Thank you so much for the reviews on my other story! It was a great introduction to the fandom and it's always lovely to discover a fandom as friendly as this one seems to be. Well, here's my second effort. I'm hesitant about presenting it due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, but I hope I've handled it with sufficient delicacy. Either way, it wouldn't leave me alone!

I grieve, yet dare not show my discontent.

I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate.

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant;

I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate.

I am, and not. I freeze and yet I burn

Since from myself, my other self I turn.

Elizabeth I

These next moments of your life will either define you as a victim or as a powerful queen, untouched by a failed assassination attempt … Do not let them win. Trust me. Trust me and let me help you. Trust that I can get you through this because I swear to you that I can.

Catherine to Mary, Acts of War

Catherine exhales a breath she doesn't realise she's holding when Mary puts her hand in hers, her fingers icy cold. The touch of them sends her reeling back through the years, unlocking torrents of memories… but she dams them swiftly. Not easily, because such memories are burned into her, branded into her very core as she knows the events of this night will be for her daughter-in-law, but she does it.

'Come on,' she says softly now. 'Let's get you into a bath, h'mm? Get you clean—'

Mary stares, pupils dilating into nothingness as she shakes her head. 'I can't. I can't go back out there, please don't make me, please—'

Catherine encloses the younger woman's cold hand in both of hers. 'You can bathe here,' she interrupts. 'I was about to do so myself anyway; Charlotte has it ready. Come.' She pulls the girl into her adjoining chamber, with its luxurious copper bath. Scented steam rises from it, painting pictures in the cool air, and Mary shudders.

Catherine disengages herself and steps back. Mary's gaze skitters.

'Where are you going?' There's a note of barely controlled hysteria in the young Queen of Scots' voice. 'Don't leave me.'

'I'm not going to, child, but you need to do this yourself. Get that nightgown off, come on. It's soiled. Get it off and we'll burn it, eradicate one part of this night at least.'

Mary's nodding feverishly by the time Catherine finishes, pulling the nightgown from her slim frame with a single movement, graceful even now. She turns away, hiding herself, but not before her mother-in-law spies the physical evidence of what she has endured, violence and violation made plain in the scratches and bruises that mar the girl's white skin.

Catherine who clenches her fists, so tightly that the few rings she wears en dishabille bite cruelly into her own flesh. She is suffused by rage, deadly and implacable. The men who did this will suffer as few have suffered; she will use every art in her possession to ensure that purgatory itself seems sweet heaven by the time they are dispatched thence.

Yet her voice is steady when she speaks, moving to lift the jug from its place on the floor.

'In you get,' she urges, her tone that of a mother rather than a queen. 'Submerge yourself. It will help,' she adds more gently. 'It will soothe as well as clense.'

Mary isn't listening. She doesn't need Catherine's advice, she's acting instinctively, allowing herself to sink beneath the water. She stays there so long that Catherine contemplates taking action but just as she moves the younger woman emerges, gasping and spluttering, her hands moving to brush the soaking locks of hair away from her face.

Her eyes, when she opens them, are blank.

Catherine shivers. She knows that blankness. Part of her longs to coddle Mary, to wrap her in a cocoon of love and reassurance, to do something that will take the stunned shock out of the younger woman's eyes. To fix the memory her own pain by giving Mary the comfort she'd longed for with such futility.

She does not.

She is no ordinary mother and Mary is no ordinary girl. Once, long ago, Catherine learned it was no use waiting for someone to rescue you. Now Mary must learn it too, must understand it with every fibre of her being. She must encase herself in a shell and go forth to face the world, hiding the hurt and bruises behind an implacable mask. It is the only way to survive as a woman who is also a ruler, the only way to overcome the weakness (literally, politically) of her sex.

She reaches for a towel, unfolding it with a brisk shake. Mary's still in the bath, knees drawn protectively to her chest, dark hair lying in limp strands about her shoulders. A collar of red has formed at her neck, all too plainly echoing the rough fingers laid there not so long ago.

'Get out, Mary,' Catherine orders, her tone neither kind nor unkind. 'They will be waiting for us. You are Queen of France and Scotland; if you can show yourself unharmed tonight's panic will fade.'

Mary makes a sound that's halfway between a laugh and a sob. 'Unharmed?'

'Unharmed.' Their eyes meet. 'Or at least pretend it, pretend it so well that no-one suspects…'

Despite the warmth of the water Mary's shivering again, her teeth chattering, but she nods and splashy-stumbles to her feet. Catherine embraces her in the towel, wrapping her tight as one swaddles a babe. For a moment she maintains her hold; for a moment Mary leans against her. A shudder runs through the younger woman and Catherine knows this moment must not lengthen. Mary's shock is starting to splinter into reaction and that cannot be allowed until they've presented themselves in the throne room, regal and whole. Inviolate.

The Queen Mother steps back. 'Dry yourself.' She indicates a basket near the fire. 'There are lotions there. Try the comfrey on the bruises; it will soothe the pain and promote healing. I've sent for a clean gown.'

Mary reacts as if she's been slapped. 'You told someone!'

'Of course not.' Catherine shifts her weight from one foot to another. 'I sent Charlotte. She's loyal.'

'To you!' Mary spits.

Catherine permits herself a smile. 'Of course. And to you … for as long as I give the word.' It's a subtle reminder and Mary simmers down with a resentful glance.

Catherine is unsurprised by it—unsurprised and in truth somewhat relieved. Anger she can deal with. Anger she can work with. As long as Mary's angry, they'll get through what needs to be done. Time enough for softness later.

'Don't take long,' she orders crisply and turns and sweeps back into her chamber without a backward look.

She staggers towards her chaise and sinks into it, her knees weakened by a torrent of memories. Memories of fear … The serrated rip of fabric … her own voice screaming, begging, pleading, imploring… Pain, such as her eleven year-old-self had never imagined … and through it all the sound of soldiers laughing their glee at being able to bring down a Medici bitch so effectually.

Charlotte's back before she's quite ready, entering with a bright comment that she's picked the richest and heaviest of the Queen's gowns; would that suffice?

Catherine turns away, momentarily unsure of her own mask before this too-perceptive and too-knowing lady-in-waiting. 'Leave the Queen of Scotland's things on the bed and go.'

'But Your Majesty—'

Catherine turns on her, experiencing anew the sustaining power of rage, and Charlotte retreats rapidly. Just in time, too, for the double doors that link to the bathing chamber open and Mary enters, dry and clean and oddly childlike in her simple white shift.

Catherine gestures to the chair before her dressing table. 'Sit.'

Mary obeys, a soft whimper escaping her. Catherine hardens herself against it and picks up a towel, drying the girl's hair so vigorously that she protests and snaps back.

'It has to be done,' Catherine tells her, lifting a comb. 'There's no time to lose.'

Mary fires her a look that reminds her incongruously of five year old Claude but submits, and the Queen Mother twists the dark hair into the simplest of chignons, carefully leaving a little loose at the back out of respect for an undoubtedly tender scalp.

'Powder your face, just to cover the worst of the scratches,' Catherine instructs when she's finished. 'Add some rouge, you're too pale and it will distract from any redness.'

Mary's eyes meet hers in the mirror. 'What about—' Her voice fails her as she gestures to the angry collar-welt at her neck, and Catherine allows her hands to drop gently to the girl's shoulders.

'I'll lend you a ruff. It will hurt, child, but—'

Mary's head comes up. 'If that's what has to be done…'

'H'mm.' A final approving squeeze of the shoulders and Catherine moves away to set out Mary's hose, slippers and kirtle, ensuring all the laces are loose.

When Mary's ready they move together in silent tandem. Catherine helps Mary slip into the silken hose and herself fastens the slippers. Then come the stays and Mary's breath catches audibly in the quiet room as Catherine pulls them as far as she dares.

'Is that too tight?' she asks when Mary's breathing doesn't even out. Her heart misses a beat of fear; what if the younger woman has sustained a broken rib? The rigid whalebone stays could— She moves to loosen them and is surprised when her daughter-in-law reaches out to grab her wrist in an iron grip.

'It's fine,' Mary insists, although the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes give her statement the lie. 'Kirtle,' she gasps.

'Good,' Catherine says softly as once again their eyes meet. She steadies Mary as the younger Queen steps into her kirtle and laces it up too. Then comes the overgown with its flowing sleeves and stiff collar that hides a multitude of sins, and at last Mary is almost prepared to face the world.

She stares at her reflection in Catherine's mirror.

'It looks like nothing's happened,' she says and there's a bleak wonder in her voice.

'Nothing has,' Catherine insists, coming up behind her. 'Nothing of any moment—to the Queen. Remember what I said before, these—these monsters sought to destabilise two kingdoms, to bring low a Queen and diminish a King. You can show them that they have lost!'

'I wish I could be so sure,' Mary murmurs.

Catherine goes to lift Mary's small crown and comes to set it on her head. 'All that matters is that you're sure while you're wearing this.'

She brushes loose tendrils behind Mary's ears and the girl looks at her; all at once her eyes are wide and black, pools of remembered terror.

'And after?'

Catherine caresses Mary's cheek with a feather-touch. 'After… I will wrap you in blankets to dispel the chill I know you feel inside. I will hold you for as long as you want to be held. I will ensure my son treats you with the gentlest, softest of kid gloves. I will do whatever it takes to bring you back from this … but not now.

'This is the price we pay, Mary. This—this need to turn our backs on ourselves for the greater good. God knows, I would never have wished you to learn this particular lesson so harshly, but it's one that comes to all of us who rule.'

Mary's eyes drop and Catherine reaches out to lift the girl's chin with a finger.

'So what will it be? Are you going to cower here alone or are you going to prove to everyone—yourself, most of all—that you are not merely a weak woman but a Queen indeed?'

Her tone is faintly mocking, taunting, chosen with reason aforethought. An older, wiser girl might have realised it, but Mary's still so young (barely sixteen, Catherine reminds herself) and there's a look of hurt in her eyes before she lifts her chin and literally looks down at the Queen Mother, taking full advantage of her several inches of extra height.

'You need to ask?' Mary glides forward with nearly all her old grace, and turns at the door. 'I'm a survivor too.' She walks out, hands clasped at her waist and her head held high.

Catherine follows with a small smirk hovering on her lips.

Anything you can do, I can do better.

The words hover unspoken between them but Catherine does not care; for now, at least, she's gained her objective. France's Queen—and therefore France itself—would survive to fight another day.

Fin

Reviews would be lovely! xx