Free Assassin by Lady Grace Cavendish

pasties. But I didn’t have any choice.
    Lord Worthy arrived late, looking flustered and still upset, and he still hadn’t changed his shirt. Normally the Queen would have thrown a slipper at him for that, but she was being gentle with him because of his bereavement.
    Lord Worthy decided to talk only to the Queen and only about terribly boring things like Scottish politics and French politics—it was all Guises and Maxwells and if so and so did this, then such and such would do the other thing. How anybody can keep it straight in their head is a mystery. I didn’t mind. I was thinking about what we were going to do later in the night, wondering what I would wear and whether Ellie would manage to get the sleeping draught. I sat there looking as interested as I could, fighting the urge to yawn. At least there were some new Seville orange suckets, which I really love.
    At last Lord Worthy ground to a halt.
    Her Majesty put her hand out and touched his. “My lord, you will now have the estates belonging to Sir Gerald to administer as well as your own and Lady Grace’s,” she said softly.
    Lord Worthy looked bleakly at her. “I have a very good steward, Your Majesty,” he replied. “We shall manage.”
    “Of course,” Her Majesty agreed. “And of yourself, my lord?” she continued gently. “I know how highly you rated your nephew.”
    “I did, Your Majesty. He was a fine young man—with a young man’s faults, true. He was hasty-tempered, inclined to sarcasm when crossed, certainly arrogant, but I believe time would have mended those faults as it normally does.”
    “Well,” said the Queen, blinking at the dullness of Lord Worthy’s voice, “we shall commit young Lord Robert to trial in a day or two.”
    Lord Worthy nodded sadly, still staring at the candle flame.
    I watched him curiously. It had suddenly occurred to me that he might be almost as sad about his nephew dying as I was about my mother dying. My eyes suddenly prickled.
    The Queen could see there was no cheering him up, and so she went over to her virginals, which stood in the corner of her Withdrawing Room, lifted the lid, and began tuning them. The Queen is very musical. She played some beautiful Italian music which made me feel much better—I really like listening to her play. Even ambassadors do; you can see them tense up as she gets ready to start and then smile and relax because they can actually tell the truth and be complimentary at the same time.
    Lord Worthy sat politely and I got the impression he was waiting to talk to the Queen on his own, soas another song came to an end, I rose and curtsied and asked to be excused to go to my bed. The Queen kissed me goodnight on the cheek and I went upstairs quite slowly, feeling sorry for Lord Worthy.
    The other girls weren’t there yet, they were playing cards in the Presence Chamber, but Ellie was sitting on my bed looking very perky.
    “How did it go?” I asked her. “Did you get the sleeping draught?”
    “Yes. You gave me lots of money—look, I got a whole bottle of laudanum for it.” She held up a small green bottle. “I got all wrapped up in a striped cloak and went to an apothecary in Westminster.”
    I looked sideways at her. “Where did you get a striped cloak?” (Only harlots wear them—it’s a sort of uniform for them. The City Fathers make them do it.)
    “Oh, we do a little extra laundry on the side,” Ellie said casually, “and one of the strumpets at the Falcon got a new one when we were washing hers, so she didn’t bother to collect it, said we could keep it. It comes in quite useful sometimes.”
    I nodded.
    “Here’s the change.” Ellie dropped the coins on my bed. “Now remember not to drink any of the wine on the sideboard there—I’ve put several dropsof laudanum in it so the two twitter-heads will sleep well.”
    Ellie can’t bear most of the Maids of Honour, which is hardly surprising, considering how rude they are to her when she collects their dirty