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court.
    “Madame” was the official title of Philippe’s new wife; they weren’t even married two full months. It had been a very quiet affair because of the cardinal’s death, little more than family signing the required documents and a priest saying the proper prayers. With that, she had become the second lady at court after Louis’s queen, except the truth was the royal brothers’ mother was still a commanding figure, so perhaps Madame was really third. It depended upon the queen mother’s mood any particular day. At the moment their mother was in deep mourning for the cardinal, clutching her grief to herself like a holy relic.
    Of course Madame sleeps until noon, thought Louis, not a shard of what he was thinking showing on his face. She has danced all night, she has laughed and delighted us and kept us up with her, unlike my wife, who is yawning by ten of the evening, who hasn’t learned French after nearly a year, and who thinks dressing well is putting on more diamonds. Last night he’d come very close to kissing—
    He stopped himself. This was a line of thought that led to no good whatsoever. He rubbed his face vigorously on the linen, took his jacket from his brother, accepted his hat from someone else, climbed the steep outside steps two at a time, going into the door at their end, a door which led to that part of the palace where his bedchamber lay.
    As in a beehive, where the most important chamber is the queen bee’s, so, in royal palaces, the most important room was the king’s bedchamber. It was the pulsing heart of the palace. When the king journeyed to another of his castles, the pulse ceased to beat. Those left behind kept chambers cleaned and gardens weeded and waited for the next royal arrival. Those who had any standing traveled with the heart. For the nobility, there was no life that was real life without the king’s presence, or so it had been, once upon a time. The wars, the power of royal advisers, first Cardinal Richelieu and then Cardinal Mazarin after him, had shifted and diluted the sense of importance around a king, but the shape of tradition remained. Whether or not the tradition strengthened would be up to Louis.
    As he passed through his guardroom, musketeers who were his personal bodyguard stood up at the sight of him and saluted. Their lieutenant had been leaning against a smooth stone wall in the courtyard during the dueling watching not only Louis, but also the great, arched, open entrances from other pavilions. If there was one thing a king of France could depend upon, it was the loyalty of these musketeers. It was their tradition and a prized one.
    As Louis walked through the maze of chambers that made up this part of the palace, servants bowed. There was always someone bowing. One creaking step on the intricate parquet of an antechamber, and the massive doors to his wife’s apartments opened as if by magic. Two of her ladies, a sullen brunette and a sunny-faced beauty, stood in his path, their gowns belled around them because of their curtsies.
    “Soissons, my dear,” Louis nodded to the brunette of the two, an old friend of his, a childhood playmate, and sometimes more, Olympe, the Countess de Soissons. “How is her majesty this morning?”
    But the sunny beauty answered before Olympe could speak. “She slept very well, sire.” The beauty was pert and certain of herself and smiled at Louis.
    Surprised, Louis looked directly at her. Her smile widened. He didn’t return it. He didn’t like her, never mind that his friends considered her the most beautiful woman at court. He’d give her that. But she put him on edge, always smiling that bright smile, always watching. And she was bold, like now, speaking to him before he’d spoken to her, answering for the Countess de Soissons, who was superintendent of his wife’s household, which made her first lady of the household and far more important than a maid of honor. He’d known Olympe since they were children, and he