A lavish palace with rot in the walls; gold infused with the sweat of the worker. The great nation of France had lost its golden sun so many years ago and now couldn't seem to claw itself out of this dark, cloudy mess. Where had all the money gone? one might like to know. Françoise would like to know. She had seen too much these last one hundred years. The glory of war without the reward; deaths of the great and deaths of the young. And another war was yet to be fought - despite the few cautious years of tentative friendship that had been attempted beforehand, she had a bone to pick with the ever difficult Angleterre.
They had decided to meet on neutral land. Françoise didn't like to be away - she was ill. She was prone to dizziness and mood swings and apathy and hopelessness. One moment, she was full of cooing admiration for that young American, who she expected she might well and truly die for, eventually. The next, she was mournful, collapsed on a chair because she felt as if she wasn't entirely solid. She felt like a wave of the sea that gushed into foam. Hadn't Aphrodite been born of the sea...? Her thoughts lapped and drained; the constant worry for money pulsed in her head; the swelling anger of her people made her physically sick. She was their instrument, and had no control over anything. Their conflicted views raged in her human body, this awful form that allowed such great a pain. It had never been this bad with the Sun King. How she missed him - him and his glory days. Wars that they won. New provinces. How she missed him!
However, despite all of these maladies, Françoise had work to do. She waited for her enemy and sat at the table, sipping from a tea cup with hands that, she was troubled to note, were shaking. The great beauty looked unwell; the kohl on her lashes and her stained lips did not do a great deal to hide the stresses that she faced. Those limpid, lilac eyes were burdened. Why did they always look a little wet? Alice would notice this when they sat face to face. Even if she was so furious.
Alice came into the room silently, though the door creaked behind her, and her footsteps were like the heavy thud of a heart. Françoise met her eyes as she walked close to her. The chair moved back with a scrape, and Alice took it without any grace. She sat with bad posture. She was wearing trousers. Despite her problems, Françoise was still constrained in a corsets, ruffled with lace, adorned with silver.
"Madeleine is still marked by your French defects," Alice said coolly, reaching to pour herself some tea. For Françoise - maman! - it had been a bitter loss, and one that she remembered well. How she and Alice had met in that too big a room, the grand curtains blocking a good deal of the sun; Françoise had stood with her shoulders tight on Madeleine's shoulders, but then she had brushed back her hair, and then she had found herself crouching beside her, professional in such a way that made her heart ache. No tears, but reassuring smiles. Tenderness that she ought to have never developed. She had spent too long owith the girl: teaching her French, dressing her, putting her to sleep. Biological mothers of similar status didn't insist on the tenderness that Françoise had.
And then she had been lost.
"Is that so?" Françoise looked to Alice dryly. "You cannot blame a child for having naturally good taste."
"Perhaps not." Alice took a sip of her drink, and then eyed the woman before her. "Nor can I blame Amelia for this tantrum she is throwing. But you?" She smiled slightly and coldly. "You are a grown woman. You are senseless to intervene in this."
Perhaps she was. But Françoise only laughed sharply, in a very calculated manner. Alice knew this because she knew how Françoise dealt with her less attractive emotions. She had seen her real fury and her real bitterness, how she could snarl and how she could rage; she had seen her most intense grief; Françoise unwound and unwound, caring for anything and anyone but herself. Perhaps they were all nations, but they were made up of a mosaic of humans. They were human themselves.
"Is it really so senseless to believe in virtues such as freedom from a tyrant?"
"Me? Or your absolutist Louis?" Alice asked. "Your line of Louis'?"
"You, darling." Of course.
Alice did not consider herself a tyrant. In fact, she considered herself efficient. Powerful. She looked to Françoise with that angry, quirk of a smile.
"Do you even know what a parliament is anymore, Françoise?"
They had known one another for far too long. They were old: Madeleine and Amelia were fresh and new. Françoise was crumbling and Alice was being forced to face the reality of her age, and of the so called new world. All empires crumble, she had been warned. Not hers though, surely? Never hers.
Françoise and Alice had known each other when they had been dirty and uncivilised. They had known each other when great Rome had lived, though they had been so underdeveloped then, and hardly felt like individuals. They had been children. But with age came ambition, and Françoise had got it first; she had kept it all her life. Alice had swiftly caught up with her. And so they had been intermittent friends and foes, growing up together, whether they were doing so alongside on another or doing so at opposite ends of a battlefield.
"Why, of course! But I think they are very difficult, Alice, and I think they are very irritating, and I think they are very dull," Françoise said, looking to the English woman pointedly. What summarised Alice better than a parliament?
"You're an absolutist and I'm the tyrant?"
"Precisely."
"I know that you're sick, Françoise," Alice said, beginning to tire of these little jibes, and Françoise's easy, false smile. "You look bloody awful."
"You always were a charmer." Françoise couldn't hide it though. She had placed her hands in the lap to avoid the shaking, but she still had that pallor to her skin, and the bags beneath her eyes. "What does it have to do with anything?" she asked with a little bite.
"You're in no state to fight a war. Amelia can fight her own battles, if she's so keen to be independent."
"No, no," Françoise insisted, "I have told you. I am a great believer in the freedom that she speaks of so ardently." She looked to Alice and smiled knowingly.
It had nothing to do with freedom; it had everything to do with Alice. Alice had outdone her one too many times, had taken too much land, and Françoise wanted to establish herself as the dominant force once more: to have her revenge. As they matured into this new stage of life, it seemed they would be doing so as enemies.
"And what will her freedom get you, Françoise?" Alice, ever so composed, didn't raise her voice. She spoke more sharply. She enunciated those stabbing consonants.
The question made Françoise dizzy. She didn't currently like to think too far ahead. The last time this had happened she had lost Madeleine - her humanity begged to know how Madeleine was, exactly? What was she doing? Was she comfortable? Had her French inherited Alice's choppy little accent?
But there were other things to think about.
Amelia wanted freedom, Françoise thought. Amelia would be in debt to her. The next time that Alice came to sever her kingdom, Amelia would be there, young, blood hot in her veins... But what was Amelia to do about her internals, when the time came? How could she cope with Françoise's heavy heart; the cries of starving people, taxed and taxed and taxed. How could she reason with Françoise's blue blood, that undeniably pulsed through her with every breath she took and movement she made? The sentimental connection to her monarchs, to her nobles, to their interfering wives and mistresses who she always tried to make feel more at home. How could she rip the golden crucifix from Françoise's neck and tell her that it was the correct thing to do? How could her own people try and do the same? They had put her together and now were demanding that she dismantled herself.
"I believe in freedom, Alice," Françoise repeated, drawling, and her eyes wandering aside. She pressed her hand, damp with sweat, against her throbbing forehead. She closed her eyes. She slumped like a doll, abandoned. "There is no need for regicide. That's more your type of fun. I am... I am really very sure that a monarch can allow certain freedoms. Louis loves his people. And what a virtuous man he is!"
"She'll kill you."
Françoise looked up, startled. "Who will kill me?"
"Amelia," Alice said, reaching over and pouring Françoise a little more tea. She wasn't sure she had ever seen her so ailing. "You'll get into this mess and end up dead."
"And wouldn't you like that?" Françoise demanded, forgetting her composure as she looked up, her delicate brows furrowed, and her pretty lips frowning. "You would have no competition aside from your own protégée. Don't you see yourself in her?"
Alice sighed, and was still for just a moment. Françoise was always so trying, either with her teasing or with her wicked words; she was human enough to know where to prod and where to push, no matter what their respective monarchs and politicians might have to say.
"I am very angry with you, Françoise. I despise that you are encouraging all of this. And I despite that you are doing that at risk to yourself." The words came so firmly that it was hard to believe there might be any emotion behind them, any real, genuine thought. "Do you really think Amelia, new and unstable, will come to your aid when all of this is over? When she is beaten?"
"She will not be beaten, Alice. That, I will make sure of." Françoise met her eyes. She was quiet for a moment, drawing her thoughts, before she continued with confidence. "You may think that you are a winner on the world stage, Alice, with a few measly victories here or there, but you have had your time. Amelia and Madeleine; that is our future, I dare say, and you ought to get familiar with that. You are being stubborn."
"As are you." Alice looked to Françoise and then away. She couldn't help but look back to Françoise. "Perhaps you are an enemy, but you are a worthy one. And yet, you are wasting your time on Amelia's fancies. I don't know what has come over you."
Françoise laughed softly. "Neither do I. I am carried by my people and have nothing substantial within my own self." She looked to Alice and smirked. "And even with my instabilities and my laments, I will not be losing a war against you."
Alice scowled, and huffed as she stood. Françoise was incorrigible and would not be dissuaded. The English woman left quicker than she had entered, irritated, and understanding that this would be a fight bigger than she had anticipated, and more personal than she would like. Amelia resented her and Françoise did too. Both new and old had decided she was an enemy. They were both so deeply flawed, Alice thought. Françoise in particular, with all of her Catholic nonsense, and strange political workings.
And that strange woman, alone now, relaxed back in her chair, letting her head loll against the back. She could feel sweat on her body; she was most certainly going to war. Another war. More debts. American democracy. She hated it and she was tempted by it; while her hands made a desperate grab for it, her heart rejected it urgently, and fear for her monarchy rolled through her body. Perhaps she would die, she thought idly, eyes inspecting the ceiling as she slumped in her chair. But she would die beating Alice, at least.