The Forbidden Queen (90 page)

‘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.

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.