His Dark Lady (39 page)

A small boat awaited them at the jetty, a rough-looking skiff but handled with skill through the fast-flowing currents and eddies between the bridge supports. Chucking pitch-blackened barrels from boat to boat, the watermen glanced up curiously as they passed, their distinctive round-bottomed Thames skiffs tied up along the many quays and bankside jetties between Whitefriars and the Tower. Country visitors crossing the great bridge at Southwark peered over to see the boat pass by with its cargo of liveried guards, gentlemen and prisoners on their way to the threatening mass of the Tower of London.

Taken in through the water-gate and up the steps, Goodluck was relieved to find himself separated from Pooley and his servants. Perhaps his true identity was known to the guards, after all?

‘This way,’ a gruff voice told him, and he was prodded through a narrow corridor in the darkness, then down a short flight of steps into the bowels of the Tower.

Hearing the soul-wrenching cries and groans from cells to either side of the corridor, Goodluck knew instantly where he was. His blood ran cold and he came to a halt, turning to look at the guard behind him.

‘Sir,’ he said earnestly, ‘I am no traitor but one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s own men. My name is not Brother Weatherley but
Master
Goodluck. If you would allow me to write him a note, I am sure Sir Francis will confirm this before the end of the day.’

The guard laughed and pushed him on with the sharp point of his pike. ‘I like your wit, fellow. But it will avail you nothing. The other who came in with you already asked the same and was granted his freedom, for his name was on the list. Yours was not, so walk!’

‘My name is Master Goodluck.’

‘Not on the list,’ the guard repeated and shoved him between the shoulder blades. ‘Next door on the left.’

Turning into the torchlit room, Goodluck came face to face with a man whose dark, weasel-like face he instantly recognized.

Richard Topcliffe!

He had never met the famous torturer before. But Goodluck had frequently seen him on execution days, watching the grisly deaths of traitors and applauding with undisguised relish when their genitals were hacked off – the prisoner often still alive and writhing in agony – and held up bleeding to the crowd.

Topcliffe was standing by a brazier, untying a bloodstained leather apron from about his waist. He glanced at Goodluck, then spoke briefly to the guard over his shoulder. ‘He’ll be too heavy for the bar. Better strip him and put him in the chair instead.’ Throwing the soiled apron aside, he washed his hands fastidiously in a deep copper water bowl, then wiped them on a square of white linen. ‘I need the privy. Watch him until I return.’

‘Aye, Master Topcliffe,’ the guard muttered, awed terror in his voice.

Goodluck heard Topcliffe leave the room and knew with a sudden cold clarity that he had only moments in which to save himself. It might be too late to avoid torture, but there was still a chance he could live through this if he acted swiftly enough.

His numb wrists had been unfastened. Now he was stripped naked and forced to sit in a high-backed chair, his neck and forearms manacled so he could not move.

‘Sir,’ he murmured as the guard secured him in place, ‘I do not ask anything which might put you in poor standing with Master Topcliffe. But in a secret pocket in my left shoe is a small jewel. I beg you to take that jewel in return for your good service, and to carry a message to a friend for me.’

Breathing hard, sweat on his forehead, the man glanced over his shoulder at the open cell door. He was clearly terrified of Topcliffe, but crouched to examine Goodluck’s discarded shoe nonetheless.

‘Perhaps I will take the jewel,’ the man whispered hoarsely, feeling about inside the patterned leather shoe, ‘and not carry your message. You are a traitor to the Queen and destined for the gallows. You could not stop me.’

‘You will not do that because it is not in your nature,’ Goodluck replied. ‘You are an honest man, and I trust you to do what is right.’

The guard had found the secret pocket in Goodluck’s shoe, a cunning slit where a small object or slip of paper could be hidden. He dropped the shoe and held the jewel up to the torchlight, turning it between his fingers. It was a modest but well-cut ruby which Goodluck kept for just such moments of extreme danger, where a substantial bribe could make the difference between life and death.

He shrugged. ‘The name of your friend?’

Goodluck hesitated, considering. A man like this would not risk taking a message to Walsingham, in case it came out that he had accepted a bribe. But he might deliver a message to someone of no consequence. ‘Mistress Lucy Morgan. You will find her with the court at Richmond Palace. If not, ask where she is living and deliver my message there instead. She will know what to do.’

The guard had turned to stare at him. ‘You want me to carry this message to a woman?’ he asked in disbelief.

‘Yes.’

The guard looked at him doubtfully. Then they both heard the squelch of footsteps in the muddy corridor, and a man whistling a popular hymn as though on his way to church.

Richard Topcliffe was returning from the privy with the clear conscience of a sadist.

The guard’s smile vanished. He slipped the ruby into the grimy black pocket hanging from his belt.

‘The message? Quickly, man.’

‘Tell her Master Goodluck is not dead. Tell her where I am and why. She will know what to do.’

As Topcliffe came back into the room, Goodluck knew a moment of lightheadedness and recognized it as terror. Hazily, he tried to see his situation from a distance, to gain some understanding of what
had
happened. If Pooley was one of Walsingham’s spies, he would have been arrested at the house to make him appear innocent of duplicity in the eyes of the other conspirators, and then released so he could make his secret report to Walsingham.

But why had Goodluck’s name not been on the list of men to be let go, too?

Perhaps someone had suggested to Walsingham that Goodluck was now too close to the Catholic conspirators, and had become one of them. Such conversions had been known to happen even to the best spies.

Or perhaps his name had been on the list, but had been crossed out.

He remembered John Twist, his cap pulled low and his beard dyed to look like a young man’s, and that meaningful nod he had given the leader.

John Twist had betrayed him. He had changed the list of those in Walsingham’s pay or had paid the leader to pretend his name was
not
on it. Somehow he had discovered that Goodluck was not dead, as he had no doubt supposed, but very much alive, and now wished to rectify that situation as soon as possible. And by ensuring that Goodluck would be handed over to Topcliffe on arrival at the Tower, he might yet have his wish.

Time seemed to pass very slowly, voices echoing in the narrow, torchlit cell.

Then everything sharpened again so that Goodluck felt he was seeing the room through a crystal. His mind cleared. He must focus now on his survival. The guard had been dismissed and Richard Topcliffe stood in front of him, a fresh apron tied about his waist. The torturer reached with gloved hands into the red heart of the brazier and extracted a glowing iron.

‘As God is my witness, I am one of Walsingham’s own men and should not be here,’ Goodluck managed, ashamed to hear how his voice shook at the sight of that hot iron. ‘I am no Catholic, but a Protestant spy.’

‘Now, my good sir,’ Topcliffe murmured, as though he had not even heard him, ‘first we shall see of what stuff God has made you, and then we shall talk.’

The iron seared Goodluck’s chest with a horrendous agony, held
there
longer than it seemed possible to bear, the pain so exquisite it was almost beyond feeling.

He smelt his own flesh burning, and sagged in the chair. He felt an uncontrollable weakness in all his limbs, and knew from the warmth trickling down his bare legs that he had pissed himself.

He felt no shame, for he had been tortured before and knew there could be no shame in fear.

The only shame lay in betrayal.

‘Lucy,’ Goodluck mumbled, not knowing what he was saying or even whether he had spoken any coherent word or merely groaned.

He watched as the iron was thrust into the brazier to heat again, then came resolutely back to sear his flesh, upon which his mumble became a trembling scream.

‘Lucy!’

Thirteen

LUCY HADN’T LONG
been asleep when she woke with a start, hearing a knocking at the door below. Will Shakespeare again, she thought bitterly. She lay a moment, her heart thudding fast, then felt under the pillow for her dagger.

She crept down the stairs in the dark and listened. The knocking came again, not loud but insistent.

Fumbling for the tinderbox, she lit a half-burned spill and balanced it on the stone lip of the hearth. It gave out a ghostly half-light, but was better than darkness.

‘Who’s there?’ she demanded, her ear pressed to the door.

‘A friend,’ a man’s voice replied.

Instantly on her guard, she drew back. A friend? What friend? She had no friends in this city. Some of the women along her street had begun to spit as she passed. They thought her a whore. Small wonder too. Shakespeare’s visits were to blame for that.

Yet there was something familiar about the man’s voice. Did she know him?

Her skin prickled, gooseflesh on her arms under the thin nightshift. Some fresh danger come to my door, she thought, and weighed the dagger in her hand.

‘What is your name, friend?’

‘I bear a message from Master Goodluck,’ he replied, his voice muffled. ‘Let me in before I am seen by the Watch.’

Master Goodluck? Her heart squeezed shut like a fist. Goodluck?
It
hurt to breathe. That was a name she had put away, blocked from her mind. She could not bear to hear it spoken, to think of his death. What evil trick was this?

‘Master Goodluck is dead,’ she whispered, staring at the door as though she could see through it.

‘Let me in,’ the man repeated, more urgently.

She was shaking but could not deny him. He might kill her, whoever he was. But his words …

Master Goodluck’s name was like a charm, letting in light where she had walked so long in darkness.

Gripping the dagger between her teeth, Lucy slid back the heavy bolts that held the door firmly shut at night. Then she took a step back, set her feet wide and gripped the dagger in her right hand.

Master Goodluck is dead, she told herself. Believe nothing else. If her guardian had been alive, he would have come to find her himself by now. But could he have left some final message for her with a friend? And knowing Goodluck’s friends as she did, it was also possible this was the first chance one had found to deliver it.

Whoever was on the other side of the door, she was prepared to listen to his message. But she would take no chances.

The latch lifted and she saw a man’s hand reach inside the crack of the door, as though groping for her in the half-light. On his smallest finger was a thick gold ring which she recognized. That foul man, John Twist!

With a cry, she sprang forward and bore down on the door with all her weight.

‘Get out!’

He swore and pushed violently against the door. ‘Lucy, don’t be a fool. You need me. You can’t live here alone for ever. I won’t hurt you, let me in!’

Lucy strained to keep him out, but he was strong. I can’t hold him off much longer, she realized, and despaired. Why did none of her neighbours come to help? A dog was barking hysterically somewhere down the street. She heard a man shout at it to be quiet. The Watch must have heard the noise by now. Did they despise her so much they would see her murdered in the night? Was this how her life would end?

Twist’s hand curled around the door frame. It looked like a giant
spider
. She took the dagger from between her teeth, slashed at his nearest finger and heard him shriek. The hand was withdrawn, and for a few seconds the pressure of his weight against the door slackened.

Lucy gave a tremendous shove and the door clicked shut. She slammed the top bolt home, then the bottom one, then slumped against the door, panting. Her blood roared in her ears. Was there any other way into the house? Only by climbing up the outside and through her bedroom window.

‘That hurt,’ John Twist exclaimed. She listened to him breathing hard as he leaned against the other side of the door. ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Lucy. I’ll be back, and next time you’ll open this door of your own accord or I’ll smash it down.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘How are you planning to stop me, Lucy?’ John Twist waited for an answer, then laughed. ‘You should never have left court. You have no man to protect you here, no one to come running if you scream in the night. No one here would bestir himself for a black whore in the house of a dead spy.’ He was calmer now, more sure of himself. Don’t get too sure, she thought furiously, and imagined sinking her blade into him. ‘But I’ll protect you, Lucy. All I ask is to share your bed and taste a little of what you were giving Goodluck.’