His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  She felt his weight ease off her. The yellow glow of the lantern was behind the dark mass of his body and it was hard to see clearly. But she could just make out Twist fumbling impatiently with his breeches, the thick gold ring on his little finger glinting as it caught the lamplight.

  She drew up her knee with as much strength as she could muster, catching him full in the groin.

  Clutching himself in agony, Twist rolled away from her. ‘You bitch!’ he managed hoarsely as she scrambled to her feet and ran for the door. ‘I’ll see you die for that!’

  Outside in the blinding July sunshine, Lucy picked up her skirts and ran for the safety of the palace of Nonsuch. She ran like a wild animal, strong-thighed and sweating, and did not stop even when briars caught at her sleeve in the woodland and tore the fine lace edging.

  She did not look back. That would be to invite capture. Never look back when you are being pursued, not until you are sure of a safe vantage point. Goodluck’s advice echoed in her mind as though the man himself was still there, whispering in her ear, running beside her.

  Rounding the west wing of the palace, Lucy almost collided with a nobleman hurrying in the opposite direction. She recognized him and stopped short, panting and hanging her head, her legs trembling now from the unaccustomed effort of such prolonged running.

  Only then did she dare to glance back over her shoulder. But the palace lawns and gardens were empty. There was no sign of Master Twist.

  Leicester put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lucy? What is it? What’s the matter? Forgive me, I cannot stay. Are you hurt? Let me call for someone to assist you.’ He turned and shouted at one of the groundsmen, who was tending the rosebeds, ‘You, there! Fetch help for Mistress Morgan, she is unwell.’

  ‘I am not hurt, my lord,’ she managed between breaths. She looked up then, and saw with a shock that he had been crying. ‘My lord?’

  ‘It is my young son,’ he said simply. ‘My Noble Imp, Lord Denbigh.’

  ‘Has he sickened again?’

  ‘He is near to death, my wife writes.’ Leicester’s voice choked on the words and he fell silent. ‘I’ve called for my horse. I must ride for Wanstead at once. I do not even have time to take my leave of the Queen. Her Majesty is taking her midday meal alone and has refused admittance even to me.’

  He hesitated, falling back a step to look at her. ‘Will you speak to her for me, Lucy? Explain to her why I had to leave court without begging her permission? She will surely understand.’

  ‘Of course, my lord,’ she whispered, while her heart wrenched in agony for him.

  Someone was shouting behind her. It was a pageboy, pointing and calling, ‘Your horse, my lord!’

  Leicester clasped her shoulder briefly, then was gone.

  Her back against the palace wall, Lucy allowed herself to slide down to the ground. Her legs would no longer support her. She closed her eyes and let a reddish-black wave of exhaustion swallow her. Goodluck was dead. Twist most probably killed him. Now he would kill her, too, for what she knew and what she had just done to him. Better if she had allowed him to rape her, perhaps, and fooled him into thinking she was no threat.

  She heard voices and hurrying footsteps, then her own maid was bending over her, and men were helping her back to her feet.

  ‘What is it, mistress?’ her maid asked anxiously, tutting over the torn lace of her gown. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No,’ she said, lying instinctively.

  Never tell the truth when a lie will serve you better. Goodluck again, whispering in her ear. Remember: if a woman cries rape, she is thought as guilty as the man who dishonoured her.

  Lucy decided against telling Sir Francis Walsingham about Master Twist, even though he was at court and might have helped her, for she was unsure whether Master Twist was also working for him. If he was, Goodluck’s death could have been ordered by Walsingham himself.

  When the court returned to London at the end of the summer, she would seek out those who remained on Goodluck’s team. They would know what to do, how to act against a man as dangerous as Twist.

  ‘The sun is hot today,’ she told her maid, and did not meet her curious gaze. ‘I should not have walked so far. Fetch me a drink of wine, and something to cover this torn lace. I must speak with the Queen as soon as possible. Lord Leicester has been called away urgently and has charged me with a message for Her Majesty.’

  Nineteen

  AS THE BARGE pulled alongside the bank on the strong tidal currents, Goodluck jumped off, nearly fell backwards into the water, then steadied himself. He turned to raise a hand, but the barge was already moving on. ‘Thank you, Jensen,’ he called, and the hunched figure at the tiller raised a hand in reply as the barge rolled away with the currents. ‘I shall not forget this.’

  Wrapped in a light cloak despite the warm evening, Goodluck limped at an easy pace through the narrow streets until he reached Southwark and the inn known to some as the Angel on the Hoop. There he ordered ale and a small fish supper, and stretched out his legs to the fire. It was September, and the first time he had been ashore since the night he had taken a pike in the back and fallen into the swirling black Thames.

  The wound in his back had healed some weeks before, but his mind had taken longer to set itself to rights. Some nights he would wake in a cold sweat, thinking he was being attacked by a hooded man. In the dream, he would throw back the hood and find nothing underneath. Just the mockery of shadows. They were only nightmares, Goodluck told himself sternly, and he was no longer a child, to be frightened by phantoms in the dark. Yet the fears kept him from falling asleep at night.

  Jensen had suggested he retire from the spying game, and join her on the barge instead, the two of them working the river together from Richmond to Southwark and back, carrying passengers and cargo, whatever paid the best. The idea had tempted him at first, but then, as his strength returned, Goodluck had found himself becoming restless. He had grown sick of the endless confinement aboard ship, the rocking of the barge day and night, and the filthy stench of the river and its slimy weeds. So he had put his fears aside and determined to seek out Twist and Ned, and discover whether they knew anything about the men who had murdered Sos.

  Goodluck sat by the fire in the Angel for a few hours, watching the door open and close as travellers and regulars trailed in and out. He felt tired but alert. He ordered more ale occasionally, and once slapped the serving girl’s bottom when she brought it, knowing himself to be under observation from the other tables. She shrieked but did not call the landlord, and Goodluck tossed her a penny when she came back with a bread pudding.

  To any who might be taking a note of his behaviour, he would appear to be making a play to get the girl in his bed later, a good reason for a man of his years to be sitting about in a taproom all evening and not be drunk out of his skull.

  At last, his patience was rewarded. He heard Hannah before he saw her, laughing incontinently as she pushed through the Angel’s door. Her gaze lighted on him as she looked hungrily about the room, but if the large-breasted blonde had recognized him, she gave no sign of it. ‘Who will buy me ale?’ she called, and no one stirred, though a few laughed.

  Some young fool in an apprentice’s robes pulled her gown, so that one of her breasts popped out of her bodice and everyone in the room clapped and stared. She turned and kicked him away like a dog. The boy swore and dragged himself to one side, clutching his groin.

  Hannah shrugged and continued to hunt about the room for someone to buy her drinks, gazing at each customer in turn with her sharp blue eyes. One got up and left the tavern, another pretended to sleep under the tilt of his hat, few dared look her in the eye. She was a big woman, and knew how to hurt a man.

  He felt sorry for the girl. Under the ingrained dirt and fading bruises on her pockmarked face, Hannah was young enough to be pretty, probably less than twenty years of age, and still had most of her teeth. He had known her for some five years, working the streets and alleys of Southwark as a whor
e – and occasionally a pickpocket when business was slow. Yet she was still passable in a low light, not ruined and broken like most of the girls of her trade once their first bloom was gone.

  Eventually, she reached Goodluck’s table. ‘Pay for my ale and I’ll sit on your lap, traveller,’ she said with a lopsided grin.

  He raised his head and looked her up and down, as though considering the matter. ‘How much to sit on something a little harder?’ he asked gruffly, disguising his voice.

  ‘If it’s hard enough to stand to, a pint of ale and six shillings for my labour. If it’s more than an hour’s work, though, the price goes up as long as you do.’ Several men laughed. This time Hannah laughed with them, playing to her audience. ‘Don’t look so worried, old man. You’ll reach the goal, even if it costs a little more. I’ve a trick or two that would turn Noah himself into a randy old goat.’

  He felt a stab of annoyance. Old man, indeed! Though it was true that, under this ancient hood at least, he must look grey and bedraggled after several months below deck on Jensen’s barge.

  ‘You have a room? I’ll not do it in the alley,’ Hannah declared, swinging herself over the stool opposite him and sitting with her legs akimbo, skirts draped over her knees, which were still shapely, he noted, though a little scarred and dirty. Perhaps she had spent too much time on them in alleys, he thought.

  ‘I’ll talk to the landlord when I’ve finished here,’ he said, and took a leisurely draught of his ale. ‘Order your ale and put it on my slate. I’ll bear the cost later.’

  ‘Aye, that you will,’ she replied, with a crude gesture, but called out her order to the passing girl. ‘And make sure you pay for the room yourself. It’s not coming out of my six shillings.’

  The other men looked away, most losing interest now that business between the traveller and the whore seemed to have been concluded.

  Carefully, Goodluck allowed his long sleeve to draw back from his hand as he set the tankard down, and heard her gasp. When he looked up, she was staring at the distinctive scar on his wrist. Then her sharp gaze searched his face more slowly, taking in the beard, the crooked nose, the dry smile on his face as he saw she had recognized him.

  ‘Goodluck?’ she whispered.

  He shook his head, his frown signalling caution. ‘Not here. Later, in the room.’

  Hannah finished her ale in a few greedy swallows, then waited impatiently as he arranged with the landlord for a room for an hour or two. This done, he led the way upstairs with a candle, finding the appointed room without difficulty and bolting the door so they could be safe from interruption. It was cramped and barely furnished with two stools, a table and a rough cot. He closed the small window, which looked out over Long Southwark towards the river, and pulled the shutter across to muffle the noise of evening revellers below.

  ‘There.’ Goodluck tossed six shillings on to the table in advance of their talk. He did not intend to bed her, but he knew Hannah would still expect payment for her time.

  Besides, it would be unfair to leave the whore out of pocket on his account. From the rhythmic creaking and groaning in the rooms on either side, it seemed quite a popular inn for the plying of a whore’s trade.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ she said warily, making no move to collect her fee, but watching him instead.

  He discarded his hood and cloak, and drew up a stool to the low table. The room was very dark, with only one candle to light it, and there was no fire in the small grate.

  ‘So did I, at one stage,’ he admitted, indicating that she should sit opposite. ‘But there are many gates to pass on the way to the grave.’

  ‘Does Twist know you’re still alive?’ she asked bluntly, remaining on her feet as though ready to run for the door.

  ‘I don’t imagine so.’

  Her eyes glittered in the candlelight. ‘I think Twist might be quite surprised. May I tell him when I next see him?’

  ‘No.’ She stared across at him, her mouth slightly open, and he continued, ‘Not unless you wish to feel a knife in your back one night.’

  He raised his eyebrows at Hannah’s prolonged silence, content to play the villain if it got him the result he wanted. Besides, he was not entirely sure whose side Hannah was on. He knew she had been close to Twist in the past. She had even lived and worked in Twist’s lodgings from time to time, and passed on her earnings to him in return for protection from the worst of the scum who used her. But it had been a few years now since Twist had turned her out on to the streets, preferring to find his pleasure with younger women instead.

  ‘What?’ he asked her lightly. ‘You do not believe me capable of murdering you to keep my secret?’

  Hannah shivered and sat down on the stool opposite. She collected up her shillings and dropped them inside the leather purse at her belt. ‘You don’t need to threaten me, Goodluck. I won’t tell him if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, and smiled. ‘You are too pretty for such an unpleasant fate.’

  Hannah looked at him from under her lashes, and he felt a stirring of desire. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed a woman’s company, and she was not unattractive. He liked big women who knew their own minds and pleasures, and would not lie passive in bed. But there was more important business to conduct tonight.

  ‘I need information, Hannah. Can you help me?’

  She tilted her head to one side and regarded him cautiously. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you work the inns up and down Southwark. Because you see things, and you’re not stupid.’

  Goodluck pulled off one of his gloves and passed his palm slowly over the candle flame, testing the heat against his skin. He was tired, and he knew it. But the burning pain helped him to think, to remain alert.

  He asked her, ‘Where’s Ned?’

  She was staring at him. ‘He’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘Like I thought you were.’

  Ned had been one of his friends in London for years, a theatrical turned spy. His fists clenched. ‘When was this? How did he die?’

  ‘A few months back,’ she said slowly, thinking. ‘Must have been just after Eastertide. They say he hanged himself, poor bastard.’

  Goodluck’s gaze shot to her face. ‘He took his own life? Why would Ned do that?’

  ‘He owed money, I think. That’s what they were saying in the taverns, anyway. And that he’d been drinking heavily before he … before he died. Keeping bad company, they said.’

  ‘Who’s “they”?’

  ‘Just people.’ She bit her lip, watching him. ‘I’m sorry. Ned was a friend of yours, wasn’t he? A bad end, too. The priest wouldn’t even give him a decent burial, so I heard, because he killed himself. I saw his wife follow the coffin out through Southwark, and his five children too, one only a babe in arms.’

  He passed his hand over the candle flame again. Several men dead from his old team of theatrical spies. And deaths that could hardly be considered natural. Who was left?

  Only Master Twist and Goodluck himself, whom Twist thought safely dead, stabbed and left to drown in the River Thames months ago.

  How Twist must have rejoiced at the old man’s boldness, running Goodluck through with his pike as he stood staring down at the river! No need for Twist even to sully his hands with his blood.

  ‘Where’s Twist now?’

  Hannah looked at him with a wary expression, but said nothing, too quick-witted not to have understood the gist of the conversation so far and realized the danger to herself.

  ‘Tell me, Hannah,’ he said, as persuasively as he could. He rattled the purse at his belt. ‘There’s another few shillings in it for you.’

  ‘Out of town,’ she said at last.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not his whore. I work for myself now.’ She licked her lips, and he saw fear in her blue eyes. ‘If I tell you where he keeps his lodgings these days, will you let me go and say nothing to Twist about me? Nor anyone else? If he finds out that I
talked to you, he’ll kill me.’

  That was true enough.

  ‘I’ll tell no one.’

  ‘Swear it,’ she hissed, and drew a battered silver crucifix from her purse.

  He stared at it, then at her. ‘You could be whipped for possessing that. Hanged too, if they think you’re a Catholic.’

  ‘What do I care for that? It was my grandmother’s. Now hold the cross and swear that you’ll never speak a word to Twist about me.’

  It irked him to do so, and was dangerous, besides, if anyone happened to be listening at the door. But the old ways still meant something to the girl, so he held the Catholic crucifix in his hand and swore in Christ’s name never to mention her to Twist, nor any other man, then handed it back.

  ‘Satisfied?’

  She hid it away in her purse and nodded, a smile on her lips. ‘You know the Saracen’s Head?’

  He nodded. A tavern with a dubious reputation, it stood off a narrow lane a few hundred yards down Long Southwark.

  ‘Three doors down from the inn, there’s a green gate across an alley. His place is the first on the left inside the alleyway. Go up a flight of steps. The key’s kept under a loose floorboard at the top. His mark’s on the door, though you won’t see it in darkness.’

  ‘And he’s away from London, you say?’

  ‘I saw him a few days ago. He said he was travelling into the country for a while, down Surrey way. Something about a girl he had to see.’

  ‘I wish him joy of her,’ Goodluck said drily, and stood up. ‘Surrey’s not far, though. I’d better search his place now while he’s away.’ He felt in his purse and gave her two more shillings.

  ‘He won’t come back into the city after dark, though, will he?’ she pointed out, putting the money away. She stood up too, knocking the stool over, her head almost equal with his. Then she smiled at him knowingly and began to unbuckle his belt. ‘John Twist’s either there now or he won’t be back until dawn at the earliest. Which gives me a good while yet to earn those six shillings you gave me earlier.’

  ‘To earn them?’