"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Your Majesty!" a desperate squire calls out frantically, cheap leather soles slapping against the cold stone of the French Court's flooring. Courtiers and Courtesans look at the barely dressed, mangly little man as he skitters past without even a nod in their direction. The man is raggedy and stunned, his face a reddish white as he continues to force his limbs move, no matter how much his lungs desperately screamed for air or his feet pitifully begged for rest. A shaggy, dark head is uncombed, his doublet is unbuttoned, dark grey eyes almost white. His hand curls into a fist when he nears the Queen of Scotland's apartments, barely managing to resolve himself to knocking on the Dauphine's chamber door before tripping inside. He'd been so quick, so rapid that not even the guards stationed outside could persuade him to slow himself.
From a black, cast iron tea table, the Queen of Scotland, future Queen of France, looks up curiously at the sound of such a commotion. She looks away from her pretty ladies' faces, placing a silver teacup upon a silver tea plate. Silver tiara with diamonds as big as strawberries glitters in the mid-winters afternoon sunlight, catching so lovely, contrasting so efficiently from a sea of raven locks, her beauty bewitches him without even a word. Dark golden eyes shimmer at her Scottish page, a gift from the Viscount of Galloway on the eve of her wedding three months previous, as he clumsily bumbles up to his feet. The poor man trips three times before he manages to face the Queen of Scotland and the two ladies maids -the latter of who'm both have trouble keeping their composure at such a scene- and bow in proper fashion. The Queen opens her plump pout to converse with this man, who she is rather intrigued by at such an unusual show of unprofessionalism.
"Simon, what is this?" she asks, her voice as melodic as it was soothing. The ravenette was absolutely confused at such a display, why did her squire act in such a manner? She couldn't intimidate a man in such a way, could she? How could she, at not even seventeen years? Or was it the way her face and her body was moulded from the almighty's own hand? The resemblance to her mother -a striking beauty in her heyday- and the eyes of her father proved to be a deadly mix to many nobility here at court or home in Scotland. But could it cause a man such as this to act such as that? "What is wrong? Why do you act this way?" she asks, warming her long, thin fingers against the hot tea cup. "Do you have troubling news you must share?"
"Q-Queen Mary, I'm afraid I do." he says, panting. The young man takes multiple deep breaths, filling his lungs with the cold winters' air until he calmed and trembled no more. By now, the mistress of King Henry and the eldest heiress to the mines of Kinross stared upon this poor little man with such confusion -and mild amusement- but the Queen of Scotland awaited this information slip from this little mans lips patiently. "It's about your cousin, the Lady Lola." he says.
The three noblewomen share a look, speaking of things that should forever remain unsaid without a word.
"Well?" Lady Kenna asks impatiently. "Speak!" she orders.
"My Queen, my ladies, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that the lifeless body of the Lady Lola was pulled from the frozen take thirty miles east of the Chateaux by fishermen earlier this morning. She had been dead for hours, her body frozen by the temperature of the water. It is thought that -after the Lady went riding with the Earl of Danescourt- their dalliance must have ceased, and the lady made her way back from her travels alone. We have located the horse the Lady loaned, Madeline, and have concluded that either the lady was thrown from horseback, or got off the mare at one point. She must have landed upon the lake, and the ice is so thin that it broke. The Lady drowned in the act of freezing to death, such a horrid end, even for a girl such as she. Please, accept my most sincere condolences. We will await your command on what to do with her body, Queen Mary." he finishes.
Kenna and Greer are free to cry with their sadness. But their Queen is not like them. She steadily composes herself and stands carefully, looking down at the man as she towers over him.
"Take me to her. Take me to her body." she orders.
She looks like she's simply sleeping, Mary realises, walking around the rectangle that held the body of her betrayer. Lola lays there, her forearms bound over her rib cage. Her eyes are closed, her lips and her fingers are blue. Of course, she is no stranger to the bodies of the dead, the Scottish Queen never has been, even as a child. But this has to be the first time that she's seen a frozen body before. Her body has yet to begin thawing out, so she remains as she is. Laying on the table once occupied by the Lady Aylee after she had taken her poisoned tumble, all those months ago. Before everything, before everything got so real.
She wears the same gown she had when her encounter with Count Nardin. It shimmers in the same way, all tan and peach and flowery. It looks like a girls dress, but that's all Lola Fleming ever was. A girl. A foolish little girl, a sheep in a land of wolves. Her hair is a matted mess, her skin is so white it's slightly blue. Her lips and eyes are bruised from the cold, her lips that had always been too big are blueish purple. She wears no shoes and no cape, no jewlery. Mary supposes they all fell off in her frantic struggle to get above water. A kind of sick, cruel karma, is it not?
I find myself with no pity for you, she thinks, looking down at Lola's dead, frozen body. She glances at her stomach. It had a little swell. It would never grow. It would never become someone. It drowned with its mother. For he thorn in my mind and my union is now gone from my life forever. My betrayer finally faced consequences beyond my hand or my rule. My husband will never know the true nature of your condition, I will be the one to take it to the grave. I will never face the scrutiny of malicious looks as you coo over your poisonous little bastard. Think of that pain, that desperation, as you sunk lower and lower into the deep, frozen abyss. That is the life that you created for me, and I lived in it day by day for months. You deserved a sliver of the hell that you put me through. I breathe again, there is no pity for your death. If only you had actually practised which you preached, you would not have been in such a position, and you would walk the land of the living. The child is dead. The whore is dead. The child is dead. The whore is dead. The child is dead. Long live the Queen.
