Tu Es Ma Lumière

184 - Impending Birth

"How are you feeling, my dear?" the Queen Mother of France asks her daughter in law, passing her a cup of hot tea as she pulls her gold satin skirt across her backside, keeping it straight as she plops down onto the red velvet cushioned chair. She forces her teeth not to chatter, pulling the white fur cape around her shoulders tighter. It's the height of winter, a bitter one at that. Far from the beautiful warmth of the Italy of her blood.

"Tired, sore. My breasts feel as if they're to burst. I cannot possibly get any bigger, or I fear I myself will burst." Mary lists off, not minding at all informing her mother in law of the less graceful measures of pregnancy. After all, her mother was locked away in a cold Scottish fortress in Scotland and the mother in front of her had been through ten pregnancies. Her relationship with Catherine had never been the easiest, even as a child, yet these months of childbearing -post scare and Lola's banishment to the western suburbs- had mellowed the cold Medici woman to the Scottish Sapphire that she had never liked all that much. Multiple times a week, the Queen Consort and Mother of France would meet for tea. That hadn't happened in Mary's brief reign as Dauphiness of France, not at all. In those months, Catherine had been eager to see her dead.

The bronze haired former Queen smiles faintly, no stranger to all those symptoms and more. "Yes, I remember those months. Hardly pleasant, but such a relief after, well, you know." she says. Mary sips her tea, looking at her mother in law. Even after three years in France, the Queen had always been so comfortable knee deep in snow. It seemed her child was just the same, for it looked to be in the height of the cold months, the almost Prince would be born.

"I do." Mary acknowledges. "I am a bit fearful of the birth, however." she reveals. Catherine looks at her daughter in law. She had never been fearful of anything, not even as a child. A tall tree? Nothing. Skating across a frozen pond? Childs play. An English assassin in the dead of night? Laughable. Kidnapping and English imprisonment? A walk in the garden. So, to hear that Mary feared something was unusual. Even with all their differences, Catherine had always had a sense of respect for the Queen of Scotland and it's isles.

"Oh?" she asks. "I've never known you to fear a thing, child." she says, crumbling up a strawberry tartlet to make for more graceful eating.

"Yes, well, I would rather face a man in the pay of my cousin than that under my control." Mary reveals. "I am no fool to the dangers of childbirth, one of the things that held me from your son's hand for so many months. My great grandmother succumbed to childbed, as the mother of my cousin Edward. I would gladly pick up a sword and face an enemy in the pay of my cousin Mary, rather than sit in a birthing chair and force out a child. At the least, I have protection and training in swordsmanship, but childbirth? Women easily die from it, and there is little any can do to stop it. I fear this will cost me my life, Catherine. I don't want to die, not yet. There's still so much to do." Mary reveals.

"Oh, my dear child. I understand your fear, trust me, I do." Catherine says. "But you will be in the care of the best physicians and midwives in France and Scotland. They will do everything they can to preserve you in this world, and you are strong. As is this little Prince who grows inside his mother." Catherine says, placing a hand on Mary's growing abdomen. "You will survive childbirth, I know this, as I did ten times. I held the same fears as you have, but the joy of being a mother and giving your husband an heir and a family overrules any fear you will have. The love of a child, it's incomparable to any love you have had up to this day. Trust me, Mary. You will survive, Francis will be at your side and your child will be beautiful and strong."

"What will it feel like, Catherine? When the day comes and it happens?" she asks.

 "There will be pain, it will be easy at first. It will come and go for some time you may not even notice at first, and then your waters will spill and you will be surrounded by midwives. It may last many hours, but gradually, the pain will get worse and worse and worse. You will scream and wish for death and curse your husband. The child will lower into your opening and it will feel heavy and uncomfortable. You will begin forcing out the child, pushing him out into the world. Then, the head will slip through. There will be a burning and a pain like you have never known before. Your back will arch and you will scream, you will pray for death yet beg it doesn't happen. The pushing will cause such pain, but your body will take over. The shoulders will burn and rip at your flesh, it will leave you empty and stretched and hallow, but you will be so happy when that baby lets out its first cry, you will love that child so much that the pain won't even matter anymore. You will cry with relief and hold your child so tight that you'll want to never let it go. It'll all be so worth it, you'll be so happy." Catherine's eyes shine with tears and Mary smiles slightly at her.

"Why are you crying?"

"I just think of the months I held your husband inside my body, seeing him as a father warms my heart. And how he treats you with his heir inside your womb, it makes all the horridness with Henry's absentness as a father worth it, to get to the good man he is now."

"He is a perfect husband, a good King. A good man, he'll be a model father to our child." Mary smiles. "I love him, Catherine."

"As do I, my child. As do I."