by Anne O'Brien
‘I do not sing, my lady. Your minstrels would make a better job of it. Do I send one to you?’
No response other than a denial. Always courteous, always efficient, always as distant as the moon and as unresponsive as a plank of wood. I failed to rouse any response other than that of an immaculate servant who knew his position and the courtesy due to his lady. I imagined that if I had said, ‘Master Owen—would you care to share my bed for an hour of dalliance? Of even chivalrous discourse? Or perhaps an afternoon of blazing lust?’ he would have replied: ‘My thanks, my lady, but today is not possible. It is imperative that the sewers are flushed out before the winter frosts.’
Calm, cool, infinitely desirable—and utterly beyond my reach.
I tapped my fingers against the arm of my chair as we dined. It was like trying to lure a conversation out of the untouched stuffed pigeon in the dish in front of me. Bowing again, the Master turned to go. Not once had he raised his eyes to mine. They remained deferentially downcast, yet not, I thought, in acknowledgement of his status as one employed in my household. I did not think, after watching him for the past hour, that he gave even a passing nod to the fact that he held a servile position. I thought Master Tudor might have a surprising depth of arrogance beneath that thigh-skimming dark tunic. He carried out his tasks as a king in his own country, with ease and a certainty of his powers. He was…I sought for the word. Decorous. Yes, that was it: he owned a refined polish that overlaid all his actions.
I would discover what invisible currents moved beneath the courtly reserve.
‘Master Tudor.’
‘Yes, my lady?’ He halted and turned.
A breath of irritation shivered over my nape. I would make him look at me, but what could I say that would not make me appear either foolish or too particular? ‘I am thinking, Master Tudor, of making changes to my household.’
‘Yes, my lady?’ There he stood, infuriatingly straight and numbingly deferential, as if I had asked him to summon my page.
‘I have been thinking of making changes to those who serve me.’
His features remained unyielding as I rose from my chair and stepped down from the dais so that I stood before him.
‘Are you quite content in your position here, Master Tudor?’ I asked.
And at last, finally, Master Tudor’s eyes looked directly into mine.
‘Are you dissatisfied with my service to you, my lady?’ he asked softly.
‘No. That was not my meaning. I thought that perhaps you might choose to serve the Young King instead. Now that he is growing, he will need an extended household. It would be a promotion. It would allow more scope for a man of your talents.’
I stopped on a breath, awaiting his response. Still he held my gaze, and with no hint of self-abasement he replied: ‘I am quite content with my present position, my lady.’
‘But my household is small, and will remain so, with no opportunity for preferment for you.’
‘I do not seek preferment. I am yours to command. I am content.’
I let him go, infuriated by his demeanour, angry at my own need.
‘Give me your opinion of Master Tudor,’ I said to Alice when she visited my rooms one morning with Young Henry, who was immediately occupied in turning the pages of the book he had brought with him.
‘Owen Tudor? Why do you need my opinion, my lady?’ she asked, folding her hands neatly in her lap, and with something of a sharp look, as if settling herself for a good gossip.
‘I think I have underestimated him,’ I replied lightly. ‘Is he as efficient as he seems?’
‘He is an excellent man of management,’ Alice replied without hesitation, but her expression was disconcertingly bland. ‘You could do no better.’
I considered what I wished to say next. What I ought, or ought not, to say.
‘And what do you think of him, as a man?’
Alice’s smile acquired an edge. ‘I’d say he knows too much about flirtation than is good for any man. He could lure a bat down from its roost with his singing.’
‘He does not talk to me,’ I admitted sadly. ‘He does not sing to me.’
I knew he was not always unapproachable. I had seen his ease of manner, smiling when the maids passed a coy remark, making light conversation with one or another of my household. Neither was he slow to come to the aid of even the clumsiest of servants. I had seen him leap to rescue a subtlety—a device of a tiger, accompanied by a mounted knight holding the tiger’s cub, all miraculously contrived from sugar—the work of many hours and much skill in my kitchens—with no remonstration other than a firm hand to a shoulder of the page who had not paid sufficient attention. My cook would have laid the lad out with a fist to the jaw if he had seen the near-catastrophe, but Owen Tudor had made do with an arch of brow and a firm stare.
As for the women…Once I saw him slide a hand over a shapely hip as he passed, and the owner of the hip smile back over her shoulder, eyes bright in anticipation, and I knew jealousy, however ill founded.
‘Owen Tudor knows his place, my lady.’
I read the implication in the plain words. ‘Do you think that I do not?’
And Alice reached forward to touch my hand with hers. ‘It will not do, my lady.’
I thought of launching into a denial. Instead, I said, ‘Am I so obvious?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ And I thought I had been so clever. ‘What if…?’ But I could not say it. What if I were not Queen Dowager? In the end I did not need to—Alice knew me only too well.
‘You are too far above him, my lady. Or he is too far below you. It comes to the same thing—and you must accept that.’ She frowned at me, a little worried, a little censorious. ‘And it would be wise if your thoughts were not quite so open.’
‘I did not think I was…’
Alice sat back, refolding her hands. ‘Then how is it that I can read your interest in this man, as clearly as the page your son is reading now?’
I gave up, and we turned our conversation into more innocuous channels. Until she left.
‘He is a fine man. But he is not for you.’
Her wisdom was a knife with a honed edge.
‘I never thought that he was.’
‘There is a way, my lady,’ Guille whispered in my ear as I dressed for Mass the next morning.
‘To do what exactly?’ Regretful of what I had revealed, ill grace sat heavily on my shoulders, exacerbated by the knowledge that I would have to make some confession to Father Benedict.
‘To meet with Master Owen.’
‘I have changed my mind.’
‘Perhaps that’s for the best, my lady.’ She began to brush and coil my hair. I watched her face, waiting to see if she would say more. She didn’t, but busied herself with the intricate mesh of my crispinettes and a length of veil lavishly decorated with silk rose petals.
‘What would you suggest?’
‘That you meet him in disguise, my lady.’
‘And how would you suggest that I do that?’ I asked. Had I not, in my fanciful meanderings in my dreams, already considered such a scenario—and discarded it as a plan that could only be composed by an idiot? Temper bubbled ominously.
‘The only way I can see is for me to dress as a servant and waylay him—he talks to servants, does he not? But how would that be possible? He would recognise me. Do I have to meet him in a dark cupboard, my face swathed in veiling? Do I have to be mute? He would recognise my voice. And even if I did accost him as some swathed figure, what would I say to him? Kiss me, Master Owen, or I will fall into death from desire? And by the way, I am Queen Katherine!’ I laughed but there was no humour in it.
‘He would despise me for tricking him, for the shallow woman that I undoubtedly am, and that I could not bear. What’s more, I would look nothing more than a wanton. Am I not already suspect, that I am too rapacious, too caught up in sins of the flesh?’ I stood, too agitated to sit, and prowled, my petal-covered veils still half-pinned.
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br /> ‘I suppose my lord of Gloucester would say that.’
‘Of course he would. And not only Gloucester. What would my damsels say? The Queen Dowager, clothing herself as a kitchen maid, to waylay a hapless servant who had no wish to be waylaid? It would be demeaning for me and for him. I’ll not have trickery. I’ll not lay myself open to ridicule and humiliation.’
‘Forgive me, my lady.’
Instantly remorse shook me, so that I returned to where Guille stood and placed my fingers on her wrist. ‘No. It is I who should ask forgiveness.’ I tried a smile. ‘I have no excuse for ill humour. I promise I will confess it.’
‘Do you care what Lady Beatrice says, my lady?’ Guille asked after a moment of uncomfortable reflection for both of us.
I thought about that. ‘No, I don’t think I do. But I would not court infamy.’
‘Some would say better infamy than a cold, lonely bed. Try him, my lady.’
‘I cannot.’
‘I can arrange it. I can make an assignation for you.’
‘It is not possible. We will forget this conversation, Guille. I am ashamed.’
‘Why should a woman be ashamed that she desired a handsome man?’
‘She should not—but when the handsome man has no feelings for her, and his birth and situation put him far beyond her grasp, then she must accept the inevitable.’
‘His birth has no influence on her female longings.’
This offered no answer to my dilemma. What do I do, Michelle? I received no reply. I was alone to trace my uncertain path through an impossible maze.
Dismiss him!
Before God, I could not.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Henry died, I was beyond loneliness. Misery kept my spirit chained and I sank into unrelieved gloom, as if I were permanently shielded from the sun’s warmth by a velvet cloak. Edmund’s un-chivalrous rejection of me—his deliberate choice of personal advancement over what might have passed for love in his cold heart—left me equally bereft.
But whereas in the aftermath of Henry’s denial of me I had embraced despair, I now rejected any notion of melancholy. Anger blew through me like a cleansing wind, ridding me of any inclination to weep or mourn my seclusion or even to contemplate the pattern of my never-ending isolation. A fury hummed through my blood, instilling in me a vibrancy equal to that which I had experienced at the hands of Edmund Beaufort on that fatal Twelfth Night. Fury was a hot, raging emotion, and yet my heart was a hard thing, a block of granite, a shard of ice. Tears were frozen in my heart.
Neither was my anger turned solely on Beaufort. I lashed myself with hard words. How could I have allowed myself to be drawn in, won over? Could I not have seen his empty promises for what they had been? I should not need a man’s love to live out my life in some degree of contentment. Obviously I was a woman incapable of attracting love: neither Henry nor Edmund had seen me as the object of their devotion. How could I have been so miserably weak as to be tempted into Edmund’s arms, like a mouse to the cheese left temptingly in a vermin trap? Oh, I was beyond anger.
Holy Virgin, I prayed. Grant me the strength to live out my life without the companionship of a man. Give me patience and inner contentment to spend every day until I die in the society of women. Let me not count the passing years in the lines on my face or mourn as my hair fades from gold to silver.
The Virgin smiled serenely, her face as bland as a junket, so much so that it drove me from my knees, stalking from my chapel, to the astonishment of my chaplain, who was preparing to hear my confession, and my damsels, who must have seen more than religious fervour stamped on my features. My anger refused to dissipate.
‘Love without anxiety and without fear
Is fire without flames and without warmth.’
Beatrice, fingers plucking the plangent chords, sang wistfully as we stitched in one of the light-filled chambers at Windsor. Detesting those melancholy sentiments, reminding me as they did of Edmund Beaufort’s silver tongue, I stabbed furiously at the linen altar cloth with no regard for its fragile surface.
‘Day without sunlight, hive without honey
Summer without flower, winter without frost.’
As her voice died away, there was a concerted sigh.
‘I would not wish to live without the sweetness of honey,’ Meg commented.
‘But I would,’ I announced. I was still careful around my English women, but I found the words on my lips spilling out before I could stop them. ‘I reject all sweetness and honey, all fire with its hot flames. In fact, from today, I forswear all men.’
For the length of a heartbeat they regarded me as if I had taken leave of my wits, to be quickly followed by a slide of knowing glances. My estrangement from Edmund must have given them hours of pleasurable conjecture. And then they set themselves, as one, to persuade me of the value of what I had just rejected.
‘Love brings a woman happiness, my lady.’
‘A man’s kisses puts colour into her cheeks.’
‘And a man in her bed puts a child in her belly!’
Laughter stirred the echoes in the room.
‘I will live without a man’s kisses. I will live without a man in my bed,’ I said, for once enjoying the quick cut and thrust. ‘I will never succumb to the art of seduction. I will never give way to lust.’
Which silenced them, my damsels who gossiped from morn until night over past and present amours, causing them to look askance, as if it might be below the dignity of a Queen Dowager to admit to so base an emotion as lust.
I regarded their expressive brows as I acknowledged that today I wanted their companionship; today I would be part of their gossip and knowing innuendo. I had spent my life in England isolated from them, mostly through my own inability to be at ease within their midst, but no longer. A strange light-heartedness gripped me. Perhaps it was the cup of wine we had drunk or the unexpected camaraderie.
‘I will show you.’ I lifted a skein of embroidery silks from my coffer, deciding in a moment’s foolishness to make a little drama out of it. ‘Bring a candle here for me.’
They did, and, embroidery abandoned as Cecily brought the candle, they seated themselves on floor or stool.
‘I will begin,’ I said, enjoying their attention. ‘I forswear my lord of Gloucester.’ There was an immediate murmur of assent for consigning the arrogant royal duke to the flames. ‘What colour do I choose for Gloucester?’
They caught the idea.
‘Red. For power.’
‘Red, for ambition.’
‘Red for disloyalty to one wife, and a poor choice of a second.’
I had difficulty in being mannerly towards Gloucester, who had attacked my future with the legal equivalent of a hatchet. The Act of Parliament he had instigated would stand for all time. No man of ambition would consider me as a bride. I was assuredly doomed to eternal widowhood. And so with savage delight I lifted a length of blood-red silk, snipped a hand’s breadth with my shears and held it over the candle so that it curled and shimmered into nothingness.
‘There. Gloucester is gone, he is nothing to me.’ I caught an anxious look from Beatrice as we watched the silk vanish. ‘I can’t believe you are a friend of Gloucester, Beatrice.’
‘No, my lady.’ She shuddered. ‘But is this witchcraft. Perhaps in France…?’
‘No such thing,’ I assured her. ‘Merely a signal of my intent. Gloucester will be hale and hearty for a good few years yet.’ I looked round the expectant faces. ‘Now Bishop Henry. He has been kind—but to my mind as self-interested as are all the Beauforts. Not to be trusted.’
‘Rich purple,’ from Beatrice. ‘He likes money and self-importance.’
‘And the lure of a Cardinal’s hat,’ Cecily added.
The purple silk went the way of its red sister.
Who next? I considered my father, who had instilled in me such fear—mad, untrustworthy, kind one moment, violent and cruel the next—but I knew that it had not been his choice to be so.
And then there was my brother Charles, who would be King Charles the Seventh if he could persuade enough Frenchmen to back him, and would thus usurp my son’s claim to France. But was it not his right, by birth and blood, to rule? I could not deny him his belief in his inheritance. This was no easy task, but the fascination of my damsels urged me on.
I chose a length of pure white silk.
‘Who is that?’
‘My husband. Henry. Sadly dead before his time.’
They became instantly solemn. ‘Pure.’
‘Revered.’
‘Chivalrous. A great loss.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, and said no more, knowing it would not be politic. Henry, as pure and cold as the coldest winter, as cruel through his neglect as the sharpest blade. I admired his talents but did not regret his absence, as the white silk flamed, and died as he had in the last throes of his terrible illness. ‘He no longer has a place in my life.’
‘He was a great king,’ Meg stated.
‘He was,’ I agreed. ‘The very best. In his pursuit of English power he had no rival.’
The memory of my immature infatuation, his heedless forsaking of me, flooded back and for a moment my hands fell unoccupied in my lap, the silks abandoned, and my women shuffled uncomfortably. The joy had gone out of it.
‘What about Edmund Beaufort?’ Beatrice asked, immediately looking aghast at her daring, for here was a sensitive issue. Would I lash out with anger at their presumption? Would I weep, despite all my denials of hurt? Would I embarrass myself and them?
And I thought momentarily of Edmund, how I had fallen into the fantasy of it, as a mayfly, at the end of its short existence, drops into the stream and is carried away. Edmund had woven a web to pinion me and take away my will. How I had enjoyed it, living from moment to moment, day to day, anticipating his next kiss, his next outrageous plot. How could any woman resist such a glorious seduction?
She could if she had any sense. He was as self-serving as the rest, and I had been a fool to be so compromised, with no one to blame but myself. In my folly I had trusted so blindly. I would not do so again. I would not be used by any man again. I would never again be seduced by a smooth tongue and clever assault. No man would command my allegiance, my loyalty. Certainly not my love.