July 1536
Which way would it go? What would be the verdict?
Why should such a thing should matter, when the judge is long gone?
And yet, and yet-
The heart wonders, and wanders, and yearns to know.
"My darling daughter."
That voice- cracked with age, low and steady, faintly accented with Spanish- immediately brings tears to Mary's eyes, before she has turned around fully. She flings herself into her mother's arms, sinking into her tight embrace as though holding on can erase every inch of distance that has ever been between them.
"Oh, mi cielo, no llores, no llores."
Her back is turned but even so, Mary knows it is her mother who stands before her at first glance. Who else could carry herself with such regality, such poise, even as a shade? Mary approaches her warily, feeling like she is walking towards the gallows.
Katherine of Aragon turns suddenly, and the look on her face is reminiscent of the disappointment that would flash across her face when Mary shamefacedly confessed to having not studied all afternoon, despite promising. Except her countenance bears not the tut-tutting of childhood's indiscretions but the dreadful grief and pain of betrayal. Silence reigns supreme in the room.
When her mother finally speaks, her voice is gravelly as Mary has never heard it before.
"Do you know what the worst kind of pain is?"
Her mother is bedraggled, much older than the last time she saw her, as though she is still on her deathbed and not residing at God's side in paradise. Pain is writ in every line of her face. But her eyes are shining, and her smile is beatific.
Mary faces her, a great joy and terrible guilt filling her all at once. This is her mother, her idol, her role model, the one for whom she would do anything. Her perfidy, ink scribbled at the bottom of an unread document, gleams bright between them. She cannot speak, has no right to speak. But her mother understands, in a single glance understands and forgives, her sainted mother, whom she can never hope to emulate.
It is as though years have not passed since the last time they spoke, as though her mother had never been shamed or died in exile, and this is merely an afternoon they are spending together. An afternoon's lesson, on the lessons of life.
"To live without God's comfort?"
Mother nods. "Yes, that is one kind of pain. But not what I had in mind."
"To lose a child?" Mary hazards a guess, hoping she has not overstepped her place.
"Half correct and half wrong." Mother's voice is cold and unyielding as it never was in life. "The greatest pain is to lose a child, because that child has abandoned you."
"There is no need to cry, no need to scold yourself. When the body and the soul are threatened to be torn apart, there is no shame in doing what you must to keep them together."
Her mother smooths her hair, brushes her tears away with the tips of her thumbs. Mary leans into her touch, this simple comfort she was denied for four years at her own father's behest.
"The pope has forgiven you, and so do I. I could never have asked for a more loyal or loving daughter. God took away all my other children, but the one He allowed me to keep is more than enough."
Mary is silent for a moment, guilt a brand upon her face and a vise around her throat. How can she reproach this saintly lady, whose honor and chastity Mary happily impugned so that she might breathe. This woman, who sacrificed everything for her, only to have her only living child throw it all away.
But she is her father's daughter as well as her mother's, and she fights back.
"You know that I had no choice! Fa- the King would have had me executed. Do you truly resent me for choosing life over death?"
Mother glares at her, so much pain in her face. She is no longer Queen, she relinquished that title when God called her, and she has no need to speak like a Queen anymore. "I chose to die, rather than yield. I went hours without rest, stayed in a cold damp castle rather than yield credence to the lies sweeping England. Even when a single word from me would have bought me comforts beyond measure. I had my food cooked on the fire in front of me, for fear it was poisoned"
"I also went hungry at Hatfield." Mary says quietly. Her insides curl and curdle with shame, but she meets her mother's gaze levelly. "I ate only a few crumbs before dawn, and whatever scraps the servants could slip me throughout the day. So that I would not have to sit in the Great Hall, before her child's place, and thereby call her Queen, and thereby insult you."
"And yet when the ultimate test came, you were faithless."
"I was so terrified!" Mary digs her fingers into her hair, her arms, her sides, anything to anchor herself. "And even now, I feel as though I gave up everything, thanks to my actions. England suffers because of me."
Her mother's voice is pure and true, rising above the cacophony of contrition ringing in Mary's ears. "There is nothing to fear. That woman is dead, and a good woman of our faith has taken her place. There is so much that your future holds, and I swear to you that your sacrifice will pay off. You have learned the terrible price of the truth, and because of that, you will defend it all the more fiercely when the time comes for you to be tested once more."
"I was terrified!" Mary digs her fingers into her hair, her arms, her sides, anything to anchor herself.
"And you think I was not terrified?"
Mary struggles to articulate herself, wishing she had better words. "You- you cannot understand. You were still a princess, an Infanta of Spain, a guest on English soil and a subject of Spain no matter what titles you were stripped of. Father would never have executed you, for all that you angered him. But I am his daughter and his subject, and therefore doubly bound to obey him."
She looks away, holding back tears. "And nobody would have blamed him for having my head if I did not submit. They would have feared him, they would have wept, they would have shuddered at such depths, but they they would not have blamed him."
Mary takes in a measured breath, lets it out, repeats the gesture. She will not cry, will not shed more tears and spiral down again. "Even our kinsman the Emperor abandoned me at the end."
Her mother, her blessed, stubborn mother, refuses to accept this line of reasoning. "Your father would never have gone that far. He might bluster, he might lash out, but he never would have taken that irreversible step."
She hears, rather than sees, her mother stride towards her and grab her by the shoulders. "Do you not see?" Mother's face is desperate, pained, frantic, and Mary cannot bear to meet her gaze. "It was merely a test, to see- to see what you were made of. And you took the easy way out, traded your rights and my honor for your earthly comfort. You failed me!"
"I will never be Queen now." Mary shakes her head. "Only if Queen Jane does not bear a son, and that is a fate I would never wish upon her."
"God always has a plan, and you must trust in His ways." Queen Katherine's voice is so sure and so strong, that Mary cannot help but believe her words. "You are perhaps the only person in all of England who can restore her to obedience. And your sacrifice has bought you the opportunity to do so."
She does not deserve to stand here, like this, before this woman who loved her more than God Himself, and whom Mary betrayed. She closes her eyes to keep the warmth from spilling out, more glad than she can say to have her mother's reassurances.
"And what," Mary says coldly, "do you think would have happened if I simply did not sign? Even if Papa did not execute me, you think he would have gone crawling back to Rome, after all the other men he executed for saying so? He would have dared to allow me a place in the succession?"
"Do you truly have so little faith in your father?" It is meant to be a barb, but beneath it, Mary can hear her mother's pain, the desire to believe that there is still some good in her husband.
"Yes." It is the bleak truth, and Mary will not dance around the fact. "He had a Prince of the Church, and one of his best and lifelong friends executed. He refused you and me to see one another for years, even when you lay dying. He had his concubine put to death not because he saw her for the heretic she was, but because he simply wanted to be rid of her. And even now, he clings to the heresy she introduced."
"But if you had held firm, there would have been a chance!" Katherine cannot let the potential go, clings to it as though she were drowning and it is a piece of driftwood. "Your continued allegiance to Rome would have become a pillar of faith and certainty for others to rally around, and kept the memory of Catholicism alive in the minds of England. Now that you have given your consent, why would anyone ever champion a self-admitted bastard as their Queen?"
Such invective from her mother- and Mary is the one who brought her to such a place.
Her mother is breathing hard, as though holding back tears. "But if you had held firm, there would have been a chance."
"There would have been no chance," Mary says steadily, and she is not sure if she is convincing herself or her mother. "No chance if I refused to sign."
She sighs, long and hard, and she suddenly feels much older than twenty. "Whether or not Papa signed my death warrant. After all, Henry II never ordered the death of Thomas Becket either."
"What do I do now?" Mary asks plaintively. She is still a child at heart, a girl who was ripped from her mother's arms too soon and has never stopped longing to return to them.
"Dissemble," her mother says. "Allow God to lead the way. Stay true to Him, and yourself, and you will be Queen someday. This is only a stepping stone on a journey of ten thousand miles, and at the end of it, your hands will be cleansed of ink then. Do not lose faith, and do not lose hope."
They press their foreheads together, eyes both closed. Mary gently draws back, and then sweeps into a curtsey.
"What do I do now?" Mary asks plaintively. She is still a child at heart, a girl who was ripped from her mother's arms too soon and has never stopped longing to return to them.
She withers under her mother's glare, at once as cold as a winter gale and as searing as a conflagration. "Dissemble. Ensure that you do not stray from your path any more than you already have. If, as you say, this was the only way to ensure you become Queen, then make it certain that it happens."
Katherine contemplates her hands for a moment, her eyebrows knitting together, her eyes sad and lined with dark circles. Mary wonders suddenly, irrelevantly, if this is what happens to all queens. Finally her mother looks up.
"When that day comes, then your conscience will be at rest, and your hands will be cleansed of ink."
Mary bites her lips and nods, every movement a great effort. She steps back, and then curtseys.
Whichever way it would have gone, it matters not. The path ahead of her remains the same, cruelly and clearly traced out before her. And only when she has reached that path's end shall she know the answer. And by that point, it shall be moot.
And yet, and yet, her spirit cries out for the answer.
A/N: Katherine of Aragon having her food cooked on the fire in front of her, for fear of poison, and Mary refusing to eat in the Great Hall at Hatfield, are both documented in the historical record.
Thomas Becket was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century, and during the reign of Henry II, Becket attracted the king's wrath. Henry II is reported to have said, "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?", a question that was taken as a command by four knights who attacked Becket and murdered him.