A/N: It is simply lovely to see all the reviews, favorites and alerts. Thank you so very much for the encouragement. I am glad to see so many enjoying the story.

I do not own Reign.

"Mary, have you news yet of your journey to the English court?" Lola passed a letter from her sister containing some lovely news of a niece to Kenna as they gathered in Mary's room. They needed only their queen to complete her primping before, dressed and prepared for the night, they would journey down the stairs intent on celebrating the night's feast.

"Yes." She replied, amazed that ever since the Colin incident Lola had gained the ability to focus on the events of court even amid the turmoil or merriment emanating from her personal life. "When we spoke of it earlier in the week, Thomas informed me that we set off the day following tomorrow. I am expected to arrive before Epiphany and be gone through Candlemas."

Aylee stood, now finished with Mary's hair. "So soon! Mary, you should have told us earlier than this so that we might have more time to prepare ourselves and your servants." The sentiment was echoed in short succession by each lady.

Here, Mary realized she'd been unclear. She too had assumed her ladies would accompany her but it was thought best, and she admits the wisdom of such thought, that she travel singularly, with a smaller party of only guards and counselors as to attract less attention on her voyage and also so as to immerse herself within the court in England. She needed to open herself to the company of the noble women of her new land in order to win over their hearts and more importantly, their loyalty. Keeping to herself with her own friends would most certainly prevent this and act as insult to the English.

"It is important that we set out as soon as possible seeing as there is much to do in assuring parliament does not move to exclude me from the line of succession." The idea that such a thing might occur surprised none there. The last three days were spent with Mary speaking to her envoy consistently on the potentiality of these political games so common in the English court. After all, the Stuarts were once before removed from the very same in Henry VIII's will. "Thomas has taken over all preparations of my staff. However, you should know all of you are expected to remain at the French court during my absence."

"Not that I am complaining," Greer began opening the door as the party moved out. "of sparing us the journey but how can you go to a new court without your own? Mary, you will have no one of loyalty to you there."

Mary was touched at the devotion she witnessed in her friends. She pushed aside the trepidation she still felt on the matter in an effort to reassure them. "I have a friend at court currently speaking to Henry on the matter of a French counsel and protector to accompany my voyage and stay." That seemed to pacify her friends momentarily and she was glad that soon conversation switched to the expected extension of the visit of the Italian nobles during Mary's absence. She had no desire to explain who this friend speaking on her behalf was or who would likely accompany her journey. On the last issue she herself was greatly worried as she had no word on whether or not there would even be a French presence at her side.

As her other ladies presented themselves to their assigned dignitaries to entertain for the night, Kenna stalled and waited until she found herself alone with Mary for a stolen moment. "You mean Bash, this friend speaking to Henry on your behalf." She glanced at Mary's frozen features, deciding if her queen were to be gone some two months, now would be the time to finally address the issue only she seemed to fully gather.

"I haven't any idea why you would suspect it of him." Mary tried to maintain control of her voice but knew Kenna of all people was perfectly aware of how she felt that moment.

"Mary, I want to be frank with you, as you have me. When you warned me of Henry's attentions I did much to deny and little to listen to your wisdom." She gently turned to her friend by a hand on the queen's shoulder. "Mary, Bash was always known as a flirt. He was known to be roguish and with his father's blessing in of the ability to love freely." When her friend looked away she rushed to finish. "He is not so free anymore. In love or politics I believe he thinks of nothing but you." The words 'unlike Francis' remained known but unspoken.

"Yes," Mary's tone turned sarcastic, a defense from hope that Kenna's implication that Bash truly does have feelings for her is correct. "That is why he has been curiously absent from my company or the celebrations of the court as of late." She had not heard from Bash the entirety of three days and it worried her greatly. It was simply unlike him to not seek out her company at least once a day. He'd even been absent from festivities the whole of the time. She did so hope his speaking to his father on her behalf did not cause some unforeseen consequence. So many have been harmed physically or injured politically in her name. She couldn't bear the same to be said of him.

Kenna remained quiet for a moment and so Mary gained an apologetic tone. "My mind is unsure of how to use the information you have shared. But I do thank you for providing light on the matter."

Her friend nodded, understanding. "Your mind may very well be unclear, but remember there is yet another part of you more suited to the task." She bowed and retreated towards the Italian lord that had caught her eye, aware that Mary could not see who just entered the room on her left.

"For you, your grace." Mary was roused to see Bash's bow and offer of wine. She took it gratefully, sipping to give herself a moment of composure. It was too convenient that Kenna left just then and she was sure that much like herself, Kenna was quite adept at scheming.

She was relieved in seeing him but worried at the small mark healing on his nose. Thinking better of asking what had happened she spoke to him as always. "Back to addressing me as your grace yet again are we?"

Bash so missed her teasing in the past days. Hearing her voice, even muffled among the notes of festive music was soothing to his constitution. "While in our private company Mary and Bash will do, I believe we may need to return to a state of formality while I accompany you to England."

"You're my counsel?" She was unbelieving and entirely hopeful he was not playing a ruse on her. While on one hand Bash being with her for so long, and without Francis, was a simultaneously elating and never wracking prospect he was most certainly the only person she could fully trust to be at her side during the trying experience ahead.

Bash was relieve she seemed excited by the prospect. His smile reached nearer his eyes than since his father gave him a dog on his eighth birthday. "Did you expect I would leave your welfare to anyone else? After all, I am very talented."

Mary was impressed but managed to keep her tone neutral as she turned her gaze back to the crowd. "I am surprised Francis didn't protest. He seemed intent the last days to accompany me and I doubt your father would part with you both in the name of me."

But protest he most certainly did. Just as promised, Bash had gone to his father the morning after speaking with Mary, informing him of the request of the English court for her visit. At first his father wanted to refuse to let her go but Francis helpfully supplied reasoning against that notion. "You cannot keep her from her countrymen." He reminded his father, relieved when Bash joined him in that sentiment.

That relief Francis felt was short lived however when Bash suggested his father appoint someone, someone in whom he and Mary could equally trust to serve as a gesture of French support and counsel in her service. Seeing as the French were currently the primary people in which her care was entrusted, that person would have almost unlimited access to Mary, certainly more so than most English, and may sway any attempts by her new country to sever the alliance.

The prickle of suspicion rose violently against Francis at the suggestion, encouraged and lit on fire by his father's quick decision. "Yes, of course. Bash, would you be willing? I cannot send Francis but it would do for the English to see our commitment to Mary by my sending a son."

Bash had accepted and soon after speaking with his father on a few other matters he found himself walking to his quarters with a deadly silent Francis in tow. The door closed several seconds later than would have allowed a single person entry. "May I help you with something Francis?" he asked without turning around.

Francis walked in front of him, enraged. "I know you and I know your plan. But be warned. You will not have my bride."

"Oh yes, your bride. Are you even sure you know to which woman to that title belongs? As I remember Cicilia Orsini has no claim to the Scottish crown." He supposed it wasn't wise to egg on his brother when he was already is such a state of anger. That supposition held true when he found himself holding a bloodied nose in one hand and catching his fall to the ground with the other.

"I am going to speak with father and share with him my suspicions on your intentions towards Mary." Francis started for the door but stopped when Bash responded.

Getting up, with the help of leverage from a nearby chair Bash ripped a section of his shirt and held it to his face to slow the bleeding. "You do and you will place Mary's reputation on the line by asserting that she would fall to my charms. I am a bastard Francis and while I will not pretend my affections, my…" he refrained from saying love "feelings are of a brotherly nature I should be of no real threat to you unless you truly do ruin her reputation. Even if nothing comes of the accusation and you can miraculously still take her hand with her reputation intact, she will never forgive you for putting it at risk."

Francis stalled and winced, knowing the truth of that statement. If he brings suspicions such as these to light it does nothing to guarantee that Mary would not succumb to her obvious affection for his brother as he knew he was losing her affection himself and would only put the prospect of marrying her into question. He needed to maintain the status quo until her return from England, when he and his father would insist on a wedding date. Then, she could not refuse him and he would be a part of the strongest alliance Europe had seen in decades.

Upon seeing that realization sink into his half-brother, Bash continued. "Do not fear, so long as you do not interfere with my new position I will have no reason to share your discontent. And then you will be free for two months to pursue your other interests without further harm to Mary's confidence in you."

Once again Francis was reminded at just how adept at so many things his elder brother proved. Bash knew quite well that he and Mary were drifting apart and he was taking full advantage of it. The bastard. It did give him some comfort to know Bash would carry a black eye for a few days, but that too could rouse suspicions on his discontent with Bash accompanying his fiancé. "Speak nothing of this to father, Mary or anyone else."

Truly, Bash was in full agreeance on that matter. However, his motivation in not telling Mary was anchored in not wishing her to feel guilt over this conflict and his injury. "I will be much too busy preparing for Mary's protection to be seen in public over the coming days to tell tale of our quarrel or even make notice of it."

Francis left mumbling under his breath but Bash could make it out. "If I didn't still love you my brother I would have your neck." Bash knew that was not some idle threat but took comfort he perhaps had'nt lost his brother forever.

Coming around to the present, Bash quickly covered his pensive recall of the event. "He had been eager to accompany you, yes." Bash finished his wine and gave the cup to a nearby servant. "However reason won out and my father knew the wisdom of not inundating the English with French royalty on your maiden visit."

She eyed him peripherally. "Yes, quite wise indeed."

She stood taller as she noticed Francis watching them. For the last several days he was positively doting upon her. She should feel closer to him. She should feel glowing and alive and surrounded by her love for him. She doesn't. She loved him once, before the mistresses, before the affairs. She loved him when she was here as a child. She came back to court years later and ready to marry him, as a child. Somewhere between then and now she became a woman. She loves him, but her growing wisdom told her it was now as a friend and she is fairly sure she could never love him as more. Bash, however, was different and yet in so complicated a situation did she find them.

Choosing to ignore that sadness due to Bash's illegitimacy, she chose for levity so as to not betray her. "Happy for me then, that you are not royalty."

Bash's roguish smile shrunk wearily. "Happy and sad, yes. All at once."

She turned to reply and issue an apology, aware that must have been an injuring comment, but found him gone and instead Francis's cousin approaching in his place. She truly was fond of the girl. She wondered if she could capture her for service, if she became a permanent member of the French royal family she would be in a place to take on the Italian noble.

She stopped the line of questioning as soon as it began. Entertaining the prospect of marriage with Francis had become the most difficult endeavor to which her mind could contend.

Throughout her night, enjoying the dancing and feasting abound, she would catch glimpse of the tense stares between Francis and Bash. She looked between Francis, remembering the cut on his knuckles and to Bash, the injury almost invisible but still healing on his face and a sinking feeling took over her. Two brothers once so fond of another had come to conflict and it had been over her.

The guilt was exhausting and laid her to sleep earlier this night than any of the last but that sleep was certainly restless. So, she was glad that the first knock on her door that next morning was not so taxing as it would have been if it were Thomas, or Francis or Bash. Rather, it was one of her own Scottish advisors sent by her mother in response to the news of her succession to the English crown and it had been a relief to be with her countryman again.

"Robert. It seems years since I have seen you last."

"Indeed my grace." Robert bowed slightly and joined Mary in sitting by the fire. The morning was cold and it seemed, according to the scholars, that a large storm was likely due to fall in the near future. "Your mother wishes to express her love," he handed her a letter for her later perusal. "And she wishes to express her joy in the change of events between the English and our country."

"Yes. Much has changed as of late. I do apologize that the urgency of such has taken you from your Christmastime celebrations."

"It is with true pleasure that I come to serve you here for this reason. So little often do I see your face without worrying about the knife about to plunge into your back."

"Yes, a relief to all I know." Though Mary was sure both she and Robert know that was most certainly not the case. "But do tell me, have military hostilities ceased in Scotland?"

Robert walked over to a large table in the room, gesturing for her to join him as he set out a map. "Here," he pointed to a border line "The English troops have camped just inside our borders however all other action seems to have stalled. We believe, as our envoy into the English court reports, that Mary Tudor has changed her focus on Scotland. Now that you are heiress presumptive to the throne, and her death is ever the more likely," here Mary interrupted him.

That was most certainly news to her. "More likely? How so?"

"The poison cannot be cured. Her life is extended some many months but make no mistake of it, all in the English court are aware that you shall be crowned within the coming year."

Mary nodded understanding. "So, now that the threat of a Scottish uprising is significantly diminished, she wishes to alter our politics?"

Robert pointed to his map. "She wishes to take her efforts at the eradication and suppression of Protestants into the Scottish territories. Your mother has barely managed to keep peace between the factions. If you could convince Mary to relinquish English troops to your command, and therefore your mother's, while in Scotland, this endeavor would prove invaluable to both countries as well as to the faith."

Mary eyed that last sentence with suspicion. "And if I cannot convince her of such a thing?"

"Your mother is likely to consider their remaining on our soil an act of aggression against our people and against your rights both English and Scottish. We, myself and Thomas Williams, your English envoy, believe she will seek French support in suppressing it."

"You have been speaking on this with Thomas?"

"Only out of his concern over the matter. I must say, I do believe he truly has your best interests at heart, your grace."

That proved a glowing endorsement of Thomas if even Robert, a man once recalled from a mission to the English court for having directly insulted Edward VI, can entrust his loyalty to and Englishman. "Alright." She turned back to the pertinent subject at hand. "Why would my mother not simply accept the English assistance in eradicating the protestant factions?"

"As your grace is aware," he supplied to assuage her ego, in knowledge that his queen was left thoroughly ignorant of such things. "The stability of Scotland is precarious. If they were to move without your or her authority a great danger would be placed on our internal politics. Therefore, she would need to request assistance from the French."

She sighed, having been in such a position before with Henry. "They will refuse us armies, yet again."

"And when they do, your mother will recall you home." The importance of this was not lost on her. Robert was correct in his assumption that her mother would ask her home if the alliance with France were to prove fruitless, particularly now that she appeared safe from the English.

Yet another task of importance had then been issued for her to accomplish in her time at English court, in addition to all the others. If she does not win over Mary Tudor on the matter, her time at court, her time with Francis, Clarissa, Bash would come to an end just as the onset of French hostilities between the Scottish - and English - would surely begin.