Her Last Assassin

by Victoria Lamb

  ‘Your letter?’

  ‘No, I was to speak the message to him.’ The spy shook his head, putting a finger to his lips. ‘It was safer that way.’

  ‘Discharge your message before you die. Speak it to me, and I will take it to my grave. Otherwise you will never rest in peace!’

  ‘I cannot!’

  They were whispering urgently now. Goodluck gripped his shoulder hard. ‘Be a man, Gomez. Do not allow these English to frighten you. Discharge your message before you are tortured, and I swear, your heart will be lighter for it.’

  ‘The message … The message was from Tinoco.’ Gomez was now sweating profusely. He ran a hand over his forehead, his eyes unfocused. ‘If by any chance you survive this terrible place, and I die, will you deliver this message to Senhor Lopez for me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Goodluck crossed himself again and spat on the ground between them. ‘I swear it.’

  ‘I … I was to tell Lopez that it is all arranged. That Tinoco has been ordered by our master to bring fifty thousand crowns secretly into England, to be handed over to Lopez as a reward when the deed is done.’

  ‘The deed?’

  Gomez gave him a significant look. ‘The deed. You know.’

  Some leap of faith had to be made if he was not to reveal himself. ‘You mean the murder of the Queen?’

  The spy nodded, lowering his voice. ‘Lopez has been reluctant to fulfil his mission, as you must know. But now he has accepted the King’s bribe, all shall be well.’

  ‘A bribe?’

  ‘A very fine ring, cunningly wrought of gold and diamonds, taken from King Philip’s own finger. What man would refuse such a lavish gift, especially if followed by fifty thousand crowns when the Queen is dead?’

  ‘Friend, I shall carry your message to the noble Lopez if I survive. But this plan will never succeed. Even if the doctor is willing to be bribed, how are fifty thousand crowns to be brought into the country without the English finding it as soon as Tinoco lands?’

  ‘Tinoco is to write to the Queen from Brussels, offering her Spanish secrets which he is willing to sell, and thus be granted safe passage into Dover. It is a perfect plan. The English Queen is a fool surrounded by fools. She is always greedy for secrets, and will readily grant Tinoco what he desires. Once he has arrived at court, Lopez will poison the Queen, and when the church bells toll to announce her death, Tinoco will hand over the fifty thousand crowns’ reward as arranged.’

  He smiled at Goodluck, unaware that he had just betrayed himself and his fellow plotters. ‘And thus the mighty Queen of England will meet her death, not from a vast Spanish army of invasion but at the hands of a few stout Portuguese.’

  ‘A work of genius indeed,’ Goodluck murmured appreciatively, then stood and limped to the cell door. He hammered on it with his fist. ‘Open this door, in the name of the Queen!’

  Four

  ‘MAGNIFIQUE!’ THE FRENCH ambassador exclaimed, clapping his hands as he watched Elizabeth leap into the air for a fifth time, to be caught round the waist by Lord Essex and lowered gently to the floor. ‘Your Majesty, I have never seen La Volta performed with such skill and daring. Your Majesty enjoys the grace and strength of a young girl, I swear it!’

  The music came to an end, and Elizabeth finished triumphantly before the ambassador, her forehead damp with a fine sheen of perspiration. Her legs ached cruelly and she was short of breath, but she was determined to show no indication of infirmity in front of her courtiers. Besides, she hated to miss her regular dancing practice. It was one of the few pleasures left to her these days.

  ‘I thank you, monsieur,’ she told him, and graciously held out her hand so the ambassador could kiss it. ‘This is your first visit to Whitehall, is it not? How do you find the palace?’

  ‘Like its beautiful owner, Whitehall is magnifique, quite magnifique!’ The ambassador flashed his oily smile at her again, bowing. ‘If a trifle cold in the evenings.’

  ‘London is always cold this late in the year, but a little dancing will soon warm you up.’

  On the advice of her doctors, she had kept to her bed for the past sennight over some trifling sickness, but had returned to her duties that morning with unusual vigour.

  ‘There will be more dancing after the banquet tonight, and you will dance the Saltarella with me. That should test your mettle, for I am told we dance it faster here than in France these days.’

  He bowed very low. ‘I am all gratitude for your generous attentions, Your Majesty.’

  A dry cough behind her made Elizabeth turn.

  She gave a little frown at the sight of Robert Cecil in the doorway to her dancing chamber, his narrow face disapproving. She knew Cecil had not wanted her to rise that morning but to remain in bed, cosseted and wrapped up like a sick hound at the fireside. But the chill November sunlight had beckoned to her as soon as the shutters were drawn back, and she had demanded her court gown and ruff instead of her day robe, determined to walk out among her courtiers again.

  It was not for her privy councillors to insist that she was too unwell to face the court.

  ‘Cecil?’ She held out a hand, seeing the rolled-up document he was carrying. ‘More bad news, by the look of your long face?’

  Burghley’s sombre son glanced past her at the musicians, maids and ladies gossiping comfortably among themselves under the tall sunlit windows, and the ambassador at her shoulder, his inquisitive face eager for some tittle-tattle to send back to the French court.

  ‘There is some business that has been left to one side during your sickness and now demands your attention. But it is of a delicate nature.’ Cecil hesitated. ‘If we could converse in private, Your Majesty?’

  Elizabeth sighed. Tiresome youth. Always trying to spoil her good humour, and rather too often succeeding. If only he was more like his father, moderate even in his dislikes.

  ‘You here again, Cecil?’

  Robbie had come up behind her while Cecil was talking, and now placed his hand outrageously on her hip. Just as if she were his wife. Or his mistress.

  The thought made her light-headed.

  ‘What, are we finished for the morning already?’ Robbie sounded annoyed.

  ‘Some business of state I must attend to,’ she told him soothingly. ‘You should take an interest, Robbie. You are a member of the Privy Council now.’

  ‘I have not forgotten your generosity in that quarter. But there is still La Gavotte to practise, Your Majesty,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘The kissing dance.’

  She smiled, then hid her smile behind her fan when Cecil turned his cool gaze in her direction.

  ‘Shall we retire into the next chamber, Your Majesty?’ he suggested. ‘Or dismiss the dancers?’

  ‘Let the musicians keep playing. I will return to dance when this business is concluded. You are a cloud darkening my sunny morning, Cecil, but if there is some business that will not wait …’ She clicked her fingers. ‘My lord Essex, you will accompany me. And two of my ladies.’

  Cecil bowed as she swept towards the door. But she caught his look of acute dislike thrown at the nobleman following in her wake.

  So the two boys still squabbled over her royal favour, did they? The thought both amused and irritated her. As long as they could learn to pull together in time of war, as Leicester and Burghley had finally done, all would be well.

  And yet England was at war, and still they fought.

  The white-haired Lord Burghley was waiting in the next chamber, leaning on his cane rather than occupying the only chair in the place, his black velvet cap on the table. ‘Your Majesty,’ the elder statesman said as she entered, bowing with difficulty, and she waved him to sit down.

  ‘Your son has ruined my hour of dancing, Lord Burghley,’ she told him curtly. ‘What do you say to that?’

  ‘It is a matter of great urgency,’ he replied, surprising her with his stern tone.

  What was this? Not more conspiracies?

  So it was not simply a matter of signing a do
cument and returning to her dancing practice, she thought, and regretted giving away the only seat. She admitted to a little fatigue, and some stiffness in her legs after those high leaps in La Volta. But she did not consider herself old enough to require such props as a cane or seat. For now, her own two feet would sustain her.

  Elizabeth stood, tapping her foot impatiently as the door was closed behind them and her ladies sank to the floor near the fireplace, one taking up a book and reading quietly to the other. Helena, looking more tired than ever these days, and Lady Mary, whose gift for poetry could delight even the dour Cecil on occasion, it was said.

  ‘Speak,’ she urged Cecil, and held out her hand again for the document he was clasping so tightly. ‘Come, let me have this bad news. I am eager to return to my dancing practice.’

  Essex had come to her side. Now he stood with his arms folded, like a man about to be accused of a crime.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

  With a grim expression, Cecil handed over the paper. She unrolled it and glanced down at the contents. A warrant for the arrest and detention of a Portuguese Jew. Her temper rose when she saw the familiar name on the warrant.

  Rodriguez Lopez.

  ‘God’s blood, are you all mad? My doctor? Is this your poisoning plot again, Robbie?’

  ‘Your Majesty—’ Essex began, but she refused to let him finish.

  ‘I told you not to pursue that nonsensical charge, my lord. I will not have an innocent man accused of treason.’ Elizabeth raised a hand, silencing his protest. ‘No, I will not be gainsaid. For a man accused of treason is always tortured, and it is my belief that most men will confess to any crime, however dreadful the punishment, if it will save them even a moment’s torment on the rack.’

  ‘Where your safety is at stake, Your Majesty,’ Lord Burghley said gravely, ‘there can be no mercy shown, no infirmity of purpose.’

  ‘You believe in this plot now, my lord? I thought you and Cecil were against it. When Lord Essex came to me again on this matter earlier in the autumn, you advised me to dismiss it from my mind. Now you too think my doctor guilty of plotting to poison me?’

  ‘I did indeed advise Your Majesty not to lend too much credence to Lord Essex over this particular conspiracy. But in recent weeks I have been brought to a new understanding of the problem, and there is some evidence now to support his claim.’

  ‘Evidence?’ She glanced at Robbie searchingly. Was he behind this change in Burghley’s position? ‘Out with it.’

  ‘I set a man to watch Lopez at his home,’ Essex told her, though she could see he was not happy that she had doubted his word, and in front of Cecil too, ‘and to follow whenever Lopez travelled about the country, which the doctor does with surprising frequency. This fellow sent me back reports on Lopez’s dealings and meetings with others, and even conversations where he was privy to them. Some of the men with whom he has met in recent days, other Portuguese exiles with links to Spain, are also suspected of conspiring against your throne.’

  ‘That is not evidence but hearsay,’ she muttered, still loath to hand her doctor over to these men.

  ‘There is a ring,’ Essex countered swiftly. ‘A gold and diamond ring, taken from the finger of King Philip himself, by all accounts, and sent as a bribe to Lopez. My man has seen Lopez wearing this ring at his house in Holborn, where no doubt he thought himself safe, that none would report him for it.’

  ‘A bribe?’ Her voice faltered.

  She did not wish to think such evil of Dr Lopez. Was there no one at court she could trust?

  Elizabeth walked to the leaded window and stared out, unseeing. ‘How can you be sure this ring came from King Philip?’

  ‘We have letters to prove it,’ Lord Burghley told her. He threw a bundle on to the table, tied with a red ribbon. She looked round at them, but did not move. ‘I took the liberty of having all such correspondence copied out, so you might study it at your leisure and draw your own conclusions. The most damning evidence is a letter which arrived only last week, from a Portuguese gentleman of the name of Tinoco. He is working as a diplomat in Brussels, and wrote begging us for safe passage to England so he might share state secrets with Your Majesty, secrets which he swears you will find vital to the health of your kingdom.’

  ‘And will I not?’

  Essex replied for him, coming urgently to her side. ‘Your Majesty, a Portuguese spy we apprehended and tortured in October gave us this man’s name. He said a Senhor Tinoco from Brussels would write and beg safe passage for this very purpose. And that when he arrived, bearing no fewer than fifty thousand crowns from the King of Spain hidden secretly among his luggage, this would be the signal for Lopez to poison Your Majesty, accepting the crowns as his reward.’

  She drew in her breath and held it. ‘And this letter from Tinoco has arrived, you say?’

  ‘And been replied to,’ Burghley agreed.

  ‘You have granted him safe passage?’

  ‘Indeed we have, Your Majesty,’ Cecil told her, and limped forward to stand at her other side, his gaze locking with Robbie’s. ‘As soon as Senhor Tinoco lands at Dover, he will be arrested and searched. If these fifty thousand crowns are in his possession, will you give us leave to arrest Dr Lopez and question him on the matter of this ring, and the bribe sent by the Spanish King?’

  Elizabeth wished she was still dancing. She could forget her cares while the music played. Here was no respite.

  Wearily, she sifted through what they had said, but could formulate no argument to set against their cold and brutal ‘evidence’. Even Lord Burghley, a councillor of eminent good sense and judgement, seemed determined that her servant should be arrested. Was it possible that a gentleman as close to her as Lopez, a respected doctor with frequent access to the royal bedchamber and to her person, could be in league with her greatest enemy?

  Part of her suspected that Essex, in his struggle for power, would stop at nothing to best his rival Cecil. This latest plot might prove to be merely a wild attempt to make himself seem as powerful a spymaster as Walsingham had been.

  But the gold and diamond ring from Philip himself … The letter written by this spy, Tinoco …

  These seemed hard to refute, if they could be proved. Then she recalled how Lopez had feared for his life when interviewed about this business, as though he had some guilt to hide.

  ‘Robbie,’ she said, without turning to look at him, ‘your man who has been watching Lopez … Is he Master Goodluck, Lucy’s seducer whom I had committed to the Tower?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘When you asked permission to have him released so he could spy for you, I thought it was on some great state business. Not for this frippery.’

  Robbie touched her and she stiffened. It was a daring gesture in front of the other two councillors, his fingers brushing her arm just below her shoulder. But she did not shake him off. Instead, she revelled in the warmth of his hand on the red velvet sleeve, and wished they could be alone together.

  ‘The safeguarding of your life is no trivial matter. Besides, Goodluck was the best man for the task. If Walsingham had been alive, he would have made the same decision.’

  At her other side, Cecil coughed drily. ‘For once I must concur with his lordship. You should consider your safety as paramount, Your Majesty, and not allow your natural passions as a female to interfere with this business. Dr Lopez could feed you any poison he wished, disguised as some healing tonic or potion, and none of us would be any the wiser until you were found dead in your bed. If we could question him before this Tinoco arrives …’

  ‘I will not have my servant arrested before I am sure of his guilt,’ Elizabeth insisted shrilly, then forced herself to be calm again.

  She must maintain control. Otherwise they would wrest it from her and claim her unfit to rule. Such things had happened to princes before, those who could not control themselves and their people.

  Gazing out of the window, Elizabeth watched in silence as the sun h
id behind a cloud and the November day grew suddenly dark. The bright morning and its promise of joy had gone. These late autumn days were so short. In only a few hours, dusk would begin to fall again. Then a river mist would creep in across the palace roofs, masking these whitewashed façades below and striking a chill into her bones.

  Soon she would send one of her ladies for a warm shawl to set about her shoulders. Once night had fallen, her courtiers would drag themselves away to play cards or enjoy whores where they thought she would not hear of their sin. Then she herself would retire to the comfort of a book and a roaring fire in her Privy Chamber.

  It was a horrible thought, but Robbie was right. She had grown old and fragile. It was only the presence of these men about her throne that prevented villains and traitors from taking her life away from her, reducing her to nothing.

  And yet she could not admit how vulnerable she had become. Stare hard at one hand and ignore what the other is doing.

  ‘The trap has been baited,’ she remarked to the grey sky. ‘Now let us wait and see.’

  Later that evening, when the business of the day had been concluded and her ladies sat quietly about the Privy Chamber at Whitehall, setting neat stitches into their embroidery frames or whispering among themselves in the firelight, Lord Burghley returned. As soon as Elizabeth saw his face, she dismissed Mary and Helena, who had been smoothing an emollient into her white hands, dried her fingers on a square of muslin and beckoned her chief councillor to approach.

  ‘My lord, what’s the matter? Are you unwell?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty, though I’m afraid I do come bearing news which may distress you. Not wishing to add to your burden earlier, I decided to wait until a later hour to bring this to your attention.’ Lord Burghley hesitated; she saw a letter in his hand. ‘Indeed, I received this some days ago from the Constable of the Tower. It was addressed to Your Majesty, but the constable is a sensible man and suggested I should read it first, then decide how best to deal with its contents.’