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Prompt - Can you please also write a part where Mary and Catherine talk about the miscarriage?
Side Note - I'm basing this in the middle of 2x04 and 2x05. Also, this is carrying on directly from the rewrite where Francis and Catherine talk of Mary's miscarriage.
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"I thought I might find you out here."
The Queen of France jumps in a way that is so unqueenly, and so girlishly. She bites her lip, spitting at herself for the moment she allowed the crown placed atop her head to slip. Mary knows better than to let the moment drag out, so she allows herself forgiveness and looks up to her intruder. It's so early, nobody in Court should be awake, apart from the servants who kneed and bake the days' first loaves. However, her mother in law stands as prominent and clear as ever.
"Catherine," she says. Her voice is quiet, hoarse from the tears that had slipped from her eyes for the last three days. Is that how long it had been, since the life that would have been so treasured and cherished slipped from her womb with so much blood? Three days? Four? It was hard to keep track. It couldn't have been that long, since her womb still aches and stings, blood still falls from her body and she's not yet been given permission to walk the castle by her physicians. "you startled me." Mary says, clearing her throat. Modesty and presentability had always been high on Catherine's list of priorities.
"It wasn't my intention." the Queen Mother of France sinks down next to her daughter in law, the white wooden chairs so cold for the summer morning. Catherine cringes, laying her hands on the table that Mary sits in front of. She can see the blanket that her son had insisted Mary wear the sitting astrew on her shoulders. It dwarfs her, she looks so small. It sends a firmilar hurt through Catherine, although they both know she will never let it show. "Francis says you're well enough to take accompaniment." she says.
"Am I?" Mary says. "I cannot guarantee I will be sufficient company, although I cannot stop you sitting." she finishes. Catherine takes a moment to look upon Mary's face, to truly look at the girl she had risen for a few years. Her face is pale, paler than usual. There's tear tracks on her face, bruises underneath her eyes. Her skin pulls across her cheekbones in a way that speaks of ill health and sadness. She lays her hands over her middle, her lower lip is swollen from relentless knawing. She tries to remain strong, however. She bravely holds her head up high to the castle's grounds, ready for the day's judgement. It is not just one Queen of France that holds herself to a high standard.
"You needn't pretend strength in front of me." the consort to King Henri II of the house of Valois suddenly says, reaching over to take Mary's hand. It's cold, not at all bigger than her own palm. Mary opens her mouth to point out the obvious error in the woman's words, but Catherine beats her to it. "I know what you're going through." she says. "You and I have always been similar. I lost babies, too." Catherine tells her.
Tears fill Mary's eyes as the image of a little boy so perfect fills her vision. Blonde haired, blue eyes, spirited and intelligent and just good. The thought burns her and she bites her cheek, willing herself not to crumble again. It hurts, why did that happen to her? Why did God punish her in such a way?
Mary finds it in herself to meet Catherine's eyes. She sees no pity that borderlines on belittlement. She sees honesty and tears and trauma so horrible that no woman should ever have to endure.
"Yes." Catherine clarifies. "Three babes, not much elder than yours. It was that bastar-" she stops herself bitterly. "Sebastian, the worry and the stress he brought me, I was told. It was hard, watching that little boy run around so healthily and energetically, making Henry so happy and delighted. He lay with his mistress at night and played with their offspring by day. He named ships and paintings after her, while I lay alone and cold at night, seeing myself barren and unlovable." Catherine pauses. "And then Clarissa happened, as you well know. It was a mistake, an obvious one, and you know that." she glances at her. "But it gave me hope. And then, Francis happened."
She smiles, but there are tears in her eyes.
"My beautiful little golden boy, as sickly as he was, he was alive and he was a boy and he was mine. Francois and Henry were delighted, I could sit by him and watch him just exist for days at a time. I did, too. He was a darling little thing when he was born, even if he was quite small." Catherine says conversationally, pleasantly, her hand twitching in Mary's.
Mary can remember what he was like when they had met at the age of five years. Thin and quiet for his age, so logical and exasperated and black and white. But he had the brightest blue eyes and the prettiest hair, and her, with all her differences to him, she had been the thing to pull him out of his sickly bed and get him up and down apple trees in the spring, running around the courtyard with a ball of disgusting origin, kicking it around in the summer. She remembered the first time they had found fireflies in the autumn, how cuddly and snuggly he always got in the winter. She loved him then, from the very first moment, and she loves him now.
"I lost babies after him, too. By then, Henry and I were strangers to each other, hurting each other so badly, only being together when he mounted be to try and get a babe to stick. I pushed him away for my fears, and he pulled Diane into my place. I remember each one of them, you know? The first, just after Claude. Do you remember? I believe you were with us at the time. I don't know if it was a girl or a boy, it was so soon to tell. I was found covered in blood and on the floor by none other than my husband himself. I remember feeling so empty, so lost."
Mary remembers those feelings. The desperation, the fear, the nausea and the heartbreak. The blood, so much blood, running steadily down her thighs. Having to smile and put on her thickest riding breeches and wrapping around her small clothing five monthly cloths, holding her bastard step son as Lola cozied up to her husband over their bastard offspring. It hurts, it hurts so much. She was empty and lost and childless, not like Catherine who already had Francis and Elisabeth and Claude. Yes, she lost babies before Francis, but would Mary follow in her shadow of two more losses and the loss of her place in Francis' heart before God would take pity and grant her a child? She couldn't bare the thought.
"It's not like the pain of loosing a babe before your womb stretches, but the pain of Louis' death at barely a year is so startling that it made me take to my bed for weeks. And then little Henriette, her life snuffed out, so limp and pale as Henry had to pluck her from my arms. Emone, with her sore shoulder, so sickly until she took to her eternal sleep. I thought I would die from the pain."
"Why are you telling me this?" Mary's voice is hoarse and it cracks. Tears slide down her face and she cannot breathe.
"Because I can see the woman you are becoming, why my son loves you so much." She looks at Mary, and there is tears in Catherine's eyes. Some fall, and it hurts her daughter in law so much to see it. Why does it happen? Why are they punished so? "Mary, do not make the mistakes I made in my marriage. Don't push Francis away because of his son and because of your child. It may seem like the simplest solution, but for the both of your sakes, you must keep him close."
"You told him to keep the child. You hurt me!" Mary says, her voice doesn't sound like her own anymore. It's so gruff and painful.
"I didn't tell him to keep the child to hurt you, Mary. I told him to do it because it would make him happy. A mother needs nothing more in this world than to see her child safe, warm and contented." Mary's eyes fall to the floor. But Catherine pulls her chin up slightly. "A feeling you will have one day, trust me."
"I don't know if I can."
"You can, you have to. Not just for you and Francis, but for Scotland and France. Mary, you must find the strength to pick yourself up and move on in this life. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow, but I trust you will find it." Catherine stands. "I've sent for a painting," she says. "it brought me comfort in my months of loss and heartache. It and St. Anthony stared upon Henry and I as Francis burrowed into my womb. You and I are the same, Mary. I trust God will show mercy and grant you a child, children, as he did to me. You must trust that, trust my son. And be strong."
She walks away. Mary takes a breath of the cool summer air, it fills her lungs and she holds her head up high. She is strong, she is a Queen. And one day, she would be a mother. It would happen to her. It had to.
