Chapter 283: I Will Care For Her
He pulled her even closer. His heart pounded violently. His eyes burned. Stephen was still waiting outside the apartments when Henry emerged. His eyes flew from Livia’s unconscious body to Tabitha. The question in them needed no words.
This was not good. This was not good at all.
"Your Majesty," Stephen said, stepping forward. "Please, allow me." He reached as though to take Livia from him.
"No!"
Stephen stopped at once. Henry’s face had gone hard, yet his eyes shone with terror. He turned and strode down the corridor.
How had this happened?
No.
That was a foolish question. He knew how. He had left. He did not need to ask who had done this.
He knew.
He knew in his bones, in the old griefs buried beneath his childhood, in the memory of brothers dead too quickly.
Livia’s head shifted against his shoulder. Henry looked down at her.
"Livia," he whispered.
She did not answer. His vision fogged completely. The air would not enter his lungs properly. His chest constricted. Panic ripped through him, and he went down to one knee with Livia still gathered in his arms.
A sound tore out of him as he sobbed like a child.
Stephen moved at once. "Your Majesty," he said, kneeling before him. "Please. Allow me. I will care for her. I swear it. Please."
Henry looked at him through tears he no longer had the strength to hide.
"Please," Stephen said again. "Let me help you."
Henry gave the smallest acknowledgement with his head. Stephen carefully took her from him. Tabitha moved immediately after them towards the royal chambers.
Henry remained on one knee, head bowed, one hand pressed to the floor. The corridors filled up and Whitehall watched its king give in to pain. "Where is Lionel?" He asked.
There was so much anger in his voice. He had given Lord Ashcroft one task.
One.
Protect her.
"In the cells, Your Majesty," Geoffrey said carefully.
Henry’s head turned towards him.
"He was trying to take Miss Livia into hiding," Geoffrey continued. "He believed it was the only way to keep her beyond Her Grace’s reach. But the Queen Mother—"
The words had not entirely left his mouth before Henry rose. He rose like violence given bones.
"Your Majesty," Geoffrey said.
Henry walked past him. The corridor emptied ahead of him. Henry stormed through the palace towards his mother’s apartments.
Every step took him further from reason. His mother had never understood retreat.
His mother.
Always his mother.
The source of every shadow he had refused to name.
He reached the passage outside Theodora’s apartments and saw guards posted at the door, waiting to escort Her Grace to the Tower. One turned at the sound of his approach and bowed halfway.
"Your Majesty—"
Henry seized the man’s sword from its scabbard and shoved him aside. The guard staggered back.
Geoffrey’s blood went cold. "Henry!" He decided etiquette could go to hell. "Henry!" he shouted again, hurrying after him.
Henry reached the doors and thrust them open. The chamber beyond was in motion. Theodora’s maids and ladies-in-waiting were gathering garments, prayer books, and the thousand other things she would need. A coffer stood open near the bed. He entered with a sword in his hand.
The room scattered. Ladies cried out. Theodora stood in the middle of the chamber. For the first time in all the years Geoffrey had known her, the Queen Mother looked truly shocked.
That, by itself, was almost justice. Theodora had expected perhaps a cold confrontation with her son after he had been properly informed. She had never imagined Henry bursting into her chamber with a drawn sword and murder in his eyes.
She would never have considered that her own son might raise steel against her. That was the irony. Livia’s poisoning had not truly been Theodora’s order. She had done enough to damn herself ten times over. But the poison itself had been Livia’s gamble.
Geoffrey moved faster than he knew he could. He threw himself in front of the king, damning rank, and the very real possibility that Henry might cut through him without recognising who he was. Geoffrey placed both hands on Henry’s chest and held him back. "Your Majesty...No."
Henry’s body strained against him. "Move."
"If you kill her like this, you hand her the last victory she will ever need." Geoffrey pressed harder against his chest. "Do not let her make you this."
His breathing came hard, and tears still clung to his lashes, making the hatred in his eyes all the more terrible. He looked like a man split open. His eyes locked with his mother’s with such hatred, Geoffrey could feel it consume him.
"Henry," Geoffrey called. "You are the King of England. Think of your throne. Think of your name. Think of what they will write after you are gone. A king who kills his own mother? No. Not while I am Lord Chancellor.I beg you, Your Majesty."
"Let him be," Theodora said. "Let him raise his sword against his own mother. Perhaps then he will finally accept that he is me."
"Do not listen to her," Geoffrey said quickly. "You are Henry. You are not her shadow. She may be your mother, but you are not cut from the same cloth. Give me the sword."
Theodora laughed quietly. "Not cut from the same cloth? He is my son. My temper. My cruelty."
"Stop speaking," Geoffrey snapped.
"She will ruin you," Theodora said to Henry, ignoring Geoffrey entirely. "That girl will weaken you, make you ridiculous, make England laugh at its king because he could not keep his cock away from a whore. I told you," Theodora continued, her eyes bright with venom, "over my dead body before you marry her."
"Will you stop talking, for God’s sake?" Geoffrey thundered. He turned on Theodora then. He moved just enough to face her, yet still kept his body between mother and son. It was a miserable position. "For all that is holy, be silent...Just once in your life, discover the mercy of shutting your fucking mouth."
He turned back to Henry. "I have already ordered her removal to the Tower, my lord. She will be confined. She will answer before council. But not like this. Not with your own hand."
"No," Henry said calmly, lowered the sword and held it out to him. "Not yet."
Geoffrey took it at once in relief.
Henry looked past him to Theodora. "I want her to see exactly what I intend to do to the next person who harms the people I love. Then she can retire to the tower."
Theodora’s face hardened. Henry turned and strode out.
In the corridor, his voice cracked through the palace. "Someone get Lionel out of the fucking cells!" His feet carried him back towards his chambers. Fear met him at the threshold.
Inside, the chamber had been transformed into a sickroom. The physician moved quietly near the window, preparing another draught.
Livia lay in the centre of it all. She was surrounded by those who truly cared for her.
"Your Majesty," Stephen said quickly, stepping forward. "She will be fine. She breathes steadily."
Henry nodded once. It was all he could manage. He crossed to the bed and sat carefully on the edge, as though any roughness in him might disturb the fragile thread holding her here. His gaze moved over her face, the pale curve of her cheek, the lashes resting against her skin, the hand lying still upon the coverlet.
Stephen approached with caution. "Your Majesty." He knelt and began removing the king’s muddy boots.
Henry shifted beside Livia and took her fingers in his. He lowered his head slightly. "How long before she wakes?"
"She must heal internally, Your Majesty. The poison hurt her badly, and it took too long before the physician reached her." Tabitha answered. Her voice trembled, but she continued. "The Queen Mother would not let anyone see to her. Thank God for Master Hartwell, who helped get a message to Lord Langford..."
They watched in silence as the physician administered another draught. Henry did not move from his place beside Livia. He sat on the edge of the bed with one of her hands enclosed in both of his, his head bowed slightly, his eyes fixed on the faint movement of her breathing. The world could have caught fire beyond the palace walls, and he might only have asked whether the smoke would trouble her lungs.
The physician worked with care, lifting Livia’s head just enough to coax the medicine between her lips.
When the physician finished, he checked Livia’s pulse once more, listened to her breathing, and gave a grave nod.
"She is holding," he said.
Stephen, who had already given orders for the physician to be lodged within the king’s own section of the palace, stepped forward. "Doctor, your chamber is being prepared. If anything is missing, you will tell me directly."
"I shall," the physician replied.