Lucy's Blade Read online

  , that ran from London southwest to Nonsuch, but it was a little too far to the east of Barn Elms to make it worthwhile seeking out. Nonsuch was just plain in the wrong place. So the party were forced to trek overland.

  By midafternoon, the travellers were within a short ride of the palace. Walsingham led the way single file through a thicket. Simon had found the journey tedious beyond belief riding alongside Gwilym. The man refreshed himself often, from a beer jar slung around his saddle. He sang continuously, mostly a ditty about the amorous adventures of a Little Pixy.

  "Rye-over, rye-over, rye-over, aye-ay,

  "I up's on me shoulder, me shoulder away,

  "For when she was only an unkissed sixteen,

  "I showed 'er "

  Simon dreaded to think what the Little Pixie showed her.

  Two men rushed out at the spymaster and thrust weapons at him. Walsingham's horse reared in panic, throwing the rider over the tail. The horse took the billhook meant for the spymaster's throat, but the fall left Walsingham helpless on the forest floor.

  Young Sydney screamed a battle cry and rode straight into the fray bowling over Walsingham's attackers. Six generations of aristocratic breeding paid off. Two more bandits appeared and Sydney took them on as well. He punched a hole though a throat with his sword but a blade caught him a nasty gash in the thigh. He lost his weapon and slumped over his horse's neck in shock.

  Simon froze.

  Gwilym rode past him at the gallop.

  " 'Ave a sip on me, sunshine," said Gwilym.

  He felled one attacker with a single blow from the jar, which smashed, spraying the man.

  "My beer! A pox on you tosspots," said an enraged Gwilym.

  In fury, he engaged the other two with his sword. Simon unfroze and rushed to Gwilym's aide, waving his sword over his head and screaming. The attackers took one look at the charge of the wild man and fled, retreating into a thicket where the horses couldn't pursue. Gwilym roared abuse after them, flicking his thumb against his teeth in a gesture of contempt. Simon fell off his horse into a bush.

  "Are you all right, Sir Francis?" Simon spat out leaves.

  The statesman sat up and flicked mud off his doublet. "Yes, yes, look to Sydney. He took a bad blow."

  The young gentleman held tight to his horse's neck. His face was white with shock and blood ran down his leg. Simon and Gwilym lifted him from the saddle and placed him flat on the ground.

  "Hold him, Gwilym, while I stop the bleeding." Simon cut open Sydney's breeches and tied a tourniquet around his leg.

  "Tight now, Gwilym. I am going to put pressure on the wound and it will hurt."

  Sydney moaned. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted.

  "Can you save him, Tunstall?" asked Walsingham, concerned.

  "I think so," said Simon. "The bleeding is slowing."

  A groan sounded from the ground behind them.

  "Broke my beer jar and the villain don't even have the decency to die cleanly." Gwilym pulled the fallen man's head back and placed a dagger against his throat.

  "No, Gwilym, hold," said Walsingham. "I'll have that one alive."

  "As you want, your 'onour." Gwilym reversed his dagger and struck the bandit carefully on the temple with the pommel, knocking him out.

  Walsingham's quick eye alighted on a pouch at the belt of the man killed by Sidney. He pulled it off and handed it to Walsingham, who unlaced it. Gold sovereigns spilled out into Walsingham's palm.

  "A rich purse for bandits. I wonder who gave them these?" asked Walsingham, suspiciously. "Just reward for you, Gwilym. You earned every pennyworth today." He tossed the coins to the Welshman.

  Walsingham turned to Simon. "Your bravery did not pass unnoticed either, Master Tunstall. I had no idea you were so fierce with a sword."

  "In truth, Sir Francis, I have no skill with the weapon," said Simon, ruefully.

  "Then what would you have done if they had stood and fought?" asked Walsingham with a laugh.

  "I had not thought things through to that point," admitted Simon.

  Walsingham's praise did not fill him with pride. He recalled that moment of weakness when he could not move with complete, shameful, clarity. Without Gwilym, they would all be dead.

  Gwilym tied the semiconscious prisoner to his horse and they resumed their journey. Simon led Sydney's horse. One hundred and forty-three more verses of "The Little Pixie" brought them into the estates around Nonsuch.

  The lands around the palace were extensive. Old King Harry had demolished a whole village, Cuddington, and diverted several highways to create the thousand-acre park. The King died before the palace was complete and Queen Mary subsequently sold it to the Earl of Arundel. The old Earl died a few weeks ago and the palace had passed to his son in law, Lord Lumley.

  Elizabeth, and hence the court, was a frequent guest.

  No matter how many times Simon saw Nonsuch, it always took his breath away. King Harry had hired Italian architects to work with his English master masons. The result should have been a disaster but instead it was a triumph. Ornate Italian towers soared airily over dark, brooding, English Gothic halls.

  The riders threaded their way through ornate tents outside the palace. Nonsuch lacked sufficient guestrooms for the royal entourage, so the minor courtiers and servants were consigned to canvas. This made Nonsuch an unpopular destination for all but the Queen, but her opinion was the only one that counted.

  Walsingham hailed a guard captain at the gate. "Get Master Sydney to a bed and see he is attended by a physician."

  "Yes, Sir Francis."

  "Gwilym," said Walsingham. "Take the prisoner to the guard house and patch him up. I want him put him to the question."

  "Yes, Sir Francis."

  "You, fellow." Walsingham gestured to a steward, who stood ringing his hands in the middle distance.

  "Yes, Sir Francis."

  "Where would I find Lady Dennys?"

  "In the Italian Garden, Sir Francis."

  Lord Lumley had created an Italian garden, the first in England, to complement the Italian features of Nonsuch. Walsingham strode off in search of his niece, Simon following.

  "I have been far too indulgent with that girl, Tunstall." Walsingham set a brisk pace for a man of mature years.

  "Yes, Sir Francis."

  "This time I intend to have my way."

  "Yes, Sir Francis."

  "I spoil her because she reminds me of my daughter, Frances, of course. That the same plague took my wife and child as well as Lucy's parents seemed an omen that God intended me to be her guardian."

  "Yes, Sir Francis."

  High hedges laid out in a halfhearted maze shielded the Italian Garden from the wind. Walsingham and Simon entered at the lower garden below the long pool. Inside the green walls, the air was still and warm. The garden was alight with the buzz of insects visiting the flowers. Lucy sat reading on a stone bench in the shade of a small folly.

  "Lucy!" called Walsingham.

  She looked up and leapt to her feet. Abandoning dignity, the girl ran the full length of the long pool. As she was at court, she wore a formal gown even in the garden. It split down the front as she ran, her legs kicking out her white petticoat in front. The effect was exactly as the French dress designer intended, which was an act of great imagination on the designer's part, as he preferred boys.

  She threw herself into her uncle's arms and he whirled around with her. The girl disengaged and curtseyed.

  "Greetings sir," she said to Walsingham. "I hope you had a tolerable journey?"

  "Well, actually . . ." Walsingham began but Lucy was not listening. She kissed her uncle and then Simon formally on the lips in the way that an English lady greeted or took leave of guests or a host. The freedom given to English women was the scandal of the continent and nothing aroused more comment than the "English kiss."

  "Now, Lucy. I want a serious talk with you," said Walsingham, leading her back into the folly. Simon waited politely outside but he coul
d hear every word.

  "You were sixteen this summer, well past the age you should be betrothed. You have not lacked for offers from men that I consider suitable. I have been more than patient but this cannot go on. I shall just have to select a husband for you if you do not make your own choice soon."

  Walsingham would be quite within his rights in ordering Lucy to wed; indeed, it was his duty to her dead parents. Young women were delightful creatures but absurdly flighty and inconstant. It was said that the love of a maid was like the spring rain—it was as like to fall on a cowpat as a rose. Left to her own devices, Lucy would probably waste her fortune and her maidenhead on the first rascal that gave her a pretty smile and a beguiling story. That was why the law quite rightly insisted that she should have a male protector, responsible for both her money and her future.

  Lucy's lip trembled. "Please, Uncle, don't scold me so. I have so been looking forward to your visit."

  "Now, now, Lucy. Don't take on. I have your best interests at heart," Walsingham said, patting her hand.

  Simon thought that it was just as well that Elizabeth's enemies could not see the fearsome spymaster being moulded like fresh clay by the young girl. Lucy had that effect on men.

  "I mean, take that young Sydney. He is eminently worthy and the man clearly adores you. Probably too much for his own good, I'll warrant. He would never be complete master of any household that included you despite being brave and valorous as a lion. The boy took a terrible wound defending me on the way here to see you."

  "Master Sydney hurt . . ." The girl put her hand to her mouth in shock.

  That was the trouble with Lucy, thought Simon. She was essentially good-hearted as well as beautiful, so men were drawn to her like drunkards to a keg.

  "I have sent a physician to him," said Walsingham.

  "Poor James, I must go to him at once." She picked up her skirts and ran out of the garden.

  Walsingham leaned back on the bench and grinned at Simon. "I thought that might do it. Nothing like a wounded hero to win a young girl's heart."

  "Yes, Sir Francis," said Simon. He held his council, as he thought otherwise. Sir Francis seemed not to have noticed that Lucy had adroitly removed herself from a conversation that she wished to avoid.

  In the last two years, Walsingham had paraded a small phalanx of suitable men in front of the girl. She had seemed struck with a number of them but, like a frightened filly in a steeplechase, had always shied away at the final fence. Simon suspected that poor Sydney was about to be another casualty in the quest for Lucy's heart.

  Act 4

  The Palace of Nonsuch

  Why are these places always underground? thought Simon. Is it simply tradition or is there a natural tendency for such functions to gravitate toward Hell? It was damp and cold belowground. His torch lit Walsingham's back, throwing the spymaster's flickering shadow onto the cellar wall. Walsingham pulled open the heavy wooden door with a thud that echoed down the stone walls.

  "Oh God, oh God, oh God, please no more." The scream cut through the air.

  The captured assassin was stretched over a wooden frame by ropes attached to his wrists and ankles. The wrist lines were wrapped around a drum that could be turned by a large wheel to increase the tension. The assassin's joints already strained.

  "You should have thought of God, matey, before you tried to stick a blade in my gut." Gwilym gave the wheel of the rack another tenth of a turn eliciting a loud pop from a knee joint and more screams.

  "I told you, I don't know who paid us. We met him in a tavern. He told us where to set the ambush. The gentlemen must not reach Nonsuch, that were the instructions. That's all he said. They mustn't reach the palace."

  Gwilym went to give the wheel another turn.

  "No more, he has nothing more for us." Walsingham called off his man.

  "'Ee might just need a bit more encouragement to name names, your 'onour," said Gwilym.

  "I don't think so," said Walsingham. "Any more would be pointless cruelty. Cut him down and give him to the hangman."

  No experience seemed to affect Walsingham, but Simon needed no encouragement to leave the torture room. He wanted fresh air to get the stink of blood, bodily wastes, and fear out of his nose.

  "That was a waste of time," said Simon, in disgust.

  "Not so, Master Tunstall. We learnt two important facts." Walsingham placed the tips of his fingers together, so Simon knew he was in for a lecture.

  "The first is inconsequential. They knew exactly where and when to wait for us. We have a spy at Barn Elms. Someone is passing information. Well, Gwilym can be relied upon to ferret that out. No, it's the second point that bothers me more. 'They must not reach Nonsuch'—that's what he said. Why, Master Tunstall? Why must we be prevented from reaching the Palace? What is going to happen here?"

  Walsingham led the way into the heart of the main building. Simon followed a respectful three steps behind. They passed a number of guard stations but Walsingham was waved through each time without breaking step. The final set of guards stood in front of a long corridor that led to the audience room. Walsingham proceeded up the corridor at his normal measured pace. A gaggle of men appeared at the far end. The Earl of Oxford, a thin, stooping man dressed in expensive finery, led them. He sported a royal blue doublet with fashionable peasecod belly and tight Venetian breeches. The costume was stitched through with gold thread. A ruff, so large that it fell upon his shoulders, completed the ensemble. Simon thought the Earl looked like a peacock that someone had kicked in the rear so hard its tail had become stuck around his head.

  The corridor was not wide enough for both parties. Walsingham strode on, forcing the Earl to stand to one side with his entourage.

  "My Lord." Walsingham inclined his head ever so slightly.

  "Sir Francis." The Earl spoke civilly but his eyes blazed.

  "Why does the Earl give way to a mere knight? We should thrash the fellow." One of Oxford's young prot g s, freshly in from the provinces, expressed anger at his master's humiliation.

  "Shut up you fool or he might hear you. That's Walsingham," said a more experienced member of Oxford's retinue.

  "Why does he hate you so?" Simon asked Walsingham.

  "A simple question with a complicated answer," said Walsingham. "Elizabeth's sister, Queen Mary, assembled a ragbag of nobility to act as her councillors. Most were appointed on a whim that usually had little connection to their political views or abilities. So they had no common policy and spent most of their time arguing with each other and competing for the Queen's attention. Elizabeth, on the other hand, secretly assembled a government in waiting even when Mary still ruled. She selected her statesmen largely from the alumni of Cambridge University and she chose capable people who shared her views on the world."

  Simon understood that to mean people who supported the New Religion.

  "Some of those people were nobility, like my Lords Burghley and Leicester, but others were of humbler stock."

  Walsingham smiled grimly at this point, since he was one of the latter. His mother was a Dennys but his father was a prosperous merchant who acquired respectability by buying a manor house in Kent.

  "Of course that disenfranchised many nobles, traditionalists, and fools. Oxford encompasses all three in one body. To put it at its simplest, he hates me because I have the Queen's ear and he doesn't."

  "I see," said Simon.

  "Some years ago, the noble Earl of Oxford bent in the throne room before Her Majesty and broke wind with alarming vigour. The court erupted in laughter. I thought Elizabeth would break her stays. Humiliated, the Earl withdrew and sulked on his estates. It was some little time before he reappeared at court. Do you know what Her Majesty said when he bent to kiss her hand?"

  "No, Sir Francis," said Simon.

  "She said, 'Fear not, my Lord, I have quite forgot the fart.' " Walsingham shook his head. " 'I have quite forgot the fart.' Of course, he hates her as well for the sport she made of him. Poor Anne Cecil, Burghl
ey's daughter, is married to the man. He treats her abominably. I thought Burghley ill advised to consent to the match."

  The spymaster pondered, his face suddenly without humour. "Do you not think that he has a lean and hungry look? All plotters seem to share it. Give me fat men who are content with their lot."

  The irony, thought Simon, was that Walsingham himself was one of the leanest men in Christendom. Walsingham strode into the audience room with Simon behind him. Both men bowed low in the direction of an improvised throne. On it sat the Queen of England. She was deep in conversation with a man dressed in the robes and skullcap of a scholar. Areas where the robes had worn threadbare thin suggested that the man had the typical scholar's indifference to wealth. Walsingham waited patiently at the back. One did not interrupt a queen; in particular, one did not interrupt this queen.

  "Look at the colours and glitter on the fine clothes of the courtiers," whispered Simon to Walsingham. "The court shines."

  "It shines with the glow of rotting wood," said Walsingham. "This is the most dangerous place in the land."

  "The Queen's gown is spectacular," said Simon, still enthralled despite Walsingham's cynicism. "She must spend hours with dressers every morning."

  "We must allow her the vanity of her sex," said Walsingham. "Her sister, Queen Mary, cared but little for her appearance but indulged her vanity in her rule. No argument or fact could sway her as she believed that her every whim had the endorsement of God. So good men burned at the stake because they opposed her will. Even her husband, Philip of Spain, cried halt but could not dissuade her."

  Simon could not remember the reign of Bloody Mary but he knew that Walsingham had fled England for his very life.

  "So let Her Majesty indulge her vanity in her appearance," said Walsingham. "She knows she dare not indulge it in her politics."

  "I see Dee is at his most unctuous," Walsingham said, nodding in the direction of the scholar. "Looking at him now, you would not believe that he was one of the more drunken revellers at Cambridge. His party trick was knife throwing. He used to pin tavern wenches to the wall by their skirts."