Down: Trilogy Box Set (74 page)

“No, it’s perfect the way it is,” she said. “Please bring me a pot of warm water with a lid.”

She broke the loaf into pieces and placed them in the pot and stirred the brew with a wooden ladle. Then she found a warm spot near an oven and announced to the wary kitchen staff that no one was allowed to touch it, by order of the king.

John escorted Emily to join Tony, Alice and the others and made his way back to the king’s bedchamber. Henry was well on his way toward alcoholic oblivion, having downed an entire bottle of port.

“Is that you, John Camp?” he asked in a slurred bleariness.

“It is.”

“Damn you, man. Damn you. You conspired against me. Do you know what I do with conspirators?”

“I can imagine.”

“Have a drink with me and I’ll tell you. Or maybe I’ll sing you a song. Where’s my lute? Someone fetch my lute!”

While John humored Henry and lifted a glass, Martin inspected the piping hot instruments cooling on a cloth. The only suture material was ordinary sewing thread that he doubted would hold up very well. He chose one of the small knives and a lance that looked more like a knitting needle and washed his hands again.

“I’m ready to proceed,” he announced, checking to see if the knife was cool enough. “John, could you tie that cloth over my nose and mouth please.”

The king mumbled, “Hiding from me, is he? No one hides from the king.”

“Why are you doing this?” one of the physicians asked.

“Germs,” Martin said.

“You keep insisting there are these creatures called germs which we cannot see,” the physician exclaimed. “I wonder if you take us for fools.”

“I’m quite sure you were the bee’s knees in your day,” Martin said, “but I assure you, germs do exist.”

He lifted up Henry’s nightshirt and announced he was going to clean the skin first with soap and water, and used a fresh cloth for the job.

“He looks good and drunk,” Martin said quietly. “John, could you place that leather between his teeth to protect his tongue? It will hurt a great deal though I doubt he’ll remember it.”

“Bite down on this,” John said.

“Bite or be bitten,” Henry mumbled before clamping down.

“I’m ready to proceed, sir,” Martin said. “I apologize in advance for causing you pain. I shall move as quickly as I can.” He lowered his voice and told John that he wanted him to tie a cloth around his face too and be ready to pass the lance and squares of linen.

With the exception of an open, oozing fistula, the wound had largely closed on its own. Martin used the knife to open it wide, releasing a gush of green pus mixed with fresh blood. A deep groan emanated from Henry’s locked jaw.

“Please hold his legs tighter,” Martin told the strong men assigned the task. “John, could you mop some of that up so I can see what I’m doing?”

John soaked several pieces of linen with the putrid material. A young attendant tasked with holding a bucket to collect the soiled linens fainted dead away and had to be replaced.

“All right,” Martin said, “now for the tricky bit. Hand me the lance. Without scans, we’ll be flying blind. Assuming he doesn’t have aberrant anatomy, I should be able to avoid major vessels.”

The first thrust of the lance did nothing but convulse Henry with agony. The second time there was an audible pop and Martin’s facial mask was sprayed with pus under pressure.

“Could you remove the cloth and replace it with another?” Martin said calmly. “And try to mop up as much of these secretions as you can while I apply some pressure to the surrounding tissues to fully evacuate the abscess.”

Henry slipped into unconsciousness, making the rest of the procedure easier. Martin packed the deep wound with a long strip of linen and left a few inches protruding from the skin margins.

“Well, that’s as much as we can do for now. Hopefully we’ll have some penicillin to give him tomorrow. You did well, John, but there’s one more thing you can do for me.”

“Sure, anything.”

“A glass of that port would go down very nicely.”

That night, every few hours, Martin left the others to check on his patient who was febrile and delirious. The rest of them lounged on comfortable beds and enjoyed decent food and drink, except for Emily who was fuming and dissatisfied at Cromwell’s pronouncement that Queen Matilda had refused to see him and claimed to have no information about the presence of children in the palace.

“What are we going to do?” she asked John.

“The hall’s filled with soldiers. We could try and fight our way through them and find our way to the queen’s quarters but I don’t think we’ll succeed. Let’s hope Henry recovers and forces her to cooperate. That’s the best we can do for now.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Me? Why are you asking?”

“You had surgery yourself not so long ago. Remember?”

“Vaguely.”

“At least we have Martin to take your stitches out,” she said. “I didn’t fancy the job. And if you need it we’ll have some nice penicillin tea.”

Emily eagerly lifted the lid on her pot of soggy bread. The broth was dark, brown and stinky, just as Martin had predicted. Following his instructions she strained it through a clean cloth into another pot, discarding the clumps of bread. Then, with John leading the way, she carefully carried the pot of brown liquid up to the king’s chamber where Martin was waiting.

Henry was groggy and drenched with sweat. Martin and John propped him up on pillows as Emily ladled the smelly liquid into a glass.

“Is this enough?” she asked.

Martin shrugged. “I hope so. Not an exact science at this point. We’ll aim to give him a glassful every four hours. You’ve got enough for a few days but to be safe you should start another batch.”

They coaxed the liquid down Henry’s throat little by little, encouraging him to stifle his gags, until the glass was empty.

“Now, we wait,” Martin said.

Emily made her way to Cromwell who was speaking with the Duke of Suffolk in one corner.

“Well?” she demanded.

Cromwell looked at her wearily. “I have no news for you, m’lady.”

“Were you able to see her?”

“I was not. She is not receiving visitors.”

“Surely you must know what is going on inside your own palace.”

“It is not my palace.”

“I want to see her then,” Emily insisted.

“I will pass along your request.”

“You have to insist.”

“M’lady, we are talking about the queen.”

The transformation was remarkable. When Martin, John, and Emily came to see him the next morning the king was seated bolt upright in bed loudly slurping at a bowl of soup.

“You’re not going to give me more of that foul tea, are you?” Henry demanded.

“You’ll need to continue with it for a full week at least,” Martin said, shifting the bedclothes to get at his leg. “It’s looking much improved,” he declared. “I’ll just pull some of the packing out to allow the wound to close behind it. It shouldn’t hurt much.”

Henry hardly looked up from his soup bowl while Martin performed the maneuver. While Martin washed his hands at a sideboard, Henry beckoned Cromwell and whispered something to him.

Cromwell stood up straighter and announced ceremoniously, “As the king is feeling much improved, he believes it is high time to have John Camp explain to his person his actions with respect to the commandeering of his ship,
Hellfire
, and his aiding the king’s enemies in Francia.”

Emily was too impatient to succumb to Henry’s agenda. “Excuse me,” she said. “I want to see the children now. I insist that the queen allow us to see them.”

“Where is Matilda?” Henry said, looking around the chamber as if he’d forgotten her existence. “Has she been to my bedside?”

“She has not, Your Majesty,” Cromwell said.

“Why has she not? Did you not tell her that her good husband was ailing?”

“I endeavored to speak with her but I was told she is not seeing visitors or receiving messages.”

“Is she not well? Perhaps this modern physician should be sent to her.”

“I will attempt to speak with her presently,” Cromwell said. “I will relay to her your request for her company.”

“It is not a request, it is a demand. Do not keep me waiting any longer,” Henry shouted, his mood turning black. “Now Mr. Camp, I demand an explanation for your transgressions. You would know that neither my illness, nor my expeditious recovery, would allow you to escape my wrath. Men who cross me do so only once. Explain yourself so I may determine your punishment.”

John let Emily know with a thin-lipped shake of his head that they’d pushed Henry as far as they could for the moment. It was time to use Malcolm Gough’s brain droppings. He hoped the professor’s stellar reputation as a Henry scholar was justified; he was about to find out.

“What would
I
do if I were face-to-face with a living, breathing Henry and had to convince him I had a just reason for betraying him?” the professor had asked with a bemused expression. “Well, I would probably have gotten my affairs in order prior to the audience, because Henry was not one to forgive and forget when he believed he had been deceived or crossed. He had tens of thousands put to death as a testament to his iron will. He wasn’t only a fan of execution, but of what he called, dreadful execution—slow, painful methods intended to serve as a warning against any future interference with his religious and secular agendas. But, if I were going to try to save my skin, I suppose I would appeal to his vanity. I would remind him of the greatness of his accomplishments as a king and, for the purpose of this fanciful exercise, I would describe to this reincarnated Henry, the durability of his legacy. When it was clear that this tact was going to fail—and fail it probably would—I would endeavor to use whatever leverage I might possess to make some kind of a deal. Henry was, after all, a pragmatist. He was a megalomaniac but a pragmatic one.”

John assumed a posture suggesting penitence, fingers interlaced at his waist, head ever so slightly bowed. “First of all, Your Majesty, I think that I failed to properly express my awe in meeting you a month ago. I was very much a stranger in a strange land and it was difficult for me to fully appreciate the enormity of meeting the greatest king that England has ever known.”

Henry nodded and called for some watered-down wine.

“I hope you’ve been told by new arrivals to your realm over the years,” John continued, “that your legacy is unrivaled by other monarchs. You singlehandedly reshaped the religious landscape of your empire and established a uniquely English church, neither a slave to Rome or to Luther. You singlehandedly bestowed on English kingship a profound new dignity and unified your country as never before, giving your people pride. Your singular vision established England as a force to be reckoned with throughout Europe. Your campaigns in France are still admired by military men. You, with the able assistance of Thomas Cromwell, established a central legal and administrative structure for governing your diverse realm, which brought peace and stability to what had previously been large areas of lawlessness and violence.”

He paused to read the room. Henry was hanging on every word and Cromwell looked extremely pleased at his mention. He kept piling it on, recalling the professor’s advice. “You established the English navy as the greatest force on the high seas and that naval supremacy shaped the history of England for centuries to come. You were the ablest builder of all the kings and queens of England and your palaces and fortifications still stand today. And incredibly you were also a scholar, a writer, and an artist. Your books are still read five hundred years on, your music is still sung. You were a king, who by exercise of your mastery of all of the affairs of the state and the soul, was not only feared for your might but also loved by your subjects for your spirit and pride.”

He stopped long enough to let the king fill the vacuum.

Henry waved at a retainer to fill his cup and had another few gulps. “These are fine words, Mr. Camp, chosen, I presume to defang the beast. I have heard these songs of praise over the full span of my interminable residence in this foul land, and by and large, I cannot and will not argue with the inherent truthfulness you now impart. Yet, I have also heard loathsome judgments of my person. Tyrant. Betrayer. Usurper. I have even been told I am best known, not for the fine things of which you have spoken, but for having six wives and beheading two. But I say this in my defense of the harsh judgments under which my reputation labors. Was I cruel? Yes! Did this cruelty condemn me to Hell? Yes again, though the fact of this wholly unfair and irrational condemnation has led me to forsake the faith for which I fought my entire earthly life. My cruelty had a purpose, sir. A fine and noble purpose. Moving a country is nearly as difficult a task as moving a mountain. Love can move a country but a little. Fear can move it much further and much faster. I could not have achieved what I had to achieve without an iron will and an iron fist.”

“I imagine that philosophy serves you here as well,” John said.

“It does, sir, though in Hell, there is no need to bother with love which is a meaningless thing. Fear is the king of emotions in this realm.”

Cromwell asked the king if he might speak and he was given permission.

“Mr. Camp has voiced his admiration for the character and deeds of his majesty, yet he has nonetheless engaged in exploits which have harmed the crown. How does he reconcile thought and deed?”

John was ready to use the next arrow in his quiver. “In order to survive and achieve my goals I had to quickly learn the lay of the land of your world. I only had a month to find this good woman and bring her home. The doorway between our worlds was going to be open for only a short time and I knew I had to quickly get to Francia. I needed a ship.”

“I believe I promised you passage if you fashioned me these singing cannon,” Henry said, his voice rising.

“We both know the Duke of Norfolk wasn’t going to let that happen. As soon as the battle with the Iberians was over, he was going to take me prisoner or kill me.”