Stormbird

Midnight had passed long before, but he could not sleep with his head pounding and pressure all around the socket of his right eye. All he could do was endure until the sun rose and he could leave his rooms. He thought for a moment of calling Margaret, but remembered that she would be long asleep by then. Pregnant women needed to sleep, he had been told. Henry smiled to himself at the thought, peering again at the page that blurred as he stared at it.

In the silence, the king gave a small groan. He recognized the footsteps approaching, tapping closer on the polished wooden floors. Henry looked up in dismay as Master Allworthy entered, carrying his bulging leather bag. In his black coat and polished black shoes, the doctor looked more like a priest than a physician.

‘I did not summon you, doctor,’ Henry said, with less than perfect certainty. ‘I am resting, as you see. It cannot be time for another draught.’

‘Now now, Your Grace. Your steward told me you might have taken a fever, walking around in the rain. Your health is my care and it’s no trouble for me to look in on you.’

Allworthy reached out and pressed his palm against Henry’s forehead, tutting to himself.

‘Too much heat, as I suspected.’

Shaking his head in disapproval, the doctor opened the bag and set out the tools and vials of his trade, checking each one carefully and adjusting their position until they were arrayed to his satisfaction.

‘I think I would like to see my wife, Allworthy. I wish to see her.’

‘Of course, Your Grace,’ the doctor replied carelessly. ‘Just as soon as you’ve been bled. Which arm would you prefer?’

Despite his rising anger, Henry found himself holding out his right arm. It took an effort of will to resist Allworthy’s chatter and he could not find the strength. He let the arm hang limp as Allworthy pushed the shirtsleeve up and tapped the veins. With care, the doctor laid the arm on the king’s lap and turned back to his preparations. As Henry stared at nothing, Allworthy passed over a small silver tray, with a number of hand- pressed pills resting on the polished surface.

‘So many,’ Henry murmured. ‘What are they today?’

The doctor hardly paused as he checked the edge of his curette, ready to be plunged into a vein.

‘Why, they are for pain, Your Grace! You’d like the pain to go away, wouldn’t you?’

An expression of intense irritation crossed Henry’s face at hearing the reply. Some deep part of him hated being treated like a child. Even so, he opened his mouth and let the doctor place the bitter pills on his tongue to be swallowed. Allworthy passed the king a clay cup containing one of his usual vile liquids. Henry managed one small gulp before he grimaced and pushed it away.

‘And again,’ Allworthy urged him, making the vessel clink as he pressed it against the king’s teeth.

A little of the liquid dribbled down Henry’s chin and he coughed, choking on it. His bare arm jerked up, knocking the cup away with a great crash as it shattered into pieces on the floor.

Allworthy frowned, standing completely still for a moment before he mastered his outrage.

‘I will have another brought, Your Grace. You want to be well again, don’t you? Of course you do.’

He was rougher than he had to be as he used a cloth to wipe the king’s mouth, making the skin pink around Henry’s lips.

‘Margaret,’ Henry said clearly.

Allworthy looked up in irritation as a servant against the far wall started into movement. He had not noticed the man standing there at silent attention.

‘His Grace is not to be disturbed!’ the doctor snapped across the room.

The servant paused in his rush, but only briefly. In a conflict of authority, his best course was to follow the king’s orders over the doctor’s. Allworthy tutted again to himself as the man vanished, clattering off down the corridors of the east wing.

‘Now half the house will be woken, I do not doubt. I will stay and talk to the queen; don’t worry. Give me your arm again.’

Henry looked away as Allworthy cut a vein in the crook of his elbow, squeezing the flesh until a good flow of blood was established. The doctor peered closely at the colour of it, holding a bowl under the king’s elbow that slowly filled.

Margaret came before the bleeding had finished, dressed in a sleeping robe with a thick cloak over her shoulders.

Doctor Allworthy bowed as she entered, sensitive to her authority, but at the same time certain of his own.

‘I am so sorry Your Royal Highness has been disturbed at this hour. King Henry is still unwell. His Grace called your name and I’m afraid the servant …’

Allworthy broke off as Margaret knelt at her husband’s side, giving no sign that she heard a word the physician said. Instead, she eyed the slowly filling bowl with disgust.

‘Are you unwell, Henry? I am here now.’

Henry patted her hand, taking comfort from the touch as he struggled against a weariness that had stolen over him.

‘I’m sorry to wake you, Margaret,’ he murmured. ‘I was sitting in the quiet and then Allworthy came and I wanted you to be with me. Perhaps I should sleep.’

‘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.