His Secret Slave to Scandalous Queen

"If I am being honest," Richard said, "it would. But you know what the throne was built on," Richard continued. "You know the blood beneath it."

"You did not seem to mind when I told you myself."

Richard’s face hardened. "Because I thought you were a different person then." His voice lowered. "Because when you told me, I heard guilt. I heard grief. I heard a man haunted by what had been done around him. I did not think you capable of evil."

"And now?"

"Now I have watched you. Now that your other side is turned in my direction."

"So because I fought for a woman I love," Henry said, "you think otherwise now?"

"I watched you take what was not yours."

"She was never yours."

"She was under my protection."

"She was hidden under your name, and your decisions. That is not the same as being loved freely."

Richard’s eyes flashed. "Do not speak to me about loving her freely."

"Why? Because she chose me freely?"

"Your Majesty," Richard said tightly, "why am I here?"

"I would like to join your cause."

"Excuse me?"

"I would like to join your cause."

"You are mocking me."

"No."

"You are baiting me then."

"Not this time."

Richard took one step towards him. "Then help me understand what you are talking about?"

"I would like to help you reveal all the bodies beneath the throne," Henry said.

Richard went utterly still. "Why?" he asked.

Henry turned back to him. "Because it is the right thing and because Livia asked me to."

Richard chuckled. "You are trying to get ahead of this,"

Henry did not deny it. "Livia seems to believe you and I can behave like sensible adults and bring the actual culprit to justice."

Richard’s mouth curved. "Does that include you?"

Henry turned to him. "Tell me what I did, Richard... I did not kill them."

Richard’s jaw tightened. "But you watched."

"I told you that. I admitted that because I suffered from guilt so severe it became the only language I knew how to speak. Listen to what actually happened."

"I am listening," Richard said, stepping closer.

Henry did not begin immediately. Memory had to be approached carefully. It was not a friendly road. "My mother had devised a brilliant scheme," he said, and the word brilliant came out with such hatred. "The surviving princes were to go hunting together. A bonding excursion, she called it. A fine royal show of brotherhood after the accidental death of one prince from his horse and the fire that took another prince and his mother."

Richard’s expression darkened. He remembered those deaths. Also suspicious.

"There were six of us left," Henry continued. "Six sons still breathing. I received the summons and went to my mother to say I could not attend." His mouth moved faintly. "Because of you."

"I remember," Richard said, a reluctant note entering his voice. "I was trying to escape a match my mother was arranging for me at the time."

"Yes." Henry gave a low chuckle despite himself. "You were always escaping something. I meant to tell my mother I already had plans with you. I reached her privy chamber. The door was not fully closed. I heard voices inside." His gaze fixed on nothing. "My mother was speaking to one of the Queen’s women."

"She offered a substantial amount of gold," Henry said. "Enough to last two lifetimes. All she had to do was find a way into the plague-stricken quarter, obtain blood or tainted linen from an infected body, conceal it somewhere until it could be used, and then disappear from court."

"And what did you do?"

Henry turned to him. The question had been the centre of his life for years. What did you do? From ghosts. From his own reflection. From Thomas’s small, dead face. He swallowed. "Not enough. I stepped back. I must have made a sound. My mother heard me. She came out. I remember her face more clearly than anything else. Once she saw it was me, she looked at me like a minor irritation. Like I was something she could conveniently handle."

"She had me removed. Dragged away and locked in my chambers. Even Stephen had no access to me. Guards placed at the door. She brought me food herself. When the time came for the hunting party, she told everyone I was ill," Henry said.

"And the princes believed it?"

"Of course they believed it. Why would they not? I was the quiet one. They assumed I had invented the sickness to avoid going. I was only let out when you wouldn’t turn away from the gates, insisting to see me."

"I was out of my mind," Richard said. "The princes were dropping dead one after the other from the plague. I thought..." He stopped, his jaw tightening. "I thought something was going to happen to you too. My mother nearly went mad. She said I was not to go near your house. She said whatever fever had taken the princes would take me too if I kept forcing my way in."

"You..." Henry began, then stopped.

The words would not come. Henry found his throat closing around words too old and tender. Richard had always been there.

"I only knew what had happened when you told me," Henry said at last.

Richard looked at him. "Why did you cover up for her, then?" he asked. "Why did you not come forward after that? Why did you not tell anyone? The king?"

Henry looked away. "That was my only offence," He said, then corrected himself with a bitter breath. "No. Not only. My worst offence. The one I cannot escape. A part of me knew what would happen if I spoke. My mother’s head would roll."

"As it should have."

"Yes. But she was my mother. I was a young prince," Henry continued. "Whisked in the blink of an eye from unwanted spare to heir to the throne. Ten minutes after the last prince died, men were already looking at me differently. I was no longer Henry who spoke too little. I was the future. I was a solution. I was England itself."