Chapter 205: You Need The King’s Physician
Tabitha had experience with wounds. She had patched scraped knees, knife cuts. She had sewn flesh by candlelight, cleaned blood.
What she did not have experience with was patching up a king.
Henry lay in Livia’s bed, pale beneath the lamplight, his coat cut away and the shaft of the arrow still protruding from his back. Every breath he took was far too quiet for Tabitha’s liking.
Outside, the house remained locked and dark. They had no way of knowing whether the assassin still waited beyond the windows. No guard. No safe path to Whitehall.
Just one wounded king, and the sinking suspicion that England was about to depend on her steady hands.
Livia stood beside her, shaking badly. Tabitha looked to the King’s bloodied back and exhaled once.
It was up to her to save the King of England with a shaking Livia as her assistant. Tabitha had pulled out the arrow.
She had done it with a knife, a basin of hot water, two strips torn from a sheet, and grim determination not to let the King of England die in Livia’s bed.
The arrowhead had come free with a wet, ugly sound. Livia had nearly been sick. Henry had not made a sound. His Majesty lay rigid and silent.
At first, Tabitha thought the worst of it was the wound itself. It was deep, but not fatal if kept clean and closed. The bleeding had been hard to stop, but she had stopped it. She had seen worse wounds in poorer rooms.
Then she saw the veins. Thin black lines spread from the torn flesh beneath his shoulder, crawling outward under the skin.
Poison.
She ripped away what remained of his shirt and coat to better inspect the wound, not caring that she was undressing a king. Royal dignity could go hang itself.
Livia stood beside her, pale and shaking, passing cloths when asked, water when ordered. All the while, Henry’s gaze remained on her.
His eyes followed Livia. He watched the tremor in her fingers, the pallor of her face, the way she held one arm slightly close to her ribs. He had fallen on her. He was not a small man, and she had hit the ground hard beneath him. She could have cracked a rib, twisted her wrist, struck her head, and in her panic not yet realised it.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, voice rough.
Livia looked at him as though he had lost his mind. Considering there was poison making black lace beneath his skin, that was not entirely unfair. "No...I do not think so."
Henry kept watching her. The fear in her eyes unsettled him. For a woman who claimed to hate him so thoroughly, he would have expected a little less terror and perhaps a small celebratory dance.
Once Tabitha finished binding the wound as tightly as she dared, she stepped back and bowed. "Your Majesty, I must find a way to get word to the palace. You need the King’s physician. Only he can identify the poison and prepare an antidote."
Livia’s eyes moved to the blackened veins spreading beneath Henry’s skin. "Who would do this?" She asked.
Henry chuckled, though the sound was thin and roughened by pain. His skin had begun to heat beneath the bandages. The black veins spreading from the wound had darkened further, threading across his back. "Did you think I was everyone’s beloved?" he asked. "There are always men who despise whoever sits on the throne," he said. "Some hate the crown. Some hate the man beneath it. Some merely hate taxes."
"How would they know where you were? Were you followed?"
"I might as well have been," Henry said. "I was too impatient to wait for Lionel," he continued, "and too angry to notice my surroundings."
The moment the words left his mouth, he saw guilt enter her face.
"If I had just gone with Stephen—"
"No."
"If I had not refused—"
"I said no."
The command scraped out of him, weaker than he wanted but still royal enough to silence her. Livia had never been particularly obedient, and it was frankly inconvenient that he admired her for it even while dying in her bed.
He softened his voice. "The King’s physician is excellent at what he does. Come sit."
She shook her head.
"Distract me."
"With what?"
"Books you have read recently."
Her mind felt blank, useless, scattered into a thousand terrified pieces. "I cannot think."
"Try. Please. Lionel will be here soon. I do not want to simply stare at the ceiling."
Tabitha glanced toward the door. "I shall see if the back of the house offers any safer way to send word." She excused herself, leaving them alone.
Livia sat beside him. At first, her voice trembled. She spoke of a book she had read recently, stumbling through the beginning until Henry interrupted with a correction. "You have read it?" she asked.
"Twice."
"Of course you have."
Soon they were arguing. Then agreeing. Then arguing again. They spoke until her voice steadied, until his eyelids grew heavy, until the poison crept farther through his blood.
And then Henry lost consciousness as the poison continued its spread through his body. Livia panicked.
All the times she had sworn Henry could rot in whatever royal misery he had built for himself, the sight of him lying senseless in her bed emptied every cruel thought from her head.
"Tabitha!"
Henry’s body was burning now. The heat coming off him was unnatural, fierce enough to frighten her when she pressed the back of her hand to his brow. His breathing had grown uneven, each inhale dragging through him.
"No, no, no," she whispered. She snatched a towel from the basin, plunged it into cold water, wrung it badly enough that it dripped all over the floor, then began wiping his face, his throat, the broad line of his shoulders.
Tabitha hurried back into the room. One glance at Henry’s face was enough. "Keep changing the cloth," she said, taking another towel. "His fever must not climb higher."
(Brought to you by Mar King 2/3)
