Tampered Beauty

Voltage

"I don't understand any of this." Francis admitted from his wife's side. He sat on the bed, holding her hand as she lay back against the pillows, Lucien suckling hungrily and greedily from her breast. In front of them, Catherine sat upon an overstuffed chair. Kenna had taken James away long ago, the Baroness resting in her chambers and the Dauphin playing with Leith and Meredith outside.

"What would you like me to explain, my love?" Catherine asked, her voice soft. Soft and maternal that it unnerved Mary. She knew never to trust Catherine, and was weary of the sudden change in affection in her. First, she hates her for a decade and a half, then the Medici noblewoman supports her like no other when they thought Francis was dead, then she betrays her time and time again, now Catherine saves her from poison? It didn't make any sense to Mary, who was already disorientated by the mix of tonics and herbs inside her system.

"How this all happened." Francis answered. "How Phillip nearly took them both from me." his eyes hardened and jaw locked at the second phrase he let out. Mary placed a hand upon his forearm to calm him, and it seemed to work. Catherine watched as her son relaxed considerably, before his wife went back to holding their baby securely to her breast as he took nourishment from his mother.

"It was the candle." Catherine took the small stick in her hand. It looked like any other candle. White and cylindrical but with little green and purple flecks inside it. It was lavender, but apparently there was a secret third ingredient. "It was laced with poison, let off in small quantities, released into the air by the flame." Catherine touched the burnt little nib at the top. "It is much like the candles in your chambers in France, do you remember?" the Medici matriarch asked the young Scottish Empress.

Indeed Mary did. For weeks, poison was slowly laced into her system by burning candles. It had only been when Sterling had started barking insistently upon seeing his mistress go down that made Catherine turn her over -when Mary had suddenly and unexpectedly keeled over onto the settee in which she had been laying- after story time with the other children, and saw the blood from her nose and the daze in her eyes had they noticed something was wrong. It had been terribly unsettling, another assassination attempt by the English. But Mary hadn't been frightened in the slightest. The children had been shaken, but not the five year old Queen. It had happened so often in Scotland, why would it be any different in France? She had only been there for four months at that point, only started getting along with little Francis. But that event had solidified his protectiveness of her, and it hadn't lessened since.

"I do."

"But this is different. The poison then was fast acting, which is why you bled. This one is slow, giving plenty of time for the killer to escape undetected."

"Well, who is it?" Francis glared. "What physical form tried to kill my wife?"

"Your bastard brother is working upon it. That's why is is Leith that is with your son in the snow." Catherine informed. "Hush now, let your mother tell her tale." she spoke as if still speaking to six year old Francis, how she had done to reassure his fears of Mary's safety the night they had found the poison in Mary's chambers. Francis' eyebrows rose, but he kept quiet. "This has been burning for a number of days. It's a miracle that that baby hasn't been affected by it."

"He is strong. He has his mother's blood." Francis interjected. Mary smiled at him, but saw emotion in his own mother's eyes.

"Be that as it may, it is good you took him away to be christened. It saved him from suffering. It seems the more it was burned, the more poison was laced into the air," she looked at Mary. "that's why you took a turn for the worst in a way you hadn't done before." she swallowed. "That's why you started to bleed from your nose. At that point, your ladies and physicians knew it was no infection, but poison. The Lady Greer came to retrieve me from the dungeon, knowing nobody knew poison such as I." she let out a self satisfied smirk. Mary blinked slowly. "I found you bleeding and murmuring nonsense, your eyes rolled back in your head, yet the lids open. Truly, a gruesome sight."