It's only later when Mary sees Claude with Narcisse that she goes to Catherine. If truth be told, she doesn't always feel comfortable around Claude because sometimes the girl looks at her and there's something accusing in her gaze. They're my family not yours. You stayed and I had to go. You're not her daughter.
Mary stays away from Catherine these days.
But she misses her, and more importantly, she missed the hallucinations and the syphilis. She likes to think that Catherine might have missed her too, not that she lets on.
Catherine is sitting dejectedly, feet in the birdcage when Mary enters. The winces that she gives are tired now, and her feet are bleeding. The birds seem as voracious as ever though.
"You're still going?" Mary says as she crosses the floor.
Catherine looks up. Her knuckles are white as she clutches the arms of her chair. "Claude told the servants to go away. I think she may have told the doctors to leave me be for another hour."
"Oh," says Mary, sitting down. "Do you want me to get them to come back?"
Catherine says. It's a heavy sound. "No," she says. "Let them peck. Claude thinks I deserve it anyway." She kicks out at the birds half-heartedly. "Sometimes I don't think I was meant to have daughters."
Mary watches the birds flutter anxiously around their cage and land back on Catherine's feet. She reaches over and puts her hand on Catherine's. Her hands are softer than she expects, and Catherine tenses at the sudden contact, then relaxes. Her shoulders slump.
"You've done okay." Her words sound disingenuous to her (barren queen, how would you know?) but they seem to touch Catherine. Her eyes are softer when she replies.
"I loved you once," she says, and Mary can remember the time they spent together when she was a child. "I loved you and sent you away, and then when you came back you were a threat to my family. To Francis."
Mary remembers that too. Arriving back in the French court, scared and lonely. She remembers the fierce dislike of the then queen and her many attempts to keep her from her son. She remembers Colin's hands on her skin, a grim foreshadowing, and she shivers. She didn't have Francis on her side then. She thinks of Clarissa then and, as always, she is sorry.
Catherine is watching her, and as usual, she has the feeling that the other woman knows what she is thinking.
"You said the prophecy would come to pass," Mary says. There is a question in her voice, but she's not sure what it is.
Catherine response is slow when she answers. "I don't know."
"But Clarissa," Mary says, hysteria colouring her cheeks.
"I don't know," Catherine repeats. "Francis said she was still alive."
"It was a hallucination," Mary insists. They both know she is pleading, but neither acknowledge that.
"I don't know," Catherine says.
They are silent. The only sound between them is that of the birds ruffling their feathers, and the quiet room makes it sound like ghostly footsteps.
"I think I have made a mistake, marrying your son," Mary says. Her voice catches in her throat, but she thinks she might be past tears.
Catherine turns her hand over so that she is holding Mary's. She squeezes.
.
.
.
.
She sleeps with Stirling in the room now.
It's cold and it's lonely but with his warm, doggy breath fogging quietly in the corner of the room, she feels just that little bit safer. And now Francis sleeps in her room too. Mary watches him from across the room, and he is so beautiful and alive and there and she wants to cry because he's a good man, and a good husband, and he tried to be a good king, but everything is always between them.
But tonight he is here. And maybe tonight she is ready to be here too.
"There's a perfectly good goosefeather bed here," she says, and watches his face light up with a hope that she wants to believe in.
Just one night, she thinks. Maybe tonight they can be happy.
It's too much and too fast though, and his breath in her ear is both comforting and terrifying at the same time, and she's drifting in and out of a frightened sleep when she just can't take it anymore. Her attackers are breathing down her neck when she leaps from the bed, reaching for her dog. A scream is dying on her lips.
They tell her, time and time again, that she has power, that she wields so much power over all these men in her life: Francis, Conde, Bash, but the truth is: Mary sleeps with Stirling in the room now because when she needed it most, she was powerless.
But Francis holds out his arms, and it's just too tempting to collapse into his embrace and believe that somehow everything will be okay.
Francis, she thinks then and there. It's you. It's always been you.
.
.
.
.
She's barely allowed herself to forget the prophecy when the King of Navarre threatens them. England is a mistake that keeps rising up from its grave. She doesn't have Nostradamus's vision but everything is closing in on her, and Francis ruined the start of his reign trying to protect her from Narcisse. Because of her he made an enemy of the Protestants, and of England, Elizabeth will kill Francis because of her. And then there's the prophecy. She's not sure what to believe anymore, but it's getting harder not to, with these enemies at their door.
"I don't know what to do," she says, entering Catherine's chambers without announcing herself. Catherine is sitting on her bed, exhaustion in her shoulders. She looks up at Mary's entrance. "It's England. Navarre wants money, and if we don't give it to them, they'll go to England."
There is no surprise, just resignation when Catherine replies. "I warned you," she says. "They never mean any good, these cousins."
Mary wants to defend Conde, wants to protest his innocence, but his words earlier in the night still sting. He was supposed to be a friend. "Elizabeth will never leave me alone," she says instead. "Maybe this is how it comes to pass, the prophecy. Maybe she kills Francis because of me."
They made so many mistakes, the two of them. Baited the bear one too many times, played with fire.
"I didn't have syphilis," Catherine says. "Someone was trying to poison Henry and they got me too."
Mary takes that as agreement. She nods slowly, and turns to go. "I'm sorry," she says. "I never wanted this to happen. I never meant to hurt Francis." He never wanted to hurt me either. She thinks she might be apologizing for more than just Elizabeth.
"Elizabeth won't leave you alone, Mary," Catherine calls out. She stops in the doorway. "Or even if she does, it won't matter. There'll always be someone there, someone at your back. You're a queen, and Francis is a king. You're both always targets, prophecy or not."
How the tables have turned, Mary thinks. Maybe she believes in the prophecy, or maybe she doesn't, but now Mary can't see past Elizabeth, and she can't see past her rapists, and maybe she just doesn't have a future without some shadowy figure in her path.
But maybe he does.
.
.
.
.
The firelight is playing across his face, as she paces around the room. He decides to give the money to Navarre, of course he does, but he wouldn't have to if she weren't his wife, if she weren't a threat to England. She can still remember being in his arms, the feel of him around her. She felt safe then, but what good is that if he's going to die because of her?
She was strong once. Maybe she can be strong again. Maybe she can save him.
It's like a song they know too well, and they play their roles beautifully as she gives him up for what feels like the last time. But there is hurt and there is resignation on his face, and this time she thinks she may have lost him for good.
"How could you send me to another?" he asks, and what she hears is do you love me so little that you could do that?
And she knows she's about to lose him, knows that she can't keep sending him away and expecting that he will keep being there like he has, and she can't stop the truth from coming out. "Because I love you," she confesses. She can't stop herself from touching his face either, but her fingers feel dead against his skin. The flickering of the fire lights up his hair, and he's alive and beautiful, and full of golden promise. But all she's got ashes lingering beneath her skin and ghosts behind her eyelids, and she'll bring nothing but death for him.
"One of us should be happy," she says, but what she means is you should live.
He is still as she kisses his cheek and it tastes like fear.