A strange expression crossed his face. ‘There it is.’ He took it from me, rubbing his thumb over the worn carving. ‘I thought I had lost it—and regretted it.’ He looked quizzically at me. ‘Why did you keep it?’
‘Because I wanted something of you, something that was yours and that you valued. I did not steal it,’ I assured him. ‘I would have returned it. I think you do value it.’
Still he held it in his palm, its dragon mouth swallowing its tail in whimsical beauty.
‘I do value it. You have no idea.’ Stern-faced, he pinned it to my bodice. ‘There. The dragon looks very well.’
‘But I must not.’ I remembered another brooch, another time. I must not take it.
‘It is what I wish. The Welsh dragon will guard you from all harm. There is no one I would rather have own it than you, the woman I love.’
And Owen Tudor kissed me, very gently, on my lips. It moved me to the depths of my soul.
We walked together from the chapel into the sun-barred enclosed area of the Horseshoe Cloisters, all that we had said and done and promised creating a wordless bond of delight between us. Until it was shattered. Usually a quiet place, the graceful arches stood witness to the scene of a fracas, causing us to halt to observe the group of young men who had joined the household to polish their knightly skills in the company of my son, under the tutelage of Warwick and the royal Master of Arms. They were invariably a boisterous fraternity, quarrelsome in the way of young men with too much unchannelled energy. Today raised voices echoed across the space, shouts, curses, some coarse laughter. A few punches would be thrown before the matter was settled.
But then came the dangerous rasp of steel as a sword was drawn from a scabbard. This was no formal passage of arms, controlled and supervised under Warwick’s eagle eye, but rather an outburst of temper, the climax of an argument. In a blink of an eye the dispute spun from crude name-calling to a dangerous confrontation with the gleam of inexpertly wielded weapons. The two lads circled, swords at the ready, their comrades encouraging with cat-calling and jeering. A lunge, a grapple, a cry of pain. There was little skill—they were too impassioned—but they hacked at each other as if they had every intention of murder.
‘They’ll kill each other by pure mischance,’ Owen growled, before he sprinted across the space to erupt into the rabble of an audience.
‘Stop this!’ His voice was commanding. The crowd fell instantly silent but the two combatants were too taken up with their quarrel to even hear.
‘Damned young fools!’ Owen addressed the watchers. ‘Could you not stop it getting to this pitch? Fists would have done the job just as well and with less damage to everyone.’
As he was speaking, he seized the sword from the scabbard of the nearest squire and a dagger from another, and waded in, steel flashing.
‘Put up your weapons,’ he commanded.
He struck one sword down with his own, the other he parried with the knife. Then, when he sensed the belligerence had not quite drained, he dropped his sword and gripped the wrist of one, who turned on him in blind fury. A wrench on the wrist and a fist to the jaw brought it all to a rapid if ignominious end, while I, a silent watcher, was more than interested to see how Owen would handle this. I had seen him marshal my servants, but I had never seen him in the throes of an altercation such as this with young men of high blood.
Breathless, hair in disarray, face afire and to my mind magnificent, Owen stood between them, one lad spread-eagled in the dust, the other still clutching his sword but no longer with intent to use it. Rounding on the rest, who were already putting distance between them and the culprits, he issued his instructions.
‘Go about your business. Unless you wish the Master or my lord of Warwick to hear about this disgraceful affair.’ Then to the two dishevelled combatants, first offering a hand to pull one of them to his feet: ‘You bring no credit to your families. Would you draw arms in the presence of the Queen?’ He gestured in my direction. ‘Make your bows!’
They did, shame-faced, one trying to brush the dust of the courtyard from his tunic. The rest of the conversation I did not hear. It proceeded for some time, low-voiced and mostly from Owen, monosyllabic and sullen from the lads. One such comment earned a cuff round the ear from Owen.
‘Do it now.’
Although his order was soft-voiced, there was an immediate, if reluctant, clasp of hands. They were not friends now, but perhaps would be by tomorrow.
‘There will be a penance for such stupidity,’ Owen announced. ‘You need to learn that the Queen’s Household will not be disturbed by such ill-bred behaviour. Use your wits next time before you decide to settle a minor squabble with cold steel. And as you are both as much to blame as the other.’
