Noble Blood

"Mary, please. You have to rest."

The Queen Regnant of Scotland and Queen Consort of France did nothing. She didn't respond. She didn't look at her husband. She didn't do anything. She just stood there, with her back to him, saying not a word.

Slowly, the King Regnant of France and King Consort of Scotland came closer from his perch in the doorway. He said no words to his wife. He just came closer to her. He stood behind her.

Mary felt his warmth, the pulsing eminence of his relaxing aura, the smell of his perfume -pine, lemon and cinnamon- and the heat of his skin. She still did nothing.

It had been nine days.

Nine days since the attack.

Mary spoke not a word.

Francis placed a hand on her back, shuddering at the burning hot of her skin, scolding yet somehow freezing at the same time. She always responded to his touch, weather that be in anger, relaxation or pleasure. But, continuing on with her nine days of catatonia, she did nothing.

How his heart hurt to see her like that. He could do not a thing to help her. All he could do was this very thing, be with her, with nobody and nothing else. Just her.

Just Mary.

But this just Mary was so different to the just Mary of eighteen months ago. When he had spoken those words the first time, things were so much simpler. All they really had to worry about was each other, both living in blissful deluded fantasies of what the future would bring them. Politically and personally.

They were so wrong.

Those two naive children were dead now, long buried in the ground that held Mary's parents and his own father. The latter at his own hand, one of the first things that set these motions in speed.

How he pined to be that young, naive boy again. Not a man, damn sure not a King. Just a boy who loved a girl, who thought they both had the entire world at their fingertips. Well, they did not. And Francis had never seen it clearer.

The very first catalyst for these events could be perceived as his fathers' doing. The dead King had been obsessed with the Bourbon threat, sending them all out into the front line to teach them a lesson about crossing a Valois.

And, in retaliation, the King of Navarre, Antoine de Bourbon, had poisoned him to the point of madness, after word of Marcus de Bourbon's death reached his ears.

The mad, poisoned King had nearly brought France to her knees. He suddenly lusted for Diane de Portiers to be his Queen. Not Catherine de Medici. So, he imprisoned her with the crimes of adultery and treason -both proven, in truth and in lies,- and intended to kill her, after disavowing the young Princes, Francis, Charles, Henri and Hercules. 

This had sent Francis into drunken misery, sleeping with Lady Lola Flemming whilst the woman he loved was forced to become engaged to his bastard half brother.

Of course, Mary had stopped it. She tricked Henry into believing that Mary Tudor was dead, forcing him to allow her to marry Francis, instead of Sebastian. Everything seemed to go back to normal, for a sacred eight weeks. On their wedding tour, they lived in blissful ignorance, until royal reality slapped them in the face.

On the first day of their return, King Henry announced Queen Mary's first pregnancy to the world. And, two weeks later, she was found at the bottom of a staircase. Bloody, unconscious, her child dead.

Pressured by the Mad King to get pregnant once again, Mary's body wasn't given enough time to heal from it's injuries. Two more miscarriages followed. One from a lack of time to heal. Another from one of Henry's outbursts. The second of three to result in Mary being found unresponsive at the bottom of a staircase.