The Forbidden Queen

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 it 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.