The Tudor Bride (34 page)

‘But I have not given you permission to discuss my affairs with anyone! How do I know you are not carrying tales to the council? Someone is.’

I was flabbergasted. It had never occurred to me that she might accuse me of treachery. ‘You honoured me yesterday by asking for my company on a secret mission to visit Hadham and today you suggest I might be a spy for the council! There is no logic in that, Mademoiselle.’

Catherine shook her head as if to clear it and laid a hand on my arm. ‘You are right. I am sorry, Mette. Of course you would not betray me, but however close you are to Master Vintner I would still rather you two had not discussed my relationship with Owen Tudor.’

‘Is there a relationship with Owen Tudor? That is what I am anxious to know.’

‘No, there is not. But yesterday he declared his love for me, a love which he says he has felt since the first time he played the harp for us in the Vallon Vert. That is eight years ago, Mette! He says he has loved me for all that time and I never knew.’

She turned to face me then, shifting on the grassy bank to take both my hands in hers, instantly establishing an intimacy between us that had not been there before. In my eyes she had hardly changed from the naïve thirteen-year-old girl who had been brought from her convent to the French court to be groomed as a bride for King Henry of England; luminously beautiful and educated in everything except how to handle the opposite sex. I thought by now she might have learned this art, but from what followed I realised she had not.

‘Oh, Mette, I have been so blind. Perhaps I should have realised, but truly I did not. Not until I felt his hands on me, pushing me back into the saddle when I nearly fell. It seems ridiculous but it was like lightening striking through my body. Suddenly I knew that I matter to him: me – Catherine – I matter. He was not saving Queen Catherine, or the king’s mother, or the highest lady in the land whom he is duty-bound to serve, but a woman he really cares about. I have never felt special to someone before, just for being me – not with Henry, not with Edmund and certainly not with that odious Guy de Mussy who turned out to be Burgundy’s lackey. When Owen kissed me on the island later, I thought my body would melt!’ She looked rapturous and distressed both at the same time and my heart went out to her. ‘What should I do, Mette? It is such a wonderful, overwhelming feeling and I just want it to go on for ever. Tell me why I should deny myself this happiness when everything else that made me happy has been taken from me?’

Humphrey of Gloucester can have had no idea what a maelstrom he would create when he denied Catherine the chance to marry Edmund Beaufort. Had that union gone ahead, I thought, this situation would never have arisen because Catherine would have been content to follow her allotted path, making a marriage among her own kind which would doubtless have brought her all the satisfaction of rank and family that she had always been led to expect. And Owen Tudor would have remained silently in the shadows, loyally quelling his pangs of unrequited love as he had already done for so long. Now we were in unknown territory; passions had been unleashed that might have remained dormant and benign and the future looked uncertain and precarious, not just for Catherine but for all of us who loved and served her.

I shook my head, smiling ruefully. ‘Oh, Mademoiselle! And you base all this on one shove and a few kisses?’

There were tears in her eyes now and I wanted to hug her. She was twenty-seven, but what did she know of love and affection?

‘Yes, Mette, yes I do. And I know it is foolish. He wants me, Mette, just me – to be with me wherever and whenever he can. He does not expect anything from me. He does not ask for titles or honours or high office. He does not even mind if no one ever knows that we love each other!’

I did hug her then, like the daughter she practically was. All her life she had done what she was told, sometimes even when she was told to do it by evil men with wickedly selfish motives, and this was the first time I had seen her desperate to do something that the world and the Church and the law forbade her to do and do it just because it would make her happy. I hugged her because I desperately wanted her to be happy and yet I did not see how that happiness could ever come to be.

I had reckoned without her strong will and fierce determination. When we parted the tears had vanished. She had become practical. ‘Now we have to devise a way to achieve this. Do you have any suggestions?’

I blinked, taken aback, then I blurted out, ‘But it is impossible surely! How can you keep a liaison like that secret?’

Catherine scowled and shook her head. ‘Oh no, Mette, not a liaison; I am going to marry Owen.’

‘Marry him!’ My exclamation came out like a squawk. ‘You cannot! What about the Marriage Act?’

She snapped her fingers derisively. ‘The Marriage Act – pah! They sent me a copy of that stupid act to frighten me. So I read it very carefully and there is one thing they forgot. No one with land and a title will marry me because of the forfeits, but Owen does not have any land or title to lose so he does not care. We need to find a trustworthy priest to marry us but otherwise we will not tell anyone. The marriage will just be between us and God. That is all that matters.’

‘All that matters to you, Mademoiselle, but to the rest of the world it will still look like a liaison. Even if the council do not find a way to end it, you will be branded a harlot and they will stop you seeing the king. And do not forget that Owen is Welsh. They may even declare the relationship treasonous. You would be risking Owen’s life and even perhaps your own!’

‘Only if they find out and they will not. We will disappear to Hadham and live there in secret. I will join the king for the Easter celebrations as planned and I will announce that afterwards I am going into retreat. That is what council members like the Duke of Gloucester want, is it not? – that I should disappear from the political scene. They do not care where or how, as long as I do not get in their way.’

‘But can you disappear in Hadham? It is off the beaten track, that is true, but it is not in the wilderness. What if someone comes visiting – like the Bishop of London for instance? It is his manor after all.’

Catherine shrugged. ‘Let him come. Let anyone come. Owen is my master of the wardrobe. That was a public appointment. Only my closest friends will know the truth. I can make this work, Mette, I know I can.’

‘And what does Master Tudor say to this plan? Does he know he may be risking a charge of treason?’

She gave me a sheepish look. ‘Well no, we have not discussed the future in that sort of detail. But he says he would die for me.’ A note of defiance crept into her voice.

I snorted derisively. ‘When a man says he would die for a woman he generally does not mean he would literally give his life for her, Mademoiselle. It is a form of speech.’

‘Not when Owen says it. He gave me his oath of fealty on his knees, just as a subject does to his king. He is my vassal in life and limb. Truly, Mette; you can ask him if you like. Better still, you can be there when I ask him to marry me and you can warn him he will be risking his life. He will not care, you will see.’

‘I hesitate to suggest this, but would it not be better if Master Vintner were involved? He is a lawyer. At least he could give you his expert opinion on the legality of such a marriage.’

Catherine stood up and shook herself. ‘Brr! I am getting cold sitting here and I want to go riding before dinner. I will think about your suggestion, Mette, and let you know my decision.’

Automatically I rose too. You did not sit when the queen stood, even when you had just hugged her like a mother. ‘Do not leave it too long if you wish to take advantage of Master Vintner’s legal advice, Mademoiselle. I happen to know that he has pressing business in London and will return there very soon.’

She shot me a sharp glance. ‘Anyone’s pressing business in law gives me particular cause for concern. The courts sit at Westminster, only a step away from where the council meets. But you tell me Master Vintner is loyal and I have to believe you. Come to me after my ride, Mette, while I prepare for dinner. We will talk again then.’

I would have liked to speak privately with Owen Tudor before that but there was no opportunity. Hitherto I had thought nothing of the fact that he invariably accompanied Catherine on her morning rides, but now I realised that those embers I had borrowed from Geoffrey’s poetic analogy had been regularly stoked by these daily excursions and after Lord Edmund’s suit failed had probably given Owen the courage to make his dramatic declaration. I dearly hoped that all the other inhabitants of Hertford Castle were equally unaware of where those rides had been leading, because if Catherine was serious about wanting her incongruous love-match to be kept secret, such mass ignorance would be essential.

I
never admired Owen Tudor so much as I did that evening in the queen’s presence chamber. The previous day, when he had declared his love for Catherine, he cannot have imagined being subjected to the kind of interrogation that Geoffrey put him through twenty-four hours later, yet he sat patient and still on his cushioned stool and laid his soul bare for us to scrutinise. When she agreed that Geoffrey should be present, I am sure Catherine cannot have expected him to probe quite as candidly as he did.

He started with his usual courtesy. ‘With the permission of her grace I would like to ask you a few questions, Master Tudor. I assure you on my oath as a lawyer that nothing said within these walls will be repeated outside them.’

Catherine broke in hurriedly and with an apologetic look. ‘They know what took place between us yesterday, Owen, but they are both on our side.’

The squire gave her a smile which spoke more eloquently than his words. ‘I know that Madame Lanière will always be on your side, my queen, and I also know that she and Master Vintner are good friends. If you both trust him then I can trust him.’

Geoffrey nodded briskly, as if he had expected no less. ‘First of all then perhaps you would tell us exactly what did take place between you and Queen Catherine yesterday?’

Preamble over – cut to the chase, I thought. I had not seen this professional side of my lawyer friend before.

Owen fielded a miniscule sign of assent from Catherine before saying simply, ‘I told the queen that I loved her. That I have loved her ever since I first saw her in the light of the campfire at Melun.’

I was greatly affected by the way he spoke these words directly to Catherine, holding her gaze with his expressive brown eyes, as if what he was saying was meant only for her.

However, Geoffrey was not bamboozled by eloquent glances. ‘Yet she was already married then and your queen. Now she is the mother of the king. What gave you the impression that her grace would even hear such a declaration from a servant of her household? Did it not occur to you that it was a treasonous insolence?’

Owen tore his eyes from Catherine’s face and turned them indignantly on Geoffrey. ‘Of course it occurred to me, which is why I did not say anything for nearly eight years. But suddenly the time seemed right.’

‘Or, put it another way, Master Tudor. Suddenly you took advantage of a great lady in a state of distress over the terms of the Marriage Act. You thought you would strike while her guard was down.’

‘No. NO!’ For a moment Owen lost his calm but quickly regained it. ‘I know nothing of a Marriage Act. My declaration was made on an impulse inspired by the beauty around us, the privacy and the intense emotion of the moment. Nothing else in the world concerned me. I wanted to show my queen that she was not unloved and unwanted as she seemed to think she was.’ Once again he turned to look at Catherine and she held his gaze. ‘I want to make her happy, that is all. Bring some peace and well-being to her heart to give her strength.’

‘Or else you want to exploit her vulnerability to your own advantage.’

There was nothing affable about Geoffrey now, but Owen did not rise to his taunt. Instead he snatched off his soft chaperon and bowed his head, squashing the hat between his tense fingers. ‘My queen is far above me and beyond me, I know that. She has the power of patronage, but I ask for no reward other than to see her smile as she used to in the valley camp when she first married the great King Henry.’ He raised his head and there was anguish in his eyes. ‘She deserves to be happy again, Master Vintner. You must agree with me surely.’

‘We do not measure our lives in happiness, Master Tudor,’ Geoffrey said sternly, ‘even though we may like to. Her grace is the mother of the king, with a responsibility to set him an example. How would being loved by a squire of her household appear in the eyes of her son? Did you think of that when you made your selfish declaration?’

Catherine could stay silent no longer. ‘Please, Master Vintner, stop! You are making something beautiful sound ugly and horrible. We are not here to put Owen on trial.’

I was relieved to see that Geoffrey was instantly contrite. ‘I am sorry, your grace, but I consider it important to be sure that Master Tudor’s intentions are good.’ He spread his hands apologetically and sat back in his chair. ‘Now I think we have established that.’

Catherine’s copy of the vexatious Marriage Act lay on the table beside her. She picked it up and fiddled nervously with the official red ribbon that tied the scrolled document. In the tense pause that followed, colour gradually flooded her cheeks as she struggled for the right words. ‘You cannot have seen this, Owen. It is the law which was passed by Parliament regarding my future. It is not very long. Would you read it please?’

He made no move to take the document from her. ‘Regrettably my Latin is not good enough to read a legal document, Madame. Perhaps Master Vintner would list the main points for me.’

Owen listened intently to Geoffrey’s expert summary of the act’s stringent restrictions on the dowager queen’s re-marriage. When it was finished, the squire took a deep breath and exhaled audibly, ‘By all God’s Holy Angels, there is not much joy in that!’ His gaze swept the ceiling and he appeared to control his anger with great difficulty. ‘Whoever was responsible for such malice certainly did not want you to be happy, my queen!’