The Queen's Secret (5 page)

‘What stir, what coil is here?’ he demanded, shaking his vast bunch of keys so violently at the crowd, he himself almost went over backwards.

Again the crowd laughed, partly at the man himself, partly at the old-fashioned language, though the nearest shifted carefully out of his reach. One of her own guards, hurriedly dismounting, took a threatening step towards the porter, but was brought to a halt by Robert’s upraised hand.

The porter’s voice boomed over their heads, echoing around the outer courtyard. ‘Come back, hold, whither now?’

Robert came to stand beside her in the fluttering torchlight. Fleetingly, his hand brushed hers, a taunt in his low voice. ‘Afraid, Your Majesty?’

‘Of a man on stilts, wrapped up in his own shroud?’

‘
A man on stilts
?’ His eyes danced, sharing her sense of the ridiculous. ‘Why, Your Majesty, this is none other than the great Hercules himself, commanded to guard the castle in my absence.’

‘But what dainty darling’s here?’ Pointing with his club at Elizabeth, sitting still and erect in the saddle, the porter pretended surprise. ‘O God, a peerless pearl!’

‘I am lost,’ she commented to the crowd. ‘He has seen me now.’

The crowd laughed and pushed closer, elbowing each other and cursing the guards who held them back, their sturdy pikes crossed. Robert, leaning familiarly against the side of her mount, toyed with his own pearl earring as he listened, the smile on his face that of a satisfied cat, his mouse caught and killed. No doubt he thought her half won already, seeing his popularity with the
crowd,
knowing how this progress would be memorable chiefly for her visit to Kenilworth.

‘This is no worldly woman,’ the porter continued, undaunted by the laughter, determined to deliver his lines as written, ‘but a sovereign goddess, surely? Her face, her hand, her eye – her features are all come from heaven, and with such majesty!’

‘Did you write this nonsense?’ Elizabeth asked softly.

‘Not I,’ Robert protested. ‘The author is John Badger, Your Majesty, a most worthy scholar and Oxford man. I could not stop him. He was insistent that he should play his part in this mummery. Indeed, I fear Master Badger has a certain
liking
for Your Majesty. Though no one can blame him for that.’

Master Badger had struggled to his knees in the dust now, requiring the help of another man in this effort at dutiful obeisance, and was holding out his club and keys.

‘Come, most perfect paragon,’ he proclaimed bravely, ‘pass on with joy and bliss. Most worthy, welcome, goddess guest, whose presence gladdens all. Take here, have here, both club and keys. Myself I yield, these gates and all, submit and seek your shield.’

Applause echoed about the outer walls as the porter laid down his club and keys, and ordered the gates to be opened in the name of the Queen. As he knelt before her, the white silk costume, thin as a winding sheet, strained ever more tightly about his groin, its bulge obscene.

Elizabeth looked away while he adjusted himself. One of her ladies-in-waiting sniggered, hurriedly stifling the sound with the back of her hand. It was Lettice, of course.

‘We accept your allegiance,’ Elizabeth announced. ‘Now go and have some cooling ale, Master Badger, for you have earned it.’

The gate swung open in the dusk and the eight-foot-high effigies of trumpeters seemed to raise vast silvery trumpets on the battlements above, beginning an eerie chorus. Robert led her through the Gallery Tower gate at a sedate walk, and the court and her ladies followed them, their horses’ hooves clattering across the cobbles, drowning out the sound of trumpets.

Suddenly cold in the gloomy well of the tower, Elizabeth passed under its damp stones and remembered another tower which had housed her once in darkness and despair. She looked down,
hoping
for reassurance, but could no longer make out Robert’s face, just the dark silhouette of his head as they came clear of the gateway.

She shivered. Could the bats have been an ill omen, after all?

Five

‘WOULD YOU LIKE
to see the rest of the show?’

Lucy drew her travelling cloak closer about her shoulders, wishing it was thicker. Now that the Queen and her shining entourage had disappeared, and those astonishing spectacles too, the beautiful girl in white silk and the giant porter, had both vanished inside the dark confines of the tower, the breeze from the lake felt suddenly cold on her face. She knew herself to be more tired than she had realized.

‘The rest of the show?’ she repeated, frowning.

‘The porter was only the beginning,’ the young man explained. ‘Through that gate is the tiltyard – yes, there’ll be jousting in a few days – and beyond that the outer courtyard, and then the old keep. At every stop, Lord Leicester has arranged a spectacle for the Queen, and fireworks to follow.’ He took her hand without waiting for permission. ‘If you wish to see the rest of tonight’s entertainments, I can get you through the gate and into the outer courtyard. You won’t be allowed through on your own.’

She stared at his blue livery, belatedly remembering what it signified. ‘You’re one of Lord Leicester’s men?’

‘And you sing for the Queen?’

Lucy caught her breath at that, taking a quick step backwards as though afraid of what was coming next. It was usually an insult of some kind. ‘How did you know I’m an entertainer?’ she demanded.

‘I have ears.’ When she continued to stare at him, the young man sighed and gestured to where she had been standing before. ‘That oaf who sent you back here asked what you did at court. I was listening.’

Lucy’s flush deepened. ‘Oh.’

He shrugged, perhaps seeing her embarrassment. ‘I work in my lord Leicester’s stables here at Kenilworth. There’s no shame in honest labour.’

The crowd was beginning to thin as people jumped down from the grass bank and made their way across the Brays to where a makeshift camp had been erected, with tents and rough wooden dwellings and hammocks strung hastily between trees. Numerous small fires had already been lit and the sound of hammering – silenced during the Queen’s entry into the castle – had begun again in earnest. Lucy peered into the darkness, at the dozens of tiny flickering lights springing up within the earthwork defences as people set up their campsites for the next few weeks. Now that night had fallen, it seemed everyone wanted a corner to sleep in.

She allowed the young man to lead her down from the bank, instinctively trusting him, even though she felt the touch of his hand was rather impudent considering they did not even know each other’s names.

‘So you’re a horseman,’ she said.

She did not ride. It had never been necessary in London, where she had walked everywhere, and certainly not now she was at court.

He jumped down first, then turned to support her as she climbed down more carefully, trying not to dirty her gown again. Until she found the other court entertainers who were sharing a trunk with her, she would not have another gown to wear.

‘A stableman,’ the young man corrected her. For a moment she thought he was laughing at her, then they passed under the crowded archway on to the tiltyard and out into the light, where his face looked serious again. ‘I clean out the stalls, I mend saddles and backcloths, I tend to his lordship’s horses and those of his guests.’ He paused. ‘We have over a hundred horses to feed, water and groom tonight, and that doesn’t even touch on the hundreds more running loose in the east pasture, all the horses
and
ponies that came in with the Queen’s household.’

She stared. ‘But you should go, then. Won’t you get into trouble for not being there?’

‘I saw
you
.’ His voice was quiet, but the emphasis on
you
was unmistakable. ‘I couldn’t go back. I had to stay and speak to you.’

Lucy was startled, aware that he must be risking a beating for his absence. But the young man was already leading her through the crowds, past the disapproving guards with a wave of his hand and a muttered word. Whatever she had meant to say in response was lost as she caught sight of the Queen’s party again, only a few hundred yards ahead.

Seated on her white horse in a ring of flaming torches, her red hair glowing in coils, her stiff gold and ivory gown so fabulously embroidered and gathered in thick folds, decked with such enormous gemstones that glinted and flashed at her slightest movement, the Queen could almost have been a character from a London pageant, or one of the painted figures Lucy had seen carried through the streets at Easter or Christmastide, surrounded by lights.

‘Look!’ he whispered in her ear, and she turned reluctantly to see what everyone else was gazing at.

Out across the dark waters of the lake, a floating torchlit island was drawing steadily closer. At its centre stood a woman in white. Nymph-like girls knelt about her as if posed in a tapestry. With their hair streaming loose down their backs, they cast armfuls of what appeared to be rose petals into the water.

‘
I am the Lady of this pleasant lake
,’ the woman began to recite, ‘
who, since the time of great King Arthur’s reign, has led a lowering life in restless pain
.’

Straight-backed and regal on her white horse, the Queen turned to the Earl of Leicester, amusement clear in her beautiful face. ‘The Lady of the Lake?’

‘Do you not know, Your Majesty,’ Leicester replied, his deep voice echoing about the enclosed tiltyard, ‘you are no longer in the wilds of Warwickshire but at Camelot, the court of great King Arthur himself?’

‘Then must we resign our throne?’

‘Hush, you’ll spoil it,’ he said, and flicked her gloved hand
irreverently
as he spoke. ‘Be patient. There’s more to come.’

Confused, Lucy turned to look at the young man beside her. He seemed curiously intent, his gaze moving from Leicester to the Queen. ‘What does he mean?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘The court of King Arthur?’

‘My master is only an earl,’ he muttered in her ear, ‘but he wishes to marry a queen. If this is Camelot, that makes him Arthur. And what woman would not wish to marry King Arthur?’

‘But I thought the Queen had refused him?’

‘Many times in private, it’s said. But my master does not give up so easily. This is his way of asking her in full view of the court. Everything will be perfect here for a match between them. The clock on the keep tower is to be stopped until the Queen’s departure. So we are outside time. Kenilworth becomes Camelot and he becomes Arthur.’

She did not understand, but something in his voice made her wary of asking anything further.

The Lady of the Lake stepped gracefully off her island as it came to land, its bobbing mass anchored on ropes by blue-liveried servants, and passed through a narrow gateway to kneel before the Queen. Her nymphs slipped easily into the water and played beneath the tiltyard mound, gambolling and calling out, their wet silks clinging to their bodies like a shimmering second skin, so that every man present stared and smiled. Now Lucy could see that the Lady was not young, as her nymphs were, but a much older woman, her face lined, grey hair concealed beneath a tight-swathed band of white silk.

‘
I will attend while you lodge here, most peerless Queen, and as my love to Arthur did appear, so shall I to you
.’

Speaking these verses, the Lady sank even lower and gestured to the tower’s yawning entrance ahead, torchlight glinting off the rings on her fingers:

‘
Pass on, madame, you need no longer stand. The lake, the lodge, the lord, are yours to command
.’

‘Bravo!’ The Queen clapped her hands in applause, and the court hurriedly followed suit. ‘I thank you for this poetic welcome. But you say this place has been yours since the days of King Arthur, yet you grant me free access for the duration of my stay?’

The Lady of the Lake seemed to glance uncertainly at Leicester. At his nod, she gave another deep curtsey, the silken folds of her costume shimmering in the torchlight. ‘Indeed, O peerless Queen.’

‘As Queen of England, we had thought this place was ours by right. And yet you say it’s yours? My lord Leicester would do well to remember the old adage that one country cannot suffer two rulers.’ The Queen raised her gloved hand and spoke loudly, her voice ringing about the narrow space. ‘We thank you for your most gracious welcome, Lady of the Lake, and suggest you return to your watery home, lest we fall out over this matter.’

There was a ripple of uneasy laughter through the court, and Lucy glanced at Leicester, curious to see his reaction to this public snub. But the crowd about the royal party had shifted again, and she could see only the tip of the feather in his cap.

As the brilliant entourage moved on in flashes of gold under the torches, the crowd shuffled forward another few feet, eager to reach the last gate and enter the castle, almost crushing Lucy as they pressed up against her from behind.

Anxiously, she glanced about for the young man but could no longer see him in the close-pressing crowd. The only way was forward, with hundreds of people behind them and a row of guards along the waterside, their pikes levelled. The smell of warm human flesh was overpowering. Lucy felt something push hard into her back, making her cry out in alarm, then somebody’s hand touched her, large male fingers fumbling under her cloak at the lacings of her gown.