Her Last Assassin

by Victoria Lamb

  A helpless shrug. ‘Somewhere in London.’

  ‘You recall neither this man’s name nor his place of residence, yet you were to have delivered a letter to him?’

  Gomez nodded, as if this was a perfectly credible story. ‘Forgive me. My memory is not so good. I will tell you both when I remember them, my lord.’

  ‘Who gave you the letter to bring to England?’

  ‘Ah, si, si!’ The man nodded sagely when the translator had finished relaying this question to him. ‘I have forgotten his name also. But he was a very wealthy man in Flanders. A merchant. He gave me the letter on the docks.’

  Essex made a brief note on the paper in front of him. ‘What was your original purpose in sailing to Sandwich?’

  ‘To visit England, my lord.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  Gomez spread his hands wide. His translator worked pithily, picking out the gist of his explanation from among Gomez’s excessive and unlikely compliments. ‘I came because I desired to see your great and beautiful land for myself.’ He nodded at Essex’s incredulous look. ‘But how can you doubt it, my lord? Portugal is a dry land. Where I come from, the soil is parched and nothing grows there. England enjoys the rain all year round. So many green fields. All the little white sheep. What other reason could there be?’

  ‘Master Gomez, England is at war with Spain, and therefore with Portugal, which is currently under the rule of the Spanish King,’ Essex pointed out drily. ‘What in God’s name made you think a voyage to the land of your enemy, just to see its natural beauty, was a good idea?’

  ‘Now that I have been arrested,’ Gomez conceded glumly, ‘I can see my mistake.’

  Essex looked at him for a long moment in silence. ‘So you did not in fact run this errand on behalf of His Majesty King Philip of Spain?’

  This was too close to an insult for d’Avila. He stood up, knocking his chair over and swearing a violent oath in Portuguese, as though outraged to have been accused of such a crime. ‘I have answered your questions most faithfully, my lord, and the hour is late. Why must you continue to hold me against my will?’

  ‘If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.’ Essex also rose to his feet. ‘Meanwhile, you are required to spend a little more time with us at Her Majesty’s pleasure, while we verify your documents and the contents of the letter found in your possession.’

  The interview having been brought to a close, Essex bade his guards keep watch over Gomez d’Avila, and stepped outside to speak with Goodluck.

  They walked a little way down the corridor, their voices lowered.

  ‘Any thoughts, Master Goodluck? The fellow is lying, certainly. But for whom is that letter intended, and who wrote it?’ Essex glanced at the sheet in Goodluck’s hand. His eyes grew keen. ‘You have already translated it? Good work. What does it tell us?’

  ‘On the surface, exactly what Senhor Gomez told you. It appears to be an inconsequential letter in Portuguese, addressed to “Your Worship”. It promises information on the price of a gold and diamond ring, and some pearls, that had previously been mentioned in discussions between the two men, and then enquires about the reader’s requirements for “musk and amber”, which the writer of the letter is now ready to buy.’

  Essex looked disappointed. ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘It is the wording that must be attended to, my lord, not the words themselves.’ Goodluck smiled, and read aloud from his translation: ‘“But before I resolve myself on this matter, I wish to be advised of the price of the musk and amber you are selling. If it please you to be my partner in this business, we shall make good profit.”’

  ‘Musk and amber?’

  Goodluck mused a moment. ‘Pearls are precious jewels.’

  ‘And one of the Queen’s chosen symbols.’

  ‘And musk and amber might be found in a doctor’s medicine chest.’

  ‘Senhor Lopez?’

  ‘My instinct leads me in that direction, yes. But you could not arrest the doctor on such scanty evidence. The thread in this letter is tenuous at best. As it was intended to be, to confuse any who might read this without possessing the key to these code words.’

  ‘I am constantly in the dark over this business of Lopez. And the Queen protects him. She favours him, despite our warnings.’ His jaw clenched. ‘I wish to God I could wrest this simpering doctor from her side and consign him to the Tower. Lopez would soon bleat when faced with the rack.’

  Goodluck thought of Lucy, imprisoned in the Tower through no fault of her own. It was hard to stay silent.

  He studied the letter again. If he could find a Spanish plot among all this, a coherent plot with a gallows at the end of it, he might yet be able to obtain Lucy’s release.

  The gold and diamond ring.

  He had seen such a ring before, first on Marlowe’s finger at Deptford and then on the hand of his murderer. Though Ingram Frizer was not to be charged with the playwright’s murder, he had heard. No, for the man had killed Marlowe, it was claimed, in self-defence.

  Self-defence!

  He dwelt on the memory of that costly ring. A bribe from King Philip himself?

  Lopez would soon bleat when faced with the rack.

  ‘Give me a few hours,’ he told Essex, ‘then have this man Gomez conveyed to the Tower.’

  ‘Your plan?’

  ‘I shall install myself in a cell there, and be submitted to the rack by one of your torturers. When Gomez is brought in, he will recognize me at once, for I knew him briefly in Nieuwpoort. I will be introduced to him as a fellow Spanish spy and traitor, and this will help him to trust me.’ He paused. ‘Once we are left alone together, I will get his story from him.’

  ‘It could take days to gain his trust.’

  ‘Let us hope not. I will ride back to Essex House with the information as soon as I have it.’

  ‘God speed then, sir!’ Essex clapped him on the back. ‘I shall write a note for the captain of the guards at the Tower. But you are a brave man to set foot inside the Tower again.’

  The Tower might be a grim place, Goodluck thought, yet it is where Lucy lays her head each night. And where Lucy is, there I should be also.

  Despite his wish to be near Lucy again, Goodluck had to admit to some trepidation as the barge neared the dark walled mound of the Tower. Only a few months ago he had been a prisoner here, and his beloved was still kept in this place against her will. The river was misty, the eerie sound of lapping water bouncing off stone. He stared up at the forbidding towers beyond the wall, saw a light burning steadily in one of the high window slits and wondered if it was Lucy’s cell. A shout went up inside as the barge came slowly in to moor alongside the damp, mossed steps that led up to the gate. A few moments passed while they waited, the barge bobbing uneasily back and forth, tugging at its ropes on a strong outgoing tide. Then a man came out in the livery of the Tower, carrying a lantern, and made his way down to the riverside.

  ‘No one is allowed to enter after dark without permission. Who are you? What is your business here?’

  Goodluck jumped ashore and handed over the note he had brought from Lord Essex. The man read the note with a dour expression, then lifted his lantern, shining it full in Goodluck’s face.

  ‘Follow me,’ the man said shortly, and climbed back up the steps. ‘Though I do not know what the Constable of the Tower will say to this. Master Goodluck, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You’ve been here before.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Ah.’ The man looked back at him, his face unreadable in the long shadows of the watergate wall. ‘I daresay you’d know your own way then. But no one is permitted to walk unaccompanied here.’

  He was led through the ancient gate and inside the Tower confines, then up the sloping track and past the green where he had been flogged before a watching crowd that had included Lucy herself. Now the place was empty, though a wooden platform still stood below the gre
y towers, as though awaiting its next victim.

  Coming to a low door in one of the dark buildings that had loomed up through the mist, the man knocked and after a moment’s wait was admitted by an unseen guard. He turned and gestured Goodluck silently to follow him up the winding stair.

  The stairway was narrow, lit only by the swaying light of the lantern. Goodluck knew he was not there as a prisoner this time. Yet this simple message had not been communicated to his heart, which beat sickeningly fast as he climbed the stone steps.

  At the first turn of the stair, the man pushed open a studded door and pointed down a corridor that led into darkness.

  ‘This should serve your purpose. Though there is only one interrogator working tonight,’ he muttered. ‘Master Topcliffe.’

  Master Topcliffe!

  Goodluck halted, suddenly too unsteady to go on. At the mention of that dreaded name his knees had begun to buckle, his innards turning to water.

  ‘I …’ he began shakily, then saw the malicious gleam in his guide’s eyes and knew he was being mocked. How could he hope to be a man for Lucy when he could not even be a man for his own sake? ‘The name of the interrogator makes no odds to me. I am a servant of the Queen, as is he. Lead on, fellow.’

  Two

  IT WAS VERY late when footsteps came shuffling up the steps to her cell at the Tower, and someone began to unlock the heavy wooden door. Lucy turned without interest from the narrow window, through which she had been watching the bright flecks of torchlight reflected on the water, and the dark shape of a barge struggling slowly across the river currents as though intending to dock at the watergate. She did not bother to adjust her simple coif, for the place was dim enough at night to conceal any faults of face or attire. She had extinguished her candle stump some hours ago, and now the cell was lit only by a small fire burning in the grate, though its fuel would soon be exhausted and she knew there would be no more wood until tomorrow.

  She ought to have been asleep, but she found her nights of captivity at the Tower more difficult than the days, and often put off retiring to bed as long as possible.

  Carefully, Lucy sat to receive her jailor. She draped her lace shawl low across her shoulders so that its folds obscured her body, as was her custom with visitors these days.

  Except the woman who entered was not Mistress Hall. Lucy stared, and felt slightly sick. She did not know what to say.

  It was Cathy.

  Her sombrely dressed jailor pushed past her former friend, who had halted on the threshold, staring back at her.

  ‘Not abed yet, Mistress Morgan?’ her jailer demanded, and glanced at the fire. ‘You will burn through your fuel allowance before time.’

  There was a disapproving look on her face. More disapproving than was usual, Lucy noted, for Mistress Hall had the kind of turned-up nose and curling lip that always seemed to be sneering.

  Lucy said nothing, staring past her at Cathy.

  Mistress Hall motioned Cathy into the room, then turned to Lucy. ‘We have received orders from his lordship the Earl of Essex that you are to be provided with your own serving woman, to which end he has sent this woman, whose name is Mistress Belton, to wait on you and share your cell.’

  Lucy’s throat constricted with anger and despair. Surely she had fallen asleep and this was a nightmare? Why would Lord Essex send a serving woman to tend her, and not just any maid, but the woman who had betrayed her to the Queen?

  ‘I shall arrange for a straw pallet to be brought up tonight for your bed,’ Mistress Hall was telling Cathy, her manner cold and unwelcoming. ‘The chest you brought will be sent up in the morning, when the Constable has checked its contents. If you wish for anything that cannot wait until my daily visit, you may knock upon the door to be released. There is a guard on the stair who will attend you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mistress Hall,’ Cathy murmured.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Mistress Hall told them both sharply, then slammed the door shut, locking it behind her.

  They continued to stare at each other in silence for a moment, no sound in the room but the crackle of the miserable little fire, then Cathy took a few tentative steps forward.

  Her face crumpled as she looked about the room, taking in the dusty floor with its stale rushes, the narrow window looking down to the river, the small grate with its wretched flames that barely kept the chill October draughts at bay.

  ‘Oh sweet Jesu,’ Cathy whispered, tears in her eyes, and fell to her knees before Lucy. ‘What have I done to you? My good friend, my dearest, truest Lucy.’

  Lucy put out a hand to her friend. Then she drew it back slightly, on the edge of tears herself. There was only one question to ask. ‘Why did you betray me?’

  She too was whispering, for she half suspected Mistress Hall to be listening at the door, and this was not a conversation she wished to share with her jailor.

  ‘What wrong had I ever done you?’ she demanded. ‘Tell me, Cathy, for I have searched my heart these past months, with nowhere to go but this room and the yard below, and have found no cause for your betrayal.’ She heard her voice quiver and was angry with herself for not being more controlled, but she could not seem to contain her turbulent emotions. ‘Was I too distant, perhaps? Did I neglect our friendship once I had been advanced at court? For I can think of no other reason that you should hate me so much.’

  Cathy shook her head, weeping quietly. ‘You did me no wrong. It was not you who drove me to betray you, but his lordship, the Earl of Southampton. One of his spies told him that I have a son back home in Norfolk, and his lordship told me he would … He threatened to send men to my father’s farm and have James killed. He said it could be done this easily,’ she snapped her fingers brutally, her mouth trembling, ‘and made to look like an accident.’

  ‘Henry Wriothesley threatened to kill your son?’

  ‘If I did not help him.’ Cathy looked at her directly. ‘He made me follow you and note to whom you spoke, and when, and whether you met with any man privately. But I swear, I had not understood what he planned to do with the information.’

  ‘But you knew he wished me ill.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cathy agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Why did you not come to me with these threats? I might have been able to help you.’

  ‘Against the Earl of Southampton, a young man of fortune and nobility, favoured by the Queen herself?’ Cathy’s eyes were desperate. ‘We are only women. These noblemen hold the true power at court. And if his lordship had discovered my betrayal, my son would have died for it. I saw it in his eyes. He would have had James killed and thought nothing of it. I promise you, I had no choice.’

  ‘Rather my life than your son’s,’ Lucy murmured, thinking aloud, then nodded. ‘I cannot hold you to account for that.’

  ‘I knew the earl disliked you, I cannot deny it, though not how much. To condemn you to this …’ Her friend shuddered, glancing about the bare cell. ‘And because of that, I do not ask you to forgive me. For what I have done is unforgivable. But perhaps in time, knowing how much I love my son and that I acted only to protect his life, you may bring yourself to forget a little. Just a very little.’ Cathy hesitated. ‘Enough to trust me to be your servant again.’

  Lucy folded her arms across her belly, unsure what her answer should be. Cathy had been her friend for many years – ever since they had been court entertainers together as girls, indeed – and she had not thought it possible that anything could come between them. But her betrayal had led to Lucy’s ruin and, worse, to Goodluck’s disgrace. He at least was free of this place, and so she was content with the four dreary walls of her prison, knowing he had escaped the same fate.

  Yet could she now, given what she had been brought to, forget Cathy’s betrayal and accept her presence here?

  ‘Come.’ She held out her hands to Cathy, her mind made up. ‘I have wept too many nights, wondering how I wronged you. I do not wish to spend another night in tears now that I know the truth. Let us embrace each othe
r as friends, not as servant and mistress. For we can be friends again in this grim chamber, a place where the court does not intrude, where we are equals before God.’

  Stumbling to her feet, Cathy embraced her at once. They clung together, kissing each other affectionately, and soon Lucy found herself weeping despite her wish. It was the first time she had felt loving arms about her since the spring, when she had been arrested and brought to this dreadful place.

  ‘What is it?’ Cathy asked, seeing her tears. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, I … I miss Goodluck, that is all.’

  ‘I heard Master Goodluck had been released, though I did not understand why. Was it to serve Lord Essex?’

  Lucy nodded, unable to speak her mind, to explain why she was so distressed by Goodluck’s absence. It was not safe, not even with Cathy. Though now that she had a woman attending her, rather than seeing to her needs herself, it could not be very long before her secret was discovered.

  Her friend stepped back, releasing her. She stared at Lucy in silence for a long moment, her face perplexed. Then her hand flew to her mouth. She glanced at the door as though suddenly afraid, then leaned forward, whispering hoarsely in Lucy’s ear, ‘You are with child, aren’t you?’

  There, it was out. At long last, her secret was out.

  Lucy sighed with a kind of terrified relief, then pulled aside the lacy shawl to reveal her too-tight bodice and the hard ball of her stomach below, pressing up under her ribs. She had loosened the stitches in her day gown herself, and widened the side panels by taking material from the underskirt, but it would be impossible to hide her state much longer. Any day now, Mistress Hall would stop making sharp comments on Lucy’s greedy habits, and notice that only her breasts and belly had enlarged over the summer, not the rest of her.

  ‘How far gone are you?’ Cathy asked, her face almost ghost-like with fear. No doubt she was imagining how the Queen would react to this news. For one of her ladies-in-waiting to lie with a man while unmarried was sin enough. But to conceive a child out of wedlock …

  ‘Seven months, by my count.’