It was a thoroughly illuminating half-hour.

‘And how is Young Henry?’ I asked, my inquisitiveness finally slaked.

‘Driving his tutor to tear out his hair,’ Warwick observed. ‘He has developed a keen sense of his own importance since he acquired two crowns.’ He eyed me quizzically. ‘Does your husband know what you are about?’

‘No.’

‘It may be that he will object.’

I was sure that he would, but I would not allow that to stop me. ‘I don’t think he will be in a position to do so,’ I replied, with more confidence than I felt. I had the information I needed, and now that I had it, I knew that I must use it to right a wrong. I was determined on it.

‘I wish to address the Council,’ I told Warwick. ‘I would like to think I had your support, Richard.’ I would call in all old friendships. ‘I would like to think that you would give me a hearing, even when Gloucester refuses.’

‘Tell me what you have in mind,’ he invited.

All my life I had been shifted here, made to hop there, allowed—or forced—to linger in this place rather than that one. I had been raised to expect nothing else, neither had I desired it in my girlhood days, expecting to live out my life in the glory of King Henry’s love, surrounded by our children. Maturity and disappointment had brought me foresight. Now this late-flowering love with Owen Tudor had brought me a single-minded sense of purpose, which the threats against his life had honed into a blade of steel.

Despite my increasing clumsiness, I was driven with an energy that shook me to the core. It sang in my blood, the righteous justice of it, and I knew what it was I must set out to accomplish. I would do it for Owen, for my children. What was I not capable of, with Owen at my side?

‘I am going to Westminster,’ I said, easing myself into a chair in the parlour where Owen sat with a pile of financial ledgers before him.

Owen’s response was succinct, after he had clapped his pen onto the table in disbelief. ‘You will not. I’ll tie you to your chair if I have to.’ We were still ensconced at Hertford. I swear his denial could be heard all the way to the stables. ‘Look at you. You are within a month of the child being delivered, and you would go off to Westminster on some wild-goose chase. Have you no sense?’

‘No wild goose, Owen.’ I smiled fondly at the stunned expression that darkened his eyes to black and sharpened the line of his jaw. ‘Only the future of a stubborn Welshman and the future of our children. I want my sons to have the right to carry a sword. And any daughter of ours too, if she is of a mind to do it.’

‘Your foolishness does not persuade me one inch,’ he replied, entirely unmoved. ‘Surely you can see it’s dangerous for you to travel at this time.’

Which I wafted aside with a list of figures from one of the rent rolls, continuing to develop my argument, which I knew was unexceptionable. If only I could persuade this difficult, argumentative man—whom I loved more than was good for me—to accept.

‘I have no objection, my love, to our children having your Welsh blood. But what I will not do is sit back and allow the law to make examples of them. This unborn child is the best argument we’ve got.’ I spread my fingers over the formidable swell of my houppelande. ‘The greater my belly, the more persuasive I can be.’

‘You’ll have to be carried into the Council Chamber at this rate.’ I was pleased to see that he had calmed a little.

‘I will not. I will walk. You will walk with me. And we take the children with us.’

‘Why in God’s name would you drag them all the way to Westminster?’ The volume climbed again.

‘Because I wish it.’

‘I forbid it, Katherine.’

I loved him for it. ‘But I insist, Owen. Listen to me. I want this child to be born to a man who is free to act as he wishes. To carry a weapon. To have his birth recognised. To own land on this side of this remarkable Offa’s Dyke.’ I ignored the gleam of Owen’s eye at my reference to this inexplicable place that seemed to mean so much to him.

‘They must be recognised as English, before the law. I will go to the Royal Council and get it. And,’ I added, placing my hand on his, ‘I go with or without you.’

He didn’t believe me for a minute, of course.

‘Not without me.’ He scowled at me. ‘Neither will I stand silent this time.’

‘Neither will I ask it of you. It’s time they gave you the status due to you as my husband. Since we’ve been wed more than two years now, and they’ve found no cause to part us, then they must accept the rightness of it. How ridiculous that the Dowager Queen is wed to a man against whom the law discriminates!’

His scowl did not abate, but at least he thought about it, his fingers shredding his quill.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘As sure as I have ever been in my whole life.’ The child kicked lustily beneath my hand. ‘This child will be born to a free man. You will have redress before the law for any action taken against you. You will be English in all but name. And I will argue no more about it.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The scowl vanished into a twist of a smile.

‘Are you mocking me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You won’t in a minute, when I tell you what I need you to do.’

He eyed me speculatively. Since my attempt to banish him to the fastness of Wales, he had been wary. ‘And what would that be?’

‘I want to talk to you about Llewellyn the Great.’ I was becoming proud of my pronunciation.

‘You know I will not.’ The smile fled again.

I leaned to kiss his cheek. ‘But you must.’

‘It will serve no purpose to resurrect memories of the Welsh spilling English blood.’

The ruined quill snapped in his fingers. I ignored it. And the tightness of his mouth. Instead I stood and moved towards the door.

‘Is our love dead after all, if my kisses cannot soften you?’ I looked back over my shoulder, unforgivably arch.

‘Leave it be, Katherine.’

I simply raised my brows.

Owen stood. ‘Will you give me no peace?’ Relenting at last and wrapping his arms around me as well as he was able, he planted a kiss on the soft spot below my ear. ‘And, no, our love is not dead.’

Which I knew anyway. But after Owen had proved to my satisfaction that his love for me was as intense and powerful as it had ever been, I nudged him.

‘Here we have pen—or what is left of one—and parchment. And here is Father Benedict, come to act as scribe.’

It was a risky plan—for me, for my unborn child, for Owen to put himself so firmly in the public eye when we had spent our energies since our forbidden marriage into preserving anonymity. But I got my way. A woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy could, I found, be very persuasive. And so, once again, after a brief diversion to visit Young Henry, I addressed the august gathering of the Royal Council in the magnificent surroundings of Westminster.

‘We have requested this interview, my lords,’ I announced, ‘to put right a great wrong.’

On my right Owen stood, hat and gloves in hand, all emotion tight reined. Father Benedict trembled on my left, clutching the document. The King’s Council regarded us with a flat stare, and I shivered.

It was little different from when we had last stood there: the same faces, some with signs of advancing age but much the same, like viewing a tapestry, well known but faded with time and ravages of the sun. Gloucester, Warwick, a clutch of bishops. They were thoughtful of my condition, and this time I took the stool offered. My child was too near its time for me to make a gesture by standing throughout. Neither was I allowed much choice in the matter. Now that I had announced our purpose for being there, Owen’s hand was heavy on my shoulder.

‘I will make the case, Katherine, because it is my honour that is at stake,’ he had insisted again, at the very door to the chamber.

‘I know—’

‘No, you don’t. You should not even be here.’

‘We’ll not argue through that again.’

‘No, we won’t, but you’ll do as you’re told.’

So I sat as Owen bearded the dragon in its den. Standing tall and straight, his shoulders braced, the chain he wore not one of servitude but of status; the sapphires, which gleamed with sullen power, were the size and hue of ripe sloes. Owen had sneered at my intent, but I would spare no expense, and he wore it with panache as he allowed his considering gaze to travel over the ranks who held his future in their hands. What was going on behind that superbly disciplined facade? I wondered. Would he be able to impress and persuade them against their better judgement? He looked magnificent. All I could do was listen, and pray.

Then he began. His voice was quiet and respectful but confident in its presentation. Our planning had been extraordinarily thorough.

‘We came here two years ago, my lords, at your request, when we provided proof that Queen Katherine and I were legally wed. You have seen the evidence. We have two children legally born, under the powerful protection of the Church.’ He bowed towards Bishops FitzHugh and Morgan. ‘The birth of our third child is imminent. Yet because of my Welsh ancestry and my people’s demand for autonomy under Owain Glyn Dwr, I am not a free man. I ask for a ruling and a judgement from you.

‘Are the heirs of my body also to face the same discrimination? Would you condemn the children of the Queen Dowager to penalties before the law, as descendents of a man who is proud of his Welsh blood? I say this, my lords. I say that, for the dignity of Queen Katherine and her children, I should be granted the rights and freedoms enjoyed by every Englishman here in this chamber.’

As he took a breath, I surveyed the faces. They were listening. But that did not mean that they would concur. Everything hung on the outcome. The weaving of the strands of our future together lay in the balance. Rejection, and we would always live with the fear of attack and betrayal. Of untimely death. Success and—