The Forbidden Queen

‘I was not armed because I have to live under the damnable restrictions that the English law puts on me.’

‘But—’

‘It’s not a matter for discussion.’ Oh, he was brusque. ‘Close the curtains, Katherine, and we’ll be off again.’

He left me, and I obeyed, but not before I saw him toss the sword back to its owner.

Back at Hertford within the hour, his face still set in stark lines, I kept a still tongue as I dispatched him to have Alice inspect his wounds. Giving him time, I visited Edmund and Jasper in the nursery, listened to their achievements and woes, but my mind was busy elsewhere. I was certain that the only time I had ever seen Owen wear a sword had been on the morning he had stood with me in St George’s Chapel and taken me as his wife.

So he had a sword. He could indubitably use one, had been taught to wield one, and taught well. But—what was it that he had said? English law forbade him to wear one. What a morass of difficulties the law of England gave us. And how little of it I understood.

I kissed my sons and went in search of my husband.

For I knew that the ambush had not been the work of some chance vermin, some motley collection of riff-raff, as I had first surmised, but a well-mounted, well-armed, well-organised force. Furthermore, wearing no identifying livery, they had been waiting specifically for us. Owen might deny it, but it seemed to me that their focus had been set on Owen, not on our baggage wagons. In my heart I knew it with a cold certainty. They had been there to harm my husband.

I found Owen seated on a wooden settle in the kitchens, where Alice, muttering irritably about law and order in general and footpads in particular, was in the process of cutting away the ruined cloth of his tunic from arm and shoulder. His ill humour had been subsumed under the painful exigencies of the past half-hour. Taking a seat, I waited as Alice cleansed his forearm with white wine, ignoring his hiss of pain as she wound a length of linen around it and then applied herself to another sword slice through the flesh of his shoulder, the source of most of the blood.

‘They say you fought well,’ she observed, forming a tight knot. ‘Why is it that brave men make such a fuss about a little scratch?’

Yet I saw her apply her ministrations more gently. It was an uncomfortable hour for all of us, but when Owen showed his teeth in a feral snarl, Alice patted his unharmed shoulder and pushed a cup of ale into his hand.

‘You’ll do,’ she said. ‘If you could manage not to put any strain on your shoulder for a day or two—but I expect you’ll be back on horseback by tomorrow.’

As she left us, I slid along the bench I was occupying until I sat opposite him.

‘Owen.’ I held his gaze when it lifted to mine. His eyes were dulled with pain and whatever alleviating substance Alice had added to his ale. ‘Why?’

‘I know what you’re going to ask,’ he interrupted with a grimace as he tried to brace his shoulder. ‘And the answer is this—just as I said when in danger of being hewn down by some lawless villain—I don’t wear a sword because the law forbids it.’

‘But you have one. I know you have. You wore it the day we stood before the altar.’

‘And that was the damned foolish reaction of a man with too much pride for his own good.’

Which did not make sense. ‘Why does the law forbid it?’

‘A penalty of my being Welsh, and retaliation for the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dwr. A rebellion that threatened English sovereignty and thwarted the English king’s desire to rule Wales.’ He winced again as he lifted the cup of ale to his lips. ‘It was a pretty successful rebellion, all in all, until it was crushed with bloody and savage retribution. And so have we Welsh all been crushed ever since. The law discriminates against us.’

I had not thought about this to any degree, but I did now.

‘Tell me what it means to be Welsh under English dominion,’ I demanded. ‘When I asked you before, you didn’t tell me. I want to know now. How does the law discriminate against you?’

He leaned back on the settle, placing the cup beside him, weariness heavy in his eyes, resignation in his voice. ‘You know that I own nothing of my own. Have you never considered why?’

‘I think I presumed that your family had nothing for you to inherit.’

His smile was grim. ‘My family had much to inherit. But after Glyn Dwr was overthrown, all who fought for him were stripped of their property. My father fought for Glyn Dwr.’ He scrubbed his hands over his face as if he would obliterate some unpleasant memory. His voice quiet and measured, without inflection, with Alice bustling in the background and the faint chatter of servants, the heat of the ovens and the appetising scents of roasting meat, Owen told me about the restrictions he knew by heart as if they meant nothing to him, whereas I knew they were a wound on his soul.