Mary Stuart looks at herself in the mercury mirror, her eyes are deep and obscure, and she keeps silent for a long time, until the maid beside her nervously calls her softly, and then she seems to be awakened, hands the mirror to Miss Fleming, and gestures to her to take the mirror away.
Fleming slightly bends her knees, takes the mercury mirror away and puts it away, and comes back quickly.
And another maid, Miss Livingston, puts the silver cup on the table beside her and half squats down, tightly wraps the hostess's slender fingers in her palm, as if to pass the temperature to her, raises her head and asks worriedly: "Your Majesty, how do you feel? Are you still having a headache?"
In the dim candlelight, Miss Livingston's eyes are red and swollen, and tears are faintly accumulated in her eye sockets.
Mary Stuart sees it, and her heart softens slightly. Without saying much, she just pulls her hand out, pats the back of her hand soothingly, and then asks the other three maids in the room to come around.
The young, delicate and beautiful faces of the four maids are dim in the warm yellow candlelight, and most of them are not clear, but Mary Stuart feels that she could not see them enough. Her eyes could not help but linger on them again and again, as if she wants to deeply engrave their faces in her mind.
No one could understand this feeling. Since she went to England and was imprisoned again, for a full eighteen years, until she was on the guillotine, except for Mary Seton, she had not seen any acquaintances in Scotland.
-
Especially in the last days, the only people around her were the strict prison guards from Elizabeth I. In order to find evidence of her murder of the English monarch, even the most private underwear had to be searched every day. The pain of having no privacy and dignity could almost drive people crazy.
At this moment, looking at their still young faces, Mary Stuart even feels like she is in a dream.
"Your Majesty, what's wrong with you?"
"I'll go get the royal doctor and ask the bishop to bless you."
"Would you like to eat something?"
.....
Feeling the former queen's abnormal attitude, the maids immediately speaks in unison.
Mary Stuart raises her hand to quiet the maids, and then says to them solemnly in a slightly serious atmosphere, "Thanks to God's blessing, I felt a blazing white light and holy sounds in my dream, and then my whole body seemed to become lighter, as if I was baptized and washed away all the pain. After waking up, I feels better than ever, and no longer has a headache like before. I think, with the blessing of the Lord, I have survived this disaster."
The Majesty the Queen, no, the Majesty the Queen of Scotland, has a hoarse voice, but it is clear and calm. Her back is straight and her expression is clear. She is completely different from the patient lying on the bed a few hours ago. With an unusual serious attitude, the maids could not help but believe in this miracle, and they all drew the cross on their chests, praying and thanking God for his blessing.
After the maids stop, Marie continues to say, "I am deeply saddened by Francois' death. He went to heaven alone to return to the embrace of the Lord, but left me in this painful world to face the storm. From now on, every day, I will pray for him in my heart, and wish him eternal peace and happiness."
"Ladies, from the moment Francois returned to heaven, everything has changed.
This is not just that I have lost my glorious crown as the queen, and I am no longer the first mistress of the French court, but it means that the shield of protection has collapsed, and there is no place to shelter from the wind and rain."
"So From today on, I hope you can abandon the frivolous and casual life in the past, give full play to your natural intelligence and prudence, collect information from others, and stop revealing my private affairs. Treat every matter seriously and report to me, become my smartest assistant and most trusted friend. "
"You need to understand that I and all those who follow me loyally will face many enemies from now on, and fight against their countless open and secret arrows and despicable conspiracies. "
The maids all hold their breath and listen carefully to Mary Stuart's words, but look at each other at the end, not understanding why Her Majesty the Queen says such a thing.
It is as if the place where these noble women are at the moment is not a gorgeous palace protected by countless guards, but a battlefield full of blood and smoke.
"Your Majesty, we don't understand..."
Mary Stuart notices their confused looks and explains patiently, "Even if we grew up in the French court and have French blood from our godmother, don't forget that we are not French after all, but native Scottish."
After looking at the four maids one by one with a calm gaze, Mary Stuart slowly utters the last sentence.
"And Scotland is never peaceful."
After a short silence, Fleming, who reacts the fastest, immediately kneels on one knee and swears to Mary Stuart again that she would do her best to be loyal to Her Majesty the Queen, dedicate her whole life to Mary Stuart, and do what the mistress asks her to do.
The other three maids follow suit and once again express their loyalty to Mary Stuart.
…
The court doctor comes and goes quickly. After a careful examination, he respectfully tells Mary the good news that she has fully recovered, and soon brings this good news to other people in the court, such as the Queen Mother of Medici and the Duke of Guise.
After a brief commotion, the doctor leaves, and the palace suite belonging to Mary Stuart returns to its dead silence during the mourning period.
Because there is such a rule in the traditional etiquette of the French court.
If the king dies, the queen who has lost her husband is supposed to also mourn behind closed doors for the first forty days, and can not leave her palace for a minute. During this period, in the first two weeks, no one, except blood relatives and the new king, can enter the palace to visit the queen.
After the death of Francis II, according to the inheritance law, his younger brother Charles IX succeeds him to the throne. He is only ten years old this year. In the short time they had been together, he did not have a deep friendship with Mary Stuart, and would not think of visiting his brother's widow at all, the former queen who had lost her husband.
And Queen Mother Catherine Medici has always had a tense relationship with Mary Stuart for various reasons. It is polite not to come and sneer, and naturally she would not come to comfort her kindly either.
As for the blood relatives, Mary Stuart's three uncles of Guise, they should be busy dealing with the court struggles when the new king ascends the throne, and they have no time to visit their sick niece obviously.
Therefore, Mary Stuart does not welcome any guests to visit for several days after she woke up from the high fever.
Mary Stuart does not care about this at all, and is somewhat grateful for such a rule, to be honest.
She urgently needs some time to recall many things that happened when she was young, especially the many nobles in the French court. She only remembered the familiar faces of many of them, but could not remember their specific names at all.
More important, there are also her hobbies and some language habits, which are different from when she was young in the previous life.
If these flaws were discovered, Mary Stuart thinks, she could only use the excessive grief caused by the loss of her husband as an excuse to cover it up.
There are many things to do, and more than a month is just enough to be used as a buffer period. Mary Stuart asks Seton to bring a map of the British Isles across the Channel, as well as her correspondence with Scotland over the years, and the news of changes in the English court, and begins to read them attentively.
She will definitely return to Scotland to rule the country soon. Many of them are common sense that she must know. If she doesn't want to end up like in her previous life, she can't be a puppet like in her previous life, where her power is almost taken away by her half-brother.
Seton brings the map and the letter from Scotland immediately, but she stands by the bed and doesn't leave. She bites her lips and looks angry, which makes Mary Stuart think of a squirrel she met in the forest when she went hunting with Francois.
Mary Stuart puts the map on the side of the desk and asks curiously, "What's wrong with you? Did someone offend you when you were looking for the map?"
Although she was prepared for a significant decline in her status in the French court, it doesn't mean that she could tolerate everything.