The Forbidden Queen (74 page)

I laughed, picking up her implication. ‘So many.’

‘As many as he smiles on. He has great charm.’

But he did not use it with me. I was his royal mistress, he was my minion. ‘So you like him too?’ I asked.

‘I would not refuse if he invited me to share his kisses,’
Guille said, not at all abashed. ‘It must be the Welshness in him.’

‘So it must.’

‘Your rank stands in the way of such knowledge, my lady.’

‘I know it does.’

But I could not leave it alone.

Oh, the excuses I made to hold conversation with him—for I could not be direct. I was never a bold woman. How appalled I was at my subterfuge when I found myself drawn to him, like a rabbit to the cunning eyes of the hunting stoat. Yet Owen Tudor was no predator. My desire was of my own creation.

‘Master Tudor—I wish to ride out with my son the King. Perhaps you would accompany us?’

‘I will arrange for the horses, my lady. An armed escort would be better,’ he replied promptly, my judgement obviously found wanting in his eye. ‘I will arrange that too.’

And he did, being there in the courtyard to see that all was as it should be. But when I needed a helping hand into the saddle—what woman did not, hampered with yards of heavy damask and fur?—he kept his distance, instructing one of the young grooms to come to my aid. When we returned, there was Master Tudor awaiting us, but the same groom helped me to dismount.

How to provoke a reaction—any reaction—from an unresponsive man?

‘Master Tudor. My rooms are cold. Are we lacking in wood? Have you made no provision for this turn in the weather?’ How unkind I was.

‘There is no lack, my lady,’ he replied, his tone as caustic as the east wind that gusted through the ill-fitting windows. ‘I will remedy the matter immediately.’ He bowed and stalked off, no doubt irritated that I had called his organisation into question. It was August, when fires were rarely lit. I refused to feel remorse.

And again. ‘My son is old enough to own a falcon, Master Owen. Can we arrange that?’ Surely he would show some interest in hunting birds. Did not every man?

‘It shall be done, my lady. Your falconer will, I imagine, have a suitable raptor. I will speak with him immediately and send him to wait on you.’

Or even, with a smile and light request: ‘Do you sing, Master Owen? I understand that Welshmen are possessed of excellent voices. Perhaps you would sing for us?’

‘I do not sing, my lady. Your minstrels would make a better job of it. Do I send one to you?’

No response other than a denial. Always courteous, always efficient, always as distant as the moon and as unresponsive as a plank of wood. I failed to rouse any response other than that of an immaculate servant who knew his position and the courtesy due to his lady. I imagined
that if I had said, ‘Master Owen—would you care to share my bed for an hour of dalliance? Of even chivalrous discourse? Or perhaps an afternoon of blazing lust?’ he would have replied: ‘My thanks, my lady, but today is not possible. It is imperative that the sewers are flushed out before the winter frosts.’

Calm, cool, infinitely desirable—and utterly beyond my reach.

I tapped my fingers against the arm of my chair as we dined. It was like trying to lure a conversation out of the untouched stuffed pigeon in the dish in front of me. Bowing again, the Master turned to go. Not once had he raised his eyes to mine. They remained deferentially downcast, yet not, I thought, in acknowledgement of his status as one employed in my household. I did not think, after watching him for the past hour, that he gave even a passing nod to the fact that he held a servile position. I thought Master Tudor might have a surprising depth of arrogance beneath that thigh-skimming dark tunic. He carried out his tasks as a king in his own country, with ease and a certainty of his powers. He was…I sought for the word. Decorous. Yes, that was it: he owned a refined polish that overlaid all his actions.

I would discover what invisible currents moved beneath the courtly reserve.

‘Master Tudor.’

‘Yes, my lady?’ He halted and turned.

A breath of irritation shivered over my nape. I would make him look at me, but what could I say that would not make me appear either foolish or too particular? ‘I am thinking, Master Tudor, of making changes to my household.’

‘Yes, my lady?’ There he stood, infuriatingly straight and numbingly deferential, as if I had asked him to summon my page.

‘I have been thinking of making changes to those who serve me.’

His features remained unyielding as I rose from my chair and stepped down from the dais so that I stood before him.

‘Are you quite content in your position here, Master Tudor?’ I asked.

And at last, finally, Master Tudor’s eyes looked directly into mine.

‘Are you dissatisfied with my service to you, my lady?’ he asked softly.

‘No. That was not my meaning. I thought that perhaps you might choose to serve the Young King instead. Now that he is growing, he will need an extended household. It would be a promotion. It would allow more scope for a man of your talents.’

I stopped on a breath, awaiting his response. Still he held my gaze, and with no hint of self-abasement he replied:
‘I am quite content with my present position, my lady.’

‘But my household is small, and will remain so, with no opportunity for preferment for you.’

‘I do not seek preferment. I am yours to command. I am content.’

I let him go, infuriated by his demeanour, angry at my own need.

‘Give me your opinion of Master Tudor,’ I said to Alice when she visited my rooms one morning with Young Henry, who was immediately occupied in turning the pages of the book he had brought with him.

‘Owen Tudor? Why do you need my opinion, my lady?’ she asked, folding her hands neatly in her lap, and with something of a sharp look, as if settling herself for a good gossip.

‘I think I have underestimated him,’ I replied lightly. ‘Is he as efficient as he seems?’

‘He is an excellent man of management,’ Alice replied without hesitation, but her expression was disconcertingly bland. ‘You could do no better.’

I considered what I wished to say next. What I ought, or ought not, to say.

‘And what do you think of him, as a man?’

Alice’s smile acquired an edge. ‘I’d say he knows too
much about flirtation than is good for any man. He could lure a bat down from its roost with his singing.’

‘He does not talk to me,’ I admitted sadly. ‘He does not sing to me.’

I knew he was not always unapproachable. I had seen his ease of manner, smiling when the maids passed a coy remark, making light conversation with one or another of my household. Neither was he slow to come to the aid of even the clumsiest of servants. I had seen him leap to rescue a subtlety—a device of a tiger, accompanied by a mounted knight holding the tiger’s cub, all miraculously contrived from sugar—the work of many hours and much skill in my kitchens—with no remonstration other than a firm hand to a shoulder of the page who had not paid sufficient attention. My cook would have laid the lad out with a fist to the jaw if he had seen the near-catastrophe, but Owen Tudor had made do with an arch of brow and a firm stare.

As for the women…Once I saw him slide a hand over a shapely hip as he passed, and the owner of the hip smile back over her shoulder, eyes bright in anticipation, and I knew jealousy, however ill founded.

‘Owen Tudor knows his place, my lady.’

I read the implication in the plain words. ‘Do you think that I do not?’

And Alice reached forward to touch my hand with hers. ‘It will not do, my lady.’

I thought of launching into a denial. Instead, I said, ‘Am I so obvious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’ And I thought I had been so clever. ‘What if…?’ But I could not say it.
What if I were not Queen Dowager?
In the end I did not need to—Alice knew me only too well.

‘You are too far above him, my lady. Or he is too far below you. It comes to the same thing—and you must accept that.’ She frowned at me, a little worried, a little censorious. ‘And it would be wise if your thoughts were not quite so open.’

‘I did not think I was…’

Alice sat back, refolding her hands. ‘Then how is it that I can read your interest in this man, as clearly as the page your son is reading now?’

I gave up, and we turned our conversation into more innocuous channels. Until she left.

‘He is a fine man. But he is not for you.’

Her wisdom was a knife with a honed edge.

‘I never thought that he was.’

‘There is a way, my lady,’ Guille whispered in my ear as I dressed for Mass the next morning.

‘To do what exactly?’ Regretful of what I had revealed, ill grace sat heavily on my shoulders, exacerbated by the
knowledge that I would have to make some confession to Father Benedict.

‘To meet with Master Owen.’

‘I have changed my mind.’

‘Perhaps that’s for the best, my lady.’ She began to brush and coil my hair. I watched her face, waiting to see if she would say more. She didn’t, but busied herself with the intricate mesh of my crispinettes and a length of veil lavishly decorated with silk rose petals.

‘What would you suggest?’

‘That you meet him in disguise, my lady.’

‘And how would you suggest that I do that?’ I asked. Had I not, in my fanciful meanderings in my dreams, already considered such a scenario—and discarded it as a plan that could only be composed by an idiot? Temper bubbled ominously.

‘The only way I can see is for me to dress as a servant and waylay him—he talks to servants, does he not? But how would that be possible? He would recognise me. Do I have to meet him in a dark cupboard, my face swathed in veiling? Do I have to be mute? He would recognise my voice. And even if I did accost him as some swathed figure, what would I say to him? Kiss me, Master Owen, or I will fall into death from desire? And by the way, I am Queen Katherine!’ I laughed but there was no humour in it.

‘He would despise me for tricking him, for the shallow
woman that I undoubtedly am, and that I could not bear. What’s more, I would look nothing more than a wanton. Am I not already suspect, that I am too rapacious, too caught up in sins of the flesh?’ I stood, too agitated to sit, and prowled, my petal-covered veils still half-pinned.

‘I suppose my lord of Gloucester would say that.’

‘Of course he would. And not only Gloucester. What would my damsels say? The Queen Dowager, clothing herself as a kitchen maid, to waylay a hapless servant who had no wish to be waylaid? It would be demeaning for me and for him. I’ll not have trickery. I’ll not lay myself open to ridicule and humiliation.’

‘Forgive me, my lady.’

Instantly remorse shook me, so that I returned to where Guille stood and placed my fingers on her wrist. ‘No. It is I who should ask forgiveness.’ I tried a smile. ‘I have no excuse for ill humour. I promise I will confess it.’

‘Do you care what Lady Beatrice says, my lady?’ Guille asked after a moment of uncomfortable reflection for both of us.

I thought about that. ‘No, I don’t think I do. But I would not court infamy.’

‘Some would say better infamy than a cold, lonely bed. Try him, my lady.’

‘I cannot.’

‘I can arrange it. I can make an assignation for you.’

‘It is not possible. We will forget this conversation, Guille. I am ashamed.’

‘Why should a woman be ashamed that she desired a handsome man?’

‘She should not—but when the handsome man has no feelings for her, and his birth and situation put him far beyond her grasp, then she must accept the inevitable.’

‘His birth has no influence on her female longings.’

This offered no answer to my dilemma.
What do I do, Michelle?
I received no reply. I was alone to trace my uncertain path through an impossible maze.

Dismiss him!

Before God, I could not.

I stared down at the lengthy document in my hand. The official script of a Westminster scribe raced across the page, interspersed with red capitals and hung about with seals. At least I recognised those—they were newly created for Young Henry to mark his forthcoming coronation. As for the rest—the close-coupled lettering, the close alignment—resentment was my primary emotion, with a thorough lacing of self-pity and a good pinch of embarrassment. I was not proud of myself. I could make a guess at its strikingly official content but guessing was hardly sufficient for so wordy a communication, and so of necessity I would have to admit my need to someone.

‘You look troubled, my lady.’

I started, like a doe in a thicket at the approach of baying hounds. Master Tudor had appeared, soft-footed, at my side. I had not heard his footfall, and I wished he was not there: I wished he had not seen whatever expression it
was on my face that had alerted him. I did not want compassion. My own self-pity was hard enough to tolerate. Surely I could summon enough self-control to hide my discomfort. It was hardly a problem that was new to me.

I frowned at him, unfairly. ‘No, Master Tudor,’ I replied. His expression was dispassionate but his eyes were disconcertingly accommodating, inviting an unwary female to sink in and request help. ‘Merely some news from Westminster.’

‘Do you require my services…?’ he asked.

I snatched at a sensible answer. ‘No, no. That is…’ And failed lamentably. He was so close to me that I could hear the creak of the leather of his boot soles as he moved from one foot to another. I could see the blue-black sheen, iridescent as a magpie’s plumage, gleaming along the fall of his hair.

‘Perhaps a cup of wine, my lady? Or do I send for a cloak for you? This room is too cold for lingering.’

I could imagine his unspoken thoughts well enough.
What in God’s name are you doing, standing about to no purpose in this unheated place, when you could be comfortable in your own parlour?

‘No, no wine,’ I managed at last. ‘Or cloak. I will not stay.’

He was right, of course. I looked around and shivered as a current of cold air wrapped itself around my legs and feet. This was not a room—a vast and sparsely furnished audience chamber, in fact—to stand about in, without a
fur-lined mantle. I was there only because I had just received an unnervingly official royal herald, complete with staff of office and heraldic tabard, dispatched to me by my lord of Gloucester. With all the formality that I had been instructed to employ when communicating with the outside world, attended by my damsels, clad impressively with regal splendour in silks and ermine, I had stood on the dais in this bleak chamber and accepted the document, before sending the messenger on his way and dismissing my women.