Chapter Text
Surprisingly so they made it work.
Part of it was an utter determination that the two young souls in their care did not learn how much danger they were in and part of it was pride. Both Charles and Mary were full of pride, it had kept them going through the lean times and so unspoken was an agreement that Henry and Elizabeth did not see how utterly afraid they were.
Well…Mary was afraid. Charles was just angry.
Two days after he arrived he received word that the rebels were to march on London. A part of him wanted to get a message to the King and another part of him wanted to let Henry rot. There was no other way about it, Henry had brought this on himself. Anne Boleyn was only part of the problem. He had destroyed the Church for her granted but he had refused to put it back even when he had married a sweet, English Catholic girl like the dullard that was Jane. He had allowed Cromwell to push the people too far and Crammer…
Well...Charles had never been a fan of his and that was before the man had, taken Anne Boleyn’s last confession.
He had been born and raised Catholic and while he had found the rituals of the mass boring at times he could not help but feel like they were there for a reason. England had been a Catholic country for centuries and nothing had changed that and somehow the Plantagenets had managed to rule without letting the mistresses become wives—well—Charles supposed there was Elizabeth Woodville but he really didn’t know how much that counted.
Either way a part of him wanted to let Henry stew in his own juice. But the other part of him knew that he owed who he was to Henry Tudor. That part of him was Henry’s friend. That part of him was also the father of Henry’s grandchild and his son in law.
Fuck.
So he wrote a letter, it was not going to tell Henry anything he did not know. The word coming out of London was that the King would not be riding out himself and with Charles trapped in the North it did not leave a lot of seasoned commanders. John Seymour was the most seasoned amongst them or the bloody Howards but Howard was flighty at best and Seymour was rumoured to be on his deathbed so that was that.
So he did not know what was happening, trapped here in his own home with his pregnant wife the daughter of a woman he had despised and his own son who was growing restless by the day trapped in three rooms while the rebels no doubt pillaged his own castle.
It was nothing in hindsight that could not be replaced. But it was beyond galling.
Charles found however that Mary did not seem all that bothered by it. When he had asked she had simply pointed out that she had been in worst prisons than this and that her focus was on her baby and that was that and he was suitably chastised by it. But as his wife listened her eyes closed to the ringing of the Church Bells he had to concede that maybe she was not as whole heartedly apposed to what was going down below their room as he was. She did not approach the rebels but she did allow a Doctor to attend her.
“You are playing with fire” he told her once. “Your father might go through the motions of forgiving them but he will not. Not really. You are playing with fire having them attend you”
“I know” she said quietly her hand on her belly. “But it’s also for practical reasons as well as anything else. This is not the pregnancy I envisioned. I need to make sure that I am doing all that I can…and…and I frightened of the pain”
There was very little Charles could say to that so instead he let her rest her head against her shoulder. Sat as they were in their shirtsleeves and under gown there was very little to do.
“Talk about something other than court” she said quietly.
“Jane Seymour is rumoured to be pregnant”
Mary rolled her eyes but said nothing.
“I shall send congratulations” she said her tone sardonic. “Another Princess”
“Hush”
She twisted her lips but said nothing and then.
“I know you said that you do not mind if the child is a boy or a girl but I mind. I am scared of what happens to us if I have a boy”
“One would hope Cromwell is too distracted to care right now”
“Right now perhaps…but after?”
He tapped her chin and then smiled.
“After right now does not matter.”
Mary was quiet and then.
“I was thinking about Catherine as a name”
Her eyes snapped to his.
“I thought you said it was unadvisable?”
“Oh it is but right now I am thinking Henry has trapped you both here, both of his daughters, one pregnant and you have a lot of favour. Perhaps you might change the spelling?”
Mary was quiet for a second and then.
“Katherine? With a K?”
“Not the same as your mother but…the same…a nice compromise perhaps?”
Mary’s smile was worth it’s weight in gold and she turned to kiss him gently her hands on his face and he pressed her closer as another bang echoed from downstairs.
“Thank you for coming back” she said her nose tucked against her neck.
“Always” Charles muttered into her hair. “I told you…I will always come for you”
Mary smiled but said nothing and then.
“Anne Boleyn said that you would take a mistress”
“Oh did she”
“Yes. I think she though it was here way of being kind. She said you did so before and that…that you would do so again. And I think…if you did…then…then I would just like to know…”
Fucking Anne Boleyn.
He shifted so that he was turning to see her and he smiled brushing some of her hair out of her eyes. Her eyelashes were clumped together and he tugged her so that she was on his lap even though she tried to say that she was too heavy.
“I am not going to take a mistress” he said quietly. “Catherine and I lived two private lives within a private marriage. We had Henry and we were comfortable but I had a life within that marriage that I do not have with you. I would not have ridden here for Catherine, I would not have done so for Margaret. I do not know how to say the words but when I look at you I look at you I do not look around the room for the nearest cunt to sink my cock into. I look at you. I am here, for you, heart and soul.” He reached out and pulled her face close to his.
“I am not going to take a mistress” he said quietly. “I might fuck prostitutes in France but I am not going to have an Anne Boleyn under the roof of my house. I am not going to throw you off if you give me a clutch of six girls. I take my marriage vows seriously. And I love you”
She looked down at him for a second and then she melted into his arms and Charles held her and he thought that out of all of his marriage vows to this precious girl, this, this had been the one that she had wanted to hear the most.
It was not a normal confinement for someone befitting her status she knew. She was a Queen in Waiting, the once Princess of Wales, Mary Tudor, Her Royal Highness (if she could get that back) Her Grace the Duchess of Suffolk. She was the daughter of the King of England, she was the daughter of who she knew was the undisputed Queen of England, she was the daughter of the doubly Royal Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England and daughter of Spain. She was the granddaughter of Elizabeth of York and with Elizabeth Woodville and Jacquetta Woodville in the bloodline this was not a normal confinement. She was supposed to be in bed, kept warm and safe with attendants, she was supposed to have…well…she did not know yet because she did not know what the norm was but she knew it was not this.
The day that Lord Darce said that he was moving the rebels down to London to accept their pardons she went into labour. That night Charles curled up next to her despite the fact that men were not supposed to be anywhere near her she found that she was going into labour. The confinement chamber was supposed to be a sacred place for woman but yet as she felt the baby turn over and her bed grow wet with the water she had only her husband next to her.
“Charles?”
He was asleep and as the pain hit her she grabbed the nearest thing which was her pillow and she sat up smacking it in his direction and knowing she hit the spot when he grunted awake.
At that point her body gave another spasm and then she moaned with pain.
Charles was up in a second and next to her in a flash dark hair a wavy curly mess.
“What?”
“Labour”
“Oh shit”
“No kidding” she snapped back and then she felt another contraction take her and she groaned. There was a terrible feeling within her and she grabbed his arm and dug her nails in feeling him wince which she thought was laughable considering what she was feeling right now. She’d take a wince over a lot of things right now.
“Shall I get the midwives?
“We do not have midwives remember?”
“Oh…then there must be some woman downstairs who…let me shout Henry and we can…”
He was halfway to the door but she screamed and he dithered and then came back.
“What?”
“Something is wrong”
She could feel it, she could feel it deep down in her bones, she could feel it deep down that something was wrong. Suddenly the dead babies, the decades of dead Tudor babies were upon her, five lost to her mother, three to Anne Boleyn and it made her sick, make her shake because what if she was the same?
Was there not supposed to be some kind of a curse? Was that not what Margaret Pole had said once when she was deep in her cups? The whole thing made her want to vomit violently, shake and shiver and keep this baby safe inside of her.
Maybe it all showed in her face because suddenly Charles was there and he pushed her back on the bed roughly lifted her nightgown and looked down and then swore.
“What?”
“It’s half out you” he said looking at her.
For a second she was stunned, the memory of Anne and that terrible pregnancy all that she could remember and then the pain and the sudden desperate urge to push caused her to scream so loudly she knew that there was no way that the inhabitants of the castle (or at least in the next room) did not know what was going on.
She screamed again and then heaved gripping the bed as Charles dragged a sheet of it and then there was a terrible slithering sound and then a weak and reedy cry.
For a second she was stunned and then Charles looked at her eyes wide and open his mouth the same way and she stared at him as he held their baby the fat little legs kicking outwards as the lungs bellowed a good healthy cry.
She was a mother.
She was a mother.
What the actual fuck?
“A girl” Charles said grinning. “You were right, a fine healthy girl. Your eyes too by the look of it” he gave a little laugh as she stared at him eyes wide and wet and then he grinned surging upwards their daughter in his arms to kiss her as if it was a normal day and he had not just delivered their daughter in a space of what…ten minutes?
Had there ever been a labour such as this? Had there ever been a labour as fast as this? She had been preparing for hours of the thing and it was over in what? Half an hour?
Charles stared at her and then up at the baby and she suddenly realised that it did not matter. She held her hands out and she took the baby pressing her close to her chest. Blue eyes looked up at her and she saw ten perfect fingers and ten perfect little toes, tiny feet that kicked outwards and a cute button nose.
“Katherine” she said quietly. There was no other name of her and Charles knew it. Gently he sat down next to her and pressed a kiss to the side of her head.
“Katherine” he said gently. “Well done my darling”
She could not take her eyes of this baby however and suddenly she understood why her mother had fought until the end for Mary to keep her title, she understood why Anne Boleyn had capitulated in order for Elizabeth to remain unharmed, she understood that terrible, powerful, all consuming love that mothers had for their children as baby Katherine looked up at her and then gave another screaming cry her little lips pursed as she was hungry.
She knew that she should not do it. She was a Duchess and though she had won her daughter a silver spoon and a title she had not won her the right to be fed by her mother but here she was and it was her in the room so she pulled down her nightgown as best she could and put her daughter to her breast and felt her suckle healthy and whole.
Charles ran a finger down the soft hair on her head and then.
“We have to let the world in at some point you know”
“Not right now” she said quietly. Right now it was just her and her husband and her daughter and the outside world had fallen away.
“No” Charles said quietly his eyes on his baby.
“Not right now”
Mary smiled. For the first time since her marriage she knew whole heartedly that she was happy, that she was safe and she was loved and that she had a life spread out for her that she was going to live.
And she knew her mother would approve.