But what happens when the corruption is not external—not a plague of crops or a rebellion in the streets—but intimate? When the contamination seeps into the Queen’s very flesh and whispers doubts into her soul?

But perhaps the true corruption is not the illness or the injury. Perhaps the true corruption is the belief that contamination makes us less sovereign over our own lives.

In many traditions, a queen’s reproductive system was a sacred site. Monthly bleeding was a sign of her vitality. Pregnancy was a political event. But contamination of the womb—miscarriage, stillbirth, or the inability to conceive—was treated as a moral failing. It was believed that sin or impurity had entered her. The whispers would start: "She has been cursed. She has lain with a demon. Her blood is tainted." Her body, once the promise of succession, becomes a tomb.