Chapter Text
“Is it true, Crumb?” said the King.
Thomas had been startled by his presence in the midst of walking through the halls of Hampton Court. The papers he carried crinkled as his hand moved to his chest in surprise, for the King had sought it fit to surprise him with a light jostling of the shoulders as he took him aside.
“Begging your pardon, your Majesty?” he asked, and found himself being guided toward a hanging tapestry on the wall, a lively joust playing out before his startled form. The King’s hand did not lift from his shoulder, and he put his hand on the adjacent one and squeezed as if to make his point clearer.
“I said, is it true?” he repeated, and Thomas felt sweat on his brow. The King had an ambiguous expression he could not seem to decipher, and that caused him anxiety at the potential outcome of his answer.
“Forgive me, your Majesty, but I do not follow.” he said, and held his laissez-faire expression as still as he could. The King, tall and imposing, leaned further forward into Thomas’s space, and cupped hands on hollow cheeks. The warmth of his Majesty’s palms was tempered with the sobering chill of gold and silver rings adorning his thick fingers.
“ Roses , Crumb. Is this your gift?” he said, and Thomas felt an arrow pierce through his feeble heart. He wished, at that very moment, to take flight, but the King held his face fast in his hands, and his body against the tapestry. The King was not a patient man, yet Thomas found his tongue grow heavy and his throat constricted in panic. The King’s eyes bore into him, unblinking and stoic, and Thomas wondered if he did not answer quickly, he would will the tapestry alive and have him lanced on the spot. After a beat, Thomas finally yielded an answer in the form of a small nod.
“You thought it wise to keep a secret like this from your King?” the King said, voice twinging with a sharpness reserved for quiet anger. Thomas wondered if it would be ideal for him to faint as his step faltered ever so slightly, but he did not think it a move that would persuade the King of anything good.
“I did not wish to distract his Majesty from his courtly pursuits.” Thomas said, trying and failing to grasp the waver in his voice. His eyebrows twinged upward as his facade cracked in newfound terror. For the security and power his station provided him, none of that mattered if the King was angry with you.
Then, the corner of the King’s mouth turned upward and his eyelids relaxed somewhat in a turn of possessive joy.
“My dear Crumb, you are a distraction enough at times. But this… ” the King’s pupils shifted in thought, “this is a revelation. To think, you wished to hide this blessing from me. Your divine purpose as my loyal servant bestowed upon you, it seems, since birth. This is a good thing , Thomas.”
Thomas’s cheeks felt numb as the King’s hands pressed them. The shadows cast on his form by the King’s bulk seemed to grow darker, as if heaven itself had faded away from his prospects. He swallowed, thick, then by his subservient nature to this man, replied.
“I did not know how you would react to it. I’m glad it pleases you so.” he said, and hoped the words would suffice his forever tempestuous monarch. The King’s smile got wider, as if he found jest in Thomas's sentence. Thomas didn't think anything about this was particularly funny.
“Oh, it does. Very much so.” the King said, his thumbs starting to caress Thomas's cheeks in small circles. The hard gaze he gave was now illuminated from within by some foreign desire Thomas couldn't recognise, a form of possessiveness he'd only ever seen reserved for a select few.
It was reserved for women.
Thomas felt his cheeks become warm, although it may have been because of the King's hands on them. The hallway was silent, the curtains flapping lazily around the windows as a cool breeze wafted in from outside, carrying birdsong and the distant chattering of men's voices with it.
“How would you like to visit me in my chambers tonight?” the King asked, close and intimate, and both of them knew it wasn't really a question. Thomas really wanted to flee now, but the moment had long passed for him to excuse himself, and besides, he was being held captive in the King's iron claws. Even though he had no real choice in the matter, he understood he was still expected to answer, yet found nothing but still air leaving his lips.
“Oh, come off it, Crumb. I shan't tell a soul. You're too sneaky to be like me or any of those other fools in my court. You don't strut around because you know it won't work.”
The King has figured him out. He didn't take him for an imbecile, of course, but Thomas had thought himself too cautious to be found out by anyone at Hampton Court. Even Stephen Gardiner, a man as charming as he was pernicious, couldn't pinpoint the one thing Thomas knew scratched the back of his mind whenever they met. The one secret that would bring him to ruin. But Henry has figured it out, and that truly terrified him. In the moment, he would gladly accept a beheading over the current outcome playing out in this empty hallway.
“Well?” the King said, words singed with impatience, and that simply would not do. Thomas made his tongue, heavy as lead, finally move.
“If you wish it, your Majesty, I will be there.” he said, keeping it curt. He kept everything curt with him, he made sure the King only heard what the King wanted to hear.
Almost at once, the King's face alighted with triumphant glee, as though he'd bested someone at a joust. It was a fierce and potent expression, one that burned if you stood too close, and Thomas was assured it meant bad things for him.
“Good man.” he said, and slapped him heftily on the shoulders as though congratulating him on a good deed passed in parliament. Then, Thomas felt the fleeting presence of the King's hand on his cheek, briefly caressing him like a maiden, before his monarch strutted down the hall in a heavy flurry of vermillion satin, and out of view. It was only then that Thomas felt it necessary to breathe, and stumbled to the window to gaze at something that didn't remind him of what had transpired and who it had transpired with.
He caught his ragged breath, and when he was turned towards the tapestry, the back of his neck catching the cool breeze, he saw the full scene it was depicting, and where his head had just been held in captivity by his King, there was a knight in full gallop with a pointed lance, striking true and sure.