His Dark Lady (9 page)

‘I haven’t had the pleasure myself since returning to London. Though I hear the rate for a clean whore has grown beyond my slender pockets now.’

‘Whoring has become an expensive habit of late,’ Twist agreed ruefully. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Goodluck. ‘So you got out of Rome alive. You were away so long, I was beginning to wonder if I should come after you. What happened?’

‘Someone gave me away.’

‘You were betrayed?’ Twist frowned. ‘Do you know by whom?’

‘Not yet. But I intend to find out.’ Goodluck met his gaze. ‘Now to the letter I sent. Did you find the man I was looking for?’

Twist shook his head. ‘I’m still asking around the town. But it’s difficult. No one is talking. The Catholics are lying so low right now,
you
could trip over one in the street and not notice. Every day brings rumours of a fresh plot against the Queen. Walsingham’s agents are all around, but some of them play both sides of the net, and there’s no guessing their allegiances until it’s too late. It can be dangerous to draw attention to yourself by asking too many questions of the wrong man.’

Goodluck smiled. ‘I learned that lesson the hard way in Rome.’

‘Torture?’

‘I didn’t talk, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Goodluck called the girl over for another tankard of ale, deciding to make a night of it. ‘You’re safe enough.’

Seven

Whitehall Palace, London, winter 1583

‘IF YOU WOULD
only allow me to rub in some oil of cloves again, Your Majesty, the pain would abate. I swear it.’

‘Fool, your vile oil burns, and I will have none of it!’ Elizabeth roared, and knocked the tiresome apothecary away, his tray and bottles clattering to the floor.

Toothache again! The unfairness, the injustice of it. The sunlight hurt her eyes. Why had the shutters been thrown so wide open on her bedchamber windows? She stared about at her women in silent accusation. Was she expected to rise and be dressed and rule the country in such agony? Did nobody care how she suffered?

‘Where are my doctors?’

Lady Helena was at her side at once, offering a cup of wine and a fresh platter of lavender-steeped cloths. She at least knew how to treat a queen. ‘They await your pleasure, Your Majesty, in the antechamber. You told them to … to go hang themselves yesterday. Shall I send them in?’

God’s blood, her jaw was on fire!

‘Yes, yes, send them in at once,’ Elizabeth managed, clasping a dampened cloth to her cheek, where the pain throbbed most viciously. When would this agony cease? God had sent her this repeated affliction as a punishment. No woman was intended to rule alone, and she had been given chances to marry, only to spurn them.
Her
monthly courses, never easy to predict, had grown strange and difficult of late. Her womb ached some nights and prevented her from sleeping. What other explanation could there be? She should have married and produced a child. Instead her body was beginning to tumble down like an old tower under siege, more broken and ramshackle with every year that passed.

Her physicians came in, dark-cloaked and hatted, with long staffs and impressive wooden chests of medicaments, bowing and making their customary noises. ‘Your Majesty, the remedy is simple.’ She waited for the inevitable, glaring at them, daring them to say it. ‘The tooth is rotten and must be drawn. There is no other cure for the toothache.’

‘I will not lose any more teeth!’

She rocked in pain as her tooth throbbed violently, as if a hot wire was being drawn swiftly back and forth through her body. Her spine was on fire, tendrils of flame reaching even to the tips of her fingers. Her body would be left hollow soon, like a burned-out tree, nothing remaining but the pain of this tooth still smouldering in the ashes. Give me a mallet, she thought. A great bloody mallet to smash this jaw into pieces and grant me peace. Let someone drive a stake through the top of my head and pierce the agony where it grips me.

No, no, no. Her mind groped for control. She must preserve what teeth she had left. She would not lose another one. She refused to gum her food like an old woman while the younger courtiers gaped and laughed behind their hands.

‘Lord Jesu in heaven, look down and help thy servant in her pain and distress,’ she moaned, and crossed herself. ‘I cannot lose this tooth. I
shall not
lose this tooth.’

No answer came from on high. The pain continued unabated, swelling and beating her jaw like a drum. It must indeed be a punishment from God, she thought hazily. Is it Thy Will, O Lord, that I should wish to throw myself out of the highest tower window rather than live through another hour of this agony? God was angry with her for rejecting Robert, for turning her nose up at so many suitors, for having wriggled out of her written agreement to marry the Duke of Anjou, for never having married. Now she must suffer and feel His displeasure.

‘The pain will pass,’ she groaned, barely able to form words. ‘It
always
does. Give me something for it. Poppy or strong liquor to help me sleep.’

Her physicians looked concerned. They muttered among themselves while she writhed in agony, clutching her jaw. ‘It could be dangerous, Your Majesty. At your age …’

‘
I am not old
!’

More fearful muttering. More frowning and head-shaking. Old men with moths in their fur-lined cloaks and straw between their ears. Let one of them rule a kingdom, they would soon learn to act swiftly.

A cup was brought to her lips and she drank in tiny thankful sips, roaring each time the foul liquid touched her inflamed tooth.

The room seemed to darken. Elizabeth looked up groggily. Where had the sun gone? Rain beat against the windows in a thrumming rhythm. A fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth, warming her drowsy body. The bed was candlelit. That was when she realized that time had passed. She was lying down, her jaw bound up in warm cloths that stank of some herbal astringent, and Helena, dear kind-eyed Helena, was perched on the coverlet beside her, a steaming bowl in her hands.

‘Better, Your Majesty?’

She lifted her head, and the pain shot through her again. Not so intense now, though. A sharp, quick, circular pain that filled her mouth, danced on the bones of her spine a moment, then ebbed to a dull ache. It was nearly over. At least, she no longer felt an urge to strangle her doctors with her bare hands. That was a good sign.

Warily, she sat up. ‘A little,’ she conceded. ‘How long have I slept?’

‘Most of the day, Your Majesty. It is nearly nightfall.’ Lady Helena hesitated. ‘Lord Leicester is waiting in the Presence Chamber, Your Majesty. He heard you had the toothache and came straightaway to see you. I … I hope I did right in asking him to wait. I remembered how his lordship always used to sit with you when your toothache came on, and you said you could not have got through it without him.’

He was out there now, waiting while she slept? The thought pleased her, though she felt anger, too, that he had not been dismissed as soon as he had arrived. It was true. Robert knew how to
joke
and bully her through the pain better than anyone. But let him in now? Into her own private space – her bedchamber, no less? How would he explain that to his wife?

His first wife, Amy Robsart, had died soon after Elizabeth became queen, falling downstairs ‘accidentally’, the coroner had ruled. It had never bothered her to invite him into her bedchamber when he was married to Amy, nor to allow him to kiss and caress her, a married man, promised to another in the sight of God. But this was different. Lettice Knollys was no meek country girl like Amy, easily neglected and forgotten, easily sidelined from court. Or perhaps it was her own feelings for Robert that had changed. Did she no longer love him? She thought of her love, and saw how it had been dented by his marriage to Lettice, broken and battered like a shield that could no longer hold off its enemies. Robert, Robert. She allowed herself another moment of childish dismay at his betrayals and lusts, then moved on. Her toothache. His presence. The decision.

‘Tell him to go,’ she muttered. ‘I am much recovered and do not need him to … Tell him to go.’

Lady Helena’s eyes were sympathetic. She was a good girl. Not like some at court. ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ she agreed, and removed herself from the room.

As soon as the door had closed, the pain flared up again. Elizabeth’s tooth became the centre of her being for one exquisite moment of agony, then the rest of her jaw caught fire. She buried her head in the pillows again, stifling her moans.

If only Robert was here, she thought, to let her squeeze his bare hand. That would help to distract her from the pain. Or he could play thimblerig to infuriate her, switching cups around too quickly for her to remember which one hid the gold coin. Or juggle apples on one leg, laughing, until he sent the fruit rolling across the floor. Or peel and slice the least bruised one, feeding it to her on the tip of his dagger with studied intimacy.

But she must keep him at a distance now. He was no longer hers. It was hard remembering that. And becoming harder with every day that passed.

‘I can’t thank you enough, Will. I can’t be a player short for a court performance, and this part calls for a “handsome young man of
Italy
”.’ John Laneham nodded as Will laughed. ‘I know, I know! But you were the only player under twenty-five I could find in the city who can carry a line and isn’t otherwise engaged tonight.’

Laneham handed over the other shoe and watched critically as Will forced his too-large foot into it.

‘Sorry about the tight fit, lad. Gerrard had a smaller foot than you.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Foolishly, just as the drunken sot lived.’ Will looked up and Laneham made a face. ‘He fell off a ladder during a performance at the Cross Keys. Snapped his neck clean in two. Don’t you do the same, you hear me? I can’t afford to keep buying in new players. He was meant to be climbing over a high wall to woo his lady, but if you don’t think you’re up to it—’

‘I’ll be careful.’

‘Good lad.’

John Laneham threw him a richly embroidered, fur-lined cloak that seemed smart enough until Will looked at it closely. Then he spotted the loose seams and realized it needed a trip to the seamstress. Or else the midden, he thought, recoiling from the smell.

‘You have a play roll for me?’

‘Here.’ Laneham took a battered play roll from the roll bag and handed it across. The parchment was torn in places, and marred by scribbling and greasy fingerprints. ‘This was Gerrard’s. The lines are simple enough. “I love you, I want you to be my wife,” and all that. You could crib them in half an hour, which is about all you’ve got before the performance starts. You play a young Italian who’s sick with love. That can’t be too much of a stretch for you, even for a man who’s sworn off women.’

Will smiled. ‘Alas, my reputation as a happily married man …’

‘Now don’t blaspheme, lad.’ But Laneham grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come to me after the play, there’ll be two shillings in it for you. And a jug of ale, too.’

‘No wine?’ Will glanced about the high-ceilinged room with its gilt walls and expensively leaded windows. ‘I’ve no wish to sound churlish, but I expected more hospitality from the palace of Whitehall. Is it true what they’re saying, that the Queen’s coffers are empty?’

‘Be content with the ale and the two shillings, lad, and keep your
mouth
shut around court. You should think yourself lucky to be working here at all.’

‘It will be good to have money in my pocket again, not just a promise of it.’

‘Oh aye, the money’s good for us Queen’s Men, for all it’s a new company. And I don’t doubt there’ll be wine aplenty for the fine courtiers, as there always is when we play at court. Rivers of the bloody stuff, from Burgundy or the Rhône or wherever. But the Queen’s Men won’t see a drop of it. We’re players, lad. Too lowly for such costly fare. They’ll give us roast pig and a good jug of ale apiece after we’ve done our work. What more could a man want?’ Laneham grinned. ‘Except a woman who doesn’t mind a jig or two when the candle’s out?’

‘You’ll not find many of those at court.’

Laneham tapped the side of his nose. He leaned in close, stinking unpleasantly of cabbage and unwashed body. ‘You leave it to me, young Master Shakespeare. These court ladies may look too fine for the likes of us, but trust me, if there’s one here who will fall on her back for me, I’ll find her before they kick us back out into the streets. I can sniff out a silken whore at a thousand paces. Yes, and have her too, before the bitch even knows what’s been up her skirts.’

Will laughed. ‘You are a very devil!’

‘It has been said, Master Shakespeare. It has been said many times. Nor have I ever denied it. But only for the ladies, mind. I’m as true and honest a man as you will ever meet elsewise. And here’s my hand to prove it.’

Will shook his hand. He looked about in the general hubbub as the other players began to arrive and pull on their costumes. He recognized a few faces, for the London players were few, and frequented many of the same taverns. But he was only with the Queen’s Men for tonight’s performance. It would not feel right to mingle too freely with them.