The Story of Malec Montvoy || From Then til Now
(RICHARD MADDEN, HE/HIM, MALE) HEAR YE, HEAR YE! Allow me to introduce MALEC MONTROY of FRANCE. The 30 year old MARQUIS OF CALAIS is known to be WISE and CARETAKING, but rumors about court claim HE can be SELF DOUBTING and RASH when crossed. Only time will tell where their interests belong. Penned by CAITLIN ( MST + 23 + SHE/HER).
Malec is a wise old soul who has been worn by the responsibilities he carries and the things he’s seen. He has a warm heart and will always grant you honest advice without judgement. However, he is also fiercely protective, and is quick to become heated if he feels danger or disrespect towards anyone he deems an amicable acquaintance. He will beat you bloody if you provoke him, and then stitch up the wounds. He is nothing if not honorable, though his past leaves him with wavering allegiances and a soul deep uncertainty about his place in the world.
Malec’s mother died in childbirth, leaving him alone with his father, who owned a small and humble plot of land in the rolling English hills near the French border. When he was very young, their home was attacked by the French militia, and shortly after, his father joined the English military.
During a battle of the Second Huguenot Rebellion in 1629 in France, during which catholic forces sought to conquer English lands as an extension of the rebellion, 5 year old Malec hid in the back of a wagon full of artillery after watching his father be killed before his eyes. There he waited out the remainder of the battle eventually falling asleep. He did not wake again until the wagon was moving, and peeking out carefully, he found that instead of being among his own people, he had found refuge on a French wagon, and was surrounded by his family’s enemies.
Malec waited till nightfall and attempted to climb out of the wagon quietly and slip away, but as he reached the edge, his foot caught and he tumbled off the edge, taking a basket of musketballs clamorously with him. To his fortune, there was only one man on watch in the area: General Edouard Claudeau. The general, seeing nothing more than a frightened boy, and having been born an Englishman himself before joining the side of the French to buy opportunity for his younger brother, he took Malec under his wing, and trained him as his footman for the rest of his regiment’s term in the English Borderlands. Malec thought from time to time of escape, but he was fed and well taken care of as he had ever been despite being in the war carrivan, and he had nothing to go back to anyways.
General Edouard Claudeaul was granted the marquiship of Calais for his service, and so that he could continue to oversee the French-English border. The General invited Malec, then 8 years old, to move into his home and continue in his service. The now marquis also invited his family from his former estate, which included his younger brother Martìn, who had trained as a physician in Paris.
Young Malec became obsessed with the doctor’s work, and soon was taken under his tutelage when his service was not needed to the marquis himself. He grew to become quite knowledgeable in everything from Finances to Veterinary work, and even Surgery. The two brothers raised Malec as if they were each his own father. That is until Martin found himself a wife and had a babe of his own.
By then, however, Malec was grown and did not need the men’s tutelage any longer. However, he stayed on to assist the marquis in overseeing the estate, as the man never had any children of his own. And in the end, it was a blessing and a curse. One night, out of nowhere, the estate was raided by Englishmen. They ransacked the house and sought to attack the marquis. Young and hotheaded, Malec itched to join in the fight to protect the home that had taken him in, but Martìn insisted that Malec take his wife and son to safety, and he would take care of the intruders. Malec begrudgingly did what he was told and stole away into the night with the woman and her babe, who was himself only 6 at the time, just as Malec had been when he lost his own father.
When they returned in the morning, they found the estate in shambles. Parts of the house and surrounding building had been burned, though luckily the fires must have been small, and it had been pouring buckets the night before. Smoke still rose from some areas, and fences were broken and livestock run amuck. Inside, Malec found the marquis and the Doctor butchered, their throats slit…
To Malec’s heartstopping surprise, the marquis pronounced in his will that Malec Alexander Montroy should be named his successor and hold the estate and title of marquis until Martìn’s son, Avery Cole Claudeau, should come of age.
Now Malec does the work of two men, both keeping up the estate and acting as the physician for Calais, all the while training Avery in both trades as well.
When the plagues threatened all of Europe, Malec panicked, stealing away with his God son to Sardinia to keep them safe. It was there that he met the love of his life, though their story was not without strife, for he had fallen for none other than the Dauphine of France. They had met 9 months ago, when Malec had come to the capital to pay his annual taxes. She must have been around at some point on his past visits, as she was the daughter of the king. But then, Malec often kept to himself at court, and since Beatrice was young, perhaps she had never been in a place where he might have the opportunity to lay eyes upon her before. But as soon as he had laid eyes on her for the first time, his heart had seized by her beauty. Before he had even known who she was, he wanted nothing more than to know her in the way that she was known only to God. Yet, when he learned who she was, he knew he could not.
But then, one day shortly before Malec was set to leave court, Beatrice had fallen from her horse when riding on the grounds, and the royal physician had been called away to tend to another child with the sweats. The fall had knocked her unconscious, and she looked almost like a beautiful corpse laid out on his operating table, though her bosom rose and fell with shallow breaths. But he had set her wrist, which she had broken in the fall, and wrapped her ribs where he was most certain two had fractured. To touch such a treasure was a pleasure he never should have had, but once he had tasted it, it was like an addiction. He could not imagine being unable to caress her again. He was consumed with a lack of control he had never known, so averse to his nature he felt lost.
And when she had finally opened her eyes, the admiration for him that appeared at the moment she realized he had saved her pierced his heart like a fishing hook and drug him down to drown. By morning, Malec was certain that God had sent her to him, though whether as a blessing or a test he did not know. After that, he had been unable to stay away from her, though he had warred with himself over it constantly. One night, near the end of their second week together, they lay beneath the stars atop his Celtic colors, which he had laid out upon a bed of hay in a wagon for them to lay upon. He had meant to surprise her with the escape, taking a horse and the wagon deep out into the fields so that they could be outside and be alone. And whilst they lay there under the magic of the stars, lips intertwined, passion took them near the edge before Malec stopped them, and returned her neatly to her quarters.
The next morning, Malec began to feel ill about it. He loved her, there was no doubt about it, but he could not forgive himself for having nearly stolen her innocence. He knew then that the only way to show his love for her was to leave for good, and so when she came to him in his chambers that night after he had avoided her through the day, she’d found them empty. Malec had fled back home.
All was well until they crossed paths again in Sardinia. For the first weeks, Malec avoided her as best he could. He told her that he had left her for her own sake and that he was not her destiny, but she would hear little of it, and after a scuffle in the city left Beatrice with life-threatening wounds, he found he no longer had the will to deny it. The fear of treating her, uncertain if she might live or die, stripped away all of his past inhibitions, and all he could think of was having a life with her. When she recovered, they took up a clandestine courtship, always stealing away to the woods in the day and each other’s chambers at night until they finally crossed that line that had scared Malec away the first time.
After that, the weight of hiding their affection began to eat away at Malec’s conscience once again. He had always been an honest man, and if he was going to have her, he wanted to do it honestly. And so he confessed their courtship (in very little detail) to her father, the King. Enraged, he forced Malec to stay away from Beatrice until it came out that she was pregnant, much to the shock of both men. His hand forced, the King consented to their marriage, and the two were wed in a small, private ceremony in Sardinia, then told to return to Calais and keep news of their indiscretions out of court. The consequences had not been nearly as bad as they’d feared, for Malec had not lost his lands, his title, or his Godson, and the couple headed home with high hopes for their new child.
However, on the road back to Calais, Beatrice tripped while stopping to water her horse, and took a hard fall. At the time, it did not seem as if anything was wrong, but several hours later, she started screaming in excruciating pain and blood began running down her legs. Malec panicked, doing everything he could to help her, stranded as they were in the middle of nowhere. But there was nothing to be done. their baby boy exited her body, lifeless.
Since returning Calais, there had been an invisible distance between them. Both struggling with the loss of their child they risked everything to have, Malec and Beatrice have fought constantly. He still loves her deeply, but cannot figure out how to get through to her since their tragic loss, and so he has buried himself in his work, tending to patients and overseeing the comings and going of travellers and boarders that pass through the ports in Calais on their way to Germany, England, Scotland and France.
Malec has seen and been personally affected by the violence and savagery of both sides of battle, and he finds his heart, and his allegiances mixed. He has always felt the need for a cause, but wasn’t quite sure what that cause was, until he met Beatrice. Now he knows, it’s always been her.