‘I trust you will not disappoint His Majesty again?’
Stanley seemed on edge. ‘We were close at Kenilworth, I know. You do not need to remind me of our failure there.’
Watching from above, Goodluck cursed silently. Was this man the unknown plotter behind the assassination attempt at Kenilworth Castle, which he and his ward, Lucy, had helped thwart?
This betrayal was too vile. Stanley had been a knight of the realm, lauded for his brilliant service in Ireland. Yet as soon as Leicester had left the Low Countries, he had surrendered his garrison and troops at Deventer to the Spanish without hesitation. Now he was plotting his queen’s death. And not for the first time, it seemed.
Stanley poured himself more wine and drank heavily, then wiped his mouth carelessly on his sleeve. ‘It was not my fault we did not succeed. I was busy in Ireland that year, and could not make sure of her death myself. We came closer to success with young Babington’s plot. But some at court who might have supported us turned cold after Babington’s execution, and the illegal beheading of the Scots Queen, God rest her martyred soul. It seems the English Catholics wish to bring England back to the Church of Rome, but not at the risk of their own necks.’
Would these Catholics never give up their attempts on her life? Goodluck felt sick, and wished he could kill the man. But there was more to learn here, and further traitors to uncover. He must be patient.
‘So the appointed assassin is one of us?’ The Spaniard sounded sceptical. ‘Not another hired mercenary like the female you used at Kenilworth? No, do not give me his name. Names are dangerous. Just assure me that your man will kill England’s most infamous whore with his own hands, and draw your country back into the Roman fold.’
‘Amen to that,’ Stanley muttered, also drinking a toast. ‘It is well past time this queen was stripped of her fine jewels and made to burn naked, which is how she would die if I had my way.’
Even the Spaniard sounded uncomfortable at this extreme display of vindictiveness. ‘You forget yourself, señor. Once the country is ours, it will be up to His Majesty to decide her fate, not the English. He will be your master then. Let us not forget, heretic or not, Queen Elizabeth is still of royal blood.’
‘Only if King Henry was her true father,’ Stanley spat out, ‘and few Catholics believe that. Her mother Anne Boleyn was a proven whore and died on the scaffold for her adultery, leaving her bastard child rightfully disinherited. Why, Elizabeth could be any man’s child.’
‘I had forgotten her mother was a whore. His Holiness the Pope has declared as much himself.’
‘That a common bastard has ruled unchallenged for so many years is a travesty of English justice.’ Stanley paused. ‘I will accept His Majesty King Philip’s ruling on her fate, of course. But I cannot hide that I shall be overjoyed to tread her bones into the dirt where they belong.’
‘Hey, you!’
A shout from the yard below made Goodluck lift his head in alarm, realizing that he had been spotted. He slithered to the edge of the roof and looked down at the drop, wondering how to lie his way out of this one.
‘What do you think you’re doing? Come down!’
The man spoke English, but with a strong Irish accent. It was dusk and he could not make out the figure clearly, but guessed by his pike that he was a soldier. No doubt one of Stanley’s men from the garrison sent to guard the back gate on to the marshy fields.
Acting dumb, Goodluck nodded. He jumped down, but kicked the man hard in the head as he dropped.
The luckless soldier staggered backwards, his pike clattering to the ground. At once Goodluck was on him, dragging the dagger from his belt and pressing the blade against his throat, between the helmet chinstrap and his jacket collar.
‘Another word and you’re dead,’ he promised the soldier in English.
The man struggled.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Goodluck said warningly into his ear. He had no wish to kill the man. ‘Keep quiet, and we’ll both live to see another day. Now, what is it to be?’
But the man was a fool. He stared at Goodluck through the gloom as though trying to judge how serious he was. Then, seeing one of his compatriots patrolling in the darkness a few hundred feet away, he struggled hard to escape and opened his mouth to yell for help.
The cry was choked off in a gush of blood as Goodluck thrust home the dagger in his throat. The man twisted against him for a few horrific moments, arms flailing, his face contorted with pain. Then he sagged back, a dead weight.
As quietly as he could, Goodluck let the man’s lifeless body drop to the ground. He dragged the knife free from his throat – he might need it later – then turned and sped silently to the now unguarded entrance to the yard.
Keeping flat against the wall, he reached the gate without being spotted again, glad of the shadowy cover of darkness, though he could hear the other soldier’s footsteps a short way behind him in the yard.
He felt sick at what he had been forced to do, though this was not the first man he had killed in the Queen’s service. But he had certainly been one of the youngest, and his stomach rebelled at such a duty.
Goodluck stopped to listen to the sounds of revelry from the hall. It gave him a moment to think. He bent to wipe the knife and his sticky hands on the grass verge outside the gate. The play must have finished long since. Yet the men inside the hall were still dancing and singing. Straightening, he could still smell blood and knew some of it had stained his jacket as he wrestled with the dying soldier.
‘Silas, are you there, man?’ Someone had come wandering out of the hall. He sounded drunk. ‘I heard a shout just then. What is it?’
There was a startled exclamation in the dusk as the man stumbled over the body of his fallen comrade.
He raised his voice, shouting to his friends inside the hall. ‘St Patrick, there’s a foul murderer among us! Come out here, in God’s name, all of you! Silas is dead!’
Goodluck did not wait to hear more. His brief comedy as Dutch cook to the Stanley household was done. It was time for Master Goodluck, English spy, to take his place.
He ran, heading for the narrow marsh-flanked path which he knew would lead him through quiet backways to the town of Nieuwpoort, and the ship-filled harbour beyond it.
Before he even reached Nieuwpoort, he saw his salvation. The departing players, still hooded like monks and shuffling, were following their carts on foot as it rumbled back to the harbour. Stanley had said this was their last stop before sailing for France, that he had given them permission to leave port after their performance. If Goodluck could somehow insinuate himself into their number, or perhaps squeeze aboard a covered cart, he could reach France, and from there buy his passage home.
He kept his distance, not wishing to be seen. Back at the garrison he could see torches flaring in the gathering dusk, and heard shouts echoing across the low fields.
Occasionally one of the players slowed his pace and looked round, his face hidden under his cowl, and Goodluck had to crouch suddenly in the tall grasses, keeping out of sight until they moved on again.
They had played in English tonight, for the sake of the exiled soldiers under Stanley’s command, but could be any nationality – French, Italian, perhaps even Spanish. Italians and Spaniards would promptly hand him over to the authorities if they discovered a stowaway. But if they were French, he might have a chance …
There would be a moon tonight. They might even sail on this evening’s tide if it was bright enough.
Down on the docks, Goodluck waited in the shadow of a wagon being loaded with ale barrels from one of the merchant ships. Luckily, nobody seemed inclined to pay any attention to the stout man who knelt to adjust first one uncomfortable shoe, then another, and who later bought an apple from a passing tradesman on his way home for the night. Goodluck stood munching on the apple in the dark mouth of an alley, waiting patiently for the players’ carts to move.
Out to sea, he watched the assembled warships bob slowly up and dow
n, chafing at their anchors.
He had almost given up hope when the carter came back at last, and with the help of the other players unloaded the long wooden theatrical chests. These were hoisted on their shoulders and carried aboard a small sailing ship, its narrow mast insignificant beside the vast forest of masts all around it, their warships’ pennants slapping gently in the sea breeze. While the cargo was brought aboard and the players stood arguing the fee with the captain, the crew began their preparations to cast off, loosening the ropes and giving Goodluck hope they would indeed be sailing with tonight’s tide.
He wondered why the players were in such a hurry to quit the country, but then reflected that a night’s lodging might have cost them any fee from their performance at the garrison. No doubt they were keen to move on to the next town instead, perhaps in France, which was only a short voyage along the coast for a quick, light vessel like this.
Finally the crew disappeared below, leaving the deck empty but for one man huddled in a cloak, smoking a pipe as he gazed out across the harbour.
As silently as he could, Goodluck climbed down one of the ropes that hung along the harbour wall, cursing his weight under his breath. He landed on the deck with a thud that set the small ship swaying, and had to duck out of sight as the man with the pipe turned to stare.
There was a coil of ropes to one side of the open deck, and some old sails lying across them. Pulling one of the damp sailcloths over him, Goodluck flattened himself as best he could to the deck behind the ropes. It would do for the hours of darkness, at least. But before day dawned he would have to find a better hiding place.
Preferably one which did not reek of fish.
After another agonizing wait, he heard the sailors calling out to each other in Dutch, and felt the deck sway beneath him at last in a horribly familiar way. Never a good sailor, he gritted his teeth and lay waiting for the ship to clear the choppier waters where the warships were moored. He thought fleetingly of the soldier he had killed back at the garrison, wondering if he’d had a wife or any children to miss him. His belly churned, and the sickness worsened. After that, he thought instead of the message he would bear to Walsingham, then counted slowly backwards from a thousand to pass the time.
Through gaps, Goodluck could see strips of torchlight on the deck, and occasionally a man passing by. Finally daring to raise the sailcloth a little higher, he caught a glimpse of the moon rising over the water, gleaming silver on rolling black waves, and the harbour of Nieuwpoort becoming smaller in the distance.
He was safe.
At that moment, the sailcloth was twitched away from him and he met instead the flash of a dagger blade in his face.
‘On your knees, Master Stowaway,’ a man ordered him coolly, ‘and keep your hands where I can see them! I hope you were not bound for sunny France. For you will find the English air a trifle sharp, even at this time of year, and may receive a sterner welcome than you were expecting.’
It was one of the players from the garrison, still cloaked but with his hood thrown back. Goodluck stared up at him, raising his hands slowly away from the dagger in his own belt, and almost choked in his amazement.
Even in the moonlight he knew that lean, sardonic face.
‘Kit Marlowe!’
Part One
One
Tilbury, England, August 1588
PENNANTS FLAPPED DOWN the misty white avenue of tents, their bright devices revealed, then hidden again, with each gust of wind. Elizabeth drew rein, hearing the shout of ‘The Queen!’ go up along the ranks. Robert, Earl of Leicester, glanced back at her: reassuring, almost close enough to touch, her bridle in his gloved fist.
Queen Elizabeth blinked at her favourite, and the mist blurred, then disappeared. Her head jerked. ‘On, on.’
The soldiers needed to see her in sturdy health and upright, despite the weight of the silver cuirass Leicester had caused to be made especially for her. She had come to ask these men to die for her and for England. How could she demand such a sacrifice when she could barely sit her horse, or inspect their ranks without tears?
Man after man looked up at her as she passed, good trusting faces smeared with dirt, sunburned under the brims of their helmets, and she could not look them in the eye.
By her own decree, albeit hurried through by certain of her advisors, her royal cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, had laid her head on the block. Now little over a twelvemonth later, Spain was at war with England, openly and without pretence, a war she had worked for so many years to avert. All her plans of conciliation lay in tatters, for the enemy’s ships were already at sea, had been sighted off the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, might even now be in the narrow straits between England and France. If a Spanish invasion force were to come sailing up the river Thames, as Walsingham and Leicester believed they might, many of these stout-hearted Englishmen would perish at their hands.
A dais had been erected on a sandy mound, furnished with a high-backed chair and shaded from the August sun by a white-canopied roof flapping sulkily in the wind. Elizabeth dismounted and stepped up on to the dais, disdaining her favourite’s outstretched hand. She refused to sit but stood instead, gazing out across the motley army Leicester had managed to assemble at Tilbury, some men in livery, some in leather jerkins, others stripped down for the heat, nut-brown and little better than common workmen as they dug out the embankments.
At Leicester’s signal, a trumpet sounded, calling the nearest men to attention. Weary soldiers leaned on their spades and mattocks in the trenches, staring expectantly at the dais; others scrambled up the sandy banks, as though eager to hear what she had come to say. Those nearest the dais dropped to their knees with due reverence, baring their heads in her presence despite the strong sun.
A flag whipped lightly overhead. She glanced at Robert, suddenly unsure, then saw that he was looking away at something in the distance. The wind scudding on the river perhaps, or the vast makeshift barrier he had built out there across the Thames, a ramshackle dam of flotsam and other debris lashed together to prevent the Spanish fleet from sailing any nearer to London.
Turning to the assembled soldiers, she found her voice.
‘My loving people,’ she began, raising her voice to be heard above the cries of the gulls overhead, ‘as you can see by my armour, I have come here today resolved to live and die among you all. To lay down for my kingdom, in the midst and heat of battle, my honour and my blood, even in this dust of Tilbury’s shores.’
A murmur ran through the crowd at this striking declaration, and she drew breath, seeing the gazes of those nearest her fix on her face, eager for more.
‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king. And of a king of England too! And I think foul scorn that Parma, or Philip of Spain, nor any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.’ She paused, aware of Robert’s keen glance; he had not heard this speech before she delivered it. ‘Rather than allow dishonour to be brought upon you by my sex, I myself will take up arms. I will be your general, judge, and rewarder of your virtues in the field.’
One of the men in the fresh-dug trenches, his face hidden behind the raised pikes of the guards who had accompanied her to Tilbury, cried out, ‘Aye, there have been few enough rewards!’
She shook her head, seeing Robert’s hasty movement, and held out a hand towards the unseen speaker. ‘Yes, I know you deserve rewards for your great love of England. And I assure you, in the word of a prince, those rewards shall be duly paid. In the meantime, my lieutenant general shall be here in my stead. Obey and follow him, for never did any prince command a more noble or worthy subject than the Earl of Leicester.’
Elizabeth heard some dissent from further afield, and raised both hands, concerned not to let it grow into outright mutiny. These men were not trained soldiers but farmers, common yeomen, field labourers handed a mattock or a pike and told to stand their ground if the Spanish should land. Only a few squads of mercenaries
were there to swell their ranks and show them how to fight for their country.
There was sweat on her forehead, but her speech was nearly at an end. If she could not persuade them to do their queen loyal service, despite a lack of armaments and food, despite poor boots and having nowhere to sleep but under the stars, then England would be at an end.
‘I do not doubt that by your obedience to my general, and your valour in the field of battle, we shall win a famous victory over the Spanish and all those enemies of my God, my kingdom, and my people,’ she finished, crossing herself with a loud ‘Amen.’
Leicester cheered and tossed up his cap, whereupon all his officers threw theirs into the hot blue sky, also cheering.
Men knelt on all sides as she walked among them in the dazzling August sunshine, their helmets off, some bowing their heads in awe, others hoarsely crying, ‘God save Her Majesty!’
Afterwards, she could not recall making her way back down the ranks amid the roaring cheers of the men, nor being led to Leicester’s tent in order to take lunch with him. But she remembered one bright-eyed man who reached out and dared to touch her armoured side in passing, with a bold cry of ‘God save the Queen!’
As though afraid it was an attack by some Catholic fanatic, Leicester knocked the soldier aside like a fly, then called loudly for him to be restrained.
Elizabeth stayed his hand, frowning. ‘Let him be, Robert. The man meant no harm.’
Indeed, seeing the blind faith in the soldier’s face as he scrambled to his knees, staring after her, she thought he was like the man in the crowd who touched Jesus’ cloak in the belief that this contact alone would cure him. Except she was no saviour, Elizabeth thought wryly, offering up a silent prayer against hubris.
Her Last Assassin Page 2
