The Queen's Secret Read online

  About the Book

  July 1575

  Elizabeth I, Queen of England, arrives at Kenilworth Castle amid pomp, fanfare and lavish festivities laid on by the Earl of Leicester. The hopeful earl knows this is his very last chance to persuade the queen to marry him.

  But despite his attachment to the queen and his driving ambition to be her king, Leicester is unable to resist the seductive wiles of Lettice, wife of the Earl of Essex. And soon whispers of their relationship start spreading through the court.

  Enraged by the adulterous lovers’ growing intimacy, Elizabeth employs Lucy Morgan, a young black singer and court entertainer, to spy on the couple. But Lucy, who was raised by a spy in London, uncovers far more than she bargains for.

  For someone at Kenilworth that summer is plotting to kill the queen. No longer able to tell friend from foe, it is soon not only the queen who is in mortal danger – but Lucy herself.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Select Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  In memoriam

  Charlotte Lamb, 1937–2000

  Prologue

  The outskirts of London, May 1575

  LUCY MORGAN PEERED OVER THE HIGH WOODEN SIDE OF THE swaying cart. A group of soldiers trotted past, sunlight glinting off their helmets, their dusty blue livery announcing their allegiance to Lord Leicester. Staring back down the road, she could no longer see the distant towers of Richmond Palace, their bright pennants fluttering in the breeze off the River Thames, but only wooded hills and high green hedgerows as the road deepened into countryside.

  ‘I’ve never been so far outside London before.’ She glanced around, but no one in the cart seemed to be listening. Some of the older women were slumped over, asleep in the sunshine, their mouths open. The carts had left London just after dawn and Lucy was tired too, but unwilling to miss anything by closing her eyes. ‘Where will we sleep tonight? How will they feed so many of us?’

  The woman to her right, plain-faced and soberly dressed in widow’s black, tugged irritably at her gown. ‘Sit down, girl.’ Her voice was sour. ‘The cartmen are staring.’

  But Lucy did not want to sit down. Even the six months she had spent at court had not prepared her for the activity of the past few days, watching Queen Elizabeth’s servants make ready to depart London for the summer months. Wagon after wagon had lumbered off in advance of the Queen’s private entourage, creaking with furniture, chests packed with clothes and books, the bric-a-brac of the royal household. Nor had she expected this sweating crush of bodies, jammed in against each other with little more dignity than plague victims flung on a cart. She had seen royal officials and their wives crowded together with their liveried servants, lowly stable boys and gongmen riding the covered wagons of the provisions train, potmen shouting crudely to each other above the grind of wheels, and the women of the Queen’s household crammed without ceremony into old wooden carts without seats: seamstresses, laundresses, cooks, serving maids, and court entertainers like herself.

  At that moment their cart juddered over a deep yawning rut and Lucy gave a cry, clutching at the side to save herself from falling.

  ‘I told you to sit down,’ the woman beside her remarked, and folded her arms as though satisfied that she had been proved right, closing her eyes against the sun’s glare.

  Lucy had come to court the autumn before, at the age of fourteen, and this was her first summer progress. The court had rarely stayed in any one residence above seven or eight weeks that first autumn. Even once the cold weather had set in, they had been forced to pack up and move to another royal residence as soon as the stink of human refuse grew too powerful to be ignored. It was not always a good thing to be in a new place. In one of the smaller houses, out on the periphery of the city, the female entertainers had slept in a curtained-off corner of the dining hall, and at another place had been herded ten to a chamber, sleeping on filthy rushes through a lack of bedding. The stench had become so bad, it had been almost impossible to breathe some nights, let alone sleep.

  Now this: a sweet-smelling wind in her hair, newborn lambs in the fields, eglantine and the white wood anemone shining out from the hedgerows.

  The widow tut-tutted as Lucy settled back on the floor of the cart, wriggling to make herself more comfortable on the unyielding wooden boards. There was little room for them all in the open cart and the boards bristled with splinters, making any sudden movements risky. It did not help that two of the seamstresses were fat-necked, broad-chested peahens, slumped drowsily with clog-heavy feet shoved out in front of them, taking up more than their fair share of space.

  ‘Sorry, mistress,’ Lucy offered, more from politeness than genuine concern, having accidentally jabbed the older woman in the ribs as she tried to find a more comfortable position.

  ‘Did your mother never tell you not to fidget, girl?’

  ‘I cannot tell you,’ Lucy countered sharply, ‘for I never knew my mother.’

  She wished she had kept silent as both seamstresses raised their plump, pink-cheeked faces to stare across at her, suddenly no longer asleep. Uncomfortably aware that she was the centre of attention, Lucy added hurriedly, ‘My mother died when I was born, you see, God rest her soul.’

  The widow crossed herself superstitiously, muttering a quick prayer under her breath. But at least she shifted sideways after that, drawing her cloak a little closer. This gave Lucy room to settle her buttocks squarely on the hard boards, balancing on her palms as the jolting cart rattled on into the countryside.

  It was a common enough reaction. A black girl was strange enough in England. But a motherless black girl was bad luck, a curse, someone to be avoided – almost as though Lucy had taken a hand in her own mother’s death. Which was true in a way, she supposed, since her mother had died giving birth to her. Or so Master Goodluck had told her.

  It was not on
ly the superstitious who shunned her, of course. The kindly gentleman who had employed her at court last autumn had praised her singing, saying with astonishment that she had ‘a voice like a skylark’. Yet Lucy had not yet been permitted to do more than sing with the chorus and dance in a few of the set pieces performed each month before the visiting ambassadors and dignitaries. Perhaps old Mistress Hibbert, who supervised the female entertainers, was afraid the Queen would take fright at her African skin and eyes, her unrestrained barley-twists of black hair. So Lucy had been hidden discreetly behind the others every time she sang, hair tamed beneath the smooth white wings of a cap, dark skin concealed by a shawl draped about her shoulders and knotted tight at the throat.

  That spring though, the favourite of the troupe, the boastful Peggy, had been found with child and dismissed. Then two of their most experienced singers had come down with the shaking sickness. Even Mistress Hibbert herself, who had hated Lucy from the very first day she arrived at court, had been deemed too old for travel and told to remain behind.

  Perhaps this summer, as one of the few sopranos left in the troupe who could sing the full scale, she might at last find herself face to face with Queen Elizabeth – whom she had only ever seen as a pale but beautiful figure above a mass of courtiers’ heads.

  ‘When does the court return to London?’

  The woman next to her had fallen asleep at last, slumped in her black cloak, but one of the heavy-breasted seamstresses opposite gave her a sympathetic smile. She was yellow-toothed, her cheeks flushed from the sun.

  ‘Summer’s end, child,’ she soothed her. ‘Come September, we’ll all be home again.’

  Lucy frowned, trying to suppress a flutter of panic. ‘But it’s only May. Must we stay away so long?’

  ‘Bless your ignorance,’ the woman laughed comfortably, ‘of course we must, for the Queen herself orders it. Her Majesty won’t risk the plague by staying in the city over the summer, and who can blame her with the stench of the palace sewers so bad last week? So we’re bound for Grafton House now, then we’ll take the road up to Warwickshire and rest a month or so at the castle of Kenilworth, they say – or until the Queen tires of his lordship’s attentions.’

  The woman chuckled before continuing, as though at some private joke. ‘Beyond Kenilworth, I cannot tell you which road the progress will take, though it’s rumoured the Queen’s to visit some of the grand houses of Staffordshire this year.’ She smiled at Lucy’s dismayed expression. ‘Thirsty, child?’

  Lucy nodded thankfully. She accepted a half-full bottle of ale from under the folds of the seamstress’s rough white apron. The ale was warm – not surprisingly, given its hiding place – but it refreshed her.

  ‘Thank you. Do you know where we’ll stop tonight?’

  ‘Wherever there’s a space set aside for us to sleep, my poppet. And no need of a hedge, either. A grassy field and a hunk of bread and cheese each, that will do me nicely. For there’ll be no rain tonight to wet us. Not with this hot sun.’

  With another chuckle, the seamstress took a generous swig of ale herself, then tucked the bottle safely away under her apron, shooting a surreptitious glance at the sour-faced woman as though to check she had not seen.

  ‘Best get some sleep now, child. There’ll be no stopping again till past noon.’

  The open cart rumbled on in the sunshine, mile after mile taking them further away from London and the familiar mud-thick stench of the Thames. Lucy tried not to doze off, watching the trees pass overhead and delighting in the sun on her face. But eventually she too fell asleep, her knees relaxing, her head nodding on to her chest. Her dreams were confused, filled with grinning cartmen chasing her down green country lanes which seemed to go on for ever. In her dream, someone was calling out behind her, reaching out to grab her shoulder.

  She woke to urgent cries, finding herself slumped sideways in the cart, her cap askew, her skirts soiled with straw.

  ‘The Queen! Look, child, it’s the Queen!’

  The whole cart was in uproar. Even the sour-faced widow had struggled to her feet, calling excitedly to the snoring laundress on her other side to wake up, that the Queen’s party was bearing down on them and would soon be passing the cart.

  Lucy stretched out her limbs, stiff with the tingling cramp of sleeping too long in one position, and immediately felt a very real and pressing need to relieve herself. Except there was nowhere to do so but publicly, in a little tarred quarter-barrel assigned for such needs and then emptied over the side of the cart in full view of the driver and his mate, a thought which dismayed her.

  Then she realized belatedly what the others were shouting and lurched to her feet, as eager as everyone else to catch a glimpse of the Queen.

  ‘Look!’ someone cried as the first outriders of the Queen’s guard came into view, though all she could see was a cloud of dust rising on the road behind them, and the coarse linen hood of the woman in front of her.

  The wagon swayed perilously and Lucy was thrown against its rough wooden side, banging her knee. The driver swore an oath she had not heard since her childhood on the streets of London, and called for the ‘idiot women’ to sit down again before they upset the cart. But none of them paid the man any attention.

  The guards came first in their leather jerkins, buckles and mail-coats flashing in the sun. Then she saw the familiar figure of the Earl of Leicester cantering ahead of the royal party, his swift gaze examining the faces of those in each cart he passed. It was almost as if he were looking for someone, Lucy thought curiously, except for the casual turn of that dark head, one gloved fist resting arrogantly on his hip, reins held seemingly slack in the other. She had seen him at court often enough – though he had never noticed her, Lucy was sure of it. And why should he? The earl’s feathered cap was pitched at an angle, and he seemed to be controlling the animal with just his knees and booted feet, unconcerned by the speed at which he was travelling.

  Reaching the party of foot soldiers, the earl pulled the animal up and spoke softly to them for a moment, then wheeled his sweating black stallion about and rode back towards the Queen.

  Lucy turned her head and craned to see the royal entourage as it passed their cart. Her view was impeded by the guards riding in strict formation beside the Queen, their horses almost nose to tail. At first, all she could see was a frilled white-gold canopy supported by four outriders, then the young guard nearest her fell back a pace or two, fumbling with his reins as the horse shied, and she caught a fleeting glimpse of the Queen herself.

  Perched on a white horse, Queen Elizabeth sat pale and straight-backed under an elaborate headdress, her glorious red hair coiled high with pearls, a vast ivory ruff fanning out like angel wings on either side of her head. Her face was set, but her eyes seemed fixed on the Earl of Leicester’s figure as he saluted her briefly, threw a laughing comment towards one of her immaculately groomed ladies, then brought his dancing stallion round to the rear of the column where the chief courtiers rode.

  ‘God save Her Majesty!’ Lucy called out impulsively, if rather too late, as the white-gold canopy swayed out of sight.

  The Queen’s horse moved on, and Lucy was left feeling a little foolish, leaning out over the side of the cart, gritty dust in her face, with nothing to see but the liveried rumps of the guards’ horses.

  But someone had heard her. The Earl of Leicester had dropped to a more sedate trot beside one of the courtiers in the Queen’s train, a stately old man with a grizzled beard and a heavily ornate gold chain about his neck. Now he paused in his conversation, a courteous smile still on his face, and turned his head in the direction of that shout, swift and alert, like a hound questing for a hare.

  His dark eyes found her, and Lucy, forgetting for the briefest of moments to lower her gaze before his as a servant should do, smiled back at the earl.

  ‘Oh now, look you. He’s a proper one for the ladies, he is!’ The seamstress nodded at Leicester’s departing back, then chuckled as her stout companion gasped
and nudged her in the ribs. ‘These Dudleys. Always one hand on the crown and the other on my lady’s crotch. Young Robin Dudley was Master of the Horse when I first came to court. Now he’s Lord Robert, if you please, master of the Queen – and father to her children.’

  Lucy sat down again in the rocking cart, shocked and staring, appalled by the woman’s story. ‘Queen Elizabeth has children by the Earl of Leicester?’

  ‘Two, so they say,’ the seamstress confided, not even bothering to lower her voice, ‘and both hidden away safe in the country where the Scots Queen may not find them and murder the poor babes in their beds.’

  ‘Stop peddling your filth to this foolish child, Mistress Cubbon, or I’ll report you to the chief steward for speaking treason against the Queen.’ The widow shook her head in disgust, her face stiff under the plain black hood as she turned to Lucy. ‘Girl, don’t endanger yourself by listening to this woman’s nonsense. I know her type – little better than a common drunk, for all her skill with a needle. Everyone knows our queen is a chaste, God-fearing virgin and will remain so until her wedding night. And the Earl of Leicester is a wise and sober gentleman of the court, who has not so much as looked at another lady since his own poor wife died.’

  ‘Aye, and by whose hand did his poor wife die?’ the seamstress snorted. But she shrugged uneasily at the widow’s furious glare and looked away. ‘Well, well, that was long ago. And it may all be nonsense, after all. God save Her Majesty and preserve his lordship.’

  Lucy said nothing after this, fearing what might come of such a dangerous conversation, and the women’s talk soon died away to bitter murmurs, lost in the creaking sway and judder of the cart.

  Desperate now to relieve herself, she sat for the next few miles in an uncomfortable silence, head bowed in her neat white cap, attempting to suck an evil-looking splinter out of her finger. She had decided it was probably best not to mention that the Earl of Leicester had winked at her.

  One

  Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, Wednesday 6 July, 1575

  EVERY EVENING SINCE his arrival, Walsingham had come down from his rooms in Caesar’s Tower to take his customary walk along the water’s edge before retiring. He tended to keep early hours in the country, and until the court came to Kenilworth the Queen’s chief secretary had no reason to change his routine. Three days he had been in residence, having excused himself early from the progress through Oxfordshire and travelled on ahead to check that security was in place for the Queen’s arrival at Kenilworth.