The Forbidden Queen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As spring burst the buds on the oak trees, I became unwell. Not a fever or a poisoning, or even an ague that often struck inhabitants of Windsor with the onset of rains and vicious winds in April. Nothing that I could recognise, rather a strange other-worldliness that grew, until I felt wholly detached from the day-to-day demands of court life. It was as if I sat, quite isolated, with no necessity for me to speak or act but simply to watch what went on around me.

My damsels going about their normal duties, stitching, praying, singing, my household absorbed in its routines of rising at dawn and retiring with the onset of night. I participated, as insubstantial as a ghost, for it meant nothing to me. Those around me seemed to me as far distant as the stars that witnessed my sleepless dark hours. Voices echoed in my head. Did I hold conversations? I must have done, but I did not always recall what I had said. When I touched the cloth of my robes or the platter on which my bread was served, my fingertips did not always sense the surface, whether hard or soft, warm or cold. And the bright light became my bitter enemy, reflecting and refracting into shards that pierced my mind. I groaned with the pain, retching into the garderobe until my belly was raw, and then I was driven to my chamber with curtains pulled to douse me in darkness until I could withstand the light once more.

I covered my affliction from my damsels as best I could. Admitting it to no one, I explained my lack of appetite with recourse to the weather, the unusual heat that caused us all to swelter. Or to the foetid miasma from drains that were in need of thorough cleansing. Or a dish of oysters that had not sat well with me.

I was not fooled by these excuses. Fear shivered along the tender surface of my skin and my belly lurched as my mind flew in ever-tightening circles of incomprehension. Or perhaps I comprehended only too well. Had I not seen these symptoms before? The distancing, the isolation, the uncertainty of temper? Oh, I had. As a child I had seen it and fled from it.

‘I am quite well,’ I snapped, when Beatrice remarked that I looked pale.

‘Perhaps some fresh air, a walk by the river,’ Meg suggested.

‘I don’t want fresh air. I wish to be left alone. Leave me!’

My women became wary—as they should, for my temper had become unpredictable.

I could not sew. The stitches faded from my sight or crossed over each other in a fantasy of horror. I closed my eyes and thrust it aside, blocking out the sideways glances of concern from my women.

With terror in my belly, I made excuses that Owen should not come to my room, pleading the woman’s curse, at the same time as I forced myself to believe that my affliction was some trivial disturbance that would pass with time.

Until I fell.

So public, so unexpected, one moment I was clutching the voluminous material of my houppelande, gracefully lifting it in one hand to allow me to descend the shallow flight of stairs into the Great Hall, and the next, halfway down, my balance became a thing of memory. My skirts slid from nerveless fingers, and I was stretching out a hand for someone, something, to hold on to. There was nothing. The painted tiles, suddenly seeming to be far too distant below me, swam, the patterns emerging and fading with nauseous rapidity.

My knees buckling, I fell.

It was, rather than a fall, an ignominious tumble from step to step, but it was no less painful or degrading. I felt every jar, every scrape and bump, until I reached the bottom in a heap of skirts and veiling. My breath had been punched from my lungs, and for a moment I simply lay there, vision distorted and black-edged, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me whole. After all these years as Princess and Queen, still I could not acknowledge being the centre of everyone’s attention, for my household to witness my lack of dignity.

The floor did not oblige me, and my surroundings pushed back into my mind again, all sharp-edged with brittle sounds. Hands came to lift me, faces that I did not recognise—but I must have known them all—shimmered in my vision. Voices came in and out of my consciousness.

‘I am not hurt,’ I said, but no one took any notice. Perhaps the words did not even develop from thought to speech.

‘Move aside.’

There was a voice I knew. My mind framed his name.

‘Go and fetch wine. A bowl of water to Her Majesty’s chamber. Fetch her physician. Now allow me to…’

The orders went on and on as arms supported me, lifted me and carried me back up the stairs. I knew who held me. He must have been in the Great Hall as I made my unfortunate entrance. I turned my face against his chest, breathing in the scent of him, but I did not speak, not even when he whispered against my hair.

‘Katherine. My poor girl.’

His heart thudded beneath my cheek, far stronger than the flutter in my own breast. I felt a need to tell him that I was in no danger but I did not have the strength. All I knew was that I felt safe and that whatever ailed me could do me no harm. Fanciful, I decided. Did I not know how dangerous my symptoms could become?

Soon, too soon, I was in my chamber and had been laid down on my bed, and there was my physician, muttering distractedly, Guille wringing her hands, Beatrice demanding an explanation. Even Alice had heard and descended hotfoot. I felt comfort from them, their soft female voices, but then Owen’s arms left me and I sensed his quiet withdrawal to the doorway. Then he was gone.

From sheer weakness, I turned my face into my pillow.

‘A severe case of female hysteria. Her humours are all awry.’

My physician, after questioning Beatrice and Guille and peering at me, frowned at me as if it were all my doing.

‘My lady is never ill,’ stated Alice, as if the fault must lie with my physician.

‘I know what I see,’ he responded with a lively sneer that even I in my muddled mind could sense. ‘A nervous complaint that has brought on trembling of the limbs—that’s what it is. Or why is it that Her Majesty would fall?’

I was undressed and put to bed like a child, a dose of powdered valerian in wine administered with orders not to stir for the rest of the day. Nor did I, for I fell into sleep, heavy and dreamless. When I surfaced, it was evening and the room dim. Guille sat by my bed, nodding gently, her stitching forgotten in her lap. My headache had abated and my thoughts held more clarity.

Owen. My first thought, my only thought.

But Owen would not come to me. It would not be acceptable that he should enter my room when I was ill and my women with me. I plucked restlessly at the bed linen. What had they done with my dragon brooch, which I always wore? When I stirred in a futile attempt to discover it, Guille stood and approached.

‘Where is it?’ I whispered. ‘The silver dragon?’ It seemed to me to be the most important question in the world.

Guille hushed me, told me to drink again, and I did. But when she took the cup from me she folded my fingers over the magical creature, and I smiled.

‘Sleep now,’ she murmured with compassion.

I need you, Owen.

It was my last thought before I fell back into sleep.

With dawn I woke, refreshed but too lethargic to stir. I broke my fast with ale and bread, leaning back against my pillows, surprised to find my appetite restored.

‘Your people are concerned, my lady,’ Guille informed me as she placed on the bed beside me a book in gilded leather. ‘From the Young King,’ she announced, mightily impressed with the thickness of the gold embossing. ‘He said I must tell you that he will pray for you when he has completed his lessons. But I have to say—I think you should not read yet awhile, my lady.’

And I laughed softly, for Young Henry’s priorities were always predictable. At the same time, I wished the book had been from Owen—but, then, he would not send me a prayer book. He would send me a book of stories, probably of Welsh lovers. And I would read it, however long it took me.

There was a knock on my door and my heart leapt as Guille went to open it. But it was Alice who came purposefully towards my bed.

‘May I speak with you, my lady?’

I stretched out my hand. ‘Oh, Alice. Come and relieve my boredom. I feel much stronger.’ My vision was clearer and my whole body felt calm and sure. My only hurt from the previous day was the bruising where thigh and shoulder had made contact with the steps. Painful, but not fatal. My fears over my previous symptoms, which seemed to have vanished with the valerian-induced sleep, had also faded to a mere whisper of light-headedness. Perhaps I had been mistaken after all. Perhaps my fears were unfounded.

Alice pulled up a stool and waved Guille and her offer of wine away. She leaned forward, arms folded on my bed, eyes level with mine and her voice barely above a whisper.

‘Let me look at you.’ She narrowed her gaze, scanning my face.

‘What do you see?’

‘You look drawn and there’s a transparency about you.’

‘I will be better after I rest,’ I assured her. ‘My physician—’

‘Your physician is a fool of a man who can’t recognise what’s at the end of his pointed nose. I have come to talk to you, my lady.’

‘I am in no danger.’

‘Danger? That’s to be seen.’

My fears, which I had so light-heartedly cast off, promptly returned fourfold. If what I had suspected was indeed so, that the curse that had laid its hand on my father had touched me also, had Alice seen it too? Had she noticed that sometimes I was distraught?

‘If what I suspect is true,’ Alice remarked, ‘you need some advice, my lady. And from someone who will not mince her words.’

‘What do you fear?’ I dreaded the answer. She must have seen my vagueness, heard my snap of temper, however hard I had tried to curb it. My women must have gossiped about my inconsistency so that it had reached even Alice. I found myself gripping her arm in my fear. ‘What ails me, Alice?’

‘I think you are carrying a child.’

Shock drove all thoughts from my mind: frozen, I sat and stared at Alice. A child. I was carrying a child. So perhaps it was not what I had most feared, the onset of a terrible fragility of mind from which I would never be free. Perhaps it was this unlooked-for child that had unsettled my mind and stirred my body to nausea and my mind to ill temper. But I recalled none of those symptoms when I had carried Young Henry. I had been full of health, calm and hopeful of a golden future, not the weak mewling, snappish thing that had fallen down the stairs. But, without doubt, this child, newly growing within me, was the cause of my sufferings.

In that moment of revelation I experienced relief so strong that I laughed aloud.

‘I see nothing to laugh at,’ Alice lectured. ‘Well, my lady? Have you fallen for a child?’

‘I don’t know.’

She clicked her tongue as if addressing an ignorant maidservant. ‘Have your courses stopped?’

I thought about it. Perhaps they had, but they had never been regular to any degree and my recent mindlessness had impaired my memory. But, yes, it had been at least two months, perhaps three. I was carrying Owen’s child. Owen’s child…A little spurt of delight—but then of fear—began to lick along my arms, so that I shivered despite the heat in the room.

Alice took my hands in hers and squeezed as if she could make me concentrate. Not that her questions made any difference to my predicament.

‘Did you not take precautions?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘But not well enough, it seems.’

I blushed, hot blood rushing to colour my cheeks. I had been wantonly careless. In my brief marriage to Henry it had been necessary to be fertile and conceive as fast as possible, not prevent the possibility. With Owen, between my imprecise knowledge and Guille’s flawed memory of drinking the seeds of Queen Anne’s lace steeped in wine, I had fallen headlong into the net set to entrap all women who indulged in sinful union outside the blessing of Holy Mother Church.

‘You should have come to me,’ Alice said crossly.

‘And admitted to you that I was steeped in sin?’

‘Better to be steeped in sin and safe from conception than carrying the bastard child of a servant!’

I inhaled sharply at her hard judgement.

‘What were you thinking? Do I need to ask who the father is? I don’t think I do.’ She shook her head, her fingers digging into my wrists, her voice anguished with what I could only think was distress. ‘How could you do this, my lady? A liaison with a servant of your own household. A man who has no breeding, no income, no status. How could you even consider it? And now a child, out of wedlock! What will Gloucester say?’ Her eyes widened. ‘What will he do?’

‘I don’t care what Gloucester says.’ I freed my hands from hers and inspected my palms, my fingers spread wide, as if I would see an answer written there. I carried Owen’s child and I could see no future that was not shrouded in uncertainty, yet a strange happiness had me in its grip. I looked up, frowning a little: ‘What do I do now, Alice?’

A significant pause. ‘You would not consider ending—?’

My hand on hers stopped her. ‘No. Never that.’ It was the one certainty. Whatever difficulties this child brought to me, I would carry it to term. After Henry’s death I had been forced to accept that I would never have another child. Now I carried a child by a man I adored. ‘You must never speak of such things,’ I said fiercely. ‘I want this baby.’

Alice sighed but nodded. ‘As I thought. It was a hard burden that Gloucester placed on you. It was not natural.’

‘But what do I do? Advise me, Alice.’

She pursed her lips. ‘You can hide it for a little time. Houppelandes have their uses, even if they are too cumbersome for words. But after that…’ To my astonishment her eyes were moist with tears.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I see no happiness for you in this.’

No happiness? What was the worst Gloucester could do? Take my child from me at birth? Part me from Owen? It was not beyond the realms of belief.

‘Gloucester will persist in preserving your immaculate reputation.’ Alice’s words echoed my thoughts.

‘Rather than allowing me to be seen as a slut who allowed a servant to get a bastard child on her,’ I added, fear making me unacceptably crude. I looked at her, at the tears on her cheeks, although I knew the answer before I asked the question. ‘Do I tell him?’

‘Yes. Tell him. You can’t keep it secret long—not if you intend to continue to share his bed. Ah, my lady…Why did you do it?’

I replied without hesitation. ‘Because I love him and I have no doubts of his love for me. It is given unconditionally. I have never known such joy.’

Alice sniffed and wiped away her tears. ‘What if Gloucester insists that you dismiss him?’

The answer was there, before me. I had never fought for anything in my life, but I would fight for my right to be fulfilled at the side of the man I loved. For the first time in my life I felt a surge of power. In this one crucial battle I would not be dictated to or manipulated by the ambitions of another.

‘I will not dismiss him,’ I said quietly, startled to hear the pride in my voice. ‘He is an exceptional man. I will not give him up. I am Queen Dowager. I am Queen Mother: how can Gloucester force me to dismiss servants from my own household? I will not. I will not live without him.’

Alice scowled, then smiled bleakly through the tears. ‘If I were young again and unwed, neither would I.’

Not once had we mentioned his name between us, but it lay like a blessing in my heart.

Alone again, with Alice’s words stark in my mind—I see no happiness for you in this—as was unfortunately my nature I was not so sanguine.

I am carrying your child.

I imagined saying it to Owen, and quailed.

‘What will we do?’ I had asked Alice before she had left me, but she had lifted her hands helplessly.

‘I don’t know. I have no advice to give.’

A liaison with a servant of your own household. A man who has no breeding, no income, no status…

My throat was dry with apprehension but I rose, dressed in a favourite emerald velvet with miniver cuffs, all worked with gold knot-work, and sent Thomas off to arrange a meeting with Owen in the audience chamber, the scene of our first charged acknowledgement of what we meant to each other.

With Guille in attendance to give me decorous company, I was there before he arrived, seated on one of the stools generally occupied by petitioners who came to ask for royal intervention, aware of the same watchful audience of stitched feral eyes. I stood as he entered and waved Guille to the far side of the room to stand against the leafy forest. Even if she overheard, it would not matter. She would know soon enough.

I thought he looked more than a little severe, formally and richly clad as he was, complete with chain of office, for Young Henry was expected to dine with me. But when he saw me, when he stood from his habitual show of courtesy, his mouth was soft. I resisted blurting out my news but held my tongue, heart thudding against my ribs. What would he say? What would any man say, receiving this awkward confession? All my inner certainty was in danger of leaching away.

‘You have a request, my lady?’

‘Merely to speak with you. Don’t mind Guille,’ as he glanced in her direction. ‘Her loyalty is not to be questioned.’

He moved to stand before me, not to touch me but to survey my face as if he might read all he wished to know there. And he smiled at last, as if a weight had fallen from him.

‘You look restored.’

His beautiful voice washed over me, calming me, restoring my earlier knowledge of what I wanted, what was right. ‘I am.’

‘Before you fell I thought you looked strained and sad.’ His voice was suddenly ragged. ‘Before God, Katherine, I have been torn apart, not knowing, not being able to come to you.’

‘I was sad, but no longer.’ I touched his sleeve. ‘I heard that it was you who carried me to my room. I did not know what was real and what was in my mind.’

He lifted my hand and kissed it. ‘You fell at my feet.’

‘Then that was fortunate.’

‘I hope your maid is discreet. I can no longer be discreet.’

Before he could take me into his arms, for that was clearly his intent, I stopped him, my hand pressed against his chest.

‘Owen…’ I arranged and rearranged the simple words. And finally I stated them baldly. ‘I am carrying your child. That is why I fell.’

His face paled, eyes darkened, all movement suspended. And then he slowly allowed his arms to fall.

‘Owen…’ I whispered.

But he swung away from me, to stride to the windows that ran along one side, away from the vivid forest, the hunted and the huntsmen. He did not stare down into the Inner Ward, as I expected. Instead, he turned his back to the fast-scudding clouds that heralded an approaching storm and looked at me. Still silent, thoughts masked, emotions impossible to read, he simply stood. As I walked slowly forward I could see how shallow his breathing was, how rigid his chain of office lay on his chest so that the gems were dark and opaque. His hands were splayed against the stones of the wall at his back.

‘Are you angry?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ And as if all his emotions had suddenly re-ignited, he spun from me to drive his fist into the carved window surround. Owen Tudor was no longer my impassive Master of Household. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, I could feel the vibration of his heart beating as hard as mine.

‘Are you angry with me?’ I asked.

‘How could I be?’

But still he did not turn, so I stepped round so that I could witness his profile.

‘You’re scowling,’ I said, hearing the tremble in my voice.

‘I should be whipped for this. I should have known.’ His expression was savage, his tone no less so. ‘What was I thinking, to put my own physical gratification before your safety? Before your reputation?’

‘I am in no danger.’

‘Only from the filth that will be flung at you by the court scandalmongers.’

‘They will fling it at both of us.’

‘You don’t deserve it.’ Now he looked at me, eyes wide, jaw hard clenched. ‘Forgive me, Katherine. Forgive me, forgive me for my wretched selfishness. If I had loved you less, it would never have come to this. If I had loved you more, I would never have touched you.’

I had no difficulty in replying. ‘But if you had never touched me, I would have died from longing.’ I tried to smile as I leaned to kiss his cheek, but he stepped back, away, hands raised against me.

‘How much I have hurt you.’

‘But do you not want this child?’ I asked. ‘A child born out of our love?’

He inhaled sharply, so that now the gems deep set in his chain gleamed balefully in the stormy light.

‘Can you ask me that? How would I not desire a child of your blood and mine? But this is no perfect world where we can choose. I have cast you into a maelstrom.’ His gaze pierced mine, precise as a dagger. ‘And do you know the worst thing?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t know how to put it right for you.’

But I did. There it was, newborn in my mind, as clear and tempting as a sparkling pool for a thirsty traveller, sweeping away all my irresolution.

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I know.’ I was so certain, I who had never been certain in her life. ‘I know how to put it right for both of us.’

‘Nothing I can do will.’

I did not hesitate. ‘Wed me, Owen.’

If the air had been charged before, now it screamed with tension.

‘Wed me, Owen.’ I repeated, my words crossing the divide.

‘Wed you?’

‘Is marriage so distasteful to you?’ His thoughts were awry so I drove on, even if it would increase the pain of his refusal if he could not tolerate it. ‘Or is it marriage to me that you balk at?’

And as he flung wide his arms, I saw the blood, along the knuckles of his right hand, beginning to drip to the floor, the skin scraped from flesh along the stonework. Showing me, if I was not already aware, just how close to the edge of control he was.

‘Your hand,’ I said in distress, reaching out to him.

‘To Hell with my hand!’ He took another step back from me. ‘You consider that marriage to me would solve all your problems? To shackle a Valois princess to a penniless servant will make a bad situation even more sordid.’

‘Sordid? I won’t accept that. I do not consider my situation—as you describe it—to be sordid. Do I not love you? Your position in my household can be redeemed instantly.’

‘But my race cannot. God’s Blood! Do you know what it is like for a man to be branded Welsh?’

‘No.’ How would I? I was ignorant of all Welshmen, apart from Owen.

‘Of course you don’t. It is a monstrosity of injustice, of bloody vengeance that has wilfully brought about the destruction of Welsh pride, of all our heritage and tradition. Of our rights before the law.’

It still meant little to me. Why would this deter him from marriage? I could not understand the rage that lit his face with such rampant power. In spite of everything, all I could think was that he was magnificent in his anger.

‘I have nothing to offer you, Katherine,’ he continued. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Why would you need to offer me anything? I don’t need material things. I have my own properties—’

‘Katherine!’ He silenced me, one hand raised, his voice dropping to make a harsh, even statement. ‘That’s what makes it so much worse. You have a queen’s dower, while I…’ He scrubbed his hands over his face, leaving a smear of blood along his jaw. ‘I have too much pride to take you with nothing to give in return.’

My heart wept for this proud man, but I summoned all my courage to reply as evenly as I could. ‘Why is pride so important? Is it stronger than love?’ I asked. ‘I want to be with you. If we were wed, then there would be no impediment. Will you allow pride to stand in our way?’ And I was astounded when my question rekindled the wrath.

‘By God, I will. I am a servant under your command, and yet I have the blood of Llewellyn the Great in my veins. I lay claim to the same blood as the mighty Owain Glyn Dwr. Yes, I am a proud man.’

‘Is that good? The blood of these men?’ I had never heard of Llewellyn or of Owain Glyn Dwr. I could barely pronounce them.

‘You don’t even know!’ His answering laugh was savage but he did not mock me. ‘They are the best, the finest names. Princes of our people, leading the Welsh to glory in battle, until defeat at the hands of the damned English.’

His impassioned words puzzled me. ‘If you are so well born, connected to this Llewellyn the Great, why do you serve me?’

‘Because the law has robbed me of all hope of making anything other of my life. God forgive me, Katherine—but I should never have taken you to my bed so thoughtlessly.’

‘I thank God that you did.’ My mind was already racing along, abandoning this Welsh hero Glyn Dwr and my lover’s pride. One thought—one thought alone—clung with sharp claws. ‘You say that you are without any means at all.’

‘Exactly that. Do you know what you pay me?’

‘No.’

‘Forty pounds a year. And the provision of clothing so that I might make a good impression on your guests. That would be the value of your husband, Katherine. It is not to be thought of.’

‘I think it is perfect. The perfect choice for me.’

‘It is a travesty.’

This time it was I who called a halt by the simple expedient of stepping forward two paces and placing my fingers across his lips.

‘Any man who risks marriage with me will suffer the confiscation of everything he owns. No man of wealth or land will look at me. But you do.’ I smiled at him, willing him to understand. ‘You look at me and you have nothing to be stripped from you. You have nothing. You cannot be punished.’ I held out my hands to him, my mind suddenly full of the possibilities. If only I could persuade this obstinate man. ‘Do you not see, Owen? There will be no retribution, because you have nothing.’

He did not respond enough to take my hands, but I watched as he followed my line of argument.

‘I cannot do it, Katherine.’

‘Why not? I love you. We have made a child together. Here we have a chance of being together. The only reason I can see for you not wanting me is if you do not love me enough. And if that is so, then you must tell me now.’

I waited, my heart in my mouth. I had not considered that, faced with marriage, he might retract his words of commitment to me. Had I misread the depths of his love?

‘If you wait before you tell me,’ I warned him, ‘it will break my heart so much more. Do you not love me, Owen? Was this idyll merely a product of lust on your part? I can accept that but I won’t accept that your pride should stand between us.’

No, I could not accept it at all.

‘Lust? By the Rood, Katherine! Is that what you think of me?’

‘I might, unless you tell me otherwise.’

Still I waited. The decision was his and he must make it alone. At last the air moved between us, and Owen took my hands lightly in his, breathing deeply to disperse his wrath.

‘You know that I love you,’ he stated, every contour of his face finely etched in the strange glimmering light. ‘You are with me until I fall asleep. While I sleep you never leave me. And when I awake I see your face in my mind before even I see the light of day.’ His lips curved a little. ‘You are a surprisingly calculating woman, Katherine.’

‘No, I am not,’ I said seriously. ‘But I have learned that I must fight for what I want. And I want this so much. If I have to be calculating and wilful and manipulative, then I will. Wed me, Owen. Give my child your name, as he deserves.’

‘Gloucester might punish you. Have you thought about that?’

‘I have. We might both be punished. But if we are wed in the sight of God, what can Gloucester and the Council do to us? I defy Gloucester to make scandal where the Queen Dowager is concerned, and I think if I appealed to Bedford, he would not stand against us.’ Confidence blossomed as Owen finally drew me into his arms. He was still thinking, still stubborn, but I was now sure of my ground.

I spoke, my fingers spread wide on his breast. ‘If you do not marry me, Owen, they will make me take the veil and my child—our child—will be taken from me.’ And I used the last weapon in my armoury. ‘I don’t think I could forgive you if you allowed your pride to enclose me in a nunnery for the rest of my life and cause our child to be brought up without knowledge of either of us.’

His mouth twisted in bitter self-deprecation. ‘Who am I but a disenfranchised Welshman, beaten and despised by his English victors? Who am I to wed a Queen?’

I did not understand ‘disenfranchised’ so ignored it. ‘A Queen who has never known love. If you love me, you will wed me.’

The planes of his face flattened in near despair. ‘Oh, Katherine! Unfair!’

‘I know. I’m fighting hard.’

‘I don’t like it,’ he murmured, his breath stirring my hair. ‘King’s daughter weds landless servant.’

‘But I do. Lonely widow weds the man she loves.’

‘Beautiful widow of the victor of Agincourt weds disenfranchised commoner.’

‘Abandoned widow weds the only man she has ever loved.’ How assured I was.

Still he resisted. ‘Queen Dowager weds the Master of her Household.’

I pressed my forehead against his chest. How many objections could he find?

‘Katherine weds the man who owns her heart.’ I sighed. And when he finally kissed me: ‘If you will not,’ I warned against his mouth, ‘then I will remain alone, unloved and unwanted, for ever.’

‘That must never be.’ Still I waited. ‘You are so very precious to me,’ he whispered.

‘Then, for God’s sake, wed me!’

He laughed—and at last he said what I wanted to hear. ‘We will do this as tradition dictates.’ Sinking to one knee, head bent like a knight in some chivalrous tale of love for his lady, voice clear and low, Owen enclosed my hands in his. ‘Wed me, Katherine. Take me as I am, a man without recognition, whose birth and honour stand for nought but a man who swears on the untarnished names of his ancestors that he will love you and honour you. Until death parts us—and beyond.’

Briefly, fleetingly, I recalled Edmund kneeling at my feet in an enchantment of flirtatious laughter, but in the end without honour, casting aside the heart he had entranced. Owen Tudor held that heart in his sure hands. He would never allow it to fall. Love for him filled my breast.

‘Will you wed me, Katherine?’

‘You know I will. Now stand up so that I might kiss you.’

Alice was waiting for me in my chamber, not exactly glowering but redolent of unease. She had been there for some time, judging by the empty platter and cup at her side. She glanced at Guille, reading who knew what in her lively stare, before she dispatched her. Then demanded, ‘Have you told him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘We will marry.’ I found that I was smiling. So simple a statement of intent. It held all I wanted and for a little time I could close my mind to the tempest that we would stir up, as black and threatening as the clouds that still hemmed Windsor about. ‘Owen and I will marry.’

When her breath had returned, Alice said what I knew she would say. ‘You cannot. It will break the statute. Your son is not old enough to give his consent, and the Royal Council won’t do it. Gloucester will make sure they don’t. The law is against you, my lady.’

I linked my hands, loosely, calmly. ‘Then I will do it without Young Henry and the Council’s consent. I will ignore the law. It is an unjust law and I will not abide by it.’

My lips were still warm from Owen’s kisses. I felt that I could face the world, challenge any who stood before me. What strength love can endow.

‘Gloucester might take steps to stop you.’

‘Then I will not tell Gloucester.’ How easy it seemed, yet a little ripple of worry teased at my mind. Was I being impossibly naïve? I neither knew nor cared. My feet were set on the path I had chosen, and I would not divert from it.

‘If Gloucester did not chastise you,’ Alice persisted, ‘he might take his revenge on Owen Tudor.’

The ripple became an onslaught. Would I wilfully bring harm to the man I loved? No, I would not. But the alternative was to live without him, and that I could not do.

‘Would you risk that?’ Alice asked.

‘I must,’ I said, my vision clear. ‘We have decided. We will stand together, against the whole world if we have to. And this child will be born in wedlock.’

‘God bless you, my lady. I will pray for you.’

We decided what we would do, Owen and I. It did not take us long, no more than the time it took to share breath in one kiss. If we wed, we would do so in the full light of day and in the open knowledge of Young Henry’s court at Windsor.

What use in hiding a scandalous marriage between the Queen Dowager and her Master of Household? What value to us in a clandestine ceremony if we wished to live openly as man and wife? And as the child grew in me, secrecy was not something to be considered. I might hide my condition beneath my skirts and high waists for a good few weeks but not for ever, and this child would be born without a slur on its name. We would wed now, and damn the consequences, as Owen put it.

‘We’ll do it in the face of God and man,’ Owen declared. ‘I’ll not hide behind your skirts, Katherine. Neither will we participate in some undisclosed rite that can later be questioned for its legitimacy. We will be man and wife, with all the legal proof necessary.’

Had he thought I would choose a secret ceremony, at dead of night, with no witness but the priest? He did not yet know me well. Or at least not the new Katherine who seemed to have emerged fully fledged under his protective wings. Soon he would know me better.

‘No man will ever have the right to label you Owen Tudor’s whore,’ he continued.

‘They will not.’

‘Do you think? Gloucester will discover every means possible to prove our marriage false. Forewarned is forearmed, so we’ll give him no grounds. I’ll take you as my wife under the eye of every man and woman in this damned palace, and be proud of it.’

‘And so will I take you as my husband. I will not demean our love, or my position as your wife, by travelling the corridors in cloak and veil to spend a clandestine night with my husband as if I was a whore,’ I replied.

My plain speaking surprised him into a laugh. ‘It will not be popular.’

It did not need saying, so we did not speak of it again, and it was so simply done, so smoothly arranged, without fuss. Who was there to prevent us? As for my son’s permission, I did not tell Young Henry of my plans. He would have done whatever Gloucester or the Council instructed him to do, so I did not burden him with it. As for the law of the land, manipulated by Gloucester—well, my desire to marry was far stronger than my respect for such a statute. I denied its binding on me.

‘Do you love me enough to do this?’ Owen asked finally when we stood before the door of the chapel. ‘Are you truly prepared to face a nation’s wrath?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll stand with you, whatever happens.’ ‘And I with you.’

‘Then let us do it.’ He kissed me. ‘When I kiss you again, you will be my wife.’

We exchanged our vows in the magnificence of St George’s chapel in Windsor, in the choir built by King Edward III, the weight of past history bearing down on us. No high ceremony here, other than the celebration of love in our hearts. Owen wore a tunic of impressive indigo damask, my gift to him, but no chain of office. Today he was no servant, and would not be so again. Responding to female inclination, I wore a gown that best pleased me, with not one inch of cloth of gold or ermine to mark it as royal. Leopards and fleurs-de-lys were also absent, and I wore my hair loose beneath my veil as if I were a virgin bride.

I made no excuses for my choices, meeting Owen’s eye boldly, admiring the figure he made, stern and sure, sword belted to his side, as we stood, face to face before Father Benedict, who twitched with more nerves than either bride or groom. Persuasion had been necessary.

‘Your Majesty…’ He wrung his hands anxiously. ‘… I cannot do this thing.’

‘I wish it.’

‘But my lord of Gloucester—’

‘Her Majesty wishes you to wed us,’ Owen stated. ‘If you will not, there are other priests.’

‘Master Tudor! How can you consider this ill-advised act?’

‘Will you wed us or not, man?’

Father Benedict gave in with reluctance, but when the moment came the ponderous Latin gave sanctification to what we did, sweeping me back to my marriage with Henry in the church at Troyes with all its ostentation and military show; cloth of gold and leopards and French lilies. Then I had married a King. Now I was marrying a man who owned nothing but my heart.

And our witnesses?

We were not alone. ‘We will wed in full public knowledge,’ Owen had vowed, and so we did. Guille carried my missal. My damsels, torn between the appalling scandal and the lure of romance, stood behind me. And every one of us had our senses alert for anyone who might intervene at the last moment and put a stop to this illicit act. Alice had not come, for which I was sorry. She had not been without compassion, but this liaison would be too much to swallow for many. I must resign myself to such disapproval from those I loved.

Father Benedict addressed Owen, his voice uncertain but resigned.

‘Owen Tudor vis accípere Katherine—’

‘No!’

There was an astounded surge of movement through our little congregation and a bolt of fear ripped through me. My breath caught in my throat, I looked at Owen in horror.

‘No,’ he repeated, but more gently this time, seeing my wide-eyed shock. ‘I will wed the lady under my own name, not some bastardised form to allow the English to master it. I am Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudor.’

Father Benedict looked at me. ‘Is that what you wish, my lady?’

‘Yes, Father,’ I said. ‘That is what I wish.’

With commendable fortitude, Father Benedict began again, making as good a case of the Welsh syllables as he could.

‘Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudor, vis accípere Katherine, hic…?’

And we stood hand in hand as I waited for Owen’s reply. Would he? By now my nerves were entirely undone, jangling like an ill-tuned lute. Would the danger prove too great at the eleventh hour? But there was no hesitation. None at all. Owen’s fingers laced with mine as if, palm to palm, the intimate pressure would seal our agreement.

‘Volo,’ Owen stated. ‘I do.’

Father Benedict turned to me.

‘Katherine, vis—’

Footsteps!

All froze, breath held. The noise of the door pushed open, creaking on its vast hinges, and the clap of shoes on the tiles echoed monstrously. More than one person was approaching. Father Benedict closed his mouth, swallowing the Latin as if it might preserve him from retribution, plucking nervously at his alb. All eyes were turned to the entrance to the choir. The tension could be tasted, the bitterness of aloes.

Not Gloucester, I decided, not a body of soldiers to put a stop to what we did. But if Father Benedict was ordered to halt the ceremony, would he obey? I glanced at him. He was sweating, his eyes glassy. His words hovered on his lips. Owen’s right hand released mine and closed round the hilt of his sword.

Holy Mother, I prayed—and then smiled for the first time that day. For there in the doorway stood Alice, accompanied by Joan Asteley and a cluster of chamber women of Henry’s personal household. They stepped in and joined my damsels, Alice with a nod of apology and severe demeanour, while I turned back to Father Benedict, the sweetness of relief in my veins, and Owen once more took my hand.

‘Father,’ I urged, as his eyes remained fixed on the doorway, as if he still expected Gloucester to march through it.

‘Forgive me, my lady.’ He cleared his throat and blinked, picking up the strands of this unorthodox marriage. ‘Katherine, vis accípere Owen…?’

‘Volo,’ I replied. ‘I do.’

We exchanged rings. Owen gave me a battered gold circle. ‘It is Welsh gold. A family piece. One of the few pieces of value left to us, and all I have.’ I gave him Michelle’s ring—because it was Valois, not Plantagenet, and mine to give freely—pushing it onto the smallest of his fingers. And there it was. We were wed. We were man and wife.

Owen bent his head and kissed me as he had promised. ‘Rwy’n dy garu di. Fy nghariad, fy un annwyl.’ And he kissed me again. ‘I would give you the world on a golden platter if I could. I have nothing to give you but the devotion of my heart and the protection of my body. They are yours for all eternity.’

My hand in his, where it now belonged, we walked from the choir.

No bride gifts, no procession, no feasts with extravagant subtleties. Only a hasty retiring to our chamber where Owen removed my gown, and then his own clothing, and we made our own celebration.

‘What did you say?’ I whispered, when I lay with my head on his shoulder, my hair in a tangle. ‘When you spoke in Welsh and promised me the world?’

‘I couldn’t manage the world, if you recall.’ I heard the smile in his voice as he pressed his mouth against my temple. ‘My Welsh offerings were poor things: I love you. My dear one, my beloved.’

I sighed. ‘I like that better than the world. Why do you not use your name?’

He hesitated a moment. ‘Can you pronounce it?’

‘No.’

‘So there is your answer.’ But I did not think that it was.