‘Of course you should, Your Grace!’ Allworthy said sternly. ‘How else will you ever be well again?’ He turned to Margaret, addressing her. ‘The servant should not have run to you, my lady. I told him as much, but he didn’t listen.’
‘You were mistaken,’ Margaret responded instantly. ‘If my husband tells you to fetch me, you drop your bag and run, Master Allworthy!’
She had never liked the pompous doctor. The man treated Henry like a village idiot, as far as Margaret could see.
‘I cannot say,’ Henry replied, answering a question no one had asked him.
He opened his eyes, but the room seemed to be moving around him as his senses swam on acids in his blood. He choked suddenly, his mouth filling with green bile. Margaret gasped in horror as the bitter-smelling liquid spilled past his lips.
‘You are tiring the king, my lady,’ Allworthy said, barely hiding his satisfaction. He used his cloth to collect the thin slurry coming from the king’s mouth, wiping hard. ‘As the royal physician …’
Margaret looked up with such venom that Allworthy flushed and fell silent. Henry continued to choke, groaning as his stomach clenched and emptied. Foul liquids spattered from his mouth on to the blanket and his tunic. Blood continued to trickle from his arm, making bright beads around the bowl that sank instantly into the blanket. Allworthy fussed around the king, mopping and dabbing.
As Margaret clutched his hand, Henry lurched in his seat, showing tendons like wires in his throat. The bowl of blood went flying with a terrible crash, spilling its thick contents down the blanket and into a spreading red pool on the floor. As it came to rest upside down, Henry’s muscles clamped tight all over his body and his eyes rolled up in his head.
‘Your Grace?’ Allworthy said, worried.
There was no response. The young king lolled to one side, senseless.
‘Henry? Can you hear me? What have you done to him?’ Margaret demanded.
Doctor Allworthy shook his head in nervous confusion.
‘My lady, nothing I’ve given would cause fits,’ he said. ‘The same distemper has its hand on him, now as before. All I have done is to hold it back this long.’
Hiding his panic, the doctor stepped into the spilled blood to loom over the king. He pinched Henry’s cheeks, at first gently and then harder so that he left red marks.
‘Your Grace?’ he said.
There was no response. The king’s chest rose and fell as before, but the man himself had fallen away and was lost.
Margaret looked from her husband’s slack face to the doctor standing at his side, stains of blood and vomit on his black coat. She reached out and took a firm grip on the doctor’s arm.
‘No more of your foul draughts, your bleeding and your pills. No more, doctor! One protest and I will have you arrested and put to the question. I will tend my husband.’
She turned her back on the doctor, reaching for a strip of bandage to tie around the still-bleeding curette wound on Henry’s arm. Margaret pulled it tight with her teeth, then gripped her husband by both arms. His head sagged forward, spit dribbling from his mouth.
Allworthy gaped as the young queen bit her lip in indecision, then raised her open hand and held it in the air, trembling visibly. She took a long, slow breath and slapped Henry across the cheek, rocking his head back. He made no sound at all, though a scarlet print spread slowly across his cheek to show where he had been struck. Margaret let him sag back into the chair, sobbing in frustration and sick fear. The doctor’s mouth opened and closed, but he had nothing else to say.
Epilogue
London could be beautiful in the spring. The sun made the sluggish river sparkle and there were fresh goods in all the markets. There were still some who came to see where Cade’s axe had marked the London Stone, but even that scar was fading with time and the rub of hands.
At the Palace of Westminster, lords arrived from across the country, travelling by coach or horse, or ferried up the river in oared barges. They came alone or in crowds, bustling through the corridors and meeting rooms. Speaker Tresham had been sent by Parliament to greet the Duke of York as he returned from Ireland, but whatever the man had intended had been forgotten when the Speaker was killed in the road, apparently mistaken for a brigand. York’s personal chamberlain, Sir William Oldhall, now held that vital post. It was he who had set the venue for his master’s return and sent out the formal requests for attendance. Thirty-two out of fifty-five noble houses were represented in the London gathering, barely enough for the task ahead.
As the clock tower bell was rung for noon, Oldhall looked across at the gathered lords, separated from each other by a wide aisle. Sunlight shone through the high windows of the White Chamber, revealing velvets and silks, a mass of bright colours. York was not yet present and he could hardly begin without him. Oldhall wiped perspiration from his forehead, looking to the door.
Richard of York walked calmly through the corridors leading to the White Chamber. He had a dozen men with him, all dressed in the livery of his house and marked with either the white rose of York or his personal symbol of a falcon with outstretched talons. He did not expect to be threatened in the royal palace, but neither would he come into the stronghold of his enemies without good swordsmen at his side. He heard the clock bell ring for noon and increased his pace, knowing his noble peers would be waiting for him. His servants matched him, checking every side corridor and chamber they passed for the first hint of trouble. The rooms were all deserted and York rounded the last corner at speed.
He drew to a sudden halt as he sighted a group standing close by the door he would take into the echoing chamber beyond. York could hear the mutter of conversation inside, but he had eyes only for the young woman who stood at the centre of her pages and stewards, glaring at him as if she could set him on fire with just the force of her dislike. He hesitated only for a heartbeat before he put his right leg forward and bowed deeply, his men dipping with him for the queen of England.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ he said, as he rose. On impulse, York stepped forward alone, raising an open palm to his men so that they would not be seen to threaten Margaret. ‘I did not expect to see you here today …’
His gaze dropped as he spoke, unable to avoid staring at the bulge of her dress. His mouth tightened as he saw her pregnancy for the first time. When he looked up, he saw she was watching his reaction.
‘My lord York, did you think I would not come?’ she said, her voice low and firm. ‘Today, of all days, when such great matters are to be decided?’
It was an effort for York not to show his triumph, but he knew it was unnecessary.
‘Your Highness, has there been a change in the king’s condition? Has he risen? I will give thanks in every church on my lands if it is so.’
Margaret’s lips thinned. For five months, her husband had been utterly senseless, almost drowned each day just to force enough broth into his stomach to keep him alive. He could not speak or react even to pain. Her child and his still grew within her until she felt she could not stand another day of the heaviness and discomfort. The triumph of the great hunt at Windsor seemed a lifetime away and now there was her enemy, the enemy of her house and line, home from Ireland once more. The whole country was talking of York’s return and what it meant for England and the broken king.
Margaret’s hands were swollen, made painful by the pregnancy. They still twitched as she wished that just once she might have the strength of a man, to reach out and crush another man’s throat. The duke stood tall before her, his amusement showing clearly in his eyes. She had wanted him to see her gravid state, to know that at least there would be an heir. She had wanted to look into his eyes as he betrayed his king, but it was all ashes at that moment and she wished she had not come.