by Anne O'Brien
I found him in the entrance hall, just come in from the stables, handing gloves and hat and an unidentifiable package to one of the pages. His hair was ruffled, his face touched by sun and wind. There had been no attack today.
‘Katherine.’ Owen’s smile, his eyes as they rested on me, spoke to me of joy in reunion. How long a matter of hours apart could seem. We were never apart for long.
I slowed my steps before he could reach me. I must not weaken. No preamble. No warning. I must say it now. I had opened the gates to this marriage with all its rapture, and its unforeseen menace. Now I would close them.
‘I set you free,’ I said. ‘Go home. Go back Wales.’
Owen stopped as if hit by a battle mace.
‘Katherine?’
Shock flattened his features. His face registering utter incomprehension, he took another step forward, but I retreated.
‘I have arranged for money. A horse. Take an escort.’ I dared not touch him. I dared not let him touch me or I would shred all my resolution and fall at his feet. ‘If you died because of me, how could I live knowing that you were dead? I don’t want you here.’ The words fell from my lips without restraint. ‘I will not see you done to death. I will not carry the guilt of harm coming to you. I relieve you of any obligation to me.’
‘What are you saying?’
I firmed my shoulders as if addressing the Royal Council. ‘I wish to end our marriage, Owen. I wish you to leave Hertford and find refuge in Wales. I will not allow you to remain here with your life open to constant danger.’ In spite of an anguish that was tearing me apart, never had I spoken so firmly. Never had I sounded so much the Queen Dowager. ‘I command you to leave.’
It was as if Owen had turned to ice. His hands fell loosely to his sides. His face as pale as wax, his eyes glittered like obsidian. His voice, when he finally spoke, was as emotionless as mine.
‘You would send me away? Am I still your servant, to be dismissed at your whim?’ It was like the lash of a whip. ‘Does our love mean nothing to you?’
I would not bow before his retaliation. ‘It means everything. For your sake, you must leave. And for mine. I cannot contemplate the possibility that we will not breathe the same air, feel the heat of the same sun on our skins. Do you not understand? Do you not agree that it must be so?’
‘I hear what you say. By God, woman! Will you take the decision out of my hands?’ I could hear the rumble of temper in the ominous quiet.
‘Yes,’ I responded, before I could be swayed.
‘And if I do not agree?’
‘You must. We will not be together in body, but we will in spirit, and I know that you will be alive, and safe, to live your life to its allotted time.’ How well I had learned my words, even though my heart shuddered. I missed him between our rising and sitting down to break our fast. How could I contemplate a lifetime apart? Knowing that I had come to the end of my control and that Owen’s temper was about to explode like a hunting cat after its prey, I turned my face from him. ‘I have made my decision. Go back to Wales, where you will find peace and safety.’
And I walked away, climbing the stairs, closing the door of my chamber quietly behind me, because to do otherwise would be to slam it shut so that the sound reverberated through the whole castle.
Owen did not follow. He did not see the tears that washed ceaselessly down my cheeks to mark the velvet of my bodice. He did not see me stand with my back to the door, my palms pressed there as if I needed support. He did not see me dry my tears and determine not to weep again because tears would solve nothing, then fall to my knees and hide my face against the coverlet of my bed.
What had I done? How could I have sliced my heart in two? Even worse, how could I have condemned Owen to the same wretched misery that made every breath I took without him a separate agony? I was beyond thought, beyond reason.
But reason returned, as it must, and with it all my previous conviction. I would live alone. I would send Owen away if it would save his life. I would live alone for ever if it meant he, my love, my life, would be free from Gloucester’s anger. I would do it. I would step away from Owen out of pure love.
It was the right thing to do.
So why did it hurt so much?
That night I slept alone. I barred my door to him, which I had never done before. And I waited, when my household settled for the night, until I heard his approaching footsteps. I swear I would recognise them in the turbulence of a winter storm. Breath held, I heard them pause outside, and placed my palm against the wood, leaned my forehead against the panels, as if I could sense him there. He did not knock or try the latch. I listened, but could hear no words. Not even his breathing. How long did we stand there? Time had no measure in my distraught mind. Then his footsteps passed on.
Tomorrow we would be separated for ever.
Exhaustion laid its hand on me but I did not sleep. I kept a solitary vigil for the death of our marriage.
‘Where is my lord?’ I asked Guille next morning. I rose late. Very late. I had not heard Owen and his escort leave, but there were the usual sounds of castle life reaching my windows from courtyard and stables. He would have seen the sense of it and gone at dawn, without my presence. I could not bear to watch him ride away. Neither would I wish to burden him with my volatile emotions.
‘I’m not sure, my lady.’ Guille was carefully not noticing my wan cheeks, her fingers busy as she pinned my hair beneath a simple veil. My temples were too sore to support close padding.
‘Has he left the castle?’
She took a breath. ‘I think he might have.’
‘Did you see him?’
She affixed a pin with deliberation. ‘No, my lady.’
I inhaled against the blow. However much I had anticipated his leaving, nothing could have prepared me for the force of it. Owen had gone. He had left me. I knew he must have because, unless away from the castle, his routines always brought him back to me at mid-morning. But not today. It felt as if he had taken my heart with him, leaving a space of pain and loss in my chest. And I would accept it because Owen would live.
Now I must begin the impossible task of living my life without him. I inspected my face in my mirror. I straightened the hang of my sleeves, the fall of my girdle, checked the safety and position of the chain that Guille had clasped around my neck. Little details of my existence that I attended to every day.
I stepped outside my door.
‘What time is this to rise from your bed? Your sons are asking for you.’
The question, soft-voiced, slammed into my mind as if it were a roll on a military drum. Collecting my thoughts was almost beyond me. I stared at him, unable to trust my reactions.
‘Guille told me that you were gone.’
What a facile reply, when he was clearly not. When everything I wanted in life was there before me. Within touching distance. Within kissing distance. Owen should not be here.
‘I ordered her to,’ Owen said.
‘Why?’
‘To catch you off guard. So that I could talk some sense into you before you could resurrect the fortifications against me.’
‘I told you to go, Owen.’ To my horror my voice wavered.
‘And I choose not to.’
I could see that he had slept as little as I. Now he pushed himself to his feet, from where he had been sitting on the floor, his back against the wall with his arms resting on his bent knees, outside my chamber. It might have seemed the demeanour of a servant outside his mistress’s chamber, but there was nothing servile in Owen’s stance, as he drew himself to his full height and stretched cramped limbs, or in his expression. It was thunderous. He was wearing, I decided, the same clothes as he had worn when I had delivered my royal command.
‘How long have you been there?’ I asked, inconsequentially. I suspected he had been there all night. He should not be there at all.
‘Long enough.’ His hands were clamped around the broad leather belt that rested on his hips. How easy i
t was for me to recognise the strength of will in that posture. Far stronger than mine, I feared.
‘You must not make it harder for me than it is,’ I said as I raised my chin.
‘It is my intent to make it impossible for you!’ Yesterday his anger had been cold with shock: today it had the heat of a sleepless night behind it. And I braced myself. ‘I will not go. I will not run off to Wales like a whipped cur. Neither will I let you make a martyr of me, or of yourself, for that matter. Are we made to live apart? I love you. God help me, I love you in all ways known to man and angels.’
‘Owen—’ All my carefully built ramparts were crumbling under the onslaught.
‘You are my soul, Katherine. And I defy you to tell me that your feelings for me have died. Unless you have indeed suffered an aversion to me. Have you? For that is the only reason that would drive me from your door. Is that true?’
‘No.’
Owen drove on. ‘Do we sacrifice everything that binds us, for the sake of what might—or might not—happen?’
‘I cannot bear that you should die because of me. I will willingly bear the pain of our parting if—’
‘But I will not. Better to live a day with you, dear heart, than a lifetime with the breadth of the country separating us.’
Dear heart. His voice might lash at me, but the endearment undermined me completely and I covered my face with my hands, for all my carefully reasoned argument lay in pieces at my feet. Then he was there, in front of me, holding my wrists.
‘Don’t weep, my dear love.’
‘I am not weeping. I vowed I would not.’ I looked up, dry-eyed, furious that he could reach me so easily. ‘Why will you not see the sense of us living apart?’
‘There is no sense. Are we not two halves of one entity? You might be prepared to spend your life in abject regret, but I will not.’ He placed a fierce kiss on my brow. ‘Hear me, Katherine. I will not live a day apart from you or from my sons.’
My hands, clenching into fists, beat in despair on his chest. Without any noticeable effect. Then all it took was the warm enclosing of his hands around mine, the smoothing out of my fingers within his clasp, and I was still. I knew I had lost.
‘I am not the enemy here, Katherine.’
‘I know.’
‘You will not bar your door to me again.’
I felt my skin flush in shame at what I had done. ‘I am so sorry, Owen.’
‘There is no need. I understand.’ And I was drawn into his arms. The anger had gone, and the tenderness had returned, to soothe and restore. ‘You were faced with something too great for you to bear alone, and I should have seen it coming.’ His lips were warm on my face. ‘Together we will face it. Together we will rejoice at our fortitude.’
Owen took me to bed, unpinning my carefully pinned hair, removing the girdle and jewelled chain, casting the embroidered sleeves to the floor. Considerate of my state, he allowed me my shift, holding my body close. This was no time for passion but for a renewal of a closeness that was more of mind and soul than of body. It was healing, of a wound of my making, and in that healing I had no regrets. Whispered words, tender kisses, heartfelt promises, all made me see that my decision had been untenable. I was not made to live apart from Owen. We slept in each other’s arms.
Then, as the afternoon moved on into evening, I awoke and lay to take cognisance of the serenity on my lover’s face. The softly moulded mouth, the relaxed planes of cheek and brow, the untidy fall of black hair. Yet I did not think that he was in any manner serene when I noticed that even in sleep a groove was dug between his brows.
We had solved nothing, except that we could not be separated. Owen had decreed that we could not with a fervency that defied disobedience. How willingly I handed over my will to him because, in the end, it was too monstrous to contemplate. I smiled. Until a little cloud passed over the sun, and I shuddered at the brush of shadow over my skin, but when I looked up through the window I could see no cloud. Perhaps nothing more than a flight of doves from the dovecote beyond the wall. Shaking my head, I leaned over Owen and kissed his brow.
And as I did so, a wave of pure, bright anger swept through me, scouring away every doubt that had led me to sever our union. I had been wrong. We could overcome this together. And, driven by a conviction so urgent that my head was light with it, I made a silent promise. I would fight. I would fight and I would not rest until Owen and my children were free of the stigma brought by their Welsh blood, and free of Gloucester’s long arm. I would restore Owen’s pride and rank before the law, and I would destroy Gloucester’s power to harm him without redress.
I would not rest until it was done. And I had a thought on how it might be accomplished by a determined woman and a clever man, if the woman could be persuasive enough. Why had I thought that the only solution was to admit defeat and send my love away? I would never do that again.
Shouts from the courtyard rising sharply to infiltrate my room, Owen opened his eyes. And smiled ruefully at me.
‘I think neither of us slept last night.’ And when I shook my head he added, rubbing my brow with his thumb, ‘You look thoughtful.’ He grinned. ‘It is always a danger sign when a woman looks thoughtful.’
What a measureless thing it was to me to see him smile again. ‘Perhaps I am.’ I turned my face into his hair so that he might not see my expression. ‘I am content. I am beyond happiness. And I have just made the most important decision of my life.’
‘As long as it does not entail you living in Hertford and me in Wales,’ he growled, his mouth against my throat.
‘No,’ I said softly. ‘Not that. I was wrong. I cannot live apart from you.’
My mind shrank from what it had decided. My heart trembled with it. But I must do it, and Owen must be at my side when I did.
Since Owen’s obstinacy in matters appertaining to his Welsh heritage and his masculine pride could not be shifted, I needed information. Where best to get it? I considered travelling to pay a much-delayed visit to Madam Joanna at Havering-atte-Bower but my pregnancy was progressing apace. Neither did I think she would have the knowledge I needed to draw on. So who would know? Lord John would, of course, but he was, as far as I knew, still in France. That left Warwick.
I sent a courier to ask him to come to Hertford when he next rode north. I used no pretext, merely that there was a matter of some importance to me that I must discuss.
‘You look as if life at Hertford suits you,’ Warwick observed, saluting my hand and my cheek, when he arrived within the week and I caught a private moment with him.
‘It might if Owen were not threatened.’
‘Threatened?’
‘There have been attacks. But it is my intent to put a stop to them. Before Owen arrives, Richard, I need you to tell me what you know about two men. Their names are Llewellyn the Great. And Owain Glyn Dwr.’ I mangled them beautifully.
Warwick’s brows twitched together. ‘Who?’
I tried again and we made progress.
‘Should you not ask your husband? Since they are Welsh?’
‘But my husband will not talk about them, even under strong persuasion. And you, dear Richard, will.’
It was a thoroughly illuminating half-hour.
‘And how is Young Henry?’ I asked, my inquisitiveness finally slaked.
‘Driving his tutor to tear out his hair,’ Warwick observed. ‘He has developed a keen sense of his own importance since he acquired two crowns.’ He eyed me quizzically. ‘Does your husband know what you are about?’
‘No.’
‘It may be that he will object.’
I was sure that he would, but I would not allow that to stop me. ‘I don’t think he will be in a position to do so,’ I replied, with more confidence than I felt. I had the information I needed, and now that I had it, I knew that I must use it to right a wrong. I was determined on it.
‘I wish to address the Council,’ I told Warwick. ‘I would like to think I had your support, Richard.’
I would call in all old friendships. ‘I would like to think that you would give me a hearing, even when Gloucester refuses.’
‘Tell me what you have in mind,’ he invited.
All my life I had been shifted here, made to hop there, allowed—or forced—to linger in this place rather than that one. I had been raised to expect nothing else, neither had I desired it in my girlhood days, expecting to live out my life in the glory of King Henry’s love, surrounded by our children. Maturity and disappointment had brought me foresight. Now this late-flowering love with Owen Tudor had brought me a single-minded sense of purpose, which the threats against his life had honed into a blade of steel.
Despite my increasing clumsiness, I was driven with an energy that shook me to the core. It sang in my blood, the righteous justice of it, and I knew what it was I must set out to accomplish. I would do it for Owen, for my children. What was I not capable of, with Owen at my side?
‘I am going to Westminster,’ I said, easing myself into a chair in the parlour where Owen sat with a pile of financial ledgers before him.
Owen’s response was succinct, after he had clapped his pen onto the table in disbelief. ‘You will not. I’ll tie you to your chair if I have to.’ We were still ensconced at Hertford. I swear his denial could be heard all the way to the stables. ‘Look at you. You are within a month of the child being delivered, and you would go off to Westminster on some wild-goose chase. Have you no sense?’
‘No wild goose, Owen.’ I smiled fondly at the stunned expression that darkened his eyes to black and sharpened the line of his jaw. ‘Only the future of a stubborn Welshman and the future of our children. I want my sons to have the right to carry a sword. And any daughter of ours too, if she is of a mind to do it.’
‘Your foolishness does not persuade me one inch,’ he replied, entirely unmoved. ‘Surely you can see it’s dangerous for you to travel at this time.’
Which I wafted aside with a list of figures from one of the rent rolls, continuing to develop my argument, which I knew was unexceptionable. If only I could persuade this difficult, argumentative man—whom I loved more than was good for me—to accept.