The Course of All Treasons Page 4

  Once again, Nick found himself outside the royal apartments trying to gain admittance from the granite-faced guards.

  “I assure you, she’ll want to see me,” Nick said. When that got no response, he pulled out his ace, a bit of gossip he had overheard in The Black Sheep. “Hey, Bill,” he said to the bigger of the two. “Heard you got into a bit of fisticuffs last month. Tried to choke the royal cook with his apron.”

  “A misunderstanding,” Bill managed to say without moving his mouth. Royal guards were not supposed to speak while on duty.

  “Not what I heard. Something about broken fingers and how he can’t hold a ladle anymore, let alone whip up those fairy cakes the Queen is so fond of.” Nick grinned nastily. “Wonder if the Queen knows you’re the reason her food tastes like crap nowadays.”

  “You bastard,” hissed Bill. Then, to his younger companion, “Let him in, Lenny. Maybe Her Majesty will send him to the Tower.”

  “Live in hope,” Nick said. “I’ll tell the cook you’ll send flowers.” This as an aside as he ducked under their crossed pikes. He was still smiling to himself when he found himself face-to-face with Elizabeth, who was standing on the other side of the door. He hastily made a leg. “Your Majesty.”

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” was his august monarch’s response. “We were just talking about you.”

  It took Nick a moment to figure out that Elizabeth’s use of we was not the royal prerogative but grammatically precise. Reclining on a cushioned settle in front of the fire was a young fop resplendent in a peapod doublet of white-and-black silk scintillating with silver thread. The effect was calculatingly blinding, as were the long legs, also clad in white hose, indolently stretched out in front of him. He wore no breeches that Nick could see, just the doublet and hose. It was the latest French fashion and designed to highlight the manly parts. In Nick’s opinion, it made him look like a rent boy, albeit an improbably handsome one. The head above the elaborately starched ruff was blessed with abundant brown curls, the dark eyes surprisingly penetrating for a young man with such a profligate reputation. One arm was flung carelessly over the back of the settle; in his other hand he held a glass filled with wine that was perilously close to dripping onto the Queen’s priceless Turkey carpet.

  Talk of the devil, Nick thought, making the smallest bow he could get away with. It’s that toffee-nosed git, Essex.

  “Heard you and my agent were attacked on the London road.” This spoken in an upper-crust drawl that made Nick feel ashamed for his own class. “Bad luck, old chap.” As if he had lost a game of tennis. Essex must have come tearing over to Whitehall after hearing the news from Lovett. He would have relished telling his monarch that one of her agents had been saved by one of his own. Nick watched Essex’s face to see if there was any sign of complicity in the attack but could discern nothing except idle curiosity.

  “That’s why I wanted to see you,” Elizabeth said, seating herself in an upright chair, the stiff brocade of her skirts spreading worryingly close to the fire. “Tell us what happened. I will not have my agents attacked in my own realm.”

  Nick caught the use of the plural. Essex had also used it. The last he’d heard, he had been the only one who had been deliberately attacked. Admittedly, Edmund had been wounded in the ensuing scuffle, but he was definitely not the target. Trust Essex to exaggerate in order to make his own network look important in the Queen’s eyes.

  Nevertheless, a request from Elizabeth was tantamount to a command, so Nick went through it all again, stressing that the assassin was unknown to him and unknown, apparently, to the people in Didcot and all the villages and hamlets along the London Road near where the attack had occurred. He omitted any mention of del Toro, as he didn’t want Essex sniffing around an operation run by Cecil. This was not so much out of loyalty to Cecil as it was a desire to keep well shot of the virulent rivalry between them. Thank God Edmund had not seen del Toro in The Spotted Cow; otherwise Essex would know that too.

  “It’s a puzzle, to be sure,” the Queen said gravely. Then, with a certain pointedness, “Perhaps he was an outraged husband?”

  Essex chuckled, and Nick shot him an irritated look. Pot calling the kettle black was the phrase that crossed his mind. The trouble with his cover as the dissolute lad about town was that people assumed he was a promiscuous rake. Like Essex.

  “I did not recognize him, Your Majesty,” he repeated.

  “Well, you wouldn’t,” she replied, “necessarily.”

  “He was hired, of that I’m certain,” Nick said. “The plain way he was dressed did not tally with the bag of gold on his person. It was obviously payment for services rendered. And the weapon itself, a crossbow, is a professional’s weapon. People acting on their own for personal reasons favor what’s to hand. Knives, usually.”

  Elizabeth sniffed at the mention of the sordid lives of her citizens and their crude manner of settling disputes. It occurred to Nick that ordering people’s heads lopped off was pretty crude as well, but naturally, he kept that to himself.

  Essex stirred on the settle. “If I may, Your Majesty?”

  Elizabeth looked at him fondly. “Of course, Robin. You know how much I value your counsel.”

  “It’s obvious what this is all about,” Essex said. “The man was hired by the Spanish to eliminate one of Her Majesty’s agents. To wit, Lovett. It was he, after all, who was wounded.”

  Nick opened his mouth to say that a crossbow pointed at his heart was definitely something he wouldn’t mistake, but Essex lifted a schoolmasterly finger to forestall him.

  “In order,” the earl went on, “to throw my spy network into disarray.”

  “Do you think so, Robin?” exclaimed the Queen. For the first time, she looked worried, as if Nick’s personal health, namely his ability to stay alive, was of piddling importance compared to her favorite’s reputation. As it probably was, concluded Nick glumly. No wonder Codpiece was not in the room. Five minutes with this pair of lovebirds and he probably wanted to hang himself. Nick certainly did. It was profoundly depressing to see a woman of Elizabeth’s intellect, not to mention mature years, reduced to a simpering, brainless ninny.

  “Absolutely,” Essex said. “Lovett is a valued agent. The Spanish would love nothing better than to destroy my network.”

  Nick tried to keep his face straight at this staggering display of vanity and self-delusion, not to mention the ludicrous exaggeration of Edmund’s importance.

  “Then what you need is someone like Nick here,” the Queen said. “I used him last winter to find the killer of two of my ladies-in-waiting.” She smiled at Nick, and he was forced to smile back, although he felt like screaming. He knew what was coming. He was being loaned out to Essex like some prized hunting dog.

  “I’ll have a word with Walsingham,” Elizabeth said.

  In court parlance, that meant she would be issuing an order. Nick’s fate was sealed.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Essex said. “I accept.”

  As well you might, thought Nick. You’ve just successfully maneuvered the Queen into stealing a rival agent. No one had thought to ask if Nick agreed with this arrangement. On the contrary, he could do nothing other than bow at the Queen’s apparent graciousness. In truth, he felt like jumping out of the mullioned window.

  “I’ll send a man over to fetch you at your tavern across the river,” Essex said to Nick.

  “I cannot wait.”

  “Splendid.” Essex got to his feet and stretched. “Sure you don’t want to come riding with me, Your Majesty?” he said. “I fancy a bit of hawking.”

  “I’m afraid not, Robin. I have to see a deputation from the Dutch.”

  “Those fat butter-boxes,” sneered Essex. “Can you believe they told lies about me to my stepfather?” His face had flushed with anger, his mouth twisting petulantly. Suddenly Nick saw him as a spoiled little boy who had been denied something he wanted. This was the face Cecil had known in their boyhood. For the first time, Nick felt tha
t Cecil was not entirely crazy to suspect Essex of being behind a plot to get rid of Walsingham’s agents.

  “Holland is an important ally,” the Queen admonished with a tiny glimmer of irritation.

  “Oh, well then. Needs must, I suppose,” he replied sulkily.

  The Queen rose to her feet. “You can escort me to the audience chamber, Robin.” She said this like a mother trying to coax a spoiled child into good humor by offering it a sweetmeat.

  Immediately Essex brightened. “I would be honored to, Your Majesty.”

  She linked her arm in his, and together they left the room. Before the door closed, she looked back over her shoulder at Nick. “Sort this out,” she said. “You’re no use to me dead.”

  Nick bowed, and they were gone.

  Immediately a diminutive figure stuck his head round a door leading into an inner chamber in the suite of rooms.

  “Has Fancy-Pants buggered off, then?”

  It was Codpiece, the Queen’s Fool, a dwarf who might have been cursed with a small body but had been blessed with a large wit.

  “Hello, Richard,” Nick said. “Hiding under the bed again, I see.”

  “Too right.” Codpiece jumped up on the settle where Essex had just been sitting. “And it’s as dusty as the Arabian Desert under there, I can tell you. Those lazy good-for-nothing slatterns never do a proper job of sweeping.”

  Bemused, Nick watched as Codpiece picked bits of fluff and cobweb off his doublet, then rubbed the rim of Essex’s abandoned wine glass with his sleeve and took a deep quaff.

  “Ahhh, that’s better.”

  Nick flopped down in the Queen’s chair and helped himself to a drink. “I gather you heard that I’ve been loaned out to Essex.”

  “Bad luck, old chap,” Codpiece said in a perfect imitation of Essex’s upper-class voice.

  Nick couldn’t help but laugh. Then, as the enormity of what the Queen had done to him sank in, he lapsed into silence, miserably contemplating the hours, days, weeks, and, God forbid, months he would be forced to spend in Essex’s company. He fervently hoped the Spanish would attack the Dutch and send Essex storming back to Holland to save the day.

  “You could always abjure the realm,” Codpiece said.

  Nick glanced up and saw that the Fool was watching him with a look of amused pity on his face.

  “Tell me, Richard,” he said. “How does the Queen tolerate Essex? He’s far more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “Maybe,” Codpiece said. “But then again, you know how Her Maj likes to play one side against the other.”

  “Burghley and Cecil versus Essex, you mean?”

  Codpiece nodded. “And Walsingham. While they’re busy getting up each other’s noses, they forget to nag her about policy. I suspect that is one of the reasons she’s lent you to Essex. On the one hand, it will infuriate Walsingham; on the other, it will provide him with access to Essex’s network. Quite clever, if you think about it.”

  Nick considered this and still thought it wasn’t worth it. Especially for him.

  “Too clever by half, if you ask me,” he said. “And, of course, no one did. Ask me, that is.” He drained his wine and poured more. “Problem is, Richard, I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. Cecil thinks Essex tried to have me killed; Essex probably thinks Cecil is trying to kill off his own agents. Either way, I’m fucked.”

  “Cheer up,” Codpiece said. “This is your chance to undermine Essex’s network.”

  Unspoken between them was the Queen’s infamous vanity. It was almost as if she set out to play the hoyden in order to dispel any notion that she was an old maid. But Codpiece, Nick knew, would never say as much.

  Fiercely loyal to the Queen, Codpiece was Elizabeth’s personal spy at court. As a Fool, he could go anywhere the Queen went, and nobody took him seriously. His madcap antics and witty, obscene banter were the perfect disguise, even more perfect than Nick’s dissolute-nobleman act. Beneath Codpiece’s foolery lay a capacious intelligence. His given name was Richard, and that’s how Nick thought of him. They had become friends the previous winter when there had been a murderer on the loose butchering the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Richard had trusted Nick with his real identity in order to be his eyes and ears at court. With Elizabeth’s blessing, of course.

  “Carrying on with Essex has taken her mind off the problem of that Scottish minx, however,” Codpiece said. “So I suppose we have to thank the little turd for that.”

  The Scottish minx was Mary, Queen of Scots, kept under house arrest by Elizabeth since 1568 and long the figurehead in numerous plots to assassinate the Queen and set Mary on the throne in her stead. Now rumor was rife that there was another plot afoot. Nick had picked up hints that Walsingham was running some sort of covert operation that would lead Mary into a trap that would finally be her undoing. Nick was just thankful Walsingham had not involved Nick in his devious game. In truth, Nick felt sorry for Mary and thought she had led a tragic life, but as a Catholic recusant, he knew it was more than his life was worth to say this out loud, even to Codpiece.

  “I can’t believe Essex thinks someone is out to discredit him,” Nick said, getting to his feet.

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Codpiece said. “His self-regard makes Narcissus look like St. Francis of Assisi.”

  Nick grinned.

  “Seriously, though, what are you going to do?” Codpiece asked. “Aside from watch your back.”

  “Not sure yet,” Nick replied.

  “Take care, my friend. These are naughty times we live in.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The Black Sheep Tavern, Bankside

  Nick was sitting in front of the fire at The Black Sheep, his sword belt and cloak laid aside on a bench. The enormous head of his Irish Wolfhound, Hector, lay in his lap, and Nick was sleepily fondling his ears. Hector’s rapturous baying at Nick’s approach several hours before had no doubt roused the entire neighborhood. It had certainly alerted John and Maggie Stockton, the married couple who ran the daily business of the tavern for him, and a cup of ale and platter of food were waiting for him when he opened the door. Nick was so weary that even the greeting of “Who’s a poxy whoreson, then?” from Bess the parrot—won in a game of dice from Kit Marlowe and renowned in Bankside for her execrable vocabulary—failed to put a blight on his happiness at being home.

  John was the younger son of Nick’s father’s steward and a childhood friend who had followed him to Oxford, ostensibly as his body-servant but more accurately as his partner in drinking, wenching, and, later, soldiering on the Continent. In short, John was his bagman.

  John came over now and sat down on the bench. He had his seventeen-month-old daughter, Jane, in his arms. Her head was lolling against his shoulder, her limbs completely loose in sleep as only a child’s could be. Nick envied her.

  “What happened?” John asked in a low voice. Maggie was wiping down the board on which the tavern served ale in preparation for the night’s customers, and Matty was stacking cups.

  Matty was a relatively new addition to The Black Sheep family. Nick had interviewed her as a witness the previous winter when she had been a lowly cinders at Whitehall only a crust of bread away from starvation. Then she had been a sticklike waif with a ghostly pallor, as her job of cleaning out the fireplaces in the palace was conducted mostly at night. When the Queen had asked Nick what he wanted for a reward after he apprehended the murderer of two of her ladies-in-waiting, he had asked if Matty could come live at The Black Sheep to help with Jane, the baby. Now she had filled out amazingly, her skin blooming milk and roses.

  When Nick had first encountered her, he had thought Matty about ten years old, so stunted by malnutrition and neglect she had been; now she looked more like her actual thirteen years, still much too young for what Henry, Maggie’s fourteen-year-old son, obviously had in mind, but not too young to be developing the first tentative hints of a womanly figure. Nick had seen the way Henry had been ogling her since Christmas and was relieved
Maggie had noticed it too and was careful not to leave the youngsters alone.

  Nick saw John glance at his family and knew this was John’s way of telling him that whatever was bothering him, they were to keep it between themselves, especially from Maggie. Not that she wasn’t as brave as a lion, as evidenced by the firm way she dealt with unruly customers in the tavern who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves, but she was a mother and wife and worried for the safety of her children, John, and now Matty. She did not mind the occasional tavern fight among some of the lowlifes who frequented The Black Sheep—she had been running a tavern since she had married her first husband at the age of seventeen—but she feared the world Nick inhabited, a world of suspicion and shadowy figures, a world where someone could smile and smile and be a villain. Sometimes Nick fell afoul of her when it was his fault John had been drawn into danger. But telling John to stay home where it was safe was not an option. And on this night, John had known the moment he laid eyes on his friend that something was amiss. So Nick told the story one more time, adding an account of his visit to Whitehall and the fact that Essex had managed to convince the Queen to lend him Nick.

  “To find out who tried to murder Lovett,” Nick concluded.

  “But it was you the man was trying to kill!” John exclaimed.

  “Tell Essex that,” Nick said morosely. “He takes everything as a personal slur on himself. Probably even the weather if it has the temerity to piss on him.” Nick crashed his tankard down on the bench, making Jane stir on John’s shoulder. She began to whimper.