Marlowe was not merely aping a double game between England and Spain, but was secretly in the service of King Philip.

  Yet how to convince Essex of such treachery, when the young earl clearly favoured Marlowe above him and would hear no suspicion raised against him?

  Marlowe pulled his hood down to cover his face and began to move away, then halted, glancing back over his shoulder as though some sixth sense had warned him that he was being observed.

  Goodluck stood still, head lowered, hoping he would be hidden behind the stack of crates. A few uncomfortable seconds passed in silence, then he heard Marlowe walk on.

  Had he been seen?

  Goodluck had only meant to close his eyes for a short while, resting on his straw pallet after the day’s labour, but when he woke, night had fallen and the room was dark.

  A quiet knocking at his door had woken him. He rose and listened, frowning.

  ‘Goodluck? Are you there?’

  In a guilty rush he remembered his arrangement with Lucy, and was suddenly alert. He drew back the bolt and opened the door. She stood in the doorway, holding a small lantern, the flame sharply illuminating her face.

  ‘Lucy, forgive me,’ he managed, barely able to meet her gaze. ‘I … I fell asleep. Come in.’

  His blunt admission did not seem to ease the sudden awkwardness between them. Cloaked and hooded for disguise, Lucy looked as uncertain about this secret assignation as he was. Acutely aware of his own dishevelled appearance, Goodluck gestured her inside the room, then combed down his unkempt hair and fastened his loose-hanging shirt.

  While he knelt to kindle a fire, Lucy stood in the middle of the candlelit chamber, keeping clear of the narrow window where she might have been seen from the courtyard below.

  ‘I could not come any sooner. The Queen has not been well.’

  ‘Yet still you came.’

  She swung off her cloak, turning to face him as he straightened, her eyes lowered. Had she registered the surprise in his voice?

  ‘As you see.’

  ‘Did you check you were not followed?’

  She bit her lip, then shook her head. ‘Forgive me, I … I did not think.’

  ‘No matter,’ he reassured her, and managed a smile, though in truth he was a little unsettled by her admission. To be discovered here, alone together, would not easily be explained, not even by their old relationship of guardian and child. For those days were long gone. ‘I am sure we will be safe enough here from prying eyes.’

  Goodluck knew his own fears about this meeting, but he had not expected Lucy herself to be shy. Not after her affair with Shakespeare. It pleased him, because it suggested feelings which matched his own. Or was that merely his own wish, preventing his ability to read Lucy as he would any other woman?

  He saw her shivering, and frowned, cursing his own stupidity at not staying awake and kindling a fire earlier to warm the chamber.

  ‘This place is too cold,’ he muttered, glancing about the small, grim tower chamber where he slept. ‘There is not even a chair for your comfort. I should not have asked you here at this hour.’

  She came to him, rustling in her broad-skirted court gown, seed pearls along her white bodice. Her eyes met his in frankness. ‘Do not say you regret it. I could not bear it if you were to send me away now. You do not know how much courage was required to climb those stairs.’

  She smiled wryly, adding, ‘And breath, for they are steep and many, and I am no longer young.’

  He saw the fine lines about her eyes and mouth, and recognized the truth in that. He had been her guardian once, and had protected her like his own daughter. But Lucy was no longer a child. She had loved one man, and married another to hide her shame, then miscarried the ill-starred child in her belly. She knew her own mind now, and her appetites, and if she felt no strangeness in this, then why should he?

  ‘You are younger than I am,’ he pointed out.

  Her smile faded. ‘Goodluck, you are not old.’ She put a hand on his chest and stood, head on one side, as though listening to the beat of his heart. ‘Besides, I love you.’

  He drew her close, looking into her face. He had waited so long, so long …

  And yet, if she was at all uncertain about this desire between them, he could wait a little longer. For ever, if need be. He would take nothing from Lucy that did not come willingly.

  Goodluck stroked her cheek.

  ‘And Shakespeare?’

  She had not changed much since leaving her girlhood behind. Her cheek was still soft, her nature one of curiosity and goodness. Still, she was no fool, this woman he had raised. She could not only sing and dance to charm the coldest court, but could handle a knife, decode a secret message,
and had even learned to smell out a villain, however cunningly he might conceal himself.

  His traitorous old companion John Twist had taught her that lesson himself. Never trust anyone, however close to your heart.

  Yet to love was to trust. Could Lucy do either, given her upbringing at the hands of a spy?

  Could he?

  ‘I love Will too,’ she replied simply, rubbing her cheek against his hand. ‘But not like I love you. When I was younger, I thought the world only turned one way. That if a woman loved a man, it was for ever and she could love no other. But I know the truth now.’

  She looked stubborn, her chin jutting out, her eyes searching his in the candlelight as she struggled to explain her innermost thoughts. He let her speak, though she might have been describing his own feelings.

  ‘There are many different kinds of love, and it is entirely possible to love more than one person at once, and even to fall out of love and into hate, then love the same person again with all your heart, and not understand the reason why, but suffer the pain of this torment, and have no release except to tell them – and hope they feel the same.’ Her voice broke suddenly. ‘Which too often they do not.’

  It was difficult to keep the anger out of his voice. ‘Has Shakespeare hurt you again?’

  ‘He no longer has the power to hurt me, Goodluck. But you do.’

  ‘I would never hurt you.’

  She smiled painfully. ‘Not by design, perhaps.’

  ‘Lucy,’ he muttered.

  Her gaze moved to his mouth, and he could not help himself. He took her by the shoulders and kissed her, his touch urgent. His hands stroked to her waist, then suddenly the chill air took flame, burning between them like the logs in the hearth.