The Forbidden Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘I change tradition.’ Edmund stared around the group. ‘Who can stir us all to a frenzy of delight better than I?’

  ‘I thought you had to be chosen,’ James observed as he breathed on his fingers. ‘A heathenish practice…’ he grinned ‘… but one I’ve learnt to live with.’

  ‘Chosen? I choose myself.’ Edmund’s brows rose, as if he was daring anyone to defy his decision, and then his stare fixed on my face. ‘What do you say, Queen Kat? Am I your Lord of Misrule, from this day on?’

  ‘Not allowed.’ I shook my head solemnly, caught up in the game, but I thought there was more than a hint of petulance in the set of his mouth when his heart’s desire was denied him. There was no laughter in him. His scheming was not going as he wished, and I felt a mischievous urge to thwart him, whatever his intended plot. ‘You know how it works,’ I stated.

  ‘And you will hold me to it?’ he demanded, as if force of will could change my mind.

  ‘I will. No cheating. We will all abide by the rules.’

  I sent a page running to the kitchens while we retired to a parlour, casting aside cloaks and gloves, where Thomas, my page, bearing a flat cake of dried fruit, discovered us and placed it on a table in our midst with a wide grin. There was an immediate rustle of interest, of comment. Of excitement. The outcome would affect the whole tenor of our celebrations.

  ‘Behold the Bean Cake.’ Edmund brandished his sword as if he would cleave it in two. ‘Do I slice it?’

  I smiled graciously with a shake of my head. ‘I choose the King of Scotland to cut it.’

  And James responded promptly: ‘And I give the honour to my affianced bride. She’ll do it with more elegance than you, Edmund. And with more skill. You don’t need a sword to cut a cake.’

  Edmund tilted his chin, eyes gleaming dangerously. For a moment I thought he would resist. Then he laughed.

  ‘Go to it, Queen Joan!’

  James slid his dagger from his belt, passing it to Joan, who wielded it with sure expertise and cut the cake into wedges. The pieces were passed around. We ate carefully, looking from one to the other. Within one piece lurked the bean that would confer the honour on the Lord of Misrule.

  ‘Not I.’

  ‘Or I.’

  There was much shaking of heads, some in palpable relief. James shrugged in disappointment. I said nothing. I waited. I knew what would happen. He kept us waiting, for what a master of timing he was. And then:

  ‘There! What did I say?’ Edmund fished a bean from between his teeth and held it up. ‘I am Lord of Misrule after all.’

  ‘Now, there’s a coincidence!’ Beatrice observed.

  ‘Do you call me a cheat?’ Edmund swung round, his expression as fierce as if he would attack any who dare point the finger.

  ‘I wouldn’t dare.’

  Neither would I, though I knew he was. Edmund had come prepared with a bean of his own, trusting to the force of his own will to impose silence on the true winner. It was a risky venture that could have ended in his discomfiture. But I held my peace.

  My piece of cake had held the bean.

  ‘I am the Bean King. I am the Lord of Misrule.’ Full of wild satisfaction, Edmund leapt onto a chair, sword in hand. ‘And my first command will be…’

  ‘Who will be your Queen?’ someone asked.

  There was not a moment’s hesitation. Again I knew what he would do before he did it. As I drew in my breath, because I did not know what I wanted, Edmund circled the point of his sword towards me. He stared along its length.

  ‘You. I choose you.’

  A sigh ran through the group.

  I swallowed against a moment of panic. My habitual response. ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Because I could not romp and cavort and play the fool. ‘Because I do not know how.’

  ‘Then I’ll teach you, Queen Kat. My golden queen. We will reign together.’ Colour rushed to my face and I think he saw it, for he immediately turned to the practical to draw all eyes back to him.

  ‘My first decree, my miserable subjects, as Master of Misrule. We’ll take the Old Year out with mirth and jollity. We’ll dance and sing and break all rules. We’ll make these old walls resound and shiver.’ He leapt down from the chair, whirling the sword around his head. ‘And I know where there’s treasure to be had.’

  With a key obtained from Alice, who looked askance as if we were no more than a bunch of irresponsible children, Edmund, taking my hand in his and pulling me along in his wake, led us down increasingly dusty passages until we came to what had once been an antechamber. As he opened the door, we saw that it was now used for storing the detritus of lives past. We crowded in, the women lifting their skirts and stepping away from the dust-ridden coffers and tapestries. Edmund was oblivious, entirely wrapped up in his own intent.

  ‘Let’s see.’ He took stock of the boxes and bundles. ‘I command you to open up the chests, because unless I am ill-advised…’

  We did as we were bidden, soon forgetful of the dust, exclaiming with admiration and astonishment, much as children might. Packed into the chests were layer upon layer of costumes intended for some long-distant royal procession or a mummers’ play.

  ‘Whose are these?’ I asked, holding a pheasant’s mask to my face, which muffled my question, feathers nodding over my head.

  ‘King Edward, the third of that name. We have him to thank. They’re old. But by God they will make us splendid this year.’

  We pulled the costumes out, shaking them free of dust and cobweb and the odd spider. They were in remarkable condition, such a bounty of cloaks and masks and wings to adorn and transform. Soon the whole party was draped and garbed in starred and gilded splendour.

  ‘And what would you be, Queen Kat?’ Edmund asked, when I stood, still undisguised—for what would I choose?—but with a vast length of red and black velvet in my hands and draped over one shoulder. Edmund was already clad in a cloak painted with stars as if he were a magician, his face covered with a lion’s mask so that his voice echoed strangely and his eyes glittered through the leonine stare.

  ‘What on earth is this?’ I asked, lifting the heavy cloth. I could not make out its shape.

  Edmund growled with lion-like ferocity. ‘I’ll not tell you. Not yet. But you’ll see on Twelfth Night. Now—for you.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I admitted forlornly, surrounded by so much glamour.

  ‘This, I think.’ Relieving me of the red and black, he cast a silver cloak over my shoulders and fastened a silver-faced angel mask with silver ribbons over my face. ‘Turn round.’ I did so, and I felt him fastening something to my shoulders.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I tried to turn my head, but could only see, and that indistinctly through the mask, some gossamer material stretched over a wooden frame.

  ‘Giving you wings,’ he replied. ‘Angels need wings.’ And he whispered in my ear. ‘How would you fly without? And I need you to fly, my silver Queen.’

  He came to stand before me again and bowed low, hand on heart. I curtsied. We were King and Queen.

  How I was re-created, remoulded by Edmund Beaufort, an acolyte in the hands of a master.

  By Edmund’s decree—and because we discovered enough for all—we spent the festivities draped in green velvet robes, each embroidered from head to foot in peacock feathers, as if we were devotees of some strange mystic sect.

  And thus clad, the days merged into one breathless intoxication of pleasure. We played disguising games, St George slaying the reluctant dragon, King Arthur discovering his magic sword. How was it that Edmund was so often St George or King Arthur? Young Henry, my astonished son, joined in with eyes as big as silver coins, a dragon’s head perched on top of his curls, wings askew on his shoulders—until he fell asleep in my lap and the music went on around him.

  We danced endlessly, and sang, arms linked, carolling the chorus as Edmund laid down the verses in a bright, true tenor. We wove our paths between an intricate pattern of
cushions laid out on the floor, the penalty for disturbing any one of them being to obey some dire command of our misruling lord.

  I was dispatched to the kitchens to fetch wine and ale, instructed to carry it myself in true reversal of roles, a queen serving her subjects. Which I could have done, except that Edmund accompanied me and carried the platters himself, ordering me to follow, bearing my steward’s staff of office and also the grace cup, which I presented to everyone present with a maidservant’s curtsey.

  Nothing existed without his hand to it. Jokes and pranks and laughter. He wooed, seduced and charmed through an unending storm of activity. We ate and drank as we stood, not stopping for formal meals, and on a day when dark clouds lowered and might have driven us to the fireside, our young men fought out a Twelfth Night mêlée, the red and black velvet swathing their armour and that of their horses to a backdrop of a virulent green forest created from twelve ells of canvas, the whole painted with flowers and trilling finches.

  Amidst the sword thrusts and trampling hooves, Edmund capered in the feathered costume of a vast golden bird, his vivid features hidden behind a golden beak and crimson crest as he tripped the unwary with his golden stave. A ridiculous prank that reduced everyone to helpless laughter.

  We were exhausted, but who could not admire him? Who could not worship at his feet?

  ‘I must sit down.’ I sank to the cushions on the floor, my own feet aching after a tempestuous leaping and stamping, as far from a dignified court procession as it was possible to be. My shoes had rubbed against my heel.

  ‘We will dance till dawn,’ Edmund decreed.

  ‘You might. But I—’

  ‘We are young. You are no elderly widow, destined for prayer and endless stitchery, whatever Gloucester might tell you. It’s a sin for you to hide yourself away.’ I looked up, immediately unsure at the very personal nature of the jibe. ‘Tell me you are not enjoying yourself. I swear you are, even if you deny it. You were going to deny it, weren’t you?’

  I frowned, thoroughly ruffled, but he would have none of it.

  ‘When did you last laugh, Queen Kat? Dance? Play the fool without thinking who might be watching and commenting on your behaviour or decency?’

  ‘Not since I was a child,’ I admitted ruefully, ‘when I cavorted recklessly with my sister, without constraint.’ Not since then. Since then it had been as if my life had been shackled into good behaviour and moral rectitude. To my horror, tears stung my eyelids. ‘I have forgotten how to play. And now my sister is dead.’

  My loss of Michelle, the space she had left in my heart, took me unawares and caused the tears to overflow and slide down my cheeks as I mourned her anew. And there was Edmund, crouching beside me, drying them with the edge of my sleeve.

  ‘You must not weep, lady. I should be whipped from your presence for causing you such grief.’

  ‘You did not.’ I denied, sniffing, pushing his hand away.

  ‘I say that I did. And I ask pardon.’ For a moment he remained at my side, silent. Then audaciously tilted my chin with his hand. ‘You are too solemn, too circumspect for a beautiful woman of…I wager it’s no more than four and twenty years.’

  Still emotional, I ignored the question. ‘I am not allowed to be other than solemn and circumspect.’

  ‘But today you are allowed.’ He let his thumb stroke slowly, heart-touchingly slowly, along the edge of my jaw, before taking my hand between both of his. ‘And tomorrow. And the day after that—every day until you call a halt. Are you not Queen? Do you not make your own rules?’

  I was too astonished to reply when Edmund placed a kiss in the centre of my palm.

  ‘You are my queen,’ he said before he left me. ‘The fairest of queens. And I will serve you well.’

  We wore masks through most of those days. We were enchanted beings, woven about with invisible threads so that we were made subject to Edmund’s clever sorcery. Some mimicked lions, some pheasants, some adopted the gilded features of god-like humans. I kept my silvered angel face, and the wings when the foolish mood took me.

  Beware masks. How much freedom they allow us when we are anonymous behind the painted expressions. My features were hidden, and therefore I acted as if no one knew who I might be. Of course everyone knew, but still I acted on impulse, abandoning Gloucester’s strictures. And how strange, my sight narrowed and restricted to the two angelic apertures. How often did Edmund fill that narrow view? Too often, some would say. For me it was a true enchantment.

  But there was a time, at last, to take off the masks. It was agreed that, at midnight on Twelfth Night, we would gather for the unmasking in my Painted Chamber. I expect it was a truly festive moment—but I was not there. Waylaid by Edmund, I was effortlessly lured onto the battlements where the frost silvered the stonework and my companion wrapped me and my angel wings in the furred heat of his cloak.

  It was there that Edmund stripped the hood from my hair and untied the silver strings.

  ‘My golden queen,’ he murmured against my cheek as his fingers loosened the ties, at the same time loosing the braids of my hair.

  ‘You are still a large bird!’ I accused, fighting to keep my breathing steady.

  ‘That can be remedied.’

  He pulled off the golden mask, with its cruel beak. And I raised my hand to smooth his tousled hair. Except that he caught it and pressed it to the rich damask above his heart. It beat hard and steady and alluring against my palm.

  I froze, a cry catching in my throat.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I am afraid to think.’

  And he kissed me on my mouth.

  ‘Do you love me?’ he demanded.

  I shook my head, a breath of fear crawling across my skin.

  ‘Do you want to know if I love you?’ he demanded, his eyes bright in the moonlight.

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  ‘I say you lie.’ His lips stroked over my cheek. ‘Do you want to know if I love you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I do. Now you must kiss me.’

  So I did.

  ‘So do you love me, Queen Kat?’

  ‘I do. God help me, I do.’

  Edmund had opened his clever, fine-fingered hands and I had fallen into them.

  Edmund Beaufort loved me. Tentatively, reluctantly at first, then step by glorious step, I loved Edmund Beaufort. I wanted to experience all I had never known about love, all I had failed to experience with Henry, knowing that I would not be rebuffed. Edmund loved me and made no secret of it. I absorbed every moment of delight. I was truly selfish.

  By Twelfth Night I had lost my heart, seduced by his skilful antics and his single-minded assault on my emotions. I had not sought to submit to such an overwhelming longing, but Edmund Beaufort had stolen my heart from me and tucked it away so that I was without power to retrieve it.

  When I returned to my room, and Guille removed my wings for the final time, she exclaimed that they were bent and frayed, beyond mending. But what did it matter? I was loved, and I loved in return. I could not sleep for the turmoil in my breast, and dawn brought me no respite from its thrall.

  The end of the festivities should have brought with it the end of the magic. Yet Twelfth Night was merely the prologue to a feast for all the senses. I was consumed by love. I fell willingly into its flames, disregarding the lick of pain when he flirted elsewhere, tolerating the searing heat of his proximity, because I would have it no other way. My eyes were filled with him, my mouth tingling with his sweetness as if I had sipped from a comb of honey.

  Edmund Beaufort ordered the whole panorama of my solitary existence, and I willingly invited him in, keeping step with him as he made my lonely world a thing of beauty and desire. He had spun a silver web around me, but I was never seduced against my will. I was a joyful participant as he made himself lord of all my senses.

  How bold we were. How shockingly daring in our pursuit of passion as the New Year bloomed. When his b
reath stirred my hair and his lips brushed against my nape, I cast aside my much-vaunted reputation. I was as wanton in my desire as any court whore, for his kisses were as intoxicating as fine wine, as heady as Young Henry’s favourite marchpane. The slide of his fingertips along my jaw to the sensitive hollow beneath my ear awoke desire in my belly.

  How was it possible to conduct an affair of the heart under the eyes of the whole Court, in the midst of a royal palace where courtiers and servants, pages and bodyguards, scullions and royal nurses abounded? How was it possible for a sequestered woman, ordered to live out a life of nun-like chastity and respectability, to meet in secret a vital, dynamic man who stirred her cold heart to flame?

  How was it possible to keep vulgar tongues from wagging, or for a determined man to seek out the company of the woman he desired when she was hedged about by the role she was forced to play? For Edmund Beaufort desired me. He left me in no doubt when his eyes smiled down into mine and our fingers dovetailed together.

  How was it possible? It was not very difficult at all when James and his friends left us in the New Year. Did we not prove its simplicity? When a King’s household was no royal court at all but a close, muffled establishment tuned to the necessities of a young child, where there was no ceremony, no public appearance, no visits from foreign ambassadors, but rather a quiet nurturing atmosphere, it was so very easy.

  No one looked for scandal or for gossip in so retired an existence. It was like looking to find a dangerous predator infiltrating a perfectly constructed nest, designed for the comfort and sustenance of only one precious chick. I was the perfect Queen Mother, steeped in respectability, Henry was the Young King who thrived and learned his lessons, and Edmund, the well-loved royal cousin, had every right to visit the Young King’s household as he wished, bringing gifts and a breath of the outside world from Westminster and beyond.

  Young Henry looked for his coming with innocent pleasure, delirious when Edmund lifted him high, swinging him round until he shrieked in excitement. The gift of a silver ship, magnificently in full sail and usefully mobile on four wheels, proved the perfect toy. Young Henry adored his cousin Edmund.