Authors: Victoria Lamb
Her Last Assassin
About the Book
Lady-in-waiting Lucy Morgan is once again torn between her dangerous attraction to William Shakespeare and her loyalty to Queen Elizabeth I.
England is facing its gravest threat yet. The Spanish have declared war, and Elizabeth finds herself attacked by sea – and by Catholic conspiracy from within her own court. Master Goodluck goes undercover, tasked with discovering the identity of this secret assassin, leaving his ward Lucy not knowing if the spy is alive or dead.
Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth is growing old in a court of troublesome young noblemen, while Lucy is struggling to love a man whose duties lie elsewhere.
When the final challenge comes, these two women must be ready to face it. But there is one last surprise in store for both of them . . .
Contents
Her Last Assassin
Victoria Lamb
For Steve Haynes, my Goodluck
‘Cropp’d are the flower-de-luces in your arms …’
William Shakespeare,
Henry VI, Part 1, I, i
‘My tongue will tell the anger of my heart
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.’
William Shakespeare,
The Taming of the Shrew, IV, iii
Prologue
Nieuwpoort, Low Countries, July 1588
I
T HAD BEEN
entirely too long, Goodluck thought, since he had watched the white cliffs of Dover fade in the distance, and committed himself to this dangerous venture: a new name, a new language, a new mission. All courtesy of Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s ever-resourceful spymaster.
‘A few weeks,’ Walsingham had insisted, passing him a bag of coins with his secret orders. ‘That is all you will need to uncover their plans. If the Spanish move against us, they will likely come from the Low Countries first. It is the point nearest England which is friendly to Spain. Do not fail us this time, Goodluck. Do not fail Her Majesty.’
Yet the weeks had stretched into months, and until today Goodluck had been no nearer the evidence he had been sent to discover: the timing of the Spanish invasion, a threat that had loomed over England now for several years but which no one could accurately predict.
It was summer now, and he was homesick for England. Goodluck poured another bucketload of kitchen slops, cold and greasy, out of the window into the sunlit yard below. The low-lying fields beyond the manor house and the makeshift garrison were still flooded, though the built-up paths between them had dried out in the sun, thick with yellow-tipped wild flowers that might have reminded him of English meadows if it had not been for their sickly sweet smell. He was glad not to be looking out to sea, for the sight of the Dutch harbour crammed with high-masted warships, hundreds more of them bobbing at anchor beyond the harbour wall, their bright pennants flapping in the breeze, made him itch to be back in London, making his report to Walsingham.
It would not be long before the Spanish fleet and their allies sailed against England. Goodluck did not wish to be an English spy stranded in an enemy country when that happened.
He turned back and dropped the wooden bucket next to a heap of cabbages. ‘Boy!’ he roared at the lad whose task it was to keep the spit turning. ‘That meat is burning again!’
The lad muttered some excuse, but turned the spit a few times in a desultory fashion, his gaze resting sullenly on Goodluck as he began to wipe down the knives.
Goodluck could hardly blame the boy for his lethargy; the whole garrison at Nieuwpoort lay under a malaise, eager to fight but held constantly on the leash as they waited for the order from Spain. An order which never came.
A red-faced porter ran back into the room with an empty platter. He wiped his brow on the inside of his sleeve. ‘The Spanish lord is calling for more wine. Sir William says his noble guest is thirsty. Too much salt on the beef tonight.’
Goodluck shrugged, and spat on the earth floor. He laid the Dutch accent on thick, his voice rumbling through the narrow stone room. ‘Don’t blame me. Jeggers prepared the beef.’
‘Where is Jeggers?’
‘Gone for a piss.’
‘Well, when he gets back—’
‘What am I, your errand boy? I’m a cook. So let me cook.’ With a furious bellow, he turned back to the lad drowsing again on the warm hearth stones, the pink-fleshed porker hissing and singeing in the heat of the flames. ‘Up, up! The meat, boy!’
Goodluck waited until the porter had gone in search of the cellarman, then decided it was time to end this masquerade – and not a moment too soon as far as he was concerned. He had to make his report to Walsingham before the fleet sailed and it became redundant. He knew Sir William Stanley had received orders today from Spain.
Surely this was the message they had been waiting for?
Goodluck dragged the leather apron from about his neck and threw it on to the grease-covered floor. He was bare-chested underneath, for the heat of the kitchen made it impossible to work any other way. First dipping his head in a bucket of cold water, Goodluck shrugged into a clean shirt and jacket, his face still dripping. Then he took out his leather purse from the knife chest, clipped it to his belt and went to the door.
‘When Jeggers gets back,’ he told the boy, ‘tell him he’s to finish up with the pork. I’m off to see the play.’
Pausing, he took a small coin from his purse, then threw it to the boy. ‘Here, get some salve for that,’ he said, not unkindly, and nodded to the burn reddening the back of the lad’s hand.
The boy looked surprised but pocketed the coin in silence, no doubt fearing a beating if he spoke out of turn. He was not to know that Goodluck, bad-tempered Dutch cook from the outlying provinces, was in fact an English spy.
Treading heavily down the short flight of stairs into the courtyard, the Englishman waited there a moment, checking that he had not been seen. The summer evening was still hot, the sky darkly flushed to the west with a hint of rain to come, though the day’s heat was lessening as dusk fell. Small black flies crowded about his head, perhaps attracted by the smell of grease, and he shook them away with an irritated flick of his hand.
As he had suspected, everyone was still enjoying that evening’s entertainment in the hall. Travelling players on their last night in the Low Countries – a troupe of shuffling men he had seen arriving earlier, their carts loaded with theatrical chests and scenery – had come here to perform an English play for the soldiers. Something to keep the exiled Catholics happy as they waited for the signal to sail against their own people.
Keeping his head down, Goodluck trod softly through the narrow grassy maze of lanes about the ancient manor until he reached the back of the hall and began to skirt its high windows. He caught a burst of raucous singing from within, then enthusiastic whistles and applause. A song and a jig to start them off. He recalled the days of play scripts and costumes, and the crude banter of the players’ tiring-room. Not that any of his old friends would recognize him tonight, for his famous beard had been shaved off to play the Dutch cook.
For the briefest of moments, he allowed himself to feel again how homesick he was. It had been too long since he was back in his old house at Cheapside, frequenting the playhouse or dicing with friends in the poky taverns beneath the city walls.
He did not know how Lucy Morgan had fared without him, or whether she was still allowing herself to be courted by that married good-for-nothing Shakespeare. He himself had proved useless as her guardian, seemingly never on hand when she needed him most. His ward had fallen pregnant by Shakespeare, saved her reputation by marrying a man repugnant to her, then been attacked by Master Twist, Goodluck’s enemy. It was a miracle she had come through such troubles unscathed. Well, perhaps not unscathed. Though she might not see things that way, losing her child had been a blessing, given how hard her life would have been if the boy had survived.
At the edge of the hall, Goodluck stopped dead, squeezing flat against the wall. He had seen a sentry passing the entrance door ahead. Well, he did not need to go that way, but up. Glancing about once more, hoping the falling dusk would mask his climbing, he found one rough foothold in the wall, then groped above until he found a stone jutting out. Thus anchored, he hauled himself up the wall, grunting under his breath with the effort.
He had been this way before, up the wall and across the tiled roof to listen to Stanley’s deliberations under cover of darkness, and tonight there should be no trouble repeating the manoeuvre. Stanley’s noble guest had come with a substantial entourage, many of whom would no doubt come milling out of the hall as soon as tonight’s play was done, though for now they were safely inside. All the same, to try this climb before sunset was dangerous.
He could not let the chance go by though, dangerous or not. It had been weeks since any messenger had come from the court, and he had heard Stanley discussing this visit two days before, claiming it would ‘settle matters once and for all’.
What could that mean but a new plan of invasion?
To hear confirmation of such a move against England, after months of wasted nights listening to empty talk, must be worth a man’s life. Even if it was his own.
Reaching the roof above the commander’s quarters, he slid forward on his belly, keeping as flat as possible against the still-warm tiles. From here he could be seen by anyone crossing the dyke to the rear of the old house, now headquarters to Stanley’s army. But with everyone inside, except for the guards in the inner courtyard and at the entrances, there should be no one to see him.
Goodluck came to the broken tile and lifted it until he could see down into the room below. There was Stanley’s curly head, and there the darker hair of his Spanish guest, both men standing together by the commander’s broad-topped table.
Putting his eye to the crack, Goodluck’s heart quickened. A map had been spread across the table, weighted down at its four corners to prevent it curling up, a map that he did not recognize as any he had seen Sir William Stanley consult before. It must belong to the Spanish lord who had arrived from court, whose name he did not know, but for whom he had dutifully cooked a fine venison pie in wine gravy before turning to the cruder culinary tastes of his entourage, the bare remains of which could still be seen on the sideboard.
‘Here,’ the Spaniard declared in his own tongue, stabbing at the map with a long dark finger, ‘this is where your men will join ours, and together we will sail for England. It will be a great victory over the Protestant rabble and their whore queen.’
‘Indeed,’ Stanley agreed in heavy, well-accented Spanish, and his voice held no irony. ‘And when we take London, it will be my pleasure to see Queen Elizabeth forced to kneel before her new masters, then to order her harlot’s body whipped through the streets. She will cry out for mercy, I have no doubt, as so many Catholics have cried since she came to the English throne. But she will receive none from me.’
The Spaniard laughed, stroking his pointed beard. ‘You have no loyalty to your Queen, señor? I hope you will show more to Spain.’
Stanley came into view below, a tall, gaunt fellow with a shock of dark hair tinged with silver, his thin cheeks flushed either with the heat or with his own natural belligerence.
Goodluck studied him curiously. Here was a man who rarely slept, a leader of fierce conviction and renowned courage, and yet he was a traitor. Stanley’s resentment towards England had reputedly been fuelled by some perceived slight during his long service in Ireland. If so, he had covered his tracks well since then. Indeed, he had served his country brilliantly during the initial conflict with Spain. Goodluck recalled hearing after the battle at Zutphen, where Sir Philip Sidney had received his fatal wound, that the Earl of Leicester himself had praised Stanley’s bravery in dispatches, claiming he was ‘worth his weight in pearl’. And yet it was also said that he hated Protestants beyond reason, and Queen Elizabeth above the rest.