Crown in Candlelight (51 page)

He lay beside her, supporting her head on his arm, looking down at her. He said sadly: ‘I didn’t pleasure you enough. I wanted you too much, for too long.’

She smiled. It was done. No more fears. Ah, my love. The candlelight from the Virgin’s prie-dieu was very strong on his face; it lit jewels in the shadows of the blue-and-gold ceiling. He was paler still, his eyes downcast as he looked at her. He had pushed the covers back so he could look.

He has the most beautiful mouth in the world. The top lip is very sharply defined, both lips are the same width and fullness, curling at the corners, turning up as his eyes and eyebrows do, and his voice. That mouth is tender and wicked and vulnerable. Now it’s on mine again, that mouth is on mine.
Sainte Vierge!
one could die of this. It would be good to die so, in his arms. I would never have dreamed anyone could kiss like this. Ah, my love.

He thought, half-insanely: the dream is better than the dream itself. It need not have been like this: she could have been cold, arrogant, she might have made me feel ashamed of my gross encroachment of privilege. She might have made it clear that I was here at her command, that she was merely using me to service her … but no. She lies there, so lovely, with that kind and wanton little smile, her hand stroking my neck, so loving, so gentle, with her fiery generous heart and her noble blood. She might even (and here he chuckled aloud) have insisted I call her ‘Your Grace’ in bed!

‘What is it?’ she whispered, and he told her. They stared deeply at one another.

‘I could command your death!’ she said wonderingly.

‘Of course you could. You could say I’d raped you.’

‘What would be the penalty for that, I wonder?’

‘Unimaginable …’ They both shivered. He held her tight.

‘Have you ever raped anyone?’ she said curiously.

‘No. I never thought there was much to be had from hurting … but I’ve seen it done, many times. After a siege.’

‘Last week, in the gallery …’

‘Forgive me for that,
cariad
. Forgive me.’

She put her hand over his lips.

He moved a little away so he could watch her heart beating. It shook her left breast with its rhythm. A faint line of sweat lay on her neck. She was much thinner than he had remembered. He stroked her flat belly. None would ever think she had borne a child. Would to God it had been mine. I would like to have been first with her. If I could get her with child it would be the most wonderful crown to this glory. I may already have done so. He lowered his head and kissed her breasts and then her belly, slow kisses from hip to hip and then up again under her ribs. He heard her sighing breaths and felt her fingers in his hair.

How frail flesh is, he thought. It only just holds in our vitals and our souls. He felt suddenly afraid.

‘Tell me you love me,’ he said, and smiled at the ironic demise of his old self. The times he’d heard those words, and never once asked them.

‘Say you love me, Cathryn.’

He raised himself and set his mouth on hers again. You’ll say it, before the night is done …
Annwyl Crist!
A thought struck home. Let it not be only for one night! To lose her now would be worse than death. It is
am byth
. For ever. Someone will make you weep one day. They’d said it. Yes, he was afraid.

She thought: I must contrive to keep him with me always. It can be done. It must be done. Not here at Windsor, but there must be a way. Folk have lost interest in me since the King … since Harry died. Somewhere fairly near London, so I can attend Parliament when necessary and keep watch over my little boy … but this is paramount. I must have Owen with me like this, always, or give up life itself.

He said, against her lips: ‘There’s no escape, Cathryn. I shall give you no peace. I shall hound you and haunt you until you have me killed or send me back to Wales. There’s no escape from me now,
cariad
.’

And she said: ‘But I love you. I love you, Owen.
Owen, comme je t’adore!
We must leave here. We will go together … to Hadham, or to my mannor at Hertford. I am very fond of Hertford. I will gather all the servants I can trust. I’ll spin some tale to keep the Duchesses away. We will establish our own ménage there, and be together always. I love you. I love you.
Je t’ aime
, Owen,
mon amour
.’

Tears came to his eyes. He could not move or speak.

‘I can’t lose you,’ she said. ‘Not you. It’s unbearable. Once I loved someone dearly and lost them .…’

‘The King,’ he whispered.

‘No, not only Harry. I was speaking of my sister, my Belle.’

He knew she had been ill and lonely and starved and afraid and disappointed. Deep were the fragile clues. The day would come when she would tell him all. Meanwhile he could mend the damage so expertly that there might be no need, yet if she wished, he’d listen.

‘She was everything. A mother, father, protector. She was virgin when she wed her second husband …’ She smiled, the smile stopped his heart for a moment. ‘Love, ah, love is strange.’

He said softly: ‘Cathryn,
fy nghariad,
my own darling. I will be brother and sister and father and protector to you. But I have no lands, no money, no estate, no fame. This—all this, is the only treasure I have for you. Take me. Take my love.’

He thought: and you, in your way, were virgin when you came to me, and I am now your husband. And now your husband will pleasure you.

He did all that he would; things that she had never imagined even in her wildest lonely longings. She turned her face into the bolster to stifle the sounds he brought from her.

Dere yma, fy merch fach
. Come here, come to me, my little girl. Open your mouth, Cathryn. Now kiss me. Touch me. Here … and here, ah, Cathryn, Cathryn …

Near Llangollen Vale there is a mountain. There are flowers at the hill-foot and birds nesting towards the summit and on top is the snow … in the morning the sun strikes the peak—sometimes in summer the snow melts on the peak—it’s so beautiful …

Now these, these are the flowers that grow at the hill-foot, so soft, I feel the dew on them and the little streams that flow among them … and here, much higher, the birds are nesting, I feel their fluttering wings, they’re frightened. No need to fear, little birds. He kissed the fluttering, the hard rosy tips of her breasts, the hard pulse beating at the base of her throat. The sun begins to rise up the mountain. It is a very fierce sun today. At the top the snow waits. You are the snow This is your mountain. Now the sun begins to touch the peak.

She rubbed her long neck against his like a courting swan, she moved her hands ceaselessly up and down the muscles of his back, feeling their graceful ebb and flow; her eyes tightly shut, she arched yearningly to meet him. She could see the flowers and the birds and the mountain. His voice was fading, she could just hear … it was like death, it had the power of death …

Ah, feel the sun, now the sun is on the peak … it melts the snow …

‘Quickly!’ he cried. ‘Look! See the sun on the peak! Feel it melt! Cathryn, my beloved Cathryn …’

She opened her eyes straight into his—they had changed, all the blue was gone, they had darkened to gold, ardent gold in the little candle’s light—the sun was in them, in her, the snow melting, the sun bursting on the melting snow! He stemmed her terrible wild cry with his mouth. The silence became profound. Very faintly outside came the chink of the guard’s halberd on the stones.

‘I hurt you,
mon amour
,’ she whispered.

‘No, no. You cut your nails too short. There,
cariad
. There, my darling.’

The silky dewy dream with its core of fire. It had been like trying to hold a whirlwind. The valley in the bed was deeper now, a wonderful place to be thrown, pressed together, skin and limbs and lips and heartbeats. Her pulse was so fast it frightened him, he kept his hand on it until it slowed a little. Her long thick hair was falling over her face and clinging to her wet body. He sat up and quickly made it into two long braids, to ease her. The little flame was burning low, beneath the Virgin.

‘Have you ever lost anyone you loved?’

He said: ‘I never really knew my parents. I have never been married. I have never been in love. Oh, how glad I am I have never been in love! I am changed. Are you changed, Cathryn?’

She whispered: ‘I am changed.’

He thought briefly of the past. He realized he had always been jealous of Harry. Yet she had loved Harry, and that was good and right. He thought with bitter regret of Alys, Blanchette, Ghislaine, Jeanne, and all that company, wishing them out of existence. Then: without them I would not have had the knowledge to pleasure her so, to see and feel her lost eyes and her wild body. The man I now am is their gift to Cathryn. Thank you, ladies. God send you good husbands.

She thought: I’ll have to maintain him; he shall want for nothing. He has nothing save for his Wardrobe salary. She suspected he was extremely proud in these matters, and accurately forecast storms. Any storm was worth it. But we must leave Windsor. Near this room they change the guard every four hours and someone may have heard us. I loved Harry, I loved him dearly.
Requiescat
. It was never like this.

She caressed the knife-scar on his thigh. He discovered a vein between her neck and shoulder which, when kissed, made her shudder and gasp; he went to work on this for a long time. And at last he found the words to tell her of the duration, depth and truth of his love for her, and this took longer still. She kissed the crease between his brows and ruffled his hair. He turned her over and kissed all the way down her spine, stroked and squeezed her soft round buttocks. She lay still. Thoughts tripped by, weightless as clouds. No shame, no guilt, no fear. Could Philippa of York only witness this scene! The thought was too much, she twisted back into his arms to hide her mirth against him, embracing him with her silken limbs. He became extremely excited.

‘This is a rape, Cathryn. You are my poor hostage and I am a great lord. This is how it’s done. This is rape. Does it hurt? It should, Cathryn. I must lack the skill. You shouldn’t be holding me like that, Cathryn. You should be struggling, screaming for mercy. This is rape. I’d better put more vigour into it … you shouldn’t be kissing me … you shouldn’t … kiss your ravishers … it encourages them …’

Their kisses and cries mingled. They came apart gasping.

‘We shall break Duke Humphrey’s bed,’ he said.

They began to laugh. The more they tried to quell the laughter, the wilder it became. He hauled the furs and brocades over their heads. They lay in a hot cave, laughing and kissing, half-mad with joy in their private dangerous Paradise.

Then, breathless, he threw the covers back. He got out of bed to light a fresh candle. She looked at his golden body in the soft light, heard him swear as his trembling fingers burned themselves on hot wax. She looked at his slenderness, his strength. Since he had been out of the wars he wore his hair rather long, its tawny gold had a thick curl in it. She stretched her toes down the bed. Her loins and back were filled with a beautiful ache. She thought with certainty: if I am ever parted from him, I shall die.

He came back and held her tenderly. He began to think very seriously about their future together. About the shattering possibilities. Would it be possible to marry her—the Queen-Dowager? If I applied for letters of denization—became an Englishman? The Lord Glyn Dwr would turn in his grave, whatever that may be. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing but this.
Am byth
. For ever.

‘There is something I can give you.’ He tugged at a ring of heavy Welsh gold he wore on his little finger. He slipped it on her hand.

‘Owain Glyn Dwr gave me that ring when I left home,’ he said. ‘He was furious with me but he gave it me for protection. It’s supposed to be magic. I don’t know. Only wear it for me, for love.’

‘I will always wear it. Are you ever homesick for Wales?’

‘How could I long for anything now? I haven’t been back for ten years. I miss the language sometimes.’

‘Are there servants you would like to take with us to Hertford? Your two kinsmen?’

‘They have two young boys, seeking service in England. Huw and Caradoc. Perhaps.’

‘Can they be trusted?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said instantly. ‘They’re children of my race. They’d die rather than be false to a fellow Welshman.’

‘Then they shall come.’ She closed her eyes. He laid his face against her hair. Dawn would soon be here, damned dawn.

‘Shall I see you tomorrow?’

‘You must not look at me,’ she said.

‘It will be difficult.’

‘Almost impossible.’

‘My darling. I wonder if they’ll be able to tell? You look like a flower.’

She opened her eyes. ‘You’re so pale. You must rest. Hold me in your arms.’

‘Ah, Cathryn. I love you. For ever.’

She began to drift. He had re-baptized her. She was no longer Kéti, the anguished, frightened maiden. Nor Katherine, bereaved and lonely Queen. Both those beings were dead. She was Owen’s beloved Cathryn, and she was safely home at last. And strangely, she was still chaste, as was he. Love had made certain of that.

He didn’t sleep, but waited until dawn made it impossible to linger. He lay cradling her head, and with his other hand held her hand against his heart. He eased himself half underneath her to support her while she slept. He kissed her closed eyes without waking her. Under the braids he had made her neck looked like a child’s.
Fy merch fach
. My little girl. Her lips were swollen. There was a long rosy mark on her neck where he had kissed her too hard, and a bruise inside her arm. He would send up a high-collared dress for her to wear today. The brown velvet. I’ll be good today. I won’t look at her. It will be easier now. Knowing we are going to Hertford together. Let it be soon. Soon. And another thing. When we are safely there, there’ll be no creeping in secret to her bed. We shall sleep together every night, without shame, openly. Man and wife. And she will bear my children. I will it shall be so. He turned her hand over and looked at her palm. Megan at Glyndyfrdwy used to boast she could read hands; she always marvelled at his own long life. Cathryn’s lifeline stopped short halfway. Megan was a lying, crazy old witch. He turned the hand again on to his heart. He laid his head back, holding her sleeping face against his throat. Then at last he shed tears, they rolled into Duke Humphrey’s bolster. He thought with great humility: thank you, sweet Christ. Thank you, dear God. Thank you, Drwynwen, love-goddess of Anglesey. Thank you, whatever forces brought me to this time.