The Forbidden Queen

by Anne O'Brien

  There was a little silence.

  ‘Look at me, Katherine. Answer me.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘My lady?’

  Father Benedict, who had approached, was looking from me to Owen in some perturbation. ‘Is there a difficulty?’ His eyes were fixed on my tear-stained cheeks.

  ‘No, Father.’

  ‘Are you troubled, my daughter?’ He was frowning.

  ‘No, Father. Unless it’s the troublesome matter of finance for St Winifred’s festival. Master Owen was reminding me.’

  ‘Money! Always a matter for discussion. Master Owen will solve it, I’m sure. He solves all our problems.’ Reassured, with a smile he made the sign of the cross and blessed us both before leaving us.

  ‘Is that an omen?’ I asked, momentarily distracted. ‘He blessed us both.’

  ‘He would not have done it if he knew what was in my mind,’ Owen replied, the unmistakable heat of desire like rich velvet in his eyes, making my heart bound. ‘I have a longing for you. Even in sleep I know no respite.’

  ‘And I long for you,’ I said. I scrubbed at my cheeks, wincing at the abrasion. ‘I wish I had not wept.’

  ‘You are beautiful even when you weep.’

  ‘You are beautiful too.’

  Owen Tudor laughed and held out both hands. ‘And practical, so your priest says. I can deal with St Winifred. I can handle the money. Will you allow me to solve your problems too? To give you happiness?’

  He was smiling at me, and I knew that this was a moment of vast consequence. Whatever decision I made now would set my feet on a different road. Would Owen Tudor give me the strength, the audacity to take hold of the happiness he offered? If I took that step it would be irrevocable, but I would not be travelling along that road alone. I looked at the hands held out to me, broad-palmed, long-fingered, eminently persuasive.

  I closed my eyes, allowing the silence to sink into my mind, my heart, bringing me its peace. And I made my decision.

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ Abandoning the missal, I placed my hands in his. Warm and firm, they closed around mine as if they would never release me. ‘I want to be with you, Owen Tudor,’ I said.

  ‘So it shall be,’ he promised. ‘We shall be together. You will be my love for all eternity. In this place I make it a sacred vow. I will never allow us to be parted, this side of the grave.’

  And there in that holy place, the grace of Father Benedict’s blessing lingering in the air, I had no qualms. I gripped his hands tightly as he drew me towards him and touched his lips to my damaged cheek.

  ‘Forgive me, forgive me,’ he murmured.

  ‘I do,’ I whispered back. ‘I will go to the ends of the earth with you, Owen Tudor.’

  ‘And I will guard you well.’

  For a moment I leaned into his embrace, my head resting on his shoulder. ‘But I have another sin to confess if I am to bare my soul.’

  ‘Another one? How many sins can the beautiful Katherine have committed?’

  His face was alight with laughter as I freed my hand from his and sought the recesses of my sleeve.

  ‘I kept this.’ And I lifted the silver dragon on my palm.

  A strange expression crossed his face. ‘There it is.’ He took it from me, rubbing his thumb over the worn carving. ‘I thought I had lost it—and regretted it.’ He looked quizzically at me. ‘Why did you keep it?’

  ‘Because I wanted something of you, something that was yours and that you valued. I did not steal it,’ I assured him. ‘I would have returned it. I think you do value it.’

  Still he held it in his palm, its dragon mouth swallowing its tail in whimsical beauty.

  ‘I do value it. You have no idea.’ Stern-faced, he pinned it to my bodice. ‘There. The dragon looks very well.’

  ‘But I must not.’ I remembered another brooch, another time. I must not take it.

  ‘It is what I wish. The Welsh dragon will guard you from all harm. There is no one I would rather have own it than you, the woman I love.’

  And Owen Tudor kissed me, very gently, on my lips. It moved me to the depths of my soul.

  We walked together from the chapel into the sun-barred enclosed area of the Horseshoe Cloisters, all that we had said and done and promised creating a wordless bond of delight between us. Until it was shattered. Usually a quiet place, the graceful arches stood witness to the scene of a fracas, causing us to halt to observe the group of young men who had joined the household to polish their knightly skills in the company of my son, under the tutelage of Warwick and the royal Master of Arms. They were invariably a boisterous fraternity, quarrelsome in the way of young men with too much unchannelled energy. Today raised voices echoed across the space, shouts, curses, some coarse laughter. A few punches would be thrown before the matter was settled.

  But then came the dangerous rasp of steel as a sword was drawn from a scabbard. This was no formal passage of arms, controlled and supervised under Warwick’s eagle eye, but rather an outburst of temper, the climax of an argument. In a blink of an eye the dispute spun from crude name-calling to a dangerous confrontation with the gleam of inexpertly wielded weapons. The two lads circled, swords at the ready, their comrades encouraging with cat-calling and jeering. A lunge, a grapple, a cry of pain. There was little skill—they were too impassioned—but they hacked at each other as if they had every intention of murder.

  ‘They’ll kill each other by pure mischance,’ Owen growled, before he sprinted across the space to erupt into the rabble of an audience.

  ‘Stop this!’ His voice was commanding. The crowd fell instantly silent but the two combatants were too taken up with their quarrel to even hear.

  ‘Damned young fools!’ Owen addressed the watchers. ‘Could you not stop it getting to this pitch? Fists would have done the job just as well and with less damage to everyone.’

  As he was speaking, he seized the sword from the scabbard of the nearest squire and a dagger from another, and waded in, steel flashing.

  ‘Put up your weapons,’ he commanded.

  He struck one sword down with his own, the other he parried with the knife. Then, when he sensed the belligerence had not quite drained, he dropped his sword and gripped the wrist of one, who turned on him in blind fury. A wrench on the wrist and a fist to the jaw brought it all to a rapid if ignominious end, while I, a silent watcher, was more than interested to see how Owen would handle this. I had seen him marshal my servants, but I had never seen him in the throes of an altercation such as this with young men of high blood.

  Breathless, hair in disarray, face afire and to my mind magnificent, Owen stood between them, one lad spread-eagled in the dust, the other still clutching his sword but no longer with intent to use it. Rounding on the rest, who were already putting distance between them and the culprits, he issued his instructions.

  ‘Go about your business. Unless you wish the Master or my lord of Warwick to hear about this disgraceful affair.’ Then to the two dishevelled combatants, first offering a hand to pull one of them to his feet: ‘You bring no credit to your families. Would you draw arms in the presence of the Queen?’ He gestured in my direction. ‘Make your bows!’

  They did, shame-faced, one trying to brush the dust of the courtyard from his tunic. The rest of the conversation I did not hear. It proceeded for some time, low-voiced and mostly from Owen, monosyllabic and sullen from the lads. One such comment earned a cuff round the ear from Owen.

  ‘Do it now.’

  Although his order was soft-voiced, there was an immediate, if reluctant, clasp of hands. They were not friends now, but perhaps would be by tomorrow.

  ‘There will be a penance for such stupidity,’ Owen announced. ‘You need to learn that the Queen’s Household will not be disturbed by such ill-bred behaviour. Use your wits next time before you decide to settle a minor squabble with cold steel. And as you are both as much to blame as the other.’

  He handed a sword back to one with a punch to the shoulder, gave a rough scrub to
the hair of the other. ‘A thorough cleaning out of the dovecote will give you pause for thought for the rest of the day.’ A ripple of laughter touched me. He had chosen a noisome punishment, but there was no dissent from either. ‘Now go. And show your belated respect to the Queen.’

  They bowed again.

  As I acknowledged them I saw Warwick, alerted by the raised voices, standing in the entrance from the Lower Ward. He had chosen not to intervene, but now walked forward stern-faced. The lads bowed rigidly and left through the same doorway at a run. Warwick grinned. The two men exchanged opinions, watching the squires disappear in the direction of the dovecote. I observed for a moment then left them to it.

  The little scene stayed with me as I walked slowly back to join my damsels. It had piqued my interest: nothing out of the ordinary for a household of so many diverse souls, where conflict was frequent and often bloody in its outcome, but it had answered all my inner questions. Physical desire for a man could reduce a woman to terrible weakness, driving her to commit any number of irrational acts. But to desire and respect that same man? Owen Tudor had called to my soul in that moment of strict authority and grave compassion, as if he had known what it was to be the underdog, or the one unfairly accused, both injustices driving the boys to fight it out. Owen had meted out firm-handed but fair retribution.

  Even more impressive, Owen Tudor had enough of a reputation in Young Henry’s court to be obeyed instantly. Authority sat well on him. The lads had accepted his punishment, obeyed his commands, even though they might see the ultimate hand of judgement over them as Warwick’s. They had vanished in the direction of the dovecote with alacrity, resigned to the rigours of the acrid, dusty toil apportioned to them.

  Out of nowhere, I considered something I had never even thought about. My husband, Henry, had ignored his squires, young lads lifted out of their families and dropped into this strange world of the royal court where the demands on them were great. Sometimes they were lonely and homesick in the first years. Henry had barely noticed them, other than as young men to train up into knighthood. Edmund Beaufort had had no time for them, unless he had a need for their labours, co-opting them into some scheme for rough play or celebration. He had no patience when they did not obey instantly. Owen Tudor had known the lads by name. He had dealt with them with patience, with compassion. With a depth of understanding such as he had shown to me.

  I had thought I did not know him well enough to share his bed. Now I was beginning to learn. And, yes, he was a man I could admire.

  What path did we travel together, having reached this level of acknowledgement between us? I will go to the ends of the earth with you, Owen Tudor, I had vowed. I will guard you well, he had replied. It sounded well—but we travelled nowhere together for a considerable time, neither did I need guarding, for there was no occasion for us to be together in any real sense.

  First St Winifred came between us. Young Henry was fascinated by the story of the virtuous lady, decapitated at the hands of the Welsh Prince Caradoc who had threatened her virtue, followed by her miraculous healing and restoration to life. Young Henry expressed a wish to visit the holy well in the northern fastnesses of Wales. I explained that it was too far.

  ‘My father went on pilgrimage there. He went to pray before the battle of Agincourt,’ Young Henry said. How had he known that? ‘I wish to go. I wish to pray to the holy St Winifred before I am crowned King.’

  ‘It is too far.’

  ‘I will go. I insist. I will kneel at the spring on her special day.’

  I left it to Warwick to explain that the saint’s day on the third day of November and young Henry’s coronation on the fifth day would not allow for a journey across the width of the country.

  So we celebrated St Winifred at Windsor instead—earlier than her special day—but Owen’s preparations filled Young Henry with the requisite excitement. We prayed for St Winifred’s blessing, commending her bravery and vital spirit, and my coffers bought a silver bowl for Young Henry to present to her. Father Benedict had looked askance at making such a fuss of a Welsh saint—and a woman at that—but if King Henry, the victor at Agincourt, had seen fit to honour her, then so would we.

  It was a magnificent occasion.

  And then within the day all was packed up and we were heading to Westminster for the crowning of my son. Would Owen and I ever find the opportunity to do more than follow the demands of travel and Court life? It seemed that I would need all of Winifred’s perseverance.

  On the fifth day of November I stood beside Young Henry when he was crowned King of England. How ridiculously young he looked at eight years, far too small for the coronation throne. Instead they arranged a chair, set up on a step, with a fringed tester embroidered with Plantagenet lions and Valois fleurs-de-lys to proclaim his importance, and with a tasselled cushion for his feet. Kneeling before his slight figure, I was one of the first to make the act of fealty, wrought by maternal worries.

  Pray God he manages to keep hold of the sceptre and orb.

  His eyes were huge with untold anxieties when the crown of England was held over his head by two bishops. It was too large, too heavy for him to wear for any length of time, so a simple coronet placed on his brow made a show of sanctity. Henry would have been proud, even more so if his son had not taken off the coronet at the first opportunity during the ceremonial banquet to inspect the jewels in it, before handing it to me to hold, complaining that it made his head ache.

  I saw Warwick sigh. My son was very young for so great an honour, but he received his subjects with a sweet smile and well-rehearsed words, before becoming absorbed in the glory of the boar’s head enclosed in a gilded pastry castle.

  Owen accompanied me to Westminster, but we may as well have been as far apart as the sun and moon.

  And then home to Windsor to mark the ninth anniversary of Young Henry’s birth on the sixth day of December with a High Mass and the feast and a tournament, with opportunities for the younger pages and squires to show off their skills. Henry did not shine, and became querulous when beaten at a contest with small swords.

  ‘But I am King,’ he stormed. ‘Why do I not win?’

  ‘You must show your worthiness to be King,’ I reproved him gently. ‘And when you do not, you must be gracious in defeat.’

  ‘I will not!’

  There was little grace in Young Henry and I sensed he would never be the warrior his father had been. Perhaps he would make his fame as a man of learning and holiness. Whatever the future held for my child, as the holy oil was smeared on his brow I felt I had done my duty by my husband, who had in some manner left me, simply by his death, to care for his son. Perhaps I was free now to follow my desire to be with Owen Tudor.

  And then it was Christmas and the New Year gift-giving and Twelfth Night.

  What of Owen and me?

  There was no Owen and me.

  After that kiss in the chapel, soft as a whisper on my mouth, we were forced back into the roles of mistress and servant. My cheek healed with no opportunity for a repetition of such an injury. The exigencies of travel, of endless celebrations, an influx of important guests who demanded my time and Owen’s, and the resulting shortage of accommodation all worked against us. Neither of us was at leisure to contemplate even a stolen moment. There were no stolen moments. Edmund might have seduced me at the turn of the stair with hot kisses, but there was no seduction from Owen Tudor. In public Owen treated me with the same grave composure that he had always done.

  So how did I survive? How were my nerves calmed when I was close to him, wanting nothing more than to step into his arms but knowing that it could not be until…? Until when? Sometimes I felt we would remain with this harsh distance separating us, like a stretch of impassable and turbulent water, for ever.

  And yet there was a wooing, the most tender of wooings from a man who had nothing to give but the wage I paid him, and who could not pin his heart to his sleeve, even if he were of a mood to do so. I suspected that Owen was t
oo solemn for the pinning of hearts.

  There was a wooing in those months when we never exchanged a word in private, for I was the recipient of gifts. None of any value, but through them I knew that Owen Tudor courted me as if I were his love in some distant Welsh village and he a fervent suitor. The charm of it wrapped me around for I had no experience of it. Henry had had no need to woo me. I had come to his bed as the result of a signature on a document. Edmund had engaged me in a whirlwind seduction with no time for anything as gentle as courtship. From Owen, it was the small offerings, the simple thought of giving behind them, that took me by surprise and won my heart for ever.

  How I treasured them. A dish of dates, plump and exotic, freshly delivered from beyond the seas, sent to me in my chamber. A handful of pippins, stored since the autumn harvest, but still firm and sweet. A fine carp, richly cooked in almond milk, served to me at my table—served only to me—by Thomas my page under orders from Owen. A cup of warm, spiced hippocras brought to my chamber by Guille on a cold morning when rime coated the windows. Had Henry or Edmund even noticed what I ate? Had they considered my likes and dislikes? Owen knew that I had a sweet tooth.

  And not only that. My lute was newly and expertly strung by morning—one of the strings having snapped the previous evening—before I had even asked for it to be done. Would Henry have done that for me? I think he would have purchased a new lute. Edmund would not have noticed. When we suffered a plague of mice in the damsels’ quarters, I was recipient of a striped kitten. The mice were safe enough, but its antics made us laugh. I knew where the gift had come from.

  Nothing inappropriate. Nothing to cause comment or draw the eye. Except for that of Beatrice, who observed casually one morning when a basket of fragrant apple logs appeared in my parlour, ‘Master Owen has been very attentive recently.’