A/N: This next chapter is rated M, and where the real darkness & AU sets in. Please exercise caution if you continue to read.
CHAPTER TWO
Rising
Wooden rosary pearls that once spooled around Isabella's fingers, then Katherine's (Catalina's) hands, and now Mary's own calloused and contusion-stippled digits. Beads that are now smoother than skin, or at least certainly smoother than her bruised, battered flesh.
She is in the middle of a Pater Noster when she thinks she feels the rosary thrumming faintly. No- that cannot be. It must be her own hands, gripping it so tightly she can feel the vibrations of her bones.
But even when she relaxes her grip, she can still feel that pulsation. She looks properly at the relic and fancies that the beads are shining slightly. Luminous not with candlelight but with a pearly white light of their own. Yes, the rosary is glowing and vibrating with energy.
Mary gives her head a thorough shake, not wanting to indulge in childish whimsy when she should be turning her mind to God. She returns to her orisons, but the rosary continues to hum softly against her knuckles, and even with her eyes closed, she can sense a soft brightness.
When she has finished and is preparing for bed, she coils up the rosary and sets it on her nightstand. Just as she is getting under the covers, however, she grabs it and tucks it into the cambric of her nightgown. She settles as best she can on her hard pallet. A solitary candle burns on the nightstand.
Mary imagines hurling it to the ground. The flame would gutter out momentarily, before hissing tongues of vermillion flicker into being, licking the floorboards and spreading out, celerity intensifying every second. Smoke eddies about, first gossamer-wispy and then thick and black and acrid. The cozy yellow glow of the room has become a menacing orange, and soon turns a glaring red. Heat curls and curdles underneath her peeling skin. The conflagration has reached the ceiling, and flaming splinters now drop from above, an enormous crackling issuing as it sweeps the house-
Mary blinks.
The rosary is tucked into the sleeve of her gown. She does not wear it as a necklace; she would not commit one more blasphemy under the roof of a house that is blasphemy epitomized. But she wants it on her person as she carries out her chores, wants to feel the cool brush of wood against her skin. Its presence soothes her, like a holy wrist grazing her own.
Until it slips out onto the ground with a resounding clatter.
Lady Bryan snatches it up before Mary can, holding it up for all and sundry to see. El rosario de dos reinas más católicas in the hands of a knight's wife and a harlot's aunt.Then Lady Bryan drops it back onto the floor. She stomps on it, her heel digging into it as the beads crack and splinter. When the governess removes her shoe, Mary can see that some pieces have become embedded in the floorboards, while other beads are still intact.
Lady Bryan- and the other ladies- are looking at her, waiting for a reaction. But Mary is still, stock-still, motionless like a statue of alabaster. Even when Lady Bryan shouts at her, snaps her fingers in her face, shakes her. Finally they file away, leaving Mary standing in the exact same position.
The sun is setting, and Mary is still there.
She moves finally, her joints gritty and stiff. She kneels with trembling knees, sifts through the rubble of the rosary and gathers the fragments into her cupped hands. Mary fists her hands closed, but glinting between her fingers is a faint celestial gleam. She does not wince when the shards cut into her skin. She does not abate the pressure, even when the pieces are more scarlet than silver.
The maid posted at the threshold of Elizabeth's nursery is half-fogged with sleep and barely acknowledges Mary when she whispers that she has come to take over her shift. The maid nods and hastens off with nary a backwards glance.
Even in the dark of night, Mary knows the nursery is well-furnished. Tapestries of gold filigree cover every surface, and soft carpet rasps under her feet. A cradle sits in the corner, swathed in silk curtains.
Mary thinks of plaster walls and a low-hanging ceiling, of knots on her head and knees cramping from being tucked in so her feet do not spill over the edge of the cot. She flexes her fingers, her punctured skin protesting and the cuts splitting open again.
She kneels by the cradle.
Mary skims a thumb over Elizabeth's cheek, rosy even in sleep. The curves of her cheekbones, the set of her sockets and nose, they are all hallmarks of a visage that will one day mirror her mother's. If her eyes were open, they would be the glittering onyx twins of Anne's. But Elizabeth's chin, her tiny brow, those are in their father's image. In the Tudor cast.
And those tiny auburn curls that adorn her crown speak of a legacy that she and her half-sister share. Mary's locks are ashier, thanks to her Spanish heritage, her age, and her travails. But they have both inherited the red-gold tresses of Elizabeth of York, this girl-child's namesake and the gracious mother of the Tudor dynasty.
Her fingers continue exploring the minute countenance, leaving a faint smear of crusted blood in their wake. Mary's right hand moves from her cheek to her nose and her chin, and then to her neck.
Elizabeth stirs.
Mary's other hand moves to join her right.
Her fingers wrap around her throat.
It is so tiny, her hands could encircle it twice. She clamps down, increasing the pressure. Elizabeth's eyes fly open; as Mary predicted, they are black and polished. There is a dry, piteously thin whimper that soon fades. Mary's fingers tighten, her knees burn from the awkward position. How soft the skin is, how pliant it is!
One hand moves up, covering up the dainty little nose and mouth. Mary's other hand bears down on her neck. The sudden stench of urine- Elizabeth has wet herself. Her arms, her legs twitch. Her skin turns blue.
Mary's hands are taut, rigid, tense. When she releases them after an eternity, the child is limp.
She deposits Elizabeth back into her cradle, tucking the blankets in around her, up to her chin. Mary backs away, never turning her face from her. At the door, she sweeps a deep curtsy, the deepest curtsy she has ever made to anyone, even deeper than any she ever made to her mother.
Her forehead presses into the rushes, and then she is rising. Even as she moves out of the nursery, she is rising, rising, rising.