But in public he never overstepped the mark of decency. He danced with my damsels too. He never showed a need to push me beyond the inexperienced limit of my own desires. Or not yet.
Sometimes, in my lonely bed, I questioned the vital happiness that gripped me. Did I deserve it? Perhaps I should step more slowly, perhaps it was wrong for me to allow Edmund to dictate my will and order my days. Perhaps I should worry about the world’s condemnation. I had seen the results of cruel gossip in my mother’s life. Perhaps I should know better than to follow in her dangerous footsteps.
And then, when I heard his voice raised in laughter or needle-quick response, my resolution to be sensible and abstemious was all destroyed.
Fleetingly I wished that James was still close, a valuable confidant for a troubled mind, but James had achieved his heart’s desire. He and Joan, now wed, were deliriously ensconced in Scotland. I rejoiced for him—but I did not need him. My mind was not troubled, my feet were light with joy.
How many secret places were there to discover in a royal palace, for two lovers bent on a snatched moment of solitude? In Windsor I could map them all. I could trace our steps over that year and point to every single blessed spot on the paving stones where our love grew stronger, more intense. I could catch my breath as I recalled Edmund’s seduction of my senses beneath every arch and carved rafter. How carefully, how cleverly those assignations were selected.
My guilt, if guilt it must be, was as great as his for I was a willing accomplice, lured by a wealth of poetry that tripped from his lips. My pale soul blazed with light, made vibrant and alive by a fanfare of colour.
There—exactly there at the turn in the stair in the great Round Tower, where we climbed from first to second floor. Where the light from the narrow window did not quite illuminate us, and the echo of approaching footsteps in either direction would alert us.
Behind the carved screen in the Chapel of St George, such a sacred place to celebrate un-sacred love with passion-heated kisses. There we stood, I trembling in his arms, hidden by the rigid form of leaves and flowers created by a master craftsman who had had no idea that his artifice would hide the flushed cheeks of a Queen of England and her lover.
Yet not always so enclosed. In the calm solemnity of the King’s Cloister, when the canons and clerks were busy about their affairs with no time to enjoy leisure, there we walked hand in hand. I had no recollection of what we said, only of the slide of his hand against mine, his fingers weaving with mine, his palm hard and calloused from swordplay and reins. And, satiated with each other, we progressed to the Little Cloister when the noisy choristers were absent, intent on their choral duties, their voices raised in miraculous polyphony as a plangent accompaniment to our sighs.
A bitter-sweet backdrop. I too was bounden in a bond from which I had no desire to break free. The words, the minor harmonies, were almost too beautiful for me to bear.
And Edmund, master of all miraculous sleight of hand, when passion became too much, our breathing too roused, calmed my desire. As if he had conjured it all—as perhaps he had, for I thought nothing beyond him—he produced an apple from his sleeve, smoothly russet, that he presented to me as if it were a precious gem, and we shared it, piece by piece as he wielded his knife. He licked the juice of it from my fingers—until desire built and built again, and I thought I could not exist without him.
Back within enclosing walls, the Old Hall, converted years ago into a chamber for personal use of the king but now unused until Young Henry would be of age to occupy it, provided us with a vast expanse of space. Here, where we might be seen, we were discreetly adroit, a brush of fingertips our only recognition. With its twenty windows, greedy eyes for the world, there were no kisses exchanged here.
Ah, but within the privacy of the Rose Chamber, now that was a different matter. Our garments merging with the blue, green and vermillion paint and the gleam of gold leaf, camouflaging us like a butterfly on a bright flower, our bodies were free to meet and cling, one chrysalis.
