JOAN. No, I can…

ISABELLA (cuts her off). Oh, it’s no trouble!

JOAN. Thank you.

ISABELLA. What is it you’re needing to put in store anyway?

JOAN. Just a few precious… personal…

ISABELLA. Oh ho! Secrets!

JOAN. My own things.

My own things. So I would like to order the work myself.

ISABELLA. Of course.

Of course… Your Highness.

Making boxes to keep your secrets in. Important. Important work indeed.

(Abruptly to MEG.) Are you going to get me a drink or do I need to sit here till I’m drooling dust?

MEG. Oh!… Sorry… I was just…

ISABELLA. Daydreaming. I’d beat you for it if you were mine.

JOAN (smiling). She’d likely beat you back.

ISABELLA. Well, then I’d have to get the sword out.

Can you use a blade?

JOAN. I can gut a fish. I can chop an onion. I could carve a spoon, if I had to.

ISABELLA. So could your cooks.

ISABELLA gets a short sword out and swishes it through the air to demonstrate.

My family’s the oldest royal house in Scotland. Did you know that? My grandmother cut down all the robber lords invading her castle with her own blade. Royalty has the natural instinct for battle. That’s what sets us apart.

JOAN. From what?

ISABELLA. From the likes of her.

MEG. Oh, I’ve killed plenty men, my lady.

ISABELLA. How do you figure that?

MEG. They all died of love.

ISABELLA (stares at her, then decides to laugh). More fool them.

So! Secrets! Secrets… what secrets does my bonny wee Queen have to keep?

Of course you’re worried about that bairn inside you.

JOAN. It’s my first child. That’s no secret.

ISABELLA. I didn’t say it was, just making conversation. It’ll be a girl, of course.

No, it will. Get ready for the disappointment. Stewart seed usually makes women first before it works up to breeding boys. Strong women though. She’ll likely fight her way out. Get ready to bleed.

MEG. So you’re here to frighten us, are you?

ISABELLA. A queen doesn’t get frightened.

(To JOAN.) Do you?

Though I’d be frightened if my man had done what yours has done. Beating my boy down. In front of us all. Taking his land…

A beat.

JOAN. Your son broke the law, Lady Isabella. The King’s law.

ISABELLA. And the King must have his way.

But maybe his way isn’t the way things need to be done. The way things have been done these last few years.

The lords are not happy. The great men are not happy. The noble women are not laughing.

And you’re scared.

JOAN. But a queen is never frightened.

ISABELLA. Away! I can smell that lie. It bursts out your oxters with a reek like week-old cabbage.

MEG. What are you here to tell us, Lady Isabella?

ISABELLA. Well, madam, I’m not here to talk to you at all.

(To JOAN.) Send her out of here.

JOAN. No.

ISABELLA. Oh, wee girl.

Bless you, wee girl. Look at you, cooried in here, trembling, you sweet thing, like a cooshie doo on its nest with the fox climbing the tree.