Tabitha had experience with wounds. She had patched scraped knees, knife cuts. She had sewn flesh by candlelight, cleaned blood.
What she did not have experience with was patching up a king.
Henry lay in Livia's bed, pale beneath the lamplight, his coat cut away and the shaft of the arrow still protruding from his back. Every breath he took was far too quiet for Tabitha's liking.
Outside, the house remained locked and dark. They had no way of knowing whether the assassin still waited beyond the windows. No guard. No safe path to Whitehall.
Just one wounded king, and the sinking suspicion that England was about to depend on her steady hands.
Livia stood beside her, shaking badly. Tabitha looked to the King's bloodied back and exhaled once.
It was up to her to save the King of England with a shaking Livia as her assistant. Tabitha had pulled out the arrow.
