Her Last Assassin (3 page)

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

P
ENNANTS 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.

Inside the cool shade of Robert’s suite of tents, set a little aside from the filth and squalor of the digging works, she was relieved to find a table and cushioned chairs set out for her in a civilized fashion, and several of her ladies waiting to attend her. Helena Snakenborg and Lucy Morgan were among those who had accompanied her from court, with fresh-faced young Bess Throckmorton behind them, still in training to be one of her maids of honour.

‘Ah, dear Helena,’ Elizabeth muttered, stripping off her gloves and holding out her hand to the Swedish-born noblewoman who had served her for so many years, ‘my fan, if you would. And a cup of ale before my thirst overcomes me. I am like to melt in this infernal heat.’

While Robert and his men waited outside, she allowed the women to tidy her face and hair and remove the shining silver cuirass, for her back was now aching from its weight. With so many stout guards about these tents, she doubted it would be required to shield her anyway, its polished silver more a matter of show than protection. Robert had encouraged her to wear armour to address the troops, and she had readily agreed, for she knew the mere sight of their queen in armour would imbue in these common soldiers a stronger sense of loyalty than half a dozen speeches ever could, however stirring.

Lucy Morgan dabbed at her hot forehead with a cool cloth. ‘Better, Your Majesty?’ she murmured.

‘I thank you, yes,’ Elizabeth agreed, and favoured her African lady-in-waiting with a smile. ‘I heard you had been ill. I am glad to see you back on your feet. A summer chill?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty. I am quite recovered, thank you.’

Lucy poured a fresh cup of ale from the flagon on the table, and handed it to her with a low curtsey, quiet and respectful as ever in her presence.

She could not fault the woman in manners, Elizabeth thought, for all she had shown other faults in the past. Faults that irked her still. Yet whatever whispers she might occasionally have heard of Lucy’s lack of chastity, there had never been any proof to bring her to book. And she was Robert’s little pet; there could be no doubt of his favouritism where Lucy Morgan was concerned. Indeed, she had only been permitted to return to court after her last disgrace at Robert’s express request. Accused of being unchaste, banished from court, married without permission after some indiscretion, according to Sir Francis Walsingham – another of her senior courtiers who took an oddly keen interest in Mistress Morgan’s activities – and now widowed, and back in Elizabeth’s service. Well, a widow was respectable enough. Helena was a widow too, and had never looked at another man since her beloved husband died. But there was something unsettling about Lucy Morgan, something not quite respectable … Elizabeth could not put her finger on what it was about the woman that made her uncomfortable at times. Was it the colour of her skin? Black as the devil, some of the crueller girls whispered behind her back, though Lucy Morgan had shown herself to be a good and diligent servant since returning to court.

Having unlaced the silver cuirass, Helena handed the heavy breastplate to Lucy, then hurried to the tent entrance at some unseen signal. She returned with a smile. ‘His lordship the Earl of Leicester is outside, Your Majesty, and would have luncheon served. Will you admit him?’