The Forbidden Queen

‘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 because 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!’