Mary's heart raced as she picked at her meal, the butterflies that flew all around her abdomen preventing a proper morsel from slipping past her lips. The jeers of the nobility and the heart laughs of the King echoed in her mind. She kept remembering the feeling of the Mad King's hand upon her inner thigh at that botched display of his prowess. His sick grin, touching her where she thought nobody but her husband would touch her. Sitting so near her, shoving Catherine from the Queen's proper seat and forcing his new prey onto it. The fur against her lap, scratchy yet soft, only adding to the anxiety she felt. Fearing he would slip something into it and she would awake a widow, Mary could do nothing but gently refuse the wine he offered. The hands on her dress, his hands on his ambition for England.
It seemed Catherine felt the same anxiety she did. Instead of sitting by the King of France, like the Queen normally would, as they took their feast in, for she sat at Mary's right. She was holding her hand under the table, a strange measure of tenderness that she hadn't ever felt before, not even when she was a child and was sickened by the aftermath of a poisoning assassination attempt. She knew that tenderness wasn't exactly for her, however. If what they suspected about Henry was true, then they and Francis would be the main targets for his ambition. One, because they were wed to each other, two, because if Henry moved forward with his plan, annulment -as remembered from their history- was probably not an option. The next step could be murder. Henry would murder his own son to satisfy his mad ambition, something neither of the females could let happen.
The Queen of France's knee bounced up and down underneath the table, practically vibrating as she took in the ballroom that was covered in long tables with more fine food than what was necessary to feed an army. She practically gulped at her Italian wine in an attempt to steady her nerves, her own heart steadily galloping at a fast rate. Mary could fell from the echoing pulse in her mother in law's wrist. Catherine kept glancing at Francis, who sat there in relative shock. He had managed to tell the women in his life that he had seen the bodies of the men he had fought with beforehand. But now he was silent to his wife's left, staring at the men who laughed and jeered at the events of the day. Perhaps it was for the mad King's benefit, but the sight of men laughing at their soldiers' deaths was disturbing.
Catherine coaxed some wine into her son's lips, to relax him until they could figure out what to do about this situation they had found themselves in with Henry. He laughed with the men, saving face for their cover, and began raising his silverware to his lips, the meats stabbed onto the fork being the thing to catch his mothers' attention.
Mary thought nothing of it, simply watched the French enjoy themselves as Catherine studied her son's dinner, piled high with meats. Her hawk like eyes captures every single movement her child made, and she studies every single inch of her child's meal endourced by his father. Catherine caught her husband glancing over at their eldest child every few moments, the wheels in her head turning.
She frantically gripped Mary's hand and jerked her elbow into the girls' side, the Queen of Scotland gasped as Catherine's silver and dark blue damask clad elbow jabbed into her black tulle and velvet gown. She brought the girl closer to her side roughly, nails practically injecting themselves into Mary's arm.
"It's poisoned!" Catherine gasped into Mary's ear, shoving the long black locks and the gold and diamond earrings in the shape of moons to the side. "Henry's going to poison our son. Dear God, stop him eating!" Catherine shoved Mary back into Francis side.
Frantically, the Queen of Scotland turned to her husband. She thought quickly, not being able to think of any other solution other than to wrench the fork from Francis' hand and throw it to his plate, and bring the man in for a kiss.
Court chuckled at her brazen attitude when it came to her husband, but other than that, didn't pay the Dauphin and Dauphine of France any attention. Henry quickly caught his frown with a grin, smouldering it with another gulp of wine. He glared at his daughter-in-law and his wife, clearly not catching Catherine's smirk of triumph.
