Chapter 25

The winter of 1561, the last few months of the first year of the Queen of Scots's return to Scotland to rule in her own right, was spent in Edinburgh.

After temporarily entrusting all the complexities of the outside world to Maitland, Queen Mary, who was seen as enjoying a peaceful vacation by other nobles, began to concentrate on her experiments in Edinburgh.

At the Queen's command, the servants brought in a great deal of glass, mercury, tin foil, malachite, ox blood, wood ash, azurite, malachite... all sorts of things, they found as much as they could, enough to complete a simple chemical experiment. After several failures, they finally succeeded in making what Mary wanted to make.

Everything else was fine, but when the mercury mirror was finally completed under the Queen's direction, the glassmaker who had been secretly summoned to Edinburgh to assist the Queen, looking at the clear and bright face reflected in the mirror, immediately knelt down on one knee and began to repeatedly make the sign of the cross on his chest, thanking God for such a miracle.

Albert, who was keeping watch at the door, also saw that the mirror had actually been successfully made, and his eyes widened, almost losing his composure.

It should be noted that the method of making mercury mirrors has always been a closely guarded secret of the Italian Republic of Venice. To keep this secret, they even forcibly imprisoned all the mirror craftsmen on a remote island.

Over the years, countless countries have secretly coveted this unique business, trying to send spies to steal it or offer huge sums of money to steal the formula, but all have failed!

Now, a mirror worth 150,000 francs has taken shape before the eyes of a select few in the secret room.

That's incredible.

Compared to such precious items, the already amazing blue pigment, condensed milk, and red beeswax lip balm are nothing.

The blond youth locked the door from the inside and walked over, exclaiming, "Your Majesty, it must have been an angel of wisdom who imparted this knowledge to you in a dream; otherwise, I would not be able to explain your miraculous knowledge."

“I remember when my mother-in-law, Queen de' Medici, got married, the Doge of Venice gave her a mirror the size of a head as a gift. Many guests marveled at the Doge’s extravagance and generosity in giving such a precious gift… If those guests had known that a mercury mirror was made so cheaply, they probably wouldn’t have said anything about the Doge’s generosity,” Mary said.

The blond youth walked over, gently tapped the transparent surface of the mercury mirror, felt the cool touch, and then blinked at his reflection to make sure it wasn't just his imagination.

“I always thought that something as precious as a mercury mirror could only be made in a month at most, even if all the craftsmen worked together,” Albert said cheerfully.

This is also the consensus of all European nobles today, which is why the demand for mercury mirrors is so high that orders have been booked for more than a decade.

“On this point, all I can say is that the Venetians are really good at business; they understand the concept of scarcity driving up value,” Mary said, a hint of nostalgia flashing in her eyes as she looked at the mirror.

“Your Majesty, what are you thinking about?” Albert asked.

The Queen of Scotland lowered her thick, dark eyelashes.

That small circle of shadow cast a beautiful arc under the eyelid.

She did recall some things from her time in France.

"When I was fourteen or fifteen, still a young girl, I only had a mirror the size of my palm, so I envied the large glass mirror that the Medici Queen had. That mirror could reflect a person's face completely, which was perfect for makeup and much better than my small mirror that could only reflect my eyes."

"At that time, King Henry was still in power in France. He certainly doted on me, but as a fiancée living under someone else's roof, I didn't have the courage to ask him to send an envoy to Venice to order a large mirror for me."

"François saw my longing and told me that he would give me many mirrors in the future."

"And he did indeed do it later."

“When we married under the bishop’s blessing, when I ascended the throne of Queen of France, and when I went to watch the beheading with fear after Amboise’s conspiracy was exposed, he sent people to buy mirrors at great expense and then gave them to me as surprises. Each one was the same size as the Medici Queen’s, which even caused a small strain on the national treasury.”

“I told him to stop buying mirrors,” François said. “Well, my dear Queen, I’ll give you an even prettier mirror when we’ve been married for ten years.”

Thinking of this, Mary's lips curled up, and she couldn't help but smile.

A few seconds later, the smile vanished like dewdrops in the morning light.

The Queen of Scots's voice was calm, carrying a hidden melancholy and longing. This caused Albert's smile to vanish as he was engrossed in playing with the mirror, and he placed the mirror back on the table.

"May King François rest in peace in heaven," Albert said.

...

Making the product is only the first step. The next step is to mass-produce those products without attracting attention, and then find suitable sellers. All of these require a lot of effort.

Fortunately, at this time, Old Gran finally found a suitable merchant to recommend, who was also a distant cousin of his who was in business.

After meeting the merchant recommended by old Glenn, arranging a suitable identity for him, and sending him to do business in Italy, France, and Spain, the following spring had arrived before they knew it.

Having spent too long in Edinburgh, Mary received news that the architect she had found in France had arrived in Scotland, and she boarded a carriage to return home.

In the new year, she has many new things to do, such as reforming the curriculum of the three universities in Scotland, sending people to Spain to find new continent crops such as potatoes and corn, or finding a way to start small-scale vaccination against smallpox...

On the farmland outside Edinburgh, green shoots were already sprouting. Farmers carried hoes and cleared the land, sowing seeds of oats and barley. One winter, the emaciated cattle and sheep were driven to the pasture by their herdsmen and began to eat and drink to their hearts' content.

On the way back, Mary lifted the curtain on the car window, looked at the bright sunshine outside, and suddenly smiled.

“Your Majesty, you seem to be in a very good mood today,” Seton said from the side.

“Yes, because I long for Scotland to become a better place under my rule,” Mary said frankly.

The gloom and pain of being beheaded before death in my past life have faded a little with time.

She was no longer as repressed as she had been after her rebirth; instead, she was eager to govern her country into the beautiful state she envisioned, to let the people of Scotland live the human life they deserved, and to earn their love and respect in return.