A/N: Thanks again to all my reviewers I have to thank Caro who helped with many information about the slave trade now that she took that african american course and also since she knows a lot of Europe she told me more about Chapuys' later activities after he retired from the Emperor's service and England in his hometown Savoy. I did not know he followed his humanism to establish a school of grammar, but there you have it. Also thanks to Dani who along with Caro managed to convince me to update, and her column of fiction vs reality on every chapter as Caro have helped me gain more knowledge of the territory of Savoy and the English and French Renaissance that are focal for my fic, the French you will see later on. Last before we bore you I also want to thank everyone who has reviewed and made for the advacement of this fic possible! Thank you guys. ~Marcela Narcissa "Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing oneself is enlightenment." Lao Tzu
Because you asked for it...
Brandenburg,
Princess Mary Eleanor's residence:
Nobody, absolutely nobody could make fun of her and get away with it!
He would pay for the grave offense he had caused her. Mary Eleanor swore as she ran to her bedroom. Getrude and all her ladies were following her, as Princess to the most important state in Germany other than Bavaria and Simmerm, she had the greatest number of servants, twenty five ladies in waiting, fourteen chaplains in all her states and a horde of lower servants ready to attend her with just a snap from her fingers.
She kicked the door when Gertrude started knocking lightly on it after she had closed the door before she could get it. She wanted to see and hear from nobody.
Nothing could make the humiliation go away. She felt worse than anything she had felt in her life.
"Mary please open up. Mary!" Gertrude kept screaming despite Mary having kicked at her door from the inside of her room.
All Gertrude wanted was to show Mary she was sympathetic, but the Princess like many times was being stubborn not letting anyone in.
Because the hard and ugly truth was that Mary felt ugly inside. Nobody not even her mother on the day of her birth, had ever seen her cry. They all said that babies don't cry, but she was told that when she had been born she had not cried, she had looked at her mother and smiled at her. Probably the only time she and her mother ever smiled at each other.
Mary thought grimly as she heard her mother's voice.
Every time Philip Jr. would play awful pranks on her, or throw insults behind their parents' back, she would always be the one grounded. Her father would always take his favorite heir's side, and their mother -she just loved pinning everything on Mary.
"Mary look what you have done?" Mother yelled. I did not mind her yelling but she was squeezing my arm to tightly, I felt she was sure to leave a mark with her nails digging into my skin.
Why was she not diggin into John's skin, he was the one caused all the party decorations to crash because of his stupid dogs -I thought furiously as my father looks at me in disaprooval, though his stare does not scare me as much as my mother's deadly glare.
I want to tell her that it was all their golden boy's fault, when my mother squeezes harder making me flinch.
I am only five years old. We are still in England, my grandfather is still alive -and like my parents he always takes Philip's side.
My father -he finally intervenes and pushes my mother away from me as he tells her quietly with a serious tone.
"That is enough, we don't need little Mary screaming, besides" he says turning to my direction, my mama turns too. "She is sorry aren't you dear?"
I nod. What other choice do I have?
"Very well then. Be grateful Mary your father is not here or that he will hear about this, he would not have taken this matter lightly" My mother mentions before she turns away from me. Her dark brown hair (once beautiful red, it has darken as she has aged -she says because of me and Philip) now dark brown flows as she quickly walks to the door. She gives it a loud bang, she is not even careful not to let the others servans outside our Chambers notice our dispute.
I turn to my father, he seems just as disappointed in me as my mama.
I try to justify myself to him, explain that it was all Philip's fault before he could tell my grandfather or worse his wife, the Queen. I know for a fact the way the Queens acts toward me -that she doesn't like me.
My father does not accept my explanation, the moment I had opened my mouth he leaves too.
That had been nearly fifteen years ago.
She had been so sure that her father would at least listen, he always seemed very regal, stoic in his posture, but in the end he had proven to be like any other man in her late grandfather's Court.
The Queen was the worst of all her "family". At least the King had made it clear he didn't like her, but the Queen had to play the hypocrisy game with her in public, just like her odious brother Philip.
Her eyes, it was whispered amongs the courtiers were her worst feature. She had dark gray eyes like her mother, same color and same shape but those eyes far from being compared to her mother's to the Queen's displeasure they were comapred to her former rival -the once Queen Katherine of Aragon, the Infanta of Spain who had never given up her god giving right to call herself Queen. At her deathbed she had still signed as the Queen instead of the Princess Dowager as she was later demoted by her own church by the Pope -the Bishop of Rome.
Anne Boleyn would reply kindly to her mother and to her family, but when she got to see Mary by herself, she would dismiss all her maids and only her and the Queen would be left.
"Katherine's granddaughter. Why you have the Princess Dowager's hair and your mother's eyes, very dangerous if you ask me. Odd for a girl, half spaniard, half Bavarian and part english what can the world expect?" The Queen Dowager had last said to Mary Eleanor before she, her mother and the rest of her sibblings had left for Bavaria after her father had declared himself King and had annexed all the territories he had inherited from his relatives to his Kingdom forming the ever first German Reich after years of being divided into city states.
If she could describe her childhood in England with one word: dreadful.
The hatred she had for her was almost sickening. Anne Boleyn would throw her deadly glances when no one was looking. She would laugh, make awful remarks about her when she and her would be alone.
She would tell her mother but her mother would just say that she could do nothing, her grandfather was the King and Anne his Queen, and that was it.
She never had support from her parents. During her formative years when Anne Boleyn had insisted that she and her siblings be placed on a different Household other than her parents' at Hundson.
They had been given a smaller mansion in Woodsham Walter Manor. At first she did not mind, but when it became unbearable to have been so far away from her parents, she had written with her six year old hands a letter to the Queen of England, and when no reply came for moths, she wrote another one to the King. No reply came and she was forced to live through Philip's taunts. If it hadn't been for John, his fraternal twin, she would never have made it out alive from Woodsham, especially when the Queen knew about all the abuse she suffered at Philip's hands, she adn John.
The Queen would use Philip to make her life more miserable. She would shower Philip with gifts. He became her especial project, Philip even became best friend with the Prince of Wales who was now Henry IX of England. They were like brothers more than him and John. They did everything together when the Queen would bring her son Prince Hal of Wales to their Household.
Hal was not as cruel like Philip. But there were moments when he would flaunt his and Philip's new toys given to them by the King and Queen of England. They would ask her:
"Do you want to play with them?"
Very naive as she was back then, she would answer them with a smile, behave as her mother had taught her, like a Lady and with a subservient voice she would reply "Please yes"
And their answer would always be laughter, with the Queen laughing back at her too.
But she never cried, they would laugh, they would taunt her, they would insult her but she would never cry in front of them.
She would cry many times the first two years at Woodsham before her father left with Philip to fight for his birthright as the new Duke and ruler in Bavaria. She would hide her head in her pillow and cry very hard while her two brothers or the Queen was outside playing with them and her son Hal.
She had never felt though very humiliated as she did now.
Back then she did not have a household of her own, a Kingdom or a great piece of land to rule. All her subjects, the Queen had made it clear were not hers but her brothers'. She thought that way she would be far from John and that the two loving siblings would be at odds with each other, but nothing the Queen could do could break the bond between siblings.
John was the only one so far of her family who still understood her. Who defended her, and being the second in line for the crown of the German Reich, their parents listened to him, sometimes when it was obvious the accusations against Philip, they would listen to him more than his older brother by two minutes.
Gertrude finally stopped knocking at her door.
She was finally alone with only her thoughts to keep her company.
The way he had laughed at her, the way he had left her with a playful grin on his face ... she could not stand it, but then there was confusion that came to Mary Eleanor's mind as she recalled (what she thought was) his advice:
"Trusting too much in somebody can prove to be your undoing, believe me I had to learn that the hard way"
Why had he done this? What right did he think he have to humiliate and then to give her advise over how she should handle her Kingdom?
Strange. Very strange -she thought.
First he insults, she said to herself, then he says I am a strong and young leader in need of advice? What is up with that man?
She had no idea but she was going to find out.
Images of him smirking and passing her as he and Herr Schultz his butler went to his Chamber's made her curse him again.
"Damn him!" she hissed. The nerve of that man!
Nobody had done or said what he had before.
In her anger, she had failed to give orders to her maids and servants to take extra care and put guards near her study, after seeing how meticulous he could be, she had to be extra careful that he did not look for the greatest secret she had been keeping from her parents. A secret that if found out, especially by her father or worse -the future King, her brother the Prince Philip of Bavaria, her privilidged, her income, her lands, her states, even her title could be taken away.
In the last effort to keep her from doing anymore of her "Secret activities" her mother would sold her off into marriage, something she had dreaded since she was very little. She had seen enough of broken marriages in England to learn that marriage was just another way to keep a woman tied, it was slavery.
She let her hands fall on the ground where she currently was seated, her back propped against the wall.
She was called the "Favorite" of the Queen of the German Reich. Nobody had been closer to her mothers' heart than her -all lies!
Her mother's heart belonged to not only one but to many individuals, her subjects and her husband's. As Queen of the German Reich she considered herself mother to a strong nation that had been in development when Philip took the rule over Bavaria and then became King annexing a huge part of other German states to it. Her father had made the Reich what it was today, and her mother had helped of course giving him great and wise council, after all she had great experience after spending most of her life in the most dangerous and glamorous court of all Europe in England.'
She knew about rule, about the dangers of Court intrigue and scheeming. No better councilor and wife could have been brought to Germany than Mary Tudor, former Princess of England.
She was a politician though, through and through. She knew that in Lutheran and Calvinist thought it was important for a woman to give the image of the loyal homemaker, educator of her children and committed to the welfare of her Country without overshadowing too much her husband. Her mother was a master at playing a double standard with her position as Regent and Queen. She always went to the towns with her husband and the rest of the Royal Family to give alms to the poor, to help the workers build the poor houses, her children were always there ... Mary Eleanor never missed an inaguration of a girl's academy or the new Lyceums for people of low income. The Queen wanted to make it clear the Wittelsbach were part of a new generation that cared for the advancement and future development of a better Germany where nothing would miss from a family's table, food or water or much less education.
Mary Eleanor had alway admired her mother for this, she seldom had the same feeling for her father who was often absent from her life. With him it was always papers, taking care of matters of State and attending foreign policy issues, her mother no one thanked, but she was the real one who took care of Germany's borders who had secured for her male siblings and for her and Amerlia the love of the people.
Though she knew her mother was having a card to play for her and her father's benefit. She wanted the people to see her and the King as committed parents and responsible monarchs, strong but loving and caring to their family as well. Behind closed doors the people would never realize Mary was not the favorite of her mother, or that her father always would second Philip Jr over all his decisions, be them right or wrong, or that Philip was incapable of becoming a strong ruler like their sibling John.
John ... if he had been here he would not have been quiet like her servants and Gertrude. He would have rised up to her defense.
She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. Blood was drawn from them as she succumbed to her anger, her desire for revenge. She would not let this rest, she would find a way to make him pay for disrespecting her.
If the Duke of Savoy wanted to play a game of cat and mouse to see who won over the other, she would play and first rule of the game always make your oponnent think you are beaten.
For two days the Princess did not come from her room, except for breakfest and dinner, after they would be gone. And good ridance thought Fleming for he did not want to witness another squabble between Eustace and the young woman.
They were both as stubborn as the last pair that came to his mind. Mary Tudor and back then the humanist Eustace Chapuys.
Eustace called to Fleming snapping him from his thoughts -"How much longer does her little tantrum will go on? I don't have time for this"
"Maybe you should apologize old friend."
Chapuys barked in laughter.
"What is so funny?" Asked Fleming with discontent evident in his tone.
"I was waiting for a self centered girl with her head in the clouds and I got a moralist Princess."
"What do you mean?"
"Haven't you seen her income? Haven't you wondered where all of it goes to?" Chapuys inquired.
Fleming did not know what this had to do with anything, but he responded anyway.
"No" he said shaking his head.
Chapuys let another bark of laughter escape from his lips madly as he walked to Fleming.
"You are getting sloppy." He said reprimanding Fleming "The Princess should have built more castles in honor of her parents or of herself like others before her, however most of her money has not been reported directly to her father. In fact much of what she reports is a lie. She always misses more than fifty percent of what her father brings to Brandenburg. Her mother I should have expected her to know better, but her daughter is smarter than I thought."
Chapuys hand passed through his hair. He had been pondering on where all the money that was "missing" from her reports she gave to the German Crown went. Until yesterday after hearing the Princess curse him in Italian, probably unaware that he could speak it better than her. He had looked through her personal files. It was very easy. All he had to do was pass through the maids that had been more preocuppied with their Mistress than with taking care of her personal files.
He had not bothered to make it evident it had not been him. He had enough evidence in his hands to blackmail the Princess if she dared to say anything to her father.
"I get those papers you are taking from your drawer old chap are the Princess'?"
"Fleming I am a politician you know this better than me" He mentioned closing his drawer and handing the stack of financial papers to Fleming who took it almost immediately to satisfy his curiosity, despite his head telling him he should not pry into others' businesses.
"The Princess has been given half her income investing with those abolitionists, those that have sabotaged the slave trade"
"How do they ever manage to sabotage the slave trade ships?" Fleming said voicing thoughts aloud.
Chapuys smirked at the naivety of Fleming. "You are not thinking big" -He said.
"Then pray tell have you discovered?" Asked Fleming in a frustrad voice. "Just what are you not telling Eustace?" He now demanded seeing the Duke's trademark smirk widen.
Eustace walked to the door, he made sure it was locked. When he did he wheeled facing Fleming again.
"The Princess" he began - "has been part of an underground network that sets slaves free. Is the only reason why she buys them, she sets free all of them. Technically it might appear they are not, but on paper they are free. See just look at the papers in the middle you will see how perfectly she has worked with others in her father's parliament to set many free, not only that return them back in Africa with a secure income after they have been treated by her own Physicians. Those who have stayed here have been given small lands or farms if you will. She has been giving greater sums of money to the new schools of thoughts and our mysterious contributor to the School of Grammar established in Savoy -"
Flemings eyebrows were raised and his eyes went wide with surprise.
No.
"Don't tell me-"
"Exactly" said Chapuys interrupting him, his grin even wider "Our favorite hostess Princess Mary Eleanor" He responded laughing even harder as he saw his friend stupefied look.
