The Forbidden Queen

‘The law says that I can neither wear nor own weapons. I am forbidden to own land in England. I am forbidden to enter some towns. I am not allowed to assemble with other Welshmen, for fear we might hatch another vile plot against the English government. And many would, God help them. The law keeps us penurious and powerless. That is why I have worked for you all these years. That is why I had nothing to give you and nothing to forfeit.’

And he had never told me any of it. He had kept the shameful dishonour of it bound and shackled in his heart and belly. It almost moved me to tears, but I would not. Here was no time for weak sentiment. I listened silently, and when he had finished, we simply sat. After a little while I took his hand as I pondered what I now knew.

‘No one has ever told me this.’

‘Why would they? It matters to no one who is not Welsh.’

‘It is unjust.’

‘Many would say we earned it by spilling English blood. Rebels are not well thought of.’ His brief smile was humourless. ‘And before you ask—there’s nothing that can be done about it. We have no rights before English law.’

‘I would have asked that,’ I replied. And then: ‘Not wearing a sword means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’ He turned his face from me. ‘You wore it when we were wed. You stood in your own name with a sword at your side.’

‘So I did.’

‘And what’s more,’ I observed as the memory of his part in the bloody fight surged back, ‘you used the sword as if it was second nature to you. Who taught you?’

‘My father,’ he replied. ‘When I was a boy at home.’

‘So you have worn a sword.’

There was a flash of anger in his face, quickly masked. ‘All men of my family are warriors. It would have been a dishonour for me not to have the skill.’

‘Then if your father taught you, and you can use it well, why not wear—?’

He silenced me with a glance. ‘I’ll not wear Llewellyn’s sword again until I can do so with honour. I will not speak of this, Katherine.’

I lifted my hands in exasperation and gave up. He would not admit it, but I could read all that he did not say in the dark bleakness of his eyes, the proud flare of nostril and edge of cheekbone. So his family had once been landowners. Was not a sword the symbol of a man of birth? It was so in France, and I saw no reason why England should be any different. An English or Welsh gentleman would feel the need to wear a sword at his side just as much as his French cousin. But what exactly was his family? Were they men of rank and social standing? I remembered that when I had asked him he had become marvellously reticent for a man so clever with words. There was still so much I did not know about Owen Tudor.

‘What would happen if you were caught wearing a weapon?’ I asked, ignoring, in true wifely fashion, Owen’s decision.

‘I don’t know.’ He hitched a shoulder, resulting in a grunt of discomfort at Alice’s tight bandaging when he forgot. ‘I might be fined. Clapped in prison perhaps?’ Carefully he began to shrug himself back into what was left of his tunic, to cover the remnants of his shirt.

‘No one would know, of course,’ I suggested. ‘If you did happen to wear one.’

He abandoned the attempt to dress. ‘By God, that woman’s ministrations are more incapacitating than the damned sword thrust!’

‘Owen!’

He shook his head, but relented under my persistence. ‘No one would know,’ he replied gently, ‘except those who make it their interest to watch what I do, and inform on me. The Council and Gloucester would be only too triumphant to find some excuse to move against me. And so I will not wear one. The last thing I want for you is to have you visiting me in the Tower of London. And because of that I’ll abide by the damned law. You once asked me why I did not use my true name—’

‘And you dissembled.’

‘I did, and I regret the need. But, truth to tell, it does not do for a man to draw attention to his Welsh lineage.’

It was despicable, shameful. I watched the flattened planes of Owen’s face with anguish, as some of his comments hit home in my heart.

‘Are we watched?’ I asked. ‘Are we spied upon?’ And when he shook his head, ‘Owen, are we—are you—under surveillance?’

‘Yes. There are those who would undo our marriage if they could. They will look for any contravention of the law to hold against us.’

My lips were dry, my throat raw. ‘If you were not wed to me—’ I pulled my hand away when he tried to silence me with his own. ‘If you were not, would anyone care if you wore a sword?’

Owen forced his mouth into a smile of sorts. ‘Probably not. But there’s no point in us second-guessing. It may be that I’m constructing a Welsh mountain out of an English molehill here.’ He pushed himself to his feet, signalling the end to his frank admissions.

‘Now, let us leave Mistress Alice, who keeps frowning at me every time I move, and I will show my honourable wounds to Edmund and Jasper and bask in their admiration.’ He stood slowly, placing his good arm around my waist when I stood too, kissing my cheek in what I recognised as a warning to leave the matter be.