King Henry

Chapter 62 - Making Amends

Elspeth sat there looking across at Henry with her mouth hanging open in disbelief, clearly not sure what to say to that. She was obviously stunned as her mind tried to process this news.

"Your husband fought very valiantly," Henry told her. "I don't know if that will bring much consolation to you, but I thought it would be an important thing for your sons to know of their father. They should be very proud of him. I've battled many men during my lifetime, but few gave me as hard of a fight as Hector did."

She still sat there in silence with her eyes unfocused, in a daze.

Then she raised her head and narrowed her watery eyes at him. "Is THAT why you came here? To gloat that you were the man that killed my husband?" she asked, raising her voice until she was shouting that last part at him. "What exactly do you expect me to say to that?! Good for you? You beat the mighty Hector when no one else could! You won!" she shouted sarcastically.

Then she leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, gasping for breaths between sobs as her body shook. Henry sat there awkwardly, not sure what to say or do. He knew this would be hard and unfortunately it was going exactly how he had expected it to.

"No Elspeth, I'm not trying to gloat at all. There are no real winners in war you know? The ones that survive have to live with their guilt. I just lost my father myself and we were very close, so I know what that kind of loss feels like. How could anyone be proud of causing someone else that kind of hurt?"

She lifted her head and sniffled as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"So why did you come here then?" she asked quietly.

"I came to tell you how sorry I am and I also wanted to try to make things right."

She raised her head and wiped away her tears with a sniffle. "Make things right? And how could you possibly do that? Things will never be right again. Not without Hector."

"I know I can't bring him back, but what I can do is make sure that you and your children are taken care of, that you'll always have food to eat and plenty of logs in your fire. That's what Hector would have wanted."

"How could you possibly know what Hector would have wanted?" she asked, looking confused. "You didn't even know him."

Henry cleared his throat and let out an exhale before saying, "I know this may sound unbelievable, but Hector has been haunting my dreams. He showed me this house and asked me to come all the way up here from London to make sure his wife and children were going to be okay. His spirit couldn't rest and have peace until he knew his family was going to be alright, because he loved you all that much."

Henry reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a purple velvet bag that was tied shut with a small golden rope. He held it out to her and the coins inside clinked as he set it into her outstretched hands.

She laid it down onto her lap and hesitantly untied the golden rope, before looking in shock at the amount of gold coins that were inside the bag. Her mouth hung open again and she was obviously lost for words.

"This ..... this is more money than I could ever spend in my lifetime," she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

She started sobbing again and after a minute she got up and walked over, sitting down next to Henry.
She surprised him by giving him a tight hug, and sobbing onto his shoulder. He patted her back to comfort her and a minute later she finally sat up again, wiping her tears.

"Thank you," she choked out with a sniffle. "It means more to me than you could ever know that you made the long trip all the way here from London to do this for us ..... and for Hector."