Francis stared down at the letter he held carefully in his hand, clenched tightly between forefinger and thumb. The words it contained slanted across the parchment in bold curves and angles, but his eyes could absorb little other the signature at the bottom, large and impressive with its elaborate swirls and flourishes.

Elizabeth.

His wife paced across the floor before him, one elbow resting upon the arm which she held curved against her waist, her fingers occasionally lifting to absentmindedly tap at her chin, as she so often did when wrestling with a problem. "It's a message from Elizabeth herself," she explained needlessly, as if the ornately scrawled name leaping up at him from the page did not make that obvious enough. "She wants to marry Charles."

At those words, a cold trickle of sweat pricked against the skin of Francis's spine, though the air within the confines of their shared bedchamber remained dim and cool. "Why?" he asked stiffly. Raising his eyes to her face, he found he suddenly could not bear to look at her, and quickly darted them away.

Mary hardly seemed to notice, and to his horror he realized that something about this letter had struck a chord with his wife, had given her hope. "I think the answer is in her terms," she replied, continuing to wander absently back and forth, back and forth across the thick Persian carpet.

(It had been a gift, that carpet, sent by the Duke of Guastalla from his brother-in-law's Spanish court upon the occasion of their wedding, and Francis vividly recalled the itchy red weals its deep, woven fibers had left upon his back the night that he and Mary—)

Stop it. He tore himself back from the memory with a jolt, biting down painfully on the tender flesh inside his cheek in an effort to refocus himself.

"The battle for Scotland rages on."

He fidgeted distractedly in his carved wooden chair, chastising himself for allowing his mind to stray to such a happy, carefree memory. As the contents of the letter began to blend and blur about the edges of his vision in a mist of tears, he ground his teeth in frustration and ripped his gaze away from it, dropping the hand that held it against his knee. Scotland, England, Mary and Elizabeth's vicious tug of war—this was the issue at hand with which he must deal. "But Elizabeth is so close to an advantage," he grumbled.

"Well, she doesn't know that," Mary responded, pausing to offer him a pointed glance. "She doesn't know how close we are to being incapable of supporting French troops, let alone Scottish ones." He could see the plans already forming in her mind, the quiet resolve hardening within her as she turned away from him once more. "Her offer could not be more timely."

Time. It was not the only thing of which he was rapidly running out.

"We will find the money, Mary," he assured her.

She sighed and irritably picked at her nails. "Resorting to piracy will keep the war going," she countered, her voice insistent. "Our troops will make progress, the English-backed Protestants will retreat…but then they will move forward, and back, until it all blurs into a bloody, endless stalemate!"

Her every passing word, uttered with typical Mary conviction, sent his heart plummeting further and further. Once she had set her mind upon a course of action, he knew that his wife would be obstinate and tenacious to the point of insanity. If she had warmed to this idea of a marriage between Elizabeth and Charles, there would be precious little that could sway her from trying to see it through.

Precious little, that is, except the truth.

But he was not prepared for that. Not yet. Gingerly, he refolded Elizabeth's letter and set it aside, and only through a Herculean effort was he able to stop himself from flinging it into the flames which crackled merrily in the grate behind him, doing much to dispel the chill but very little to ease the tension within him.

I am not ready to tell her, he thought, and though they were nowhere near the royal chapel, he propped his elbow against the arm of the chair in which he reclined, pressed his fingers against his lips, and prayed anyway.

Please, don't make me tell her.

Not yet.

Mary, as she so often did, remained oblivious to the internal battle which Francis waged as he sat wordlessly in the chair before her. Her thoughts had turned to England and, with single-minded intensity, were firmly set upon the alliance she now hoped to foster. "It's a drain on our resources," she pressed on, her tone reasonable and firm in that way that Francis had missed so dearly during all those long, terrible months after the attack, "and England's, too—and has been for years."

She will make a fine ruler in the years to come, he mused, and with this realization came a sudden, unbidden image of Mary—an older Mary, eyes traced with delicate lines and hair streaked with silver, a Mary whom he would never know.

A burning lump rose in his throat, and he swallowed past it with difficulty.

A fine ruler, yes, but only if given the chance. And I must do what I can to get her there safely.

Sensing his distraction, Mary went still and stood momentarily frozen in front of him, and when he snapped his gaze back to hers, he could see that she was somewhat startled by its unexpected intensity. For the space of a heartbeat, she watched him carefully, a tiny crease of worry between her furrowed brows that he longed to rise up and kiss away.

"Elizabeth's real war is with me," she pronounced with a defiant little tilt of her chin. "My claim to her throne. Perhaps her advisors have realized this and are pressuring her."

Her advisors. So that was the narrative that Mary had arranged in her mind, he realized: Elizabeth acting against her will under the influence of a powerful privy council. Francis had a swift, sick feeling in his stomach that this blind, trusting naiveté in regards to her royal cousin would prove disastrous for his wife in the future.

But there were more pressing issues to be dealt with at the moment.

"An engagement with Charles creates an alliance," he reminded her, taking great pains to keep his tone measured and strong. Kingly. "How difficult would it then be for France to overrule my brother about Scotland or any matter?"

"Very difficult," Mary admitted, wringing her hands and twirling her signet ring round and round on her finger in a gesture of pensive exasperation. "I know that. But if we allow her to marry Charles, she has said she will cease her aggressions in Scotland. Francis," she inhaled deeply and peered at him with pleading dark eyes, "someone has to make the first move toward peace. Do we find it so unbelievable because she is the one doing it and not me?"

The imploring expression she now turned upon him had always, always been his undoing. Looking up at her—this beautiful, determined woman whom he had married and loved and would soon lose forever—he felt as if that tiger now pacing the flagstones of the palace dungeons below had torn its savage claws into his heart, and he was unexpectedly angry and tired in a way that he had never been before.

He was going to to have to leave her behind, and he did not want to.

He was going to have to tell her that he was leaving her behind, and he did not want to.

"By giving Elizabeth this alliance," Mary said, "we are calling it even in one area—"

"But it will not be even—" he broke in, his voice shaking.

"No," Mary conceded with amiable superiority, a tiny smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. "She will have a prince and I will have a king."

He flung out his hand, palm-out, in a silent effort beseeching her to stop, and squeezed his eyes shut against the vision of her upright and lovely before him, radiating the quiet confidence of a young wife with no reason to believe that 20,000 more golden afternoons just like this one did not stretch out ahead of them into a gleaming future. Long, countless days in which they would pressure one another, and argue with one another, and love one another, until their hair hung snow-white about their heads and God called them home.

"You cannot do this," he announced, his words silencing her with their finality.

For a moment, she appeared ready to snatch up several of the throw pillows which lay piled upon their bed and pelt him with them, but something in his tone and stricken expression checked her. "Why?" she asked, only it was more of a demand than a question, and written upon her face was a fear which he had not seen since those dark days after their miscarriage, when she had been so hideously hurt and frightened for him.

Only days before, he had spotted her with a group of noblewomen down by the green banks of the river, giggling and smiling as they practiced a new court dance. He had been unable to stop himself from rushing to her then, and the feeling that had swelled within his chest as her face lit up at the sight of him, how she had run to greet him, practically skipping and nearly stumbling over the hem of her dress in the process, was one he wished he could store beneath a glass stopper and keep forever. She had flung herself upon him that day in full sight of everyone at court, and when he had asked her to come with him back to their chamber, needing her and wanting her in that moment so, so very much, she had beamed back in a way that dimmed the very sunlight.

So he had taken her hand and she had followed him. Because she loved him. Because she trusted him. Because he was the strong husband who had stood by her through everything, who would always stand by her.

He was not ready to lose that. He was not ready to be less than the man she thought him to be. He loved her, would do anything for her, but he could not bear to be diminished and weakened in her eyes.

He was not ready to lie beside her in the silver moonlight and have her look at him with anything other than forever in the depths of her dark gaze.

And, yet, time and tide wait for no man, and he knew that the time to tell her had come.

"Because you will not 'have' the king of France," he burst out, the force of the admission sending him hurtling to his feet as their world tipped instantly on its axis and their 'forever' cracked and shattered into a million glittering pieces.

"You cannot do this."

At this pronouncement from Francis, Mary yearned to throw her hands up in the air, stamp her feet, and howl in frustration. "Why?"

Her husband stared up at her in quiet despair, a hopelessness which was so very unlike him, and it suddenly occurred to Mary that this argument was about something else entirely, and that while that realization was only now dawning upon her, Francis had known all along.

Dread burrowing down into her very marrow, she now understood, with terrible, instinctive certainty, that this was it—the great divide that would separate her life into before and after. That whatever words he uttered next were going to be painful and irrevocable and would chase her down the dark corridors of her nightmares until the day she drew her very last breath.

Francis looked on the verge of a terrible paroxysm. "Because you will not 'have' the king of France."

At that, her heart thudded and skittered to a halt, and everything within her went still. In the past, she had heard tales of doomed soldiers in battle who, for a few fleeting moments, remained unaware in the wake of a death blow. They would feel nothing—perhaps even fight on briefly for a time—only to then collapse and succumb with startling swiftness. It had seemed so fantastic once upon a time, this idea that a person could be mortally wounded and yet not know it, but now she understood.

There are some truths so awful that the mind simply refuses to absorb them.

"Why?" she repeated, stupidly parroting herself in the aftermath of his woefully, painfully inadequate response.

"Mary, I—"

She realized too late that she did not want to hear what he was about to say, and cut him off desperately. "Are you afraid of what the Vatican thinks?"

Francis was on his feet now, and regarding her with complete bewilderment. "The Vatican?" he echoed, utterly perplexed. "Why would—"

"Now that the Pope knows of my infidelity, do you plan to set me aside for a more worthy queen?" Mary could sense that she had begun to chatter maniacally, but found herself unable to keep hold of her tongue. She felt an intense urgency to prevent him from speaking what ever it was that had propelled him from his seat with that terrible, burning look upon his face. "Perhaps he might even give you the papal blessing to rule Scotland in my stead, since I am deemed morally unfit and Elizabeth the Protestant absolutely unsuitable—"

He shook his head at her, the shock and disbelief in his expression reminding her so much of the innocent boy he once was. "Do you really think I would do that? Hurt you in that way?"

Folding her arms across her chest, she dropped her eyes stubbornly to the carpet at her feet—the same carpet which had been a wedding present from the Duke of Guastalla, and upon which she and Francis had once spent a wonderfully wine-filled and rather adventurous night, back in what was already beginning to feel like a past life.

"Mary, when I became ill…" Francis's voice faltered, but she remained defensively silent. "When I became ill with the pain in my ear, and the fever, they told me that if the pain returned, I would not survive long."

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered. She refused to look at him, her beautiful, golden husband whom she knew was about to tear open her heart.

"Doing what? Mary, you must…you must listen to me."

"Stop it!" she shrieked, clapping her hands against her ears. "Just stop it! Why are you doing this?"

There were tears gleaming brightly in his eyes now, but she whirled away from him as he reached out for her, unable to bear the sight of them.

"I know the Vatican has a right to be angry with me, and now that I'm a 'fallen woman'—"

"Mary, for God's sake!"

She resumed her frantic pacing, heedless to his objections. "—I've called into question the paternity of any child that we might have." At the word 'child,' she watched from the corner of her eye as he buried his face in his hands, and had to dig half-moon circles of blood into her own palms to stop herself from running straight for his arms. "But, Francis, if you'll stand by me, we'll prove to them that our union is strong."

"I've always stood by you, Mary. I will stand by you for as long as I can. But, you must listen—"

"No!" she snapped, her anger and fear and pain boiling over. "I was there, Francis! I was there. Yes, the physicians said that you might not survive, but you did. I held your hand and I begged you not to leave me, and you didn't. You stayed. You stayed."

He sighed heavily, clearly debating the wisdom of the words forming upon his lips. "Mary…Mary, you weren't there." Sensing that she was rising to challenge him, he gulped and rushed on. "In the moment, yes. I will never forget how you looked as you sat there, holding my hand in the firelight. I thought…I thought you might have been an angel." He lifted the corners of his mouth briefly, the smile dying before it had even taken form. "But, after that…An hour here, a strained evening chat there…I had many long talks with my physicians, Mary, but…no. You weren't there. You weren't."

Tears of self-recrimination stung like hot needles behind her eyes. "So," she said dully. "There we have it."

"What? Mary, no. That's not it. No. I need you to hear me."

But she did not want to hear. "I can tell you that I'm sorry, Francis. I have told you, so many times. I would give anything to change the past, all the thoughtless and terrible things that I've done, but I can't. You know that I can't."

"Mary."

The sound of her name upon his lips was suddenly more than she could stand, and the tears that had been welling up began to flow freely. Tears of the sort that she had not imagined she would have cause to shed ever again, which came like a rapidly rising tide that threatened to sink her forever.

He was across the room in three strides, wrapping her in his arms and holding her tightly against him, unfazed as she twisted in his grasp and beat against him with weak fists, incoherent sounds of protests escaping alongside her sobs. No, he merely held onto her all the more tightly, repeating his earlier statement like a litany against which she longed to stopper her ears. In fact, if God had struck her deaf in that moment, her only response would have been to fall to her knees in helpless gratitude.

"They said that if the pain returned, I would not survive long. And it has returned."

"No."

"It has returned."

"Let go of me!"

"Not until I have to. Not until you listen." He then cupped her face tenderly with in his palms and forced her to look into his eyes. "My love," he said, his voice ever-so gentle, "it has returned, and when I am gone, you will have no position here but that of a widow. I cannot abandon you unprotected! I cannot...I cannot leave you..."

"You won't," she insisted in a voice rough with desperation as she finally ceased to struggle against him. "We will find other doctors, other physicians. This isn't the end, Francis. This is the beginning. This is where we start—"

"No, Mary, please. Listen to me."

His thin veneer of calm was beginning to fracture, and she could not withstand it. As she stood within the circle of his arms, peering up at him through tear-spiked lashes with wounded, wet eyes, she had nothing left with which to combat him except her own bleeding heart, and this she offered to him as she returned his embrace with fierce intensity. "Don't," she begged in an agonized whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. If you want to send me away, I'll go. I swear to you that I will go. But, please, please don't say what you're about to say. I am begging you, as the wife who loves you. Please."

There was more love in his eyes than she could have ever thought possible. "I am dying, Mary," he said, soft and certain. "I'm dying."

And though her knees buckled and the floor slipped from beneath her feet, he held her steady as her tiny frame crumpled with tears and pain.

He held her steady, because he was Francis, and he loved her, and holding her steady is what he had always done.