Conspiracy Read online

  ASSASSIN

  BETRAYAL

  CONSPIRACY

  To Ben and Teazle—my family

  VERY SECRETE!

  DAYBOOKE THE THIRD OF

  MY LADY GRACE CAVENDISH,

  MAID OF HONOUR TO HER GRACIOUS MAJESTY

  QUEEN ELIZABETH I OF THAT NAME

  AT THE QUEEN'S COURT

  ON PROGRESS

  THE FIRST DAY OF AUGUST,

  IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1569

  And here have I another daybooke and five fine new quill pens from the feathers of one of the geese, and the Queen has given me a new bottle full of ink, made with crystal and chased with gold, and it has a stopper that locks. She gave it me on condition I do no more writing when wearing my white damask gown. Not even if I am very careful. We have unpicked the piece that somehow got ink upon it and put a new piece of white damask in—I think it looks very well, though Mrs. Champernowne grumbled that the colour was a little different.

  I am writing this as I sit upon a big chest full of clothes, wearing my black wool kittle, which will take no harm from ink at all, so fie on you, Mrs. Champernowne.

  Olwen, Lady Sarah's tiring woman, is trying to pack all Sarah's little pots of face paint and unguents, but Lady Sarah keeps unpacking them again. She has a new spot on her chin, and she is searching for an ointment her mother gave her yestereven—of goose fat with a burnt mouse's tail mixed in it—sovereign against all blemishes.

  Mary Shelton is nibbling at some gingerbread and watching. “Did you never think that perhaps it is all the creams and elixirs you use that give you so many spots, Sarah?” she just asked.

  Sarah only tossed her head and made a “Ptah!” noise, though I think Mary has a point.

  When we leave the Oxeys' house, the Court will move to Kenilworth, which is my lord the Earl of Leicester's chief residence—the Queen gave it him five years ago. It is very exciting—my lord of Leicester is Master of the Queen's Horse and her best friend and he organizes all the revels and processions and ceremonies for the Court and so we are looking forward to wonderful entertainments at his own residence. My tumbler friend Masou will be performing. He has already gone ahead to make ready.

  I love being on progress. Although it is tiresome to have to share a chamber with all five of the other Maids of Honour. Lady Sarah constantly fusses over her face paint—of course, I am used to that—and bickers with Lady Jane Coningsby. Carmina Willoughby and Penelope Knollys gossip incessantly like noisy geese. And Mary Shelton, with whom I share a bed, snores most horribly and keeps me awake half the night. Nevertheless, even if it were not a way for the Queen to see her people, feed the Court at the expense of her nobles, and allow the London palaces to be cleaned and whitewashed, going on progress would still be the finest way to spend the hot summer months when London is full of plagile.

  . I don't even mind all the riding from one house to another with the rest of the Court cavalcade, because all of us Maids of Honour ride nice steady amblers and we each sit behind a groom on pillion seats. Lady Jane Coningsby, who is a good rider, complains that it is too tedious for words, but I feel much better with another controlling the horse. Somehow, whatever I ask a horse to do, I find it always does the opposite.

  The Queen says I am too soft with my horse and do not make it obey me, and that is why my mounts always act so froward and unseat me—or run away with me!

  Lady Sarah is now squinting to put on her spot cream by the light of one small candle. As her creams usually do, it smells very nasty despite having heal-all pounded into it as well as the mouse-tail ashes.

  My dear friend Ellie, the laundrymaid, just went by with her arms fall of sheets and rolled her eyes at me over Sarah. One of the best things about being on progress is that I can borrow Ellie from the laundry and have her with me as my unofficial tiring woman. She is currently making herself useful by helping Olwen pile the sheets into chests, while Olwen mutters to herself, “Wherefore six sheets and nine smocks and every one of them used? Ah, bless you, Ellie, they can all pack here, look you, and then we shall have space for the pillowcases. …”

  One of the men from the Removing Wardrobe of Beds has begun to take down the bed curtains. Usually they wait until we are all gone but they want to be off soon. The Removing Wardrobe has two sets of everything, so while we are in Kenilworth they will be going to our next destination and setting everything up again ready for the Queen.

  Now the other two men are on ladders, unpegging the tester-frame and the posts, and carrying bed parts through the passageways and out into the courtyard. I can see the carts waiting by torchlight, with the horses still munching in their nosebags and stamping their huge hairy feet.

  The Queen's Chambers are the last to go. The men always wait until she is gone before they start dismantling them and taking down the frames of brocade from the walls. When everything is ready we will go and attend upon her. Oh, no, not again! Sarah picked up another pot—with ground talcum in it this time—and a swansdown puff to carefully powder the end of her nose.

  “Will you kindly be giving me that, my lady?” Olwen snapped, picking up the pot and holding her hand out for the puff. “You shall be late for attending upon Her Majesty, look you. …”

  “But my nose is all shiny again,” Sarah said with a pout. “I'll just—”

  Olwen has just tutted and nipped the swansdown puff out of Sarah's fingers, because Mrs. Champernowne, Mistress of the Maids, has come bustling in.

  “Where are the Maids of Honour?” she is saying. “Come along with you, now. You should have been ready to attend Her Majesty ten minutes ago!”

  And so I must put my beautiful new daybooke and my penner away in my embroidery bag to attend the Queen—I wonder what she will be like today. She hates mornings but she loves progresses, so it is like tossing a coin.

  We have now stopped for dinner at a gentleman's manor house, near the village of Charlecote. The gentleman who owns the house is making a speech at the moment, which is full of Latin and Greek and immensely boring. The Queen can sit and smile and look attentive for hours on end, but I can only survive by pretending to make notes on the speech, as I am doing now, while actually writing in my daybooke instead.

  Luckily, the food is delicious. The Queen's cooks prepared it, and there are spit-roasted ducks in a plum sauce and kidneys in penny-loaves—and strawberries and raspberries, too! Late ones—with cream. I love them. I was going to save a few for Ellie but I couldn't bear it any more and I ate them all up.

  We left Oxey Hall so early the sun was just coming up, and we rode through the cool of the morning, which was quite pleasant. My ambler, Ginger, was very well-behaved for Mr. Helston, my groom. The seat was padded, so I could sit quite comfortably and watch the fields go past—all golden with stubble after the harvest, with haystacks, fat like giant harvest mice, hunched in the corners of the fields. My groom is ancient—at least forty-five—and he talks mainly to the horse and just says, “Yes, my lady,” and “No, my lady,” to me. He sounds as if he has a cold.

  We always ride in the same order. Mr. Hatton, the Captain of the Queen's Guard, and his men go at the front, after the harbingers and heralds. And then comes the Queen, riding her beautiful dappled grey horse that came from Hungary, and attended by the Earl of Leicester. He is her Master of Horse, so he is always by her side on progress—and besides, he is her favourite, as everyone knows. Behind and around the Queen ride the various gentlemen she likes to attend on her, followed by us Maids of Honour and all the rest of the Court.

  When we passed through villages, the people came running in from the fields and the women brought their children out in their Sunday clothes. They were waiting by the road to cheer the Queen as she rode by. They were full of excitement and pride that she had c
hosen their village to ride through, and not the all but identical hamlet a mile away, their bitter rivals since the Romans left.

  They stared at the Queen and all of us and talked about us as if we couldn't hear, which can be embarrassing: one woman tutted and said, “Well, she'm a fair maid with her red velvet hood, but from her face she's got powerful indigestion. Looks as if she swallowed a pint of vinegar!” The only one with a red hood was Lady Jane Coningsby. Lady Sarah giggled at that—she hates Lady Jane, who is not terribly popular with any of us.

  The Queen is very clever and charming with her subjects and the people love her. When she spotted a baby in his shirt, squealing and waving his little biggin cap, she reined in her horse and the Earl called the halt, looking wary. It certainly was a very sweet baby. He had bright gold hair and big blue eyes and only a little snot on his upper lip. He was looking up at the Queen and roaring with laughter, I think because of all her bright sparkling jewels.

  The Queen smiled down at the baby and his mother, who was flushed with pride. He crowed and started clapping, but it looked as if he had only just learned to clap because sometimes he missed and smacked his nose, which made us all smile.

  “There's a fair, bold babe,” the Queen said, still smiling.

  His mother curtsied and held him up to her as high as she could. “And a true liegeman of Your Majesty,” she puffed. “I pray God to bless you with as fine a little lad as he.”

  Some of the gentlemen sucked air in at that, for usually talk of babies makes the Queen sad or angry—perchance because some say that, at almost thirty-six, the Queen will soon be too old to have babes of her own, and she doesn't like to be reminded. This time she leaned down to stroke the baby's cheek. He smiled sunnily up at her and grabbed a pearl sewn to her sleeve, which came off in his hand.

  “Oh, now! Look what you did, you naughty—” tutted his mother.

  “Let him have the pearl,” said the Queen lightly. “As a keepsake. You are a lucky woman.”

  The mother curtsied as the Queen rode on, and the Earl commanded us to proceed. I looked back as we went round a bend in the road, to see the mother firmly stopping the baby from putting the Queen's pearl in his mouth.

  Mary Shelton, who was riding beside me, sitting pillion behind her own groom, had stopped knitting—a coat for one of her older sister's children— to watch the spectacle. She had a knowing smile on her face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Mayhap the Queen is broody,” she observed. “Do you think she is thinking about marriage again? She always goes broody when she does that.”

  I peered at the Queen ahead of us. The Earl of Leicester was leaning over slightly to listen to what she was saying to him. He normally looks disagreeable and he isn't at all popular at Court, but whenever he is near the Queen, his face softens. It's always hard to imagine people as old as the Queen and the Earl of Leicester being romantic or in love. But they have been for a long time—and I saw it quite early on, even though I didn't really understand it at the time, as I was only a small child.

  Mary stared thoughtfully at me. “You must know something of Her Majesty's fondness for the Earl, Grace,” she said.

  I nodded. “But I was very young then—only five and just out of leading strings. I remember seeing the Queen very happy. And my mother—who as you know was one of her Ladies-in-Waiting and her closest friend—was happy for her. But worried for her, too. Because the Earl—who was not yet Earl of Leicester, and known as Robert Dudley—was already married to Amy Robsart.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Mary eagerly. “And then Amy died, and how she died caused a great scandal, did it not?” she asked.

  The other Maids of Honour were pretending they weren't interested, but I noticed that they had all got their gropms to ride a bit closer to listen, because of course I am the only one of us who was at Court when the scandal occurred.

  I began to tell Mary what I knew of that time, eight years ago, when the Queen and Robert Dudley were first thought to be in love. My mother had told me that Her Majesty had become friends with Dudley when they were both much younger and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Queen Elizabeth was only a Princess then and she had been imprisoned by her own older sister, Mary, who was Queen at the time.

  Once the Princess Elizabeth had become Queen, she and Dudley were together all the time. Whenever he jousted he wore the Queen's favour on his shoulder—her glove or kerchief—and there was lots of gossip about it. All the other nobles at Court were furious because the Dudleys were seen as a family of upstarts—and Robert Dudley's father and grandfather had both been executed for treason.

  But Her Majesty didn't care—she was in love. She believed that if she waited, Dudley would be hers— because Amy Robsart was sickly and bedridden. It was only a matter of time before Dudley would be free to marry again.

  “And then news came that Amy Robsart was dead,” I went on. “It was said she fell and broke her neck from tripping on the stairs—”

  “She tripped?” Mary said, looking doubtful. “Though she was bedridden?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It was too convenient. Everyone said Dudley must have lost patience and murdered Amy to clear his way to Her Majesty. And of course such gossip meant Her Majesty had to shun Dudley—she could not be involved in a scandal. The other nobles would have been outraged. She might have lost her throne.”

  I didn't tell Mary what else I remembered: my mother clasping the Queen to her as Her Majesty had sobbed brokenly, whispering, “He would never do such a thing, never! But God help us, Margaret—there is no way for us to prove it!”

  “No, Your Majesty,” my mother had agreed sadly.

  My nurse had then been sent for to take me away to pick flowers.

  I turned back to Mary. “I don't know what to think. And my mother would never talk of it afterwards.” And now she is dead from saving the Queen's life by accidentally drinking poison meant for her, so I can never ask her. Though I suspect she did not like Robert Dudley, and only countenanced him because the Queen was smitten and could see no wrong in him.

  Talk of my mother makes me sad, for I miss her terribly. Although, since her tragic death just over a year ago, the Queen has been very kind to me and has quite taken me under her wing. Indeed, that is why I am her Maid of Honour, even though I am so young.

  While Mary and I were talking about this, we could see the Earl of Leicester riding ahead in the cavalcade with the Queen. He is quite handsome and tall, with flashing blue eyes and dark hair, and he is a wonderful horseman. Of course he is very old—one year older than the Queen, and I think he is getting a bit heavy. He is arrogant and ill-tempered, except when he talks to the Queen—and then he is charming and patient, even when Her Majesty is cross with him and hits him with her fan.

  I wonder if he really did murder his wife. If I had been a Lady Pursuivant for the Queen then—in charge of pursuing and apprehending all wrongdoers at Court—as I am now, perhaps I could have found out the truth of it….

  We couldn't talk any more about it, because we had arrived at this little village with its small manor house, where I am writing now. The gentleman is still speechifying to the Queen, but when he has stopped and the Queen has finished dinner, we will head on to Kenilworth and—Oh, good! I think the speech is coming to an end.

  Hell's teeth! The speech did stop for a little and we all sighed with relief, but then the gentleman drank a toast to the Queen and started again! How does he remember it all? At least I have just had a very interesting conversation with Mary Shelton.

  “The Queen is up to something—there's a plot afoot,” Mary said to me quietly, with her mouth full. “Did you hear that there will be a new suitor for Her Majesty at Kenilworth? She has invited a foreign prince to be there at the same time. I overheard her discussing the arrangements with Mr. Secretary Cecil. I expect my lord the Earl of Leicester is most put out that he must entertain one of the Queen's suitors,”

  I looked across to where the Earl was kneeling at
the Queen's side, offering her a plate of ham. He certainly looked tired and not entirely happy.

  “Oh, my lord, Earl of Leicester,” Mary said in a different voice with a toss of her head. I don't know how she does it but she can do an exact imitation of the Queen. “Fie on this sun, it is too warm.”

  Then she reared her head back like the Earl and growled down her nose, “I am Your Majesty's to command—only stay a moment and I shall knock the sun from the sky for annoying you.”

  I laughed. “If the Queen ever hears you doing that, she will be furious,” I said.

  Mary shrugged and smiled and popped a piece of pie in her mouth.

  Thank the Lord, the gentleman has stopped speaking and the Queen is thanking him ex tempore in Latin, which she speaks quite well. He is looking terrified. I don't think he understands what she is saying. Serve him right for going on so long.

  Kenilworth is wonderful! Nobody can arrange entertainments and pastimes like the Earl! I know a lot of people hate him and ask how he dare be friends with the Queen, but undoubtedly he is a brilliant Master of Ceremonies.

  I am now sitting on the bed I am going to share with Mary Shelton, scribbling away with my new pen, which is very nice and smooth and not so worn down as my old one, so I have no blots in this day-booke yet.

  The chambers the Maids of Honour and the Ladies-in-Waiting have been given are quite old-fashioned, but on the walls the Earl has hung wonderful tapestries, all woven with silver and gold thread that must have cosi a fortune. There are three chambers that lead to the Queen's two. The six Ladies-in-Waiting have two of the three and all of us Maids of Honour share the other. It has three big beds from the Removing Wardrobe of Beds crammed into it. We have to share beds, and Olwen and Fran, and anybody else attending us, will have to sleep on the floor—though there isn't very much of that, either. Still, at least we're not in tents like some of the gentlemen.