His Dark Lady (54 page)

‘I have missed her voice this past year,’ Robert said lightly, looking
back
at her. ‘And Lucy has done, as I recall, no little service for your throne in the past. Now I am back from the Low Countries, perhaps it is also time to send for Lucy Morgan to return to court? She was always one of Pip’s favourites too, and her sweet voice would be welcome at his funeral.’

His smile faltered as he turned away. ‘There may be difficult times ahead, Your Majesty, and music lightens even the darkest hour.’

Six

‘LUCY, WAKE UP,’
a low voice said in her ear. ‘A letter has come for you.’

Lucy opened her eyes reluctantly. In truth, she had not been asleep but lying in a heavy torpor under her sheepskin covers, as she had done most days since leaving the Parkers’ house. Her daybed was sunlit, for Goodluck had set it near his open front door, where she could see the passers-by and listen to the cries of the street traders. But the sunlight was chilly, for it was early February and there was a light sprinkling of snow on the roofs opposite.

‘Here,’ Goodluck murmured, and held a cup to her lips. ‘Take some ale. Then you must eat or you will never recover your strength.’

Lucy obeyed, sipping at the ale and then accepting a few mouthfuls of boiled white poultry. Afterwards, feeling less groggy, she made an effort to smile at him. ‘Thank you.’ She glanced at the letter on the side table. ‘For me?’

‘It came a few days back, but you were not well enough to read it.’

She let him arrange her pillows so she could sit up and read the letter. It was from Cathy; she recognized the slanted, childish writing at once, for her friend had never learned to form her letters correctly. She broke the seal, reading through the few sparse lines in silence, then handed it to Goodluck.

‘She cannot come to stay,’ she remarked sadly. ‘I knew there must
be
something wrong when she did not reply to my last letter. That young husband of hers didn’t come back from the war. So now she is a widow, and the only one to care for her sick mother.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I shall never see Cathy again.’

‘Nonsense,’ Goodluck said briskly, and sat down on the edge of her bed. He smoothed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. ‘Cathy writes that her mother is
very
sick, which means the woman may likely die.’

‘Goodluck!’

He grinned at her indignant expression. ‘Forgive me. I do not wish calamity upon the poor invalid, I merely state what is in Cathy’s letter.’

‘And if she dies, what of it?’

‘Then I expect her long-suffering daughter will be free to return to London as soon as she may afford to hire a cart to carry her,’ Goodluck commented wryly, handing her back the letter, ‘which she clearly wishes to do, judging by her postscript.’

Lucy lowered her gaze again to Cathy’s postscript.

I do desperately wish to see you again, Lucy, and would do anything to return to court. Norfolk is such a desolate place for a poor widow. But while my mother ails so badly, I dare not leave her side
.

‘I hope she is able to beg a place at court. But I cannot return there too,’ she told him, and folded the letter up again.

‘Why not?’ He frowned, watching her face intently. ‘I do not understand your hesitance. Walsingham has written twice now, cordially extending the Queen’s invitation to return, and even Lord Leicester himself has demanded that you should sing at Sir Philip Sidney’s funeral feast.’

‘But the Queen—’

‘Queen Elizabeth has forgiven you,’ he insisted, ‘and if she has forgiven you, it is time you forgave yourself.’

Abruptly, he threw back her sheepskin covers to expose her legs. ‘Now out of bed before I tip you out. I do not wish to be cruel, Lucy, but I shall not humour you any longer in this sickness. Your bruised back has healed, it is time to get up.’

Shivering in the sudden draught, Lucy tried to snatch her covers back, but he took her arm in a firm grasp.

‘You are neither diseased nor injured, the physician has said it
himself,’
he told her sharply. ‘It is merely your mind that is sick and needs to be healed. And that can only be done by beginning to walk again, and going about your business like any other woman. You can start by putting your feet on the floor.’

She looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears. ‘My baby is dead,’ she whispered. ‘I killed him.’

Goodluck bent to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Your baby was dead before he was born, my love. You did not kill him, any more than you killed Jack Parker. Both those deaths were Master Twist’s doing, as were the deaths of poor Ned and Sos, and any other man or woman who stood in his way. John Twist has paid for his crimes and burns now in hell, where all murderers must come to punishment in the end. But you are still alive, and I wish to see my ward in a clean gown and not this dirty old nightshift you’ve been wearing ever since I brought you home.’

He put an arm about her waist and swung her legs to the floor. ‘Come now, take a step.’

As soon as her bare feet touched the floor, Lucy felt a shock run up her spine. She hung on to him and protested weakly that she could not walk.

How could Goodluck expect such a thing of her? For weeks she had been in bed, barely able to eat or sleep, staring into the darkness every night like a tormented soul until he came to read to her by candlelight or sing a lullaby, something he had not done when she was a small child. The physician had prescribed various expensive remedies, and bled her several times a week; and an odd woman dressed as a boatman had come to the house a few times to burn herbs and rub stinking oils into her back and legs. But nothing had worked. Lucy had not been able to get out of bed since the night she had given birth to Will’s dead child, and seen his thin, slippery body wrapped in its winding-cloth straight from her womb.

Goodluck paid no attention to her protests. He held her tight and encouraged her to lean on him. ‘One step, that’s all,’ he urged her, and as she obeyed, he smiled. ‘And another, that’s it. And one more.’

Later that evening, seated on a stool with her feet in a basin of hot water and a roaring fire warming her legs, Lucy glanced across at
Goodluck
. He was stretched out on the settle opposite, his cap over his eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly, not sure if he could hear her or if he was even awake.

Pushing back the brim of his cap, Master Goodluck smiled at her with that old lopsided grin she remembered from her childhood. ‘My pleasure, Lucy. Though it was Sir Francis Walsingham’s idea to force you out of bed in that cruel manner, so you must blame him for it when you return to court. I spoke to him of your sickness a few days ago, and he told me of another case like yours, where it was only the woman’s mind that ailed and needed to be jolted back to life.’

She looked at him curiously. ‘His daughter?’

Goodluck sighed. ‘Yes, poor Lady Sidney. She too was brought to bed of a dead child after her husband’s death last year.’

‘I shall miss Sir Philip Sidney,’ Lucy murmured. She moved her bare feet cautiously in the hot water, enjoying the sensation more than she had expected. ‘He had such a merry smile, and a quick wit, too.’

‘Will you return to court and sing at his funeral? I’m told they plan to bury him at St Paul’s soon, now his debts have been cleared.’

‘I cannot,’ Lucy insisted, and felt a sudden hot rush of tears. Horrified, she hid her face in her hands, not wanting Goodluck to see her shame. ‘I have been such a fool. I lay with a man who was married and bore him a dead child. I had hopes, when I was young, to be a great singer at the Queen’s court, and then marry a gentleman, to be his wife, and mother to his children. But now I am ruined, utterly ruined. Even if I go back to court, I am a widow with no inheritance and a voice so rusty I shall likely be turned away at the door. I cannot even hope to dance yet, I am so weak.’ She rocked in her distress. ‘Who will have me now? Oh, Goodluck, what have I done?’

Then his arms were about her shoulders, and Goodluck was holding her tight in his familiar bear-hug.

‘Hush, child,’ he murmured, letting her sob against his chest. ‘I will not force you to return to court if you do not wish it. But I cannot stay here all year round, or we will have nothing to eat. I must work, and work means I must travel, and that alone. Do you
understand?
That is why I pushed you to ask your friend Cathy to stay with you here. But if she cannot come, I cannot take the work Walsingham offers me, for it would mean leaving you here alone.’

She listened carefully, then nodded and dried her eyes on her apron. ‘Walsingham has offered you work?’

He crouched, looking up at her searchingly. ‘I know no details, but yes. I was to leave next week.’

‘Take me with you,’ she suggested, thinking how lovely it would be to travel with Goodluck again, as she had sometimes done as a child, just the two of them together again.

‘It is not possible,’ he said, and took her hand.

She looked at him, and their eyes met. For a moment she could not breathe. Then she suddenly felt the fire was too hot and turned her face away to cool it.

‘Tell Walsingham you will take the work he’s offered you,’ she said. ‘I will pack my bags and go back to court. We can meet again at Christmas perhaps, if you are able to come to the palace.’

‘I may be travelling,’ he said roughly, and stood up.

‘Then whenever you make your way back to me, I shall see you,’ she told him, and managed a shaky smile. ‘That fire is so hot!’

‘It will soon burn out,’ he muttered, then stooped and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Enjoy life at court and don’t think of me. Only promise me you will take better care of yourself this time.’

She touched his face. ‘I promise,’ she whispered, and watched him turn away.

As long as Will Shakespeare keeps his distance, I promise …

Seven

Whitehall Palace, London, January 1587

‘I SHALL NOT
sign,’ Elizabeth declared, and slammed her hand down on the table. Her councillors looked at her warily. She glanced at Robert, who had ridden hard from his home at Wanstead to attend this meeting of the Privy Council, and saw the frown on his face. Well, let him frown, Elizabeth thought, and looked away before he could catch her eye. She would not condemn her royal cousin to death, not on the say-so of this handful of English nobles and their glorified secretaries, who could bring her nothing more damning than a few muttered rumours of plots.

‘Nothing has changed,’ she insisted emphatically. ‘This is all nonsense.’

Lord Howard exchanged looks with Lord Burghley, then stepped forward. So he had been chosen to talk her round, she thought, and met his nervous look with defiance. He would find this queen hard to shift!

‘Your Majesty,’ Lord Howard began, spreading out a map on the table, ‘if you will look at this map of the Low Countries, I can show you here,’ he pointed to the map, at which she refused to look, ‘and here, strongholds formerly held by our forces but now held by the Spanish. Parma has taken both these fortresses from us, and will soon push forward with his plans for the invasion of England. Our spies in their camps talk of new canals being dug to allow greater
ease
of movement about the Low Countries, and larger vessels being commandeered by the Spanish to carry soldiers and provisions to the coast. We could be only months away, perhaps even weeks, from the sighting of a Spanish fleet off our south-east coast.’

‘And how is it that these strongholds of ours fell into Spanish hands in the first place?’ she demanded icily.

There was an awkward silence while the councillors glanced at each other, and then at Robert.

Robert looked furious. ‘By all reports, Your Majesty, they did not fall so much as opened their gates and invited the Spanish in. We cannot be sure how this surrender came about, for our reports are scanty. But my trust was clearly misplaced in the commanders I left behind in the Low Countries.’ He tore off his riding gloves and threw them down on the table, as though ready to issue a challenge to anyone there who accused him of collusion with the enemy. ‘If I had known Lord Stanley would fall back on his Catholic allegiances and invite the Spanish in, I should never have left him in charge of our territories there.’