The Forbidden Queen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I kept early hours in the summer months when the sun drew me from my bed. The next morning, before we broke our fast, as was customary my whole household—damsels, pages and servants who were not immediately in employment—congregated in my private chapel to celebrate Mass. As the familiar words bathed the chapel in holy power, my fingers might trip over the beads of my rosary but my mind practised the words I would use to explain to Owen Tudor that I desired him but must reject him, that we must continue in the rigid path of mistress and servant.

At the end when I turned my thoughts to Father Benedict’s blessing I had made at least one decision. I would meet with Owen in the Great Hall. I did not think my words would please him, but it would be public enough to preserve a remote politeness between us. I offered up a final prayer for strength and forgiveness, rose to my feet, preparing to hand my missal and my mantle—essential against the cold in the chapel—to Guille and—

He was waiting for me by the door, and there was no misreading the austere expression: his mood was as dark today as yesterday. Neither did he intend to allow me to escape, but I would pre-empt him, seizing the initiative despite trembling knees. The drawing of a line between us which neither of us would cross again would be on my terms.

‘Our celebration for the Feast of St Winifred,’ I said, a small, polite smile touching my lips. ‘We must talk of it, Master Owen. Perhaps you will walk with me to the Great Hall.’

‘Here will do, my lady.’

To order him away would draw too much attention. I waved my damsels through the door before me and shook my head at Guille that I did not need her. Then we were face to face. Father Benedict would be sufficient chaperone.

‘Master Tudor—’ I began.

‘I bruised your face. And you would not receive me.’ His eyes blazed in his white face, his voice a low growl.

‘Well, I thought—’ Unexpectedly under attack, I could not explain what I had thought.

‘I marked you—and you refused to see me!’

‘I was ashamed.’ I would be honest, even though I quailed at his anger.

‘You were ashamed!’

I took a step back from the venom, but I was no longer so sure where his fury was directed. I had thought it was at me. Still, I would say what I thought I must.

‘I ask that you will understand—and pardon my thoughtlessness.’

‘I pardon you? It is unforgivable that I should have despoiled your beauty.’ He partially raised his hand as if he would touch my cheek, then, as Father Benedict shuffled about the sanctuary, let it fall to his side. ‘I deserve that you dismiss me for my actions. And yet for you to bar me from your rooms, and refuse to see me—it is too much.’

‘The blame does not lie with you,’ I tried.

He inhaled slowly, regaining control, of himself and of his voice. So he had a temper. I was right about the dragon in him. I feared it, yet at the same time it stirred my blood.

‘I regret—’

‘No. You have no need to regret.’ Briskly he took my mantle from my hands, shaking out the folds and draping it round my shoulders, the second time he had felt a need to protect me from the elements. ‘It is too cold without, my lady.’ The control was back, the passion harnessed, but the words were harsh. ‘I think the blame does lie with me in that I asked something of you that you were not capable of giving. I should have understood it, and not put you in that impossible position. My judgement was at fault. And because of that I harmed you.’

It hurt. It hurt that I had made him think me so weak.

‘I was capable,’ I retorted, but softly, conscious of Father Benedict still kneeling before the altar. ‘I am capable.’

‘Then why did you run from me?’

‘I shouldn’t have.’

His blood was running hot again, the dragon surfacing. ‘What happened between us, Katherine? One moment I thought you were of a mind with me—and the next you fought me as if I were endangering your honour. You came to me willingly. You allowed me to touch you and kiss you. You called me Owen. Not Master Owen or Master Tudor, but Owen. You allowed me to call you Katherine. Can you deny it? Did you think I would hurt you?’

‘Never that. But making a choice was too much to bear.’

‘What choice? To seize happiness in each other’s arms?’ There was anger simmering beneath the bafflement. ‘That was what I offered. I thought that was what you wanted too. And why did you accuse me of not being able to love you?’

‘Because no one ever has!’

I covered my mouth with my hands, horrified at hearing my admission spoken aloud.

Was he angry? I dared not look at him. Contrition made me move to walk past him, to escape the inevitable accusations, but as I reached the door Owen took my wrist. I glanced towards Father Benedict but he was occupied before the altar. When I pulled hard for release, Owen simply tightened his grip and drew me back into the chapel.

‘Katherine!’ He huffed out a breath. ‘Are all women so intransigent and intriguing? I swear it takes a brave man to take you on! I want to seize you and shake you for your indecision—and at the same time prostrate myself at your feet in sorrow for my savagery. You tear me apart. Two nights ago, for that brief moment, you burned with fire in my arms. Today you are as cold as ice. A man needs to know what his woman is thinking.’

It shocked me. ‘I am not your woman,’ I remarked. I was indeed as cold as ice.

‘Tell me that you did not want me when you came to my room. If that is not being my woman, I don’t know what is. Or do they have different standards at the royal court in France?’

Doubly wounded by an accusation that had some degree of truth in it, fury raced through me like a bolt of lightning. I felt like throwing my missal at his head. I gripped it, white-knuckled, and without thought, without respect, committing all the sins I had deplored, I replied, ‘How dare you, a servant, judge me? You have no right!’

Gripping my missal hard, I instantly regretted my ungoverned words. Seeing what might be in my mind, Owen favoured me with an unequivocal stare and took the book from my hand.

‘I think your words have done enough damage,’ he observed, the soft cadence for once compromised. ‘To resort to violence would be less than becoming, my lady.’

And I was stricken. It was as if I had actually struck him, for how could I have spoken words so demeaning? Demeaning to both Owen Tudor and myself. What would he think of me now? First to play him fast and loose, and then to lash out in an anger that he would not have understood? How could I possibly explain to him that I feared beyond anything to be likened to my mother and her louche court where lust ruled and principle came a far second? I could not tell him, I could not explain…

‘I am so sorry,’ I breathed. ‘I am even more ashamed…’

And how unforgiving was his reply. ‘Well, my comment was ill advised, I suppose. What would a servant know of such high matters as behaviour between those of royal blood?’

‘I should not have said that. It was unforgivable. Everything I say to try to put this right between us seems to be the wrong thing.’

And I covered my face at the impossibility of it, so that when Owen moved to pull me to sit on the settle he startled me, but I did not refuse, neither did I rebuff him when Father Benedict rose, genuflected, and withdrew into the sanctuary, and Owen took a seat beside me.

‘Don’t weep,’ he said. ‘What I said to you was intolerable for a man of honour. But I claim provocation.’ His smile was wry. ‘Your tears are sufficient condemnation of my actions towards you. Doubtless I should be dismissed from your service for it. I would do nothing to hurt you, my lady.’

‘I’ll not dismiss you. Do you not understand?’ His return to formality overcame me, undermining all my intentions to remain aloof and distant, and the words poured as freely as my tears. ‘I was responsible. I was too impulsive. I am ashamed that I came to your room, willingly kissed you and accepted your kisses, and then my courage gave out at the last moment. I could see no happiness, no future, for either of us. Do you not see? I am not allowed to have what would make me happy. My life is dictated by Gloucester and the Council. Yes, I wanted you. I would have lain in your arms if I had not had a fit of remorse for beginning what could not be ended. For Gloucester’s anger at me would touch you also.’

He said nothing, merely leaned forward, forearms supported on his thighs, studying the tiles between his boots. I could not tell if he understood, or despised me as a weak woman who could not make up her own mind. I feared it might be the latter.

‘I wish I had never seen you swimming in the river,’ I sniffed.

He turned his head to look up at me. ‘Why?’

‘Because since then I am aware of you as I have been of no other man.’

‘I didn’t know you admired my prowess at swimming,’ he said.

‘I didn’t. I lusted after your body,’ I admitted.

He laughed softly, the sound not totally devoid of humour, as he returned my missal to me. ‘So why refuse me?’

‘Because I have to live as I am told to live, discreetly and circumspectly, to honour my son and the Crown.’

The dark brows drew together. ‘You are not a child, to follow orders.’

‘It is not as simple as that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I am alone. I have no one to encourage me, to give me strength. If I am to rebel against those who have power over me, I cannot do it alone. You were right. St Winifred had far more courage than I.’

‘To Hell with St Winifred. I would give you strength.’

‘But if we embarked on…that is to say…’

‘If you allowed me to become your lover.’

‘Yes. That is what I meant.’ I kept my gaze on my fingers, still clutching my ill-treated missal. ‘When it was discovered it would bring Gloucester’s wrath down on us. And that would mean dismissal for you, even punishment.’

‘To Hell with Gloucester too. Do you not rule your own household? I could give you happiness.’

‘And I could bring disaster down on your head.’

‘Do we deny each other because of what others want for us?’

It all seemed so simple when he spoke it. But it wasn’t simple at all. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We must deny each other.’

His hand touched my arm. ‘I say no. Where is your spirit?’

‘I have none.’ Self-pity washed over me like a wave. ‘I don’t believe myself to be worthy of love.’

‘Look at me, Katherine.’

I did, wishing my face was not ravaged by tears, but still I looked, to discover all the anger and condemnation in his face had quite gone. I was caught up in such understanding, such compassion, such a tenderness of care that I could not look away.

‘Use my name,’ he said gently.

‘Owen,’ I said with a watery smile.

‘Good. You have given me a hard task, have you not? To prove to you that my love is sure? Now, listen to me. Here is how I see it,’ Owen stated solemnly. ‘I see a woman of extraordinary courage. You came to a strange country as a young girl, to make a new life alone since your husband left you for the demands of war. You bore the loss of widowhood, and you have stood by your young son. Do you think I have not seen how you behave? Never has there been a Queen Dowager as gracious as Katherine of France. You have escaped from the toils of Edmund Beaufort, God rot his soul. And not before time—he was not the man for you. I say that you are a woman of spirit. And I say that that you should not accept a life of solitude and loneliness because your brother-by-marriage thinks it would be good for the Crown. Do you not deserve a life of your own, on your own terms?’

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 too 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.’

‘More than usual?’ I queried with a fine show of insouciance.

‘I think so.’ Her eyes narrowed.

And the gestures continued. A rose, icily preserved and barely unfurled. Where had he found that in January? An intricate hood, the leather fashioned and stitched with a pretty tuft of feathers, for my new merlin. I knew whose capable fingers had executed the stitching. And for the New Year gift-giving, a crucifix carved with astonishing precision from that same applewood, polished and gleaming, left for me anonymously and without explanation on my prie-dieu.

And what did I give him? I knew I had not the freedom to give, as he had to me under the cover of the household, but the tradition of rewarding servants at Twelfth Night made it possible. I gave him a bolt of cloth, rich blue damask, as dark and sumptuous as indigo, to be made up into a tunic. I could imagine it becoming him very well.

Owen thanked me formally. I smiled and thanked him for his services to me and my people. Our eyes caught for the merest of breaths then he bowed again and stood aside for others to approach.

My cheeks were aflame. Was no one else aware of the burning need that shimmered in the air between us? Beatrice was.

‘I hope you know what you’re about, my lady,’ she remarked with a caustic glance.

Oh, I did. And after the weeks of thwarted love it could not come fast enough.

‘When can I be with you?’

It was the question I had longed to hear from him.

‘Come to my room,’ I replied. ‘Between Vespers and Compline.’

It was January, bleak and cold, and the court had slipped into its winter regime of survival: keeping warm; tolerating the endless dark when there was no light in the sky when we rose and it had vanished again by supper. But my blood raced hotly. The physical consummation of our love had to be. I wanted to be with him for I loved him with an outpouring of passion I knew not how to express. All I knew was that I loved him and he loved me.

And I had to take Guille into my confidence. She simply nodded as if she knew I could do no other, opening the door for him, closing it without a glance as she left us.

‘I’ll make sure you are not disturbed, my lady,’ she had promised. She did not judge me too harshly.

And there he stood, Owen Tudor, illuminated by a shimmer of candles because, perhaps out of trepidation at the last, I had lit my room as if for a religious rite. Dark-clad, hair dense as the damask I had given him, face sternly glamorous, his presence overwhelmed my bedchamber, and me. But not quite. I knew what I would do.

‘Will you run from me?’ he asked softly, not moving from the door, giving me all the time in the world.

‘Not this time.’ The words rasped a little on an indrawn breath.

He raised his chin a little. ‘I have nothing to give you but what you see.’

‘It is enough.’

He walked slowly around my chamber, dousing the candles as if it were a final task as my servant, leaving the one beside the bed to flicker and paint shadows on the entwined flowers embroidered on my chamber robe. Drawing back the curtains of my bed, he held out his hand to me. ‘My lady?’ There was just the hint of a query, still allowing me the freedom to choose.

I did not move. I could not take that final step just yet.

‘I have to say that I don’t know…’ I swallowed and tried again. ‘It is just that…’ And I raised my hands in despair. ‘I have no idea how I should make love with a man. How I should make myself desirable to him.’

His expression showed no pity. Owen took the step towards me and laid his fingers on my lips. ‘It is of no account. I will show you. I will lead and you will follow, as you will.’

And I did, allowing him dominion over me, following into undreamed-of paths of delight. It did not matter if my responses were clumsy and untutored. If he noted my ignorance, it made no difference. Between the caress of his two palms I came alive and learned what I did not know, that the physical bond between a man and a woman could be more than duty and necessity. It could be something dearly sought and much enjoyed. It could be blinding, blazing with a need that seared and consumed, then rekindled in driving passion. It could be a wordless bond of shared laughter and intimate caresses to enclose us in our own private world, a universe of two people. It could be as soft as a dove’s breast, as tender as my kitten’s paw. I could not have guessed at the half of it. I revelled in Owen Tudor’s smooth skin and firm flesh, the experienced fingers and lips that stole my soul.

‘My loved one. My brightest star of the firmament. Heart of my heart.’

Owen talked to me, even when his voice was ragged, his breathing under duress. His endearments shook me as the slide of his mouth from throat to breast awakened all the senses I had not known I possessed. Beyond control I cried out. And then again there was no need for words for we were flooded with the reality of what we had created between us.

His hair was a tangle of black silk against my breast and I wept with the wonder of it, and when it became too much for me to bear I buried my face against his shoulder that was wet with my tears.

‘Sleep now,’ he murmured against my mouth. ‘You have travelled far and long, and you have travelled alone. You are no longer alone, my beautiful Katherine. You are at rest.’

My heart settled. I could not contemplate the superlative wonder of being together.

‘What are you thinking?’ I asked when sense and some semblance of control had returned to us. My eyes were dry at last, but I was thankful for the concealment provided by the bed hangings. Owen’s eyes were closed, his face once more austere in repose, but then his mouth curved and his fingers linked with mine.

‘That if I were a man of substance, I would carry you off from here, across Offa’s Dyke.’

‘What is Offa’s Dyke?’

‘The old border between Wales and England, marked by banks and ditches constructed by King Offa to keep the Welsh out of England.’ His smile glimmered in the candlelight. ‘Not that it worked. The Welsh have always had a habit of raiding across the border and enjoying the benefits of English livestock.’

‘Would I like it? Across Offa’s Dyke?’

‘Of course. It is my home. And once we were there I would wed you.’

I thought it was said carelessly, Owen tottering on the edge of sleep. ‘No, you would not,’ I murmured.

‘Why would I not?’

‘Because if you were a man of substance, you would lose everything you owned.’

Which woke him. Eyes open, dark with emotion, his lips tightened, thinned. ‘And of course, as you well know, I have nothing to lose.’

I had not intended to spur so bitter a reaction, and did not fully understand it, but regretful of my thoughtlessness I sought for a less contentious issue. ‘Tell me what it is like to be Welsh, living in England. Is it any different from being French and living here?’

But he would not say beyond ‘I expect the English regard us all as foreigners out of the same disreputable bag’. I couldn’t persuade him further.

‘Then tell me about your family,’ I said. ‘You know all about mine. Tell me about your Welsh ancestors.’

It was a question destined to curtail even the mildest of confidences. He would not.

‘It is like searching for meat in a Lenten pie!’

‘Let it lie, Katherine,’ he whispered. ‘It is not important. It has no bearing on us.’

Nothing about his life before his arrival at Henry’s Court could be squeezed out of him. I gave up and lived in the moment, sinking into the joy of it, except that there was one issue I was compelled, against all sense, to raise. I placed my hand on his chest, where his heart beat.

‘You did not like Edmund Beaufort, did you?’

It was a ghost between us, maliciously hovering, that I felt the need to exorcise, even if it resulted in Owen condemning me for my lack of judgement. I recalled the disdain that had clamped Owen’s mouth on a former occasion when I had not understood. And as if he sensed my trepidation, Owen rolled, gathering me up into his arms so that he could look at me, his initial response surprising me by its even-handedness.

‘He is a man of ability and wit with a powerful name and inheritance. I expect he will be a great politician and a first-rate soldier and an asset to England.’ Then his arms tightened round me. ‘I detested him. He saw your vulnerability and the chance for his personal gain, and he laid siege.’

Held tight against his chest, I turned my face into him. ‘I am sorry.’

His arms tightened further. ‘I don’t blame you.’

‘But I do. I should have seen what he was, what he wanted. I was warned often enough.’

‘You were just a witless female.’ He kissed me, stopping my words when I would have objected. ‘How could you know? Beaufort could charm the carp out of the fish pond and onto the plate, complete with sauce and trimmings.’ A little silence fell. ‘He did not charm me. But you do, ngoleuni fy mywyd.’

‘What does—?’

His mouth captured mine, his body demanded my obedience to his and I gave it willingly.

We never spoke of Edmund Beaufort again. He was no part of my life now, and never would be again.

‘When did you first love me?’ I asked, as any woman must when first deluged in emotion.

‘When I first came to your household. I cannot recall a time when I did not love you.’

Drowsing, we knew our snatched moment together was rushing to a close. The daily routine at Windsor, the final service of Compline to end the day, claimed us back from our bright idyll.

‘How did I not know?’ I asked, trying to remember Owen in those days after Henry’s death.

His lips were soft against my hair, my temple. ‘Your thoughts were trapped in desolation. Why would you notice a servant?’

I pushed myself so that I could read his face. ‘And yet you were content to serve me, knowing that I did not see you.’

Owen’s smile was wry, so were his words. ‘Content? Never that. Sometimes I felt the need to shout my love from the battlement walk, or announce it from the dais, along with the offering of the grace cup. But there was no future in it, or so I thought. I was simply there to obey your commands and—’

I stopped his words with my fingers. ‘I am ashamed,’ I whispered.

Owen’s kiss melted the shame from my heart.

I glowed. I walked with a light step as my heart sang. Light of his life, he had called me. I could not imagine such happiness.

‘He makes you content, my lady,’ Beatrice observed carefully.

‘Yes.’ I did not pretend to misunderstand her. ‘Is there gossip?’

‘No.’

I thanked the Holy Mother for her inexplicable kindness as I lived every day for the time when Owen would blow out the candle and we would be enclosed in our world that was neither English nor French nor Welsh.

‘What is our future?’ I asked one morning when, in the light of a single candle and before the household was awake, Owen struggled, cursing mildly, into tunic and hose.

‘I don’t know. I have no gift for divination.’ Applying himself to his belt in the near darkness, he looked across to where I still lay in tangled linens, and seeing the gleam of fear in my eyes, he abandoned the buckle and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘We will live for the present. It is all we have, and it is enough.’

‘Yes. It is enough.’

‘I will come to you when I can.’

He took my lips with great sweetness. I loved him enough, trusted him enough, to put myself and our uncertain future into his care. How foolish we were to believe that we could control what fate determined.