The Queen's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

this one to the back. She’s to be kept out of sight of the procession.’
    When the guard hesitated, obviously puzzled by this order, the rider grew angry.
    ‘Do as you’re told, man, and hurry up about it. It’s nearly dusk. The Queen’s party cannot be far off.’ He wheeled his horse about. ‘This is a good English stronghold. We can’t have Her Majesty frightened out of her wits by a Moorish face in the crowd, can we?’
    Two guards seized Lucy and dragged her away from the other women, some of whom muttered rebelliously. Yet nobody dared protest, and Lucy found herself being pulled, without any attempt at gentleness or civility, several hundred feet away from the other entertainers and through a gap in the crowd where a steep, narrow track led to a grass bank and the castle wall behind it.
    Forced into this dead end, she spun to face the two guards, breathless and ready to kick out, half expecting them to molest her. But although one shoved her backwards on to the ground, the older man shook his head warningly and pulled the other one away.
    ‘Best stay here, girl, until the Queen’s safe inside,’ he told her, not unkindly, ‘and keep out of sight if you know what’s good for you.’
    Up on the grass bank, jostling for a clear view of the road, the waiting men were able to look down on her from both sides. Some even laughed as Lucy struggled up, wiping mud from her palms. She tried to ignore the crude comments from above. She was used to such jokes, though they still stung occasionally. It was something she had grown up with in London, the stares, the whispers, and the men on the streets calling after her whenever she dared go out alone.
    ‘If a man ever whistles at you in the street, whistle back until he comes running,’ one of her guardian’s theatrical friends had once suggested, winking at her across the supper table. ‘Then stick a knife to the bastard’s groin and take his purse while he stands whimpering.’
    Her guardian, Master Goodluck, had been infuriated by this advice. ‘Pay no attention to Twist,’ he had insisted angrily. ‘That kind of behaviour is more likely to get you killed.’
    All the same, her guardian had taken her aside later and painstakingly shown her how to defend herself in a fight: eyeball, throat, groin and kneecap, the weakest parts of a man’s anatomy. Especially the groin. ‘No need for a knife there,’ he had informed her with grim satisfaction.
    In the distance, somewhere beyond the trees, a horn sounded three triumphant notes. For a moment there was silence, everyone standing perfectly still in the dim light. Then the blowing of the horn came again, louder, more insistent. ‘The Queen!’ a woman shouted, half hysterical. ‘Good Queen Bess!’ The crowd at the front cheered and a few white flags began to wave. The men in charge shouted hoarsely along the lines, then everyone was cheering and waving their flags.
    Someone on the grass bank high above had knelt down and was dangling his arm through the sea of legs.
    ‘Here, take my hand,’ a voice called, though she could barely hear him over the noise of the crowd. She couldn’t see his face but he sounded young and very serious. ‘I won’t drop you. I’ll pull you up on to the bank so you can see.’
    She ignored him as she pulled grass from her hair. If those guards were to come back and find that she had vanished …
    ‘Hurry, the Queen is almost here!’
    The cheering had intensified. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just see an arm waving about in the dim light, searching for her.
    ‘I shall miss her myself if you don’t take my hand,’ the voice said reproachfully.
    Turning to speak sharply, Lucy stopped and stared. For the hand searching for hers was not white and pale as she had expected, but black like her own.
    She reached up and placed her hand in his.
    Strong and capable, his long fingers curled about hers, and she stared up at them in a trance, memorizing each fingernail and