My Contrary Mary

by Cynthia Hand

  “True, you haven’t witnessed anything you shouldn’t have,” Ari agreed. “And you haven’t helped solve a crime. But the rules are the same. Your old life is over. You’re my frog now. I mean my brother.”

  Francis sighed.

  He was a peasant. He’d never been a peasant before. He’d never lived in a hovel before. Or even set foot in one, for that matter. But here he was, a frog, a peasant, and living in a hovel.

  Ridiculous.

  “Look on the bright side.” Ari went to the fireplace and began piling logs and kindling.

  To Francis, everything was a bright side, seeing as how his frog eyes were very sensitive to light.

  “We won’t have a bug problem. Not in this house.”

  “Ribbit,” Francis said, and ate another fly.

  Somehow, Francis had gone from Mary controlling his life, to Catherine running the show, and now to Ari. She managed the hovel with frightening efficiency, giving him simple tasks to complete while she went out every day to rebuild her laboratory.

  The tasks had to be simple, because Francis was still turning into a frog without warning, but he was spending more and more time as a human now, so that was an improvement. Ari had purchased clothes for him, a tunic and trousers, both so drab and rough he felt like the fabric might scour the skin off his bones. When he’d complained about it, she’d asked if he wanted something made out of silk.

  “Yes,” he’d replied. “Silk would feel so nice.”

  Then she’d rolled her eyes—at the king! Well, the former king—and said, “You’ll have to get used to the clothes the rest of us wear. This is the life of a peasant.”

  “Being told what to do by the person who controls the money?” He was whining and he knew it, but he missed the fine breads and cheeses, the silk bedsheets, and the rich tapestries.

  “Yes,” she said. “The person with the money makes the decisions.”

  Francis had frowned, but she hadn’t left much room for arguing. Mostly because she’d left the hovel shortly after.

  That had been this morning, and he’d spent his day completing the chores she’d given him—sweeping the floor, cleaning the chamber pot, and washing the walls—and rereading his mother’s note again and again, committing every brutal word to memory.

  He kept getting stuck on the part about Mary. Maybe it was better for Mary that he was “dead.” She could focus on ruling Scotland without feeling obligated to him. To their marriage.

  And maybe it was better for France, too, with Charles IX as king and Catherine as regent. She had the knowledge and experience. She had the drive and determination to rule the kingdom. She liked that sort of thing.

  Francis, however . . .

  Francis scowled and scrubbed at the wall, but it still looked dirty. How could he accept this? How could he just move forward with his life, as though he’d never married Mary, or been crowned king, or endured the tragedy of losing his father? He knew he must have been a most disappointing heir and king, but he had been good at being married to Mary (aside from that one—all right, those two fights), and maybe he could have learned to be a good king, if he’d been given the time to mourn his murdered father. Or if he’d had better guidance. Neither of his parents set great examples when it came to running the country. But he could have been king. A decent king, maybe. Perhaps.

  He picked at the dirt under his fingernails. (This was the first time he’d ever had dirt under his fingernails, and it was more annoying than he’d anticipated. How did peasants live like this?)

  Maybe . . . Maybe he should go back to Paris. What was stopping him? What could Catherine do to stop him, if he marched into the throne room and announced that he wasn’t dead after all? Commoners might not know his face, but the nobility certainly did, given all the social functions he’d been forced to attend.

  Francis imagined doing just that—marching into the throne room and taking back his crown—but what if the nobility liked Charles IX and Catherine better? Francis didn’t have an army to support him, just his name, and right now it wasn’t worth very much. Heck, even his memorials were BYOC. If Francis went back to Paris now, like this, Catherine would ensure he disappeared again—to an even less desirable place than this hovel.

  And if he somehow succeeded in taking back his crown . . . then he’d be king. Was that what he wanted?

  Francis dropped the soapy rag and leaned his forehead against the damp wall. “I think I might be having an identity crisis.”

  Your narrators don’t think that was the only crisis he was having at that moment.

  After a few more days, the final dregs of the potion wore off, and Francis finally stayed Francis. That is, he didn’t turn into a frog again after a few minutes, or an hour, or three hours. By the time he’d been a human for two days without accidentally turning into a frog, he felt like things were finally looking up.

  This morning, Ari had congratulated him on his humanity and then gone out to collect wild herbs. Over the last week, Francis had been watching her laboratory grow, trying not to get in her way as she worked on drying and grinding various ingredients. It seemed like she was settling in for the long haul, though, and that was . . . distressing. Did she really think they were going to live here as brother and sister for the rest of their lives? They would starve on the meager sum of money that Catherine had sent. Starve.

  More than anything, he missed Mary. He missed her laugh. The way she smelled. Even the way she told him what to do. She was very good at it, after all. Throughout the day, he found himself wondering what she was doing, hoping she was safe, curious if she liked living in Scotland.

  If only there were a way to find out.

  Well. There was.

  It would involve breaking Ari’s rules.

  This was the thing about the sixteenth century: the internet hadn’t been invented yet. Social media wasn’t there to give instant updates on a person’s life, or show off what they were eating, or their hair on a day they felt particularly pretty. But gossip moved at lightning speeds, even without the internet, because some E∂ians could fly.

  These lines of gossip had always been available, even in Verity-controlled France. He just had to be willing to look. And here, in this old port city that both England and France had been fighting over for years, there would likely be plenty of people talking about Mary, Queen of Scots.

  Francis might not be able to show his human face outside the hovel, but he did perhaps have another disguise now.

  If changing into a frog had been more than Ari’s potion. If he was an E∂ian.

  Francis had never spent much time wondering what his E∂ian form would be (if he believed that everyone had an E∂ian form, which he didn’t), but maybe he’d secretly hoped to be a majestic steed. Or some kind of big cat, like a lion or tiger. He would have been happy with a bear, too. But a frog? That just wasn’t what Francis hoped was inside of him.

  Still, a frog could be useful right now. It could move through the small spaces in the city and listen for Mary’s name.

  If he was an E∂ian. If he could change into a frog at will, like Mary could. But how?

  Mary had made it look so easy: she just wanted it enough, and poof, she was a mouse. Or a human.

  Francis closed his eyes and thought froggy thoughts. Flies. Hopping. Lily pads.

  Nothing happened.

  All right. This would be harder than simply desiring to change shape.

  He closed his eyes again and thought about what it felt like to be a frog. Small, yes, but he’d had powerful legs, ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The weird sight, the occasional need to lick his own eyeballs, the lack of ears . . .

  He knew exactly what it felt like to be a frog. He could almost feel it now. Almost, almost.

  There was a flash. And then a ribbit.

  Francis leapt for joy. Then he hopped toward the door and hesitated. He wasn’t sure what Ari would do if she knew he was sneaking out. She’d be angry, he was pretty sure.

&nb
sp; But he had to find out about Mary.

  So, for the first time in what felt like a very long time, Francis defied the rules someone else had set for him. They could tell him what to do all they wanted, but he was his own frog now. He squeezed himself under the hovel door and began hopping and hopping toward the busiest parts of Calais.

  Waterways and canals crisscrossed the town, giving Francis a lot of options when it came to traveling. (He couldn’t hop along the roads. He might get stepped on!) He started toward the lighthouse, jumping from stone to stone, keeping to the edges of the canal where he knew he was safe-ish. There were fish and other creatures swimming in the water, and while he wasn’t certain what ate frogs, he was sure that something did. He wasn’t about to become anyone’s meal.

  But he did snack on several flies, mosquitoes, and other insects along the way. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was rather becoming accustomed to the taste. And they were filling, at least while he was a frog, which was probably the most important thing, since his mother had sent them into exile with next to nothing.

  The town was bustling. Long legs stretched above Francis as he hopped along, his nonexistent ears perked and listening for Mary’s name. What he needed to find was a place where E∂ians congregated, where the bird-types gathered and traded gossip.

  He paused not far from the lighthouse, water rushing on either side of the rock where he sat. He nabbed a few bugs, watching for birds behaving strangely. Or birds at all, because it wasn’t just fish he had to watch out for. Creatures of the air probably ate frogs, too.

  With the water crashing around him, Francis listened for Mary’s name in the hum of voices. He kept an eye on the buildings he could see over the edge of the canal, watching birds flit from windowsills to balconies. And he kept the same eye on the surface of the water beneath him, in case any hungry fish came up from the deep. Because frog eyes.

  But he heard nothing useful. The voices were too indistinct, too obscured by the sound of water. He’d have to get closer, find somewhere else to stake out.

  Francis hopped up toward the canal’s ledge—and went face-first into the stone wall. His entire body went stiff as he stuck there for a moment, then peeled off and dropped into the water, where he sank like a rock.

  Fortunately, his frog self took over, and he began to breathe through his skin. Then, as the shock wore off, he started to rise.

  Suddenly, movement in the water. A fish darted at him.

  Francis kicked, catching the creature in the nose, and swam as fast as he could for the surface. But the fish was not deterred; it reoriented itself and wriggled toward him.

  If Francis had been human at that moment, he would have been sweating. But because he was a frog, and he had the instincts of a prey animal that wanted to live, Francis swam as fast as his flippered feet would allow, kicking with all his might until he broke the surface of the water.

  He threw himself onto a rock, and the fish sailed past without catching him, then dove back into the water to search for a different lunch.

  Francis sat on his rock and caught his breath. His little heart was pounding hard as he looked for a better place to hop over the canal wall. He’d have to practice jumping if he ever wanted to try a leap like that again.

  Finally, he found a set of wooden stairs on a small dock, and—keeping a wary eye out for human feet—he took them one at a time and found himself at a crossroads. Literally.

  Traffic was everywhere. Carts and carriages careened past, while people on foot hurried between them. Everyone was moving as fast as they could, certainly not looking out for a small frog on the edge of the road, waiting for an opportunity to cross. (Pedestrian lights and crosswalks hadn’t been invented yet.)

  Francis went forward, then back, then forward two lanes, then back one. Whew, this was scary.

  Then, it happened. Suddenly a voice rose up over the din: “Make way for the Duke of Guise! Make way for the Cardinal of Lorraine!”

  Francis would have gasped, if he’d been human. As it was, he gasped through his skin. And then, if he’d been human, he would have—well, honestly, he would have ducked behind someone taller and avoided meeting their eyes, because the last thing he’d ever wanted in his life was conflict. But now . . .

  Now he was a frog peasant. Now he’d lost not only his kingdom but also his wife. Now he knew who was responsible for the murder of his father.

  These men.

  And now they were here, in Calais. Doing what? More murder?

  His whole froggy body vibrated with rage as he looked for the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, but even with his weird frog eyes, he couldn’t see their faces.

  A grand carriage rolled forward, heading toward the docks. Clearly, it belonged to Mary’s uncles, as it was decked out in gold inlaid with more gold, and a little bit of gold just to keep things interesting. Of course that was how they traveled.

  Francis had to get to them.

  He didn’t pause to think about why, or what he’d do. Instead, he coiled his froggy muscles and—with all his might—leapt onto the nearest wagon. But it was going the wrong way.

  He hopped to the opposite side, grateful to see another wagon going the right way. He started to jump, but then noticed there were children in the back of the wagon. It seemed like a bad idea to get stuck in there with them.

  So he waited, then made the long, heart-stopping jump to the next wagon—because he was going to lose sight of the de Guise carriage if he waited any longer. He sailed through the air and landed in the back of the new wagon with a small thud, scatting bits of hay everywhere.

  Two yellow eyes opened within the hay, and an orange cat slipped from lying down to crouching. His tail lashed.

  Francis would have shrieked, but frogs couldn’t, so he just gave a terrified croak and jumped away as fast as he could. He should have gone with the children.

  The cat pounced, landing exactly where Francis had been seconds before. He leapt again, and again, and heaved himself onto a wagon passing by, which was going just slightly faster than the wagon he had just been on.

  The cat yowled and hissed, but Francis was ahead of him now, and pretty soon, the new wagon was catching up to the carriage.

  Francis steeled himself and made the final jump, letting the frog instincts do all the work. (If he’d thought about it too hard, he would never have attempted such a move.)

  He landed on the back of the carriage, rolled, and settled on the roof. His heart was pounding, but he could hear the two men talking inside. Just the sound of their voices made Francis see red, and if he hadn’t been a frog just then, he might have tried to strangle them.

  “It’s hardly the ideal situation,” Duke Francis was saying.

  “Nothing here is ideal. We’ve lost France.”

  Because he was “dead,” Francis realized suddenly. These men had possessed a measure of control over Mary—but without Francis, she was nothing to France, nothing but a ward who’d stayed here for years and years and now had no way to repay the kingdom.

  Without Mary on the throne, the uncles must have been expelled from the Louvre. Catherine would have gotten rid of them as fast as she could. And now they were here, doing . . . what?

  “With Mary in Scotland,” Cardinal Charles said, “we still have a chance at England. All we have to do is put her on the English throne.”

  Francis’s heart jumped at the sound of Mary’s name. She was in Scotland. She’d made it. But—

  “I know,” said Duke Francis. “I know. We can still have England. The boy is on the way to Scotland as we speak. But we are French. France should belong to us.”

  “Perhaps once Mary is on the English throne, we can take back our own kingdom.” The cardinal’s voice was light. “But first, England.”

  “In five days’ time,” Duke Francis said. “Elizabeth’s throne will be Mary’s.”

  At once, Francis—our Francis, the current frog—understood: Mary’s uncles, the same men who’d assassinated King Henr
y, manipulated Mary, and basically ruined his entire life, were going to murder Elizabeth, the queen of England.

  And frog or no frog, Francis had to stop them.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mary

  Mary opened her tear-swollen eyes. The palace was silent. In the three days since she’d learned of Francis’s death, everyone had been moving about Mary quietly, carefully, as if she were a delicate glass vase that, at the slightest disturbance, might shatter into a thousand pieces. (We’re not counting the first evening, when they’d almost had to flee for their lives because the E∂ian rebellion had been attempting to burn down the castle, but James had somehow managed to muster enough force to drive the E∂ians back and, with Mary’s help, come to a tentative peace with John Knox. But after the emergency was over, Mary had been able to return to her wallowing in grief.)

  For three days, she hadn’t left her room. She’d hardly left her bed, in fact. She had not eaten or slept beyond a few fitful stretches, and when she woke, she was crying, as she had been when she’d gone to sleep.

  She closed her eyes again. Francis’s face—that face as familiar and dear to Mary as her own—floated up in her mind. That smirky little smile he had. The smattering of gold fuzz that had appeared on his face in the past few months, just above his lip and along his jawline. The tiny glints of gold and green in his otherwise storm-blue eyes.

  She swallowed against a pain in her throat. Francis was still dead today. And he would be dead tomorrow, and the day after that. He was dead, and the last words she’d said to him had been in anger, and she hadn’t even given him a proper goodbye, and now it was too late to make it right. He was gone. I am already shattered, she thought, tears slipping down her cheeks and into her wet pillow. I am lost.

  (Sigh. We as your narrators would like to take a moment here to acknowledge how much bad luck / terrible news / anguish in general Mary had been going through lately: the deaths of her father-in-law, her mother, and now her husband, all in such a short period of time. It’s a lot—too much, maybe, and we wish history had been kinder to Mary, Queen of Scots, but it just . . . wasn’t. These things happened, and they sucked. But we’d also like to remind you that—in our story, anyway—Francis is very much alive at this moment, if not exactly in the best mood himself, and Mary is bound to find that out eventually. Spoiler alert.)