Her Last Assassin Read Online Free
Author: Victoria Lamb
Marlowe!’
Part One
One
Tilbury, England, August 1588
P ENNANTS FLAPPED DOWN the misty white avenue of tents, their bright devices revealed, then hidden again, with each gust of wind. Elizabeth drew rein, hearing the shout of ‘The Queen!’ go up along the ranks. Robert, Earl of Leicester, glanced back at her: reassuring, almost close enough to touch, her bridle in his gloved fist.
Queen Elizabeth blinked at her favourite, and the mist blurred, then disappeared. Her head jerked. ‘On, on.’
The soldiers needed to see her in sturdy health and upright, despite the weight of the silver cuirass Leicester had caused to be made especially for her. She had come to ask these men to die for her and for England. How could she demand such a sacrifice when she could barely sit her horse, or inspect their ranks without tears?
Man after man looked up at her as she passed, good trusting faces smeared with dirt, sunburned under the brims of their helmets, and she could not look them in the eye.
By her own decree, albeit hurried through by certain of her advisors, her royal cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, had laid her head on the block. Now little over a twelvemonth later, Spain was at war with England, openly and without pretence, a war she had worked for so many years to avert. All her plans of conciliation lay in tatters, for the enemy’s ships were already at sea, had been sighted off the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, might even now be in the narrow straits between England and France. If a Spanish invasion force were to come sailing up the river Thames, as Walsingham and Leicester believed they might, many of these stout-hearted Englishmen would perish at their hands.
A dais had been erected on a sandy mound, furnished with a high-backed chair and shaded from the August sun by a white-canopied roof flapping sulkily in the wind. Elizabeth dismounted and stepped up on to the dais, disdaining her favourite’s outstretched hand. She refused to sit but stood instead, gazing out across the motley army Leicester had managed to assemble at Tilbury, some men in livery, some in leather jerkins, others stripped down for the heat, nut-brown and little better than common workmen as they dug out the embankments.
At Leicester’s signal, a trumpet sounded, calling the nearest men to attention. Weary soldiers leaned on their spades and mattocks in the trenches, staring expectantly at the dais; others scrambled up the sandy banks, as though eager to hear what she had come to say. Those nearest the dais dropped to their knees with due reverence, baring their heads in her presence despite the strong sun.
A flag whipped lightly overhead. She glanced at Robert, suddenly unsure, then saw that he was looking away at something in the distance. The wind scudding on the river perhaps, or the vast makeshift barrier he had built out there across the Thames, a ramshackle dam of flotsam and other debris lashed together to prevent the Spanish fleet from sailing any nearer to London.
Turning to the assembled soldiers, she found her voice.
‘My loving people,’ she began, raising her voice to be heard above the cries of the gulls overhead, ‘as you can see by my armour, I have come here today resolved to live and die among you all. To lay down for my kingdom, in the midst and heat of battle, my honour and my blood, even in this dust of Tilbury’s shores.’
A murmur ran through the crowd at this striking declaration, and she drew breath, seeing the gazes of those nearest her fix on her face, eager for more.
‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king. And of a king of England too! And I think foul scorn that Parma, or Philip of Spain, nor any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.’ She paused, aware of Robert’s keen glance; he had not heard this speech before she delivered it. ‘Rather than allow dishonour to be brought upon you by my sex, I myself will take up
Part One
One
Tilbury, England, August 1588
P ENNANTS FLAPPED DOWN the misty white avenue of tents, their bright devices revealed, then hidden again, with each gust of wind. Elizabeth drew rein, hearing the shout of ‘The Queen!’ go up along the ranks. Robert, Earl of Leicester, glanced back at her: reassuring, almost close enough to touch, her bridle in his gloved fist.
Queen Elizabeth blinked at her favourite, and the mist blurred, then disappeared. Her head jerked. ‘On, on.’
The soldiers needed to see her in sturdy health and upright, despite the weight of the silver cuirass Leicester had caused to be made especially for her. She had come to ask these men to die for her and for England. How could she demand such a sacrifice when she could barely sit her horse, or inspect their ranks without tears?
Man after man looked up at her as she passed, good trusting faces smeared with dirt, sunburned under the brims of their helmets, and she could not look them in the eye.
By her own decree, albeit hurried through by certain of her advisors, her royal cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, had laid her head on the block. Now little over a twelvemonth later, Spain was at war with England, openly and without pretence, a war she had worked for so many years to avert. All her plans of conciliation lay in tatters, for the enemy’s ships were already at sea, had been sighted off the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, might even now be in the narrow straits between England and France. If a Spanish invasion force were to come sailing up the river Thames, as Walsingham and Leicester believed they might, many of these stout-hearted Englishmen would perish at their hands.
A dais had been erected on a sandy mound, furnished with a high-backed chair and shaded from the August sun by a white-canopied roof flapping sulkily in the wind. Elizabeth dismounted and stepped up on to the dais, disdaining her favourite’s outstretched hand. She refused to sit but stood instead, gazing out across the motley army Leicester had managed to assemble at Tilbury, some men in livery, some in leather jerkins, others stripped down for the heat, nut-brown and little better than common workmen as they dug out the embankments.
At Leicester’s signal, a trumpet sounded, calling the nearest men to attention. Weary soldiers leaned on their spades and mattocks in the trenches, staring expectantly at the dais; others scrambled up the sandy banks, as though eager to hear what she had come to say. Those nearest the dais dropped to their knees with due reverence, baring their heads in her presence despite the strong sun.
A flag whipped lightly overhead. She glanced at Robert, suddenly unsure, then saw that he was looking away at something in the distance. The wind scudding on the river perhaps, or the vast makeshift barrier he had built out there across the Thames, a ramshackle dam of flotsam and other debris lashed together to prevent the Spanish fleet from sailing any nearer to London.
Turning to the assembled soldiers, she found her voice.
‘My loving people,’ she began, raising her voice to be heard above the cries of the gulls overhead, ‘as you can see by my armour, I have come here today resolved to live and die among you all. To lay down for my kingdom, in the midst and heat of battle, my honour and my blood, even in this dust of Tilbury’s shores.’
A murmur ran through the crowd at this striking declaration, and she drew breath, seeing the gazes of those nearest her fix on her face, eager for more.
‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king. And of a king of England too! And I think foul scorn that Parma, or Philip of Spain, nor any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.’ She paused, aware of Robert’s keen glance; he had not heard this speech before she delivered it. ‘Rather than allow dishonour to be brought upon you by my sex, I myself will take up
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