It is many months before anyone notices.
Catherine pulls her aside during a state dinner, gripping her forearm tightly.
"Mary, you look like shit." She tells her, rolling her eyes. "And fat, too. Hasn't anyone ever taught you how to hide a pregnancy?"
"I'm not pregnant. I cannot be pregnant." She held her nose high. "Francis and I...we haven't lay together, not since that night. I'm simply gaining weight, that's all."
"You're easily sixteen weeks along, isn't it possible that this child was conceived before the incident?" Catherine smiled, her eyes crinkling at the edges. She was hopeful, Mary was not.
"No, it is not."
Mary turned on her heel, stalking away from Catherine. The former queen let out a huff, wondering how blind her daughter-in-law was. She called to a servant.
"Get me Nostradamus, bring him to the queen's chambers."
"Ma'am," the young servant looked to the floor. "Nostradamus left months ago."
"You fool, you think I don't know that?" She rolled her eyes. "It's no secret the help has a world of it's own. Someone down there knows where he's gone, and I want you to find that person and have him deliver Nostradamus to the castle personally."
"He will not come." The girl looked at her feet.
"He will, if you tell him Mary's in trouble."
The servant glanced up, her young eyes meeting the hard, cold ones of Queen Catherine. She nodded then, rushing off to the kitchen.
()()()
Nostradamus arrived the next morning, surprising Mary in her chambers with Catherine by his side.
He confirmed the court's suspicions, assuring Mary that she was indeed with child.
Her eyes grew soft with tears, and she rolled onto her side, away from them.
"It is not Francis'." She wailed, sobbing through closed teeth.
"That's alright." Catherine said, brushing back Mary's hair and glancing at Nostradamus. "No one will know."
()()()
The baby was born in the summer, with Francis wearing down the floors outside of Mary's chambers and Lola and Kenna giggling in the corner. They all wanted a boy-they all needed a boy, a sweet, strong, good-tempered boy that would make France safe, and Scotland too.
And what France wanted, they got.
The labor came quickly, and there was no time for a midwife. Nostradamus delivered the baby, and Mary was happy that way-she wouldn't have trusted anyone else to touch her down there, man or woman.
When she was finished she sobbed, wailing so loudly that those in the servant's quarters could hear her. Catherine burst in, slamming the door shut before anyone else could enter. She heard Francis briefly protest in the hall, calling for Mary, for his child, but she ignored him.
Her breathing was heavy, uneven. She feared that a child born out of sin would look like one, too, and she would find a baby deformed and defective. Catherine feared she would have to smother her first, and probably only, grandson to hide him from the world.
Instead, Nostradamus presented to her a healthy, beautiful baby boy. He wasn't crying like babies do, like his mother was, but whimpering contently.
"Is he healthy?" Catherine gasped, reaching to hold him.
Nostradamus nodded, handing her grandson to her before turning to Mary.
"What would you like him to be named, Queen Mary?"
She did not respond, and her cries continued.
"Henry," Catherine spoke up, filling in when Mary did not answer. "Henry the third, it sounds wonderful, doesn't it, Mary?"
Mary buried her face in her pillow, muffling her cries.
"I have to stitch her back up." Nostradamus announced.
"May I present the baby to the others?" Catherine grinned.
"Of course," Nostradamus nodded, and Catherine hurried out, her newest prize in her arms.
()()()
Francis cried when he saw Henry, and the ladies in waiting oohed and ahhed over his baby face, Kenna wishing for a child of her own, one that could fill the hole in her heart left by Pascal's absence, but Bash was never home, and she could not raise a baby on her own.
Catherine and Francis took Henry on a tour of the castle, remind the child that everything would one day be his. The baby was larger than normal, and already strong and full of life. He was nothing like Francis as a baby, not pale and sickly like he was-and for that, Catherine was grateful.
When Francis inquired about Mary, Catherine closed her eyes tightly, holding her grandson to her chest.
"She does not wish to see him."
()()()
Mothers were soft and kind. They rocked their babies to sleep, held them to their breast when they had nightmares. They made plans for their children, thought about everything from their next feeding to their wedding day. Lola took care of her baby, loved it and cherished it-Mary could not do that.
"Mary," Nostradamus spoke as he cleaned her up. He was surprised at how calm she was now that the baby had gone. "You've given Francis a strong son, one that will survive."
"I do not wish to see him."
"Francis?"
"No, the child."
Nostradamus sucked in a breath.
"I have seen that child's future, Mary, and he will do great things. He will be one of the greatest rulers known to man. Why don't you want to be his mother?"
"I gave him life, isn't that enough?" She sobbed. "Evil breeds evil, Nostradamus. The child is half me, yes, but he is half his father, too."
()()()
The child grew stronger and faster than even Nostradamus could predict.
He was walking at eight months, began running by eleven. He was fast and swift, and steady on his feet. Francis began educating him early, hiring the best tutors and often sitting in on his son's lessons, ensuring he got the best education France could offer.
He tried to be a mother and a father, but for all the comforting he could not do, Lola was there for that. Francis wanted Henry and Jean-Philippe to have a similar upbringing to his and Bash's-they would be comrades, not rivals. Henry's relationship with Lola had grown as he did, as she became less of a wet nurse and more of a mother.
She read him bedtime stories, tucked him in at night, snuck him food when he was sent to bed without supper. She took care of him like he was a part of her, which was more than could be said for Mary.
Mary withdrew altogether, spending more time in her chambers than with Francis or her son. She'd appear momentarily for court, for parties and special dinners, but she took meals in her chambers, if she took them at all. She grew thin and tired-looking, with sickly pale skin. Her eyes sunk into her skull, and her hair grew dull. Her gowns no longer fit right, and she'd given up on using any sort of make up long ago. The cruel peasants, and some of the servants too, called her a witch queen, while others said she was merely dried up. She'd given Francis what he wanted, now he had no use for her.
That was untrue-she tried to love Francis again, she really did, but she found herself unable to enjoy another man's touch, his embrace. She turned to Kenna instead, relying on her friend in more ways than she could have previously imagined.
When Kenna came to her, she admitted that lola had been telling her stories about romantic trysts between her and King Francis, after they put the babies to sleep.
"You should see them, Mary. They're like a little family." She rolled her eyes, taking another sip of wine and running her finger down Mary's chest.
"I do not wish to see them. Let her have her games, let him. We have ours."
()()()
Francis announced Lola's pregnancy at Henry's second birthday party.
The entire court went silent, waiting for Mary to rise from her solemn spot on the throne, for her to make a scene, to order Lola sent away. But she sat there, letting Lola feed Henry his birthday cake and help him to open presents.
She couldn't blame Francis for what he had done, she had made her choices long ago.
The court shrugged and went back to their individual conversations. At least, they decided, their beloved Queen of Scots was eating again.
()()()
Lola tried to make things easy for Mary, attempting to tie together a friendship that had been destroyed even before Jean-Philippe's birth.
"Mary, would you like to feel the baby kick?"
"Join Francis and I for dinner tonight, Mary!"
"Mary, your son read his first book today, isn't that exciting?"
Mary would reply cordially, she was a queen, after all, but she could not be led on.
She had made her choices, and Lola had made hers. She'd like to keep those two paths separate.
()()()
Lola's baby was born prematurely.
Francis allowed her to name him Robert before he died.
Kenna said Lola cried for days, but Mary did not shed a single tear.
()()()
Francis asked Mary for an annulment the year Henry turned fifteen, and she denied him.
"Being queen is the only thing I'm good at." She laughed. "I was made to rule, Francis. I was primed and designed to make hard decisions, to hurt some and favor others. I am not a good wife, nor am I a good mother, but I am a good queen."
"You were not always this cold." He reminded her.
"You were not always this easily mislead."
And he asked her to explain, begged her for answers, but she would give him none. The answers were there, if he would just look at them the right way.
()()()
Nostradamus had left long ago, but as usual, his predictions were right. King Henry III inherited the throne the year he turned eighteen, after his father met an untimely death.
Lola sobbed at the funeral, Jean-Philippe holding her tightly in his arms. Henry held her hand as silent tears streamed down his face, but he stared at his mother as if she were a stranger.
A veil covered Mary's face, and she did not weep at his funeral. She did later though, wailed just as she did when Henry was born-she cried not for herself, but for France.
When Kenna came to her that night, she sent her away, for the first time in fifteen years. She appeared at her lady-in-waiting's door early the next morning, however, and ordered her to pack a suitcase, that they would be returning to Scotland.
Mary was not a queen anymore, and she didn't know how not to be cold and hard and unkind. She understood Catherine's bitterness a lot better now.
()()()
Recently, Kenna's letters from Lola had been filled with worry over Henry III developing an ear infection, or another one of his father's fatal diseases.
They made Mary laugh, and then they made her cry. She was the only one alive now who knew the truth, and it was a heavy cross to carry.