Tu Es Ma Lumière

154 - Puppeteer

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Side Note - Continuation/final part of Bigamy!

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At times, the Queen of France thought this game she had to play with the mad King was never ending. Exhausting and never ending, such to a point where the ravenette honestly believed that she would also transcend into madness if she thought about it too long, or if she played this horrid game for too long. It had been so long since she felt the light of day, the warmth of the sun upon her skin. Her sun, her moon, her stars, he was gone to her now. Hidden away in the safety of her homeland with his family. She missed him, more and more every day. But, the Queen of Scots knows she cannot set eyes upon his face until the deed is done. So, in France she stays. No matter how much she pines for Scotland and her love, her one true husband, if she must suffer to keep him safe from the mad King's clutches, then suffer she would.

The mad King of France was a hard man to keep pacified, she realises more and more by the day. A stream of harlots and wine was at times too little. Henry held the awful habit of murdering the whores the Queen of France sent in to entertain him. A man such as that could not be trusted to handle international policies or rule a kingdom in such dissaray. Each and every time she, a servent or Nostradamus ventured into the King of France's chambers, there was more than usually a body of a bare harlot with bruises upon her throat, or at times, even worse. It was a habit the mad King seemed unwilling to break, each and every time his blackened eyes met hers, with that wide grin that spoke of madness and murder, his new Queen felt herself slipping into the shoes of his old one, more and more and more. Sending poisoned wine into a man's mouth had once scared her silly, now, she is numbed to it.

Her child was born on a crisp winters' morning after three days of labouring. Court and Europe as a whole gives herself an unsure look, for it was obvious the lengths of the King of France's madness. The Dauphin James is born blonde, he holds Medici green eyes. The King is overjoyed over the lack of time from marriage to healthy, borne heir. It had taken Catherine a decade and three miscarriages to finally birth the sickly Francis into the world. His new wife, however, the key to England and empire, a Princess of the blood and a Queen of her own right, needs only eight months to birth him a healthy son. A mad bastard may rule France, but it is obvious that, in one way, it is the heir who is the illegitimate one. Bastard or legitimate, it hardly matters. It is surprising that Court does not call for her new Queen's head after the birth of her son. After all, multiple courtiers had panted for the Medici Consort's blood when opportunity arose, and they now cowered in fear of the mad King, who butchered the Earl de Orion in front of the entirety of Court at the future King of France's first ball.

Henry schemes and mutters to himself in his chambers, under lock and key. However, it is the Stuart blooded Queen who rules the country behind her husbands' back. Husband, father, should they mean such a scarily similar thing? She finds it ironic that after a lifetime of regent rule, she now rules a country she holds little claim to by herself, whilst the senior of the duo continues to mutter angrily over Elizabeth's recovery after an assassination attempt. One with rather ironic timing, for the snow hadn't meted upon the Dauphin's birth before the poison slipped past her tasters and left her bed bound and dying for two months. 

It had been one of the days were the Queen awoke to the grandeur gold of her new husbands' bed's ceiling where she decides that this call of madness has gone on long enough. She has her theories over Henry's behaviour, and whist she is more than used to the ripping and the blood and the pain upon the nights where he wishes to implant another child to her womb -for the first time, let it be known, to all but the King Henry himself- it brings bile to her stomach as she sees the Mistress of Horse and Hunt stumble into the large rooms. Her nightgown is ripped and bloodied and stained, her cheeks are wet with tears. Her hair is a mess and she helplessly cries upon her Queen's arms.

She sees him in James' nursery that night, and she sees the cogs turning in his head as the mad King works out the childs' true paternity. It is the last straw, she can not let the one thing she holds so dear to her be affected by the madness of the French King.

Mary becomes Catherine that night. It's almost merciful the way she lets the poison slip down the bastards' throat. She holds her hands over Henry's mouth and stares down at him until he becomes limp under her. So helplessly, she cries and wails hours later, as the servants come in for the morning changeover. The bells ring and French court happily mourns the death of the mad King.

The Dauphin, who is equally as Scottish as he is French, returns from the waves three months after the previous Kings' death. He is crowned immediately, he claims what is his, what has always been his. He holds his wife and his son for the first time, the relief within his beautiful blue eyes is so clear that she wishes to cry. She cannot, for she is a Queen, and Queens do not cry. Instead, she weeps happily as the crown is placed upon its true head, a smaller one finding the true head. They will begin anew, the world agreeing to forget the war that had nearly broken Europe.

But, as all things, they find out the truth a little too late. Without mercy, this time, she raises the blade to the King and the Lord who destroyed so many lives. They lay together in the cold, grime earth. His own heir is crowned King, and the secret is kept by all who need to keep it. The little King Henry is quietly engaged to a little Valois Princess, and that is that.

Finally, after nearly two years, she finds her peace in those beautiful ocean eyes. The same ones that have not lost the brightness of hope, that same hope they held when he told her that he loved her and that they would find a way of being together again.

And, with God's mercy, this was a promise he could keep.