A/N: Sorry for the long wait, lovely readers. Hope this makes up for it! Also, for the sake of the story, Pope Paul III lives a bit longer than he did in history, and is therefore the Pope when this story takes place.
"Not to break up this tender moment," a voice drawled behind Francis, and he stiffened, "but I think it's high time we stopped waiting and did what we came to do. Be a mercy, anyway."
Hands grabbed Francis, pulling him away from Bash, and then someone was shoving him into the dirt, and, before he could scream, his mouth was full of the stuff. He heard Bash calling his name, but his brother's voice sounded far away, too far...
Francis lifted his head when he smelled the smoke.
Two of the men were holding onto Bash, pulling him toward the edge of the woods, and Francis stiffened, jumping to his feet before he could think of a proper plan beyond saving Bash, because he couldn't just sit there and let them do this to his brother, not when they thought Bash was Francis, before being shoved down and held there again by one of his guards.
"Bash!" he screamed out, and then Bash's head had lifted, his eyes met Francis', and Francis didn't think he had ever seen his brother looking this terrified before. It would not occur to Francis, at least, not until later, that he was not scared for himself. Well, not entirely.
Francis had thought, from the vague suggestions that the Huguenots had given them, that they planned on building a pyre, and burning Bash upon it, but apparently their late night attempt to escape had pushed the men into a far different idea.
They tied Bash to a tree, heedless of either boys' cries, at the edge of the clearing. Several men were holding flaming torches, and Francis, who had never quite found fire scary before this moment, thought he just might sick up at the knowledge of what they were about to do.
The men hesitated then, nervously glancing at each other and then, oddly, Francis thought, between him and Bash.
Then one of the men stepped forward, holding his torch out perilously close to Bash's unprotected skin.
Francis didn't think then; he lashed out, kicking and fighting against the men holding him down, reflecting that even if he would never dishonor his brother by looking away when he was killed, it was terribly cruel of these men to force Francis to watch as they tried to burn Bash alive, anyway.
"Let go of me, you heretic!" he shouted, managing a well-aimed kick that threw off the man holding him. He ran forward then, heedless of the binds cutting into his wrists, knowing only one thing: he wasn't going to let Bash die for him.
He didn't know what else he shouted; something that could have been barbarians or fiend. He only knew that he made it halfway across the clearing before one of the criminals attacked him, strong arms wrapping around his midsection, holding him too tight...
Francis screamed.
The man who seemed to be leader of this ragtag group shot Francis a frightened look then. "Shut him up," he snapped at the man holding Francis, and a well aimed slap certainly did the trick.
Distantly, his mind seeming suddenly detached from what was going on surround him, Francis reflected that such a hit was likely to bruise, even if he had no experience with such matters.
Then, a completely unrelated thought hit him. The thief had him struck because he wanted Francis silenced. Because he was afraid. They were burning Bash now, instead of waiting til morning, because he was afraid to wait, now. Because Bash's squire was free.
Francis smiled, and Bash, who'd been watching with wide eyes, looked concerned at that, making Francis almost want to roll his own. Of course Bash would be more concerned about his brother's mental state than his own impending death. Of course.
Riders had probably already been sent out looking for the Crown Prince and his brother. All they need do was wait for those riders to encounter said squire.
All they need do was stall, as Bash had yesterday.
"Wait!" he cried out, but knew better, this time, than to attempt to shove away the hands holding him if he wanted to be heard. "Wait, you can't do this!"
The men ignored him, moving in on Bash with their torches yet again.
"You can't just kill a child!" he shouted at them, an old argument, but he noticed that one or two of them actually hesitated, that time. So he forged on. "What would God think of that?" He felt a bit ridiculous, arguing theology, which had never quite been his forte, but Francis figured he knew enough about it to make the argument.
And, indeed, he seemed to, for the Huguenots were actually listening, the few whose torches were close enough to almost touch Bash pulling back at those words. Bash's eyes widened, as if he couldn't quite believe it.
But in the next moment, Francis had again lost.
"God will forgive us," the thief said, giving Francis a nasty look. "He understands our cause, and knows it to be just, or he would not have allowed us to stumble upon the two of you."
Francis opened his mouth to ask the man's reasoning behind that, but didn't get the chance before the thief had raised his torch, and the others their own, though somewhat more reluctantly.
"God forgive us for what we are about to do," the thief intoned, and the other men murmured their agreements beneath their breath. Francis bit the hand slapped over his mouth then, struggled with all of his might.
And then there was a rather sharp knife hovering against his throat, and Bash's eyes were pleading for him to stop.
One of the torches grazed Bash's skin then, and he let out a stifled scream, prompting the thief to strike him again, though Francis wondered at the needless violence. He may not know much about death, but he understood that burning alive was one of the most painful ways to embrace the afterlife, and there would be a lot more screaming to come.
Francis again thought he might be sick, and hoped God damned them to the deepest pits of Hell for what they were about to do. (It was a prayer he'd once overheard his mother uttering, though hers had been meant toward Henry, Diane, and several others who had earned her ire, and he rather liked it.)
And Francis opened his mouth as the flame touched Bash's unprotected skin, as he let out a cry of pain, to tell them that they were wrong, that he was the Crown Prince, not Bash, and they should be burning him up, even if he had promised Bash he would keep quiet-
"Stop, in the name of the King!" If they thought these words would have any weight with men willing to kill the King's own son, the King's Men were sorely mistaken, for the Huguenots, several of them reaching for their weapons, were not to be deterred from their course.
But hatchets and spears did not keep against the sharpened swords of the King's men, and soon enough, those who were not dead were surrendering, and Bash and Francis were free, the torches that were to be used against Bash falling into the dirt and extinguishing.
Francis was never so glad to see armed guards in his life.
Bash, however, was not able to share in Francis' joy at being rescued for very long. The moment his bonds were freed, a moment after Francis', he collapsed into a dead faint.
Francis screamed again.
Then the remaining Huguenots (Francis noted that their leader was not still amongst the living, and got a grim sort of satisfaction from that, even if he was still horrified by all of the blood around him,) were bound, and one of his papa's men, one which Francis recognized as Sir Pell, very close to his father, picked up Bash, as carefully as if he were a newborn babe, and carried him to his horse.
And then Bash's squire stepped forward, holding the reins of a horse he must have borrowed from one of the soldiers, and offering the use of the beast to Francis.
Francis supposed that Bash's squire was not the worst servant in the world, though the credit of their rescue could be more justly laid at the feet of his father's men than Bash's squire, who had simply happened upon them while making his escape.
In any case, the squire would be punished for abandoning them, even if it was to go and get help, so he decided to thank the young man now, while he still had the chance to do so.
Bash's squire flushed, and looked down at his feet as he responded. "Anything for Your Highness."
And something about that stung, even if Francis couldn't quite understand what. He nodded, stepped away, and hoped that he wouldn't have to encounter said squire again. Something told him, though, that, even if he never saw the disgraced boy again, he would meet plenty of others like him.
The Huguenots who had kidnapped the Crown Prince and the King's Son were executed, and Francis was not allowed to watch their executions, as it was deemed an inappropriate place for a child. That rather annoyed him, for he'd been deemed old enough, by the Huguenots, to watch his brother mercilessly killed for something that wasn't even his fault, and yet he was not allowed to watch justice be done.
Catherine found a way to entertain him, that day and night, though he thought this had more to do with her relief that he was safe and her wish for him not to sneak off and watch the executions anyway than the fact that she wanted to spend time with him, that day. She spent all of the rest of her time with the Pope, after all. And, of course, when she spent that day and night with him, it was so that Francis could meet the Pope, as he had been unable to earlier on account of his..."wild adventure."
Pope Paul III was not what Francis had been expecting, in the man many called Prince of the Church, the Divine Word of God in a mortal man. He was just...another man, like any other noble that Catherine brought him before to meet. Bent over on account of a painful back, old and grey, and not very impressive in any other ways. He was not Pope Clement, who had all of Catherine's love until his death and who had saved her from hers, but Catherine seemed to respect him almost as much, on account of his family's ambition alone, it seemed. Medicis had a particular respect for ambition.
Still, he looked old and feeble to Francis, even when Francis found himself looking up to greet him.
"Your Highness," Francis dipped into a little bow, as he might before his father, not entirely sure of the proper protocol for greeting the Pope. Well, Catherine probably had taught him before this, but he was rather preoccupied at the moment, with images of his brother's burned body in his mind.
No matter what he did, those images didn't seem to fade.
"Prince Francis," the Pope greeted, his voice changing from the rough, scratchy tones they'd been with Catherine to something gentler, something almost soothing, Francis thought.
He'd never known a grandpapa, as Francis I had died when he was only a little child, but he imagined that Pope Paul was very akin to a grandpapa. And even if there was something comforting about being near the most powerful man in the world as his kidnappers were held beneath the castle in the dungeons, awaiting execution, Francis would have rather been with his brother.
When the screams started, muted though they were by the closed windows, by the musicians Catherine called in to block them out while she talked about boring things with the Pope and Francis pretended to be interested, because he knew he didn't have anything else to do, Francis shivered despite himself.
Had he noticed Catherine's worried glance, or the way she looked at the Pope, something like a plea for guidance in her eyes, he might have endeavored to look less frightened.
And later, when he was too tired to think of sneaking away to the executions and the Pope finally took his leave, though Francis noticed that Catherine was not foolish enough to do the same, and he offered to serve as a confessor for Francis, should he need one, Francis was not entirely sure why he said yes. Only that Catherine seemed to be very relieved by it, and something in the pit of his stomach did, too.
No doubt it was simply indigestion.
Francis had never done something like this before. Oh, France was an auspiciously Catholic country, and the royal family went to Mass as any other family was expected to, read their bibles and kept an outward show of piety, but that was what it was; mostly for show. The King, after all, was hardly an upholder of Christian decency, his only true actions in help of the Catholic Church the burning of Huguenots. However, he did not seem to have the same compunction toward pagans, allowing them their worship in the woods without much trouble.
And Catherine...well, she was most certainly pious, but Francis was not a baby anymore, and he knew that there were things she'd done which would be frowned upon by her beloved Pope, if ever he learned of them.
So, no, Francis had never gone to see a confessor. And had certainly never dreamed of confessing to the Pope. But it had been Catherine's suggestion, and, he suspected, the Pope's original idea, that he do so. That, if he could not be made to tell Catherine what had happened to him and Bash in the woods, he might feel more comfortable confessing to someone who would keep it secret.
Francis didn't understand where they had come up with that idea, but he wasn't about to refuse the Prince of Christendom, after all, and so he went.
It was all very strange to him. After stepping into the confessional, which was far too confining and like a box for Francis' tastes, he fumbled over the words he was supposed to have memorized by now, but the Pope did not seem at all offended by his heathenism, or, if he was, didn't mention it.
"I...It was my fault," Francis burst out then. "What happened, what they were going to do to Bash. For talking him into letting me go on this stupid hunting trip with him to begin with-"
The Pope raised a hand; Francis saw it even through the wooden netting separating them, and fell silent. "Calm yourself, my child."
"But I-"
"I think, that if the matter at hand is examined more closely, you might realize that you are not to blame for the events that transpired, but rather that the...heretics who kidnapped the two of you and meant you harm were."
Francis gulped. "I gave Bash my jacket. I let them think that he was me and they nearly killed him for it, and I almost let them-" he was aware that he was rambling again, but supposed that, in his old age, the Pope had remarkable patience, for he simply sat and listened through it until Francis abruptly cut off. Unable to say the words he was thinking.
"Ah," the Pope said finally, voice suddenly soft. "You believe yourself to blame for nearly allowing these heretics to kill your brother, rather than reveal your identity."
Ashamed, Francis hung his head, not even bothering to answer.
"But why did you not do so?"
Francis' head shot up at that question, and he blinked at the Pope. "I...what?"
"Why did you not tell the heretics who you were, and save your brother from death and yourself from allowing his death to rest upon your immortal soul?"
Francis blinked. He wanted to say that it was because he was scared to, Francis realized. That he didn't want to die. Instead, the words that came pouring out were, "I promised Bash."
"Hmm. Well then, as penance for your thoughts of sin, you must go and speak with your brother as soon as possible. Let him know of your guilt, and see if he finds you to be guilty, or the heretics. Otherwise, God has granted you forgiveness, through the power invested in me."
"But-"
"Now, my child, I do believe there are others who would use me as confessor today. There are, after all, sins only the Pope may erase. Some have waited a lifetime for such a confession."
Bash stayed in the infirmary for a few days after the accident, recovering his strength and being doted upon by Diane and quite a few ladies who seemed to have realized, with this latest injury, that he was of age. They surrounded him every chance they could, when the King was not present to check on his favorite son, Diane was not shooing them out, or Nostradamus was not entreating them to allow him his rest.
Bash did not seem to mind the attentions; in fact, he was at an age when he had begun to appreciate them very much, and this only seemed to encourage the gaggle of ladies attempting to gain his favor.
It didn't truly matter, after all, that he was a bastard, when he was the favored son of the King, and, when he married some day, the king would no doubt lavish awards and titles upon him, so that he might care for his wife.
Of course, Francis' nurse Catalina told him, to the ladies who came faithfully every day to visit him, marriage was far from their minds. She always said this with an upturned lip and then would abruptly change the subject, and that would be all that Francis was allowed to speak of his injured brother.
Bash might have been taking full advantage of his days in the infirmary, but Francis, who was not injured, was absolutely miserable.
He had not yet been allowed to see Bash alone, always in the presence of the King or one of his nurses, who never would have dreamed of leaving Francis alone in the infirmary, after Queen Catherine's latest strict instructions that he was not to be left alone if he was not in his rooms or with her.
He knew that his mother had decided this because she was worried for him, not because she was angry with anything Francis had done, as she held little love for her rival's bastard son, and yet still it felt like a sort of punishment.
Francis was only glad that the King didn't know what he had done, or he knew he would have been severely punished for it, much worse than having a shadow everywhere he went. But at the same time, he was almost sad that the King didn't know, that his father could punish him and he could stop feeling so guilty for it.
Still, he wanted to see his brother, and know that, despite everyone's reassurances that he was going to be all right, that Bash was not in any pain because of Francis. He didn't trust the few seconds he was allowed to see Bash each day to be sufficient proof, after all.
So he stood outside the door to the infirmary, and waited.
It was Nostradamus who finally found him, blinking at the sight of the Dauphin standing outside of the infirmary as several courtiers still hung about with the King's son within.
He blinked down at the boy, shutting the door to the infirmary. "Are you ill, Dauphin?" he asked, voice gruff and gentle, and suddenly reminding Francis of the Pope's voice.
"I..." he swallowed hard, and inclined his head toward the now closed door.
Nostradamus followed his gaze. "I see," he said, after a long moment in which Francis had been terrified that he would not see, not at all. And then he held out a hand, and, after a moment's hesitation, during which he reflected that he was acting remarkably childish as of late, Francis took it.
They stepped into the infirmary together then, and the courtiers still milling about, hoping to gain a bit of favor by their pity for the King's son, glanced up in surprise, the girl simpering by Bash's bedside going silent at the sight of him and then, with all of the rest, dipping into a curtsey.
"The Dauphin wishes to speak to the King's Son alone," Nostradamus announced then, his tone brokering no argument, though the Court Seer had very little sway against so many courtiers. "Leave."
However, even if Nostradamus had little pull in the politics at Court, the Dauphin certainly did, as did Nostradamus' rather imposing, tall presence, and, after a few dirty looks which Francis was sure he wasn't supposed to have noticed were sent his way, the courtiers took their leave.
Nostradamus winked at him, and Francis wondered why he had ever looked down on the man, as nothing more than a magician. Well, perhaps he was still that, but he certainly had managed a trick to get Francis alone with his brother.
Then Nostradamus was checking Bash's wounds, and, as glad he was of the service to his brother, Francis couldn't help tapping his foot impatiently as he waited.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Nostradamus left as well, swinging the door to the infirmary soundly shut behind him.
Francis let out a relieved breath before turning back to his pale, injured brother. Suddenly, he didn't feel so relieved. Bash did not look well; in fact, he looked worse than he had on the ride home from the King's Wood, pale and too thin and wrapped in bloody bandages.
Francis' fault, all of those injuries. From the one on Bash's leg, which he had gotten defending Francis from the wolf, to the burns on his arms, from the Huguenots.
"Bash I'm so sorry," he gasped out, unable to hold the words back by that point. It didn't matter that he'd made a confession to the Pope and gotten God's forgiveness; he needed Bash's.
"What are you talking about?" Bash asked then, confusion in his eyes, and Francis had only a moment to think that, cruel as Bash's demand that Francis spell it out was, he deserved it.
And then it all came blurting out, along with tears and an armful of worried brother, and Francis could only feel more anger toward himself for making Bash worried about him, when it most certainly should have been the other way around.
"It's all my fault," he gasped out, sobbing into Bash's shoulder, and the words had the effect of making Bash squeeze him tighter, alarm in his eyes as he forced Francis' chin up.
"Francis..."
"I shouldn't have made you take me with you. I should have stayed home. Or...I should have told them who I was, so you weren't hurt because of me."
Bash stared at him in open surprise for a few minutes before whispering, "Oh, Francis. That wasn't...none of that was your fault. Those were bad men who wanted to hurt us-"
"They didn't want to hurt us," Francis blurted. "They wanted to hurt me. And they thought you were me."
Bash gave him a sad look. "Francis, when they were about to...burn me...you said my name."
Francis stared at him, uncomprehending. "So?"
Bash gave him a patient smile then, and Francis felt as if they we're decades apart in age, rather than a year. "They heard you call me Bash. If they actually cared which of us they were burning, rather than that I was the Kings son, they would have put two and two together and realized. As it was, they didn't care. They know their cause won't win if they antagonize the heir to the French throne. They just wanted to see our father suffer."
Francis' eyes widened then. "You weren't scared about dying. You just thought they'd figure it out and kill me too!" he accused. And then, to drive home how much he disliked that, Francis punched Bash, none too gently, in the shoulder, before remembering he was injured, even if it wasn't there, and grimacing.
Bash swallowed nervously. "Well, I was afraid of dying, too," he admitted, not quite meeting Francis' eyes. "Terrified, actually. But...if they had killed you..." he swallowed again, glancing up. "I'm just the King 's bastard, Francis. Not so important. You're the Crown Prince. I thought...I thought I was ready to die, if I had to," and with those words, Francis felt no guilt about his next punch.
"Anything for Your Highness," the squire had said. Not, "Anything for Bash."
Francis changed his mind then. The boy had been a terrible squire, and there was no doubt about that.
"Don't ever say that again," he snapped. "You're not just the King's...son," he said, skating around the word that he'd never used, not to describe Bash, no matter how many others had. "You're...my brother. I don't want...I didn't want you to die for me."
Bash gave him a funny look then, as if he knew something Francis didn't, before finally muttering, as he looked down at his hands, "Well, I'm...I'm just glad it's over, now."
Francise glared at him. "Yeah, well, don't ever do that again. Impersonating the Crown Prince is illegal, you know. Next time, I'll have to tell Father,"
Bash snorted. And then, because Francis could never stay angry with Bash for long, he did, too.
