by Anne O'Brien
The all-consuming pain receded momentarily. ‘I do indeed, Brother Michael. I think I am in desperate need unless I wish this child to be born here in your cloister.’
‘We can help. If you will follow me.’
But I saw Owen grip Brother Michael’s arm. ‘I need more than that, Brother Michael. I need to claim sanctuary. For me and for my family.’
The old eyes travelled over us. ‘Are you in danger, sir?’
‘It may be so.’
He smiled and nodded his head. ‘Then you are safe in God’s house. We will give you and your people sanctuary. Bring the lady.’
‘Thank God!’ Alice sighed.
I was beyond relief.
‘Can you walk?’ Owen asked again.
‘No.’ The pains were almost constant.
Owen swept me up into his arms and carried me after the two Benedictine brothers, eventually, when I thought I could no longer stop myself from screaming, entering into a long room lined with beds, some flat and empty, others occupied by the ancient and infirm. The infirmary, I acknowledged hazily. The infirmary of the monks of Westminster Abbey. Ignoring this strange influx of visitors, busy with their own tasks, were a handful of black-robed Benedictines and lay brothers who nursed the sick and needy.
‘In here.’ Brother Michael gestured. ‘We will pray to St Catherine for you and the child.’
‘And I will call her Catherine.’
I was carried into a small chamber, spare and narrow, furnished with one bed and a crucifix on the wall. Perhaps, I thought with a tremor beneath my heart, it was used for the dying. Owen did not hesitate. Shouldering his way in, he sat me on the edge of the bed.
‘We’ll put the boys to bed in the infirmary, my lady,’ Joan said.
I was past caring. The pangs of imminent childbirth were wrenching me asunder. Shadows closed around me as my belly was riven with hot pain, as if talons gripped me.
‘You should not be here, sir,’ I heard Alice admonishing Owen as she and Guille set themselves to the difficult task, given the constraints of space, of removing my outer garments.
‘Tell her that,’ Owen muttered. I was clutching his arm, nails digging through his sleeve as the pain seared through me. My whole world was nothing more than this room and the monster that had me in its maw.
‘Holy Mother, save me,’ I whispered.
‘Amen to that,’ Alice added.
It was a memorable hour. No seemly seclusion. No community of women to give support and succour. No luxurious cushioning against the outside world with tapestries and fine linen and warm water. Just a bare room without heat, the narrowest of beds and the distant monkish voices raised to sing the office of Compline. Just an hour of agonising travail, then a squalling child, red-faced and vigorous, was delivered onto the coarse linen, Owen catching the baby as it slithered from my body.
‘Not Catherine,’ he said as he placed the mewling child in my arms.
‘Another son.’ I looked down, bewildered at the speed of it all, at the furious face with its no longer surprising thatch of black hair.
And then we were surrounded, the old monks drawn from their beds in the infirmary by the new life in their midst and the now dying whimpers as my child slept. There they stood, black cowled around my bed, giving me their silent blessing.
‘Give him to us,’ one said, his seamed cheeks wet with tears. ‘He’s ours, I reckon. I don’t recall ever having a child born here before. We’ll make a fine monk of him, won’t we?’ He looked round his fellow brethren, who nodded solemnly. ‘Has the little one a name?’
‘Owen,’ I said. ‘He is called Owen.’
And I fell into exhausted sleep. At least it had taken my mind off my worries over Gloucester and the Council.
It was a strange time, suspended between the reality of my new son, the incongruous setting of sanctuary that had been forced upon us, all overlaid with the constant fear that Gloucester might still be biding his time. I stayed for two days in my makeshift chamber in the infirmary before being allowed to walk slowly round the cloisters when the monks were engaged elsewhere, granting my newly extended household and myself some privacy. I would have travelled home sooner, but Owen and Alice were at one and I bowed before their joint will. The Council was ominously silent. As long as we stayed as guests of the monks, we were safe.
But we could not remain there for ever. What would it matter if the Council did not judge in our favour? I tossed the thoughts, catching them as they spun and returned in a constant circling. It would not change the pattern of my life with Owen. We would live out our days far from policies and laws and Gloucester’s hostility. It could not come between us. Our love was strong, stronger than any outside influence.
Now that we had laid our case before the Council, surely not even Gloucester would dare to impugn justice. Surely not?
‘They will decide in their own good time,’ the Prior said, come to admire the babe. ‘And if they decide against you, it is the will of God.’ He made the sign of the cross on my infant’s forehead.
‘The will of Gloucester,’ I responded bitterly, then regretted my lack of courtesy to this kind man.
He bowed. ‘And sometimes they are not the same,’ he conceded.
After two days I had had enough of the smothering kindness and the Council’s continuing silence. I wanted to go home, urgently, and Owen relented. He knew as well as I that we had used all the weapons in our armoury, so we would go home. As our coffers were packed, Alice took my swaddled baby into the infirmary, where the old monks bade him a final farewell. They gave him a blanket woven of the finest wool.
‘Are we ready?’ Owen asked, returning from overseeing that our carriages and horses were made ready, impatience a shimmer around him. This was the moment I had been waiting for, its outcome uncertain.
‘Not quite.’
One coffer still stood, unpacked, at my feet. Stooping, I lifted out an item wrapped in cloth. At Hertford, adopting a degree of guile, I had taken it from Owen’s personal chest, without his knowledge, without his permission and with no conscience at all. It had travelled to Westminster, deep in one of my own chests: it would not, if I had my way, travel back again in the same manner, no matter what decision the Council saw fit to make.
And Owen knew what it was, still draped as it was, the moment I held it out. His eyes darkened, his face taking on the rigidity of a mask, and I read there the pride of ownership, rapidly displaced by rejection in the name of what he saw as good sense. Would he listen to me? Would he listen to the voice of inheritance and family honour that I was sure beat in his mind, against every denial he made?
I held it out like a holy offering.
He did not take it. ‘Where did you get that?’ he demanded.
‘From our chamber at Hertford.’
‘And you brought it with you?’
‘Yes.’
Still I held it out, offering it on the palms of my hands.
‘Wear it,’ I said.
I knew his argument against it. I knew his pride in Llewellyn, his magnificent ancestor, just as I understood that, discriminated against by law and rank, he felt himself a man without honour, reluctant to don the weapon of so great a man. But I also knew the fire that burned in his blood.
‘I care not what the Council says,’ I told him. ‘We did what we could. We know your lineage to be as noble as that of any one of those men sitting in judgement against you. You have nothing to prove to me. Wear it, because it belonged to a great warrior and does not deserve to be packed away in a chest at Hertford. Wear it for me, because without it you put yourself into danger. I cannot bear that, even now, Gloucester might be sending men against you, and you not be armed.’
How long I seemed to wait. The low winter sun emerged, slanting coldly through the high windows, then dipped behind a cloud again. I let the cloth slip partially from the blade so that its lethal edges glowered.
‘Wear it, Owen.’ I put my whole heart into that plea. ‘Wear it for me beca
use I cannot live with fear that you cannot defend yourself.’
And at last he took it from me, allowed the cloth to slip wholly to the floor. He held the sword up so that the pale sunshine, well timed in its reappearance, glimmered along its length and played on the furled wings of the dragon hilt. Running his hand reverently along the chased blade, he pressed his lips to the cross of the hilt.
‘I have brought the sword belt too.’ I smiled. ‘You have no excuse, you know. You have a new son. You cannot lay yourself open to Gloucester’s vengeance. You can’t refuse me.’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘No, I cannot.’
And taking it, Owen strapped the belt around his hips.
Light-headed with relief but still hesitant, I touched his arm. ‘I thought you would refuse.’
His gaze lifted to mine. I could not mistake the emotion in the glitter of defiance. ‘I will not refuse,’ he said. ‘As you say—I have a new son to protect. And a wife who is very precious to me.’ And he gently wiped my tears away with the pad of his thumb. ‘I’ll fight against Gloucester and the whole world to protect you.’
My tears became a torrent. The monks, a silent audience through all of this, not realising the drama of it, nodded and smiled.
‘We have enjoyed your stay, with the children.’
‘We have not seen such events since the celebrations for Agincourt.’
‘And a new birth.’
‘Thank you,’ I said to them, holding out my hands to them, thinking that they might enjoy the return to their previous tranquillity. Edmund and Jasper had filled the rooms with their laughter. And to Owen I said, ‘Now I am ready. Now we will go. And I think I will never return here.’
‘Then it is good that I have caught you—’
I turned at the brisk voice, dread flooding back.
‘No!’
Was this what I had feared, an escort of armed men, a document of intent, some makeshift infringement of the law that Owen could not answer? Owen had already spun round, shoulders braced, his hand sliding to his sword hilt as he stepped by instinct to stand between me and any danger. I heard the rasp of the steel as he loosed it in its scabbard in the quiet room, then I laughed on a little sigh for our fears were unnecessary. It was Warwick, and there was no force at his back. No Gloucester, crowing with sour delight.
‘I see you’ve been busy here.’ He grinned as he surveyed Alice with our new son, but his attention was on Owen. ‘I have something for you, Tudor.’ But his eye had followed Owen’s instinctive movement. ‘It seems my news is too late,’ he added. ‘You have pre-empted the issue.’ In his right hand he held a sword with a fine jewelled hilt. ‘I brought this for you. You have the right to it.’
‘They have decided?’ But Owen knew the answer, and I saw the light grow in his eye.
‘In their wisdom,’ Warwick replied dryly. ‘It should have been done long ago, if they had had any compassion for you.’
I closed my eyes. ‘Thank God.’ Then opened them as Warwick’s words sank in. ‘Are you certain about this?’ I asked, needing confirmation to destroy the anxiety that had lived with me for so long.
‘Your argument drove it home. The Council has instructed the next Parliament—a matter of weeks now—to recognise your rights, Tudor, and your status as an Englishman.’ Warwick produced a scroll from his tunic with the flourish of a royal herald. ‘This is more important than the sword. Here are your letters of denizenship.’
‘So I have you to thank for it?’ Owen asked.
‘A little. And others. You have friends at Court, however difficult it might be sometimes to believe.’
They clasped hands, and Owen took the gift from Warwick, tucking the document into the coffer at our feet. His features might be controlled but I saw the strain, the struggle to command every response against the news that had stunned him to the core.
I placed my hand on his arm. ‘We have done it.’
‘So we have.’ Owen covered my fingers with his own, his eyes searching my face. ‘I would not have done it if it had not been for you.’
I shook my head in denial. To shield me from a renewed onset of emotion, Owen addressed Warwick. ‘My thanks for the sword, my lord. Once I was forbidden to own one. Now I have a surfeit.’
‘Give it to your son.’ Warwick nodded to indicate Edmund, who had escaped supervision to come and investigate the delay.
‘He is young yet.’ Owen hoisted him into his arms.
‘But one day…’ Warwick smoothed the untidy thicket of my son’s hair. ‘Edmund Tudor. Who knows what you will be?’
Edmund grasped the costly jewelled hilt, making the stones glint and catching my attention. My little son, the high blood of both France and Wales running strong in his veins. A little presentiment touched me, but not of fear, rather one of power, of rank. The gems glittered in my son’s clasp, and my son was a man with fire in his eye and determination in the set of his mouth. And then the moment was gone. He was a child again, and a weary one, close to fretting.
‘You are a free man, Edmund Tudor,’ I heard Warwick say. ‘Your father’s heir. Free to own land and bear arms. And to marry as you choose.’
‘I want a horse,’ Edmund announced, unimpressed.
Owen looked across at me and smiled. What would be the future for our son, with the law of England on his side and the King, his half-brother, well disposed towards him? I wept again in a flood of emotion, part joy, part exhaustion—tears seemed so close in my weariness—prompting the Benedictine brothers to pat my shoulder and offer me a linen sheet to dry my cheeks.
‘Don’t forget. The little lad. We’ll make a fine monk of him.’
And I laughed through my tears. ‘I’ll send him to you. Unless he has the inclination to be a military man, I will send him to you when he is grown.’
I took the baby in my arms, smiling round at them. Then I looked at Owen, who was looking at me.
‘Let us go home, my husband.’
‘It is my wish, annwyl.’
Owen was restless, a difficult disquiet that took hold of him. I saw it, building day after day, even though he tried for my sake to hide it. Were we not happy? Had we not made for ourselves the life we wished for, when to spend time in each other’s company was ultimate fulfilment, to be apart bleak wilderness?
The death of my mother, Queen Isabeau, touched us not at all, and although we mourned the passing of Lord John with real grief for so great a man, the happenings in London and in France no longer had any bearing on our tranquil existence. But I saw Owen’s frustrations at the end of the day, when we sat alone in our private chamber or relaxed with company after a more formal meal, replete with food and wine, a minstrel singing languorously of times past.
Owen’s gaze turned inward as the plangent notes and tales of heroes and battles wove their glamorous mystery in the chamber, and I knew he was thinking of the days when his forebears had had wealth and status and land. When glory had shone on them and they had fought and won.
Owen, although free, had nothing of his own.
The family lands in Wales had not been restored to him with his recognition under English law: how it rankled with Owen that he had no property in his name, to administer and nurture. No house, no land, nothing to pass down to his heirs with hopes and pride for future generations. How degrading for a man of his birth. Neither was it a good thing for a man’s esteem that he be dependent on his wife.
Oh, he masked it well. He was a master of dissimulation, born of the long years in servitude, but sometimes it rubbed him raw and his eyes were dark with a depth of yearning that I could not plumb.
‘Tell me what eats away at you,’ I begged.
‘It is nothing, my love,’ he invariably replied, the crease between his brows denying his reassurance. ‘Unless you mean our second son’s determination to throw himself under the hooves of every animal in the stables.’
And I smiled, because that was what he wanted me to do. Our son’s obsession with horseflesh had its dan
gers.
‘Or it may be that I regret my wife not having found the time to favour me with even one kiss this morning.’
So I kissed his mouth, because it pleased him and me.
I might lure him into my bed. I might put before him a plan to drain the lower terrace and build a new course of rooms at Hertford to improve the kitchens and buttery. He would always respond, but his heart was not in it. It was not his own.
Well, it could be put right. I should have seen to it years ago.
I summoned a man of law from Westminster, and consulted with him. And when he saw no difficulty, I had the necessary documents drawn up and delivered into Owen’s hands. I made sure that I was there when they arrived and Owen opened the leather pouch. I watched his face as he read the first of them. As he looked up.
‘Katherine?’ His face was expressionless.
‘These are for you,’ I stated.
I was very uncertain. Would his independence be too great to receive such a gift from a woman, a gift of such value? And yet it was given with all my heart. I wished I could read something in the sombreness of his eyes, in the firmness of mouth and jaw, but I could not, not even after four years of marriage.
‘It is to commemorate the day that we were wed,’ I said, as if it had been a light decision to make the gift. As if it were no more than a pair of gloves or a book of French poetry.
‘It was a bold move, for you to wed me,’ he said. His eyes were on mine, the first documents of ownership still in his hand, the rest yet to be removed from their pouch. ‘To choose a penniless rebel was foolhardy, and yet you did it.’ He smoothed the deed with his hand. ‘Some would say that this is a bold move too.’
I still did not know if he would refuse or accept it with the grace it was given. ‘I consider it a decision showing remarkable business acumen on my part,’ I responded lightly.
And his mouth curved a little. ‘I did not see business dealings as one of your strengths when I wed you, annwyl.’
‘Neither did I.’ I paused. ‘But now I have considered. These are mine. It is my desire that you have them. They need a master to oversee them and ensure their good governance. It would please me.’ I thumped my jewel casket down onto the table—for I had been engaged in selecting a chain of amethysts to wear with a new gown. ‘Stop staring at me and put me out of my misery. Will you accept?’