Queen's Academy Read online

  Finally, the result flashed up.

  I couldn’t suppress a gasp.

  “What is it?” Mary asked tiredly.

  Since she was lying on her side, she couldn’t see the word on the display.

  I took a deep breath. “You…we…are pregnant,” I stuttered, barely able to believe I was really saying those words.

  She sat up, staring at me. “How? How is this possible?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. The contraceptive we’re using has a 99.98 per cent success rate. You shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant.”

  "It seems I am." Her voice was choked with emotion, but it was hard to tell whether she was happy or not.

  Hell, I didn't even know that myself. A baby. I was going to be a father. I'd never imagined that to happen in a million years. When I'd decided to be with Mary, I'd given up the idea of ever being a dad. Not that I'd felt particular suited to that role. My whole adult life had been disrupted by my dreams. I'd not lived in the same way my peers had. My mind had been in the past, not thinking of the future.

  "A baby," she whispered. "I never thought I'd have another baby."

  I sat down on the bed beside her and she leaned against me, her head on my shoulder, the way we always did. I snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, making sure she was real. I laid my other hand on her stomach.

  "A baby," I echoed. "In there."

  "Does your machine know how far along I am?"

  I shook my head. "We'll have to go to a doctor for that."

  "I hate doctors."

  I knew that all too well. When she'd first arrived, I'd followed normal procedure and took her to a doctor to have her vaccinated. She'd already been weak from her long imprisonment and the TTA guidelines warned of how unprepared the immune system of people from the past could be when encountering modern viruses. I'd quite literally had to drag Mary into the practice. No matter how often I told her that our doctors were different from the ones she knew, it had been a bit of a fight.

  "We can find a midwife," I reassured her. "Would that make you feel more at ease?"

  Mary nodded. "When?"

  "Let me go and find one nearby. Maybe today, who knows. I've never dealt with a midwife before, I have no idea how booked they are."

  She laughed softly. "This is new for both of us."

  I looked at her, frowning. "You already have a son. You've done this before."

  I didn't mention the twins she'd miscarried. This was her third pregnancy, as far as I knew.

  "Not like this. Not with all your technology. And not by myself."

  "You're not by yourself," I protested. "I'll be with you every step of the way."

  She gave me a smile, her eyes sparkling with love. "I didn't mean it like that. When I first fell pregnant, my advisors immediately started making plans for the baby. I was watched around the clock.

  When I gave birth, I was surrounded by people. The room in Edinburgh Castle was tiny, making it even more stuffy. Doctors, my ladies in waiting, courtiers, advisors, all watching me, while I wanted to hide beneath my blankets."

  I shuddered at the thought and hugged her tight. "That must have been awful."

  "It's not how I would have preferred it," she said bravely, her lips tightening the way they always did when she returned to her Queen persona. "But it's how it was done back then. When James was born, the cannons of the castle were fired and I was told that people all over the city were celebrating. Yet I only got a glimpse of my son before they took him away."

  "Is it true that you had Saint Margaret's skull in your birthing chamber?" I asked to distract her from the painful memories.

  "Indeed. One of my finer ideas. Queen Margaret had eight children and she was a Scottish Queen, like me. I thought having her relic with me would give me strength." She winked at me. "And it was fun to see my courtiers scramble to procure it for me."

  I laughed. "I'm afraid I won't be able to provide you with a holy skull this time. But I'll be with you every step of the way. I'll hold your hand when you go into labour. I'll wipe the sweat from your brow. And you can swear at me as much as you want."

  "Swear? Why would I use profanities?"

  "Most women do that when they give birth," I said with a shrug. "At least that's what I've been told. It's not like I've witnessed any birth myself."

  Mary shook her head. "You will hear no foul language from me. I shall give birth like a Queen."

  "I'm sure you will." I chuckled. "I'll be sure to righten your crown every few minutes."

  She elbowed me in the ribs and I laughed even more. She joined me until we were hugging each other, crying with laughter. Yes, we were hysterical, but we had a reason to behave like that. We were going to be parents.

  "If only Elizabeth knew," Mary muttered once we'd both calmed down. "I bet she's turning in her grave as we speak."

  Chapter 9

  "You look about ready to pop."

  "Mum!" I groaned as I looked at her. She was eyeing Mary's swollen belly with a mixture of pride and mirth.

  Mary laughed. "I can't wait. I don't think my previous pregnancy was as cumbersome."

  "That's because you're a lot older now, my dear," my mother said wisely. "You're lucky you're living in this time now. Doctors here are used to dealing with older mothers."

  We'd told my parents a couple of months ago who Mary really was, right after breaking to them that they'd be grandparents soon. My mum hadn't been surprised in the slightest. I guessed I'd underestimated her.

  "Have you thought of a name for her yet?"

  Mary and I exchanged a look, before she sighed. "We've talked about it a lot, but we've not been able to decide on one."

  My mother smiled. "Don't worry, you'll know once you look at her. It was like that with Drake. We'd come up with a whole list of possible names, but when I first saw him, held him in my arms, I knew that he was a Drake."

  "With my first son, choices were limited," Mary explained. "It had to be a royal name and one that wasn't tarnished by some scandal. In the end, James was named after my father."

  "I'm sure my husband would love that gesture," my mother said with a wink.

  "Mum, we're not going to name our daughter Peter." I rolled my eyes. "That's not exactly a name for a girl, least of all the daughter of a Queen."

  "How about Petra?" Mary suddenly said. "It's a strong name. The female form of Peter."

  "Petra." I tasted the name in my mouth, trying out how it felt. "If we do this, my father might explode with self-importance."

  "With pride," my mother corrected. "But you still have some time to decide. Three weeks, right?"

  Mary nodded. "Nineteen days. I can't wait, I really want to see my feet again."

  My mother laughed. "I remember that. In the last month of my pregnancy with Drake, I kept having dreams of being a whale, stranded on a beach, too big to move and get back into the water. And then I woke up and had trouble getting out of bed. Men really don't know how lucky they are."

  "If I could, I'd be the one who's pregnant," I protested. "I hated it when Mary was feeling so miserable, when her morning sickness was bad. It's not fair that us men can't take part of the burden."

  Mary smiled at my mother. "You've raised him well."

  "He was hard work, trust me," my mum replied with a laugh. "Did I ever tell you the story of when he-"

  "Mum!" I interrupted, dreading yet another embarrassing childhood story. She entertained Mary with them whenever the two of them met. I'd never thought that my life had been particularly funny, but the two women managed to make it sound extremely amusing.

  Suddenly, Mary gasped and clutched her belly.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, pushing down the fear I felt whenever Mary was in pain. "Is she kicking again?"

  Mary bit her lip, her face going white. "No. I think she's decided it's time to be born."

  I couldn't stop staring at my daughter. She had red hair. Well, fluff; not quite hair yet. Her skin was pale like that
of her mother, but her eyes were azure blue like my own. She was looking up at me, her gaze strangely intense for a newborn. Her fingers were clutching my thumb, unwilling to let go. She'd had a nap right after birth, but now she was wide awake, taking in the world.

  I smiled at her. She was so beautiful. The most precious little human being in all the world. And she was mine.

  I never thought I could feel this much love. My heart was bursting with it. I kind of wanted to run onto the roof of the hospital and shout for everyone to hear that I was now a father. That I had the most beautiful daughter in all the world.

  "I'm going to look after you," I whispered, not wanting to wake Mary from her well-deserved sleep. "I'll make sure that you never suffer like your mother did. You're going to be the most loved child in the world, past, present and future."

  "Don't promise what you can't keep," Mary muttered, half-asleep. "I bet my parents wanted only good things for me too, yet look where that got me."

  "Shush, don't make our daughter depressed." I looked down at little Petra. Her eyes were flickering shut. I envied her. Taking a nap sounded wonderful, but now that she was here, three weeks earlier than planned, I had to prepare the cottage for her arrival. We didn't have all the baby supplies yet. I had been so busy with work that I'd not really found the time to go shopping. My mother had brought us some baby clothes that she'd kept from me, but no way was I going to put my little Petra into those scratchy rags. She was the daughter of a Queen and she deserved only the best.

  "You look happy," Mary whispered.

  I smiled at her. "I am. Are you?"

  "Yes. I'm just so tired."

  I got up, carrying our daughter in my arms, and sat next to Mary on her bed. She was paler than I liked. Dark circles surrounded her eyes and her lips were devoid of colour. I'd been told that she'd lost quite a lot of blood during the birth, but not enough to be dangerous.

  "Should I get a doctor?" I asked, concern growing in me.

  "No, I'm alright. I just need to sleep some more."

  "I'll wait here until my mother comes back to look after Petra, then I'll head home and prepare the nursery. And tell the Headmistress that I'll be taking time off earlier than planned."

  Mary smiled. "Poor Professor Tape. She only just got you back."

  "It's a miracle she's not fired me yet. I must be one of the most useless teachers the Academy has ever seen. But I guess if she knew about you, she wouldn't just fire me. I'd be reported to the Time Agency and would lose a lot more than my job." I looked down at Petra, suddenly very aware that the decisions of my past could now affect yet another person. It had to stay a secret forever.

  "You're a good teacher, that's why she's kept you. I doubt anyone is more passionate about sixteenth-century Scotland than you." She chuckled, but then flinched.

  "Mary, what's wrong?" My loud voice woke up Petra, who started crying. I patted her little head, but kept my attention fixed on Mary.

  "Just a headache," she muttered, just before her eyes rolled up in her head and her body started twitching.

  Life isn't fair. It never was, never will be.

  We should have been at home, getting to know our daughter. We should have been happy.

  Instead, my parents were looking after Petra while I spent my days in hospital with Mary. At first, I had been desperate to know what was wrong with her, but now that I did, I wished they'd never told me.

  "I think it's time soon," she whispered, her voice no more than a hoarse croak.

  I wet her lips with a cotton ball; she wasn't allowed to drink before the operation.

  "Don't say that. They're going to take it all out and fix you. Then you'll come back home and we'll be a family."

  I didn't believe it myself. I was trying to stay strong for her, for all of us, but it wasn't working. Every day of seeing Mary deteriorate ripped out a little part of my soul. I was treading water, trying to get to safety, but there was nothing but open ocean all around me.

  "We never lie to each other, let's not start with it now."

  Despite having grown thin in the past few days, she still hadn't lost her mental strength. Her eyes blazed with anger. She hated being weak and she hated me seeing her like this even more. She was a Queen who was used to never letting her enemies sense her weaknesses, even if that enemy was Death himself.

  "But I want to lie to myself," I whispered, taking her cold hand into mine. Her long fingers clasped around my own, connecting us.

  "You're an intelligent man. You know what's coming. You have read everything there is to know about this disease, am I right?"

  Reluctantly, I nod.

  "Then stop clinging to useless hope. I'm not going to get better and you need to accept that. I already have." She smiled sadly. "It's not that hard when you've technically already been dead for centuries."

  "How can I give up when I've only just found you?"

  The scolding look she gave me made me feel like a schoolboy. "We had so many years already. You watched me, I watched you. And now we've had a wonderful year together. We had so much joy, so much happiness. Every day I spent with you was worth the pain of my life before. No, not every day. Every second. You gave me a new life, Drake, and I will always be grateful for that. Some people pray for one more day when lying on their deathbed. I got an entire year."

  Tears sprang to my eyes. She was so strong. I wanted to be like her, accepting of what lay before us, but I just couldn't get myself to extinguish the last, tiny flicker of hope still burning within my heart. Mary was my one true love. My soulmate. I knew without a doubt that I'd never find anyone like her again. Our souls had been entwined even when we'd been centuries apart. There was no way I'd ever feel whole without Mary.

  "And you gave me a daughter," she continued hoarsely. "Raise her in my honour. Turn her into the Queen she would have been had she been born in my time. Tell her about me. Tell her that I loved her from the moment I knew she was growing inside me. And that I will always watch her from the heavens."

  I bowed my head, unable to speak. If I tried, I'd turn into a sobbing mess.

  "Raise her as a true Scot. You know I would like her to be Catholic, but that is a choice she will make when she's older."

  Her voice broke and I gave her some more drops of water.

  "And maybe...break the rules one last time and take her to see me, when she's old enough. I won't know who she is, I might not even recognise you, but I will be happier now if I know that I will at least see her when she's an adult."

  I nodded, hoping she could see the promise in my eyes.

  Tears were running down my face, falling onto the white linen of her hospital bed. The white room made her look even paler. Days ago, her red hair would have given me some colour to look at, but there was barely any left. The drugs they'd given her had caused it to go grey and fall out. Yesterday, she'd asked me to shave off the remaining strands. She looked frail with her shorn head, but it didn't make her any less beautiful. Even in sickness, she was gorgeous.

  "I want you to take me back. The operation won't fix me, it will only give me a few more days. I don't want to suffer. I don't want to die in this bed, weak and pathetic. Take me back and let me die as the Queen of Scots."

  It had always been the plan to return her to the past, to complete her timeline, but I had imagined her to be an old woman then. Like Janet, the witch whose story had inspired me to rescue Mary in the first place.

  "Take me back," Mary repeated in a whisper. "Please."

  A sob broke from me, shattering the silence that had clung to me like a protective cloak.

  I bent over her and kissed her forehead, my tears falling onto her skin like raindrops.

  "I will miss you," I whispered. "But I will take you home so you can be Queen again."

  Epilogue

  8 February 1587

  Fotheringhay Castle, England

  He spent the night with me, holding me as I slipped in and out of consciousness. I have been strong for him, yet my dreams
are filled with creatures of fear and despair.

  I read about my death while I was in the future. How the executioner is going to strike my head three times before it’s fully severed from my body. By then I will be dead, but the shame of such treatment makes me tremble. I shouldn’t have to die this way. I should be in Scotland, ruling my people, making sure they’re safe from the English threat.

  Instead, I’m about to be taken to the scaffold they’ve built in the great hall of the castle. I had always imagined the execution to be outside, under the warming gaze of the sun, but they’ve taken that dream from me. I won’t ever see the sky again.

  I groan as pain shoots through my head.

  Drake gently strokes my back, whispering soothing words. He’s my rock in this sea of agony, holding me tethered to the present until the pain subsides and I can think clearly again.

  A cockerel calls in the distance.

  "Is it time?" I ask into the darkness.

  I've become so used to having a watch, but here, I'm without any way of telling the time.

  "Half an hour until they will collect you. Your servants will arrive any second now to dress you. I should go."

  Three words. Enough to slice my heart open.

  I wish he could stay. Hold my hand as the axe descends on my neck. Tell me that everything will be alright. That God is awaiting me in Paradise. Yet he, the man who means most to me in this world, won't be by my side in the worst moment of my life. My final moment.

  "Help me up. I don't want them to dress me. I want you to do it."

  In silence, he helps me into my dress. He puts a wig on my head, the same colour my hair used to be. He applies some makeup to my face to make me look less deathly. He attaches a white veil to my wig, a sharp contrast to the black dress I now wear. He even puts slippers on my feet. By the time he's done, I have to sit down, my legs shaking both from fear and weakness.

  "I wish I could stay." His voice is deep with regret.

  "I know you do." I sigh. "I guess this is it. Do we say goodbye?"