‘The truth! Now!’
‘Your Majesty, the bells ring out to celebrate the death of one who has plotted endlessly against your royal person.’
‘No,’ she breathed.
Sir Christopher looked at her steadily as he continued. ‘Mary Stuart was executed at Fotheringay Castle yesterday.’
‘Mary is dead?’ She stared at them both, and could hardly speak for the blood rushing to her head. ‘Whose doing was this? By whose order was my cousin executed?’
‘Your Majesty, you signed the death warrant yourself.’
‘But I gave no order for the warrant to be taken to Fotheringay and carried out!’ Elizabeth exclaimed, then saw the dangerous direction his remark had taken. ‘How dare you suggest that this is my doing? Fetch William Davison before me. He was the man to whom I entrusted the warrant. Fetch him at once. I will have an answer here today.’ She tore off her gloves. ‘Someone must pay for this deed with their life. To have executed a woman of royal blood …’
Robert tried to steer her into a private chamber, away from the courtiers who had gathered to stare. His voice muttered in her ear, ‘It should not have been done in this covert way, yes. But you must see the pressing reasons for her execution. No Englishman will blame you for this. And at least the matter is finished now. You are safe.’
‘Safe?’ she repeated, trembling with fury at his stupidity. ‘Do you not see how this weakens my throne? The head which bears the crown is no longer sacrosanct but open to any rebel with an axe. What, my lord, you stare and think I make too great a matter of this execution? Why not strike off my own head, then, if hers was no matter?’
‘Elizabeth—’ Robert began quietly, but she interrupted him.
‘You will address me with the proper respect due to your queen, my lord,’ she snapped at him, ‘or find yourself in the Tower this night. Go do my bidding. Fetch William Davison at once.’
In the smoky damp of her state apartments, Elizabeth knelt and clasped her hands in prayer. But no words came. ‘Lord God, forgive … forgive what has been done in my name,’ she managed at last, and muttered her way through the Lord’s Prayer. Her ladies prayed with her, then fussed about her person, avoiding her gaze as they began to remove her riding dress, their faces scared. They all knew what had happened. Of course they did. She was the only one in the kingdom not to have known of Mary Stuart’s death when she had ridden out that morning.
At length she allowed her ladies to draw her towards a seat by the hearth, where a good fire was roaring and her dogs slept, blissfully unaware that a Scottish noblewoman with more arrogance than sense had recently bent her head to the axe. Her ladies applied lotion to her face and hands, then bathed her feet in warm rose-water until the aching cold in her bones had subsided. There was little else to do while she waited for Davison to be found. Bitterly, Elizabeth considered what vitriolic last words Mary might have written to her Catholic allies in Europe, and wondered how soon an invasion force would land on England’s shores.
She had been within her rights to keep a threat to her throne under guard all these years. But to have executed a queen, even one whose treasonous activities were well-known …
Elizabeth could imagine the reactions of other crowned heads of Europe on hearing of Mary’s death. She must now appear as ruthless and untrustworthy a ruler as Mary had ever done herself. The Lord alone knew what would follow this political disaster.
On being hesitantly told an hour later that the Junior Secretary of State was ill and no longer at court, Elizabeth finally lost her poorly kept temper. She swept a flagon of ale to the floor, turned over a table in her way, then swore at the absent Davison, condemning him as a traitor and a murderer. Her ladies scattered as she strode back and forth across the Privy Chamber, flushed and trembling at the power of her own fury. She had been duped. She should never have signed that warrant. As soon as it was done and taken from her, she had known, she had guessed …
Pausing undecided in the centre of the room, Elizabeth caught Lucy Morgan’s eye and almost snarled at the disapproval on the black girl’s face.
‘Let Davison be found at once and taken to the Tower!’ she insisted furiously, ignoring Sir Christopher’s stuttering attempts to mollify her.
Yes, she had wanted Mary dead. But quietly, discreetly, in such a manner that no one could ever lay blame at her door. Not like this, so brazenly and openly, with all the church bells of London ringing for sheer unadulterated joy.
‘I gave the death warrant into his safe keeping,’ she pointed out icily, ‘and Davison allowed it to be taken to Fotheringay Castle, all the while knowing it to be without my permission. He shall be tried for my cousin’s murder and, if there is any justice in this country, executed for treacherous dereliction of his duty.’ When Hatton tried to speak again, she shook her head. ‘I do not care how sick he may be. Let Davison be conveyed under guard to the Tower, then bring me word it has been done.’
A servant came to the door, bowing. ‘Your Majesty, Lord Burghley is here.’
‘I will not admit him!’ she declared, and gestured to the others to leave her. ‘Indeed I am sick of this company. Out, out, all of you!’
Lady Helena paused in the doorway, clearly distressed. ‘But Your Majesty, it is almost time for you to take lunch.’
‘I have no wish to eat,’ Elizabeth told her with barely suppressed violence, and threw a bowl of sweetmeats clattering across the room. She was aware of behaving childishly, yet could not seem to control her temper. ‘I will never eat again. I am too unwell. I am sick with nerves, can none of you see that? I shall be blamed at every foreign court for this murder, though it was none of my doing. Now leave me. I will not see Lord Burghley, nor any man, unless he comes with news that Davison is in the Tower.’
Robert, hesitating on the threshold, took a step towards her.
‘Get out, I said!’ Elizabeth could not stand to see the pity in his face. She turned away as Robert bowed and withdrew. ‘I wish to be alone. Let no one be admitted. No one!’
When the door finally closed behind the last of them, Elizabeth collapsed on to her knees and wept. She rocked and tore at her face with her nails. She wept not for her cousin Mary, though, whom she had always secretly loathed and resented, but for herself, for Elizabeth, for the terrifying shadows of the past that threatened to overwhelm her.
She thought again and again of Mary. Mary kneeling for the axe. Mary’s head rolling away, grisly and bloodied. Her own bold signature on the death warrant: Elizabeth R.
A message came about an hour later, and she rose from her bed, reluctantly putting aside her Bible. Her women, summoned to help, smoothed her gown and dressed her hair in silence. No doubt they feared the lash of her tongue. A pity Davison had not feared it more, she thought.
The Presence Chamber was crowded with hurriedly assembled courtiers, their agitated whispers falling to silence as she walked to the dais and stood to receive the man who had so flagrantly disobeyed her. Davison was eventually ushered in, his head bowed, wringing his cap in his hands like a poor burgher come to plead for his life. He had not come alone, though, but was followed by Leicester, Burghley, and even a worried-looking Hatton. Behind them she saw other councillors, their faces tense, watching her. The message was clear. Condemn Davison and you must condemn us too. For what he did was done with our knowledge and consent.
‘Master Davison, Your Majesty,’ Lord Burghley murmured, and came forward to stand beside her secretary, whose face was pale with fear.
Angrily, Elizabeth looked at her councillors and knew herself defeated before she had even pronounced his fate.
Davison would still go before the Star Chamber and thence to the Tower, if she had her way. She would be damned if he walked away from this act of disobedience without punishment. But these men would not allow her to execute him for what had been done by secret order of the Privy Council; that much was written on their faces.
If only she had never signed Mary’s death warrant!
/> Yet she had signed the warrant, and known in her heart that it must eventually be used to seal her cousin’s fate. In that moment, she had become her father, a tyrant who thought nothing of executing a queen, of tearing a royal mother from her child. History would judge her for that. But the Spanish would judge her for it first.
Epilogue
The Curtain Theatre, London, autumn 1587
IT WAS THE fifth time Will had come to the Curtain and paid his penny to see a performance of Kit Marlowe’s popular new play, Tamburlaine the Great. Yet he still stood breathless and entranced among the other groundlings when Ned Alleyn, splendidly exotic in red velvet breeches and a jewel-encrusted golden coat that reached almost to his knees, came charging across the stage on his chariot, whip in hand, driving a team of four kings. The ‘kings’ sweated before him in the autumn sunshine, overdressed in the gold-trimmed coats and pointed slippers of the East. One of them stumbled, his crown slipped forward across his temples, and the crowd jeered.
‘Ye pampered jades of Asia!’ Ned cried in his role as the tyrant Tamburlaine, flourishing his long-handled whip above his head, and at once a thousand eager voices called back from the smoky, crowded pit and galleries of the Curtain Theatre, ‘Tamburlaine! Tamburlaine! Tamburlaine!’
Will’s chest hurt. He stared, eyes narrowed to that space where Ned stood, whirling the whip, and he saw … not Marlowe’s play, but his own, and many others besides, stretching ahead into the misty future, with the London mob clapping and stamping their feet for more.
Backstage, Will sought out Kit Marlowe in the crowded tiring-room and embraced him, congratulating him on his first big success. ‘I have never heard anything like it,’ he admitted, half sick with envy.
Kit smiled. ‘Why not leave off rewriting old plays and strike out with a new theme yourself?’
‘I have started work on a few things. I have one piece in hand that I am calling Titus Andronicus.’
‘The Romans are a fair theme for the groundlings.’ Kit shrugged, a note of contempt in his voice. ‘The commoners love to stare and point at antique spectacle, or weep openly as they did before you and I were born, when the Passion was played in the streets for them. Though we cannot blame them for it. Better be transported for a few hours by some ancient tale to a place where the winters are short and the sun ripens the grapes than look about themselves at this ugly filth and cold.’
‘Aye, but it’s nothing to this.’ He shook his head. ‘Tamburlaine. I have tried, but cannot … cannot reach that pitch.’
‘Poor unlucky Will,’ Kit murmured, looking away.
Ned Alleyn stumbled into the tiring-room, sweating as he stripped off his golden coat and shirt, then called for ale. He stood bare-chested while he drank his fill, his humorous gaze on Will’s face, then wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘What, are you here again, Master Shake-a-scene? I begin to suspect you must be in love with one of us.’
‘You are the best player in all of London, Ned,’ Will told him, enthused by the power and intelligence of Alleyn’s performance. ‘Perhaps the best player on earth.’
‘Oh come, why stop at earth?’ Kit asked. ‘Ned is the best player of all those already in heaven and hell.’
‘Or the best player in the cosmos, perhaps?’ Ned suggested.
‘Indeed. A hard thing to comprehend, but I suspect you may even be better than Tarlton,’ Kit agreed soberly.
‘Oh, no,’ Ned said, lifting the heavy gold chain and medallion from about his neck. ‘Not better than Tarlton. That would be beyond the impossible. Why, I could never make the house laugh just by pulling my breeches down.’
Kit raised his eyebrows. ‘Yet I know a few whores who would swear to the opposite.’
Philip Henslowe hurried past the door to the tiring-room, then stopped, seeing Will there.
‘Shakespeare?’ Henslowe paused on the threshold, frowning. ‘You seem to be haunting the Curtain these days. Have you come to offer me a play? Not another old work rewritten, I hope. London is crying out for the new, the new. Did you hear the crowd today, calling Tamburlaine’s name? They are barbarians themselves, they love to see evil triumph and innocent blood spilt on the boards. Write me another Tamburlaine and I will pay you … what I am paying Kit here.’
‘Which is not enough to pay the cost of parchment and ink,’ Kit murmured.
‘Sorry,’ Will told him regretfully. ‘I owe Burbage so big a purse, I’ve had to promise him my soul for the next few years just to clear the debt.’
When Henslowe had gone away again, Kit looked at Will speculatively. ‘But you are working on something new, aren’t you? This Titus Andronicus you mentioned.’
‘Nothing on this scale.’
‘Show it to me,’ Kit said lightly, and turned to assist one of the other players out of his heavy costume. ‘I’ll help you with it, if you like.’
‘Would you?’ Will hesitated, torn between admitting he needed a fresh eye on the play and not wanting Marlowe to know that. ‘I have another idea as well. There’s this piece I culled out of Holinshed. I’m going to call it The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth.’
Kit frowned. ‘An English history?’
‘I know it’s not fashionable, but—’
‘Is there more to it than battle scenes and cannon?’
‘Since when has death not brought in crowds?’ Will sighed. ‘You think me mistaken? That I should write the Roman piece instead?’
‘I told you, the groundlings love a good tragedy. And if you can give it to them with some whiff of the exotic East or ancient Rome, they will love you for it.’
‘You sound like Burbage.’
‘Now you are trying to insult me.’ But Kit was smiling. ‘Bring the Roman play over to the Angel some time. We’ll look at the play together, stuff it full with blood and guts as Master Kyd would do, and stick in a violent rape or two for good measure. The Romans loved to rape their women. Talking of which, I saw that beautiful Ethiop of yours up in the gallery, a great pearl in her ear, looking untouchable and like the Queen of Sheba herself.’
‘Wait.’ Will caught hold of Kit’s hand as his friend turned away. ‘You mean Lucy?’
Marlowe arched an eyebrow at Will, who was feeling sick. ‘The one who married the unfortunate Jack, yes. You did not tell me she was one of the Queen’s ladies. No wonder you do not bring her to the taverns any more. Such women are too expensive for a mere playwright to keep.’
Will’s grip tightened. ‘Forgive me, you saw Lucy at the Curtain today? In the gallery?’
‘I believe so.’ Kit looked at him, surprised. ‘Your black mistress was seated in a private box with several other ladies of the court, all hooded or masked. You know how they love to pretend not to attend the common play. But I recognized her at once. Even now she has been married and is past her best, she is quite unmistakable.’
Will realized that he must be staring at Kit like a lunatic. He struggled for some semblance of control. ‘Lucy … She is no longer my mistress,’ he managed.
Kit’s tone was dry. ‘Is she not?’ he asked, and glanced down. ‘Then why are you breaking my hand?’
Will left Kit Marlowe with the briefest of apologies and hurried to the back door of the Curtain. The crowd outside had almost dispersed after the performance, but some of the merchants’ ladies were still waiting in the shadows there, smelling of perfume and attended by their servants, no doubt hoping for a glimpse of Ned Alleyn. Feverishly, Will began to run down towards the city walls, knocking into people in his haste, and staring wildly about himself as though touched in the brain. He had heard of Jack’s death, of course, but by the time he had reached the Parkers’ house his friend had been long buried and Lucy vanished. He had tried at Goodluck’s place many times, but not found her there either; it was locked up as though deserted. One neighbour had suggested she had gone abroad for her health. Another had claimed she was back in the Queen’s favour and had returned to court, ‘Good riddance to the whore!’ But he had not been able to get w
ord of her at court, lacking the nerve and funds to bribe guards as he had done before. Even if he could have paid to find her quarters, he was not sure of the welcome he would have received.
Now Kit Marlowe had seen Lucy at the Curtain, watching Tamburlaine the Great from a private box with the other court ladies.
Peering down every lane and alley in the dying light, Will cursed himself for a fool. What was he doing? If Lucy Morgan was in truth back in the Queen’s service, surely she would have left in a grand carriage or been carried on a litter?
He came to a halt and groaned aloud, ignoring the bemused looks of passers-by. Where was the court lodging this month? At Whitehall? At Chelsea or Richmond Palace? Even if it was Whitehall, the nearest palace, Lucy would never have returned there on foot, not in this dirt, with flies everywhere, and the stench of open ditches on either side.
Then, suddenly, there she was, ahead of him in the street, turning to stare, her face half-hidden behind the protective edge of her cloak.
‘Lucy!’
The other women with her looked at him in astonishment. One giggled, another shook her head. He thought he recognized her disapproving friend, Cathy, among them, though she might have been a servant in her plain gown and cap. Lucy herself stood out from the others like a black pearl dangling from a white throat, her face drawn with pain, her dark eyes accusing him of past sins, her mouth so alluring he could hardly tear his gaze from it.
Lucy took a step backwards as he lurched towards her out of the growing dusk. ‘Will?’ She seemed horrified to see him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Kit told me you were at the play today. I had to come after you, I had to see you again.’ He grasped her gloved hand and drew it to his mouth, barely aware of what he was doing. ‘My lady, my dark lady. I never thought to see you again. When I heard about Jack’s murder, I went there straightaway. But the Parkers told me …’
She withdrew from him, flinching.
‘Forgive me, forgive me. I never wished ill on you or the child.’ He thought bitterly of his own son, Hamnet, and the boy’s faithless mother. Perhaps Lucy’s stillborn child had been his only true heir. ‘They said a murderer came in the night.’
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