Early 1535

Right up until the morning of, Anne Boleyn Shelton rubs her niece's ascendancy in Mary's face every chance she gets. When Mary feels too poorly to report for work, Lady Shelton climbs the stairs to her attic-room to confront her charge.

Mary is white-faced enough that Lady Shelton knows she is not malingering, but it wins the fallen princess no sympathy from her governess. "I see you are finally recognizing that you are out of sight and out of mind. About time, as the act is now in succession, and all of England swears to it."

Violent coughs emerge from the bed, and Mary raises herself up on her elbows, unceremoniously wiping away a trail of spittle on her chin. "The very - very fact that I am so put on is proof - proof - that I am still a threat. I still have power - people know that I am the true princess - and you are afraid of that, therefore you must crush me."

It's a pathetic enough sally, not helped by her rasping throat. Lady Shelton sniffs. "You didn't come down to breakfast -"

"I never have, not while Elizabeth sits above -"

"I've had some bread sent up to your rooms, since you are ill. Eat it - don't go about trying to be a martyr."

Lady Shelton indicates the maid behind her with a basket of rolls and steps aside, allowing her inside the chamber and leaving the maid to her unenviable task.

The same girl comes rushing down a few minutes later to report that the Lady Mary vomited those rolls back up, and cannot keep anything else down, not even water.

A shadow finally passes over Lady Shelton's face. "Write to the king," she says at last.

And so Mary's worst brush with illness begins.

Mary's used to being ill; even as the Princess of Wales, she was never robust. Used to fighting against the very fabric of reality, against her existence being an abomination.

But this illness is unlike anything they have ever seen, enough that she's removed from Hatfield and sent to another residence. Enough that her father sends his personal physician to examine her, and even allows Chapuys to do the same. The report is unanimous: distress and sorrow are the root of her affliction, as much as any contagion, and the Lady Mary ought to be moved to a different residence where she may move more freely; otherwise she remains in danger for her life.

Mary is too busy focusing on the saw of her breath in and out of her mucus-filled lungs, on her marrow-deep aches, too busy fighting to remain alive to pay much attention to their conclusions. Cognizance is a luxury, and bastards have no luxuries. Consciousness becomes her new raison dêtre, and if she manages to live another day, coughing and vomiting and starving but in pain but alive, that's enough. She has no energy for registering anything else.

Not when Chapuys begs for the King to send the Lady Salisbury, her governess and her second mother, to look after her, and the King calls her a fool under whose care Mary would have died.

Not when several members of the Privy Council view Mary's illness as a gift from God, since they are unable to resolve any matters between the King and the Emperor while she lives.

Not when her father visits her residence but refuses to see her, calling her his worst enemy in the world.

Not when Chapuys warns Lady Shelton that if Mary should die under her care, she will be blamed, and the governess weeps, as much out of fear of being called a poisoner as from the prospect that this proud, stubborn, stupidly brave chit might actually die from something as mundane as illness.

Not when Katherine begs to see her suffering daughter - my presence will be half the cure she needs - and the King refuses.

Mary does not die. Apparently even illness does not want to claim Mary Tudor as one of its innumerable victims, finagling and troublesome as she is. Or maybe it is that Mary Tudor is too obstinate to die so soon, obstinate right down to the Spanish blood flowing in her veins, too obstinate to stop being a nuisance to the greatest men of the realm.

Her cheekbones are visible, her hair is thinned, she shivers in her ragged gowns, and her face wan, but she is alive and she is back and she is here, and oh, how the concubine must be raging to know she still lives. How many vases will she smash when she hears the news?

She's finally returned to Hatfield to resume her duties, and though pride would never allow her to admit it, it is good be on her feet again, to have something to do with her hands, to not be shut up and abed. Good to see Elizabeth again, who has gone from squalling bundle to scampering imp, during the weeks - months, really - that Mary was cloistered away, first in her chamber and then at Greenwich to recuperate.

She had not considered Elizabeth much while she was gone, in all honesty. Their respective existences are so far removed that Mary thinks of her only when she is at Hatfield and has few companions who do not despise her. It is not that she resents her, but Elizabeth is only her half-sister, her supposed superior, half-heretic rival; she is not Mary's to know or love.

But despite not having seen Mary for months, Bessie still recognizes her the first time she sees her. "Sister!" she calls out, running across the room to hug her.

Lady Bryan frowns deeply. Mary had refused to call Elizabeth anything other than sister, and as she began to grasp speech, Elizabeth had learned to do likewise, so now she refuses to call her Lady Mary, but only sister, or Mary. But Mary and Elizabeth are both the king's acknowledged daughters, and even Margaret Bryan cannot protest them referring to each other as sisters.

The other governess of Hatfield, Lady Shelton, continues to keep as iron a grip on her charge as she ever did. Mary has dreamed of escaping before, had even managed to formulate a plan with Chapuys before the illness, and as discreet as they are in their communications, Lady Shelton is a naturally suspicious woman. She watches her charge carefully.

"Three monks of the Carthusian Order were executed this past Tuesday," Lady Shelton remarks as they sit together mending some of Elizabeth's gowns - she is growing fast, and her hems must be let down. "I would suggest you take warning from them."

She shakes out the kirtle she has been tending to - pointedly a purple one - and turns it over so that she can work on the back hem. Mary keeps her eyes trained on the gown in her lap, continuing to work until she is not sewing so much as she is simply stabbing the fabric with her needle.

A/N: Mary became extremely ill in early 1535, enough that she was removed from Hatfield to another residence. The events in the second section regarding the physicians and various communications are also taken from history. Three Carthusian monks were executed in May 1535 for refusing to take the oath.