Somewhere between the moment she notices the four assailants armed with swords and the moment as she was now, the Queen of France realises that the worst mistake of her life was leaving her husbands' side as he slept. She had regretted before, yes, but nothing to this extent, she muses, yelling in vain as she is dragged further and further into the wooded area. She fights and shrieks with every forced step, having no intention of making this an easy struggle for these bastards. The man's hand is larger than the long since burned bastards had been, she remembers the desperation and the fear and the pain of that night, the hand dragging her from her impossibly perfect heaven back down to that night of bloody hell. That night that changed everything for her, it ruined her marriage for months on end. It wouldn't happen again, it couldn't happen again. She wouldn't allow it.
The woods are damp with dew, the air sweet from the condensation, a bittersweet attempt at a gift from the universe, she thinks. She can smell the cheap leather of the man's glove, the disgusting scent of stale sweat and dirt, the man holding her so roughly no doubt not washing enough than what was prudent in this life. Her hem is wet from the mud and the pond water she had been drug through. It sticks to her ankles and makes walking that little bit more uncomfortable. Her feet pulse with pain, the only thing keeping her upright was the fucker holding her around her waist and her mouth. Somewhere along the way, her hair had fallen out of the braided ponytail, a few locks sticking to her forehead with the perspiration and the adrenaline and the fear.
Her heart thumps with that very same adrenaline and fear, it pumps so hard that she can barely register the pain in her feet or the sweat sticking to her body. One would think that she would be kept in the moment, death or another rape was so near that she could feel the puffs of breath upon the back of her neck, but surprisingly, this was not the case. Instead, the Queen of France finds herself letting her mind wander from this moment. To happier times that were just a few hours ago -if she was to die, she wanted the last thing she saw to not be a grubby fucker's face, but the handsome portrait of her husband as he touched her for the first time in so many weeks- or simpler times before the convent, when the world wasn't so frightening and assassination attempts didn't scare her.
Those times were scuppered by the reality of this moment, and the reality seeped into her memories, burning those too. Although she was over a decade and a few years older, this very same scenario sent her back in time to when she was a nine year old girl. The afternoon that she and the then Dauphin had been ripped from the treetops and yanked to shrubbery. It had been Henry to find them both hours later, just after darkness, when the two children were left beaten and unconscious, their attempted murderers strung up and bled out. That same night, she had been forced from Francis' arms and into a cold carriage, into an even colder convent for six years. Quite a similar scenario, was it not?
But like that afternoon, she does not make it easy for them. She kicks and she punches and she jerks and she shrieks, becoming not the well mannered political Queen she had been that morning, but something wild and unnameable that bit and scratched and ripped and tore and made as much noise as possible. Unlike that afternoon, when the poppies were so vibrant and the peonies so purple, she is not released and she cannot get a few dozen steps away, blonde betrothed attached at the hand, but they hold her tighter and pull her deeper into the woods. That was that. If she was to die, she would not be upon her knees, she wouldn't make it easy. She wouldn't bow out bravely, she'd fight until the last breath, and when that was done, she'd fight some more for the hell of it.
But honestly, as Scottish and fearless as that may sound, the truth came down to this. Beat her, kill her, that was fine. But they wouldn't dare lay a finger on her most precious possession that lay many yards away. There was a bittersweetness about this, she realises. The deeper she is pulled, the further and further they get from Francis. The weeks had taught her this, the helplessness as his body fell victim to his sickness. Anything could happen to her, but not her loyal, beautiful King that would lay down his life for his wife and his country. It couldn't happen. Not today. Not like this.
