Her Last Assassin (20 page)

Standing alone in the shuttered and unlit hall at Greenway, waiting for the boy to fetch a lantern, Goodluck felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. The fading tapestries on the walls were unknown to him, but the flagstone floor, worn smooth close to the door, was the same he had stood on some five and thirty years before, watching them drag his father away to prison. ‘Heretic!’ they had shouted, searching through his chests of books and papers for the evidence they needed of his guilt. One priest had wagged a finger in his father’s face, smug at the thought that he had found another Protestant for the bonfire. ‘As a heretic, your title and lands are forfeit to the crown. You’ll burn for this, Sir Thomas!’

Goodluck closed his eyes. He turned away from the horrific memory he could not face – his father, tied to a stake in the marketplace, choking as the smoke began to rise – and thought instead of his last argument with Julius, and their subsequent flight from Greenway.

‘The authorities will be back soon, to evict us from the house,’ Julius had warned him the evening after their father had been executed. ‘Our lands will be forfeit.’

Goodluck had come across his brother crouched by the fire that night, burning old letters and documents the priests had not taken. ‘It’s too dangerous to remain here, so I’m driving over with Agnes to her father’s farm tonight,’ his brother had told him urgently. ‘It’s not far, only about seven miles. You and Marian are welcome to come too,’ he had added. ‘We will make room there for you both until you have decided what to do.’

‘I shall not leave. This is my home, my birthright,’ Goodluck had replied doggedly.

‘Not any more. Greenway belongs to the crown now.’ His brother had straightened, warning him to lower his voice, for Julius suspected that one of the servants had betrayed their father. ‘If you will not come with us, then at least join the university at Oxford. I can lend you money if you wish to study, and you will be safer there than here. But do nothing in Oxford to make them suspect you. Wear a rosary and keep a crucifix in your chamber, go to Mass every Sunday like a good Catholic. They will be watching us all.’

‘I have no wish to become a scholar. Nor a Catholic. And I will not stand idly by while these thieves take what is rightfully ours.’

His sister Marian had stared in indignation. ‘Don’t be a fool. They will kill you if you try to stop them. You are a boy of fifteen, barely a man yet.’

‘I shall not become a Catholic, Marian. If our father was ready to burn for his beliefs, then so should we be.’

Julius had taken him by the shoulders, shaking him angrily. ‘Father is dead. I am the head of the family now, and you are behaving like a child. Do you not see how your wildness endangers Marian and me? If you are taken as a Protestant, then they will come after us next. I will not have my innocent wife suspected of heresy simply because my brother does not know when he is beaten.’

‘I am a staunch Protestant, as our mother and father were. I will always keep that faith, even if it means my death.’

‘Then you must flee the country.’

‘So be it.’

Julius had flung him aside, and Goodluck had hit his head on the stone floor. ‘You are a fool, boy!’

‘And you are a coward!’

Goodluck opened his eyes, and the dark shifted uneasily. The silent hall seemed to echo with those voices from the past, the tapestries stirring as the door opened.

It was young John Sky, coming back with a lantern.

Goodluck took the lantern and peered up the dark stairs. His small bedchamber had been on the first floor. No doubt it had housed other occupants since, members of this family of recusants struggling to hide their allegiance to Rome in a Protestant country. He wondered if those who held the house now fully understood how and why it had been snatched from its previous owners.

The place was dank and smelt of rot, but it was still his home, just as it had been the night he left it, taking nothing with him but his horse and his father’s sword. To his great chagrin, he had been forced to sell both during that first year on his own.

As he lifted the lantern, a large rat darted away into the shadows ahead. He smiled grimly. ‘An extra shilling to stay the night, you said?’

‘Aye, master.’

‘A hard bargain. I hope the roof doesn’t leak.’

Five days later, while Goodluck was picking warily at an eel pie in the Mermaid tavern, a heavily cloaked man came to his table.

‘Master Goodluck?’

He looked up, frowning. ‘Who’s asking?’

The man stood over the table. He moved a corner of his cloak to reveal the glint of an unsheathed dagger beneath it. ‘You’re to come with me, master. And no arguments.’

Goodluck sighed, then pushed away his pie and stood up. It was not the best he had eaten, anyway; he feared the eels were not fresh-caught. ‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see. Outside!’

A covered cart was waiting outside the tavern, and he was bundled into it. The reins were lashed, then the cart trundled away, driving a good two hours south of the city into the dark countryside, clouds obscuring the moon’s brightness. It came on to rain and Goodluck was glad to be under cover, unlike the unfortunate driver. By the time it stopped, they had arrived.

It was a large private house, with men on patrol out on the roadside and guards on the gate. He climbed out, frowning, and was pushed against the wall by the guards so they could search him for daggers and other hidden weapons.

‘Where is this place? Who am I to see?’

‘This way,’ the man said who had taken him from the Mermaid, and gestured Goodluck to follow him inside.

After several corridors and staircases, he was ushered into a book-lined study where a young man stood behind a desk, examining the papers set before him. He looked up as Goodluck entered, then nodded to the other man to leave them. The door closed, leaving them alone together, and the young man smiled.

‘So you are Master Goodluck.’

Goodluck nodded, waiting. He glanced swiftly about the room, but could see nothing to reveal his host’s identity.

‘From your reputation, which is considerable in certain circles, I had expected your beard to be larger,’ the young man commented.

At that, Goodluck fingered his beard ruefully. ‘It does seem to be taking longer to grow back after trimming these days.’

‘Will you sit?’

‘Not until I have your name, sir.’

The young man’s eyes narrowed on his face, then he laughed. ‘You do not know me?’

‘Should I?’

‘I am Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.’

Goodluck bowed low at this illustrious name, mainly to conceal his surprise. ‘I am honoured,’ he murmured, straightening. ‘And what does your lordship want with an old player like myself?’

‘You recognize this?’ The Earl of Essex threw a document across the table at him. He waited impatiently while Goodluck examined it with deliberate care. ‘Well?’

‘It would appear to be a list of some sort, my lord,’ Goodluck commented, though his heart was beating hard.

His own name was on that list, and he recognized most of the other names too, men true to the late Sir Francis Walsingham and no doubt in the old spymaster’s pay at one time or another. Many were dead. Some, like himself, were still alive and probably in possession of information that had never been delivered.

He felt sweat on his palms as he laid it down on the table again. It was a dangerous list to be bandying about, let alone showing to a man who might not be who he said he was.

‘But the hand?’ the earl persisted. ‘You know it?’

Goodluck could see that the time for prevarication was over. He wondered if his life would be over with it. ‘It is Walsingham’s hand,’ he said directly. ‘What is this about, my lord?’

‘The Queen has appointed me to be her new spymaster,’ Essex told him, and drew a large bag of coins out of the chest next to his desk. ‘I have tracked down most of the men on that list, but one man had eluded me, a man whom Walsingham trusted implicitly and whose information could be most useful to me as I seek to protect the Queen against her enemies.’ Essex smiled. ‘That man is you, Master Goodluck. I have had men watching every tavern and port for you for the past six months. Where have you been?’

Goodluck ignored his question and did not look at the bag of coins. ‘Forgive me, my lord, but I do not know you and cannot discharge my information to you without some further sign that—’

Essex silently handed him another document, this time a brief note with a bold flourishing signature at the bottom.

Goodluck read the note, then handed it back with a respectful nod. ‘So you have the Queen’s authority. I am convinced, my lord. But I am not sure how I can help you. The men involved may be dead, their trail cold.’

‘I have reason to believe that they are not dead,’ Essex told him, sitting down and signalling him to sit too, ‘and their trail is still very much hot to the touch.’

Goodluck sat, frowning. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘You know Master Marlowe?’

‘Yes, but I do not trust him. I saw him once entering a house that belongs to Sir William Stanley, who is a well-known traitor to the crown, as I am sure you must be aware. This was on Marlowe’s return from the Low Countries, where he may have had dealings with Stanley or one of his agents. I followed him from the port directly to the house, there can be no mistake.’

Essex did not seem to be listening to him. ‘A feint. Marlowe is an exceptionally intelligent man. No doubt he considered you suspect as well and sought to throw you off the scent, that is all.’

‘An odd way to go about it.’

‘I trust Marlowe,’ he remarked, but Goodluck could see that the young man was troubled. ‘And he has confirmed what you reported to Walsingham in …’ He riffled through the papers on his desk, knocking several to the floor in his impatience. ‘Yes, in the summer the Armada came. You reported a plot engineered by Stanley and paid for by King Philip. A member of the Queen’s own household was to carry out the assassination.’

‘Indeed. Was the man caught?’

Essex sat back in his chair and looked at him. ‘No.’

‘You mean he’s potentially still in the Queen’s household?’ Goodluck was shocked. ‘Forgive me, I thought that plot must have been foiled years ago.’

‘They were difficult times at court. The war was at its height, nobody knew what was going to happen, we expected invasion at any moment.’ Essex turned to stare out of the window, toying with his large pearl earring, and Goodluck saw that the earl was not as young as he had originally thought. Either that, or worries had creased his brow prematurely. ‘Then Walsingham died, and much of his information died with him. It is only recently that I have begun the task of going through some of his papers and checking that all important information has been acted upon.’ He indicated the pile of papers with a sigh. ‘An arduous task, I can tell you. First we had to break his personal code, though we had some help with that from his men.’

Goodluck almost smiled. He could imagine that Walsingham would have made it very difficult for anyone to decipher his private notes and correspondence who was not already part of his inner circle.

‘So now you have found me, my lord. But I cannot see that I will be of much use to you. I have done nothing for the past two years but live idle in Oxfordshire.’

‘On the contrary,’ Essex said coolly, and threw across the bag of coins, which landed with a hefty jingle in front of him. ‘You are perfect. A man who can blend in anywhere, Walsingham describes you in his notes, with a nose for treachery second to none. And that is precisely what I need.’ Essex looked at him assessingly. ‘We will need to have you measured. But that can wait.’

‘My lord?’

‘When you are ready and have set your affairs in order, I will see that you are given a position within the Queen’s household, as a steward’s assistant. Someone who can come and go without arousing suspicion. You will live at court and discover the name of this traitor who seeks the Queen’s life.’

Goodluck shook his head, bemused. ‘But all that must be over long ago, my lord. What makes you think—’

‘Marlowe recently returned from Spain. He brought back vital information that the traitor is still in position at court, and preparing to strike as soon as the signal has been given.’

‘It’s simply not credible, my lord.’ Goodluck tried to make the earl see the flaws in this apparent plot. ‘Marlowe must be mistaken. Either that, or he is feeding you false information. Why would the traitor still be close to the Queen so many years later, but not yet have struck? And what signal could be sent that would not be intercepted by your men?’

Essex raised his eyebrows drily. ‘If I knew all that, I would hardly need your services, Master Goodluck.’

Seven

L
UCY, SEATED ON
the floor beside the Queen’s throne, had no choice but to stare straight ahead as the players filed into the Great Hall at Nonsuch Palace. There was an air of great excitement among the courtiers, for there had been few plays this past year, the theatres remaining closed for many months while a terrible plague ravaged the city, forcing the best companies to tour the provinces. Now it was November and the weather had turned chilly, so the only entertainment to be had was indoors. Yet even a masque or a court play was welcome these days, for the Queen was grim company.