Tu Es Ma Lumière

188 - Astoundement

"Where is she?! What have you done to her?!" The King of France barks, pushing past the adolescent girls and boys who were donned in raggedy browns and whites, his fine boots crushing the soiled hay that lay on top of the cold hovel's flooring. One hand pushes away the adolescents, the other clamps down on the boys' little, grubby hand. He can smell the smoke of the dying charcoal fire, he can smell the foulness of the animal waste, he can feel the smoke from the fireplace clamping down on the back of his throat, but these things hardly matter. Vanity means nothing in this world, such superficial things becoming null and void when matters so important bare down on his face.

"King Henry, please," the father of this hovel pleads, giving the King room to see their newest occupant who lay on the only cot they held in their small lodgings. "neither I, nor my family, have done anything to her. The Scottish Queen arrived here, delirious and borderline unconscious, her clothing ragged, on a scrawny horse that used to be a great beast, not three days ago. We have nursed her wounds, and are sure that it is her."

"Good God." the Queen of France gasps, placing her blue satin and silver embellished glove to her face -one, to hide the stench, two, to hide the shock at seeing the girl she had rose for nearly four years in such a state. She looked like a little rag doll, laying there, motionless and bruised. "Henry, could-could it be?"

"I'm afraid so, Queen Catherine. Before this young woman fell from her horseback not four days ago, she managed to slip a note from her glove and a ring from her hand. Here, look." the mother of this establishment, a raggedy brunette who was obviously carrying another babe from the size of her, states, extending a somewhat clean hand towards the Queen of France. Catherine arches her perfectly plucked brow at the brunette, reluctantly letting go of little Elisabeth's hand to take the note and the gold, as her husband goes to kneel at the little ravenette's side. 

The note is not written on expensive parchment, nor is the script particularly elegant or neat. It speaks of the quickness of the writer, the way that the ink scrawls from letter to letter, the way the quill hasn't been cleaned after a dunk. The writers' hand shakes as she connects the letters together, there is dirt and ash and blood and other substances too repulsive for the childbearing Queen to even think of.

"I cannot read it." she states. "I cannot." It's not because of the legibility of the words, that they cannot dance in the Queen of France's eye or her mind, it is because the words are written in a completley different tongue all together.

"It's Scottish Gaelic, my Queen. Our boy, our eldest, he has reached his second decade and a year, he translates as much as he can. It's not clear, however the writers speaks of an attack by cannon fire, women of the faith, limp and dead and bloody, it speaks of fear and nerve, a beseachment to believe her words. She says who she is, my Queen. She says who she will be wed to in this life, it speaks of horrendous things to come. And this," she extends out the gold again. Sure enough, Catherine recognises the small ring. It was made of the finest gold, worn from time, but still rather enjoyable to look upon. It was worn by the Scottish Queen on her arrival to French Court after her fifth year of life, but her fingers had been so little that she had been forced to wear it on a chain around her slender neck. "puts honesty in her words. This girl, my Queen, she is the Queen of Scotland."

"How did she get here?" the King wonders, taking her small hand in his own. "The-the priory she was sent to, for protection, it is more than sixty miles east. How could she have gotten here on her own?"

"I am unsure to the specifics of it all, my King. However, My lady was on a scrawny horseback when she fell into my Timothy's arms just west of the village. Her horse lays exhausted in our stables out back."

"And the bruises? She is bruised, she is beaten, the girl is so thin." Henry states. "How long ago was the letter written?"

"I am unsure, but from the state of this child, I have reason to believe that she was captured soon after writing her note. Beaten, starved. The child has not awoken since falling into Timothy's arms. I-I sent my Pierre to the castle with the news of the Queen's arrival into my home after Timothy held her limp body in his arms, her note and ring in his hand. The days he took to bring the news to your highness, and the days it took for your Majesties to appear at my door, the Queen of Scots has not awoken once."

"England. It has to be England." Catherine whispers, clutching her eldest daughters to her. She places a hand onto her growing abdomen, hoping to soothe the child of five months inside. "Good God, Henry, England figured where we placed Mary two years ago, she-she is but eleven years and look at her! As limp as a rag doll, beaten to a bloody pulp! What can we do?!"

"You must not panic, Catherine. The son inside you and the son out of your body will not react well to-" The King is cut off by his heir walking into the hovel, bastard brother at his side. Their eyes immediately catch unto the figure of Mary's limp, beaten body. "We will protect her, I swear to you." He speaks to all of them. "And England will pay for what they've done, her cousins will weep with blood when I am finished!"

"It is not I who must control their temper for the sake of the children!" Catherine hisses, the meek little wife put away for now as her son rushes to the limp body of his future wife. He weeps and he clutches at her, her shallow breaths pushing his hair back from his face. "But your words hold weight. That child is my own just as much as this child is. England must pay for this, Henry. England must pay!"