IT IS NOT fitting for a Queen to share her private thoughts except with her equals. Not even with my Marys, who share everything with each other, while I have grown apart. If I speak only to myself, you will still listen. I do not wish ever to be alone again. I hold my pen to write, the paper smoothed out before me, its texture like a fine brocade. The touch comforts my hand. In words there is a world that I can make my own, when I am left to myself.
Francis became ill at Orléans. I was still grieving for you, Maman, and for our lost kingdom of Scotland. We wished to leave before the execution of the noble Condé was carried out. I do not like such loss of life. Why must all these disgraces and defeats end in butchery? I hope that Scotland is less cruel than France, yet fear that men everywhere hunger for revenge.
We were going to Chenonceau where Francis and I were betrothed. We spent our first weeks there also playing at being married. We were packed up and ready to embark on the royal barge, when Francis felt sick and giddy. Then a piercing pain began in his ear.
We went back to his bedchamber which was now empty and stripped down to bare boards and walls. Cushions were brought and he was laid down twisting in agony. I sat by him trying to hold his hand. Sometimes he clutched at me furiously but in other moments he was entirely lost to me.
The doctors came like disturbed rooks, pecking and croaking. Inflammation of the ear seemed their best description and they began with mustard plasters, salves and poultices. A mattress was unloaded from the boats, and four men raised his body and lifted it over. His dark hair was matted and tangled, his face white and smeared with ointment. A canopy was rigged to veil His Majesty, and a stool was carried in so that I could sit low beside him, or kneel to pray.
By evening the pain seemed to ease, and a fever began with flux and sweating. They came to and fro with cloths and pots, hanging the canopy with fragrant herbs to try and suppress the stench. I sat on all night, retiring only to wash and change. My head nodded with sleep but I remained conscious throughout of my dear one’s restless tossing frame. Every so often he would moan or mutter but he did not look at me or speak. Was this how my own father died of a fever? Near dawn the ear began to discharge noxious fluids. I thought of the plague and how I might be next to sicken and die. But I reached out and took his sweaty hand in mine, to dare God, for I did not feel that I could die. Were we not too young?
By midday the flow had ceased, and it seemed as if the fever might abate. I went to wash, ate some bread dipped in wine, and lay on a couch in the antechamber till evening. When I returned to my station, a swelling like a pear had formed on the side of Francis’ head and he was very hot. As darkness fell the fever climbed again. I insisted on holding the cool water and cloths myself, and bathing his brow.
When we were children I used to mop his smeary face. Little Francis, who grew to be a King. He stopped being a child to become a boy. This is like when he had measles or the sweating sickness, and I played at being nurse. Wife.
This creature in the bed, dissolving before me, had limbs and a soft white belly; black hairs were sprouting on his chest, like seedlings in the garden. His eyes were soft and dark like a dog fearing rejection or the casual blow. Francis, my puppy, we were happy and loving in our own chamber.
Was that what Grannie meant by conjugal relations? Cuddling, rolling and rubbing beneath our canopy. All the time we were coming closer. He was getting stronger and manlier. The seeding again, of new life, spilled warmly, to grow damp and cold on my flesh. Then I could get up to wipe it off and wash.
Is this my little warrior, my sweet Francis? Stinking in his vomit, and worse. All the wiping in the world will not make him clean. Can the herbalists not do better for a King, to control the stink? Their purges and enemas make it worse.
Queen Catherine arrives and tries to take charge. I will not let his mother have my place. She did not care for him when Francis was at her knee, so why should she usurp me at his sickbed? I see the judgment of death in her eyes, as she instructs more physicians. And I too am condemned in that gaze: a Guise. Now she will have control of this Court. I cannot think beyond this bedside; the rest is of no account to me.
The doctors plan to bore into his head to relieve the pressure. They assemble their instruments of pain, but the swelling subsides. Hope surges up. Then suddenly fever mounts again. I am taken off to sleep. I return. My little Francis is wasted, diminished flesh on gaunt bones. All that puppy fat has burned away.
By morning he is gone. Thank God he can be at rest. I cannot weep. Must not be other than I am, numb, insensate; this is a kind of death in which my unfamiliar person still responds slow and sluggish to a disembodied me. Is that what it feels like to die? I remember that once long ago I was joined to that Mary in the flesh. Shall I ever be married to myself again?
Sitting in darkness, calm and still, veiled in mourning. I cannot be touched.
If only there had been a child. I thought there was; to call my own, heart.
Francis was my child. You remember when we had to dance before the King, his father, and I had to steer every step and make conversation for two of us. Beaton was going to giggle so Fleming had to pinch her hard. I was Queen beside my consort, a fellow monarch, not a child.
Everything was written in our book, even what Poitiers said about perfumes and complexion, or how we chattered about young men like Kirkcaldy or James Hepburn. Poor Poitiers will never regain Court favour. The Medici will see to that. I used to stroke Diane’s skin so smooth beneath my palm. She was fully formed, abundant in her own flesh, replete. Not like my awkward bony frame.
I think William Kirkcaldy very handsome, even if he is a Protestant. Could I have chosen a young gallant, like Livingston does, I would have chosen him to be at my side. He is on a white horse and I on a grey, galloping through green leaved branches. Are we in Scotland, in this dream, Maman?
My Marys are coming back to join me, now that my household is reduced. I have my own estates to sustain me. In France, with my Marys, we can go on.
What was it like when you went to Scotland as a Queen? Was my father strange or brooding? You did not speak about him much. You had babies born and die. You had a castle, a palace of your own, and your household around you, at Stirling. I must pronounce it with the ‘r’ extended, as you taught me, Stirrrling. Did you cry for home at night, missing Grannie Bourbon? You were a widow and a mother already in France.
France is my home. Though I come from Scotland, I was educated in France, and am Queen by my blood of Scotland, France and England. I am granddaughter of Henry VII; that cannot be annulled. Queen Dowager of France. Girl queen no longer. Queen Consort no longer.
What is my place in this puzzle?
The uncles have betrayed us, Maman. They sold my birthright to retain their power in France. They left you at the mercy of Scots Protestants, and signed a treaty to give up my claim to England.
I shall not sign their treaty. What is written in the blood cannot be set aside so lightly. My cousin Elizabeth will understand that without the claim of birth our royal estate is worthless. Some would have it so, lacking order or degree. They do not desire God’s peace but unending conflict. They claim the people’s cause and make their lives a misery.
I have sent Elizabeth my portrait and trust that she will send me hers. We are two queens cast on a world which men would direct. I want her friendship and she will not deny me hers. Is she tall or short, fair skinned, red haired? What colour are her eyes? How would we stand one beside another? Royal cousins: sisters left to ourselves we agree on all things, religion excepting, but we can learn to accept our differences as long as our kingdoms live at peace. Will she marry too?
The Uncles consider offers for my hand, from Austria, Denmark, German Princedoms, behind my back. They want to sell me to Spain, but the Medici will not allow me to be great at her expense. I have lost my family, not just my husband.
I cannot weep because my eyes were already dry.
Rheims is the best place. Aunt Renée reminds of you. She keeps her youth and dignity. The high chambers and silent vaulted corridors breathe our faith. When I was a little girl, Grannie Bourbon and I knelt together at this altar where I kneel to pray for you.
Your belongings are spread out in Renée’s apartments. I had to make the inventory. Your dresses are all black, your cloaks lined with wool worn bare. I touch the ragged fibres with my fingertips. I cannot smell your scent.
Did your splendid beauty come finally to this – a faded tapestry, one cape of violet velvet? So sparse; jewels gone to pawn for guns and powder, a woman without adornment or display. I remember your gorgeous colours, the lustre of your pearls and flesh. The perfume of your majesty. My bounteous fragrant mother.
The coffin is dull grey lead. Inside your body is embalmed, veiled beneath a pall emblazoned with a white cross. I cannot see into this tomb but cover you with woven silk, emerald and golden yellow. Colours of the spirit overcome fleshly decay.
They would not bury you at Holyrood beside my ancestors the kings, your king, my father. They laid you on trestles in the Castle but now you are come home, to Aunt Renée and to me. And we will lay you here in the Abbey’s blessed peace; and light perpetual will shine upon you. I thank God for the comfort of our religion, the true Catholic faith.
The lights on the altar, before the Blessed Virgin, are your requiem. Broken for us, tended by you, Mother of Christ, I have you in my mouth for life eternal. We are not separated by mortal death but eat together, united at the feast of Heaven. This do in remembrance of me. You are my body and my blood forever.
I should stay here in the convent and make my home with you.